Ikea furniture or tech startup?
July 25, 2023 8:30 AM   Subscribe

Is this 'nonsense word' an XXXX or a YYYY? 'Luxury brand' or 'Type of apple'? 'Posh British name' or 'Breed of seagull'? I've seen this game / format around but can't find a single actual example. Any ideas?

From memory it's the kind of thing used to gently or ungently take the piss out of something pretentious like tech startup brands or colour names.

I think there was a post with one on the blue for a website that had 'pigeon' vs... something silicon valley (tech startup maybe?).
posted by litleozy to Society & Culture (22 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 


Best answer: Antidepressants or Tolkien
posted by zamboni at 8:36 AM on July 25, 2023 [7 favorites]


Best answer: The NPR game show Ask Me Another had a routine segment called "This, That or the Other" that played this game.

One example; if you want to skip the banter, the actual game starts about 1:30. (Endangered Species, Kung Fu Movies, Secret Service Codenames.)
posted by mark k at 8:41 AM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Horse face or plate face:

https://www.tumblr.com/weatherfactory/656221478108413952/horse-face-plate-face

posted by JJZByBffqU at 8:41 AM on July 25, 2023


Best answer: McSweeneys does a lot of these, although they tend to be somewhat deeper cuts than the examples.
posted by momus_window at 8:41 AM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]


Best answer: My own project: Planet From Doctor Who or Hair Care Product
posted by AndrewStephens at 8:44 AM on July 25, 2023


Best answer: You Don't Know Jack has DisorDat games.

Ranch salad dressing brand or Nevada Brothel?
posted by sevenless at 8:49 AM on July 25, 2023 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Lore Sjoberg, who used to be on here, pioneered this sort of thing back in the day on his site the Brunching Shuttlecocks.
posted by fingersandtoes at 9:10 AM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]


Best answer: If memory serves me correctly I've played Chicken Breed or Fresh Queen before. It's a bit hazy though...!
posted by socky_puppy at 9:24 AM on July 25, 2023


Best answer: Sporcle has a This Or That subcategory that should contain plenty of these - along with a ton of stuff that isn't quite what you're looking for, tbh. I'd recommend trying to find a good lead (playlist or author usually work well). Here's a direct link to the most popular if that helps any.
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:31 AM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]


Best answer: IKEA Furniture or Death Metal band?
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:33 AM on July 25, 2023 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: McSweeneys does a lot of these, although they tend to be somewhat deeper cuts than the examples.

UPSTAGED AGAIIIIIIIN #shakes fist# want them back
posted by litleozy at 10:45 AM on July 25, 2023


Response by poster: Ahhhh this is awesome thanks everyone! Exactly what had in mind. Added a 'this or that' tag too (thanks Ufez!)

Planning on stealing / reusing some for a game in this free open mic literary cabaret of chaos I'm hosting, themes nonsense soo...
posted by litleozy at 10:54 AM on July 25, 2023


Best answer: I seem to recall that this was also a semi-regular category on the Comedy Central game show @Midnight, which might be getting revived (sans former host Chris Hardwick) on CBS as a replacement for James Corden's Late Late Show.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:59 AM on July 25, 2023


Previously, from the Green: General name for this type of puzzle/quiz? (besides 'this or that'). "My favorite trivia podcast Good Job, Brain! (add it to your rotation, MeFites!) has a recurring segment that they call "Brad Pitt or Lasers**," in which you guess which of two things is older."
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:24 PM on July 25, 2023


"Dead or Canadian" apparently originated on the MTV show Remote Control (though I know it from pub trivia formats).
posted by likedoomsday at 2:33 PM on July 25, 2023


They do this a lot on the Jordan Jesse Go podcast. Sometimes they make it a 3-way choice, e.g. from 3 names you have to pick which one is a real death-metal band, which one is a self-published porn novel, and which one is completely made up.
posted by polecat at 4:26 PM on July 25, 2023


One of the pub quizzes here does My Little Pony or porn star.
posted by pianissimo at 4:30 PM on July 25, 2023


Not an endorsement, but I believe Prof or hobo has been linked from the blue before.

My local pub quiz at one point had a kids book or dino erotica category. Yep, there’s enough overlap in the book titles to make that feasible.
posted by eviemath at 4:43 PM on July 25, 2023


Am I the only one sort of appalled that I did so much better on Pokemon than Tolkien??
posted by stormyteal at 9:50 PM on July 25, 2023


Doh, I have had a good night's sleep and it was CHICKENS or DICKENS (characters). I don't even know what I was trying to say with Fresh Queen, oh dear.
posted by socky_puppy at 6:26 AM on July 26, 2023




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