An advertising stunt:

Payless Opened a Fake Luxury Store, ‘Palessi,’ to See How Much People Would Pay for $20 Shoes

A story we’ve seen before: cheap shoes were presented to “influencers” and “fashionistas” as high-value items, and the goobers actually were willing to pony up the better part of a grand for shoes they could buy for twenty bucks. It’s enough of a cliche that I’m in fact rather skeptical… as well as fake prices and fake staff, I would not be the slightest bit surprised if the place was filled with fake credulous fashion-freaks. Of course, I would not be surprised if they brought in *true* suckers, either. I can believe it either way.

Included in the article were a few videos showing the glittering NPCs that filled the event. Among the stock-standard central-casting female models were a number of presumed-male figures that are, again, a tossup between actors camping it up… or people whose affectations make my eye twitch.

In either event, I suspect I won’t see them in either the manufacturing or engineering fields. and yet despite their general uselessness to society, they’ll make more money than I can imagine.

Hoomans r teh dum.