Mathew Carpenter had a wicked business idea: All he needed was a website, some stationery, and a heaping dose of glitter. Thus was born Ship Your Enemies Glitter, a site where grown-ups could wreak revenge, anonymously, on the people they hate the most in their lives. A boss. An annoying neighbor. A spouse. Payback–without the blowback.

Most of us would have laughed off this idea over a couple of brewskis. But this week, a very real Ship Your Enemies Glitter became the e-commerce breakout hit (so far) of 2015—a product so popular, and so viral, with orders that Carpenter tells Fast Company was “in the thousands” in under 24 hours, that its creator now regrets making the thing entirely. Karma is a bitch? No, e-commerce is a bitch.

This is the tale of how Ship Your Enemies Glitter went up in a brief burst of glory, and then just made a big damn mess.

Carpenter is a 22-year-old serial entrepreneur, and is what you could call a FILDI kinda guy. For years, he had suffered from friends and family who would send him birthday and Christmas cards filled with glitter. So cute and joyous. So hard to clean up. “I hated it and wanted the rest of the world to feel my pain so that’s how the website was born,” he says.





For just $9.99 Aussie dollars (about $8 USD), Carpenter’s Ship Your Enemies Glitter promises to send a glitter-laced letter to anyone, anywhere in the world. “We’ll also include a note telling the person exactly why they’re receiving this terrible gift. Hint: The glitter will be mixed in with the note thus increasing maximum spillage,” the website says. Payment is via PayPal.

Ryan Hoover over at the Product Hunt discovered the e-commerce site almost immediately after it went live Tuesday. “The ultimate troll product,” he declared. That’s when things began to spiral out of control. The Internet had scattered word of the service like, well, you know. So damn hard to mop up. By midday, shipyourenemiesglitter.com had 80,000 Facebook shares, Carpenter wrote on his personal Facebook page. A friend responded: “Enjoy your walk to the postal office.” Redditors relished the thought of getting even anonymously for a mere $8: Within 24 hours a shipyourenemiesglitter.com thread had nearly 3,900 upvotes and well over 1,000 comments. Then all the media came piling on—The Washington Post, Business Insider, Huffington Post, THe Verge, and so on and so on.





Eight hours later, a remorseful Carpenter posted on Product Hunt: “Hi guys, I’m the founder of this website. Please stop buying this horrible glitter product – I’m sick of dealing with it. Sincerely, Mat.”