team creates need

After months of hard labor and many long hours of taxing and deliberate brainstorming, the advertising wizards at Johannsin, Grosch & Wong finally convinced a statistically-significant portion of the American population that it needed to pay for a new service. Bearing the unwieldy official title of Dermatology-Specific Matching Software, the service was re-branded as tone-&-hue-4U just in time for the launch of its new application (or app), which retails for $19.99 and will be available for all Apple and Android operating systems as soon as those Chinese hackers get back to work. The app features software that analyzes the tone of the paying customer's skin (by processing a current picture of her) and the hue of the garment she is thinking of buying by running both pictures through a series of complex algorithms originally created to track and monitor the stripes of individual African zebras; the software then produces responses culled from thousands of different surveys from dozens of different fashion, ladies', and juniors' magazines, responses such as “businessy, but not in a bad way”, “omfg-NO!“, girls-night-outerrific”, or “sure to get him hard.”

“We are confident that the ton-&-hue-4U application will revolutionize not just how women buy clothes but what types of fabrics and tones designers use to make those clothes,” said lead developer and co-owner Brenda T. Wong, a young lady who lives in New York City. “And while many a woman knows enough people with the fashion-savvy necessary to make these decisions or has the knowledge needed to make the right choice when it comes to which color of blouse to buy in order to sway a board of directors in her favor or to convince a guy to ask her out on a second date, this new software is designed specifically for women who have no friends, whose friends are morons when it comes to this type of thing, or who are simply too lazy to figure this kind of shit out for themselves – it's a win-win.” According to the first sales numbers leaked by the aforementioned advertising firm, tone-&-hue-4U is selling well in flyover country.

“I'm so very joyous to have had a hand in developing this revolutionary new product,” said Darian Wendell-Mossburgh, 42, from Bridgeport, Connecticut, the team's primary hue consultant. “Just look hue happy I am, just look!” Next season's product – which is already in the design phase – will take the guesswork out of hue-matching by featuring a scroll-down menu that will allow the user to choose the type of setting or event for which she is preparing. While the ton-&-hue-4U team was out for celebratory drinks, Chuck Johannsin and Olut Grosch, both in their late forties and the advertising firms' two other primary owners, took turns pulling from a bottle of cheap whiskey while chewing the fat despondently under a nearby bridge. “I'm ashamed that we got an invitation to the Hue Matcher's convention,” said Chuck as stared sadly at the few scummy bits of trash bobbing in the shallow little stream. “Oh god, yeah… I'm sad that we spent 500,000 dollars making a product for people who really didn't need it in the first place,” said Olut. “Our revenues are up, I guess, but, what do you think, Chuck, do we cut loose and set Brenda adrift? I got into this business to, maybe, do a bit of good for humanity. Selling software to fat lonely chicks in the Midwest that matches tones and hues? Dude – what the fuck?”

© mentiri factorem fecit (場黑麥)