When GameStop outlined the principles of its “Trade Anything” Day event in mid-November, most of it made complete and logical sense. For example, do not trade in hazardous waste, chemicals or weapons.
Yeah, that makes sense.
But in the same list, there were a few exceptions to the rule that made everyone lose their minds. The main one is that the “animal taxidermy” items were identified as “valid for trade”. In other words, if you're sitting on a long-deceased stuffed animal and also want $5 in store credit, you can totally bring it.
Fast forward to last Saturday, when news of what really happened on “Trade Anything” Day, taxidermy somehow wasn't among the list of items GameStop employees began listing and sharing online.
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Mind you, this actually happened, not once, but twice! What's more, the official GameStop Twitter account is the one with the proof!
There were also other questionable items that attempted to be exchanged, but we won't list them
On Twitter, GameStop identified not one, but two cases of actual taxidermy shops. The first of these involved the bird in all its dead and stuffed glory.
The other of some mountain cat that was also seemingly perfectly posed.
Again, and we cannot stress this enough, these were once live creatures and were paid to be stuffed and preserved for display.
Now, it's worth noting, as several people have answered, that GameStop's own terms and conditions dictated that these items, whatever they are, must fit in a 20x20x20 box. I won't pretend to be a mathematician (I was terrible at math as a kid), but there is almost zero footage of any of this actually fitting into that box that the staff was supposed to adhere to.
Of course, if they followed through, then we wouldn't get proof that someone was actually dealing in taxidermy, but also since the staff seemed to have a problem with someone donating soup cans, items that would have been perfect since then to donate to charity, AKA part of the whole point of the thing, then it's a bit backwards that taxidermy was only accepted elsewhere if it happened.
Finally, at the end of the day, GamStop got its viral moment and the guy got his $5, which was enough for both parties. Whether GameStop tries to launch it with different parameters remains to be seen, but if they do, I'd venture to guess that things will be much stricter, even if it means turning people away.
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