The Legend of Poop Knife — And The Man Who Now Sells Them
Yes, we’re talking about a sharp blade that cuts shit.
By Jessie Schiewe
Be honest: You’ve probably encountered a situation where you’ve needed a poop knife. (Art: Kati Kirsch)
Great writing usually starts with a great first sentence.
Vladimir Nabokov kicked off Lolita with the prescient (and creepy) revelation: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.” And you’ve got to admire Ralph Ellison’s super obvious, title-referencing opener, “I am an invisible man” from his 1952 novel of pretty much the same name.
Of course, great first sentences aren’t solely limited to famous books written by long-dead authors. They’re still being written today and now appear in far more places than just books.
You can find great opening lines all over the internet: in Facebook posts and on Twitter, in Instagram comments, and in memes galore (because isn’t that what a meme is? A great first — and usually last and only — line, accompanied by a photo?).
But, like most things on the internet, you’ll find the finest examples on Reddit. And, in the case of awe-inducing opening sentences, you’ll find the best one there.
It goes:
“My family poops big.”
Simple, succinct, and to the point. It’s the kind of lede that makes you want to keep reading, if only to find out what the hell this guy is talking about. Which of course is what everyone who saw the post did when it was first published in 2018.
Before long, the nearly 500-word blurb, written by a Redditor named Learned Butt, had not only gone viral, but it had become a legend. It wasn’t just the writing that was good; it was the concept itself. A concept that nobody had ever heard of before, that people simply just could not wrap their brains around.
And yet for the author, it was a concept he’d grown up with. It was something that had been so completely normal to both him and his family; something that had literally touched something inside of them.
The concept, of course, was owning a poop knife; that is, a sharp blade with which to cut shit that gets stuck in the toilet. A simple tool that most everyone owns, but with an extraordinary purpose, solving predicaments that only some people (people who poop big) can relate to.
As Learned Butt tells it, it was years before he figured out that not everyone owned a poop knife. He was 22 and in college when he discovered this. That is, 22, in college, and sitting on the toilet.
He writes:
“I look down and see that it's a sideways one, so I crack the door and call out for my friend. He arrives and I ask him for his poop knife.
"My what?"
Your poop knife, I say. I need to use it. Please.
"Wtf is a poop knife?"
Fast-forward one year after Learned Butt’s explosive divulgence on Reddit and not only do millions of people now know what a poop knife is, but a few actually own them. Why? And how? Because someone had decided poop knives were a good idea and ran with it. They’d turned them into a business, built a website, and started selling them on Amazon.
At OK Whatever, we knew that neither Learned Butt nor the person who now manufactures poop knives for a living would tell us who they were. This was OK.
Though it would have been highly entertaining to learn more about the people behind both the product and the family tradition, we were more interested in learning about poop knives themselves; to understand their trajectory from being a communal bathroom tool to an inside family joke to an epic Reddit post and now, to something you can wield within the confines of your own toilet basin.
Long story short, we reached out to both of them, and, surprisingly, they each wrote back. Their comments were so interesting that we decided to publish them just as they are, in one full log.
So, without further ado, here’s a tale of two poop knives: one a long-lost family heirloom, the other a thing you can now actually own.
Editor’s note:
This story might read like a load of crap, but this is all real, reported and fact-checked information. We’re not shitting you.
Learned Butt
~ The person who started the poop knife legend ~
The original poop knife dated back to the early 1970s or 1960s. It certainly predated me. It was an old kitchen knife, 8 to 10 inches long, with a wooden handle that had a hole in it. We used to hang it in the laundry room.
The wood on the poop knife was dark and smooth after years of use. The edge was dull and the blade itself was oxidized and mottled.
It looked like the kind of thing with which a serial killer would chase coeds around a deserted summer camp.
A short while after I posted the original story, a guy contacted me on a Reddit in a private message and said he'd like to make poop knives for sale, and if it would be OK with me. He said he had a design that was silicone, that it had a solid core, and that he knew a factory in China that could make them for him.
I was actually pretty happy with him because I thought it was cool he asked me first. Many people wouldn't do that. I certainly don't have any legal rights in respect to this. Using a knife to cut shit certainly isn't exactly patent-able, and "poop knife" is too descriptive to be trademarked in this instance.
He could have just made it and said fuck off. Instead, he asked me nicely. I make enough money, so I don't have any desire to monetize this myself, so I gave him my blessing and full permission to use my username and post in connection with the marketing of his product.
All I asked in return is that he send me one. He said he would have done that anyway, and true to his word, I got one in the mail.
Even though I still have my Dollar Store knife in the garage for emergencies, I haven't used it yet and it's still in the packaging. I consider it more of an objet d'art.
These days, there isn't much poop cutting happening in my life. I'm pretty regular. Maybe it was diet after all.
My wife isn't a toilet clogger and my daughters are still in diapers, rendering such an implement moot. Occasionally, I'll find a log in the pampers, so it may require some cutting once we get past the potty training stage, so we'll see. Maybe I'll break the silicone poop knife out of the packaging and let them have a go. Unlike the original, the new one is pretty kid-safe.
My only regret is that I never kept the original poop knife. It got lost in subsequent moves my parents made over the years and is forever lost to time.
You have to understand that prior to my 20s, I never realized it was unusual (hence the post). You don't keep your childhood plunger.
Although frankly, If I had it now, I would probably sell it on eBay. Not really for the money, per se, but out of curiosity to see how much it would go for. It would also be funny to think of my dad's poop knife in some weirdo's collection, as if it were the death mask of Tutankhamen.
Hugh Dookie*
~ The owner and founder of the Original Poop Knife ~
It all started about eight months before the poop knife story was even a draft post on Learned Butt’s Reddit, back in July of 2017.
I went to a friend’s wedding in Seattle, and while I was there, I met some interesting people living on a boat in this beautiful place who seemed to be more than making ends meet. I inquired into what they were doing to support themselves financially.
Two hours and a few beers in, I had heard the story about how this guy had started a business by going to China to develop products, and now sells them on Amazon. The whole idea was really intriguing to me since he had the opportunity to work from anywhere, and was working for himself.
One of the secrets to his success, he said, was finding a niche — something that didn’t exist elsewhere — and just taking it over. He was in on salt and pepper grinders. (Wow. Who knew that was a niche?)
Finding a niche is pretty common business advice, but frankly, it is challenging to execute. But, after hearing his story, I decided to try it myself.
My first products were child-safe scissors. There are strict requirements for children’s toys in America, so I needed to comply with all U.S. legal requirements, like making sure they didn’t contain harmful chemicals, etc. I bought a whiteboard and drew out a project timeline, worked on identifying niches on Amazon, sourced and tested sample products from suppliers in China, did third-party lab testing, worked with a graphic designer to create a brand, and finally began selling them after months of work.
Sales were slow but it was satisfying to see products I had worked hard on come to fruition. I had learned the process of how to make all of this happen, but it was seriously difficult to get excited and have fun with child-safe scissors. Yes, I took pride in the fact that these scissors were the absolute best ones I could find. They didn’t cut hair or clothes; they cut construction paper well; and they were lab tested as safe for kids over 2.
But I couldn’t have FUN with the marketing. I had to take this all very seriously.
Well, around January of 2018, I stumbled upon that viral Reddit post by Learned Butt and saw it gaining traction with several media outlets. It was an immediate hunch. I had a feeling: This was it.
First, it was hilarious. I ran it by several friends and if I was laughing my ass off, and my friends were laughing their assess off, other people would laugh their assess off, too. How could something like a REAL poop knife not sell!? And we could do it while bringing smiles and laughter to people.
Second, this was a niche.
I looked out there and...No one was selling a poop knife. Everyone was talking about it, but no one was making them.
So I immediately went to work. I was reaching out to suppliers in China with questions like, “Do you think this product could cut a banana? How about watermelon?”
After going back and forth with a few suppliers, I found one who did kitchenware that would be perfect to develop a poop knife with. They already made products that had to be robust, strong, easy to clean, and safe. They were a supplier for major brands that you might find in Walmart or your local kitchenware store.
I requested a few samples and once they arrived, the testing began. Yes, I tested them. Of course, I tested them! They needed to cut poop well.
I couldn’t just sell this thing as a gag gift. If people are going to buy a poop knife, it had better cut poop.
I tested it on bananas. I tested it on my own poop. I tested it on my fiancé’s poop. I tested it on dog poop. Oh baby, it worked.
I realized during this process I’d better get in touch with the original poopetrator himself — Learned Butt — to get his permission to sell my Original Poop Knives.
I know he didn’t invent it, per se, but he certainly enlightened the world about the existence of the poop knife. So I sent him a message on Reddit asking for his permission and his address so I could send him a sample when the prototypes were finished. Would he be OK with me doing this? Would he even reply?
He did and his reply was great. He thought this was either a highly sophisticated doxxing attempt, or a legitimate message from someone starting a business on the premise of poop knives. He appreciated that this was American capitalism at work, gave me his approval, his address, and wished me the best of luck.
I began with an initial order of 300 poop knives. It was rough, it was blunt, but it sure got the point across. For the first 300 units, once they arrived at the Original Poop Knife headquarters, I actually packaged and labeled them myself. I printed the packaging, slipped them into the poly bags, added barcodes, and quickly shipped them to Amazon so they could be fulfilled on Amazon Prime.
Hey, if you are going to buy a poop knife you’d better be able to get it in two days, right!?
I kicked things off some advertising on Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit to get the Original Poop Knife brand out there. And then the moment of truth happened…people started buying them. Holy shit. They were getting reposted and tagged. People were laughing their assess off!
I realized I was going to run out of stock soon. So I updated the packaging design and decided it was time to double-down and submit a big order for production. We kicked off with 5,000 units and I sent some big wire transfers to my supplier in China hoping my money wouldn’t disappear into a void.
For three agonizing weeks while we were out of stock, I waited for a big shipment to the local UPS store. Finally, it arrived. On the packages’ landing slips it said: “Original Poop Knife, QTY 5000.” Yes, UPS Staff, this is 18 boxes of poop knives. Yes, it is.
I opened the boxes and the packaging looked awesome: glossier and shinier than the pictures.
After getting the units sent out to Amazon, we accelerated our marketing on social media, partnered with podcasts for interviews, and we even did a live radio interview in Kansas. Doing a radio broadcast at 5:30 a.m. about poop knives is probably the most ridiculous thing I have done in life.
In terms of sales, we have restocked a few times since the first landing of the poop knives; meaning we’ve sold more than 5,000 units since launch.
Looking at our reviews, our customers are polarized into two categories. The first category are those who are buying a poop knife as a gag gift or stocking stuffer. I’d reckon this is about 60% of our customers.
It’s cheap enough to provide a laugh and has been the focal (fecal?) point of many a “White Elephant” according to our reviews.
The second category is broken into two subsets — both of which are using this as an actual poop knife. This is about 40% of our customers. But only some of them admit it (and a lot of times it’s because the poop knife has helped them with legitimate medical conditions).
We respect our customers privacy to use poop knives as they wish, but be known they can cut the fattest heaved havanas and the most ferocious bog crocodiles.
We have competitors in the “poop gag gift” arena, but there are no direct competitors to the Original Poop Knife in the U.S. There is a plastic "combination poop knife/toilet cleaner" in the U.K., but it does not quite live up to the heavy silicone-encapsulated butter knife-like quality of the Original Poop Knife. And it certainly isn’t dishwasher safe like ours is.
It is tricky to expand to other countries. There’s a lot of business paperwork that needs to be done for taxes, etc. So far, the Original Poop Knife is available in the U.S. and Canada, and I’d like to expand to the U.K. this year.
The Original Poop Knife will also make an appearance at the upcoming 77th Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills. Over 50 journalist attendees will be receiving poop knives in their editor packs.
In the end, this has been a really fun product for me to work on and I’d like to keep doing more of this. There are still some things I’d like to do with the brand, like create some swag (poop knife trucker hats) and stickers.
Besides that, I’d like to create new products that people can really laugh and have fun with. We have a few products earmarked for our future roadmap, and if your readers have suggestions, they can submit their ideas to poopknife@originalpoopknife.com!
*Name has been changed to preserve anonymity
JESSIE SCHIEWE IS THE EDITOR OF OK WHATEVER. SHE BELIEVES IN MERMAIDS AND THRIFT SHOPS FOR EXERCISE.
Kati Kirsch is a visual artist and collector of absolutely anything butterfly-related, currently residing in Brooklyn, New York.
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