Site tell your friends they smell so you don't have to - CNET

Of course, this clearly magnanimous (and anonymous) gesture might also simply insult your friend. I know this because the note attached to the "gift" reads: "BRO: Someone thinks you SMELL BAD! Sincerely, Anonymous."

Who said lyricism was dead?

And who might be behind such an attempt at making the environment more friendly? It's a company called Swago. Startlingly, this company sells cologne wipes. It's also a company that claims it goes "where other colognes won't."

Clearly.

A company spokeswoman told me this is a "prank website."

She said of Swago's intentions: "Rather than be in the limelight, they addressed an everyday problem in a funny way by marketing it and sending the end-user their product. If the user likes it, inevitably they will check out SWAGO and buy more."

Inevitability is a tricky concept in marketing. Ask Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.

Still, Swago has enormous confidence that this marketing will be successful. Bulk orders appear to be going well.

"If you choose a 4-pack," explained the spokeswoman, "the recipient of the prank gets one of each scent. In less than 24 hours, a few hundred prank transactions have already occurred, and the majority of them are for the 4-packs."

Clearly we are supposed to believe that there are many highly smelly people in the world.

I worry, though, that telling someone they stink -- anonymously, of course -- carries with it a certain risk that it might, well, put the sender in bad odor, should the recipient work out who sent it.