Who’d have thought that an ordinary Bic Cristal stick pen could inspire brilliance – or at least a pretty good go at wit? Not us, until we saw the hilarious reviews for the pen that have been accumulating on Amazon.com for the last few years.
It seems to have started in March 2007 with an overly earnest Amazon review of the Bic Crystal medium point from Matt Williams of Essex, England. He gave the pen four stars, noting that it is “very good if you need to write on paper.”
His 630–word review begins:
Since taking delivery of my pen I have been very happy with the quality of ink deposition on the various types of paper that I have used. On the first day when I excitedly unwrapped my pen (thanks for the high quality packaging Amazon!) I just couldn’t contain my excitement and went around finding things to write on, like the shopping list on the notice board in our kitchen, the Post-it notes next to the phone, and on my favourite lined A4 pad at the side of my desk.
That was enough to get Internet pranksters going, and once sites like GeekNews and Boing Boing picked up on it, the crazy reviews began piling up until now there are more than 250 on the US and UK versions of Amazon combined.
We’ve sorted through them and picked out our 10 favorites and now present them to you.
(Some have been edited for brevity.)
The 1o Funniest Bic Cristal Pen Reviews
10 – Is this pen telepathic?
I have noticed that what this pen writes in my diary are the exact same thoughts that i have in my mind. Can this pen be reading my thoughts, i mean, is this at all possible? – O.B. Vious
9 – Bic Crystal Ballpoint Pen, Medium Point, Black
I bought this in all good faith as someone told me that this pen would be mightier than a sword, well after spending half an hour toying with it I have realised that they obviously have never encountered automatic weapons. – loubylou
8 – Does indeed write for 2km, but there is a but…
The listing states that this pen has a 2km write out length. Having tested this, I can confirm that the pen I received actually performed for a little over 2km, at 2.173km. However, now for the bad news. I found the pen to be a poor performer when trying to write on concrete, tarmac or grass. For others planning to write for 2km or more, I would suggest using something a little more robust, such as a magic marker or paint. – Rustic bob
7 – 3 to 5 and still alive!
I’ve been in and out of prison most of my life and I specialize the in fine art of prison tattooing. Now, I’ve tried many types of pens, Pilots, Sanfords, Paper Mates, and others. But for the sheer consistency of color, permeability, and aesthetic character, I use only BIC Cristal Ballpoint Pens.
When you try to get the ink to adhere to a sharpened paper clip, you instantly can tell the difference in workability with a Bic. The fine line work reqired in realistically rendering a flaming serpent wrapping the bare breasts of a nymph straddling a crucifix would be nearly impossible with any other pen. – Pete Strohs
6 – iPen
The BIC is all well and good for analogue writing, but I’m holding out for the iPen. This will be superior because it’ll cost more than the BIC and be more stylish. – mark gaywood
5 – Expensive, but worth it
Whilst this may cost more than a piece of pointy charcoal, I think the extra cost is justified. – Chief Wiggum
4 – Left handers beware…
Worked fine with my right hand, but when I came to use my left hand my writing came out looking like the work of a complete imbecile. I can only assume Bic have created a right-handed only pen, and would caution left-handers to “try before you buy”. – Disappointed user
3 – Lack of Font options
While this pen is functional and easy to use, a downside is it only supports one default font (that appears to be user specific?). I have tried multiple times to access Helvetica, Times New Roman, Impact etc. to no avail… I don’t even see any input buttons. The default font is pretty shoddy looking, resembling Comic Sans. An update would be appreciated Bic! – Knives
2 – Beware license issues!
While this is a perfectly good pen, I would definitely recommend that you choose the ‘Multi-user’ license option. I foolishly chose the ‘Single-user’ license in order to save a bit of money and as a result am left with a pen that only one person can use at a time. – Kyle Mcready
1 – Spelchek?
Which vrsion of Word does this pen hav? It makz the mst dredful spelln mistax!! It duzn’t even hav a spelchek! I’m movin up to Parker hardwair!! – Mr. J. Robertson
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i just came from there and ya, only now did i realize people were trolling
indeed very funny