Funny Gifts for Someone Who Has Everything (Except a Self)

The best funny gifts for someone who has everything point out the one thing they don't have: a self. Not as an insult. It's a philosophical observation with a good punchline, and a very old one: plenty of traditions hold that the solid, separate "me" we spend our lives furnishing is mostly a story. A person who owns everything has, in a sense, finished furnishing it. So give them the joke about the house being empty.

Below: ten ideas, five you can buy from us and five that aren't more stuff, which for this particular person is the whole appeal. Each of our five comes with a book and one gloriously pointless object, because if they have everything, they may as well have these too.

The books and objects below link to Amazon, and we earn a small commission if you buy through them. The shirts are ours.

Five funny gifts for someone who has everything (that you can buy)

1. The You Do Not Exist tee. The most direct version of the joke. They have everything; according to the shirt, they also don't exist. This tends to delight people who are hard to shop for, because nobody has ever given them a gift that argued with them.

Make it a set: Alan Watts's The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (opens in a new tab) (1966), which makes the case, charmingly, that feeling like "a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin" is a hallucination rather than a fact. Add a useless box (opens in a new tab), which switches itself off every time you switch it on. It's the one gadget they won't have to learn.

2. The You Do Not Exist tote. For the person who already has three nice bags. This one is for carrying things that don't matter, which, philosophically speaking, is all of them.

Make it a set: Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks (opens in a new tab) (2021), named for the rough length of a human life, which is the one thing they can't buy more of. Add the Pet Rock (opens in a new tab), the 1975 fad, back on sale. It fits in the tote and has no needs.

3. There Is Nobody Here. For the friend whose house is so full of nice things that it's a little funny to put this on them. Deadpan, minimal and an excellent conversation starter at a dinner party where everyone is pretending to be fascinating.

Make it a set: Douglas Harding's On Having No Head (opens in a new tab) (1961), a short, odd classic about noticing that you can't see your own head. Add a lava lamp (opens in a new tab), which will spend every evening very busy accomplishing nothing, like a good dinner guest.

4. You Spend All Day Talking to Yourself About Yourself. For the accomplished person who, if we're honest, mostly talks about their accomplishments. Give it with a smile. They'll laugh. Eventually.

Make it a set: Ryan Holiday's Ego Is the Enemy (opens in a new tab) (2016), which leans on the Stoics to argue that ego gets in the way of good work. Add a Magic 8 Ball (opens in a new tab), for when they need a second opinion that isn't their own.

5. You're a Verb. The safe choice for a parent, a mentor or a boss who has everything, because it reads as encouragement. It is. It also means there's no fixed person to encourage, which we leave for them to discover.

Make it a set: Heraclitus's Fragments (opens in a new tab), the surviving lines of the Greek philosopher (around 500 BCE) best known for the idea that everything flows, in Brooks Haxton's translation. Add a woodpecker toy (opens in a new tab), the little bird that pecks its way down a pole, one tap at a time, every time you put it back at the top. A verb, basically.

Our shirts are printed to order in the US (allow 4 to 12 business days), and US shipping is free at $40 or more. Browse them together at everything we make.

Five gifts that aren't more stuff

For the person who has everything, the best gifts are mostly things you can't put on a shelf.

6. An hour of your actual attention. Phones away. Ask them something you've never asked. People with everything are rarely given this.

7. A handwritten letter. Tell them one specific thing they did that mattered to you. Nobody keeps an email. Everybody keeps a letter.

8. An empty box, beautifully wrapped, labeled "The Self (Unassembled)." Inside: nothing. Include a card that reads "Some assembly not required." If they laugh, they get it. If they don't, include the shirt.

9. A plan you made for them. Book the dinner, buy the tickets, handle the logistics. For someone with everything, the luxury is not having to arrange anything.

10. A donation in their name. Pick something they care about and give to it. It's the only gift on this list that leaves the world slightly less full of stuff.

The Department of Non-Existence has reviewed the recipient's possessions and confirms that they have everything. One item, "a self," is listed as on backorder. Estimated arrival: never. The recipient has been notified and seems relieved.

Matching the gift to the person

A quick guide to choosing among our four designs, plus the tote:

• They have a dry sense of humor: You Do Not Exist. They'll get it immediately.
• They're a little vain about their stuff: There Is Nobody Here, as a gentle reminder.
• They tell long stories about themselves: You Spend All Day Talking to Yourself About Yourself. Smile when you hand it over.
• They're a parent, mentor or boss: You're a Verb. It's the safe one, and it's sincere.
• They carry a lot of nice bags: the tote. Philosophically, it holds nothing.

For the card, keep it short. "For the person who has everything, except a self" does the job.

Why this works on hard-to-shop-for people

People who have everything are surrounded by gifts that try to impress them. A funny gift with an idea behind it does something different: it starts a conversation. "What does that mean?" is the best thing a gift can make someone say, and our designs are built to provoke exactly that question. (We even wrote up what non-duality is for when they ask.)

It also takes the pressure off you. You're not competing with the things they already own. You're making a joke about all of them.

What not to get someone who has everything

• More of what they already collect. If they have twenty nice candles, the twenty-first will disappear into the pile.
• Gadgets they'll have to learn. For a person with everything, a new device is homework. (The useless box is exempt. There's nothing to learn.)
• Anything that needs explaining for five minutes. A funny gift should land in five seconds. Ours are short on purpose.
• Gift cards to stores they already shop at. It's not wrong. It's just the gift equivalent of saying "fine, thanks" when someone asks how you are.

The short version

For the person who has everything, give them a shirt that says they do not exist, a book that agrees with it, something pointless to put on the desk and an hour of your time. The first three make them laugh. The last one makes them glad you came. If they're more the brooding type, our list of gifts for nihilists has a few darker options.

Sources

• Alan Watts (Wikiquote), including the bag-of-skin passage from The Book
• Cover art: Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Portrait of General José Manuel Romero (c. 1810), Art Institute of Chicago, CC0
• Alan Watts (Wikipedia)
• Useless machine (Wikipedia)
• Pet Rock (Wikipedia)
• Heraclitus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Douglas Harding (Wikipedia)