Father's Day Gift Guides Are So Funny to Me
Dads are people too.
This is probably something I should talk about in therapy, but my favorite kind of gift guide is a Father’s Day gift guide.
They correctly assume that all anyone wants for a made-up holiday is a fun gadget and/or a gift card for wagyu hot dogs. I’m not a Grill Dad, a Golf Dad, or a Car Dad (and my own dad died when I was 11), but every time I scroll through one of these lists, I learn about some new tool or device I didn’t know existed, like an industrial-strength toothpaste tube squeezer, or a portable pizza oven, and feel a brief but potent shopper’s high.
This is why Father’s Day gift guides are so funny: absolutely no one needs an industrial-strength toothpaste tube squeezer and/or a portable pizza oven (even if it allows you to make “pizza in places you never thought possible”). But no one seems to know enough about their own fathers’ interior lives to venture beyond the obvious stereotypes and get them literally anything else. According to these gift guides, everyone’s dad is a reclusive alcoholic with bad taste and a love of sharp objects? And while that may be true… I feel like, as a society, we should maybe stop giving men more knives.
This is all to say: Father’s Day gift guides are hilarious, but they also make me sad. I think we can do better, which is why I scrolled through hundreds of items and pulled out the funniest, most ridiculous recommendations. Below are my favorites, plus a few of my own ideas.
Recommended Product: A Pocket Handsaw
The NYTimes really thinks your dad needs a handsaw. It’s the second item on their Father’s Day gift guide, and that scares me. Also, anyone can just buy this on Amazon??? That might be even scarier.
Who recommended it: NYTimes / Wirecutter via “The 37 Best Father’s Day Gifts”
Recommended Product: A Personalized Hammer
Just in case your dad confuses his hammer with another dad’s hammer at the hammer function.
Who recommended it: NYMag / Strategist via “The Best Personalized Father’s Day Gifts”
Recommended Product: A $500 Infared Baseball Cap
Congrats, your parents will never have sex again! Your balding dad doesn’t need a reminder that he’s balding, or any excuse to wear a baseball cap in bed.
Who recommended it: “The 2026 Father’s Day Gift Guide” by Goop
Recommended Product: A $1,040 JW Anderson x Guinness Sweater
I fear for your father’s safety. You’re going to let him out of the house in this?? I don’t care if it’s by Jonathan Anderson. Your dad doesn’t know who that is, and neither do his friends at the pub.
Who recommended it: “The Best Father’s Day Gifts for the Design-Loving Dad” via Architectural Digest
Recommended Product: A Magnetic Wristband
Okay, this is actually kind of sick. You’re allowed to get this for your dad, but ONLY if he agrees to wear it as a fashion statement.
Who recommended it: “The Verge’s Father’s Day 2026 Gift Guide”
Recommended Product: Gorilla Grip Meat Shredder Claws
This one (paired with the title of the product and the guide) made me laugh out loud. It’s called a fork, my guy.
Who recommended it: CNN via “The 45 best gifts for Dad in 2026 that show how well you know him”
What I’d get your dad, instead:
Sponsorship of a local beehive and the honey that comes with it. Greenwood’s is brilliantly called “The Sweet Hereafter.”
A tour of Paul Rudolph’s townhouse. I went a few years ago with some friends, and it left a lasting impression.
A Made In pan. Matt loves this thing more than me.
Tickets to see a clown show. Great conversation starter and a lesson in vulnerability.
A copy of London Falling by PRK. A book about parent-child relationships disguised as a murder mystery.
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Hilarious and on the nose.
They also assume every dad is an alpha! Justice for beta dads