Weird socks as a gift, done properly

Socks are the traditional bad gift, and they earned that reputation honestly — a plain black five-pack says nothing except that shopping happened. Weird socks are the opposite: they are specific. Getting someone frog socks means you know they like frogs, which means you were paying attention, which is the entire point of a gift.

The trick to doing this well is specificity over quantity. One pair that is precisely about the recipient beats three generic funny pairs. Think about the thing they're known for — the obsession, the running joke, the food they order every single time — and search for that instead of searching for "funny socks".

If you're buying for several people at once, build a drawer: it holds socks from different shops in one list, shows you a running total, and gives you one checkout per brand. You can share the finished drawer as a link, which also makes it a decent way to send someone an extremely specific wishlist.