my toothbrush is a metaphor for something
Hello, friends! Rob here.
Monday: Is there a worse aesthetic out there than “gamer accessories?” Don't get me wrong; I'm glad that the lifelong hobby for which I still experience twinges of residual adolescent shame has made so much headway into mainstream culture, and I get that there's a real market for gaming paraphernalia, but why does it all have to look like something that sloughed off of Optimus Prime after he got drunk and wrapped himself around a telephone pole? Look upon this headset, which glows in the dark for some reason (per the ad copy: “the design expresses itself with LED lighting, highlighting a game atmosphere”). Behold this desktop PC, needlessly designed to resemble an angry robot. Heck, half of the graphics cards on this list are covered in jagged angles and rainbow LEDs, and they go inside the computer where no one will ever see them. It's like if dubstep was a design sensibility.
It makes sense, though. Gamers represent an emerging demographic that has only recently begun to receive validation from advertisers and the greater culture at large- kind of like podcasters, or women. Think about what the free market did once it figured out that women are allowed to buy stuff. There's an overpriced “same, but for girl” remix of every product under the sun, typically designed with transparent cynicism by people who are deeply out of touch with the market they're targeting. This strain of virulent consumerist pandering has already given us such monster hits as “bodywash, but with the word SERENITY on the label” and “a floral-print walking stick, sold at a two-dollar mark-up out of sheer spite,” so it only seems natural that those subtle market forces would compel manufacturers to glue a bunch of leftover Gundam parts to a twelve-dollar mouse and sell it for $30 plus shipping. Of course, women still have it worse, because they get screwed coming and going, and because those same out-of-touch focus groups sometimes preside over women's access to certain health benefits, medical treatments, and basic hygienic products. Plus, remember when I said there's a condescendingly pinkified version of “every product under the sun?” Welp. Feast your eyes upon the $300 “Shero” gaming chair, seen here in its natural habitat:
(photo courtesy of the Amazon listing)
Tuesday: In the course of writing yesterday's blurb, I discovered that there is a brand of gaming paraphernalia called ZERODATE and I am still just positively losing it over here. It's a product for nerds called “zero date.” As in, “zero date? Talk about truth in advertising!” or, “zero date? Is that your overpriced gaming mouse, or your Friday night plans?” ZERO. DATE. I love it when a brand dunks on itself.
Wednesday: I have a new toothbrush. My old brush had a textured rubber surface on the back of the head- one of those over-engineered toothbrush features designed to perform a hygienic task that we invented eight years ago and have since deemed indispensable to proper oral care. The box advertised it as a “cheek & tongue cleaner.” My new toothbrush does not have a cheek & tongue cleaner. I can bear the indignity of having to spend an extra ten seconds using the bristles to clean my tongue like a damn troglodyte, but what I wasn't ready for is just how weird it feels. I've been using the same kind of toothbrush for years now, and I had no idea how accustomed I've grown to feeling the cheek & tongue cleaner prickle against the inside of my mouth during the course of regular brushing. You know how you don't really notice clothing touching your skin while you're wearing it? It's kind of like that. My mouth is used to tuning out a lot more sensory noise than my new toothbrush makes, so now when I brush my teeth it feels like my lips have been shot up with novocaine.
There's a metaphor somewhere in there about the fragility of ecosystems- about the precariousness of this moment in human history, when we're experiencing profound isolation and social upheaval, and our planet is in a state of open revolt against us. If something as inconsequential as a texture can trick my brain into thinking my mouth is numb twice a day, then maybe it's not such a stretch of the imagination that a seemingly negligible shift in average global temperatures can have a profound effect on conditions worldwide. But I promised myself I wasn't going to spend too much time today wringing this one out, so here's some people on the internet discussing the reason we say “toothbrush” instead of “teethbrush.”
Thursday: I think one of my favorite Hollywood power moves is showing up to accept a Razzie Award in person. When you include “winners” who accepted their awards remotely, the list is tarnished by the presence of a few trash goblins like Bill Cosby and Dinesh D'Souza. But actually attending the ceremony? Elite. Doing so puts you in esteemed company, including the likes of secret genius Paul Verhoeven (seriously, the man is so brilliant I couldn't even decide whether to link to that Starship Troopers thinkpiece or this one), Academy Award winners Sandra Bullock and Halle Berry (the latter of whom arrived toting her Oscar for Monster's Ball, which is just an absolute God-tier flex), and Tom Green, who showed up with his own red carpet the year Freddie Got Fingered swept the awards and “had to be dragged off the stage while accepting one of his awards because he would not stop playing the harmonica.” Is it normal to be in love with a sentence? Because I'm in love with that sentence. I would divorce my wife and move to Arizona to be with that sentence.
Friday: Last week, I decided Fridays are for jams. I wish I could've had a few more weeks to establish the format so that switching it up would be more impactful, but we play the hands we're dealt. Come to think of it, I wish a lot of things right now. Anyway, here's a jam:
"When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that."
-Ruth Bader Ginsburg
