Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/06/nophone-selfie-worlds-most.html
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It occurs to me that there may be a market for a super-minimalist phone (i.e. basic dumb phone) with a built-in mirror.
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I hear you can’t take the NoPhone Selfie on a plane, though. The NoPhone Selfie has been shown to catch fire (in combination with sunlight and newspaper)!
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Toilet bowl resistent.
That’s a plus.
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I can’t help but find this cringingly smug. At first I thought it was just like a really, really minimalist phone, but once I realized it’s just another dumb way for people to feel smug about how neo-luddite they are I literally cringed IRL.
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The modern equivalent of the lump of coal.
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Well, we know it’s a joke, but, of course, jokes mostly don’t work without subtexts. I think the comment here is about consumerism and narcissism, and does not suggest a negative comment on technology. I suppose that it might be a lump-of-coal mean joke for a give who thought that the recipient was vain.
I laughed a bit, reading it as suggesting that here’s this advanced bit of technology, but yet for many people, a mirror would serve nearly the same purpose.
I love overanalyzing things!
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As an art project or one-off DIY I would find it interesting and I’m not totally unaware of the general point it’s making. As a bit of tat to be sold, I find it in poor taste. People somewhere are buying this to give to people or otherwise have around to elicit opportunities to be smug and condescending about their Luddite-ness.
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I prefer this version.
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Funny for oneself or someone who’s of one mind; rude as a gift anyone else. I’d be amused to have it, but then I have a odd fondness for objects with one use that look like something else. I love my cork drink coaster that look just like whole-wheat toast.
Hand those out to schizophrenics. That way, when they walk down the street talking to “the voices”, they’ll blend right in.
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Not really into the joke because my phone helps me deal with social anxiety. I love these sorts of things for the reviews.
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Reminds me of this old “Flat Screen” ebay auction:
http://www.cockeyed.com/ebay/flatscreen/flatscreen_ebay.html
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Hard to get more consumerist than spending $18 on a chunk of plastic just to annoy others. Though at least this one also functions as a mirror, so… could be worse.
I suppose the part of the joke that bugs me is that if someone is being distant or a jackass while on their phone, it’s somehow the phone’s fault. It’s the usual “this newfangled technology is corrupting society” theme, just like it was with video games, television, rock and roll, radio, books, and probably fire.
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I could see toddlers who like to imitate their parent’s phone habits having a blast with this.
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Usually i’m the sort of person that is easily amused by things, even usually unfunny ones.
But this one is so desperately unfunny it is indeed cringeworthy…
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Doesn’t using a computer to order this phone on the Internet sort of ruin the whole point of it? You should go down in the basement and cut, sandpaper and and paint a block of wood yourself.
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I’m the last person to call change “corruption,” but I don’t think there’s much question that major technologies make basic changes to societies. For things like smart phones, there’s also this idea:
“The medium is the message” is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in any message it would transmit or convey, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.`
I’ve aways found McLuhan to pretentious to read directly, but I’m not sure that he’s wrong.
I’m ending this without really knowing where I’m going with it. I’ve actually gotten something out of the discussion, since it would not have occurred to me to se this thingy as annoying, and now I do see why it would seem that way.
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