Kindles. I fucking hate 'em.
I know I shouldn't, but every time I see someone on the bus, train or tube with a Kindle, or with one peeking deliberately from their bag, I judge them. (Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned...) I know I shouldn't; I know there are perfectly valid reasons to own a Kindle, for example: you want to read an epic novel like War and Peace, but have arthritis in your hands, or you stole a Kindle last year while you were out looting, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste - but everyone else? Be ashamed of yourselves. Would it hurt you to buy a bloody book?
If the answer to that question is "Yes, yes it would. I hate books", then you, sir/madam, are everything wrong with this world. You don't feel about books the same way I do. You don't sit in a candle-lit room and gently caress the cover with your gaze; you don't fondle the spine lightly with your fingertips; you don't lean in and smell those oh-so-sweet pages the first time you get close enough to. You can't treat a book the way I treat it, and you will never love it as much as I do. All you do is simply carry your 'precious' Kindle around with you like some kind of trophy, to show off at your pretentious little Christmas office parties. "Look how smooth it is," you tell your colleagues. "I turn it on every night. Ooh yeah." They don't know what you really do. They don't know that you leave it all alone in the kitchen all night, like the chauvinist bastard you really are.
My main gripe with Kindles lies in the people they are marketed at. See for yourself:
In this advert, we are shown 17 instances of people using a Kindle (if you include the shot of someone throwing a Kindle across a table - cos throwing a book is the first thing I think to do as I come out of Waterstones with my newest purchase); in only 6 of these are the people with the Kindle actually bothering to read from it (I don't include the kid cos, let's face it, at his age he's not gonna read anything unless it's got pictures in). The other 11 instances are as followed:
1. Person picks Kindle up. Well, alright. I suppose the first step in learning to read is in picking a book up. Well done.
2. Person takes Kindle out of a drawer full of jewellery. This is just a fancy variation of the previous shot. Not impressed.
3. Person puts Kindle on passenger seat in car. Yes, because that is what we do with books. We put them on car seats. We read two sentences at a time at the traffic lights, and hope that by the end of our life we have managed to finish chapter one.
4. Person lets dog lick Kindle. Like a book, only tastes better. I see where the marketing team were going here.
5. Man gives Kindle to woman. "I don't want it anymore! You have it!" Alternatively: "What does this say? C-H-A-P-T-E-R-O-N-E. Hmmm."
6. Child randomly presses buttons on Kindle. Probably deliberately breaking it because his parents aren't paying him any attention anymore - not since they started taking their Kindle on long, romantic car rides through the countryside.
7. Person throws Kindle across table. As you do.
8. Man gives Kindle to woman as a Christmas present. She looks happy and hugs him. "Oh darling, just what I never knew I always wanted until I saw everyone else with one!"
9. Person puts Kindle in back pocket. Right. Well.
10. Person throws their breakfast over Kindle. We must feed our Kindles, make sure they never go hungry. Y'see, Kindles aren't just for Christmas - they're for life.
11. Woman takes Kindle on quiet bike ride on a hot summer's day. I only hope she remembered to put some sunblock on the Kindle!
All this is played along to a chirpy little happy tune, and everyone looks like they're having a really good time. But the thing is, folks, we're not being sold a product here, we're being sold a lifestyle. That's why it annoys the crap out of me when I see people brandishing their Kindles all over public transport. I see them as someone who was never that keen on reading, who was taken in by a simple capitalist marketing scam; they were told that if they bought a Kindle, they would enjoy a chirpy little happy life, with sunshine and flowers and smiles all round. The reality for most of them (note, I said most), as they sit there on the train reading some generic novel about some war veteran having an affair with the general's wife (don't they all seem to do that?), is they're bored out of their fucking skulls.
You know I'm right.
No comments:
Post a Comment