Onion video nails gadgets and marketing
Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work
This Onion video, "Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work," may be the single most insightful critique of gadgets and gadget-marketing I've ever seen. This is the apotheosis of imaginary gadgets. (NSFW if your employer doesn't like cursing)
Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
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Oh my god. That´s f*king delirious! XD
Wait a minute, doesn't Sony have to say something about that?
You, know,lawsuits?
It's funny because it's so f**king true.
Of course, if my employer didn't like cursing, I'd be in trouble already for the naughty 's' word and 'f' word in this post. :)
Hey, I already have one of those! But mine's called my RCN cable remote.
And for those who actually can figure out how to use it, Sony will no doubt release a firmware update to fix that little oversight in no time.
What blog that we love is NSFW? FUCKING BOINGBOING!! Yay!
(Why do I keep repeating this? Somebody tell me, please.)
(If the language offends you, then you know where you can stick these: ** )
And THAT'S why we get a 7-second delay on broadcast TV. One bad apple...
What, exactly, is so hard to figure out? You put the blue ray movie in your PS3, you eject the blue ray movie from your PS3. Are there actually people who use Sony for more than that?
What a way to start the day!!! "...so f**king true" indeed! Better than eating Wheaties: which never *uc*** work either. Excuse me while I go clean my self up. Thanks for the post Cory!
'motherf**king time vampire'. a rebranding for boingboing in the pipeline? ;-)
I asked for this for Valentine's Day.
I love hearing old people swear.
Instant classic.
So true.
I never got into that gadget frenzy that seems to be everywhere nowadays. A simple mobile that makes simple calls, an Ipod and a pendrive are more that enough for me.
@boeotian: yes, I know what you mean. I could never understand those extravagant spenders with houses in 7 different cities. A simple mansion in Westport, a condo in Manhattan, and a ranch in New Mexico is more than enough for me.
That pretty much sums it up. Maybe a bit too much of the college humour swearing thingie, you know, cursing isn't that funny, but I guess that's an American thing, since you don't seem to be allowed to swear these much nowadys. Fuck, eh?
Another Samuel L. Jackson-approved BoingBoing post!
It's fucking hilarious because of all the fucking swearing. It would just be fucking kind of fucking funny if there was no motherfucking swearing, but then again it might just be some fucking cocksuckers sitting around bitching about how their fucking shit don't work. And that's just like real fucking life, innit?
You add in the fucking swearing, you raise it up to another motherfucking level of sublime anus-clenching greatness.
I thought that was pretty fucking clear...
What a god damn piece of motherfucking shit. Oh! did you know spell check approves of motherfucker? Fuck! I have no life because I'm a hillbilly living in a fucking shack and I'll read any piece of motherfucking shit that fucking BoingBoing publishes.
What a fucking waste of time.
Respect to the designer who made the brilliant fake labyrinthine menu graphics!
My dead piece-of-shit Sony goddamn garbage gizmo fuckin' thing now resides at the bottom of the fuckin' landfill.
And I will never fuckin' again buy a pice of goddamn Sony mutha-fuckin' shit.
When I read this (dated 1/22/09):
"SONY has posted a much much bigger than expected operating loss of $2.9 billion. It is the first loss the company has had in 14 years and is a dramatic reversal from last year's figures which were a huge profit."
I wondered "How could they let it slip like that?"
After watching this Onion clip, I kinda know how...
"Just saw a demo of the Danger HipTop and I am SPAZZING OUT. Jesus Christ, this is the coolest goddamned phone/PDA/cam/email/SMS/thing in the entire universe. I have a technology boner that could cut glass. The site doesn't do it justice. You need to see it."
Cory Doctorow, March 25, 2002
it's funny, but over the top with the F-ing - subtlety counts in humor too, maybe if only a few F's it woulda been better
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: who gives a F?
is funnier than
Why the f did the f'n chicken cross the f'n road, for f's sake? A: who gives a F?
at least to anyone over 14...
Q: Why did the motherfucking chicken cross the motherfucking road?
A: To get to the motherfucking other side you motherfucking piece of fucking shit.
Much funnier.
consume! buy buy buy! Buy NOW!
hilarious
The Onion also skewered Apple pretty good in this video segment last month:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary
Hysterical. Another gem from our friends at the Onion.
I'm curious as to how much funding/time? goes into filming these satires. Top-notch acting.
You gotta hand it to them on the production values.
This and the Macbook Wheel video both looked very authentic.
The swearing seemed over the top, but I sound the same way when my ---- doesn't do what the ---- its supposed to in the first place.
I agree that the cursing-based humor is diluted when it's used so much, although I'm sure it was just for this one report that the folks at The Onion decided to spice up their creative journalism.
I was so curious about this crappy product that I looked it up, the Sony WebTV High Speed Link Up INT-W250. It's a 56k baud modem to bring the internet to your tv, and it was on the market as early as 2001. Some reviews seem to reflect the negative opinion of TO, but others seemed to have actually liked it.
The whole sting of the parody is a little softened when the product in question is over 8 years old.
Perhaps that particular model of WebTV was on the market in '01, but I had one in Dec. '96. And here's a nugget - I still have the damn thing hooked up to my TV!
The whole WebTV service was bought by MSFT and renamed MSNTV. There was a broadband model released in '04.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_TV#Broadband_MSN_TV
Apple sucks.
"The whole sting of the parody is a little softened when the product in question is over 8 years old."
I think that the sting is made better because while the products have changed, very little about their impacts on our lives has changed.
Today's genius home electronics are tomorrows "WTF WAS I THINKING?????".
And yes, of course there is still TiVO and the iPhone, which are the counter-points to everything sucking all the time. But then if there was never anything good, there would be no hope - and without hope, we would never have the MS answering machine...
Would have been even funnier w/o all the @#$%^*.
30 sec or so I found it a boring distraction to a funny idea with great production values.
Agreed with #33 and #18. I swear plenty, but just saying 'Fuckity fuck fuck' doth not humor automatically make.
The premise of the clip was spot-on tho.
When did Microsoft buy out The Onion?
This is the first thing on the internet that I've actually laughed out loud at in months. I think I use an acronym here, what is it...?
In contrast to #24, #25, et al, I think the swearing is integral to the humor. The funny thing about it is that it sounds like the poor tech-unsavvy guy who gets pissed off that he can't get a new gizmo installed and working i.e it preemptively combines the breathless journalist hype with the frustration of the consumer. Plus I wish I had come up with the term "time vampire".
@30 The Sony WebTV High Speed Link Up INT W-250 was never a real product. The name is a Frankentitle much like the other parody gadgets such as the MacBook Wheel.
Also the language is a part of the joke itself as several have said. The Onion does not usual fill every sentence with curse words. It is a nod to how people react to overcomplicated junk that you have to be an engineer to figure out.
I personally don't think this is even the slightest bit funny... Kind of in awe that it's got so much buzz... Just a bunch of cursing? Try being funny without the profanity...