Today in marketing the dystopia:

All the energy you'll ever need to
keep you sitting in one place for hours!

So I think what I resent the most is that--huh? Oh, right, I'm doing it again, aren't I? Sorry, here's the link. It's to a theverge.com story about a Japanese company called Bauhutte and their new Electric Gaming Bed--an adjustable bed...for gaming. Which, I mean, no one sells a special bed for reading or watching TV, why is this one hobby treated as a full-on life style to which companies market purpose made chairs, snacks, and absurdly, energy drinks? Oh, and incidentally, stop playing video games in bed. It can't possibly be good for you.

I mean, this is what couches are for. The suggestion that we--people who play video games that is, I can't bring myself to use gamer as an identity--can't muster the energy to sit up to play Xbox or whatever is just so, depressing. 

See? A standard sofa is perfectly adequate. Incidentally, could the photographers
who take stock pictures of people playing video games stop telling the models to
lean and flail around? Nobody looks like this when they play games. Ever.

Seriously, the thing doesn't even have 
a single book shelf to--what? Why are you 
laughing at--people still read...sometimes...

But wait, there's more! The Bauhutte Electric Gaming Bed is just one component of an entire suite of furniture you can buy to suit your sedentary lifestyle. The Bauhutte Bed slots into the Bauhutte Desk and can even be paired with a microwave and mini fridge, meaning you never have to leave the sixty square feet this thing takes up. Which, sure, this thing is Japanese and apartment living in Japan is famously cramped, but just because you play video games doesn't mean your entire life has to revolve around one pastime. Like, what if you want to read a book?

Go outside, get some fresh air and spend
some time with--yeah, you go me, I don't do
this either. But in my defense, there are bugs
out there. And sunburn? Forget about it.

There's something almost admirably bleak about this idea. I mean, obviously it's terrible and no one should ever buy one--although it's already sold out on Amazon, because of course it is--but you kind of have to admire marketing that leans this heavily into selling people on such a cartoonishly desolate vision of a future. One that revolves around entirely around gaming. It's like they read Ready Player One and didn't clock that it was a dystopia--which, it was, right? Right? Doesn't matter. All I'm saying--and this is coming from me, a confirmed indoor kid--is holy shit, you have to put down the controller occasionally.

And look, I don't mean to yuck anyone's yum (I find myself saying this a lot lately). Video games are great, and whatever I think about it, there's obviously a market for this thing. But I just kind of feel like if you need a hospice bed to enjoy video games, it might be time to re-evaluate some priorities.

Sleep, play games, eat, and then back to sleep. All this thing needs is
a bed pan and a massage function to keep people from developing deep vein
thrombosis and--wait, that's not a serious suggestion! Do not add that feature!