Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Eighty seven thousand dollars of novelty!

If you're anything like me, the large black rectangle hanging on your wall or sitting on a table is an intolerable eyesore and you'll pay anything, anything not to have to look at it anymore. You'd even pay, say, eighty seven thousand dollars.

How can people even live like this?

Whoa, whoa, slow down there
Elon Musk. A screen? That rolls up?
 No one has ever dared dream so big!
Yes, of money. Because that's how much South Korean electronics manufacturer LG wants for their Signature OLED R TV. And that requires some explanation. Signature sounds fancy and I think they think it helps people feel better about dropping eighty-seven grand. OLED is an acronym for organic LED and an LED is a light emitting diode. TV stands for TV and the company says R stands for revolutionary and re-define the space, but that's not how acronyms work so it also stands for rollable. Because this TV rolls up into its base when not in use. 

Walls, amiright? I don't know about
you, but I am so sick of their shit...
According to the manufacturer:

"LG's exquisite creation liberates users from the limitations of the wall, enabling owners to curate their living environment without having to permanently set aside space for a large, black screen that is only useful when turned on..."

-LG's somewhat florid and definitely 
overpaid marketing department on 
how this liberates us from walls

It practically pays for itself.
So you can finally buy a flat panel that rolls up. Well, rich people can anyway. The average individual income in the U.S. is about thirty-three thousand, so this costs two and a half times that (source: math). And if that sounds extravagant, that's just because it's extravagant. But bear in mind that instead of having an unsightly black rectangle in your living room when your TV is off, you'll have a somewhat smaller and elongated unsightly black rectangle. In many ways we'd be fools not to buy one. 

Of course, in many more ways we'd be fools to buy one. Because holy shit, I mean, eighty-seven thousand dollars? I mean, sure, hyperbole aside, flat panels are actually not that attractive. They are big, flat, featureless, slabs of reflective nothing. An abyss to stare into. But that kind of money can buy a lot of-well, anything, so I don't know, live with it?

Pictured: eighty seven grand worth of novelty, seen here rapidly wearing off.

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