2-For-Tuesday: Speks Original Mashable, Smashable, Buildable Magnets
- These look like a toy but they’re not for children under 14.
- 2 packs of 512 2.5mm magnetic ball (so 1024 total).
- Build something cool and intricate, or just mash a bunch together. We sell to people of all creativity levels!
- Model: Speks512. So simple that it’s a bit… suspekt.
Endless Fiddling
Let’s make three things very clear up front: first off, this is a two-pack… of packs, each of which contains 512 “Mashable, Smashable, Rollable, Buildable Magnets.” So, in other words, though this is billed as a 2-for-Tuesday deal, it’s actually more of a 1024-for-Tuesday.
Another thing you need to know is that, if these seem a lot like Buckyballs, it’s because they are. Speks made the original Buckyballs, but now some sort of imposter has been selling a product of that name. The big difference between these and the original Buckyballs is actually really tiny. 2.5millimeters to be exact. By which we mean, these Speks are 2.5mm, whereas the original (and the imposter balls) are 5mm. This is important mostly because 2.5mm balls are a lot safer.
But, despite this increase in safety–and this is the final thing we need to make very clear–these are not for young children. They should be used only by kids 14 and up.
We wanted to get those few important things out of the way up front, because honestly, making straightforward exacting statements seems at odds with what’s so fun about this product.
There can be joy in building a model. There can be some satisfaction in laying out the instructions, the pieces, and the box and saying to yourself: “over the course of the next several hours, I will use those to turn these into that.” It is a process with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
These Speks, though? They’re all middle, no beginning, no end. They’re for fiddling. They’re not a toy, really. Speks wants to say they’re a stress relief tool, but they’re barely even that. They’re really a sponge for excess energy. They’ll make use of the same nerve twitch that might lead you to drum on your desk or click your pen incessantly or knit or doodle in the margins of every notebook you ever had.
Imagine a game of Tetris, stuck on level 3, the upcoming pieces queue replete with those long straight ones; you can try for impressive combos or you can just clear a line at a time. That’s what these Speks are like: you can create something cool, even beautiful; or you can just smash them together and roll them around in your hand while thinking about how best to respond to that tricky email that just came in.
In other words, there is no point to these things. And that’s the whole point of these things.
-
2-For-Tuesday: Speks Original Mashable, Smashable, Buildable Magnets 189
-
Vanity Plate 19
-
When I'm super stressed, what really helps is: 57
-
Goat Toy Day 5 4 -
Save The Internet Act 11 -
Buyer Beware 16 -
Look Smart Trivia: Mystery Theme 21 -
It’s happening: Amazon Video with commercial interruptions 27