A Meh-rathon of Sweet Meh-mories

This is a 2-pack of makeup remover cloths. You either know what that is, or can jump in the forum to ask other people about it.

Why aren’t we giving you more info? Well, we weren’t sure what to write for the Meh-rathon so we decided to look at some past Meh write-ups for inspiration. (You can find a random one here, if you want.) Unfortunately, all that did was make us nostalgic and maybe a little teary-eyed. And then the boss was all “Where’s the write-ups, writer dude?” and we panicked and… uhh… Please enjoy this classic write-up about an entirely different product! Also, feel free to share in the forum if you find one you liked or forgot about or missed entirely.

Look, we love making fun of things: dumb products, dunderheaded companies, slimy marketers, you guys, ourselves. Ridicule and mockery are sometimes the only tools you have to knock the world around you into some kind of sensible shape. And they’re fun. But this Able Planet headset reminds us of a painful lesson we learned about the limits of ridicule. Maybe it can help you, too.

Back in 2010, when @JasonToon (the guy writing this) (OK, writing about myself in third person is weird, I’m switching to “I” now) - back when I wrote for Woot and “covered” CES every year by making cheap jokes about it, I gave Able Planet the “Most Underwhelming Slogan” award for their tagline “It Is Possible.”

“Was ‘It could happen’ taken?” I sniped. “This is like half a step up from ‘Don’t hold your breath’.” Yuk yuk. Har har. L0Lz0rz.

But it wasn’t long before a reply appeared to shake me out of my smirking smugness.

“Starting at a very young age, children with hearing loss are commonly separated from normal hearing children,” said Able Planet CEO Kevin Semcken. “As the kids grow older, they struggle to lead active lifestyles that are enjoyed by people with normal hearing.”

Uh-oh. Toon, you fool, what have you stepped in?

“Eventually many, if not most, people with hearing loss take themselves out of the game,” Kevin continued. "They give up. They no longer believe that it is possible for them to overcome the barriers that have forced them onto the sidelines.

“Able Planet established the ‘i am able’ campaign to educate those with normal hearing and those struggling with hearing loss that ‘It Is Possible.’”

I am a monster. This company, Able Planet, is just trying to encourage kids with hearing loss to lead full lives. What do I contribute to the world? Limp, half-formed, mean-spirited pokes at things I don’t understand. What happened to make me like this? Where did I go wrong? I hoped fervently that my mom wasn’t reading that.

Kevin even ended his post with good humor: “Is it possible to get a plaque for my office?”

So you don’t have to buy this headset, or even agree that this headset is any good at all. But unless you want to feel like a total bastard for contributing to the world’s sum total of pointless viciousness, lay off the company itself. To paraphrase some old song, be cool like dat.