Uh-oh, this deal is pretty amazing...

I’m @JasonToon, the Meh copywriter, and sometimes people wonder how I do what I do. (Shut up, they really do. I know it’s weird, but sometimes people ask.) Walk with me now as I craft a face-melting masterpiece for the JBL Pebbles 2.0 Speaker System.

First, let’s check for low-hanging fruit. It gets good reviews on Amazon at $59.95, and JBL is a legit brand. It seems like these are actually pretty good. So the whole “World’s Crappiest”/“Dont buy these” angle is out. Too bad. That’s always fun.

The name, Pebbles, obviously brings to mind the Flintstones character and the late-80s R&B singer of “Mercedes Boy” fame. But I’m not feeling anything there.

Now let’s open the box. They’re bigger than I thought they’d be. A lot heavier and more solid, too. That big volume knob on the side feels good, like a knob on a '70s stereo receiver. All in all, these are pretty impressively built. Which is great if you want speakers but sucks if you want to make fun of speakers.

OK, so… maybe they look funny? Kinda? Like flat tires, or - ooh, wait, deflated Poké balls. From the side, anyway. What is that thing they say on Pokémon? Better catch it? Gotta get 'em all? Eh, I could Google it but I’m already losing interest in this angle, although I will always love Lickitung.

All right, let’s plug them in and see how crappy they sound. Huh. Not bad. Not bad at all, actually. Dammit.

OK, OK, maybe you only see how much they suck when you use them over time. Let’s dive deeper into those Amazon reviews. Anything weird about these at all? Do they have any odd limitations? Minor aggravations? A tendency to spontaneously combust? Doesn’t look like it. People say they’re nice, compact, USB speakers with a surprisingly clear bass sound. And they said that when they cost three times what we’re charging here.

What about an examination of how PC speakers work vs. 3.5mm speakers? Like, how the audio information is converted and how it travels to - ugh, I’m putting myself to sleep here.

OK, now I’m getting desperate. A quick trawl through CNN, Consumerist, and Gizmodo reveals no current events we could glom onto for cheap resonance with our audience. I spend a few minutes babbling variations on “JBL Pebbles Stereo USB Speakers” to see if any song parodies emerge. They don’t.

I spend the next forty minutes procrastinating, starting with an article about gender ambiguity in the early work of the Scorpions.

I’ve just been avoiding the dawning of the awful truth: these speakers are good at any price, and great at this price, which is the hardest angle of all to write. There’s nothing more to say about these JBL Pebbles speakers than “they’re a really good deal if you need PC speakers.” And there’s nothing more boring than a good deal.