Why do I want Snapchat Spectacles?

A few weeks ago, Snap Inc (the company is Snap Inc and the platform is Snapchat, or something) released some new hardware to complement their very popular mobile app. The product is Spectacles, and it is a pair of glasses.

Now, not just any glasses, like the kind that will help you see if you’re visually impaired, or the kind that will shield your precious eyes from the potentially dangerously light of the Sun, or the kind that might do anything practical or useful. Instead these are some cool, interesting, very 2017 of them glasses that will record first-person Snapchat videos that you can then upload to the platform via your smartphone.

Spectacles serve that one and only purpose, and while the advertisements for them make you think that when you wear them you’ll look like this:

Not you

Or potentially like this:

Still not you

Or even like this:

Perhaps a sullen, quiet, sad billionaire but still, unfortunately, not you

You will undoubtedly look much more like this:

There you are

Here’s the thing about this (almost) completely useless, ridiculous, superfluous product. I want it, badly.

Why is that, exactly? Why do I want to spend $130 on something that I will use approximately 5 times, and be ridiculed for over the rest of my life? I wouldn’t even consider myself an active user of Snapchat, do I really expect to utilize Spectacles enough to justify purchasing them? Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of making this very obviously poor choice.

Cost

• Pro: Spectacles cost $130, which isn’t really that much money. I’ll just stay in one weekend, make sandwiches for lunch for a week straight, take an extra shift at my second job that doesn’t exist, default on an unimportant loan, that kind of thing. Totally doable.
• Con: It is a total and complete waste of $130 and I cannot believe I am considering this.

Usability

• Pro: Not only do Spectacles record first-person video in a way that has not really been widely utilized up to this point, they record circular video, which means that the landscape vs portrait argument becomes far less relevant. If you don’t know what that means (bless you), this is what it means:

Small child and good dog not included

• Con: I am literally never going to use these after the first week of having them, and no one cares about circular video and/or knows what it is.

“Cool Factor”

• Pro: What a cool, new piece of technology to have. I’ll be part of the digital revolution, a real trendsetter!
• Con:

Intangible Need to Find Meaning in the Abyss of Life in Any Way Possible:

• Pro: Here we go, this is the one I’ve been looking for
• Con:…..sure.

So, the choice seems clear. Should a Snapbot come to Philadelphia, you can find me in line, waiting 18 hours to waste $130. Let’s hope the dopamine released into my bloodstream and the 15 extra Story views I get that day are worth it.