A horrifyingly obnoxious and frustrating sensation has been sweeping our nation as of late. The recent obsession with hoverboards. Now, my lovely readers, allow me clarify for a second. When I say "hoverboard", I'm not talking about the fictional pink Mattel invention made famous by "Back to the Future Part II," no. I'm referring to these stupid mini-Segway looking pieces of garbage that are for some idiotic reason taking America by storm. You see them on the streets, across college campuses, in grocery stores, in the mall, you see them all over; I don't like them.
This is a hoverboard.
This is stupid.
In days of better weather, you'd see our Marquette basketball team and select few other tools scooting around campus on these nonsensical contraptions (although I think Wojo recently took them away). Every time I would see somebody whizzing down the sidewalk on one of these dumb little gizmos I swear it was so stupid it just made my face hurt. Seriously, is walking just too hard? Or do you just enjoy gliding around on these...things so that everyone you pass could instantly tell that you are one of those people. You know the kind I'm talking about. It just seems like the kind of thing people buy so that other people can see them and understand that they can throw money away on stupid pieces of useless technology purely because they can; it is a monument to decadence.
The first time I ever saw somebody riding one of these mechanical abominations my mind instantly went to the Disney Pixar film "WALL-E." You know, the film set in the future where the entirety of mankind is made up of languid and obese beings who waste away their entire lives in mobile chairs that carry them anywhere they want to go, feature screens displaying constant entertainment, feed them on demand, and cater to their every need so that they never need to physically exert themselves in any way.
Picture for reference.
It may seem a bit extreme to draw this connection, but just hear me out. "Back to the Future" predicted a 2015 with flying cars, the Cubs winning the World Series, hoverboards replacing traditional skateboards, and many other fun little details. The 2015 we live in has seen the rise of mini-Segways so people don't need to walk places anymore.
Gone are the days of us human beings being forced to use the clunky appendages known as legs in the incredibly exhausting act of walking. Now are the days of jerks zipping around at a slightly faster-than-average walking pace looking like absolute tools in the process. And hey, they even light up with pretty colors! That's pretty neat, isn't it? What a time to be alive.
And can we please stop calling them hoverboards? Hoverboards, by definition and by name, hover, they don't run on batteries and a pair of cheap plastic wheels. These wheelie-sliding-zippy-wiggles are by no stretch of the imagination even in the same category as hoverboards. I don't like them. They're annoying and unnecessary and I want them to go away.
