Celebrity-branded tech products that shouldn't exist
Can you resist the growing plague of celebrity tech products? Crave writer Amanda Kooser dives into the murky, leopard-print waters of star-studded gear that should never have made it into the spotlight.
Celebrities can't all be Dr. Dre. His Beats by Dre line of headphones has managed to be accepted with a minimal amount of ridicule, thanks in part to the relatively sedate designs. Many celebrity-branded gadgets, however, completely bypass any attempt at practicality and leap straight into a big vat of absurdity.
Celebrities seem to be especially attracted to headphones, probably because they're relatively simple and stand out when you wear them. Consider the new Snooki Couture line, for example. Among the zebra-print earbuds and rhinestone phone accessories, there's a leopard-print headband headphone set with a big cat bow on top. I want to wash my retinas out with soap.
Snooki is far from being the only culprit. Everyone from Usain Bolt to Shaq to Justin Bieber has tied themselves to some gadget or another. In Shaq's case, it was a whole video game, which is still a contender for one of the worst fighting games ever developed. Feast your senses upon Shaq-Fu.
The success of most celebrity-branded products is based on a mutual hallucination between manufacturers and consumers. We all know Snooki isn't hanging around in a lab, working shoulder-to-shoulder with audio engineers to bring us the absolute best leopoard-print headband headphones in creation. Yet, people still buy them.
At the minimum, I would like to call an end to celebrity headphones. Unless, of course, George R.R. Martin wants to release a special-edition GRRM line of headphones made from the headphones of his fallen enemies. That would be OK.
Let's take a journey through the heart of celebrity tech-product darkness. I've gathered together some of the worst, silliest, and most entertaining offenders. You might want a buddy along for emotional support as you peruse the gallery. Don't say I didn't warn you.
