Geek Rituals: Unboxing
Chapter: The Comic
Unboxing is so common these days. When did we start caring so much about capturing the act of removing components from its shipping container?
Does this behavior seem normal? Have you ever documented a tech purchase by snapping photos and blogging about it? What do you think about unboxing photos? Sound off in the comments below.
-Krishna
These beautiful and intelligent people wrote
Tell me what you think!
Ben
August 6, 2008 at 12:10 amThis is, I’ll be honest, something that really creeps me out about Tech Geek culture.
Jason Reed
August 6, 2008 at 1:37 amThe only computer I had to unbox for myself I didn’t even have internet yet. I was in my barracks after returning from Bosnia in 1996 with a fat wad of money in my bank account. I went to the store found the computer I wanted and told the sales guy “I want that computer” he asked “how do you want to pay for it? Credit? Finance?”, I said “Cashier’s check!” It came with so many extras I had to borrow a cart to take it the 500 meters back to my barracks :D
Theala Sildorian
August 6, 2008 at 8:17 amFor me, bragging consists of telling my PC enslaved friends how quickly I get up and running on the Internet after buying a Mac.
If I could just impress MIS at work, that would be something . . . ;)
Mike McBride
August 6, 2008 at 8:30 amI’m with Ben on this one, I’ve never really understood the fascination with unboxing photos. To me you’re just delaying the point where you have it unboxed, setup and are actually using it to do something!
Joseph Scully
August 6, 2008 at 8:33 amLOL unboxing – brings back painful memories. Liking the new email format which now provides url link. Keep up the good work!
Mark
August 6, 2008 at 8:45 amNice comic! just one thing i would like to point out…
hermeneutics according to Wikipedia means: “the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts.”
i think you meant hermetically sealed, which is an air tight seal.
by the way i love to unbox new things, but not quite like that :)
can’t wait for the next comic!
Krishna
August 6, 2008 at 8:49 amThanks for the heads-up, Mark. I’ll fix it asap. :)
krishna
August 6, 2008 at 10:05 amTrivia question: Can anyone name the first person to document the ‘unboxing’ experience on the web?
(I have no idea myself – but I’m curious to know when this phenomenon started)
Martin
August 6, 2008 at 11:02 amWhen I unbox things, I’m usually in such a hurry to get everything up and running that I don’t have time for photos. I did take pictures of a friend’s unboxing, though.
What are the funny-looking blobs next to the words “manner” and “internet” in panels two and four?
krishna
August 6, 2008 at 11:05 amhey, thanks for the catch, Martin – I was originally planning to put addendums to those panels, but forgot to remove them after I finished the ‘toon.
WilR
August 6, 2008 at 11:52 amI totally documented my last unboxing, it was just new ram and graphic card though…
good memories :P
madbard
August 6, 2008 at 1:56 pmi can kind of understand it for stuff like the first iPod or first iPhone… i haven’t documented my own unboxings but i did post to my blog when i set up my iMac G4 because i was so pretty. the iLamp never did became an iconic image like the iMac G3 egg before being superceded by the iMac G5 form factor.
kShadhavar
August 6, 2008 at 2:08 pmI kind of did this with my laptop purchase a couple months ago. But only took pictures after it was unpackaged so that my friends who were interested could see my linux laptop. If it had been a dell or some other such namebrand I probably would not have done even that. I did use twitter for updates, but not a step-by-step process. It was more like “Yay shiny new toy!”
Photos are kind of funny, but interesting when they are of the unboxing of something I’m thinking about getting. Especially when one is thinking about getting something from a relatively unknown vendor. For example when I was considering purchasing a system76 laptop, I did look at a couple of blogs with unboxing photos and reviews.
krishna
August 6, 2008 at 3:23 pmI think the original intent surrounding documenting the unboxing experience was a good one, for the very points you make kShadhavar. However, it now seems as if everyone wants to chronicle and share their unboxing moments with all the web. And I do admit, I’m guilty as charged for doing this.