Gift Guide
Time to return all these crappy holiday tech gifts to the dumpster
Just give me cash and get out.
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It’s the day after Christmas (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc.) and the gift hangover is real – like drinking a gallon of egg nog out of a bucket that was previously used for emptying out the septic tank of your great uncle’s RV, parked illegally on your lawn for the last week. There is a pile of lame-ass tech gifts because your family knows you work in tech so therefore, must want shitty tech-adjacent gifts, like Best Buy gift cards and electric cheese graters.
Gift giving, at its core, is a selfish endeavor. It’s a way to satisfy our own desire to be showered with empty praise and platitudes. While handmade gifts and odd but meaningful gifts throughout the year carve a different tone out of the gift turkey, piling on a bunch of crap on one specified day is just empty consumerism disguised as caring.
It’s bullshit. Your gifts are bullshit. If you care about someone, you’ll gift them whenever the urge strikes throughout the year and the gift will be meaningful. But most people haven’t reached that level of thought consciousness and prefer to load up our laps with junk on one or two days a year. If you got any of these gifts this year, you know no one really gives a sweet crap about your existence and are just looking for rough-handed coddling of their ego through shoddily wrapped things.
Facebook Portal
Image: Facebook
Are you fucking kidding me? Facebook is to privacy what pecan is to pie — 100% trash. It’s the Star Wars: Episode II of smart home devices. If you received a Facebook Portal as a gift, it means that someone hates you with the fire of 1000 suns and wants your life to be another tempting piece of taffy for Silicon Valley data farmers to pick at like vultures over an armadillo corpse.
Fitbit
Image: KnowTechie
Google recently purchased Fitbit, but that doesn’t change what is being said when you receive one as a gift. A Fitbit as a gift says: “I know I said you look great when I walked in the door, but in reality you are an unhealthy looking slob monster who brings shame upon my golden abductor muscles I wish I had because in reality, I’m projecting. Hold me.” A Fitbit is only an acceptable gift for someone who is on their feet all day, so you can remind them of how much that sucks by tracking it.
Apple iTunes Gift Cards
Possibly the laziest gift in the universe is gift cards. Gift cards are what you give your employees instead of holiday bonuses. Giving them to loved one or family sends a clear message that these people are nothing more than a hindrance to your existence. Not to mention that iTunes is dead. So if you received an iTunes gift card from someone this holiday season, you have explicit permission to mail it back to them in a box of excrement.
Any Bluetooth earbuds
Image: KnowTechie
Unless someone says to you, “please get me Bluetooth earbuds”, never buy headphones as a gift. Everyone has their personal preference when it comes to headphones, and right now for a lot of people it’s Airpods. While Airpod use is not about comfort (tis about status), most headphone users don’t want your slimy brain imagining the shape they like in their ears. And that shape will never be your craggled, yet oddly well-lotioned finger.
Weird USB Gifts
Image: KnowTechie
Get the fuck outta here with this crap. I hate you. This stuff isn’t even good enough for gag gifts at the office Christmas party. Janice might be drunk as shit and hitting on the printer, but even she wouldn’t want a USB Disco Ball, USB Clock Fan or a USB Salt Lamp. The worst one though? The USB Wacky Waving Tube Guy. If you gift this, you deserve to be punched. If you have this on your desk at work, everyone hates you and you’ve already leaned into that realization.
A refurbished Chromebook
Image: KnowTechie
Sure, I needed a paperweight, thanks. Chromebooks are great computers, for about six months. Then they are outmoded pieces of plastic that have little use outside of drink coasters. You can always find a cheap Chromebook so a used Chromebook as a gift is a clear insult. A kid wouldn’t notice, but as soon as they attempt to write their thesis on the existence of Santa versus modern sensibilities toward imaginary beings in Google Docs, the Chromebook will find itself in shards embedded in the drywall.
Digital Photo Frame
Even your grandparents have smartphones now, even if they poke at them like they are mixing a cube of ice into a glass of scotch. They don’t need a digital photo frame when they are already trolling Facebook all day and you can’t seem to stop posting pics of your unique flowers you call your offspring. A digital photo frame is so 2007. If you really want to gift someone the gift of viewing photos, get them a Pornhub Premium subscription. It’s better than looking at people you secretly abhor.
Did you get any shitty tech gifts this year? Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
Editors’ Recommendations:
- Epic Games is celebrating the holidays with 12 days of free games, discounts, and coupons
- Buy everyone on your holiday shopping list a Ninja Pressure Cooker, Steamer and Air Fryer
- 4 party games that will make you hate your friends this holiday season
- Evergreen holiday tech content with seasonal relativity
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