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Comment by DrillShopper | Hacker News Reader

I guess the flip side of this is that you look like a fucking dork.

Life is way too short to spend it worrying about what other people think about this type of thing. Reality is, they almost never care and are far more concerned about their own problems than whether someone else looks like a dork.

I think that will fade. I don't know if you remember how mocked the airpods were when they first came out ("They look like q-tips"). All it'll take is a few celebrities spotted using one and they'll turn cool in no time.

You're not wrong, but I think there's at least a couple of orders of magnitude of awkwardness between the Airpods and the the Vision Pro that will have to be overcome, before the VP becomes mainstream.

There were times when going to an office wearing a T-shirt felt crazy, like going to an office while wearing a bikini, or wearing a clown attire, would be now. It changed maybe in late 1990s.

Things like these change very slowly, then suddenly, once the views of the perceived majority around most people change enough that the people start to see the new state as proper and confirmant, a new norm.

Imagine the first person wearing bell bottom jeans. Some folks just DGAF, and next thing you know ...

I don't think it will pass, but I think subsequent versions will be slimmer and less mock-prone. In 10 years people will look back at the first version the way people look back at the first bulky cell phones.

AirPods also make you look like a dork.

airpods at least had the equivocal wired headphones normalizing that look for a decade before they appeared.

I don't recall the AirPods ever being mocked. Why would they be, after years and years of almost identical-looking earbuds being sported in public?

But long before that we had DoucheTooth (or BlueTool, whichever you prefer) earpieces. Now those were mocked.

You can check out Reddit threads around the launch https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/51yazy/this_is_what_...

Depending on your circles. In many doing what a celebrity does means squat, or backfires. Better watch our peers.

Airpods aren’t cool though, the majority don’t wear them nor can they afford them.

You appear to be a bit unclear on what cool means.

Air pods are about as cool-looking as a hearing aid. At best, they're utilitarian.

Are you sure you’re not conflating cool with elitism?

Zillions of people are out there wearing cheap AirPod knockoffs too.

I don't think any ear buds are "cool", but certainly nobody cares, it's perfectly normal.

I was a high school computer nerd in the 80's. They all said that about me then too, and I didn't care.

But to your point, it will probably get slicker over time. For this one, they erred on the side of high fidelity, and they nailed it pretty well.

Oh, I have no doubt that it will get better over time, but I think people forget that part of the early adopter tax is often that you look like a fucking dork. Which in my mind isn't a bad thing - it shows that you're committed to making it work. There's something noble about that, wouldn't you say?

Upvote for doubling down on the "look like a fucking dork" phrase. I wasn't sure at first if this was self-deprecating humor, but now I am. Neeeeeerd!

"early adopter tax"- love that, may have to borrow it

And you're right! And some of us will happily pay that! It is the _bleeding_ edge, after all.

Yup, the person wearing one literally gets the “drives a cybertruck” spotlight.

At least the AVP seems like a reasonably engineered piece of equipment. The cybertruck has a seemingly unending list of flaws documented in /r/cyberstuck.

And yet the Cybertruck was the 3rd highest selling Electric vehicle in the US this year.

This says more about the average car buyer in the US than anything else to be honest.

That's not relevant, since the point of discussion is if enough people will buy the thing.

If it makes you look like a dork and yet it's the third most selling EV, you might blame the judgment of the average car buyer of the US (for whom you seem to have contempt), but you can't dispute that the product sold.

It's possible for those concerned with this to overcome it! Most people are way more focused on themselves than whatever a random person is wearing in public, and will likely forget the encounter the second they set foot off the plane.

Also be sure not to let anyone see you browsing HN.

HN isn't well-known outside deep tech circles. anyone who clocks you reading it probably reads it too.

So much judgment, but at least that won't change for me then

The main impediment I would experience to wearing this on a plane.

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