Watches are Dead
Yes, that's right. Does anyone wear watches anymore? I'm not sure many people do. Okay, some people do. Sure. But think en masse. Do the majority of folks out there wear a watch on a day-to-day basis? My theory is this: no. Watches, like fiction, like valor, like, ummm, other things, are dead.
What has caused the death of the watch, once one of the prized possessions of the business jet-setter? It's pretty simple. The cell phone. Take me, for example. I have a watch and I do very much like to wear it when I dress nicely. (It's a nice watch, after all, some would say a dress watch.) But on a day to day basis, when I'm wearing jeans or shorts, I don't wear a watch. I've got a cell phone in my pocket that has a clock and so I don't need the extra leather on my skin. I'm pretty sure that I'm one of many who feels no need for the former star of the arm, the watch.
In this way, I'm a child of my generation. We are not only dissimilar from our parents' generation in our worldview or our basic attitude to life, but in our accessories. We have a whole electronic array of items that would have been totally foreign to our grandparents. Transport us to the 1940s and they would think that a species of aliens had landed, replete with little white rope coming out of our ears and strange rectangles located at nearly all times by our ears. Perhaps more than that, they would have struggled to understand the attitudes that undergirded those accessories. We are such a communicative generation: an instrument that merely tells time we cannot abide. And thus the watch, like so many other things, goes to die, ticking softly all the way.
What has caused the death of the watch, once one of the prized possessions of the business jet-setter? It's pretty simple. The cell phone. Take me, for example. I have a watch and I do very much like to wear it when I dress nicely. (It's a nice watch, after all, some would say a dress watch.) But on a day to day basis, when I'm wearing jeans or shorts, I don't wear a watch. I've got a cell phone in my pocket that has a clock and so I don't need the extra leather on my skin. I'm pretty sure that I'm one of many who feels no need for the former star of the arm, the watch.
In this way, I'm a child of my generation. We are not only dissimilar from our parents' generation in our worldview or our basic attitude to life, but in our accessories. We have a whole electronic array of items that would have been totally foreign to our grandparents. Transport us to the 1940s and they would think that a species of aliens had landed, replete with little white rope coming out of our ears and strange rectangles located at nearly all times by our ears. Perhaps more than that, they would have struggled to understand the attitudes that undergirded those accessories. We are such a communicative generation: an instrument that merely tells time we cannot abide. And thus the watch, like so many other things, goes to die, ticking softly all the way.
posted by Owen at 5:35 PM
2 Comments:
Also, watches are uncomfortable. At least on my spindly arms, it slides up and down unless it's ratcheted down so tight I lose circulation to the hand.
I think you have a definite meme going with the whole "...is/are dead" thing here. Keep it up!
Post a Comment
<< Home