To be sure about what I was going to write, I watched (fragments) of a video somebody criticized in my timeline, linking to a post on a well-known site. They promoted a video of – in this case – a Swedish “tech youtuber” (as he describes himself) first dropping a heavy iron hammer on top of the screen of a brand new lipstick red Nokia Lumia 920 and banging it to death beating on its back cover later on.
I can hardly watch “demonstrations” like these, they make me sick and angry. I can see a valid point in seeing how a smartphone will hold when you accidently drop it. When the device isn’t damaged after the first drop, you might want to try it from a higher altitude.
But hitting the damaged device with a wooden stick to see if that will kill it, and throwing it at full force into a concrete wall to find out if that will actually ruin the screen – that’s pretty sick, senseless tech murder. I wrote about that test and about another tech murderer blowing the Nokia Lumia 920 to pieces with an AK 47 assault rifle. Like anything would stand a chance against that kind of violence.
And now this Swedish guy thinks it’s a pretty neat idea to bang his Nokia Lumia 920 to death with an iron hammer… This video has been watched almost 12.000 times already. There is some hope though: many reactions on his video are negative, telling the maker it’s pointless. In his defence, he writes: “as long as people are interested in seeing what happens it’s not pointless“. Well, I wonder.
Many people have a natural born fascination with violence, death and evil in general. I’m no psychologist, but it’s quite clear videos like these have no other, let alone scientific value at all. And I see no point in promoting this useless violence by linking to it either – unless you run a website on the decadent destruction of high tech gadgets most people have to save their money for a long time to be able to buy, if they’ll ever be able to do so. If you have this kind of money to spare: give it to charity.
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The people making those videos are making up the value of the phone with profit from the ad revenue. They’re not about to donate it to charity when they can make money buying a phone, creating a video destroying the phone, and recoup not only the cost of the phone but enough money to live on. Most videos like that are made by professional “YouTubers”, who’s day job is making videos.
Seeing the extent of what the phone can stand up to is interesting, but obviously the only way to test it creates the possibility that the phones will break. And in the end, the videos are really a big win for Nokia: they sell a phone and get free advertising.
In any case, the videos aren’t going to go away while there is money to be made from making them.
People are making money with it because they are popular for some odd reason – the natural born fascination with violence, death and evil in general I already mentioned. That’s why I’m not promoting those videos.
People want to see what their hardware can stand up to. If a phone can survive being dropped from head-height, run over with a car, beaten with a hammer and being hit with a plank of wood, there’s a good chance it will survive being in your pocket in daily use.
A video of someone breaking a toaster or a blender in the same way, despite having the same amount of “violence, death and evil”, wouldn’t get anywhere near as many views because no one cares about the durability of their kitchen appliances that only sit in a cupboard all day.
Come on: beating it to death with a hammer, blowing it to pieces with an AK-47, does not in any way equal anyone’s pocket in daily use.
Nice point.
I take it you have never uploaded a video on youtube.
Lmao if the amount was recovered and well paid in. 25k views .
I agree human’s do have fascination towards violence, destruction etc.
That is nothing new, what i wouldnt agree is if the author claimed he is free of that nature.
I do agree. It is pure wasting of resources and money to do such things… However, some might look at those in terms of solidity criteria, which is as far as I understand one of the key strength of Nokia phones. I generally have my Nokias dropped a few times in their life, and non of them broke. It is not the case of the other phones I got (Got 3 BlackBerry dead or partially dead each one on a single fall, and one HTC which was still working but requiring a repair to be used comofortably)… So I can understand some people searching for such information. It doesn’t excuse however the behavior of the people who waste the money and the device while some are desperated to get their hands on one…
Completely whole-heartedly agree with the last line.
Right, even it tends me to go and watch it, I fully agree with your article. Ussually I avoid lots of videos or even movies I don’t agree with just not to increase number of views.
My cat does that tooo!
She closes her eyes and feels no ones watching her!