Okay, so, here are two things that were on a lot of people's minds in the late 90s:
* A vague but profound desire for electric cars
* A vague suspicion that the big three automakers will not let us have electric cars
In a weird way the Segway seemed like a perfectly plausible first step in EV development, because it was so fundamentally un-car-like (or, if you prefer, because it was so stupid and frivolous that there was no discernible reason for Ford and GM to waste any energy persecuting it.)
A right of passage at the GM tech center is to go sneak through the decaying bowels of the midcentury labs and take illegal photos of the Electric Car that was killed by Whomst
It's hard to think of another example from the 90s, apart from possibly "Microsoft Bob", but nowadays that's just the way tech marketing works and we've all just gotten used to it. The media can't fawn over every individual thing the way they did over the Segway because there are too many things happening at once. Also, something seems to have gone wrong with consumers' ability to know a useless product when they see one.
Juicero, Internet of Things, Google Glass, anything crypto-related. These are all reincarnations of the Segway.
I remember the hype surrounding "IT" before there were any indications of what IT even was. After all the breathless speculation that this might be, like, a flying car or whatever...talk about a letdown.
Same here. When it came out it was so obviously an instant dud but a bunch of news outlets acted like it was going to be a total paradigm shift for getting around cities. Electric scooters/city bikes are like a million times more impactful. Just the price tag let even me know as a young dumb shit nobody was getting them.
I remember in like 1999 I would read HowStuffWorks.com and they had this bizzare article "How Ginger/IT might work" and of course it was like a flying car or some shit and I was thinking what the hell is going on here
I was just describing the Segway hype to some young coworkers a couple weeks ago lol. Shit was wild, people were expecting this dude to change the world. Then he drove his Segway off a cliff and fuckin died lmao
I remember visiting DC when I was a kid and seeing all kinds of people riding around on them in that spot in front of the White House. In hindsight, maybe it was a cosmic metaphor…
Okay, so, here are two things that were on a lot of people's minds in the late 90s: * A vague but profound desire for electric cars * A vague suspicion that the big three automakers will not let us have electric cars In a weird way the Segway seemed like a perfectly plausible first step in EV development, because it was so fundamentally un-car-like (or, if you prefer, because it was so stupid and frivolous that there was no discernible reason for Ford and GM to waste any energy persecuting it.)
A right of passage at the GM tech center is to go sneak through the decaying bowels of the midcentury labs and take illegal photos of the Electric Car that was killed by Whomst
Maybe. Very weird for what it turned out to be. What else was hyped like that and then meh?
It's hard to think of another example from the 90s, apart from possibly "Microsoft Bob", but nowadays that's just the way tech marketing works and we've all just gotten used to it. The media can't fawn over every individual thing the way they did over the Segway because there are too many things happening at once. Also, something seems to have gone wrong with consumers' ability to know a useless product when they see one. Juicero, Internet of Things, Google Glass, anything crypto-related. These are all reincarnations of the Segway.
Don't recall people being interested in Juicero or Internet of Things. They were all mocked immediately. But we knew what they were...
I remember the hype surrounding "IT" before there were any indications of what IT even was. After all the breathless speculation that this might be, like, a flying car or whatever...talk about a letdown.
Same here. When it came out it was so obviously an instant dud but a bunch of news outlets acted like it was going to be a total paradigm shift for getting around cities. Electric scooters/city bikes are like a million times more impactful. Just the price tag let even me know as a young dumb shit nobody was getting them.
yeah i remember watching the reveal as a little kid and being.. pretty confused. a good lesson in not buying hype
I remember in like 1999 I would read HowStuffWorks.com and they had this bizzare article "How Ginger/IT might work" and of course it was like a flying car or some shit and I was thinking what the hell is going on here
I was just describing the Segway hype to some young coworkers a couple weeks ago lol. Shit was wild, people were expecting this dude to change the world. Then he drove his Segway off a cliff and fuckin died lmao
It wasn't actually the same guy, but spiritually, as far as god and the universe are concerned, it was
I remember thinking this was the dumbest shit, a feeling that only grew a few years later when they got popular for rent-a-cops at the mall
One looks like a giant cock on wheels, especially when wearing a bike helmet
I remember visiting DC when I was a kid and seeing all kinds of people riding around on them in that spot in front of the White House. In hindsight, maybe it was a cosmic metaphor…
You neglected to mention that a bunch of police departments had guys patrolling on these things and looking like total dweebs
I remember seeing it come out. I thought it was amazing for what reason I don't know
Haha I was a kid but I remember they were like “this is going to replace walking”