It’s Not A Car, It’s A “Mobile Device”

First Published 8-8-09

So I was reading my new issue of GameInformer the other night, and I got to the final page when I realized I was faced with an uncertain future. For reasons I can scarcely explain, I felt a sudden dread to close the magazine and view the back page. Was the magazine that good that I simply didn’t want it to end? Was the back page completely blank, dashing my hopes for squeezing a few more seconds of enjoyment out of my subscription? Maybe I had heard a rumor that the back page of this particular issue contained subliminal imagery of pig sex? Or worse, blatant imagery of pig sex? Did you know that pigs have dicks like curly-cues? They’re shaped just like their tails. While normal animals just screw, pigs get to corkscrew. I thought it was weird at first, but then I heard that when a pig has an orgasm, it lasts 30 minutes. I don’t know if that’s because of their corkscrew member or not, but it wasn’t quite enough to inspire me to twist my dick and find out. It’s these kinds of thought patters that made me dread the back page in the first place. I knew, deep down, call it intuition, that something was about to go terribly wrong.

I turned the back cover.

I was right.

I was face to face with a leather car interior with FAR too many gadgets, add ons, shag carpet dashboard pads, and other pointless decor cluttering its surface. Above it in proud, bold letters was the crowning achievement in bullshit, reading verbatim as follows: CUBE MOBILE DEVICE.

What the fuck is a Mobile Device?

I thought smart phones were mobile devices? What is this, a car that fits in your pocket? Can you play Angry Birds on it? Apparently, a “Mobile Device” is the new generation of trendy buzzword aimed at making already smug asshole drivers now even more smug because they are too good to drive a normal vehicle. Kind of like how hipsters are too cool to drink regular coffee, so they refine themselves on eight dollar “lattes” at Starbucks. These are the same douchebags who say an iPod isn’t an MP3 player. The same morons who shell out 100 bucks for an electric cigarette so they can smoke it inside during open-mic poetry night at the local tea shack/performing art museum downtown. This is the very same dipshit who never takes off his Bluetooth headset because he is so fucking important that he can never ever miss a call because if someone is calling someone as important as him, it must be an important call. First it was the PT Cruiser, then the Prius. Now all the trendies are getting their panties wet over the next generation of “chic”: The ever-uglier Nissan Cube.

Why is it that everything that looks really Boxxy these days is so stupid?

Why the hell would anyone in their right minds actually pay to be seen in one of those things? I just don’t understand how people can see that thing and think of anything except aborted Honda Element (another ugly van). Go figure, the ever-useless New York Times called the Cube:

“…accessible, fun and deeply strange in an authentically Japanese way…. The Cube is undiluted Tokyo chic, from its asymmetrical rear window to its shag-carpet dashboard pad to the bungee cords on the doors, which Nissan says are useful for holding ‘stuffed driving mascots’.”

Chopsticks weren’t enough, were they? We have to constantly suck at the teat of Japanese pop culture to add value to our shallow, meaningless lives, don’t we? And what’s this about stuffed driving mascots? As if those stupid Garfield suction cup stuffed animals old people put on their rear windshields weren’t bad enough. Now people need some sort of stupid “Avatar” to set their “Mobile Device” apart from other “Mobile Devices” like it’s a fucking Tumblr account..

Being a “Mobile Device” notwithstanding, Nissan further serves the social masturbation scene with this little gem of information: “According to Nissan designers, the interior is inspired by the enveloping curves of a jacuzzi to promote a comfortable and social atmosphere.” A mobile social club, what’s next? It’s a god damned van, not a local hot spot. You drive your worthless kids around in it, you don’t host gatherings or drum circles in it. My point being, why the fuck does a van need a social atmosphere in the first place? Only rapists would need a “social atmosphere” in the backseat of their van.

The Cube comes with a multitude of available options, that amongst those are an in-dash latte machine, an iPod-specific dock that filters your collection and only plays music with an acoustic guitar in it, a rubber dildo seat that fucks you in the ass while you drive, A GPS with your local Apple Store’s coordinates pre-programmed into it, and a push button starter, because keys are so 2008. Best of all, and this one is true: “a sculptured piece of color-coordinated shag carpet that sits in a shallow well on the top of the dash.” What the fuck purpose does a patch of shag carpet on the dashboard serve? Why the fuck would you want a random patch of hair on your car? Who the fuck enjoys shaving their “mobile device”? The last vehicles that had shag carpet in them were designed by VW as a place for homeless hippies to sleep in.

Now the most overlooked thing you get when you are stupid enough to purchase, let alone drive around in a Cube “Mobile Device” surprisingly isn’t the patch of colored ball hair on the dashboard. It wasn’t listed on the features, maybe because it is an intangible thing. The most prominent service it provides is a very easy way to lose all of your friends and dignity. Watch in awe as your social standing decreases right before your very eyes as even people who don’t know you well enough to see that you actually are a dipshit label you as a dipshit. “That must be a coincidence,” you think to yourself as the 22nd driver today jeers at you and your ugly van. “I don’t know this guy, but somehow he knows me. How else would he be able to tell that I’m a pushover?” I couldn’t fathom why.

To even question the audience this vehicle is geared towards would be pointless. In Canada, Nissan is sponsoring a contest where the 50 most “creative” contestants will win Cube “Mobile Devices.” The artsiest competitors win the vehicles, thus perpetuating the artsy-trendy cycle. Artsy losers love self important titles that make their stupid gadgets sound so much cooler than they really are, so they can walk aroundart shows and make people think they actually have something worth bragging about and not a set of pre-packaged “statements” some beret wearing fuck in an Apple R&D Department thinks is relevant.

It’s like calling a college a “center for higher learning,” a keg a “social catalyst,” a toothbrush a “gum disease prevention appliance.” A water bottle becomes a “personal hydration platform.” Condoms promote “social networking.” Lifting weights is now “body sculpting.” It’s all fucking stupid, like calling food a “nutritional transference mass” or calling a woman a “blowjob dispenser.” Hey I actually kind of like that one.