Sometimes all the bad news on the front pages of our nation’s papers really bums me out. Once in a while, though, a story comes along that restores my faith in mankind’s capacity for innovation in the effort to make this world a better place.
I recently came across just such a story. What was it about, you ask?
Good people of the RedEye readership, I give you the “butt cam.”
Perhaps you’ve heard of it already: A retailer of high-end jeans in Scottsdale, Ariz., has installed a camera that projects patrons’ denim-clad ends onto a large, flat-screen TV for critique before purchase. It warms my heart to see that our citizens are willing to finally look up from their navels … right into a big-screen display of their own rumps.
Hey, why not? We all know the whole idea behind (pun intended) a pair of jeans is to make our butts look better, right?
The jeans at this particular clothing store run from $135 to $900. For that kind of dough, you definitely want to be sure your buns turn out right. (Although personally, I think anyone willing to pay $900 for a pair of jeans doesn’t need a butt cam, they need a shrink.)
At least this new foray into narcissism frees us from employing that time-honored and bizarre test of friendship, in which we basically require our nearest and dearest to lie to us.
“Hey, does my butt look fat in these jeans?”
Bottom line on your bottom is this: If you have to ask if your butt looks fat, you probably already know the answer. Likewise, if you have to ask for the butt cam with the wide-angle lens, well, don’t try to blame the jeans. But if someone had thought of this earlier, we could’ve avoided the last several years’ worth of muffin-top overkill.
I’d like to take the whole idea further, actually. Who hasn’t had the (dis)pleasure of seeing someone who has clearly not logged enough miles on his bike parading around in spandex cycling shorts? We need a spandex cam. How about a back-of-the-head cam? There are plenty of people out there who think their ‘dos stop at their ears, oblivious to the fact that the rest of their hair looks like it got caught in a ceiling fan.
We could have a cankles cam, a nose-hair cam, a batwing (that jiggly bit that hangs from the back of the arm) cam so we know when we’ve stayed too long at the sleeveless dance, a beer-belly cam for the wife-beater aficionado … the possibilities are infinite.
I foresee a day when we can walk down the street hooked up to an entire bank of personal monitors, ogling our every move from every angle, perhaps blogging about it at the same time. YouTube will be bursting with butt-and-body cam footage.
The irony is, everyone will be so wrapped up in watching themselves, no one will notice how great you look in your jeans.
READER FEEDBACK
How much does that ‘freebie’ really cost?
Thanks for “Deal Estate,” (Sept. 8 cover story) by Emily Hiser Lobdell. I appreciate Andra Naylor’s comment that she would have purchased her condo even without the flat-screen TV “bonus.” Readers should know that developers who offer “$5,000 in free upgrades” or TVs don’t pay retail price for these things.
That $5,000 is how much it would cost the ordinary Joe, not how much the developers pay. And the cost of these extras are built into the condo’s price. So the buyer isn’t truly receiving a deal. As a person who still cannot afford current condo prices, I’ll keep hoping that someone will want to sell me something with the $5,000 off the price itself, and I’ll save them from having to throw in a “free” scooter.
ELIZABETH GATTI, 30-SOMETHING, RAVENSWOOD
