INTRO: This story is dual-purposed. And depending on who you are, you fall into one of two categories. You either own an Amazon Fire tablet…or you do not. My family and I fall into the former. If you do, as well, then I hope this will serve as a source of validation and empathy. You are not alone. And it’s not your fault. It’s not… your fault.
If you do not own one — let this serve as a cautionary tale that will hopefully prevent you from making a life mistake. May this article be your prom night condom. If you read this and still decide to buy a Fire tablet — then you and that tablet deserve each other. Because it’s a piece of shit, and you’re a stupid moron, and that’s an American marriage made in heaven.
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I meet a lot of parents who like to boast that they haven’t let their kids watch/use screens yet. Cool — the world is screens. Why don’t you just raise them in the middle of nowhere and teach them to eat people who enter the village waiving bibles?
My wife and I subscribe to a different philosophy. It’s called the “we’re exhausted all the time, and those ‘screens’ are all that’s standing between us and a mental breakdown” philosophy. We love screens. Being a good parent is all about being able to recognize that sometimes you have to be a shitty parent and take care of yourself. You gotta put your oxygen mask on first. So FUCK YOU, you cannibal-raising savages — I’m gonna hit this oxygen mask one more time like my sanity depends on it (because it does).
Speaking of oxygen masks — my family and I recently took a vacation. A vacation that involved an hour-long train ride to the airport. A five-hour flight to the destination. And then an hour-long drive to the resort. So yeah—we brought the fucking tablet. The tablet we purchased for our five year old son Giant?
The Amazon Fire tablet.
It comes in a kids edition; encased in a foam bomb-proof case that can supposedly be thrown off of a building. It’s affordable. It’s Prime compatible. It seems great. I mean — you can get about 6 of them for the price of one iPad. The only issue with it is that it’s a complete abomination. Aside from that, it’s perfect.
Let’s start with the exterior. Just because the outside is protected with a foam helmet that used to be reserved for kids with severe learning disabilities who rode giant tricycles, doesn’t mean that this brick of shit can’t self-destruct from the inside.
We bought our first one a few years back…
It was all fine. Things were going great. We took the tablet everywhere. But then the battery started to drain at an unusual pace. Then the app icons went from pictures of games and movies to just blue question marks. At this point, we should have turned back. We should have done the responsible thing, and tossed it over a bridge with a concrete block tied around its tablet ankles. But instead, we went back to Amazon. Hey fuckers – this shitty thing you sold us isn’t working. What did they do? Why, they sent us another one of course! The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yet….we just said thank you. We took our tablet and moved on. Once more unto the breach dear friends.
In the early days, our new tablet seemed perfect. Giant (our 5-year-old) was happy. It was like a movie – just the four of us. A family at brunch – peaceful. Taking a family vacation – peaceful. It was wonderful… until it wasn’t. It turns out that the second tablet was just as shitty as the first! It was like the movie Gremlins. Instead of just getting an iPad, we thought – NO. FUCK YOU. We’re going to pour water on this iPad and feed it after midnight so it shoots out these little shitty imitations of itself and ruins fucking Christmas. GOD DAMMIT I HATE THIS TABLET.
Our 2nd tablet was fond of telling us what the weather was in places we weren’t anywhere close to, freezing up, and having the sound not work. AMAZON. Bruh…GET YOUR AFFAIRS IN ORDER. (Speaking of affairs, Jeff – you fucked up man. If you wanted to set billions of dollars on fire, couldn’t you have also thrown the Amazon Fire Tablet blueprint on top of the flames?!)
How is this possible? How does a company that has ZERO want for resources, talent, and money fail so badly at making something that was already invented by someone else? Maybe the question we need to be asking isn’t how or what. It’s WHY. WHY DOES THIS TABLET SUCK SO MUCH ASS?
Let’s start simple here. Who came up with the name of this thing? The company — perhaps the largest and most recognizable tech company in the world, shares its name with the world’s largest rain forest. Do you know what goes great with forests? FIRE! The name of the Amazon tablet is the FIRE. Was the “Logger” taken? What about the “Locust”? Maybe the Amazon “European Hegemony of the South American People” — was that taken too? The AMAZON FIRE…ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! WHO GREENLIT THIS?
I thought about this—over and over again…like a trike-riding adolescent wearing a foam helmet contemplates spoons. And suddenly it all made sense. It goes like this: in the beginning, there was a meeting…
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SCENE: Bezos is in the war room with a couple of pizzas and all of his top notch product people. They all have been tasked with taking the new and exciting tablet home and using it extensively. As they sit around eating artisan gluten-free pizza—Jeff addresses the team:
JEFF: Okay —so what do we call it? Apple had the Mac…what do we call our tablet that wears a helmet? Yes—Craig.
CRAIG: How about The Shit Brick? Because A) it’s a piece of shit and I hate it. And B) it actually makes a pretty good brick. I got so angry with it I threw it at my neighbor and now he’s in the hospital.
JEFF: Okay good—let’s keep em coming people. Yes, Dana—Go.
DANA: I asked my husband to give it a try and now he’s divorcing me.
JEFF: Sorry to hear that… so… no name idea then?
DANA: *sobs*
JEFF: Okay … right there in the back—Armando.
ARMANDO: Yeah…I took mine home and my wife ran away with another man who she said she could actually respect. So I set it on fire in a fit of rage. Then I threw it in a dumpster and it burned down a building. So I was thinking we could call it the “DUMPSTER FIRE.”
JEFF: YES—Why didn’t I think of it before. The Amazon FIRE. That way we’ll give these poor souls the only key to defeat it… and it sounds fucking awesome.
ARMANDO: I’m now living in a hotel and I only get to see my son every other weekend—
JEFF: I think we got it team…
ARMANDO: I’m also being prosecuted for arson.
JEFF: Now go see if you can make the Echo suck less!
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*I can’t comment on whether this transcription is completely accurate, but let’s just say that I don’t know that this DIDN’T happen.
Look—I understand Amazon is a major corporation that is run by a bald napoleonic genius who could crush me like a bug. But this company started as an online bookstore. Apple started out building computers. Google built a search engine. Amazon sold books. Which of these things is not like the others (and probably shouldn’t be building out highly technical consumer experiences)? So…I suppose the amount of suckage that their tablet sucks is forgivable. Here is not what’s forgivable. NAMING YOUR AMAZON TABLET THE FIRE! GOD DAMMIT I HATE THIS TABLET!
Death By Content 