Why My New Computer Screen is Flat'n'Square

Upon first reading about this beast called "blobject," I immediately pictured the old computer monitor I swapped out last year when someone who had a flatscreen got fired. Such a space saver, this new monitor! Of course it never occured to me that its design was part of an evolution of the blobject. I just like that I can pick it up and turn it around to show it to students and that I can hang things off its edges. It's much more useful to me.

Now, the concept of the blobject is a bit alluring, I have to admit. I picture little pods of happiness eminating vibes of cushy protectiveness, benevolent body snatchers perhaps. Colorful, mass-produced, reality shielding objects are strangely appealing, if for nothing else their "cuteness." The VW Bug is cute; the tiny squishy frog on my secretary's desk is cute (bulging eyes and all.) That is why two nights ago, I went on an unofficial blobject hunt. A blobject hunt would be fun, I thought.

I thought for sure I would find an abundance of blobby, mass-produced objects with curvy lines - cars, toys, housewares, anything! Of course, the moment of the blobject is supposed to be past, but I live in Reading, Pennsylvania, and we're about 5 years behind the style of everywhere else.

My daughters, five and three, have many blobjects. There is a dance-cam, which records dancing and singing and show it on the TV screen live-time. Very blobby. There are microphones, baby doll bottles with curvy bottoms and handles, and even their crocs shoes. Their little kid laptops are smooth and rounded; they have pod chairs. And there are many, many tiny rounded plastic things in the two drawers where I throw the crap they accumulate over the year from vending machines and dollar stores. Sometimes, especially when I ask them to help clean up, my children themselves are blobjects.

However, once I stepped outside of my house, blobby objects were a little harder to come by, which either means we're still stuck in Art Deco or Art Deco has been revitalized for 2009.

Perhaps technology has reached the innermost recesses of Reading's human existence and has moved on. My Jeep Liberty still has a bubbly quality to it, but she's a bit old now in the model's first iteration. The new ones are much more boxy, as are most of the cars I see on my blobject hunt. Even the gas savers like the Suzuki Crossover, while preserving some rounded edges, are overall pretty angular. The same goes for the computers I looked at, the mp3 players, even the furniture at the mall.

I wonder if the blobject has fulfilled its duty and suffered a slow seeping of gas after the tech bubble finally burst. Have we realized our blobby objects and the "comfort" they provided us don't help as much as we would have liked them to? Have we decided the minimalist blobject works better, upping the function and relegating form to a secondary importance? It's possible, and likely I think, that in a post 9/11 world, we think about necessity more than beauty when it comes to our gadgets. In a world this complex, our stuff doesn't need to be. We like it simple, easy to approach, and portable. Smaller, less flash, more substance. We keep what we value close to home instead of on vaudville for all to bomb.

That, or we're more space conscious. Curvy lines take up more space. Giant blobs of monitors hog desk space. Couldn't it just be that it's cool to be able to make mini things? Flatter things? Things that take up too much space on our crowded earth? Well, whatever the reason, I appreciate my new flat and square computer monitor. I can't say I feel comforted by it, but it's useful nonetheless.