On mechanical keyboards and consumerism

As part of my “learning more about the world and robotics” era, I went on a shopping spree trying to redefine myself.

Imitating my CS idols

It started after our first CCBR east coast meeting. Ryan had brought his mechanical keyboard to CAD with, and had let me clack around on his keyboard. It felt so satisfying to type on.

So—my admiration for his 160 WPM, and for his intelligence in general, led me to latch onto the idea that I could approach a fraction of his cracked-ness if I just bought the right peripherals.

My first mechanical keyboard!

So after 4 hours of reddit research and listening to keyboard ASMR videos, I convinced my mom to buy me the Rainy75 mechanical keyboard.

• I was sold by the “it sounds like raindrops” claim, which mixes both my audiophile nature and my dripping melancholy.

The (abridged) anatomy of a mechanical keyboard

It tied into my goal of wanting to learn more about hardware and robotics, and I parsed together that mechanical keyboards are really not that complicated.

They’re just a PCB (printed circuit board)

• connecting keys (switches + keycaps) to a controller
  • switches are the thing which send electric signals to the controller when you press down on the key
  • keycaps are the cover atop the switches, giving the board its aesthetic flair
• housed in a board

and people ‘mod’ their keyboards by adding foam/tape between the board and the pcb to achieve certain sounds.

The quest for the perfect keyboard

Keycaps

It didn’t stop there though, and I spent the next two weeks spending 2-3hrs/day scrolling through AliExpress, Drop, KBDfans, (…) searching for the perfect keycaps and switches to express my personality.

For keycaps, I eventually settled on this set of Evangelion caps.

• I was in my “I like tastefully bold colors” era
• it was a cool design that hearkened back to my adolescent love for anime
• and the themes of depression and loneliness in Evangelion resonated with me on a surface level (I never actually finished the show)

Switches

But… now the only problem was that the Rainy75 came pre-packaged with linear switches, which sounded beautiful! But I kept making mistakes, accidentally pressing keys.

For context, the three main types of mechanical keyboard switches are:

• Linear - Constant up/down motion
  • “Thockier” sounds
• Tactile - You feel a bump sensation at the bottom
  • “Clackier” sounds
• Clicky - The switch snaps back into place
  • “Clicky” sounds

(Here is a helpful video for comparison)

After doing another day of research, I decided tactiles would be the best tradeoff between sound and practicality, and I ordered a set of Gateron Quinns. Classified as tactile switches, they

• allegedly had the thocky sound of linear switches
• while retaining the satisfying bottom out of tactiles.

Justifying it as a “productivity investment” and a promise to stop doomscrolling AliExpress, I bit the bullet and dropped $280 on these two sets of plastic.

All in all, the finished keyboard looked pretty nice.

Doomscrolling continues

A smart tech echo chamber

Unfortunately, my doomscrolling did not end there.

I had redownloaded Instagram after a year of being off it, in the name of doing “research” for my hackathon’s reels marketing campaign. But I inevitably got sidetracked into different facets of the Instagram explore page, and I got sucked into the cool-but-unnecessary gadget side of the app.

I saw cute innovative pencil sharpeners from a Japanese creator called mitiru66.

And watched an Asian guy rate whether viral products were worth the hype or not.

Above: “Ball of duty”

The smart wallet

After spending hours each day watching these kinds of videos, I ended up getting inundated with advertisements for this smart wallet.

It caught my eye for many reasons:

• It was functional, could stick to the back of my phone, and popped my cards out with a slick trigger on the bottom
• It was sleek and represented my principle of simplicity / minimalism
• Plus it has a topographic design! Which reminded me of my time working on Walkwise and on my love of math.

So after a week of deliberating, I went to my parents again, begging them to buy it for me. And to buy not only one, but two (with their buy-one-get-one 70% off + free shipping deal).

Post-purchase clarity

Hook, line, and sinker

I felt like such a sucker afterward. After looking down on people who buy useless shit for so long, I had fallen prey to the same trap. I was targeted,

• hook (my “identity”)
• line (Instagram)
• and sinker (last minute BOGO deals).

Manufactured needs

I’m not a different person as a result of either my mechanical keyboard nor my smart wallet. Hell, I mostly bought them to quell my poking desire to own them, and to stop wasting time searching for alternatives.

But these were artificial needs, especially curated by the all-encroaching algorithm—trained on maximizing screen time and stupid purchases.

• I already had my MacBook keyboard
• And I already had a magnetic card holder for god’s sake. I bought TWO of these things.

And I realized it stems from the greater issue that the ad-revenue-based incentives of Instagram are simply not aligned with our own.

Instagram creates its own hierarchical social ecosystem based on likes and followers—pushing certain creators, messages, and products to the top based on how much advertising space they pay for.

And ultimately, this social media machine sustains itself by artificially manufacturing certain emotions out of us, and exploiting them to better sell us certain products.

And the consequences of my actions

I was spending so much time on Instagram, AliExpress, and Amazon—searching for the perfect set of peripherals—that I was falling behind in my research work.

But I did receive many compliments on both my keyboard and my wallet…so who’s to say.