Weekly News Digest: Pink Popstars and Visual Anthropreneurs
Digest updates
It’s been a week of high culture and low effort in the peripheral world. While Razer tries to court K-Pop stans with pink plastic, Logitech is paying people to paint “connections” in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Keychron has apparently just discovered the concept of a user manual. Let’s look at the garbage.
Razer x BLACKPINK: Play in Pink
Razer has announced a collaboration with K-Pop juggernaut BLACKPINK. The press release is a masterpiece of corporate nonsense, promising “exclusive limited-edition co-branded gear that merges cutting-edge performance with bold, pink-forward aesthetics.”
Translation: They painted existing mice pink, slapped a logo on them, and will charge you a 40% “Blink” tax. They claim this gives gamers “new ways to express themselves,” because nothing says individuality like buying the same mass-produced peripheral as 50 million other fans.
Logitech’s “Visual Anthropreneur”
In San Francisco, Logitech sponsored a “Winter Walk” where they hired a “street muralist and visual anthropreneur” (a title I am mostly sure they invented to justify the invoice) to paint a mural outside their Experience Store. The art features a “red thread” connecting people.
It’s heartwarming stuff. Unfortunately, that “red thread” is actually a USB cable, and it connects you directly to Logitech’s Q4 revenue targets. They try to spin the MX Master 4 into the narrative, claiming the haptics make the artist feel “in the work.” I’m sure the mouse is great, but let’s not pretend scrolling through Excel is a spiritual journey.
Keychron Discovers Documentation
Keychron spent the week flooding their blog with groundbreaking tutorials like “How to Remap a Key” and “How to Set Backlight.” It’s adorable. After years of selling keyboards that required a PhD in QMK to configure, they have finally realized that maybe—just maybe—explaining how their “Launcher” software works is a good idea.
They still haven’t fixed the software itself, which remains a web-based beta mess, but at least now there is a blog post explaining exactly how broken it is. Baby steps.
The Verdict
If you buy the pink Razer mouse, you are a victim of marketing. If you buy the Keychron, you are a victim of software. And if you are a “visual anthropreneur,” please email me. I have so many questions.
