The family user: the design icon is back
30.4.2019
Translation: machine translated
The family user is the classic among useless products. It is a ... thing. For the gentleman, for the lady, for the child. That's all you need to know. Right?
This family favourite has been unjustly forgotten, but is now finally in our range. The design classic from the 60s and 70s impresses with the following key specs:
- beautiful shape
- weatherproof
- silent
- kind to the skin
- easy to clean
- completely purpose-free
- also removable for an extra charge
In addition, the family user has many other advantages that the manufacturer fails to mention. For example:
- 100% vegan
- lead-free
- without aluminium salts
You've already guessed it: the family user consists of nothing but marketing
.
The family user was invented and marketed by a certain gracious Mrs Bartels. However, her graciousness was minimised when her ground-breaking invention was not given the respect it deserved.
Price and availability
The inventor of the family user was invented by Loriot and therefore both the family user and its inventor only exist virtually. Today, in the age of 3D printing, this can fortunately be changed very easily. That's exactly what we did. We printed out the family user.
Unfortunately, we are not yet ready for industrial mass production with our 3D machinery. To be honest, we only had a simple hobby 3D printer on the editorial team, and only temporarily for testing purposes. And anyway, strictly speaking it would be a fake from the family user, which is legally tricky. For these reasons, the wonderfully purpose-free and beautifully designed product is unfortunately not currently available.
But that doesn't matter at all, because as I said, it's all about marketing. There's no need for any real content. If you still want to call a family user your own, you can make one yourself using any 3D printer and this 3D template. It then costs next to nothing.
As far as I know, there is no 3D model of Mrs Bartels. What a pity.
More product innovations from Loriot
No one poked fun at the stuffy bourgeoisie of the post-war period like Loriot. This included parodying questionable products and their marketing. For example, Loriot recommended the "Lord automatic dinner jacket bow-tie with 0.5 hp motor and downdraft carburettor" as a gift idea and wrote: "However, the high consumption of lubricant makes the purchase of the device unprofitable." As usual with him, the comedy only comes from the combination of text and image.
Also not bad: The extremely impressive SUSI II family armoured car.
Or the "President 3000 TS". In addition to its outstanding driving characteristics, the car also offers safety: "Full occupant protection in critical situations is the most impressive feature of the Präsident 3000 TS. In the event of a hard impact at speeds of over 30 km/h, the vehicle disintegrates into harmless pea-sized particles. Bruises and cuts are excluded."
The examples are from this book.
And pseudo-innovation beckons forever
Loriot's comedy from the post-war period has aged surprisingly well. It shows that absurd pseudo-innovations are by no means something new. Of course, these products never existed; but there must have been corresponding trends, otherwise the humour would not have been understood at the time. <p
David Lee
Senior Editor
David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.chMy interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
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