Commando Camera!
What is with the trend of putting camouflage on virtually everything? Like this camera. I get it that the body of the camera is ruggedized, which is just a testosteronely way of saying they made it tougher. Obviously designed for butterfingers like me who will inevitably drop it so that it falls twenty feet and smashes against some rocks. Then the manufacturer can say, well, yes it is ruggedized, but only for a drop from two meters into a pile of down pillows. So I understand all that, but what I don’t get is, why is it camouflaged?
Nowadays, I see camouflage popping up all over, like a particularly unloved virus. The other day I was in line behind a guy at the airport and he was carrying a set of three bags, all camo, from Field and Stream. And camouflage pants, either accessorized to match his luggage, or possibly because they were the only pair of long pants that he owns. I suppose he could have been setting off on a trip to the Russian Far Eastern Provinces to stalk the wily ultra-rare Amur leopard. Which seems rather unlikely, as he was boarding a flight to Orlando, which I can’t reconcile as any kind of starting point for a trip to the exotic Far East. But, in the name of all that is holy, why camouflage your luggage? I mean the theory, at least as I understand it, is that you camouflage things so that out in the wild, people, animals, remotely controlled drones, and such, can’t see you. Woodland pattern camouflage is considerably less effective in an urban environment. Kind of sticks out, since not too many Orlando hotel lobbies contain forest groves. And even if you were going somewhere to hunt, would you really take your luggage out in the forest with you?
Let’s face it, all this camouflaged stuff makes no sense because it was designed to appeal to guys. Guys think camouflage on anything is macho, even when the most expedition-like thing you do all day is to drive over to the Starbucks for a triple venti decaf soy latte. My theory is that, just like all men want to be James Bond, so too do they want to see themselves as the either the big game hunter, or a commando, or best of all, a commando big game hunter. Basically, camouflage is nothing more than a marketing tool designed to separate a man from his money by making even the most mundane article more manfully appealing.