For the record, I just want to state that the gamer and gadget geek in me does get excited to see what #CES2015 will showcase. At the age of 1 I was working the newest gadget at the time, the VCR.. I love gadgets and as a programmer I can't live without them. I don't hate CES and I know it was CES that brought about an even better convention, E3 when E3 broke from it in the 90's. Yet, I feel that there is an unspoken roll of the eyes that me and others who actually work in this industry have when we see CES is going on since...the reality of what happens after it, is what we have to deal with.
Of the thousands of companies trying to catch everyone's attention, we probably will only see 1 or 2 actual groundbreaking products... if we are so lucky. This fact won't stop the barrage of products and product lists that will soon barrage those of us who have to add this shit to websites, data lists and inventory systems at our respected jobs. Retailers this time of year seem to also have a yearly recurrence of amnesia, simultaneous stroke or whatever it may be.. and freak the fuck out that everyone did indeed spend all their money during the holidays and yes, like every fucking year, sales will drop in the weeks following the holiday rush. Companies across the states cut their nose despite their face by cutting or firing people whom they'll need right back again when the inevitable rush returns again.
I've worked for a long time in the pro camera industry and this industry is probably the worst when it comes to it's yearly amnesia...something the retailers, sales reps and manufacturers try to remedy with the popularity of CES. In an industry that's already bloated with mostly unneeded accessories for your accessories' accessories.. what is suppose to be a convention that could bring the brightest minds in technology together, instead becomes a fervor of snake oil salesmen that only bastardize the replace-a-marginally-better-product-a-month-later-with-another-only-marginally-better-model that the pro camera industry thrives on. Those of us who work in this industry instead see CES as an oncoming storm of mostly bullshit to add to the already convoluted product lists that were flipped over & replaced just a few months prior. We will hear no end to the sales reps touting how their product is the next best thing and should be featured ahead of the hundreds of other reps saying the same god damn thing. By the time April comes along...all of this will be forgotten, replaced by a crazy emphasis on Mother's & Father's Days as electronics retailers & manufacturers once again come out of their yearly memory wiping stroke from the recent holiday rush...just to repeat the silly cycle come year's end.
Again, I do like seeing CES and some of the awesome gadgets that could come from it. I don't hate CES... just want you all to get an idea of the massive electronic excrement that people, at least in the pro camera industry, are about to shovel once the CES trends and hashtags are done this week.
This classic Onion News video (which this header image is from) sums it all up perfectly...
