Real-world bemusement...

[seawasp]

Amongst all the Nigerian and body-part enlargement spams, I also have been getting a large number of spams for Rolex (and other brand) watch replicas.

Is this actually anything that people in any numbers CARE about? Wristwatches, I mean? I have an iPhone that tells time, most people I know have some form of cell phone, why the hell would anyone want a wristwatch that does nothing BUT tell time, and that costs as much as an iPhone did when they first came out?

Comments

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting for some smart-ass to come up with facial jewelry that's actually a phone.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

Look up "grillz". I bet you could put a phone into one. :)

[kengr]

Status symbol.

I use my cell phone for time when I'm not at home.

I've got a nice (cheap) "jewelry" type watch on a necklace that I wear with the ocasional outfit where my big clunky "guy" watch doesn't look right.

The big clunky watch is also the readout for a heart rate monitor chest band that I got for exercising.

(silly side note, I happened to be wearing the watch when a friend was wearing her monitor. Which was a completely different brand. Didn't even look much like mine. But if I was close enough, I could pick up her signal. Seems there's only *one* design out there...)

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Even a "Real" Rolex isn't a timepiece. It's jewelry that happens to tell time.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to being a wristwatch fetishist. I love a good timepiece, and if it has some style and class along with an accurate movement, I'm in heaven. I'd sell major organs for a TAG Heuer watch.

[claidheamhmor]

I love watches too, and I like analog timepieces in particular. I'm surrounded by time displays, on cellphone, computers, etc., but I still like looking at watches.

I do have a Rolex too - a 25-year-old one that was a gift from my father, and I love it. There's nothing to the "status" thing though; people nowadays don't notice watches and watch brands, and I'll bet that anyone who even notices a Rolex will assume it's a fake.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

I read an article a while back suggesting that utilitarian wristwatches -- devices whose only purpose is to tell time -- are rapidly dying out. Watches that are primarily fashion accessories are still doing OK, but many of those are actively inconvenient for figuring out what time it is.

Personally, I find this somewhat distressing. Yeah, I have a cell phone that tells time, but I have to dig that out of my pocket and push a button to active the display. It's a lot easier to glance at the big ol' Timex on my wrist to get the time. It pains me to think that when it eventually goes the way of all flesh I might not be able to find another one like it.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

why the hell would anyone want a wristwatch that does nothing BUT tell time,

...okay, that one boggles ME.

If I want to know the fricking time, I'll look down at my wrist and note it down. I won't fish my cellphone out of my pocket or purse or belt flap or wherever they put them these days. I own a tiny little ancient cellphone, which is little more than a phone card with a phone attached, really, since I have a pre-pay plan on it and just top up when necessary, and I only really use THAT when I go away from home and need the convenience of it. I don't even put it in the CAR when I'm just tooling around town here. And you know - it's the kind of phone that's JUST a phone - it doesn't take pictures, or surf the web, or play music, or do any of the crazy-ass things that "phones" do these days.

Maybe I'm a dying breed, I don't know, but to me a phone is used to call someone when you need to and a wristwatch is used to tell time. No, I don't need a fake Rolex to do it. Any more than I need an iPhone to call somebody up. I live according to the KISS principle - Keep It Simple, Stupid! - because I neither want nor need to complicate and clutter my life with useless gadgetry.

No Rolexes. But dude... when I want to tell the time, I look at a watch...

[shana.livejournal.com]

As I understood it, he wasn't saying anything against a watch that just tells time -- it was 'why spend that kind of money on a mere watch when you could get a really kewl gadget for the same amount of money'.

The most I've ever spent on a watch was $30.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Bringing the bling of Fauxlex to the unwashed cybermasses, while freeing them of the tyranny of buying from a shady guy at a streetcorner. What noble men!

I'm cell-less because cell plans cost more than I'm willing to spend to get the level of service I'd want. So no egregious iPhone for me. (I'm still pondering why one iPhone is worth 3 Motorola Q's other than the cachet of having a Rolex an iPhone.)

So I get my time from a wristwatch. Mind you, cheap as I am it's a company wristwatch they gave me as a gift for my 3rd anniversary there... but I'd spend a reasonable (circa $100) sum for a nice, well-made watch I can count on to reliably tell me the time and won't cost me for daytime minutes and voicemail.

As to Rolex, though, as others have noted it's more jewelry and status symbol than watch... though it is a reliable and durable timepiece, and many do look very nice. (There's some brand snobbery, too, but there's brand snobbery in video game consoles and newspapers for Ghu's sake.)

-- Steve'd stay well away from the Fauxlexes though; looking like a name brand is less important (for him, anyway) than being able to count on the watch.

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

I'm still waiting for the Proteus that Brian Daley described in his Third Breath novels: essentially a wrist-worn super-iPhone/laptop computer.

We'll probably have them long before the novels' thousand-years-in-the-future timeframe, too. :)

[k-kinnison.livejournal.com]

if out of a million messages sent, if they get one response it is worth it.

blame that one person that responds.

[meril.livejournal.com]

I have lots of watches because the watches I have are cute and tell time. But Rolex does not make a flower-shaped watch.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I'm not interested in Rolexes per se, but I get very twitchy if I don't have a watch on and there are no clocks in immediate view. It's nice if the watch has a calculator built in, but it's not essential.

Cell phones...bah. If someone wants to contact me, they can leave a message on the answering machine on the landline. That's what it's FOR. Or simply email me. I refuse to have one of those noisy, vibrating THINGS, except for emergency use.

[mhacdebhandia.livejournal.com]

Rich people, and businessmen who wish to appear affluent.

That's why every magazine from TIME on up the status ladder is packed with watch advertisements.

[rephetibel.livejournal.com]

Some of us are in the technology slow lane. I have a wrist watch that does nothing but tell time. The phone sitting on my desk, next to my computer, is big and heavy and black and has a dial. I heat my house by releasing sunlight from logs in my wood stove. And if I wish to move the windows up or down in my car, I have to apply a rotary motion to a handle on the door.

[salkryn.livejournal.com]

I'd rather have a pocketwatch than a wristwatch anyways...pocketwatches have more style.