Logan Paul dunks 15 GameBoy Colors in resin to make a Pokemon table
Oh, (Game)boy.
Here’s a hot take for you, one that I’m sure you’ve never heard before: I do not especially care for Logan Paul. Shocker, I know. Never been altogether fond of him. I’m sure at the dinner table or in the pub he’s amicable enough, but something about his sanitized, ‘please notice me algorithm-san’ approach to producing his clickbaity content has always rubbed me the wrong way. He’s symptomatic of everything I feel is wrong with modern internet culture: view-chasing, attention-hogging, utterly falsified commodification.
When you look at other big name YouTubers – your Markipliers, your Jacksepticeyes – there is still of course the overwhelming stench of commercialism, but at least there’s something there. An element of charm, of sincerity, an indication that they are doing this at least partially because they want to. Logan Paul? His whole schtick is just, in a word, phoney. Phonier than a direct hit on an Apple factory. This is to say nothing of that time he wandered into a Japanese forest and thought it would be hysterical to capture footage of a swaying corpse. Stay classy, mate.
However, until now, my contempt for Logan Paul has been just that – simmering, omnipresent, but idle contempt. That all changes today, as he’s done something that ticks me off in a very specific way you never want to tick me off: as a gamer, and as a fan of retro paraphernalia. After all, what do you think I’m doing here, of all places? (Besides paying off a blood debt, of course).
As Kotaku reports, Paul has constructed his own personal Pokemon-themed table. Seems innocuous enough. How has he done so? By taking 15 perfectly good, functional, authentic Nintendo GameBoy Colors, and dipping them into resin; thereby ruining them so he can stick them together for an ‘Instagrammable’ bit of furniture.
What an existence those GameBoys have lived. Manufactured possibly over two decades ago, passing from owner to owner, from eager child to dedicated collector – only to end up in 2021, soaked in gloop so Logan sodding Paul can have something to brag about online. Fate can be so perverse.
“Paul posted the project on TikTok,” states the report, because of course he did, “and shared a clip to Twitter on Dec. 26. He took 15 Game Boy Colors, including what appears to be the limited-edition Pokémon-themed one and a dandelion yellow version, and enclosed them in multiple pounds of epoxy resin. After positioning and covering the consoles in gel, Paul wrapped the tabletop with a metal Pokéball frame.”
Thankfully, I’m not alone in crying out at what a horrid waste of hardware this represents. Several people “bemoaned Paul’s ‘sacrilegious act of putting people’s happiness in an epoxy resin and wasting it,’ to quote one user. Another said ‘drowning them’ in resin wasn’t necessary for the project, while another noted that other methods—like a glass display—would’ve been ‘lighter” and ‘forever customizable.'”
Either way, what’s done is done. The table’s been made, the GameBoys are dead, and for what it is, it does look rather cool. Worth the total destruction of fifteen working classic handhelds? Not in any realm of the imagination. But at least now Logan Paul can claim he’s the only one to own a table like that. And I’ve a feeling that’s precisely what he wanted.
Congratulations, Logan. Just make sure you recycle it properly when the next TikTok trend arrives.
Via, Kotaku.
