A Youth Culture Explosion
[Please note: this article is reprinted as a primer for those interested in the squip phenomenon.]
New York, NY. Something new and revolutionary has hit American youth culture: the squip.
The product, which observers have been quick to compare with the Walkman and cell phone in terms of its impact, is a tiny ingestible pill that users can take to "be" cool.
According to users, this coolness is not a euphemism. The squip is not a drug or alcohol-related product.
It is a quantum computer that interfaces directly with the human brain to provide real-time social advice.
"Breakthrough"
"This happened more quickly than anyone expected, and none of us can really explain it," says Marvin Garrety, who along with his brother Harvey has kept track of the squip phenomenon for Boston-based think tank The Harmstone Institute.
The squip was developed in Japan by a consortium of corporations closely related to Sony.
Denial
Mr. Garrety's brother, Harvey, an advisor for The Sharper Image, attempts to reconstruct the development of the squip.
"In late 2001 or 2002, Sony decided to go consumer with quantum computing," he says. "They took a Palm Pilot and put it in a pill. And with the room left over, they gave the Palm Pilot the processing capacity to analyze social situations."
All that was left was to make the squip communicate with the brain of its human user.
"We've had electrodes in the brain that pick up thoughts for years," Mr. Garrety continues. "We can jack into the brain like a melon. It's the intelligence on the other end that we never had."
Sony firmly denies that the squip exists and says it is years behind such technologies.
Target Audience
Multiple squips have appeared on eBay (EBAY) with a going price of $600. Students are ingesting and enjoying the devices.
The squip has an understandable appeal to young people who are often bewildered and angered by odd guidelines for social success.
Case Study
SQUiPNEWS, which attempts to track, quantify and report on the squip phenomenon, has found a squip user in "Jeremy Heere", a New Jersey teen who says his life has been changed by the device.
"Yeah, I have one," Mr. Heere told this reporter. "It just said that you found me attractive and that if I asked you out and spent two hundred dollars on you, you would have sex with me--do you want to go out?"
Jeremy Heere proceeded to show off the muscles he developed in his squip exercise program and participate in a witty and scintillating conversation.
This reporter was forced to admit his charms and was especially shocked by a picture Jeremy Heere presented of himself, just a few months earlier, looking much more awkward and repugnant.
"My squip is just--I need it," he said. "I need it to be more chill."