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Here's a weird sentence that somehow makes sense in The Year of Our Dark Lord Satan 2017: There's a surprising lack of think pieces on fidget spinners.
The small spinning toy is so ubiquitous that anyone who has so much as seen a child walking down the other side of the street knows what they are. And they occupy a truly bizarre place in the zeitgeist, having been inspired by international conflict, benefitted from the rapidly changing nature of consumer transaction and blurred the lines between toy and therapeutic tool.
But we take culture very seriously here at WW, which is why we couldn't settle for mere hot-take-ism. Deep within our basement labs, we've been studying both spinners and those who spin. Over the last month, we're conducted not a double-blind, not triple blind, but a quadruple-blind study to give you the data you need to answer the most important question: What do your purchasing decisions say about your worth as a human?
Without further ado, we give you a guide to what your child's fidget spinner says about your ability as a parent. Please do not comment on this article. Our results are 100% conclusive.
This your standard, lunchpail, workaday fidget spinner—if you image search "fidget spinner", this is what will show up. If you're buying one of these bad boys then congratulations: you've got yourself a classic kid! You can look forward to them maintaining a solid B- average throughout their academic career, playing one of those "good for your body but not glamorous" sports like track or wrestling and having to constantly remind relatives and coworkers of their name. Much like the fidget spinner with which you have gifted them, your child is very well-balanced. And very boring.
For the last decade, you have fed your child a steady diet of Mountain Dew, Doritos and Dragonball Z reruns. They are now almost as obsessed with martial arts as they are void of impulse control—look up from the paper now! They are karate chopping the family cat! They really want one of those replica samurai sword from the cart at the middle of the mall run by that guy with the ponytail and the silk shirt with flames on it, but you compromise by buying them a fidget spinner that looks vaguely like a shuriken. This will temper their impulsiveness for about a month, soon after which you will find it embedded in the front of the TV.
You got your kid a fidget spinner that retails for $600. Clearly, you think throwing money at your child will make them a good person. You are very wrong. Your child's sense of entitlement is so out of alignment that you need not ask yourself "will they get a DUI that I end up paying for?" but "how many of these will they get" and perhaps "in doing so, will they also wreck the new car that I bought them?"
This is the noveau-riche fidget spinner. It looks fancy, but it's just the regular thing spray-painted gold.
Gas stations sell these for between $8 and $10, which is an approximately 250% mark-up. Their lights—one of which will surely go out within five minutes of use—do not make up for the fact that they lack the heft of a traditional fidget spinner. They're a emblematic of post-Reagan capitalism, wherein an oversaturation of marketing and obfuscate inferior craftsmanship and planned obsolescence. This, in turn, is emblematic of your relationship with your child,
Your kid likes the lights, however, and hasn't read any David Harvey. You need to stop overthinking things.
You saw a kid with a fidget spinner on one of your weekendly 20-mile rides and thought "Ha! I could make one with what's in my road kit alone." You should probably stop and ask yourself why you are doing this. Your kid just wants a normal one and really resents that you cut their hair. Plus, their room is the closest one to the chicken coop and those things are louder than you realize.
It's really close to being right. It isn't.
You bought this because it looks like a grinder, right? You probably also cut your kid's hair into a mohawk, and dressed them in a Misfits shirt before they could even read, let alone object to being associated with a band that sings about raping someone's mom. Here's the thing, dude: you can adorn yourself with the vestiges of youth all you like, but a human being's life now depends on you being at least marginally responsible. You will never feel as good as you did sparking up to Walk Among Us the summer after high school. I'm sorry.
Come. On. Your kid said that they wanted a fidget spinner, so you bought them a chunk of plastic that looks like a rejected droid from one of the Star Wars prequels? Is there even anything that spins on this? Do you listen to your child? Quick: when's their birthday? What grade are they in? Actually, though, these ones are supposed to be pretty helpful for kids with actual attention issues, so maybe you're the most qualified parent here.