You can’t please everyone.
You shouldn’t try.
It’s far too hard and human beings are far too capricious, hyprocritical and plain infuriating.
Still, some time in the past, a Samsung customer expressed their thoughts about the (then) new Galaxy Z Fold 2 and I have a feeling the company kept it imprinted on its soul.
Leaping to the people’s forum, Reddit, the customer — handle flamo-damo — offered: “This is the worst phone I’ve owned. People are always bothering me about it. I’m scared to just use my phone in public as a random someone may just give me a stupid grin or look at me and whisper to their friends.”
Self-consciousness isn’t easy to deal with. Then again, many people buy a phone specifically so that others can look at them and offer a stupid grin. For flamo-damo, the pain was existential. Mind-altering, even.
“It’s annoying because I have to use the smaller outside screen to get a high quality selfie and I cannot stand the fact that I just can’t relate to ‘normal’ phones any more,” they wrote.
I’d like to relate to normal people, flamo-damo, but it’s so hard to find any these days. Not being able to relate to normal phones is surely not so desperate.
Flamo-damo, however, was clearly folding under the pressure.
He concluded: “I had a friend tell me he got an iPhone 12 a week after it launched, I didn’t even care and I love technology! It’s terrible because I can’t even go half a day without wasting at least 5 minutes looking at my phone and folding and unfolding it even though I’ve had it since launch.”
Did Samsung offer sympathy? Not at all. With the launch of the Z Fold 3, it fanned the flamo-damo. It released a little ad that, well, roundly mocked their burning discomfort. The headline: “If you can handle envy at its worst, you deserve our best.”
The ad itself features flamo-damo’s comments, relayed by a just slightly mocking female presenter, as she explains that she’s “just not ready for this life.”
Not everyone is ready for this life.
Folding phones are an acquired taste, yet one that at least creates fascination in a category where form has become uniform.
Samsung has expressed a pioneering spirit in its quest to hopefully, somehow, persuade customers to come into the Fold.
What better way to prove that pioneering spirit than by challenging people to enter and enjoy?
And by being so very entertaining about it.
