Don’t take everything personally!

WWe urgently need an “objectification of instincts” (Arnold Gehlen). Instead of ubiquitous sentimentalism, it’s about being focused on the objects and their own logic, as we encounter with teleshopping, one of the last reserves of objectively developed functional contexts. Here, products are presented on television in such a way that one understands in detail how they work, at least in the quality films of this sales form, such as genius.tv for its window wipers with an extremely flexible silicone lip (instead of the usual rubber lip that wears out quickly) and an integrated dirty water container produced.

In these films one perceives an openness to cause-effect relationships, a traditional awareness of craftsmanship that is hardly offered to the general public in this pure culture. Of course there are expert blogs for everything and anything, but anyone with a naive, technically untrained mind who wants to disenchant the pitfalls of their immediate surroundings and face the challenges of their own household can look into the heart of things completely unprepared with the teleshopping demonstration films. In the ideology-free turning to the equipment, a reification of existence prevails, from which it speaks: Don’t take everything personally!

Breakneck stairway with buckets of water

genius.tv meticulously explains how the dirty water wiped off the windshield gets directly into the wiper’s collection container while it is still being wiped. “You no longer have to wring out rags and carry heavy buckets,” explains an enthusiastic voice, skillfully satirizing the advertising genre, while watching elderly people climb the breakneck stairs with buckets of water.

In fact, the question arises in the room of smudged panes that obstruct the view: why do we still have to wring out rags despite the progress of all things? In a step-by-step analysis, genius.tv gets to the bottom of the problem and finally ends up in its own dirty water tank, included in the set. With the telescopic rod that is also included, the window squeegee can be guided “back-friendly and safely over the head”, as is explained in film examples, without “the water running down your arm” or “gymnastics on the edge of the bathtub” being necessary to close the tiles to clean. The rounded corners of the hard-wearing silicone lip, on the other hand, guarantee that it can be placed anywhere on the window without leaving behind the usual attachment and removal marks.

We learn that if you respect the tool character of things and don’t screw them up subjectively, you don’t have to worry about perspective. Genius.tv, with a light hand the “Meow! Mio! meow! Mio!” swiping an affect-driven worldview aside, is showing an epistemic instructional film here: Look here, the thing works without making everything dependent on whether I feel seen and meant by the wiper and how it works in my personality. It’s enough to have perspective.