The Eight Worst Inventions (That People Actually Use)

There are plenty of lists of the year's worst inventions and gadgets, but these are usually full of cheap shots-- they list things that were never used (gas mask brassieres, Snuggies for dogs) or technological failures. For a comprehensive example, check out Gizmodo's Fifty Worst Gadgets of the Decade.

We all know people invent plenty of things that never catch on, and that plenty of gadgets do not work as billed. But these are the inventions that don't make it, so who cares? Plenty of ideas get weeded out in the Darwinian memetic struggle for existence. That's what Malcolm Gladwell's seminal book The Tipping Point is about. My list is different. My list consists of things that have become entrenched in our society, inventions that suck, yet are a part of the fabric of many of our lives. We cannot become free of their stupid grip.

1. The universal remote. I've never used one that actually works.

2. Electric can opener. A hand powered can opener is smaller, faster, and easier to operate.

3. Tupperware. In the old days, if you wanted to save your leftovers, you just put the lid on the pot and threw it into the fridge or icebox or root cellar. And you could remember what was inside because you only had one pot. And you had to finish these leftovers before you could use this pot again. Or you could throw it to the hogs. But food was so scarce that, usually, you cleaned your plate. Maybe you wrapped a piece of chicken in foil.

Now after dinner, there is a futile struggle to match lid shapes and container sizes, to choose the correct container for the amount of food that is leftover (people skilled at this task, at eye-balling the amount of rice in a pot and choosing just the right sized plastic container have what I call Tupper-awareness). And then, after this great struggle, which takes place simultaneously while your para-sympathetic nervous system is trying to digest dinner, you place the little containers in the fridge, where they will remain, unopened, for weeks, until you are cleaning out the fridge and have to open each one, deal with the stench, scrape the stained Tupperware, so you can do it all again.

4. The cell phone. Remember when you could just say, "I'm going out."

5. Lint roller. I polled the office today, and women expressed a great love for this invention, but I'm pretty sure its main use is to be able to legally hit your kid with a stick. Or that's what it felt like when my mother de-linted me when I was a kid..



6. Electric vibrating football. Completely ridiculous concept-- that the tactics, strategy, play calling, and excitement of football could be reproduced with a vibrating board. Almost as stupid as that foosball type hockey game. Foosball isn't so great either, but people seem to like to play it in their basement.

7. Organized religion. Like we don't have enough to worry about?

8. Best/Worst Lists.