A lot of that infomercial gear is originally invented as a disability aid, and has to go for this fringe market to get manufactured if a big medical equipment supplier doesn’t license it. You either make a tool that can do something big like helping a maimed soldier fight again, or your disability aid gets a silly-seeming commercial that mocks the difficulties faced by the people that the gadget’s creator was attempting to help.
Along those lines, I have a specialty undergarment I wear that is no longer manufactured because they couldn’t figure out a way to infomercial it outside of its intended use. A solitary person made them for thirty years and wanted to retire, and nobody wanted to just make them for people with disabilities. Now they’re gone. I bought a lifetime supply (they last about five years of heavy use, I bought ten. If I survive longer than fifty years, oopsy poopsy) before he shut down. We’ve found some decent adaptive gear through those commercials tho
Lemmy always in with the super grim takes. Jeez guys can’t I just open Lemmy for a sec and look at a meme without getting terribly depressed? Mostly sarcasm but also on the real
Unfun fact:
A lot of that infomercial gear is originally invented as a disability aid, and has to go for this fringe market to get manufactured if a big medical equipment supplier doesn’t license it. You either make a tool that can do something big like helping a maimed soldier fight again, or your disability aid gets a silly-seeming commercial that mocks the difficulties faced by the people that the gadget’s creator was attempting to help.
Along those lines, I have a specialty undergarment I wear that is no longer manufactured because they couldn’t figure out a way to infomercial it outside of its intended use. A solitary person made them for thirty years and wanted to retire, and nobody wanted to just make them for people with disabilities. Now they’re gone. I bought a lifetime supply (they last about five years of heavy use, I bought ten. If I survive longer than fifty years, oopsy poopsy) before he shut down. We’ve found some decent adaptive gear through those commercials tho
Honestly if it helps get it made to help people I 100% support it. I don’t even think of them as silly, just odious.
Lemmy always in with the super grim takes. Jeez guys can’t I just open Lemmy for a sec and look at a meme without getting terribly depressed? Mostly sarcasm but also on the real