For as long as I can remember, my Blackberry has been an extension of myself.
How very FFJD to say: but I guess Jappy girls and Blackberrys go together like organic peanut butter and sugar free jelly or Dane Cook and other comedians' material.
I'm not sure what it is about Blackberrys that lend themselves so well to FFJD culture: the compiling of bbm pins, to borrow from Gatsby, the green (in this case red) light that is a metaphor for our being, that lets us know we have bbms from three different boys, all named Josh. One from camp, one from UPenn, and one from JDate.
I got my first Blackberry six years ago, before they were cool. My dad told me there were these devices I could write emails from. Being way too in contact by nature (I'm known for a six-minute-or-fewer turn-around time) I loved it. It looked and felt like a pancake. Its still the best phone I've ever had, and I use it lovingly as a paperweight, a sign of bbms past.
However, as the years and Blackberrys passed (I seriously have every generation in my desk drawer), I've gotten frustrated.
Blackberrys have deviated from their original intended purpose -- sending email. Extremely sick of bbm -- (although there is an unspoken competition to accrue the most bbm contacts possible, sort of like the unspoken girl tanning competition on a Spring Break trip), and sick of heinous internet browsing, I switched to an iPhone today.
I know.
I felt elated for about 15 minutes, a big "fuck you!" to RIM technology. As a writer I was worried I wouldn't be able to scribble down furiously brilliant ideas about Miley Cyrus or Jewish girls' love of dry humping. (This second idea came not from me but from two guys at a bar this weekend. Why they felt like divulging this I don't know, but it's an amusing observation. Is it true?)
And I loved it.
If I was free to get an iPhone, what else was out there? What did this say about me? Had I freed myself from the David Yurman chains that bound me? Was I now someone with an iPhone? Should I eat organic? Should I become a graphic designer and move to San Francisco and bike everywhere? (Which is what I assumed iPhone users do?)
I texted everyone I know with aplomb and egregious typos, but it was cute and endearing because I had risen above the stereotype. "Haha! I can't even understand you! I can't believe you took the plunge!"
And then I realized, while trying to write a serious of emails, that I fucking hated it. Yep, why aren't my things running at the same time? Why is it continually asking me for my Apple ID or to choose the Wifi?
Don't get me wrong, the iPhone is a wonder. It's basically a mini computer. But I already have a computer. I've never played Angry Birds. I don't feel a particular hatred for aviary species or for swine. Just some of my more religious people feel that way.
I just wanted to get some shit done. Without streaming video.
I called my best friend, who recently switched from Blackberry to iPhone. "I don't know if I can do this," I said. "I'm not so sure." I had mass-bbmed everyone, saying sayonara and smell you later in SMS. And most especially, what was I going to say to a certain someone (a boy, of course) who triumphantly named his iPhone a "Blackberry killer" and pronounced his device as such in his email signature?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I pounded the elliptical. I didn't even look at my Katy Pery Elle in the new Gucci outfit I wanted. I couldn't even type on this thing without looking. How was I supposed to walk and text?
I had come to a crossroads. To the left, was the iPhone, in all its glory, its shiny video capacity and websurfing, it's bells and whistles. To the right was my trusty Blackberry, lonely and deactivated in my car. I knew what I had to do.
So I got in the car, and I went back to the Verizon store. The sales rep, who had previously exclaimed that my Blackberry housed more cobtacts than she'd ever seen (do I win the unspoken competition?), said I was the second person to ever return the phone. Ever. Thanks, lady.
So I got my Blackberry back. And I realized something. I'm never going to be an iPhone user, at least not now.
Want to know why? I typed this entire piece, in Juicy sweatpants, on my Blackberry.
FFJD.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry