THERE WAS a time, back in the ‘90s, when the thing to get for your brand-new car was a set of bumper guards. Remember those? They were fat, ribbed rubber strips, and sometimes they came in hideous pink, like some weird sex toy. Its flat underside was meant to stick to your bumper corner till kingdom come, there to absorb every thud and swipe that came your precious limo’s way.
Why am I talking cars in a corner I usually devote to digital gadgets? Because I’ve lately noticed how many users have outfitted their laptops, iPods, and mobile phones with the equivalent of bumper guards, wrapping them up in centimeter-thick skins of squidgy silicon and/or aluminum armor worthy of a battle tank. Keyboards are covered over with spill-proof, type-through membranes. Even wrist rests have acquired fuzzy felt pads, and no screen goes protector-less these days. To top it all off, when you’ve reinforced everything with a second skin, you dump the whole machine into a well-chosen bag—whether aluminum, neoprene, leather, or, in particularly acquisitive persons, all of the above.
What we’re witnessing here—and have become hostage to—is the emergence and growth of the digital accessories industry, something that simply didn’t exist 20 years ago, when most of our digital doohickeys didn’t exist, either. When the first laptops came out, nobody had a choice—you used the bag it came in (if it had one); my first portable, circa 1990, was an 18-pound behemoth that used eight C-size batteries and came in a flimsy nylon bag. Today, as I eagerly await the arrival of my new 3-pound, 0.76-inch MacBook Air, I’m already thinking about all the sexy sleeves it’s going to spawn (and which, of course, it richly deserves).
I’m a helpless collector of computer and camera bags and cases, but my flair for accessorizing stops right there. I can understand the anxiety of the new laptop or iPhone owner who wants to keep his or new toy as spotless and flawless as when it came out of the box, and I went through a phase myself of buying five different covers for the same iPod. I can’t argue that bags, cases, skins, and screens are great and even necessary for protection.
But now—perhaps with the benefit of age—I realize that I like my machines naked. As a writer, I have a very personal and tactile relationship with my keyboard. I like the feel of bare metal or plastic or glass as the case may be; there’s nothing sexier in the hand than a bare iPhone. If my machines acquire scratches, they’re just growing a bit older, like me—with purpose and, hopefully, with some grace and lots of character.