The Onion: Satire site or Delphic oracle?
On February 18, 2004, The Onion published a story entitled, “Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades,” describing a fictional Gillette executive’s response to the Schick Quattro, a razor that offered four blades to the Gillette Mach 3‘s paltry three.
You think it’s crazy? It is crazy. But I don’t give a shit. From now on, we’re the ones who have the edge in the multi-blade game. Are they the best a man can get? Fuck, no. Gillette is the best a man can get.
What part of this don’t you understand? If two blades is good, and three blades is better, obviously five blades would make us the best fucking razor that ever existed. Comprende? We didn’t claw our way to the top of the razor game by clinging to the two-blade industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, five blades is the biggest chance of all.
Now an actual Gillette executive has announced that they’re going beyond satire to launch the Gillette Fusion, a five-bladed razor. Not only five-blades, but a goddamn microchip (to “regulate the voltage and blade action”) as well.
Gillette has escalated the razor wars yet again, unveiling a new line of razors on Wednesday with five blades and a lubricating strip on both the front and back.
The razor, known as the Fusion, has blades spaced 30 percent closer than Gillette’s current MACH3Turbo system. It also has a single blade on the back of the cartridge for shaving sideburns or trimming under the nose.
Close readers of this blog will note that this is not the first time that the Onion’s predictions have come true. Horoscope writers and palm readers should beware. Nostradamus publishers should quake. There’s a new oracle of the future in town: America’s Finest News Source.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
…shocked and awed…
I *love* the Onion, but not as much as I love shaving with my Quattro.
Oddly enough, I like my Quattro too. However, I got it as a gift and realize that I could get as good a shave with a twin-blade razor, or even a straight one. Shaving quality is really in the preparation and condition of the tools, not in the number of superfluous blades.
Still, five blades is silly.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
…fight the power…
Your note on the razors is amusing — I mean isn’t a 4-blade cutter already overkill? I do have to tell you young’uns, though, that the Onion was not the first prognosticator of the “blade wars.” In the premier of Saturday Night Live in the Fall of 1975, the show ran a commercial parody of double-blade razors, called the “Triple Trac.”
I remember laughing my ass off when the ad debuted, because three blades were so damn silly. And now we’re on to 5 . . . .