http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEo_aflOlt0
Verizon Wireless has a new commercial with football player AJ Green sporting the new Beats by Dre Solo2 wireless headphones. We see Green pulling up to a reserved parking spot, turns the car engine off, puts on a wired headphone set, nods his head to the music, leaves his car, and doesn’t stop until wired headphone goes flying off his head. Of course, someone else notices this little mistake. Next he’s putting on a wireless headphone, leaving the car and tucking a cellphone into his coat pocket. This commercial was wrong on so many levels.
I had to re-watch the video several times to make sure that Green wasn’t driving the car with headphones on, which is illegal in most states according to the AAA. (The list, interestingly enough, follows the blue-red political split between the Democratic “nanny” states and the Republican “don’t tread on me” states.) Some people just might miss that part of the commercial and assume that driving around with headphones on was okay. A bad example for young people who wear Beats headphones.
The commercial doesn’t show what the wired headphones was plug into inside the car. Since headphone jacks on car radios are nonexistent, and this is a commercial for wireless headphones, the wired headphones were probably plugged into a cellphone. I can’t imagine anyone putting headphones on, leaving the cellphone inside the car, closing the door on the cord, and walking away until the headphones fall off. That’s just plain stupid.
From the reviews I read online, Beats headphones are terrible. At $299.99 USD, terribly expensive. These headphones have a dedicated following on the hip-hop music scene. I went to my local Best Buy to see what the fuss was about. Listening to the demo music, the Beats were no better or no worse than the ten buck headphones I get for listening at home.
After seeing this commercial, I’ve became aware of people wearing wired Beats headphones: waiting for public transit, riding on bicycles on the streets, and, yes, driving cars on the freeway. Just what we need on California freeways: more tone-deaf idiots.