Keebs
1. Keebs
Keyboards have gotten popular recently—these upstart tech companies are marketing their custom keyboards like fashion brands with their new styles. It shouldn’t be long until Supreme starts selling them (IMHO). So, how did keyboards, specifically mechanical ones, transform from the kitschy, clunky, Marty McFly-esque technological vestige of the 80s (fig. 1) to the next co-opting target of Supreme (fig. 2)? And, what did COVID, Reddit, Apple, Neoplasticism, Cubism, and 50 Cent have to do with this transformation?
2. The virus & the viral
The first ingredient for the mechanical keyboard’s virality during the pandemic was how much longer people were using their computers. In 2020, computers became the focal point of every human interaction. Because of quarantine, people spent the majority of their waking hours in front of a screen: from school and work to shopping and movies. It wasn’t long until they saw their computers as subjects of tweaking and customization. At the same time, the popularity of desktops grew, unsurprisingly, and laptops came out of backpacks and stayed on the desk. No longer limited by portability, people could now add whatever accessories they wanted to their computers, as long as they were smaller than their desks. The final ingredient was the availability of online help forums like Reddit, which saw an increase in users, who all sought their missing social connections on the Internet. In retrospect, two years later, the pandemic bred the perfect storm that put the mechanical keyboard in pop culture.
3. Apple’s dead flesh
Mechanical keyboards, if you don’t know yet (have you been living with Patrick Star?), have keys that mechanically switch on when you press them, just like how light switches work. Actually, keyboards with mechanical switches were the norm before the new millennium. The kind of keyboards with rubber domes (fig. 3) that we see in laptops today have been around since the 80s, but they were universally disliked—so much so that tech columnists back then described the typing experience as “massaging fruit cakes” and “dead flesh.” To use the analogy from earlier, people were understandably outraged when their solid light switches were swapped with floppy, flaccid rubber ones. As laptops became thinner, however, so did their keyboards—mechanical ones ultimately faded into yesteryear, yielding their presence on computers to their rubber dome cousins. And thus, users stopped questioning what was underneath their keys until nearly three decades later.
Ironically, it was the most recent iteration in the rubber dome switch’s evolution that made laptop users wonder why they were typing on “dead flesh.” Apple’s now-discontinued Macbooks with “butterfly” keys had hurt their sales as much as typists’ fingers, and they broke when specks of dust got underneath. Typing should be comfortable and fun, and it took a really uncomfortable and really unfun keyboard for Macbook users—like this CNBC contributor: Why mechanical keyboards are becoming more popular among techies—to realize that.
4. I need it
“I could’ve ended this article here and submitted it to the Phoenix, but I just can’t stop typing on my hot-swappable 50% OLKB + Drop Preonic Rev3 PCB with lubed Kailh x Novelkeys BOX Navy click-bar switches and DSA Astrolokeys keycaps” is what an average mech key enjoyer might post to Reddit (fig. 4). If the above was a convincing enough case for switching (haha) to a mechanical keyboard, then why would anybody spend 100+ dollars on one that they have to assemble—solder, even (fig. 5)—by themselves instead of a $30 ready-to-use Walmart one? Isn’t IKEA supposed to be cheaper?! Similar questions have been posed on the r/MechanicalKeyboard subreddit, and the most compelling answer (IMHO) is the least objective-sounding one: “Because I need it!” No, really. Let me explain.
5. A multidimensional multisensory medium
The kind of arbitrary intuition that an object has intangible value can be called attraction, and, that value, aesthetic. The aesthetics of a keyboard can be examined by comparing its surface to paper or a canvas, as a medium of art in its own right. At first glance, the orthogonal layout of the rectangular (though not always) keys is reminiscent of the abstract geometry of De Stijl paintings (figs. 6 & 7). Neoplasticist designers and architects were able to translate the works of their painterly counterparts from the two-dimensional plane to the three-dimensional space without losing their recognizable style and identity (figs. 8 & 9). Similarly, as subtle shadows and reflections around each key bring depth and texture to its mostly flat surface, the keyboard as an art medium blurs dimensional boundaries.
The interaction between the plane and the space on a keyboard is reversed on a painting. Whereas (most) keycap sets attempt to depict a flat design despite its spatial depth, (most) paintings feature shading to create the illusion of depth on the flat canvas. This illusion of depth, like the suspense of disbelief in theater, is especially brought to the viewer’s awareness in Cubist paintings, where the inherent flatness of the medium is exaggerated with enlarged geometric facets. In other words, keyboards make flatness deep, while paintings make depth flat. The visual (and physical) depth of the keyboard surface becomes more evident considering artisan keycaps—miniature sculptural creations whose detailed delicateness seemingly transcend the very definition of keycaps. Their sculpture-like tactility in contrast with the relatively simple flatness of the rest makes them pop out of the “page” (figs. 10, 11, 12, 13). (How would you not want to touch these?)
If you haven’t noticed already, each keycap set has a different visual narrative. Some revolve around a general aesthetic, like vintage (fig. 14) and cyberpunk (fig. 15) (both overused IMHO), some feature cities (fig. 16) and fictional characters (NERF! THIS!) (fig. 17), while others can be really (really) weird (fig. 18). The illustrations on each keycap can be as ornate as those found in a graphic novel—lines and edges leading the viewer’s eyes from the top of one key to the next as they would across frames on a comic page. What comic books (at least the middle pages) don’t have is the gratifying visual harmony brought by the colors of each keycap that are juxtaposed to form a balanced and more complete palette.
6. 50 Cent the magic girl (?)
—which brings us here: the widely proliferated image of American rapper, actor, and entrepreneur Curtis James Jackson III, professionally known as 50 Cent, puffing his suit-clad chest at a pastel themed Ergodox peeking out from underneath his hands that are almost as large as the keyboard itself (fig. 19). Upon seeing the picture, you may be asking yourself: What timeline are we in?
The COVID one, I might reply in your head. Specifically, we’re in the timeline where half of the global population stays at home to work like hermits and/or curmudgeons. The ensued boredom drove some of the more hyperactive members of contemporary urban recluses to make functional (though not always) fidget toys, including keyboards.
If you ask r/MechanicalKeyboards what attracted them to keebs in the beginning, you might get keywords like “tactility,” “ergonomics,” and “auditory feedback” (read: “thocc”). However, I believe, it’s the aesthetics that captivated the 1.1 million members of the subreddit—the ability of mechanical keyboards to facilitate the expression of the individual user’s aesthetics as a multisensory medium of art. It’s what compelled 50 Cent to sit down at this Buzzfeed writer-turned-designer’s desk and admire the visual, auditory, and tactile beauty of her self-designed, self-built battlestation (disappointingly, not 50 Cent’s keyboard): Behind the Scenes: The Magical Keycaps that caught 50 Cent’s eye.
7. Switch for switch ;)
Now, looking at the ugly pile of dead flesh lying beneath your fingers, you might be wondering if it’s time to switch for a better kind of switch. You can start with what I did last year—look around on Reddit and mech key markets—maybe you’ll end up making your own favorite work of art that is comfortable, personal, and aesthetic.
