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Unitasker Wednesday: Lightning Reaction Extreme
All Unitasker Wednesday posts are jokes — we don’t want you to buy these items, we want you to laugh at their ridiculousness. Enjoy!
Do you dislike your friends? Do you want to screw with your loved ones’ pacemakers? Are you so bored that you can’t think of anything better to do than send an electrical charge through other people’s bodies?
If so, I know the perfect product for you to purchase:
The Lightning Reaction Extreme is a “fun” shocking game. Four people hold onto silver sticks that attach to a game board and each stick has a red button. A light in the center of the game board flashes and the first person to hit his red button is deemed the winner. The other three players (this is the Extreme version, after all) are shocked with an electrical charge from three AAA batteries. If shocking your friends isn’t a good time, I don’t know what is!!
There is also the Shocking Memory Game for those who run off all their friends and family members and wish to keep shocking themselves.
30 comments posted
Posted by Matt - 07/08/2009
While I agree that this is quite ridiculous and unnecessary, are games really Unitaskers? And if so, does it really matter? I’m sure there are people out there who enjoy other Unitasker games such as Chess or Monopoly.
Posted by Erin Doland - 07/08/2009
Single-focus items like board games, fire extinguishers, and toilets aren’t unitaskers because they have utility. SHOCKING PEOPLE doesn’t have utility! Ha!!
Posted by Dawn - 07/08/2009
I think I would like to play this game with my in-laws – and hopefully win!
Posted by Olga - 07/08/2009
This is a bizarre game. I don’t see who would want to play it more than once.
Posted by Joanna - 07/08/2009
my boss has got it for the secret santa! Nobody ever used it and it is still standing in the office!
Posted by Allison - 07/08/2009
Wow, this has to be close to the top of the list of bizarre unitaskers. There are many more productive ways to test reaction time, if that was the intended purpose. I’m thinking Dawn is on to something and it was designed by someone who really dislikes their family and friends!
Posted by mark - 07/08/2009
i think this was in a Simpsons episode … “There’s No Disgrace Like Home” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T....._Like_Home
Posted by Krisha - 07/08/2009
@mark i loved that episode. lol.
Posted by TL - 07/08/2009
Unitasker? How about AWESOMEtasker!
Posted by Anita - 07/08/2009
Hahaha great unitasker this week! I was especially entertained by the overwhelmingly positive customer reviews on its Amazon page. Maybe getting shocked is more fun than we all think?
I suppose this is meant to help improve your reflexes or reaction speed? I can think of a lot less shocking ways to do that, thankfully!
Posted by Kristel - 07/08/2009
I’ve actually played this game before!
It’s intense. lol.
Posted by Sarah - 07/08/2009
I have a friend who has this game – it gets pulled out when they have gatherings… LOL…
I dont think you can count games as unitaskers, as all games are unitaskers. And i disagree with the “utility” statement, as the primary utility of a game is having fun, and unless you have another game which provides it in the same way as this game, then it provides the same utility as any other game does.
Posted by Erin Doland - 07/08/2009
@Sarah — How is shocking people fun?!!
Posted by Lori Paximadis - 07/08/2009
Wow. Just… wow.
Posted by Peter (a different one) - 07/08/2009
@Erin – you apparently really like your friends.
Posted by mjh - 07/08/2009
Erin, is there a definition of unitasker somewhere on your site? Because, I have two reactions to the “unitasker = no utility” thought:
1) Why is utility linked to unitasker? That seems odd to me. A useful unitasker is still a unitasker… isn’t it?
2) Utility seems to me to be a preference for each person. So, if the lack of utility of this game makes it a unitasker, do you consider other games to be unitaskers if you don’t enjoy playing them?
Thanks.
Posted by Tom - 07/08/2009
A friend has this and at parties it was fun to play with. We played that if you threw the handle down when you got shocked you had to get another shock.
It can also be used for settling disputes in place of rock/paper/scissors.
Posted by Andy - 07/08/2009
Ignoring whether this is a unitasker or not. I have bad memories of this game as it was often used in conjuction with drinking games. Basically anyone who chickened out and let go would have to do a shot as a forfeit.
Posted by Erin Doland - 07/08/2009
@mjh — The only time we’ve “officially” defined unitaskers:
http://unclutterer.com/2008/03.....explained/
Posted by Lesley - 07/08/2009
I don’t understand why people get so hung up on the definition of “unitasker.” Unitasker Wednesday is supposed to be funny, not gospel!
And regardless of whether or not this game is a true unitasker, it is bizarre and likely to be played once or never, only to collect dust on a shelf for years or to be re-gifted. I really wonder about the companies that develop and produce this kind of stuff.
Posted by Jacki Hollywood Brown - 07/08/2009
I’ve been hit with electric fencing several times. This game just scares me.
Posted by Valerie Davis - 07/08/2009
This would be a great game to have if you were young enough to enjoy fooling your parents, and fast enough that they couldn’t catch you!
Posted by Twin XL - 07/08/2009
My cousin got this game for Christmas a couple years ago. It’s fun and hysterical. People keep coming back for more. What a laugh!!!
Posted by Kris - 07/09/2009
Who developed this game? The guys at “jackass?”
Posted by Katie Alender - 07/09/2009
This is like the chair you sit in at the arcade where you pay to get shocked. (As opposed to wsting your money on the claw game, I guess.)
Seriously, I look at this, and all I see is “drinking game”!
Posted by Karyn - 07/09/2009
I wish I’d had this a few nights ago, when I was working the full overnight at the grocery store and it was a FULL MOON. >:-D>
Other than Nefarious Evil Purposes (or Evil Nefarious Purposes?), I really can’t see how shocking people with slower physical reflexes would be “fun.” Maybe it’s meant to help people become better drivers with quicker reaction time?
Also: Am I the only one who finds this “game” eerily reminiscent of Stanley Milgram’s (in)famous experiments on obedience to authority?
Posted by Laura - 07/09/2009
I remember an arcade game eerily similar to this at Disneyland back in the late 1970′s. There were two handles, and if you were brave you would grab both handles yourself. As a group we would stand in a semi-circle, holding hands (sometimes up to 10 of us), and the two people on the ends would each grab a handle. You could feel the electricity jolt from the hand you were holding.
I also remember it wasn’t very pleasant, but it was a ritual. Living very close to Disneyland, my friends and I would go several times a year.
Posted by Penny in Australia - 07/10/2009
I’ve played this too. Was actually quite fun. Can’t imagine people wanting to play it too many times though (I played twice and won twice, then didn’t want to push my luck…)
Posted by Vanessa - 07/10/2009
I was tricked into playing this game once, and it was horrible. I don’t see how anyone can like being shocked. My relatives have an electric fence for farm animals, and they liked to grab my hand then grab the fence. It’s not fun!
Posted by Kalani - 07/11/2009
Yeah, Karyn, I saw this and thought…. Milgram shock experiments, anyone?
For those of you who aren’t familiar with them, they were a series of experiments in which people in lab coats told volunteers to administer electric shocks to what they thought were other volunteers (but in reality were staff members who were feigning being shocked.) The point was that good, honest American people do terrible terrible things to others if told to do so by a kindly person in a lab coat.
Anyway, if the game is fun, it’s fun. I don’t think I’d play it more than once.
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