Since my early days of being online, I have been fairly easily influenced into making a tech purchase. It only required a few people talking about a new phone, or a picture of a Pepsi can from Kurt Colbeck, to make me go out and buy a new Android phone. This was the days when phones were fun after all, and there was always a new one to lust after.

It wasn’t just phones, I could decide to move my blog after one post by Matt Birchler and numerous other things. These feeling exist today, and I would expect them to exist in some form or another in all of us. It’s a ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ psychological effect fueled by social comparison.

Even after that purchase, or often when I see a completing purchase online, I feel the need to justify it to myself and that often involves publishing something. A review of sorts. Or something titled “Why I did x”. Something along those lines made me feel better about what I did, and that’s more than a little sad.

These posts were not for anyone else, unless there are more people out there looking to justify their purchases, they were for me and my weird brain. Unfortunately, these feelings still exist today.

I have been moments away from typing out why I purchased AirPods Max over the weekend. Wanting to explain to people that I went to a shop and tried out loads of different options. Sony’s and Bose and even brands I had never heard of, yet chose the AirPods Max because they were the most comfortable and nicest looking. When, in fact, this post is pointless. It achieves nothing more than a long-winded way of shouting to the world “I’m smart, honest”.

Removing the fact that no-one cares about my peculiar purchasing decisions. I also do not need to justify these things to myself, nor anyone else. Sure, buying the AirPods Max in 2024 is a bit of a joke, so perhaps you get some enjoyment from me spending money on things you think are stupid. And in the end I got my post, trying to make myself feel better, so why even bother at all!