Salon.com > Z10 http://www.salon.com Fri, 24 May 2013 16:32:11 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Will BlackBerry ever be hip again? http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/will_blackberry_ever_be_hip_again/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/will_blackberry_ever_be_hip_again/#comments Wed, 30 Jan 2013 17:58:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13186129 As I waited Wednesday morning for four different liveblogs to update with nanosecond-by-nanosecond hyper-coverage of Research in Motion's "Hail Mary pass" to revive the BlackBerry, I found myself wrestling with a classic postmodern technology coverage conundrum. Was BlackBerry's decision last September to embrace REO Speedwagon's "Keep On Loving You" as a vow of enduring faith to its all-important app developers an unintentional confirmation that the BlackBerry brand is eternally consigned to corporate middle-manager mediocrity, or was it some kind of ironic hipster jujitsu move? Ha ha, wink, wink!

You see, from my cultural vantage point, REO Speedwagon signifies the death of cool and the end of rock 'n' roll. The song "Keep On Loving You" hit No. 1 just two months after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. Need I say more?

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