This week in “Kickstarter inventions that very well may signal the end of all human interactions,” it’s...a collapsible container you slip over your head to watch movies inside of. It’s called the Poptheatr, and these are some pictures of people using it.
Apparently, these guys are betting that people will want to lie outside on a beautiful day with this thing over their head, shutting out the world around them in order to watch Jonathan Demme’s 1985 oddball classic, Something Wild—or, you know, a movie that's not-that. To be fair, the Poptheatr works with any Bluetooth-related device, meaning it’s compatible with all the streaming apps you currently have on your iPhone or tablet. There’s also an immersive dual-drive speaker and an easy-to-navigate remote control, plus a material conducive to good airflow, so your head doesn’t overheat. Basically, it aims to mimic the experience of being in a movie theater—or, rather, to translate the experience of being in a movie theater with a bunch of people to the solitary experience of being in a movie theater that fits over your head.
Whether or not this kind of thing would catch on will remain to be seen. With the ability to watch movies and TV on our phones and tablets and laptops, the experience is becoming increasingly antisocial as is, so we can’t really count out a personal bucket-head theater. Virtual reality, which many see as the next frontier of entertainment, also inherently prioritizes this sort of isolated, fully immersive viewing experience.
Still, I can’t imagine this catching on for home use—why would people choose this over a TV or a laptop?—nor could I imagine using this outside, because who wants to be the weirdo at the park with a sketchy black hamper-like device over his head?
Regardless, the Poptheatr has a long way to go on Kickstarter if it wants to be fully funded and shipped out by July. You can pledge here, if you’re feeling particularly bullish on immersive head theaters. In the meantime, here’s a picture of a dude lying on his carpet with a movie theater over his frickin' face.
