Making Technology Fun
Looking at the title, this probably looks like a gadget article, but it’s really not. It’s more about technology and humor, with a little geek prank thrown in. But it’s a geek prank that even a non-geek will enjoy.
To fully get the joke, you’ll have to go through a little preparation. That’s OK, it won’t take long, just under 3 minutes. And it’s 3 minutes you’ll enjoy, probably one of the funniest skits Saturday Night Live has done in a long time. So, follow the steps below, and don’t cheat and peek early, or you’ll miss half the fun.
1
Watch the Video
The video is fun all by itself, but it’s really fun if you have an Echo and follow these prompts. Watch the video first.
2
Use Your Echo
This is the fun part, but before I tell you what to do, I have confirm you’ve completed both steps. Click the link under the video after you’ve finished watching the video.
SNL – The Amazon Echo “Silver”
After you’ve watched the video, click here
Keeping in mind the satire video you just watched, instruct your Echo – “Alexa, tell me about the Echo Silver.” Make sure you don’t have any liquids in your mouth. Electronics especially have a problem with liquids.
If you don’t have an Echo, but want to understand the joke, click here
You still need to watch the video first, or this won’t make any sense at all. If you instruct your Echo “Alexia, tell me about the Echo Silver”, it will reply “I don’t know ’bout that … uh-huh”
For the record, just in case there was any doubt, there’s really no such thing as the Echo Silver of course; but I think it’s great that some programmer at Amazon not only watched the Saturday Night Live skit, but had enough of a sense of humor that he baked a response into the Echo’s system.
If you can stand just a little more humor, I’ve got another related story. My wife and I actually discovered this “in the wild”. I had seen the SNL skit, and had shown it to several friends. It was always good for a laugh, and was still pretty fresh on my mind when a funny thing happened with the family.
One evening, my wife and I were sitting around with her mother who lives with us. Betty suffers from dementia, which causes some interesting discussions sometimes. We were watching a show on TV, and a funny commercial came on. The conversation went something like this:
Me: (to my wife Gini), that was a pretty funny commercial.
Betty: What was?
Me: The commercial
Betty: What about it?
Me: I thought it was funny.
Betty: What was?
Me: The commercial on the TV, (to Gini), Wow, sometimes this is like that Alexa skit
(this, of course, activated the Echo, because I said “Alexa”).
Gini: The Echo Silver?
Alexa (that’s right, Alexa said this): “I don’t know ’bout that… uh-huh.”
Sometimes, our life resembles a Saturday Night Live skit. Fortunately, it’s usually the better skits we emulate.