Regular readers of this blog know we closely monitor razor technology as a symbol of our co-evolutionary relationship with technology. This basically means that, like the bees and the flowers, people and technology are intertwined in mutual dependence: we serve our technology as much as it serves us. And just like humans, technology wants to prosper, propagate and grow. The blindness 'innovation' of shaving razors, with more and more blades, strips and grips, exemplifies this development.


The latest subspecies in the Razorius line is the Razorius Gilletus Flexball. While the Gillete Corporation proclaims they have reinvented shaving, others argue Gillette's new razor is everything that's wrong with America.



Yes, you should make up your own mind, dear intelligent reader. Although we are keen to remind you that already in 1975, shortly after the Gillette Trac II razor – the first two-bladed men's razor – was released, its excessive design was parodied on the US Television show Saturday Night Live.


The creators of the satirical television program played on the notion of a two bladed razor as a sign of the emerging consumption culture. They made a fake commercial parody for a fictitious razor with the ridiculous amount of three (!) blades, emphasizing the consumer is gullible enough to believe and buy everything seen on TV.


Of course, the comedians of Saturday Night Live could not know a three-bladed razors would become a reality on the consumer market in the late 1990?s. Let alone that they could have anticipated we would shave ourselves with a five bladed battery powered led enabled flexible razors in 2014.


Welcome in the twenty-first century folks: no, we don’t travel in spaceships… but we do have five bladed razors!


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