Helio. Don't call it a phone. Call it bullshit.

 I had to leave this out of the Refuge of the Dumbed article because this deserves its own rant, as well as websites dedicated to the demise of this company for their marketing campaign. But since I'm lazy, all you get is a rant.

The commercials for this electronic atrocity are way pretentious yet aim for lower to middle class teenagers. In one of them, this French guy is taking pictures via his phone of his skanky girlfriend and bumps into a local bumpkin. Local bumpkin yells at French guy, tells him to put away the phone, and French guy gets mad and intimidates bumpkin by…angrily yelling at him in French and chasing him around? Who gets scared by angry French people? If that tactic worked, we wouldn't have had to bail them out twice in the World Wars.

Another one involves an Asian dude picking up a chick for a school dance. Chick's family says all sorts of racially insensitive stuff, and nobody seems to care except the obvious victim of racism. But call the Helio a phone, and the chick runs off crying. So racism is okay but calling something what it is, is not? You send a great message jackasses.

Helio condones racism and promotes the LSD-induced illusion that French people are angry and should be feared, but what really takes the cake is that the underlying concept of their commercials is: "Don't call it a phone." It's not a phone? Then what the fuck is it? A PDA? An mp3 player? A tablet PC? A glorified paperweight? Artillery to throw at a meth-head? A dildo for Madonna? Let's take a look at the definition of a phone from Webster.com:

Phone - an instrument for reproducing sounds at a distance; specifically: one in which sound is converted into electrical impulses for transmission

So basically, a phone converts spoken word into electronic signals to be transmitted to another user. Now why can't we call it a phone again? Isn't that one of the functions of the piece of shit that you're peddling? Or can it not be used as a communication tool in such a manner?

Tell you what, here's my own catchphrase. "Don't call me a human. Call me a Supersexy Genius Who Would Never Be Caught Dead With A Piece of Shit Helio Because All Helio Owners Are Nazis Who Molest Children."

Also, one of the things mentioned is their commercials is that Helio can be used to access "Myspace Mobile." Helio has an exclusive agreement with Myspace to allow mobile users to access Myspace through their phones….OH SHIT IT'S NOT A PHONE I FORGOT LOLOLOLOLOL. That's funny, because I have a phone that is not involved with Helio in any way, and I can still access Myspace.

Sure, Helio's version of Mobile Myspace probably loads faster and has less bullshit, but who is desperate enough to need immediate mobile access to Myspace? I can access the full version just fine, and it may take 30-40 seconds to load, but that's what multitasking is for. Also, what happens when the URL for Myspace Mobile becomes public, and some hacker figures out how to access it without needing a Helio? Then I guess Helio's "paperweights" become just that.

Here's to hoping whoever came up with that marketing campaign plugs their phone into a socket and takes a bath with it.