Etch A Sketch


"I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again." -- Eric Fehrnstrom
That televised blunder by Mitt Romney's senior adviser caused a lot of heartache for his campaign and caused sales for the toy to increase 400% the next day. Most of those purchases were by other politicians looking to make fun of Romney, and by TV anchors and commentators who needed a visual to accompany the story.

What none of them said is that the Etch A Sketch is not a great toy. Think back to the last time you had one in your hands. What did you draw? A staircase. Your name in weird block letters. You tried to make a circle but ended up with a jagged-angled dodecahedron. It took you approximately five minutes to realize that most of the Etch A Sketch art you found on Google Images must have been photoshopped or done by people who had way more talent and time than you'll ever have.

As Tina Dupuy said on Twitter the other day, "The Etch-A-Sketch is an analog iPad with only one app." So you shook it up and erased the screen one last time before you put the toy away in the basement, right next to the Slinky you never played with after you realized how lame it was, too.