My friend once asked me why I named almost all of my favourite stuffs (mostly electronics), like Carmanita for my yellow laptop and NorthCakes for my camera.
Well, this is the story. Carmanita was bought by my Uncle which later given to me in the beginning of 2008 as a gift. I didn’t even know why he gave me such an expensive gift like that all of sudden, never expected that. It was too early for me to receive some gifts because I was still stuggling with the preparations of Final Exams and USM ITB Daerah that time. My father told me to keep it as my future laptop, which means I didn’t have to ask my father to give me a laptop to help me dealing with things as a university student. Beside Carmanita, I also had NorthCakes, my Kodak V550i digital pocket camera. It used to be the property of Dad’s old company. After its bankruptcy at the end of 2008, Dad allowed me to keep it on my own. I really didn’t know why Dad allowed me to keep his company’s property although Mom ever told me that the camera was not the company’s property, but it was bought by Dad’s own money back then. I knew that Dad wouldn’t answer my curiosity about the camera's past because he would remember about those bad times (the bankruptcy, I mean). So, I just buried down those questions and keep Dad’s trust on me.
Yes, that thing called TRUST will always be my reason why I named all of my precious gadgets or stuffs. For me, naming the stuffs that you love is one of the example of respects, although it’s only a simple way of a little things. Actually, I was inspired by my photographer friend who has a lot of cameras, including one lomo camera, Cassandra Niki. She gave her cameras names like Anakin and Nina (for her Diana+). I thought it was really unique to have your gadgets named. But later I realized that naming your gadgets or stuffs was like naming a person like every parents always does when they have a baby. They gave a name for their baby because they wanted to have a baby blessed with the meaning of its name. They also did that because they love their baby. So did I. I love all of my gadgets, especially because their history wasn’t as simple as the other gadgets bought by the rich kids. I want them to have their ‘rights’ to be loved and it’s not because I feel lonely most of times, like someone said in the a website that I found yesterday : If you yell at your gadget, refer to it by a pet name or otherwise anthropomorphize what your rational mind knows is a lump of plastic and circuitry, you should probably work on developing a few more human friends. So says a new University of Chicago psychology study that posits humanizing of gadgets as a means of combating loneliness. “When you’re bereft of human companions, you’ll create them,” says researcher Adam Waytz, adding that gadget designer promote such connections. “When a gadget takes the physical appearance of a human, with a humanlike voice, it feels easier to control and it feels easier to understand.” *This is my first subscription for English version of Kompasiana. Hope it helps! :D
