By Makenzie Walsh
Alright, so we’re taking a look at the only decoration that, if handled by the right (or wrong) person, can flash and change colors so fast that your retina liquifies and excretes itself out from your sinuses. It’s those LEDs people have in their rooms. Okay, that was a huge exaggeration, but with the Zoom, or Google Meet, classes, we’re able to see into the rooms of our peers, and a good number of them have these strips of LEDs that are attached right where the walls and ceilings connect. Numerous opinions and general thoughts are surrounding them, so here’s three.
- How about we start here: It makes the person look like they are a streamer, for better or worse. Focusing on the “for worse” side because that’s what we do here, and by we, I mean just myself because I, the author, am probably the only person on this staff who’s like this, that may not end well for you. A career like that, of course, can wind up fantastic, there’s a lot of amazing people who do that, but then there’s everyone else. They might get stuck in a position where they either don’t reach a lot of people, or you get burnout, and chances are, you may not have something to fall back on in the event of that happening or some other issue that would make this an issue. If that’s where you want to be in life, go for it; just make the 7d chess move. You’ll be doomed if not.
- While the idea of LEDs causing seizures and hurting those with epilepsy in general sounds like an exaggeration with how it was previously mentioned in this writing style, this can very well be the reality for those who legitimately do have epilepsy. Repetitive flashing lights may induce seizures, and a repetitive flashing is oftentimes, if not all, a setting on the LED strips themselves. An open letter to anyone who actually has these: upon your wall lies a potential weapon. Repetitive flashing lights are not the only thing that can cause a seizure, of course, so if you don’t want to be responsible for hospitalizing or killing one of your peers, then you may want to do some research. You don’t want that on your conscience, do you? What if someone died because of your little light show? What if you had to meet whatever saw fit to place you in this world? How would you explain yourself then?
- Existential horror aside, there is also the scenario where the LEDs just get up and bail on you. One Amazon review on a LED light strip listing seemed happy with the product, but the review was updated the following week, saying that one-third of the lights stopped working. Imagine how you would feel if that happened midway through class. Would you be embarrassed at the vision of your once illuminated room phasing halfway into the shadows from right behind you?
Now that this is over with allow us to cut the power. Whether or not you should own and use LED strips is and will always be your decision to make, and don’t let this article be the one thing to make you decide if they should stay up or not. However, the second and third points bring up things you may want to keep in mind, just to be safe.
