I like magic shows, but I can never watch them on TV — I’m always convinced that the trick lurks right off camera, and thus my suspension of disbelief is nil. So I was initially skeptical of the latest trick of technology sweeping the web this month: groups of giggling teenagers with multiple cell phones, simultaneously calling their phones and somehow popping unpopped popcorn kernels. But it was interesting to see it take on a global scale, with videos from France, Japan and America all replicating the phenomenon.
Anything this well-organized and quick to spread had to be a viral campaign — Wired’s Underwire blog called it early on — and so it’s no surprise that a week after the first video’s release, both Bobtel08 and Benzin513 were revealed as fronts for Cardo mobile and Bluetooth headsets. Conceptually, it’s a pretty genius campaign — after all, if cell phones can really do this to popcorn, what are they doing to your brains? And don’t you want your brains as far away as possible from the cell phones?
So the videos are viral marketing, but how did they actually pop the corn kernels? Was there other technology at work, or do mobiles seriously radiate the 450 degrees Farenheit necessary? Well, despite what cell-phones-will-melt-your-skulls alarmists might want you to believe, the answer is “of course not, you whiny technophobe.” This is on camera. The trick’s hiding just outside the frame. It’s just a matter of figuring out what that trick is.
So far, Cardo Systems has offered no official explanation, claiming it’s a “fictional and humorous optical illusion” and denying that the videos “imply that mobile phones can make popcorn.” But while lots of people have theories, the first plausible explanation we’ve seen comes from Free Spirit Productions, which achieves the effect by taking apart a microwave, removing the magnetron and placing it beneath the table. It’s a pretty elegant solution; it’s also, in Chris Albrecht’s words, “a great way to get cancer.”
Whether it’s the microwave magnetron, or some other force of heat, I still want to know how they did it, though. But that’s what comes from never believing in the magic to begin with.
