Google's Distractingly Smarmy Pixel Event
Well, it was something worth trying, I suppose.
That's about the nicest thing I can say about watching the 90-minute extravaganza of cringe that was the Made by Google '25 event as hosted by Jimmy Fallon. To be clear, the announcements themselves seemed fine. Many of them potentially good, even. The problem was that I was too busy focused on the production of the event – mainly the strangeness of it – to really be able to gather much about the new devices.
I mean... what did I just watch?
Granted, I wasn't a Jimmy Fallon guy going into watching this event, so I might not be the best judge here. But the reasons Fallon annoys me were not just on full display, they were cranked up to infinity. It's one thing when you have to interview a celebrity and pretend to be excited about every little thing they're saying – that has long been the job of a late night talk show host1 – it's another to spit out exaggerated effusive praise time after time when being shown, say, a new color shade for the Pixel devices. The smarm was simply off the charts here.
The other celebrity guests were better, but still mainly distracting from what should have been the real stars of the show: the new gadgets!
Worse, the entire thing gave off some very real infomercial vibes. From the opening where Fallon sits down with the usual MC of such events, Google's head of devices, Rick Osterloh, to the next segment where the new Pixel phones were showcased and presented to Fallon in what really did seem to be a QVC set, as Sarah Perez pointed out.
Again, the devices themselves were not the issue, it was the presentation that made the entire thing seem staged. I mean, it was staged – all such events are. But the goal is to try to not make them feel that way. Google seemingly went the other way here. To the point where I have to think they had to have been going for that look and feel on purpose? What were they thinking?
Again, I can appreciate trying something different here rather than the same old playbook of trying to emulate the old Steve Jobs Apple keynotes. But the celebrity overload just made it feel like Google had something to hide – or at least nothing all that interesting to talk about. While often times the people that actually worked on the products aren't great presenters – that's not their job, after all – there's an authenticity that comes through in their presentations at least.
This felt like, well, watching an infomercial.
And while normally I'm a big proponent of doing such events live – as I was for Google's event last year and I wish Apple would return to them – if Google really wanted to go down this particular path, it probably would have been better pre-recorded? This was just so awkward at times, when you could watch Fallon squirm to try to figure out the right quip to say to keep the cringe rolling. But the best parts were when he would just sort of stare blankly into the camera, and not for comedic effect.
Well, at least Apple knows what not to do now if and when they bring back their own live events. And that includes letting the Jonas Brothers film a music video with your brand new, state of the art device where the output looks like the ironic throwback "Big Bang Baby" video that Stone Temple Pilots made almost 30 years ago.
Come to think of it, there's perhaps a warning in those lyrics:
Sell your soul and sign an autograph
Big bang baby, it's a crash, crash, crash
I wanna die, but I gotta laugh
One more thing: there was one moment with Fallon that I did actually appreciate. He mentioned Apple! By name! That never happens at such events, it was like breaking the fourth wall. Of course, Google clearly knew he was going to do this and it was part of the bit. But that was the one actually fun moment in this entire thing.
It lasted about 30 seconds.
1 Sadly, the late night host job may not be around for much longer...