4 Reasons We'll Never Get a Real Hoverboard

Like every version of it before, this new hoverboard is not so much a hoverboard as it is a screeching magnetic lie that lasts mere minutes of battery life and can operate only on a track. So, unless there are plans for a follow-up Kickstarter to repave every city in the world with magnets, we're afraid you're not going see teenagers floating past you on the sidewalk or spray-painting hoverboard-related slogans behind the local Kmart.

Arx Pax
"HOVERBOARDING IS NOT A CRIME (EXCEPT AGAINST THE LAWS OF PHYSICS)"

But hey ... maybe someday, right? Sorry, but that's a big no as well, because ...

At its most useful, a hoverboard could transport large objects on rough terrain -- something we've been doing just fine with a thing called "wheels." Then you have stuff like hovering bullet trains, which can already be achieved with the aforementioned magnet system ... and that's it. Why should science put years of research and billions of dollars into making Christmas 2016 really bitchin' for the kids? That's Nintendo's job.

LJN
"Uh, Back to the Future and us don't mix well ..."

Practicality aside, hoverboards are only good for one thing, and that is ...

Yep, we want a hoverboard so fucking bad that we'll spend $120 on a piece of plastic shaped like one for no reason but to gently caress it at night. The people behind the hoverboard Kickstarter knew this, which is why they reshaped what their project is actually about (using magnets to architecturally prevent earthquakes) into an '80s-movie reference to get people's attention. As the creator himself puts it, "If one in 10 people realize there is another (better) use for this stuff, that would be a great success."

Ingram Publishing/Ingram Publishing/Getty Images
So, in marketing terms: '80s movie tie-in > Helping you not die

But why the ruse? Well ...

You see, back in the late-'80s, director Robert Zemeckis made an offhand joke that toy companies were hiding hoverboards from children, unaware that he was accidentally creating a whole industry. Naturally, every kid in America took this as the truth, because kids are idiots ... but what's our excuse now?

extremetech.com
This is the single most effective case of dad humor in history.

That headline is from earlier this year when an obviously fake video of Tony Hawk, Moby, and others using a hoverboard surfaced on YouTube and half the Internet believed it. Despite growing up in every other way, we all still turn back into stupid children the moment someone says the magic "H" word.

Google
"Haha, look at this fake shit. Anyway, how much are they?" -the Internet

It's time to let this one go, people. Let's focus on something more feasible and productive, like those shoes that tie thems- Jesus Christ, we were joking.

For more butthead headlines (buttheadlines?), see Cracked's long-running series on B.S. News Stories That Went Viral.