Consumerism Reports: The $249 Blast to the Ass

This is a recurring series about all my devices. I’d like to clarify that it is NOT a tech column — it’s about spending money to speed up self-transformation, and then buying more stuff when that doesn’t work. And so I have acquired an endless array of devices: from products that promise to make my face look more triangular and the skin around my eyes less purple to ones that shrink specific parts of my salt-logged body. Do any of them work? Previously: The $279 Weighted Blanket for Little Baby Bears.

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For the last sixteen months, an Instagram ad has been following me around. Sometimes it disappears for a few weeks, and instead I consider the trustworthiness to mind-opening ratio of the typefaces on the ad for at-home ketamine therapy. Yet it always resurfaces.

I’d been able to hold off on purchasing the DB Method, a $249 squat machine that promises a better butt in 10 minutes a day, for most of the pandemic. But summer ended, and with it, the flings and the distraction of daylight at nighttime, and I had to turn inward if I was going to survive the coming season. Caring for my brain is too big of an ask right now, but caring for my ass seems doable. But what, am I going to just do squats alone in my bedroom? I could do irreparable damage, or worse get really, really bored.

According to the DB Method’s website, “Squatting with proper biomechanical form is difficult to achieve on your own. Without coaching and ongoing guidance, correct form can easily break down, leading to forward pressure on the knees, undue stress on the spine, and a reduced range of motion.”

The DB Method is this little thingus, about 28 pounds, in the shape of an exercise bike, but instead of wheels it has foot rests, and the seat moves up and down with the weight of one’s squat. It came in a million parts, but it was quick to assemble without the requirement of an allen wrench. I already own 15 allen wrenches, and none of the outsider art I’m making by duct-taping them together into lewd symbols seems to be getting any play at galleries. I’m not sure I did that good of a job assembling it. The seat’s a little wobbly, but then, so is mine. That’s how we got here in the first place.

I downloaded the accompanying app on my phone, and was annoyed that in order to do the program I wanted, “Best Butt Ever 2,” I had to pay $9.99 for a premium prescription. “Best Butt Ever 2” is an “advanced” program, and I am not advanced, but I figured it would work quicker if I was crying during most of it. It’s a 35 day program led by very hot people who likely couldn’t break into the Peloton clique. I am on day 11.

I like to prop my phone up against my TV and do my DB Method while I’m watching Vanderpump Rules in 10 minute daily spurts. That way, I get to drag out stunning conflicts surrounding a split-plate fee on a chicken caesar salad at Dan Tana’s for multiple days while forgetting about the pain inherent to assisted squatting.

Is my butt any better? Hard to say. I’m afraid to look in the mirror for fear of realizing I wasted my money (I didn’t get this for free like I did with the sweat bag for virtuous women or the ass air conditioner) on another thing taking up room in my apartment, and I also don’t want to let you all be the judge, though I suppose I can’t control it. Maybe one day, you’ll hate to see me leave, but you love to see me walk away.