When you’re an insomniac freelance writer who works from home, you end up seeing a lot of infomercials, and eventually, those things will wear you down. No matter how skeptical you might start off, you will eventually get to a point where you’ll start to wonder if there actually is somebody out there with a better way to fry eggs, chop tomatoes and make milkshakes in the comfort of your own home. I mean, television’s never lied to us before, has it? That’s why I wanted to actually check out a few of these things to see if they really were the life-changing innovations they purported to be.
Today’s experiment: The GoJo Hands-Free Headset.
The Pitch
In the world of the direct-marketing pitchman, confidence is key. Just look at the legendary Billy Mays, who seemed so convinced of his products' superiority that he was compelled to yell at you at the top of his voice without taking a breath until you forked over 20 bucks, or Vince, whose fast-talking smirk moved countless ShamWows into basements and garages across America. Those dudes had that all-important cockiness, and so does Joe Gray. The difference, though, is that Joe's confidence seems rooted in complete and utter frustration at the state of the hands-free headset.
And in a way, he's justified. I mean, cellphones have been a thing since Zack Morris was jamming a phone the size of a cinderblock into the back pocket of his acid wash jeans. And yet, it took until just this year for someone to figure out that you could use a suction cup to stick a phone to the side of your face.
That's pretty much what the GoJo is: A plastic headphone frame with a suction cup on one end that wedges your phone right up against your face. It's brilliant in its simplicity – or at least, it's simple and for sale on television, which is more or less the same thing – and Gray seems convinced of this to the point where he all but straight up tells you that every other product on the market is absolute garbage.
The result: two minutes of truly amazing television. My personal favorite part is where he pauses with a quick aside to the viewer about how the very concept of putting something in your ear is "gross," which makes me think that Joe and I are probably both dissatisfied WaxVac customers, but that's far from the only great thing about this ad.
Taking a call from his mom in mid-commercial is pretty great, showing that it works with landlines is one the best examples of targeting an ad directly at your grandma I've ever seen, and getting a cheerleader to backflip while touting the GoJo's ability to stay on during "the most radical moves" was almost enough to get my 10 bucks by itself.
What really sold me on it, though, was the split-screen comparison in which Joe and his black-and-white alternate universe doppelgänger both attempt to take a phone call. It's amazing, not because it shows the GoJo's versatility, but because poor Joe-2 seems completely unaware that he has shoulders, which is what most of us use to hold our phones during a five-second phone call.
The Process
As much as I appreciate Joe's dedication to giving us a better way, I was raised to count my seconds by saying "one thousand" between numbers, and I can never really trust a "one-Mississippi" man with my financial information. So once again, I enlisted Wired editor Laura Hudson to actually do the purchasing, and once again, she was made to jump through so many hoops that I think she has to pay annual dues to the Circus Performer's Guild.
The GoJo offer – which is, of course, doubled – is billed as four plastic headsets with suction cups on them and two "supergrip mats" for the mind-shatteringly low price of $10. To actually get the things in less than 2-6 weeks, though, you're looking at a Processing & Handling fee of $22.85, pushing this thing well above 30 bucks for four pieces of plastic with suction cups on them. Also, the package I got only had one supergrip mat. Step your game up, Gray.
To be fair, I think you're meant to recoup the money you spend on P&H by using one of the other exciting offers that you're forced to click through while you're trying to complete your purchase, like the Deluxe Style Snaps! I know that I spend tons of money at my local seamstress closing revealing gaps in all of my blouses, and you guys: they're deluxe.
The Product
It takes a couple of tries to get the hang of the GoJo, pictured above with a copy of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand for scale, but once you do, it actually does work. I used it with my iPhone, and if you don't put the suction cup on the right spot (right in the middle, just below the Apple logo), it'll slide off. That was really the only snag. I don't quite have Joe's nimble one-Mississippi technique of putting it on, but it still pops on pretty quickly, and it stayed in place while I walked around, having a conversation with a friend while shaking my head to give it a test.
In the interest of full disclosure, I need to point out that I did not manage to pull off any of the most radical moves, unless you count flipping through an issue of Thrasher magazine while explaining my job reviewing infomercial products.
But here's the thing: The best-case scenario here is that you're buying something designed to wedge a phone against the side of your face and hold it there by squeezing your head with a piece of plastic. It might get a little better if you use it enough to stretch it out a little, but it's pretty phenomenally uncomfortable right out of the box. The longer it stays on, the worse it gets, and the whole selling point of being "the only device on Earth that's truly hands-free" is undermined quite a bit when you have to reach up and wiggle it around every 30 seconds to keep it from giving you a migraine.
Even so, I can actually see myself using this thing. The GoJo, believe it or not, performs exactly as advertised. It's just that what it's advertised to perform is actually kind of awful.
