This Smartphone Tripod Is Actually Very Useful For Connecting With Friends and Family

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I never thought that I would say this, but I really think you should consider buying a tripod and a mount for your smartphone. Gah! I shuddered just writing that. Because prior to this point, I associated such devices with the cringiest modern portmanteau of a portmanteau: vlogging. (That’s a combination of “video” + “blogging,” which is itself a combination of “web” and “log.” That made me shudder, too!) But we are where we are, living in the shadow of COVID-19, when the stress of being forcibly separated from friends and family in the interest of public health can feel, well, totally heartbreaking. Wouldn’t it be nice to not also have to grapple with the absurdity of balancing your phone against every right-angled surface in your home in an attempt to stay in touch with said friends and family? I hate to say it, but a tripod and a mount...really helps.

In fairness, I didn’t even buy the equipment I’ve been using—the fine folks on our video team shipped them, along with some other self-taping equipment, to us so that we could continue to crank out that #content while in quarantine. I will admit that I rolled my eyes when I pulled them out of the box. But my gosh I don’t know how I would have gotten through the last four weeks without this goofy contraption. It allows me to position my phone on the counter so that I can cook along with friends, to arrange my parents at table height so it can feel like we’re all sitting and enjoying a drink together, to be able to move freely from room to room on a video chat without having to experiment with every ledge and shelf in my home. And in these strange and uncertain times, that’s big news!

You might be thinking to yourself, Hey, this guy said he didn’t even buy these things! How can I really trust this endorsement?! That’s fair enough! But you know what I did do? I bought them for my parents! Because they work. And because they’re worth it. And because I love my parents. And because my mom’s FaceTime videography was giving me vertigo, tbqh. Do with that information what you will.

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