Alright, I know what you’re thinking.
I remember the first time I stumbled upon an entire community of nerds drooling over stupid goddamn keyboards. I actually closed my eyes, breathed in for an entire 4 seconds, held it, and exhaled while saying out loud: “that’s so fucking stupid.”
But here I am, a year later, and I’ve bought my first mechanical keyboard. I decided to go with the Qisan Magicforce 68 because it was one of the cheaper boards out there, and I liked the frame/plate or whatever the hell it’s called. I also liked the 68-key design, which I think is called a Tenkeyless (TKL) board, but I don’t know. All that stuff confuses me.
Oh yeah, and it lights up, forgot to mention that. Pretty cool, huh? Well I wasn’t satisfied. You see, the end-game of this mechanical keyboard hobby is have no money left for anything but mechanical keyboards and its accouchements. Edit: Wow, that was the wrong word. I meant to write accoutrements. Although accouchements fits pretty well, too, now that I think about it. Fuck it.
Accouchements
So, to nurture the accouchement of this new, wallet-sucking hobby of mine, I ordered custom keycaps from a group-buy on Massdrop.com.
Massdrop is a cool site where you get together with other nerds and all say, at the same time, “I WANT TO BUY THIS”, and then a more resourceful nerd goes ahead and produces the product, and sells it to buying-nerds at a discounted price.
The key-caps I bought: Backlit Doubleshot PBT Keycap Set (with blue modifiers).
Now, after 2 months of waiting for my impulse buy to get delivered, I was ready to finish my first custom set-up. Guess what the process is to switching out key-caps? As mind-numbingly repetitive as you would logically assume so. It was a little meditative but I just wanted to fuckin’ type, bro. I wanted to type LOUD.
I took off the top row of numbers and took a picture. Those switches are Cherry MX Blues– the LOUDEST in the market. They click and clank, LOUDLY. If I didn’t have such deep-seated buyer’s remorse, I would regret buying the Blues over the quieter, tamer, friendlier Browns.
For real though. This keyboard has turned typing at night into guilty-typing. I actually feel self-conscious when typing on this thing at night, or even just in front of people. If they heard me typing, they’d probably think I’m an asshole, and I’m not!
The Finished Product
Say hello to the Ghetto Whitefox-Magicforce 68!
Wait, no, the Whitefaux… LED… 6s PLUS.
What’s with the name? The Whitefox is an extremely popular keyboard that was sold a few times but seems like it’s always sold out. I mimicked the style and color palette to make my very own first board. But my Whitefaux LED 6s Plus does have something that the Whitefox doesn’t– and that’s backlit LEDs. I’m gonna need those icy-blue lights to cool down my hot fingers from typing so fast, loud, and hard.
Why do we like this stuff? Best way I can put it: It’s like typing on candy. It’s the same feeling of when you see a cool car or nice pair of shoes. It looks cool, and you want it. Did I mention it’s loud?
Still wondering what’s the big deal about these things?
I get it. Like I said, I thought it was stupid a year ago. And now I’m impatiently waiting for 2 sets of key-caps and a custom mini-usb cable to get delivered in the mail, even though I only have one keyboard. For now.
Oh also, I made a Mech Keyboard Simulator. Check it out!
