There are many kinds of corporate embarrassment. There’s the garden-variety typo in a press release, the mistimed post that accidentally wishes everyone a happy Arbor Day during a war, the product recall that smells like guilt. And then there is what Google did with the Pixel 10 launch: a masterclass in turning genuine technical brilliance into a cultural facepalm.
Instead of letting their engineers—the people who actually build the damn thing—unveil one of the sharpest pieces of silicon wizardry on the market, they handed the mic to Jimmy Fallon. Fallon, who tried to gin up enthusiasm for an IP68 rating as though he’d discovered fire. He literally shouted: “I P 6 8!” Then, to hammer the cringe home, he added: “It’s like a Taylor Swift album drop—only for nerds.”
The audience squirmed. On X, the commentary detonated. One post distilled the problem in nine words: “Google should learn that having non-tech celebrities for the Pixel event is total cringe. Who is the audience for this, really?”(Minimal Nerd on X)
Even TechCrunch—rarely the home of flamethrower criticism—put it bluntly: “Google’s Pixel event was awkward and forced, underselling the technology it had on display.” (TechCrunch)
And suddenly, the story was no longer the phones—the genuinely excellent phones—but the embarrassment.
THE GOSPEL OF THE FACEPALM
The Pixel 10 lineup is extraordinary. The Tensor G5 chip delivers AI at the edge without gimmickry. Real-time translation that mimics your voice is a glimpse of a world without language barriers. The Pro Fold is the first foldable that doesn’t feel like origami under duress. Even the cameras, already the best in the business, have been sharpened into witchcraft.
But all of that got lost. Because Google decided it wanted to be a talk show instead of a tech company. Fallon didn’t just miss the mark—he wandered off the entire shooting range. At one point, confronted with Google’s VP Rick Osterloh, he joked the name “sounded made up.” Later he hugged the marketing lead, Adrian Lupton, and pretended to be dazzled by a table covered in phones and watches, like a late-night QVC parody.
The Verge captured the vibe with surgical precision: “It felt like being sucked into an episode of WandaVision.” (The Verge)
TechRadar twisted the knife further: “The showmanship felt hollow, an overproduced spectacle that ultimately distracted from the fact Google had little new to say.” (TechRadar)
This is the Facepalm Effect: brilliance overshadowed by bullshit. It’s not that the technology isn’t great—it’s that the delivery smothers it. A diamond dropped into a puddle of custard still sparkles, but no one wants to touch it.
THE FUCK THAT FACTOR™
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Google doesn’t need Fallon. Or Curry. Or any other celebrity cameo. It doesn’t need staged hugs between executives, or forced enthusiasm about the table where the devices sat like props. What it needs is the courage to let its work speak for itself.
The absurdity is obvious. Fallon was brought in to make the event “cool,” but his questions were the kind of thing you’d expect from a high schooler: “What does an AI agent do?” and “Why is everyone talking about artificial intelligence in smartphones?” These aren’t the probing questions of a host—they’re the script of someone who doesn’t belong in the room.
And the audience knew it. Minimal Nerd again: “Jimmy Fallon being excited about IP68 is too much for me…”(Minimal Nerd on X)
“The event collapsed under the weight of its own artificial charm, leaving the Pixel 10 to play second fiddle to a comedy routine.”
That’s the Fuck That Factor™: the moment you realize the spectacle is compensating for something, and the only sane response is to reject it. Because Google’s actual advantage—the thing Apple and Samsung fear—isn’t Fallon’s punchlines. It’s the ability to fuse AI and hardware into something no one else can touch. That’s what should have been on display. Instead, we got a tech evangel turned court jester.
THE ANCIENT ORDER OF PRODUCT TRUTH
Future archaeologists will examine the footage of Fallon hugging Google’s marketing VP. They will declare: “This was the moment civilization confused entertainment with innovation.”
The irony is brutal. The Pixel 10 family deserved to be a statement of intent. Instead, it became a sideshow. What the world remembers is Fallon’s “I P 6 8!” shriek, not the 5× telephoto lens. The Taylor Swift joke, not Gemini Nano’s real-time translation. The WandaVision parody, not the foldable that finally holds its own against Samsung.
TechRadar called it flat: “For a company sitting on the sharp edge of AI, the event felt bizarrely stuck in the past.”(TechRadar)
This is the sin of corporate theater: it drowns substance in spectacle.
Google isn’t Hollywood. Google isn’t QVC. Google isn’t even Apple, whose events are theater but theater of clarity. Google is the company that builds the nervous system of the internet. To dress that up in sequins is to deny what makes it powerful.
And when we “go full fuck AI”—when AI stops being a novelty and becomes the oxygen of digital life—the companies that survive will be the ones that know who they are. The ones that trade spectacle for clarity, gimmick for engagement, theater for creativity.
FINAL VERDICT: GREAT PHONES, SHIT THEATER
The Pixel 10 launch was not a failure of technology. It was a failure of self-awareness. The phones deserve applause; the event deserves oblivion. The lesson, carved into the corporate tablets for all to read: if it looks like theater, smells like theater, and feels like theater—kill it.
Let the engineers speak. Let the product breathe. Let AI whisper in the device, not Fallon shout it from the stage.
Google is brilliant when it remembers it’s a tech company. Embarrassing when it pretends it’s not.