AirPods
It's from 2016, when you were 10.
- Maker
- Apple
- Type
- Wireless earbuds
- Debuted
- 2016
- Note
- Mocked relentlessly, then everyone bought them
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About
As of 2026, it's 10 years old.
AirPods debuted in 2016, and the internet's first reaction was near-universal mockery: they looked like someone snapped the cords off EarPods and lost the rest. Critics were certain people would drop them down drains and into toilets constantly — a prediction that was correct and somehow didn't matter.
They became a cultural status symbol, a meme, and eventually the default thing in everyone's ears, complete with the now-classic move of pretending not to hear someone because 'sorry, I had my AirPods in.'
Tiny, losable, and weirdly iconic, AirPods went from 'absurd white toothbrush heads' to the most recognizable accessory of the decade in record time.
