Now you don't have to learn how to play the guitar. All you need to do is pretend that you can play guitar. At my neighborhood Walgreens, there is now a big display featuring Paper Jamz plastic and cardboard string-less guitars (electronic sensors pick up where your hands are). For only $25 ($15 extra if you want a separate amp made mostly out of cardboard), you can be an "Instant Rockstar." I picked up one of these "guitars" to see whether I could feel like an "Instant Rockstar" right there in the aisles of Walgreens. I felt the glow of stardom for only a few seconds, because you can't actually play Paper Jamz guitar like you can play a real guitar (I play the guitar professionally). You can't play individual notes, you can't play precise rhythms, the sound range is extremely limited, there are no dynamics and there is only one genre offered: distorted rock chords. Each of these five models of "guitar" is loaded with only three songs. Once you master the three songs on one of the guitars, you'll need to go back to Walgreens and pay $25 for a different model in order to play three more songs. Instead of real guitar lessons, just go to Rockstarz Academy. The manufacturer of the Paper Jamz "guitar" tells you that you'd be wasting your time and money to buy a real guitar and learn how to play it. The Paper Jamz display actually includes a video promo with this opening line: "Why play an electric guitar when you can play Paper Jamz?" Why, indeed? I would offer one good reason why you might want to forgo the Paper Jamz "guitar." When you play a fake guitar instead of a real guitar, you will get fake respect, instead of real respect. To paraphrase and expand the Paper Jamz motto, "Why live a real life when you can watch TV and pretend to be living a life?" Amotz Zahavi made it clear that in order to be reliable, a signal means to be expensive. If you want lots of respect, then, go practice hard so that you really learn how to play the guitar, and then come back and impress people by playing real songs. Paying $25 and then banging on a piece of plastic and cardboard isn't going to get you much respect, unless your audience consists of three-year-olds. Then again, I'm probably missing the point because massive numbers of Americans are under the delusion that reality is the way they desire it to be, rather than the way it actually is. Buying a cardboard guitar can bring instant respect to many teenagers because they believe it can. We are a society that craves instant respect. We show off our gadgets and toys to the have-nots for instant respect. We join the military so we can carry guns, wear uniforms and blow things up in order to get instant respect, even though we've floundered through life until then. We celebrate family tragedies, sickness and addictions because these bring us respect as high-ranking victims. We strive to shake hands with Hollywood and sports celebrities, because this brings us instant respect. We become fans of professional sports teams in the hopes that they will win their championship, which seems to bring us respect. I hope that everybody buying a Paper Jamz guitar really takes the time to impress their friends by "playing the guitar" before they lose all interest in "playing" the three songs programmed into their "guitar." I'm not denying that this gadget is technologically impressive or that it could be fun for a small child. But within a few months after buying a Paper Jamz guitar, this gadget will undoubtedly end up in the back of the closet, and it will eventually be tossed into a landfill with all the other gadgets we buy in our attempts to gain instant respect.