I can’t hold my arms up

There I was, browsing through the Ikea catalog, when I came upon this remarkable chair.

On first blush it looks like those ill-fated ergonomic chairs of the 1980s, but it’s really just a bench at two heights. The user is meant to straddle the lower height and use the upper to rest his arms while holding a videogame controller, avoiding the strenuous and annoying work of holding up his own arms.

Even more remarkable is the seat’s name: Jesper. No matter the commonality of this forename, surely we can only conclude that this product represents the Swedish company’s attempt to take advantage of fellow scandinavian and well-known games researcher Jesper Juul.

The difference between him and his namesake bench? Juul can hold his own arms up while playing videogames.