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On August 1, 1981 (at 12:01am) Music Television, or “MTV” as it was known then, debuted and the very first song to air was a tune called Video Killed the Radio Star by a group named the Buggles. The song was a celebration (of sorts) about advancing technology while worrying about its effect on the future. Not too long before this (1979 actually) a similar fate befell the venerable ballpoint pen.
Prior to 1979 the gold standard in general use pens had been the ballpoint pen. Even though rollerball pens had existed for well over a decade at the time, they were not widely recognized/marketed and the ballpoint’s rule over the common writing world was secure. However, in 1979 all that changed…
Strangely, it wasn’t the rollerball which dethroned the ballpoint pen, but rather another type of pen…the erasable ballpoint pen. In 1979 when the first erasable ballpoint pen was introduced by Papermate company (most commonly known as the EraserMate 2) the ballpoint pen world was thrown into chaos. (Note: there actually was an EraserMate 1, but most people have never seen one of these). Up to this point people viewed pens as being permanent and pencils being erasable. The erasable pen changed all that. The erasable pen blurred the lines between a pencil and a pen, but they also did something more.
Because the paradigm had changed, people who historically would have used a pencil began using erasable pens for many things. Likewise pen users, fearing a mistake and resulting cross-out, also gravitated towards erasable pens. At the same time something more subtle was happening.
The quality of writing with an erasable pen was terrible. They jumped, skipped and smeared, but because they were erasable people still used them. In time people forgot about the differences in writing quality between a regular ballpoint and an erasable ballpoint; they viewed them as the same, but they were far from it. This had, in essence, lowered the bar for all ballpoint pens. Seizing upon this quality gap the Japanese pen companies who had developed the rollerball a decade and a half earlier saw an opportunity and began flooding the market with rollerball pens. The rollerball had been developed originally as a bridge between the fountain pen and the ballpoint pen, but with the ballpoint’s firm grasp on the market, and its low price point, there was little hope for the competing rollerball.
When the erasable ballpoint hit the market and ultimately ‘dumbed’ down the ballpoint pen writing experience the market was ripe for a competitor. From there the rest is history. The rollerball moved in and quickly dethroned the ballpoint as the pen of choice. At just about the zenith of the rollerball’s reign the gel pen was introduced. Gel pens turned the common use pen world on its head and the ballpoint was relegated to the bottom of the proverbial junk drawer.
Rollerball pens, and gel pens in particular, do have some sizable down sides however. And it was these down sides which kept the venerable ballpoint in existence. Rollerball pens can cut paper (especially on forms) and gel ink is worthless around water. Ballpoints avoid both these problems.
In the end though it was like ballpoint manufacturers just gave up. Rather than improve on the ballpoint experience they just accepted the crappy status quo. (This is the fundamental issue I have with ballpoints by the way). Only recently has someone stepped forward with a real improvement on the ballpoint experience, and that company is none other than Papermate with their Ink-Joy product (which really is a pleasure to write with, surprisingly). Time will tell.
So Rollerball didn’t really Kill the Ballpoint Star (it just sounded cooler in the title), erasable ballpoints did.
And here you thought I didn’t care…
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