Opinion
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 Best Crowdfunding Campaigns / YouTube

January 25, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — In a world currently dominated by social distance directives, mask mandates, and self-isolation imperatives, one would be forgiven for feeling like a detached and faceless drone. Well, now you can look like one, too, with Blanc’s newly developed, full-face modular mask.

Blanc, the start-up behind the mask innovation, received over $400,000 from a campaign on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to bring its newly developed full-face mask to market. The campaign boasts to have raised the sum from just under 4,000 backers.

The promotional video featured on the campaign page introduces would-be buyers to the mask as a “full-cover face mask that protects your eyes, nose, and mouth.” As the video continues, the low, soft (and dare I say creepy) female voiceover, assisted by a driving beat, informs buyers about the HEPA air filtration system, which apparently allows users to breathe “clean air” for up to two weeks.

Blanc’s cofounder, Maria Lapuk, explained that the idea to develop Blanc’s full-face mask was that “[w]earing a mask is literally the easiest thing one can do to help people not die right now. We happen to live in a COVID era, where we have to wear masks just like people in the early twentieth century had to wear their long hats to prevent lice and flea bites which could lead to a bubonic plague outbreak.”

The unique selling point of this particular “clean air” mask is its customizability. Lapuk makes the observation that “masks do rob you of your personality” while also claiming that Blanc’s mask offers “perhaps a bit more than just the safety and comfort of breathing clean air.” The implication is that this full-face covering somehow imbues the wearer with more personality and character than the face God gave him. Yes, you should be insulted.

The ability to showcase your faceless personality is possible, according to the manufacturers, due to the power ranger–esque helmet coming in a variety of colors and textures, all available (at extra cost) as interchangeable facias: “Blanc is a thousand masks in one. Its front panel is changeable with any material, color, and texture, depending on the message you put out there.” That message will be one of two things to any sane person who sees someone wearing such a thing: this person is either dangerous or plain bonkers.

“Blanc is not just a face mask,” the message continues. “Its modular design allows you to customize your own Blanc to your needs, and express your persona to the world.” Part of the company’s marketing scheme is that the mask offers wearers anonymity at the same time as expressing their identity, or persona. The result is that users completely veil who they really are and create a secondary sort of façade, one that they feel accords with their “one of a kind personality” and reflects their mood. The mask will even come with a voice modulation device to further break down and rebuild the identity of the user; now no one can see your face or hear your voice. It is the technological equivalent of rendering the world around you deaf and blind.

Lapuk’s colleague and cofounder Phillip Egorov laid out the company’s mission: “I love to think that it is to give people the opportunity to regain control over at least some personal data.” Whilst Egorov admitted that “[i]t may seem that while wearing Blanc, users lose their personality,” he quickly assured us that “[w]hat really happens is, Blanc instead allows a wearer to decide which emotions to share, moods to channel, and vibes to transmit. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it actually means more freedom and individuality, not less.”

I’m not convinced.

The company has also announced that the mask will soon come fitted with a Bluetooth module as well as its own climate-control unit, inside the mask, meaning users should find no reason to take the thing off.

Ironically, the campaign encourages users to “be unique, be brave, be yourself.” Besides the banality of telling someone to be himself, a thing one cannot help but do, hiding behind a rainbow or jet black painted power ranger helmet, just to walk down the street and into your local coffee shop, is not exactly what I would consider “peak bravery.” Don’t they know that thieves and brigands conceal their identities to go about their wicked deeds?

Blanc’s marketing department tries to mitigate the menacing appearance of the mask by telling us that “[f]or centuries, face masks have been used during parties to let the wearer have a little bit of fun without showing who they actually were,” before adding that “Blanc goes beyond that!” Well, that much we can agree on.

“You won’t find anything like this in the world. Its full-face form covers your whole face and allows you to regain control of your visual identity, emotions, and expressions anywhere you have it on,” giving users the ability to decide “when, where, and with whom” they decide to “share [their] personal facial information,” as they put it.

The marketing literature adds another dimension to the creep factor of these full-face masks. They ask: “You know that feeling when you put sunglasses on? When no one can see where you’re looking?” That is apparently the feeling one can attain from donning the Blanc face mask. I am all for privacy, but is this a nod toward concealing a person’s gaze from being caught as he looks where he ought not to be looking? In any case, speaking to someone who doesn’t give you eye contact is a disconcerting thing, and in polite culture, it is often taken as a sign of untrustworthiness.

Blanc wants you to integrate the mask into your life in rather a full way, encouraging users to keep it on “whether you are taking a walk in the park, sitting in front of your computer at the office, or enjoying your evening with friends at a club.” Apparently, not even your nearest and dearest get to know the real you. But according to Blanc, hiding behind this mask is no camouflage, really, making the bold claim that not only is it your mask, but that, in fact, “[t]his is you.”

The notion of reducing individuality and removing the particularly human interactions of sharing a smile, or catching someone’s eye, is inbuilt to the plan of the “Great Reset.” Globalist elites want you to forget who you are, forget who your neighbor is, and forget what the world around you used to be like; trust no one and no thing but them.

Do not let these people refashion you by their perverted designs. They do not care about you. Remember that you were created in the image and likeness of the eternally great God, not Gates or Soros or Schwab.