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It's not just here - this pic was taken in Cologne, Germany Alamy
SeriesNobody Needs This
Can everyone please stop buying those balaclava headrests for their cars?
A series where Emer McLysaght saves us from chasing every trend and instead points us to things worthy of our time (and money).
In Nobody Needs This, a new series for The Journal, Emer McLysaght focuses her eagle eye on the trends, products and notions we can do without. It’s not all giving out, however. She’ll also be keeping up with what’s catching her attention, keeping people interested and, quite frankly, driving her mad.
ONLY OWNS ONE pillow.
Wears those little socks that peep out of their shoes or runners.
Claims they ‘don’t believe’ in therapy.
Refers to their pets as their children, or even worse, their ‘fur babies’.
In the five or six years since the ‘red flag’ trend kicked off on social media, there is no end to the behaviours, ideas and personality quirks that may signal problematic traits in potential partners or friends.
They range from the sensible (claims all their exes were ‘crazy’) to the ridiculous (has a name that starts with J) and even inspired a trend of self-reflection where people identified their own red and green flags.
One of my red flags, for instance, is knowing all the words to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire and whipping it out as a party piece without much provocation. To balance it out, my green flag is loving pigeons, our deeply misunderstood postmen of the sky.
When it comes to identifying red flags in people, I have some general non-negotiables.
If you don’t wave or talk to a baby who waves or talks to you, that’s a red flag.
If you use your phone in the cinema, red flag.
A fan of Ricky Gervais standup? Red flag.
Getting down to specifics there’s one item that, if it was revealed a person owned or found amusing, would send me running for the hills: A ‘comedy’ balaclava headrest cover.
There is nothing more immediately toe-curling, boner shrinking, alarm tripping than seeing one of these ghoulish items looming towards you in traffic or out of the passenger window of a van parked on the road.
The decision to purchase and apply a headrest balaclava is a baffling one.
On the more harmless end of the rationale is the scarecrow argument: the mask might act as a theft deterrent, and a potential robber might get such a fright that they hare off into the darkness empty-handed or maybe assume that the owner of the vehicle is such a ‘mad yoke’ that they wouldn’t dare mess with their belongings.
Personally, I’d rather have the car stolen and indeed burnt out to hide any evidence that I was a balaclava headrest fan.
There are suggestions online that point to an attempt to trick traffic cameras in places with carpool lanes or as a means to contest a speeding ticket. There is no solid evidence that it has ever worked.
In Ireland, for instance, in order to challenge a speeding allegation by claiming someone else was driving you need to nominate and name that other driver: ‘I’m innocent, judge. DJ Provaí from Kneecap was driving my Ford Focus that day’.
There is, of course, an argument that the success and popularity of Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap and their somewhat tongue-in-cheek adoption of the balaclava as a brand identifier, both as a nod to headgear worn by paramilitaries and by Kneecap member DJ Provaí to disguise his identity as a teacher.
Kneecap sell tricolour balaclavas at their gigs and it is common for their younger fans to wear them, sweating like an Irishman in a raincoat.
No matter the reason for these phantom passengers, they all carry sinister undertones.
The instinct to startle and frighten strangers is a red flag and the pipeline from ‘get over yourself I’m just having a laugh’ to violence and rape culture is a slippery one.
On the other hand, the only potential useful application of these covers might be to add a layer of safety to someone who drives alone a lot and wants to give the impression that they have company. If that was the case though, a nice, benign face mask would make more sense than the Scream killer or the deeply cringy Anonymous/V for Vendetta versions (yes, I’ve seen both with my own eyes).
So, let’s leave the headrest covers on Temu or Amazon or wherever they fester and focus more on green flags, like:
- Brings the shopping trolley back even if they haven’t had to put a euro in it.
- Watches the Winter Olympics.
- Has a favourite bird/soup/nut.
Interesting clicks of the week
This interview with Jamir Nazir, a writer from Trinidad who won the Commonwealth Prize but was then accused of using AI to write his story.
This honest and hilarious ACOTAR book review by Irish Substacker Karyn Moynihan
This TikTok about why the fanfic site AO3 exists
Significant Caesar salad development
Dublin’s Korean chicken Chimac restaurant has launched a dazzling new Caesar salad wrap. As a dedicated member of the Caesar fandom, this is very important to
me.
House bits
I have an Instagram folder called ‘house bits’ where I save pie-in-the-sky-ideas that I one day might implement in my own house. My latest saved posts are:
Emer will be back next Friday morning with more recommendations.
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