The Loudest Part of My Workflow
It doesn’t make me faster. Just happier.
There’s no rational reason to type on a keyboard that sounds like a typewriter mid-breakdown. Yet here I am, clack clack clack, grinning like I just booted Doom on a 386.
I missed the IBM Model M era, but I spent years chasing its ghost. The weight, the hollow thock, the mechanical resistance of each keystroke. It’s not nostalgia — I never had one. It’s about texture, in a world that keeps trying to smooth everything flat.
I’ve already dropped over $800 on keyboards. Not one — several. That number usually makes people pause. Most folks think a keyboard should cost only a few bucks — and they’re not wrong. For them, it’s a tool, while for me it’s a ritual.
Turns out, I’m not the only one. Mechanical keyboards have gone mainstream. There’s a subreddit with 1.5 million people swapping switch specs and sound tests. Entire YouTube channels are built around modding, lubing, and chasing the perfect spacebar thock.
Keychron carved out a niche with Mac users during the work-from-home surge. Google Trends shows interest ticking up since the pandemic started — like bad keyboards were just another thing remote work forced us to notice.
Maybe it’s also a generational tick. I grew up watching analog slip into digital. I like things that click, snap, and have a satisfying resistance. I don’t want everything to dissolve into silent glass. Give me a keyboard that pushes back a little, that reminds me I’m here, typing, not just watching my thoughts.
It’s not about speed: neither my fingers move faster nor my ideas get smarter. But the feedback — the click, the resistance, the physical punctuation — makes it easier to stay in it.
This isn’t advice: I’m not selling anything, and mechanical keyboards aren’t special. They’re just... oddly satisfying, like stirring coffee with a spoon that sounds exactly right against the mug: pointless, and completely worth it.
And if that means I spend Saturday nights polishing keycaps, I’m okay with that, too.