#HTE

When a Metaphorical Design is Too Much

British-Columbia-based fabricator West Coast Firepits may have been the first company to create a Death Star fire pit; while today you can get them from a multitude of fabricators—and on Amazon, Etsy and Wayfair–it was WCF’s that went viral in 2017.

The attention was enough to launch the company from obscurity to success, and today they offer dozens of fire pit designs, all designed in CAD and realized using an unspecified “one of a kind steel cutting technique.”

WCF’s creations are impressive, but this one of Earth—which they call “the most geographically accurate world map firepit in the world,” created using satellite data—seems a bit, well, too on-the-nose:

Don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed with the fabrication techniques. But between the wildfires, the pandemic, a deserted Olympics, supply shortages and the overall current geopolitical situation, I could do without a backyard reminder that the world is on fire.