When new video game consoles are released, it's not unusual for companies to issue rather strange warnings. For example, Nintendo famously coated their cartridges in a bitter agent to keep people from eating them, which of course, led to a multitude of people tasting their cartridges. With the release of the Xbox Series X, a new phenomenon has arisen; people are blowing vape clouds into the console. Why is this happening, and why should vaping enthusiasts absolutely not do this? Let's find out!
The craze appears to have started with videos of the Xbox Series X billowing smoke from its exhaust ports, appearing as though it had caught on fire. These videos quickly went viral, grabbing the attention of Microsoft.
While those videos quickly spread, another user posted another video that also quickly went viral. In it, the user demonstrated how easy it was to fake that the Xbox was on fire. The user showed that if you blow vapor into the exhaust port while the console is powered off, the exhaust fans will blow the vapor out when the device is powered on.
Granted some vapers were using dry herb vaporizers, but the average vaper accomplished this by using a box mod vape. Box Mods are a special kind of vape battery capable of producing large amounts of vapor in very short amounts of time, typically used with e-liquids and oils. It’s easy for even a casual vaping enthusiast to use a box mod to create enough vapor to mimic smoke coming out of the console. Essentially, anyone with a box mod vape could recreate the fake video.
And that’s exactly what happened. Since the video was easy to recreate, hundreds of Xbox owners began using their own box mods to blow large amounts of vapor into the exhaust vents and watch the vapor roll out like smoke when they powered it on. While it does look cool to see vapor billowing out of the exhaust vents, vaping into your new Xbox presents serious problems.
There is a multitude of reasons you should not be vaping and blowing vapors from your box mod into your Xbox. For starters, creating a false narrative of consoles catching on fire distracts Microsoft from identifying and resolving actual console problems. Glitches in new consoles are somewhat common, but flooding Xbox with false reports takes away time and attention from the console’s actual problems.
There are more practical reasons, too. Vape clouds are made of vapor, which is made of moisture. Blowing concentrated moisture into a machine that relies on fragile electrical components is a great way to short and ruin your new $500 console. This becomes especially problematic when you consider box mods were being used to create the vapor, which are capable of producing giant clouds of vapor quickly. Box mod vapes create a lot of vapor, and the more vapor you blow into the console, the more moisture that comes into contact with sensitive electronic equipment. This increases the likelihood of ruing your brand-new Xbox, and vapor-related damage due to trying to recreate a video is definitely not covered under warranty.
Regardless of the clear, obvious reasons you shouldn’t blow vapor into your Xbox, it has grown into an unfortunate trend. It has become popular enough for Microsoft to tweet, "We can't believe we have to say this, but please do not blow vape smoke into your Xbox Series X."
Odd stories like blowing vape clouds into an Xbox are going to continue to pop up when new, widely popular consoles are released. While we can't predict what the next oddity will be, we strongly encourage you to follow Microsoft's advice and refrain from blowing vape clouds into your new Xbox.
The new Xbox was released on 11/10, and we’re sure this won’t be the last odd story we hear about new consoles.
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