Casio, from a Japanese worker to Shakira's lyrics: the true story of the watch that everyone is talking about

“I'm worth two out of 22. You traded a Ferrari for a Twingo.

You traded a Rolex for a Casio.

You 're going

, go slow."

This stanza is one of the darts that Shakira supposedly throws at her ex-partner Gerard Piqué in her latest song

, and that has turned the lyrics of the Barranquillera into a focus of media debate on sorority, female revenge and monetization .

With more than 150 million views on YouTube, the single has also

made several of the elements she mentions a

And one of them is a watch that almost all of us have had at home.

His name is Casio.

Piqué seemed to play along with his ex, first when he arrived at his place of work mounted in a Renault Twingo and later affirming half jokingly and with his fist raised to show his Casio, that the Japanese watch firm would be the sponsor of an upcoming joint project.

The multinational Casio has denied it, in addition to clarifying through social networks that many messages attributed to the brand are from fake accounts.

Many accounts are popping up on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok pretending to be official CASIO media.

We remember the importance of verifying the sources of information.

No statement or message published on these accounts is official.@CasioTeam @CasioOficial @Casio_Oficial pic.twitter.com/1QUHPoRY9E

– Educational Division (@CASIOedu) January 15, 2023

In any case, the brand has spoken.

"We love that this splashes us", could be read on Instagram, a direct reference to the lyrics written by Shakira.

For Sergio Magán, digital marketing consultant and Instagram expert, the controversy raised by Shakira with this song could have led to a free campaign for Casio worldwide, which we could hardly quantify financially.

“Currently, and with the advent of social networks, brands have ceased to be absolute owners of their way of communicating.

This controversy is a clear example, and Casio has been able to ride the wave and take advantage of the global repercussion to which its brand has been exposed”.

"I would like to contrast the way of acting of Casio with the one that Rolex has had," continues the expert.

Although a few days ago, through its only verified Twitter account, the watch brand stated that everything is a hoax and those comments come from false accounts or parodies unrelated to the official body.

A tweet from this same account alluded to the news with emoticons: ”Today we have quite a few notifications for a mention of CASIO in a song.

CASIO (watches and keyboards) and (calculators) belong to and for life”.

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A post shared by Casio Relojes Spain (@casiorelojes_es)

With the controversy served that has divided the world into two teams according to a scale of social class, age or gender, its full relevance is a good time to review the long history of a brand that partially digitized the lives of its customers.

Founded in 1946 by Tadao Kashio, a modest Japanese worker who began his career making pots and pans, it was originally conceived as a small outsourced factory producing parts and gears for microscopes.

With the subsequent joining of his three brothers Toshio, Kazuo and Yukio in the business, he completely changed the profile of the company towards the field of inventions.

The first of them was devised by Toshio, an engineer by profession, with a cigarette holder mounted on a ring that allowed smoking while the person worked, a favorite

of Japanese society during the postwar period.

Its first impact in the history of industrial design would come in 1957, with the launch of a fully electric compact calculator, the model 14-A, already under the new name of the company Casio Computer Co. This design was the prelude to

Casio Mini, made in 1972, the world's smallest personal use calculator

(it contained a quarter of the size of the conventional models) that would be the first great seller of the company, with one million units sold in 10 months.

The Kashio brothers.

(Courtesy of Casio).

Casio Mini, manufactured in 1972, was the world's smallest personal use calculator to date.

(Courtesy of Casio).

In that same decade, the Kashio brothers' company entered a barely explored niche within the commercial field of watchmaking, a very opportune movement due to the quartz crisis that was beginning to be felt: the manufacture of digital watches with the technology that Casio had developed for their calculators.

In addition to displaying the hours, minutes and seconds on its dial, the Casiotron launched in 1974 would become the world's first automatic calendar watch, as well as presenting advanced timing functions such as stopwatch or world time.

From then until the 1990s, Casio became an iconic watch factory that defined the imagination of a pre-internet generation, with famous references such as the futuristic model worn by Michael J. Fox in

(a Casio CA53W, the mythical watch with a digital calculator that all children wanted to have and that the brand had to reissue a few years ago under strong demand) or the one that adorns Sting's wrist on the cover of the single

(1983) by The Police, the Casio J100 model, which has become a rarity among collectors of the brand.

Casiotron, the first Casio watch manufactured in 1974. (Zonacasio.com).

Michael J. Fox in 'Back to the Future' with a Casio CA53W, the mythical watch with a digital calculator that all the children wanted to have in the eighties.

The fever for Casio (and not only towards its watches, let's not forget the Casiotone synthesizers) is fanned from time to time by nostalgics of the

culture and defenders of mass-produced nostalgia, which fictions like

They have known how to monetize.

One loses count of the Casio watches that follow one another on the wrists of the inhabitants of Hawkins, such as the Casio B640WD-1AV worn by Jim Hopper, currently reissued by the brand for less than 40 euros.

But it is difficult to dispute its relevance.

In a market whose imagination is dominated by luxury brands, Casio is an affordable watch capable of boasting iconic status without the need for complications or limited editions, the equivalent of what Converse sneakers or Levi's jeans mean in the world of fashion. fashion: icons in their own right with a bombproof legitimacy.

Its association with our own youth has become a lucrative business avenue for the Japanese brand.

Proof of this was the launch of its vintage line, which appeals to the nostalgic with the stainless steel version of the Casio F91, known as the taxi driver's watch and which was

the best-selling digital watch ever.

Or the

new finishes of the LA670WEGA-9D, the mini watch with a metal strap that every

had to wear in the early 2000s.

Cover of the single 'Wrapped around your finger', by The Police.

But that attraction for its playful casings and plastic straps, that apparent technological simplicity at an affordable price, is not just a nostalgic thing.

The G-Shock line, born in 1983 as an unbreakable design for outdoor sports and a long-time favorite among American firefighters, was the great 2000s revival that managed to bring together characters as diverse as Spike Lee (who wore in phosphorito orange), Enrique de Gales, Justin Bieber, Benicio del Toro or John Mayer.

Specifically, the more complex DW-6900 series, with a larger dial and compact colored casings, could be dubbed the rapper's watch, as Eminem, Kid Cudi, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West or Pharrell Williams (these the latter two shared the same white version of the BAPE X G-Shock model in collaboration with New A Bathing Ape) often wore it on their wrists.

Kanye West or Pharrell Williams shared the same white version of the BAPE X G-Shock DW-69'' model in collaboration with New A Bathing Ape.

(Getty Images).

Tyler, The Creator and Pope Francis have shared the same Casio for some time, an analogue model for 22 euros.

(Getty Images).

But if there is a rapper capable of transforming a low cost

brand

Like Casio synonymous with new masculine elegance, that has been Tyler, The Creator.

The Californian artist and producer, known for his peculiar style halfway between a Wes Anderson character and a rebellious university student, has been the image of Gucci, collaborates with Lacoste and owns one of the most desired cult brands, Golf Le Fleur, which also brings together of clothes and shoes designed together with Converse, nail polishes, perfumes and travel bags.

And he has been seen on several tours and award ceremonies with the Casio MQ24-9B analogue model, available for around 22 euros on the brand's official website.

An identical one with the white dial is the watch with which Pope Francis has been repeatedly portrayed for years.

Pope John Paul II was always faithful, as were many political leaders and artists, to his golden Rolex Datejust.

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