In today's gadget blogosphere, there are few if any new products that aren't upon release subjected to an immediate "unboxing"--a thorough and, some may say, pathologically obsessive series of photographs documenting exactly what is implied by the name: taking a shiny new object out of its multiple layers of packaging, step by exhaustive step.

For those leaning more toward the "pathologically obsessive" reasoning here (there are in fact entire blogs dedicated to the practice), the question is: Why does this happen?