If you have an algorithm similar to mine in the world of vertical video, there's a decent chance you've come across the criss-cross chair epidemic already. Tons of influencers are touting the benefits of a new type of chair that allows you to sit cross-legged at your desk, and that caught my attention because I'm a frequent leg crosser myself.
Curious about the potential benefits of a chair like this, I decided to pick one up. Admittedly, I prefer this position when I'm on the couch and not at my desk, but I imagined that there was potential to blend the two seating options. There are a million of these things on Amazon, and they all have similar materials and pricing. To ensure my experience was representative of the uncertainty you can get with online shopping, I eeny-meeny-miny-moed one of the top-rated dupes that best resembled the TikTok-famous chair. The one I got happened to have almost 5,000 reviews, the majority of which were five stars.
I haven't been testing this chair for particularly long — I've only had it for a week — but I have so far been underwhelmed by my experience. This chair certainly looks chic in my apartment, but that's about all I'd say it has going for it. Read on to take a closer look at my qualms.
Frustrating assembly
Before I was a journalist, I was a bike mechanic for more than six years. During my tenure at my workbench, I wrestled with all kinds of cheap internet-ordered bikes and their consequently malfunctioning parts. Putting this chair together was a reminder of why I don't miss that.
To be clear, I'm glad this chair came in a small box. I've grown a bit weary of hauling fully assembled chairs in boxes as tall as me up the stairwell of my apartment building. But the process of lining all the parts up on the underside of this chair and trying to thread all the bolts properly made me break a sweat.
The locations of all the bolts made sense, but the struggle came when I tried to line the backrest's supporting plate up with the base. The gap between the holes was so great that I couldn't even thread the bolts without putting all my weight on the backrest and jamming the two cushions into each other. To add insult to injury, the bolts weren't even long enough to catch the threads. I had to dig into my own collection to fasten everything down.
In all likelihood, there are other versions of this chair that have a smoother assembly process, but there's no way to know with these things until you already have one in hand. Considering how many positive reviews this chair has gotten online (most likely overrepresented by bots, in hindsight), this lapse in quality was disappointing.
Stiff cushioning
The reason I like sitting cross-legged on my couch is because I feel like I can sink pretty deeply into it. This allows the padding to rise up to my knees and support them, which lets me sit in that position for longer. I also don't mind having pillows on either side of me to lean on as I shift around throughout the day.
Unfortunately, this criss-cross chair is frustratingly stiff and unsupportive. I think there's merit in having a chair that isn't too squishy, but I think this one needs another layer of foam.
On top of that, this chair offers virtually no support for any part of your back. Yes, there's a backrest, but it's pan-flat. If the seat cushion were any larger, I could have used a pillow for some lumbar support, but my attempts to do this with the chair as-is proved problematic in short order. I just kept slipping off the front.
Minimal adjustability
You can adjust two things on this chair: seat height and tilt resistance. Bam. That's it. I wouldn't have expected much more from a chair that costs less than 60 bucks, but I think I would have preferred if this chair cost twice as much and were twice as adjustable.
I especially would like having the ability to change the angle of the backrest relative to the seat. I wish it were just a tad shallower so I could lean back the same way I do on my couch. Similarly, I wouldn't have minded having the ability to change the fore-aft position of the seat so I could accommodate some lumbar support.
Form forces out function
Let this be a cautionary tale about listening to people on social media. One of the consequences of advertising products on sites like TikTok is that influencers are incentivized to inflate the positive qualities of a product, often in a way that hijacks your senses. It's why there are thousands of recipes out there for food that looks amazing but tastes mediocre. In a similar vein, this chair feels like it was make to be looked at, not sat in.
I'm sure there are others out there who would garner a greater benefit from this chair than me, but I am decidedly not a fan. The padding felt cheap and hard; it was a pain to assemble; and you can hardly adjust anything on it. I acknowledge that these are likely consequences of this chair's low price. But I have to question what upgrades, other than deeper cushioning and way more adjustability, would make this a worthwhile repeat purchase for me.
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