The art of the mixtape and other lost pre-tech items
Cooking meat over an open flame may be old-fashioned, but it tastes a lot better than microwaving it. There’s no doubt we’ve evolved, and now we don’t use fire that much. We have microwaves, light bulbs and electric blankets.
But sometimes there’s nostalgia for obsolescence, there are certain things that I miss that we have ‘evolved’ past. Some things that I’m tied to, have now been replaced by new technology. Here are five out-of-date things that I still long for:
I remember the old family trips as a child, my dad staying up late, the map sprawled out in front of him as he plotted the shortest route for our trip. Now preparation consists of going to Google Maps (MapQuest sucks) five minutes before getting in the car.
I’m hard pressed to say this isn’t an improvement over the old-fashioned map, but there’s something about traveling that calls for uncertainty. I did a road trip from Colorado to California this past summer, and my companions and I decided to forgo the computer for a map, strangely enough we reached our destination no worse for the wear.
Then again, when I absolutely need to find a CVS within a five-mile radius, Google has my back.
I love e-mail. I have a serious addiction to my Gmail, and I love having correspondences on my computer forever – most of the time.
Not that I, uh, have any incriminating things in my e-mail. Well, no more than anyone else, but in an electronic format, things are out of your hands once sent.
That doesn’t happen with printed mail. Even if you set out to write something you may regret later, the process calms you down a bit, you think clearer and revise. Thank-you e-mails are nice, but nothing compares to getting a thank you card in the mail.
Remember when you went out in middle and grade school and you had to be sure to bring enough quarters with you for emergency calls home?
Cell phones make life easier: no remembering numbers, no times when your friends or family are unreachable… the downside: no time when you’re unreachable.
I have a compulsion that I need to answer my cell when it rings. If I don’t, or can’t, I get worried that the call I just missed was incredibly important. I leave class when I my phone vibrates just because I know that if I get the voicemail beep a minute later, I’ll have to leave and check it anyway.
I still get to do this as a photography major, but at the same time, I see printed photos disappearing. I personally love having all of my photos on a hard drive, but barring a majority of my photo collection, I’d rather have some 4×6 glossies. I miss the days of reminding a buddy to get doubles so I could have copies. I miss finding an old disposable or roll of film months or years after it was shot and getting a surprise when the prints are done.
I rarely print my own work, but I can’t get over my nostalgia for passing around glossies, holding them by the sides so they don’t get smudged.
These are last on the list because I feel that they’re the most personal. CDs didn’t become huge for our generation until early high school, and then iPods ruined carefully selected mixes.
I’m saying tapes for a reason. Even CDs changed the process of ‘the mix.’ Making that special person a tape was a process. You had to find the tapes with the songs you wanted. If you didn’t have the tape, you had to sit by a radio, damn near forever until the song came on.
Making a mix tape for someone of the opposite sex is impossible. You don’t want to send the wrong message, but at the same time you don’t want them to have any idea of how much you thought about it.
Now iTunes and the ‘skip’ button have irreversibly ruined mix tapes. Were I to hand my crush a carefully crafted cassette they’d probably have to go on eBay and buy a tape player.
While technology will march forward, it’s nice to give a personal touch. Splurge and print out last weekends photos for your friends. Take a road trip this summer with nothing but your buddies and a map. Make someone a mix tape and give them a walkman to listen to it on – just make sure you’re sending the right signals.
AJ Chavar is the tech columnist for The Daily Orange where his columns appear Wednesdays. He once sacrificed a DJ Jazzy Jeff tape to make someone a mix tape, and he also used to listen to DJ Jazzy Jeff. E-mail him at ajchavar@syr.edu
Published on March 25, 2008 at 12:00 pm
