Love in the Time of Slow Tech
The one where I reference David
The one good thing about a stomach bug is that I’ve rediscovered Reddit while laying in the fetal position on my parents’ couch. Yes, it’s true. I’ve found myself mildly and wildly entertained by edgy subreddits such as
I’ve basically been radicalized into becoming a 70-year-old.
In one subreddit I follow, r/Writeresearch, there are the usual questions like, “Good way to get killed by a knife?” and, “How would you describe the smell of eggs?”. The other day, someone posed this to the group:
Reading through the responses, I was struck by nostalgia…. which in true 90s form is a strong whiff of calvin klein one with a hint of of Herbal Essences.
What I was witnessing was sort of strange. Trying to explain the 90s to people, especially the technology (er, lack of), to people who grew up in the time of Meta and Google and EVs is like speaking a different language to them.
I remembered the mix tapes. My collection had been all different colors (my favorite were the clear ones), some had cases with carefully written discographies by me or friends, some were naked except for a sticker or two on them. They were hard plastic and made all sorts of satisfying clicking sounds.
I was probably recently out of college when I threw all of mine away. I had been holding onto them for no particular reason, and now I was an actual adult who bought songs on iTunes and went to cooler-than-thou lounges in DC, I didn’t need them. Nope, I didn’t need a Sanrio lunch box jam packed with old, cassettes, named things like “sArA’s KeWl SuMmR MiX”. They were too retro, too uncool, too chunky.
We were done, or at least so I thought. I threw all those years of music and memories away. And I regret it so hard.
The funny thing is that I miss the shitty tapes the most, the ones where I tried to record a song on the radio when it came on and then stop it before it faded into another less appealing one. Some had static cutting in and out while I adjusted the antenna just so. Some were just the fade out instrumentals of songs I caught the very end of. At face value, these were the junkiest compilations of the bunch, but looking back now, I think there was something sort of tactile and collage-y and cringe/honest about them that I wish I could experience again.
All of this circles back to a topic I’ve been considering a lot lately. David, my incredibly handsome husband, is really into something I’ve coined slow tech. He restores iPods and Nintendo Gameboys— lemme know if you have either! — and even uses an iPod himself on his commute to work. We are filling out our Blu-Ray and physical book collections via used bookstores, while also trying to wean ourselves off streaming services.
There is something to be said about owning the things you paid for. Ugh, that sounds so capitalistic. What I mean is, why let corporate companies hold us hostage for the things we enjoy, that make us who we are — our music, our movies, our books. [This probably would include, ahem, substack] At least with mix tapes, especially the shitty ones, those were 100% mine, in my own little, weird teenage language.
Slow tech, people. HNY and Free Palestine.