#i had them on CASSETTE TAPES

[teastainedprose]

Homelander x fem!reader

Reader making a mix tape for Homelander and explaining the symbolism of making a mix tape

"You-" Homelander's voice cracks as he holds the cassette up for inspection. "You made this for me?" "Yeah, I just thought you might like some of these songs and I know the cabin has an old cassette player, so I just thought..." You trail off, cheeks turning brighter the longer you stand there. Homelander is staring at the tape, held between forefinger and thumb. He's blinking rapidly. "You don't have to listen to it, or whatever-" You start again, nerves putting a small quaver in your voice. It's stupid, is left unsaid but you think it all the same. Previous partners have said as much. "No, no. This is a cassette tape. You even decorated it." He flips the cassette over, taking in the designs across the label and the extra stickers. Lots of stars and stripes. Campey and cute. "You took the time to use this old tech for me?" Finally, Homelander's eyes settle on your face. "Ah, yeah. I just wanted to make you something. It- It wasn't so hard. There's software that makes mixing tracks easy and transferring it to a cassette only takes the proper wiring," You go on in a rush, eager to explain that tidbit from your hobby now that Homelander is watching you with a bit of wonder. He doesn't say thank you aloud. That's not his way. Instead, Homelander tugs you close to nuzzle his nose against your own before kissing you.

#Homelander #homelander x reader #I can see Homelander using cassette tapes #I feel like he'd be into any 90s tech #as that's what he would have had growing up #now everyone is obliged to give me links to theur Homelander mix tapes #I KNOW YOU FUCKING HAVE THEM #cause I have a Homelander playlist too #fluff #drabble #anon ask #ask #homelander writing #x reader

[get-back-homeward]

Now and Then Day

This sideblog began after watching Get Back nagged and nagged at me until finally I started to look closer at context relative to the Beatles discography and suddenly started experiencing these WAIT WHAT moments every day as what I thought I knew got turned inside out. The appeal was in looking at something you knew like the back of your hand from another direction and seeing/hearing something new you hadn’t seen/heard before. But I had no idea we’d get another song to add to the mix in 2023.

I knew Now and Then day would be an experience. I thought I’d have to wait the whole day before listening. But I got lucky and found a few minutes to listen to Now and Then when it was first released this morning. And inexplicably clicked to hear the remastered Love Me Do instead. I cannot explain my brain.

I then tried to start Now and Then and noped out before 15 seconds in. Too overwhelming. Not the right time. I was too rushed and needed more space to mentally prepare for it.

I caught NPR covering the Now and Then release today on my drive home. They had a Lennon biographer (I didn’t catch the name) reviewing the song. He said the song recalls John’s more delicate tunes like Beautiful Boys (sic) and mentioned John started the song in 1970.

Say what?!

Here I was late last night trying to nail down a better date for John’s demo than “late 70s”. Meanwhile, biographers are just here on national public radio pushing lies. Did he have ChatGPT write his comments?

Oh yeah, they also said it was created with AI no qualifier.🤦‍♀️

They played a few snippets of the song including one new piece not in the doc but refrained from playing it in full. It was mostly wrong Beatles facts all segment.

Trying the song a second time hours later, I got through it in one piece but was feeling abit 🥴 about it as a song itself. Having just listened to the original demo was probably a mistake, and I could hear all the seams and feeling the Frankenstein song effect.

Third attempt sounded more together, with the seams not quite as noticeable. I was prepared for the changes, the layering bits from other songs, and noted highlights of the instrumentals: the strings, George’s guitar bits, and Ringo’s flourishes. I love Paul coming through on the future tense certainty of “I will love you” (is that I Will?). Ringo’s shimmering effect choice (is it tams?) is such an entrancing closer. Giles’ score and Beatles recycled bits do mend the seams well once I stop thinking about them too much.

On fourth listen, my biggest notes are questioning why Paul’s harmony with John isn’t more distinct. He shows a lot of restraint here but maybe too much? Did Get Back get to him in other ways than the most obvious? Is he just self-conscious about his own voice? Or is it the limitation of the tech when it comes to harmony mixing?

The strings were what I was most worried about, but their entrance at the 1:15 mark really kicks it up a notch to transition into the singalong. Other standouts are 1:40 with George’s flourish and 2:29 peak with the guitar solo.

Lyrically, it’s the conditional and if I make it through it’s all because of you that haunts in layers of meaning both grim and cathartic that reverberate through time and space.

If John makes it through emotionally to 1980 and has a comeback? Congrats, bud you did it. But he’s stopped physically through no fault of his own. There’s the obvious mourning of that lost potential even 40 years later.

If this song this voice this message of John’s makes it through to 2023 and reaches the public? Well, success there, Paul’s tenacity saw it through with help from many friends. John’s voice and song lives on through Paul’s wish to conjure him by his side. On the Day of the Dead no less. I was reminded of the concept of tulpas today and was knocked back on my heels by the thought.

If John as an artist and Beatles as a band make it through so fans are still listening in 2023? This doubles as a bit of a fan love letter, and thank you for 60 years. Released on the day Beatlemania first appeared in black and white.

But then there’s also a reflector on this. Some original Beatles fans have aged with Paul and Ringo and others have not and aren’t here to share this like John and George. There’s grief and mourning from those still here about those lost, and the song acts as a catharsis. A kind of thank you to the band for being there for fans in good times and bad. The symbiosis of fame between a band and its fans across the decades.

It’s a lot.

I spent some time looking at the youtube comments on the song. Some original fans but many second and even third generation fans. And quite a few stories about a loved one who loved the band and recently passed away like this one:

And this:

But also in there are stories of catharsis and healing.

And many memories of the joy that Beatles music has brought to people’s lives. We all have these stories of how their songs weave into our own life. But it’s the joy that I keep coming back to as the secret sauce to the band’s earliest days. I often think of those early songs more in terms of feeling then anything, and it starts with the first single.

I love the Love Me Do remastering. That harmonica sounds so crisp. The bluegrassy harmonies have never sounded better. The ones on ple-ee-ee-ease still give me chills. Ringo’s drums moved forward in the mix to appreciate that driving beat just a bit more. I can hear the bass too. I can’t wait to hear what the other early Red album tracks sound like.

But next to Now and Then, I’m also looking at the lyrics like I never did before. Why give it another glance? Written by a 16 year old kid, it always sounded a bit juvenile and simple. But suddenly next to Now and Then, there’s a weight to it I never heard before.

Love, love me do

You know I love you

I’ll always be true

So please, love me do

It sounds like a promise. Now and Then is fulfillment of that always. It’s no longer just the whim of a kid. But rather the beginning of 7 decade devotional: To John, to the band, to fans, and reflected back again. The love is reciprocal from all sides.

How’s that for a WAIT WHAT moment? Paul turning the least likely song inside out and backwards. And he didn’t even add a lyrical middle eight.

#my text #song reactions #had to write up today #overwhelmed #too many thoughts #not well organized but felt wrong to leave them to the tags #what a weird day #hesitating to tag it #now and then #dont mind me im still processing it #i still post on tumblr dot com like its lj 2008 #i used to do tv ep reactions but song reactions is a first #i probably missed some bits #waxing poetic about cassette tapes another day #conversations with ghosts #grief #a tag ive had here for over a year now that i swear i will do something with one day #someone mentioned hauntology and when i get a working brain again yes lets get on that #taking real love free as a bird and now and then together #for the record the moment that actually made me flat out sob today #t was the anthology youve got to hide your love away with john’s ‘ready macca?’ #sitting on a vidding project all year but that ones getting added

[tsmerch]

the “in the trees" edition deluxe cassette

$13.00

#thanks to the person who let me know I’m missing a few tapes! #could’ve sworn i had them lol anyway #taylor swift #taylor swift merch #folklore #folklore merch #tape #cassette #ts merch

[moregraceful]

started listening to batting around and i can't tell if the hosts are legitimately worth being irritated by or if it's annoying online gay person perception of self through the other, BUT playing "andrew in drag" by the magnetic fields as a comedic beat was a stroke of genius and yeeted me all the way back to high school when my friends and i were exchanging literal mixtapes with "absolutely cuckoo" because all of our cars were shitheaps from our boomer parents with no cd decks and there's only no such thing as top 40 pop hits when you're a terminally indie livejournal user. the way we were exchanging mixtapes in the year 2007 because we were driving cars from the early 90s/late 80s....like do the tiktok teens who wish they were teens in the aughts understand what it was truly like. it was not elegant.

#i still have three mixtapes from Back Then from this guy in norway that i had a huge crush on. but i'm terrified to listen to them #bc i'm not sure what would happen if i tried to play a 17yo cassette tape rn. if it would just get destroyed immediately? gotta research #high school is like...it sucked so bad but i had music? will never forgive the bhawks for taking ''chelsea dagger'' from me #every once in a while i try to listen to someone's ''indie 00s hits'' playlist on spotify and take insane psychological damage #i really was out there making my mother - a professional musician and highly trained vocalist - listen to the wombats. oh my god #speaking of the aughts did anyone else have their soul leave their body when hidden cameras said they were rereleasing the smell of our own #for its TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY?? i almost died #anyway. batting around: are they annoying or am i just sensitive to people clowning on the a's. lowhanging fruit? get better material? wow? #🎶 a pity she does not exist / a shame he's not a fag / the only girl i'll ever love / is andrew in drag 🎶 #fresno oilers.txt

[thefaultinourchickennuggets]

really incredibly charmed by the fact the beths sell their albums on cassette tapes

#mbop #the beths #you can buy them on vinyl or cd too #but cassette tape is so fun #wish i personally had a use for that #but my car doesn't take tapes #so cds it will be!

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

40-60 year old professors will really be like "did you guys know that phones used to have cords? yeah, you're all really young, so I don't expect you guys to know that, but it's true" and then in the next sentence be like "it's just like a rolodex" and move on with no further elaboration

#To Be Clear. I know what a rolodex is too #I go to a public university and lots of people in my classes (including me) are 24-30 and grew up in middle or lower class households #who couldn't afford to be on the cutting edge of technology #some of us had crt desktop monitors and nokia phones until 2013 #while there are some kids who are fresh out of high school from wealthier households even some of the younger ones still saw things even if #they didn't use them #my first computer game was on a floppy disk. i used to listen to cassette tapes on a portable tape player during road trips. #the guy sitting next to me in this class is 32. these concepts are not unfamiliar to many of us #pickle pontificates

[maskedchip]

a bit personal but i think it’s cute my parents had a similar taste in music and it helped them to learn english a bit :’)  

#ofc it influenced my taste but that's why i like so much 60's and 70's songs even if i cant recall them all ^_^;; #it was like boney m and bee gees in the house all the time #and my dad had a lot of 80's rock records and cds #so awesome #thinking about it now bc my mom still plays cassette tapes in the car

[spiderziege]

was randomly reminded of the seven ravens fairytale earlier and uh. i think this one's weird even by fairytale standards

#this one & the goose girl are some of my favorite fairytales still.. mostly cause they were the only ones i had as cassette tapes #so i listened to them about a thousand times. and the goose girl has a talking horse so of course its good #but yeah i remember the part where she has to chop off her finger but i dont remember the moon CRAVING HUMAN FLESH??? #anyway. fairytales are awesome i just dont remember most of them #marly talks

[theodoradove]

What was the first Mountain Goats song you ever heard?

(not making this a poll because too many options)

Mine was Masher

#iirc it was on a mix tape my college girlfriend made for her best friend #and we're talking literal cassette tape because this was circa the year 2000 #the mountain goats #masher #full force galesburg #she made me an excellent mix too but i don't think this was on it #i should dig out that tape and the one a high school friend made for me and recreate them in a form i can actually listen to now #(as a sign of cultural decay the most recent mix tape i have received #was originally made on apple music which i do not subscribe to #so my friend had to remake it on spotify) #just give me a cassette tape and a boom box to sail her by #Youtube

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

that’s a form of dyslexia

i have it too

IS IT??

well i think my dad had a form of it, maybe i shouldn't be surprised

#i USED TO be able to read and i loved it when i was a kid #i remember asking my parents for books and to go to the library all the time but it never happened #i think my mom brought me once #my favorite book when i was little was a book of nursery rhymes #i carried it everywhere with me and read it every day #i probably drove my parents up the wall by repeating the rhymes at them all the time #other than that all we had were books on things like fish types and #encyclopedias and dictionaries #and my dad's bibles #AND MY DAD'S(which is now mine) RECORD COLLECTION which i also used to look at #mostly the desolation boulevard album #and so my love for music began #with sweet #and the cassette tape of them i listened to daily #anyway #literally putting my life story in the tags

[sailxrmxrs]

another fic contest let's go gamers. my entry for the robo is bored fic raffle over in the bloomic discord! for the last one i wrote pirate xyx and went a little stir crazy listening to sea shanties at 6am so this time around there's no au, just quest being chronically offline (affectionate). it's the first time mc is visiting his place and staying over and they discover that quest is just a guy with old mixtapes and a flip phone. nothing crazy n wild just some gentle heehee hahas directed at beloved discord mod quest still living in the early 2000s. writing this gave some nice nostalgic flashbacks to when everyone had flip phones and cassette players. what a time. time to blast everytime we touch by cascada until i lose my mind once again <3

Evening had settled over the city, the last remaining vestiges of warm amber light disappearing beyond the towering buildings that lined the city streets. A calmness permeated the air, the atmosphere far removed from earlier in the day when you'd first walked among the throngs of people. The only constant had been Quest walking beside you, fingers intertwined as his graps was warm and firm. Making time to come and visit him had been exactly what the two of you needed after recent stresses with work and general adult life. To spend a long weekend wrapped up in each other's attention provided a detox that left you feeling refreshed all over, and the weekend stay had only just begun. Being together like this felt as natural as breathing. The lull in conversation was anything but awkward as you walked the quiet streets in silence, illuminated by the diminishing sunlight rays of the golden hour. But as the day was reaching its end, your energy had also been depleted. The familiar ache of tiredness pressed at your eyes and the yawn you tried to muffle did not go unnoticed.

"Tired, angel?" Quest's thumbs rubbed circles on the back of your hand as you walked. The soothing gesture didn't help to keep the tiredness at bay.

You nodded. "A little."

"Then how about we head back to the car, grab something to eat at home get all nice and cosy in bed." He was already leading you to where he'd parked the car after picking you up from the hotel you'd stayed in overnight after a far-too-late flight the night before.

"Mm sounds nice." Your voice had grown quieter, your entire body leaning closer to Quest's as you walked. Luckily the car wasn't too far away and the drive home disappeared in a blur. Music played quietly from the speakers, Quest softly singing along as his fingers tapped absentmindedly against the steering wheel. It all felt so perfect. As though everything that had transpired in your lives had been leading up to this moment. Then as the car rolled to a stop as the traffic lights turned red, the music faded into silence. Quest’s deft hands moved to press a button as a CD popped out of the stereo system to switch it out for another. He leaned across your body, reaching for the storage compartment as he pulled out a square organiser filled with CDs—some you recognised and others that were entirely unfamiliar.

“Still using CDs? That’s actually kind of cute,” you mused, offering a hand to take the CD organiser from Quest to return to its home so that he could focus on driving once more.

Quest laughed, his cheeks warming as he replied. “I wouldn’t say that. More just sticking to what I know.”

The rest of the car journey passed by with minimal conversation, the sky turning a deep shade of purple as the sun fully set. Quest led you up to his apartment, holding open the door for you after unlocking it.

“Make yourself at home while I go put your stuff in the bedroom,” Quest offered, still carrying the small suitcase you’d brought with you. He was determined not to let you lift a finger the entire time you stayed with him, no matter how much you tried to convince him otherwise.

“You know I’m capable of carrying that myself, right?”

“A fact that I’m more than aware of. But that’s not going to stop me from doing everything for you,” Quest teased, reaching out a finger to poke your nose while you tried to wave his hand away. His laugh was warm as he gazed at you, an unmissable happiness permeating every feature on his kind face. You’d seen a happy Quest on more than a few occasions when you’d video called each other but this was something different. He seemed more relaxed and at ease than he had before, as if being in your presence affected him so acutely that it could be seen in the warmth of his eyes and the slight creases that appeared to be permanent etches with how often he smiled at you. He just felt so much more. And it had butterflies tingling in your stomach each minute you remained in his presence. Even after he left your side, the lingering after effects of Quest were present as ever. In his absence, you decided to let curiosity get the better of you. His apartment was decorated fairly minimally. It wasn’t bare by any means, but rather just as comfy as he needed it to be. Nothing more, nothing less. It felt so quintessentially Quest that you couldn’t have imagined the place looking any other way. As you mused over an old framed photo of a much younger Quest with who you assumed were his siblings, Quest emerged from his bedroom and made his way over to you. He left a soft kiss on your cheek before moving to the other side of the room.

“Some music okay?” He asked, fingers leafing through a pile of CDs kept on a shelf.

“Even more CDs?” You joked, an arm reaching around Quest as he rolled his eyes but continues his search.

Looking at the array before you, you let out a gasp. “Are they old mixtapes? I haven’t seen a cassette like this in years!” Holding the tape in your hands, you revelled in the nostalgia of Quest’s music collection. Though, looking around it felt as if you’d been transported back in time. Only then did it become much more apparent that Quest didn’t seem to have anything particularly new around—at least nothing technologically new. Sending him a playful glance, you asked, “Any chance you’ve heard of a playlist before? You know, the new age mixtape.”

Quest placed down the CD in hand and turned to you, an eyebrow raised as he pried the mixtape from you. “Some of us enjoy the technology of out childhood. Also I can’t get spotify on my phone anyway.

You blinked. “What? Quest you’re literally a mod for a discord server and you’re telling me your phone can’t even download an app?”

“That better not be judgement I’m hearing.”

“Never. But is this where you tell me you have a flip phone?” You had meant the comment to be a joke, not expecting Quest to reach into his back pocket and pull out exactly that. It took all of the self-restraint you possessed to not burst into giggles at Quest’s semi-serious expression. From the moment you’d met him he’d been full of surprises but this one might have been your favourite. "Like I said before, that's adorable. Unexpected, but adorable."

Quest blushed as he pocketed the phone again, looking unsuspecting as he hesitated for a moment before lifting you up and over his shoulder. He made a beeline for the sofa where he gently threw you down, his laugh mingling with yours in a symphony of sound. Quest's hands were firm on your wrists and holding them at each side of your head as he looked down at you, his smile taunting.

"To think, my very own angel is making fun of me for having an old phone."

It was hard to reply between laughs, but you somehow managed to get your words out. "I'm not making fun! I called you cute!"

"What if I don't want to be cute? You're killing my ego here, angel."

"Oh how awful, I feel so terrible." Your echoed with sarcasm as you oushed against Quest's weight over you. He relinquished, letting you sit up but not moving from where he sat. His hands were still on your wrists and he gently tugged on them, encouraging you to move closer. If you moved even a centimetre further, your nose would be grazing his. It didn't take much encouragement to close that gap, Quest's lips gentle against yours. Though despite how gently he held you, it was clear that he was holding back—waiting for some kind of signal to continue. But you didn't give him the satisfaction. Instead, you pulled away, smiling as he regarded you with for adoration and affection than perhaps you'd ever felt in your life.

"I like where this is going," you started, voice low and hushed despite being the only two people in the room. "But I believe you promised me a meal and a nap when we got back."

Quest's laugh was explosive, his head tilting back as he laced his fingers with yours. Once his amusement abated enough to speak, he replied. "You really will be the death of me, won't you, angel? But of course, anything my darling commands."

#blooming panic fanfic #blooming panic x reader #blooming panic quest #blooming panic quest fanfic #blooming panic quest x reader #robo is bored fic contest #quest is old man at heart who does not know technology and that is so valid u pop off king one day you'll learn what twitter is #for now enjoy your cassette tapes and flip phones with the funky lil buttons i miss having one #the most tech savvy phone quest will ever get is one of them phones where the keyboard slides out from underneath #and you turn the phone on its side to type #u know the one right #anyway this is a very specific hc that i didn't realise i had enjoy it gamers #see u in a few weeks for quest birthday time to celebrate the quiddies #anna writes

[i-suggest-weed]

made the mistake of going on ebay and…. a vhs player is only like £30……. and a ton of people are selling their old tapes for £1 each……. like I could just fucking do it…….. it would be really fucking dumb but theoretically I absolutely could just fucking do it………..

#he talks #I want that shit so bad and it’s so stupid and I don’t have the money or the space for this rn but it would be so easy to just buy them #I miss my family’s collection of tapes daily #cannot fucking believe they threw out almost all tapes and dvds #we also had so many cassettes…. #fucking sad times #having a scream 1996 fixation is really not good for my bank account

[girlcatullus]

i usually have zero rizz in my dreams but tonight hah! yes i did have rizz. and my brain is probably fucked up because i never have proper sex dreams (or very very seldom nonetheless) but just... tease dreams? and the failure to live up to expectation embedded within them

#basically in the dream i met this dude and we vibes from the get go #and i was saying stuff about having rizz because in my dream we were walking up a flight of stairs while talking #and i just went and took his hands #which was weird for me even in the dream #i mean hand singular. we began holding hands out of the blue #and then we get to a sort of... filing cabinet room? #and we kiss and somehow i get turned around and he kisses my neck while huhhhh well no english verb to aid me in this specific action atm #beh me lo appoggia #and we part ways for whatever reason agreeing to meet later but we never do? #because a lot happened in the dream afterwards #like i was speaking about research to people and i was supposed to find like a cassette tape indexed as tape 1924 about a music topic #and the catalogation was wrong #then this very disturbing part of two little girls i somehow knew who climbed into the bottom part of a fridge and were beginning to freeze #and me and my dad had to fucking SAVE THEM #(we did) #also having dinner with people i knew and not knowing where to go pay the bill or go to the bathroom #fun night!

[gumnut-logic]

Edelweiss, Edelweiss

Edelweiss, Edelweiss Ev'ry morning you greet me Small and White Clean and bright You look happy to meet me Blossem of snow may you bloom and grow Bloom and grow forever Edelweiss, edelweiss Bless my homeland forever

Clean and Bright You look happy to meet me Blossem of snow may you bloom and grow Bloom and grow forever Edelweiss, Edelweiss Bless my homeland forever

#we had The Sound of Music soundtrack #on vinyl #and cassette tape #I know EVERY song #even sung them to my children #still sing them to my children #and get yelled at :D #Mum you are so embarrassing #Yep that's my job #I'm still in a weird mood #but i do have my current fic open #though it might be a little terrifying to write to The Sound of Music #Oh God #The Von Tracy Family Singers #shoot me now

[cheddar-baby]

Remembered this triptych of poems i made about ghosts and decided why not share it and the photo of the doll i made to go along with it.

#its hard to see but there are real bugs all over the doll #also for clarification im not a poet i don't write poetry #so i gave it a shot and you know im decently happy with how it came out #i recorded these onto a cassette tape and had them set up in a gallery where you could put the tape in and listen to it #and it was all fun and scrunkly #but idk where my recording of the tape playing back off the tape deck is so you get the clean audio version #I do really like the photo though even though i shot it on 4x5 first and it messed up so i had to reshoot on 120mm but it turned out nice #poetry #art #photography #also i love the title i think ''the wind whistles through me'' is such a good phrase it activates my brain nicely

[fozmeadows]

the older I get, the more the technological changes I've lived through as a millennial feel bizarre to me. we had computers in my primary school classroom; I first learned to type on a typewriter. I had a cellphone as a teenager, but still needed a physical train timetable. my parents listened to LP records when I was growing up; meanwhile, my childhood cassette tape collection became a CD collection, until I started downloading mp3s on kazaa over our 56k modem internet connection to play in winamp on my desktop computer, and now my laptop doesn't even have a disc tray. I used to save my word documents on floppy discs. I grew up using the rotary phone at my grandparents' house and our wall-connected landline; my mother's first cellphone was so big, we called it The Brick. I once took my desktop computer - monitor, tower and all - on the train to attend a LAN party at a friend's house where we had to connect to the internet with physical cables to play together, and where one friend's massive CRT monitor wouldn't fit on any available table. as kids, we used to make concertina caterpillars in class with the punctured and perforated paper strips that were left over whenever anything was printed on the room's dot matrix printer, which was outdated by the time I was in high school. VHS tapes became DVDs, and you could still rent both at the local video store when I was first married, but those shops all died out within the next six years. my facebook account predates the iphone camera - I used to carry around a separate digital camera and manually upload photos to the computer in order to post them; there are rolls of undeveloped film from my childhood still in envelopes from the chemist's in my childhood photo albums. I have a photo album from my wedding, but no physical albums of my child; by then, we were all posting online, and now that's a decade's worth of pictures I'd have to sort through manually in order to create one. there are video games I tell my son about but can't ever show him because the consoles they used to run on are all obsolete and the games were never remastered for the new ones that don't have the requisite backwards compatibility. I used to have a walkman for car trips as a kid; then I had a discman and a plastic hardshell case of CDs to carry around as a teenager; later, a friend gave my husband and I engraved matching ipods as a wedding present, and we used them both until they stopped working; now they're obsolete. today I texted my mother, who was born in 1950, a tiktok upload of an instructional video for girls from 1956 on how to look after their hair and nails and fold their clothes. my father was born four years after the invention of colour televison; he worked in radio and print journalism, and in the years before his health declined, even though he logically understood that newspapers existed online, he would clip out articles from the physical paper, put them in an envelope and mail them to me overseas if he wanted me to read them. and now I hold the world in a glass-faced rectangle, and I have access to everything and ownership of nothing, and everything I write online can potentially be wiped out at the drop of a hat by the ego of an idiot manchild billionaire. as a child, I wore a watch, but like most of my generation, I stopped when cellphones started telling us the time and they became redundant. now, my son wears a smartwatch so we can call him home from playing in the neighbourhood park, and there's a tanline on his wrist ike the one I haven't had since the age of fifteen. and I wonder: what will 2030 look like?

#millennials #technology #personal #generations #generational change