Some devices change the way you interact with your data so fundamentally you wonder why you even bothered to have such data beforehand. The iPod is one such device.
Did music exist before iPods? I believe so, but my memory of music in the days before that little white wonder is vague and filled with the sounds of static, clicks, repetition, commercials, and repetition.
Before iPods there was a thing called "radio." Radio was like a giant iPod filled with somebody else's music, and while you got to wear the earphones somebody else controlled the buttons. Worst of all, they invariably had terrible (and identical) taste in music, and they insisted on yelling at you about things you should buy when they (frequently) pushed the pause button.
A typical session of "radiocasting," as I believe it was called, ran something like this:
- Yell at you to buy a car.
- Yell at you to buy a cell phone.
- Yell at you to buy movie tickets.
- Yell at you to listen to the same radio station you are currently listening to, which for some reason wasn't taken to be nearly as insulting as you'd think.
- Yell at you to buy clothes.
- Yell at you to buy food.
- Yell at you to buy more food.
- Yell at you to buy even more food, come on, force it down.
- Yell at you to quit smoking.
- Yell at you to attend a sporting even sponsored by a tobacco company.
- Yell at you to keep listening to this same radio station because it was about to play some more music.
- Yell at you to buy a computer.
- Yell at you to buy furniture.
- Yell at you to buy a camera.
- Yell at you to keep listening to this same radio station because it was about to play some more music, and this time they really meant it.
- Yell at you to stop stealing music.
- Yell at you to stop driving drunk.
- Yell at you to clean up your acne.
- Yell at you to lose weight.
- Yell at you to color your hair.
- Yell at you to feel good about yourself and stop listening to other kids who make you feel bad about your acne, your weight, and your hair.
- Play a couple of songs.
- Repeat.
I know, this probably sounds crazy to you. What a transparent way to force-feed you sales pitches and other people's opinions. What a load of self-serving nonsense. What a waste of your time.
If you're younger than your mid-forties then you probably don't remember a time when a thing like radio existed. But trust me, it did. Oh sure, once iPods existed people immediately stopped listening to radio. In fact, when the last radio station closed down in the winter of 2004 it's said that nobody even noticed for a few years. That's how little relevance radio had once we were put in charge of our own music listening, and it explains the abject terror many in the music industry displayed in face of such personal empowerment.
But how, you probably want to ask, did anyone put up with all that radio piffle in the first place? For that matter, why would anyone put up with it? I honestly don't know, but shamefully we did. Sometimes you just don't realize how truly awful something is until you get rid of it.
Which brings me to the point of this post. Take a look at your television. Think about that glowing advertisement feed-tube in terms of the schedule above, substituting "play a fraction of a show" for "play a couple of songs." Seem familiar?
So how, you might want to ask yourself, do you put up with it? And why do you put up with it?
And more to the point, what are you going to do about it?
