The forgotten war on the Walkman

Comments

• paultimate14@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Honestly there were some food points back then. A lot of people simply are not able to wear headphones responsibly. It’s only gotten worse with noise cancelling technology. The ability to ignore the outside world is great when you’re in a safe space to do so, but people doing it out in public or while driving are absolutely mad.

  The quotes about “breaking societal connections” or whatever are funny to me though. Because that was happening at the time, but it had far more to do with the erosion of 3rd places and the rise of car-centric infrastructure than it did headphones.

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  • SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org ⁨40⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    "breaking societal connections", yeah. I don't remember where I saw an old photo of a train car full of people, all immersed in their... newspapers.

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• Sanctus@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Same as it always was with new technology. On a side note, I wish these were still made like they were. New portable cassette players all have the same terrible tape heads and the models from the glory days are really starting to fall to disrepair as time passes. I just had to cannibalize one of my Walkmans to fix the other, only to have the same issue resurface nearly immediately.

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  • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    How’s the Fiio player? Also crappy heads?

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    • Sanctus@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Thats one I haven’t forked over for yet. It appears very chunky and I like my cassette players slim for pocket storage so I did not consider it.

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    • otacon239@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Fiio player? If you’re referring to the Echo Mini, it’s just a digital player. It’s just aesthetically a tape player.

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  • user224@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I was looking to get one, but a lot seem to be mono only. Otherwise Retekess TR606 looked interesting, even if just mostly as a toy.

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• frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  “Will personal headphones lead to a world of silence?” We could have wished.

  Also, the OG Walkman still looks brilliant. I wish they’d bring the headphone design back.

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• lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Like always, outrage over useful tech is driven by stubborn conservatives hellbent on making everyone else suffer.

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  • paraphrand@lemmy.world ⁨39⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    Hmm, I’ve never seen someone directly link conservatism to the entire concept of society.

    I didn’t know considering societal consitions was conservative. But I guess conservative leaders did implement a lot of environmental protections. 🤔

    Where does the line actually fall, do you think? I assume I’m over extending a bit here. Making assumptions about what you mean.

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• Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

  Fascinating article. I never that there was this sort of opposition to the walkman.

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• ch00f@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Living in a city, I can kind of get it. The number of people who simply walk in front of my bike because they’re absorbed in their phone has made my commute stressful. I ended up installing a car horn on my bike which I’m sure makes their commute more stressful.

  Perhaps the Walkman was the first time technology isolated people from the world around them.

  Or I dunno, books.

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  • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Had a young man almost walk straight into my car at the supermarket. He was listening to whatever on headphones and drifting sideways across the lot. We came to a stop and waited to see if he’d hit us. His mom was watching and not saying a word! :)

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