Walkmans and the Art of Ignoring Everyone - The 80's #3
I don't know what kind of gadgets kids are grafting to their skulls or shoving into their earholes these days. Some kind of cybernetic mysticism is going on in the world around me, creating teenaged zombies attached to their devices. But we had the Walkman. It was 'compact' in an age when gargantuan Boom Boxes were a thing and caused semi-permanent spinal injuries. It weighed in at the low, low poundage of a mid-sized ham. It also provided an answer to a universal problem of the 80's: Other people existed, and sometimes they wanted to talk to you. Like, totally gross. The Walkman was liberation! Walk down the street and listen to your own soundtrack, pretending you were both star and way under-appreciated extra in your own music video. Pop in a cassette, hit the play button, and suddenly for the next 90 minutes you were as emotionally unavailable as Mom during her afternoon soaps. Either that, or you burned through your third set of "value pack" AA-batteri...