Kids today will never know the stress of burning a perfect CD.
By @yarayk · Nostalgia
My kid asked me why I have a bunch of old CDs in the garage. I tried to explain the art of picking songs, timing them to fit 74 minutes, and making sure the burner didn't mess it up.
The full story
You had to get the order right. You couldn't just drag and drop. You'd spend hours on Limewire getting the right mp3, hoping it wasn't a virus or some weird cover. Then you had to name each track, organize the flow, and pray the burn didn't fail at 98%. Had to make one for your crush, one for the car, one for workouts. It was a real skill. Now they just ask a robot to make a playlist. It's not the same.
How people voted
- Bad Move — 37% (7 votes)
- Needs Context — 42% (8 votes)
- Reasonable — 21% (4 votes)
Readers are split: “Needs Context” leads with 42% — 19 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@danaliterally — It was a rite of passage! Making a mix for a crush was a true art form.
@noeltbh — If you didn't have to wait 3 hours for one song to download on dial-up, you haven't lived.
@gimmieasec — I made my gf a burned CD once and put my own terrible cover of a Blink-182 song on it. We broke up a week later.
@jettmaybe — And when the burn failed at 98% you had to go buy a whole new pack of CD-Rs. Traumatic.
@maraagain — The generational gap in media consumption is only going to get wider from here.
Keep reading
- People romanticize early 2000s internet culture way too much.
- Streaming completely destroyed the lost art of the album experience.
- Kids these days will never know the stress of burning a perfect CD.
- Remember when you had to burn CDs for a road trip?
- Napster and Limewire were better for music discovery than Spotify ever will be.