Remember when you had to burn CDs for your friends to share music?
By @zanekk · Nostalgia
I was trying to explain to my younger coworker what a 'mix CD' was and she just stared at me blankly. It made me realize how much has changed about sharing music and how personal it used to be.
The full story
My office has a 'get to know you' channel and the question of the day was 'what's a piece of old tech you miss?' I mentioned my old Discman and the art of burning the perfect mix CD. The amount of effort that went into it was a real labor of love. You had to pick the right songs in the right order, make sure it all fit under the 80-minute limit, and then you'd maybe even design a little cover for the jewel case. It was a whole ritual. I was telling my coworker (she's like 22) about spending hours on LimeWire, hoping the file you were downloading wasn't a virus, just to get that one song you needed to complete a mix for your crush. they asked why I didn't just send them a Spotify playlist. It's not the same! A playlist is disposable. A mix CD was a physical token of your friendship or affection. It feels like we lost some of that intentionality with the move to streaming. Or maybe I'm just an old man yelling at a cloud.
How people voted
- Facts — 27% (30 votes)
- Depends — 44% (48 votes)
- No Way — 29% (32 votes)
Readers say “Depends” (44%) — 110 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@ahhfine — You should make that coworker a spotify playlist but only put one really weird song on it.
@sortaright — soft.
@zaneyk — If it wasn't on vinyl, it wasn't real music anyway.
@judey — You're just romanticizing the past because you're nostalgic.
@laney — My first AIM screenname was literally based on the burned CD I made for my middle school bf lol
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