The ’90s called, they want their phones back.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/10105454

• Gen Z’s nostalgia for the early 2000s is sparking a revival of landline phones, seen as a retro-chic escape from the digital age.

• Influenced by '90s and 2000s TV shows, young adults like Nicole Randone and Sam Casper embrace landlines for their vintage appeal.

• Urban Outfitters capitalizes on Gen Z’s love for nostalgia by selling retro items like landline phones alongside fashion trends from the '90s and 2000s.

They are fun to slam down when you want to hang up on someone

I miss flip phones for similar reasons. I loved flicking them open and snapping them shut.

tuckerm
link
fedilink
31Y

My last phone before getting a smart phone as a Motorola Razr, and man that one was so satisfying.

They made a new Razr flip. Though Im slightly skeptical on the longevity of slamming glass against glass hundreds of times. Still looks cool though!

tuckerm
link
fedilink
31Y

It does look cool! I’m worried about that too, though. I would only be buying it for the “snap it shut” action, and it’s more expensive than any other phone I’ve owned. The original Razr was premium for it’s time, but that was when “premium phone” meant $300.

GeekFTW
link
fedilink
12
edit-2
1Y

40 years old. Haven’t been satisfied with a phone-slam since before my first cordless phone in 2001.

Yeah, angrily jabbing a phone screen realllllyyyy does not have the same satisfaction whatsoever.

The only right way to slam down the phone requires an old phone with actual bells for the ringer. You know you did it right then the bells ding at you.

I had one of those see through phones back in the day. Loved that thing. But turns out the see through plastic isn’t as strong as the older style. Smashed it down too hard one day and the whole thing was destroyed.

@IronKrill@lemmy.ca
link
fedilink
12
edit-2
1Y

Article and trend aside, I actually do miss landlines… I have to do the “boomer” thing of talking on speaker phone with my phone out in front of me because no matter what I do putting my flat cellphone up to my ear is just impossible to hear and exceedingly uncomfortable. I miss the ergonomics of a real phone.

Have you considered Bluetooth (or wired) earbuds? I can’t stand phone calls without them. Speakerphone makes me self-conscious in public and I can’t help but get shouty, and I have the same problem as you do with face-smush mode. But my Bluetooth earbuds are exactly how I want my phone call experience to be.

@IronKrill@lemmy.ca
link
fedilink
2
edit-2
1Y

Unfortunately I’ve yet to find a pair of earbuds that doesn’t fall out or hurt my ears (or both), Either my ears are shaped differently than the average or I have to spend more to find the right pair. I would use headphones instead, but they’re hard to lug around and most work days I interact with customers so it’s a no-go.

Oh, that’s too bad. There are band-style or hook-style versions that could maybe help with that, but yeah most of them are buds.

One thing I’ll say is that when I used to wear wired buds, they would fall out all the time and I thought I just had weird-shaped ears or something… But when I got into wireless buds, I tried out a bunch of styles and found that without the cord, they stay in way more reliably. Wired ones would fall out when I turn my head or just walk 10 steps, but with wireless ones, I can shake my head or run or anything, and they stay in. I guess the weight/movement of the cord makes a big difference, at least for me.

I hadn’t thought about the wire affecting it, that could well be! Thanks for the input, I may have to take another look at some buds.

Exocrinous
link
fedilink
English
31Y

Okay but what do I do if I’m not wearing my buds when I receive a surprise call?

I just pop em in then answer. Or answer then pop em in.

Exocrinous
link
fedilink
English
11Y

I keep my buds in their own case in a special pocket of my backpack. If I’m sitting at my desk and get a call, I need to pause what I’m doing, stand up, extricate myself from my work corner, go to my bag, open the special pocket, take out the charging case, take out the buds, and put them in. And I have to do it either in the 10 seconds I have to answer the call, or one handed while having a conversation.

Oh, mine live either in my pocket or on my desk in most cases, so it’s usually pretty quick. You can also start the call without them and then switch to them after a minute or two once you’ve performed the necessary extraction procedure.

Speakerphone makes me self-conscious in public

I would feel self conscious if people looked at me thinking I was crazy, talking to myself.

Lol I’ve experienced that too, especially if they can’t see my ears.

wth. radiation proof? is this for visiting the chernobyl exclusion zone?

Haha I guess it’s just a weird translation

deleted by creator

@Empricorn@feddit.nl
link
fedilink
English
2
edit-2
1Y

I swear, these article-writers just hear about a few quirky teenagers and immediately label it a viral trend that will sweep the entire world…

BolexForSoup
link
fedilink
10
edit-2
1Y

It doesn’t say anything about getting rid of their cell phone for one. The article says quite the opposite actually.

While Gen Zers definitely don’t need a landline — still relying on their cellphones for virtually everything — it’s the aesthetic of “2000s nostalgia” that makes the relic so attractive to them.

It’s not clear these people wouldn’t have a cellphone as well.

Uranium3006
link
fedilink
301Y

This seems like a dumb tiktok trend or some shit.

a lot of these articles are trash for this reason. most of it shouldn’t be posted tbh

katy ✨
link
fedilink
41Y

it’s from the nypost - a tabloid rag from rupert murdoch - what did you expect?

admiralteal
link
fedilink
161Y

There’s just zero merit to these “people on the internet are saying X” stories.

Nothing of value to sourcing a few retweets, ticktock duets, instagram stories, or whatever the fuck TMTMTM version of it you get.

Actual street interviews with random schlubs are far, far more informative than this crap. The internet is huge and you can find literally any opinions on it. Sourcing these anecdotes is absolutely the trashiest tier of journalism and anyone writing one of these stories should think hard about an immediate career change.

Run a fucking poll if you want to write a story about public opinion.

The world will be a better place the day after every serious news media organization leaves twitter and tells all their journalists they cannot use it as anything other than an original source to what a specific public figure has to say.

BolexForSoup
link
fedilink
1
edit-2
1Y

deleted by creator

The world will be a better place the day after every serious news media organization leaves twitter and tells all their journalists they cannot use it as anything other than an original source to what a specific public figure has to say.

YES!!!

Pandantic [they/them]
link
fedilink
English
41Y

I still want to talk on the phone and I probably wouldn’t if it was like corded landline days when you were constrained to wherever the cord would reach. Cordless was freeing, and I’ll never go back!

@YuzuDrink@beehaw.org
link
fedilink
English
51Y

I look back fondly on the moments of “where is the phone?!” Because someone took it to their room to have a private conversation but then left it there on accident.

Still happens I guess, but where everyone has their own phone (not one shared for the whole family) it’s less frantic and thus less hilarious to me.

ares35
link
fedilink
41Y

we still play that game. at least once every week or two, i’m calling a ‘lost’ phone from another or using the handset locator on a cordless system.

There were cordless landlines for years. So you could go usually anywhere in the house or even into the yard a ways. But I can’t think why anyone would want to use something like that when you have cell phones. Large, comfy form factor I suppose.

BolexForSoup
link
fedilink
41Y

Same reason I like running retro consoles/hardware. The process itself is part of the fun.

Newer ones aren’t that large, but why bother when you have a cellphone always with you anyway

@spider@beehaw.org
link
fedilink
3
edit-2
10M

deleted by creator

Man there’s something about talking on a cell phone that makes me feel like I have to yell, and thus, hate talking on them.

As I remember land lines, they never felt that way.

BolexForSoup
link
fedilink
11Y

Probably positioning. Land lines generally went the length of your whole face. The mic was angled and right in front of your mouth.

Think about it - corded phones died because we needed to walk around and talk. I mean, you all remember how ridiculously long some of those cords could get so that people could do light chores. Then wireless landlines became a thing (and I swear the audio quality seemed to drop) and as cellphones became more predominant they were almost phased out entirely - certainly phased out of necessity.

But now two decades or so later we’re just in one spot all the time again. If we’re not at work we’re at home and if we’re not cooking or cleaning we’re probably just in one spot (likely at the computer or the TV). So it makes sense to me, although I do wonder how much of this is more of a micro trend than Gen Z bringing back landlines lol.

Sibbo
link
fedilink
31Y

The optimal phone is both corded and wireless: it has a receiver corded to a base piece with a traditional dial, but the base piece is wireless.

I’m starting to view fads as a form of annealing. To knock ourselves out of local maxima, humans have an predisposition for finding a reason to go back and try old stuff again. If there was something useful to it, it’ll be reflected in the tools they create. I guess rebellion in general is just as evolutionarily useful as conformity. The Exploration/Exploitation dichotomy.

My wife insists on us having a landline. She doesn’t know she’s running a SIP phone over the internet connected to a SIP trunk that has a local area number. She’s happy. I get to kill our landline.

In Australia both internet telephony and mobile are sometimes laggy and garbled. This never happened with landlines.

Landlines also still work if cell and internet are out but power isn’t in an emergency, which I’d bet is why she wants the landline lol.

M. Orange
link
fedilink
2
edit-2
1Y

Most available “landlines” nowadays are just VoIP anyway tho. It’s why my dad got into ham radio.

Landlines were self-powered. They did not require mains. But if the blackout was because a tree pulled down the power lines then there was a good chance it pulled down telephone wires too.

cell and internet are out but power isn’t

Though true, phones can also go down, I believe the point would be redundancy in case X works but Y does not. Though as someone else mentioned HAM is a better solution anyway, I need to finally get my technician’s license.

Sometimes I wonder if some companies or groups are paying to publish “news” about genz using this or that, as a way to promote their stuff. It looks to me as a good and cheap tactic, since some younger people would look into the “trend”, trying not to miss it, while some older people would look into it trying to stay “cool” and not look out of fashion.

But then I think again, and it looks like too much of a conspiracy theory. Why does my brain do that?

I think it does work like that. Companies do spend money to promote heir products in non obvious ways. Nowadays Influencers use products even without stating that they are being sponsored. There were news that gas companies were paying Influencers to make photos cooking over gas stoves. This hangs also on the opinion many seem to have that cooking with gas is much better then induction or similar.

Companies also pay for “news” articles sometimes. Sometimes you see these “news” articles about the super innovative startup in your area that is about to unleash the next big thing into the world. You read and it’s only an article built on promises. No actual thing that is worth reporting as news happened, but the company is now featured in the news papers.

deleted by creator

HeartyBeast
link
fedilink
21Y

There was a fashion about 30 years ago in the UK to convert old-style rotary phones so they worked with DTMF touch tones. I had a rather excellent original candle-stick style phone. Got lost in a move somewhere. Retro is always cool

I bet there are dozens of people doing this.

Che Banana
link
fedilink
161Y

bundled in our internet is a landline…so we found a vintage rotary phone and hooked it up. We can receive but not call out. It’s awesome.

I love rotary phones lol. They’re so fun to play around with.

@bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
link
fedilink
15
edit-2
1Y

If you’re interested, these things will convert rotary pulses to tones and allow your old phone to interface with the phone system (and voip systems too)

Edit: nvm, someone beat me to it

qprimed
link
fedilink
English
61Y

not a recommendation (I have not used any pulse to tone converters), but this may help you out.

Che Banana
link
fedilink
21Y

Appreciate all the comments, its just a novelty at the moment but if we ever start to use it it would be for reservations only (and incoming only).

Mine can even still call out, but the router/modem doesn’t supply enough voltage (or current, not sure) so you really have to scream to be heard and only hear a faint whisper.

Sam Vimes
link
fedilink
21Y

That looks like maybe the opposite of what they need, that says it doesn’t affect normal operation, just boosts the ring. That website looks like it’d have something to fix the issue though.

Create a post

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community’s icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

  • 1 user online
  • 97 users / day
  • 271 users / week
  • 734 users / month
  • 2.11K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 3.73K Posts
  • 72.4K Comments
  • Modlog