Cellphones and the, er, opposite of early adopter ism
I’m terribly impressed with Hayden’s technology-literate post, and I think the idea of posting pxts is a great one. I don’t have a pxt-capable phone, myself. I’m wondering if this makes me part of a minority – or is Hayden in the minority? Among my peers I’ve noticed that if cellphones are discussed, it’s usually to commend someone on their Nokia from 1999. Maybe that’s just because hardly anyone I know has much of a disposable income, but for me, having a basic phone is a deliberate aesthetic choice. Or maybe I just think it’s a deliberate aesthetic choice but deep down I’m a luddite in denial.
Last year, I finally mislaid my own chunky old reminder of the past and was forced to upgrade. I had an argument/conversation with a sales guy in the Telecom shop on Queen Street for at least half an hour. We were talking at cross-purposes. I was trying to explain my desire for simplicity, and the reason for a nostalgia for pixels you can see. The guy thought I was crazy. He lived in a version of reality where More Features = Better, a reality where I might actually want my cellphone to be able to clumsily emulate a song, furthermore, a reality where I would consider it necessary to have the ability to choose from a range of bad emulations of songs. Ditto screens that move and have colour. Okay, I can see where having a pxt function could be useful, as well as being able to connect to the Internet. But I was sitting in this shop, trying to explain minimalism, Modernism (in the aesthetic sense), the form/function dichotomy to this guy with an earring whose form of response was to keep repeating the same sales lingo. "But you can customise, with a choice of seven different wallpapers! And don't you want bluetooth technology? And what about these thirty four new ringtones? The ability to download more ringtones?" I don't know. I'm making a caricature out of this guy. You get the idea. He had an earring.
Anyway. I won, because he agreed to go out back and check to see if there were any out of date models available. He came back out with this thing that had little metal screws holding the front casing on. Great, I said, I’ll take it.
So we went up to the counter and he was like, okay, that’ll be $599, sorry, old model, old price tag, you understand.
So instead I bought a phone with Internet access and a choice of seven different animated wallpapers and a cornucopia of stupid ringtones.
Last year, I finally mislaid my own chunky old reminder of the past and was forced to upgrade. I had an argument/conversation with a sales guy in the Telecom shop on Queen Street for at least half an hour. We were talking at cross-purposes. I was trying to explain my desire for simplicity, and the reason for a nostalgia for pixels you can see. The guy thought I was crazy. He lived in a version of reality where More Features = Better, a reality where I might actually want my cellphone to be able to clumsily emulate a song, furthermore, a reality where I would consider it necessary to have the ability to choose from a range of bad emulations of songs. Ditto screens that move and have colour. Okay, I can see where having a pxt function could be useful, as well as being able to connect to the Internet. But I was sitting in this shop, trying to explain minimalism, Modernism (in the aesthetic sense), the form/function dichotomy to this guy with an earring whose form of response was to keep repeating the same sales lingo. "But you can customise, with a choice of seven different wallpapers! And don't you want bluetooth technology? And what about these thirty four new ringtones? The ability to download more ringtones?" I don't know. I'm making a caricature out of this guy. You get the idea. He had an earring.
Anyway. I won, because he agreed to go out back and check to see if there were any out of date models available. He came back out with this thing that had little metal screws holding the front casing on. Great, I said, I’ll take it.
So we went up to the counter and he was like, okay, that’ll be $599, sorry, old model, old price tag, you understand.
So instead I bought a phone with Internet access and a choice of seven different animated wallpapers and a cornucopia of stupid ringtones.
posted by Sue-Li at 11:10 am
3 Comments:
Well, I love my phone, and it does all sorts of stupid stuff which I hardly ever use. I bought it entirely for it's looks... I didn't really care how much it cost or what it did, the important thing was it had a colour-screen and that it was a flip-phone. So I felt quite guilty today when Luke talked about fetishes for technology...
-Emily
Yeah, that's really interesting to hear "neo-luddism" (there's a lot of it about) framed as an aesthetic sensibility - nice post. (And I say we're most of us guilty, Emily!)
In response to Sam's comment: yeah, I sort of see it as (in Baudrillard's terms) use-value as image-value, or, to harken back to the days of the Modernism and Design paper (were you there? I can't remember) form as function. Also like how decoration on a building can be considered functional through its image-value - performing cultural, semiotic functions.
In response to Rose: I should be enjoying the irony, but I'm still totally annoyed at the flashiness of my phone. My commodity does not reflect my sense of self! My god, who am I?
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