Reminds me of the first time I worked in a newsroom in the early 2000s. When the repeated slamming wasn't enough, the whole phone would go flying across the office. I, unfortunately, had the desk by the wall, in the prime firing line. My reflexes became boss in those first 3 months.
Answering on flip phones was equally boss. When you master that perfect wrist flip where you can just crack the hinge a little with your thumb and let the flip do the rest of the work.
Boomer moment: I'm 30 but never got used to the feeling of modern smartphones against out ears. It's terrible and I can never hear or be heard well enough. It's to a point where I always answer in speakerphone or with headphones, facilitated by not answering the phone often. Recently I've been wishing to get an old phone-like accessory for my smartphone so I could do calls in a comfortable way.
... Then again, during covid I learned to answer phones around the lab on speakerphone, too, and these were classic-style phones. So maybe I'm a lost cause
Edit: old cellphones were fine, it's just smartphones that have the worst possible shape and texture to hold them against my ear. Sadly, my parents still see that as the primary use for a phone.
I wonder if there's anybody that's comfortable with slab-style phones being used as phones.
If you're over a certain age, you grew up with proper telephone handsets. Even early cell phones had a vaguely ergonomic shape. Like, the original Motorola Razr didn't open to 180 degrees, and had a "chin" near the bottom so you could get good contact with your ear while keeping your mouth near the microphone.
Then there's people under a certain age who grew up with texting, instant messages, etc. For them, it's not the shape that's an issue, it's that using a phone as a phone that's odd. They'd much rather do anything other than voice calls.
Not saying things were better in the old days, but this is a major factor in our societal de-socialization crisis.
Nah, I completely disagree with that. I think phones were always a terrible means of communication, but they were the most used thing for a while because we didn't have anything better for communication at a distance. Phones force you into an audio-only form of communication where you don't get gestures, facial expression, or a moving mouth to watch. That cuts out a lot of the nuance of the communication. In addition, it's immediate so there's no time to think and interpret what someone is trying to say. It's also initiated by the caller and the callee has to drop whatever they're doing and respond immediately. It's just bad.
Video calls with something like Facetime have some of those issues. The positive is that you get facial expressions and some body language as cues The downside is that it's still expected that you respond immediately. But, it seems like there's a convention to ask before doing a video call, or to schedule one. That means you're generally not pulled into a conversation when you're not ready. Even more so with video meetings like Zoom, where they're almost never spontaneous, and always scheduled ahead of time. Phone calls are often spontaneous, and can catch someone at a terrible time.
Text messages in some ways are even worse than phone calls, because you don't even get tone of voice or volume as cues to what someone means. OTOH, they're not as immediate. Sure, sometimes you're watching the little chat bubbles waiting for a response. But, the asynchronous nature of that kind of chat means there's still a bit of a chance to think before you respond.
IMO, people of all ages abandoned phone calls because phone calls are just bad. Much better are either asynchronous ways of communicating where you can take a chance to think before you respond, or high-bandwidth forms of communication involving video where you can see gestures, facial expressions, etc.
I saw a toddler pretending to take a phone call from an imaginary phone a few weeks ago, and it really threw me that she was holding her "phone" like one would a smartphone (As opposed to putting your thumb to your ear, and outstretching your pinkie towards your mouth).
A few years ago I saw an ad for a kids workshop set, with fake tools and a workbench. The workbench had a little bracket for a toy cellphone, and the photo had the kid "playing" in the workshop by pretending to talk on the phone. Saws, hammers, pliers, etc. all around, but he's on the phone. I thought it was weird.
We have a "landline" (actually VOIP) at our house and I have a desk phone in my office that I use often. This is one of the reasons.
It's also nice not having to run around the house trying to find my cell phone in emergencies, not to mention VOIP service is dirt cheap.
If you had a Touch Tone phone, you could hold any button while on a call and the noise would annoy sales callers, or the creepy heavy breathers that would call.
Also, each button was a combination of 2 frequencies, each row and each column had a certain frequency. So, each button was a combination of those two.
But, if you pushed two buttons on the same row, or two buttons in the same column, you could get a single "note". So, you could play very basic tunes.
And the ringer in the phone was a physical bell with a little magnetically-actuated hammer, so if you slammed the receiver down hard enough, the bell would actually resonate for a little while after. You know how some people use a bell slowly fading out as a meditation tool? That's the association I have for that sensation.
Mechanical bells in phones were nice. If you slammed the phone on the receiver you would get a nice ring from them.
People also didn't own the phones themselves. They were usually rented from the phone company as part of the service contract. So the phone companies had an incentive to buy sturdy equipment. Consumers buying things for themselves often buy the cheapest they can, resulting in lower quality. Yes, lots of products today are worse than they could be, consumer demand for cheap devices plays a role here as well.
microwave ovens
There are only a handful of companies making the core component magnetrons. Various brands just package it differently.
My Bosch vacuum cleaner is 11 years old and works great. The only problem it has is weaker cable retraction. My Bosch washing machine is 7 years old and works fine. My Samsung fridge is 5 years old and great. My Miele dishwasher is at least 15 years old and works great. My no name brand cheap toaster is 17 years old and works great. So from personal experience, I think this is acceptable.
AFAIK, one reason for that is that AT&T was the monopoly provider of telephone equipment. They didn't have to compete with anybody who might undercut them for price. In addition, people often rented their phones, paying a small rental charge every month. That meant that AT&T built the phones to last. They were extremely solid because AT&T didn't ever want to have to replace a phone that someone was renting.
I spiked the fuck out of an old Nokia in like 2093 against the carpeted floor in my office. Sadly I slightly cracked the corner of where the battery case met the phone. The phone still worked but the battery wouldn’t stay connected. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on the internet who ever broke a Nokia.
Yes straight down to smooth Concrete. Fell out of my hand as i was opening a door at the top. Thing wasn't even damaged. Battery popped out was all. Thing was epic for a cheap phone.
Because the handset ended up in a "cradle", there was almost always contact between the handset and the cradle before the switch cut off the phone. That was true even when someone was hanging up normally. There was a bit of a rattle as the phone went into the cradle. When someone slammed the phone down, that contact between the handset and cradle was much louder, but was cut off much more quickly. It wasn't painfully loud, but the person on the other end was very aware that the phone had been slammed.
Slam it so hard you could make it ding. If you were still mad, you could then yank the cord out of the wall. If you still weren't done, you could throw it across the room, and it would be just fine, when you calmed down, plugged it back in, and set it on the table again.
There's a pizza place in the nearby city that has almost the same number as mine, there's just one number difference. For the last few years I've been answering numbers I don't know as the pizza place. When they ask for me I act frustrated and say,
"look I'll tell you what I tell all the other telemarketers, you bought a bad list and got the number for a pizza place. "my name" doesn't work here, and never has. Now do me a favor and drop this number, I'm getting sick of giving this speech 10 times a day".
If they haven't hung up by that point, which they usually have, I say have a good day then hang up. I've noticed my spam calls have significantly dropped off after starting this, maybe it's coincidence and they're dropping my number because it's not generating income, but just in case it is working I'm going to keep doing it.
We had one that had a really long cord on it and when my older sisters would walk into another room with it, I'd run up and unplug it from the base then disappear. Fuck I had some good hiding spots.
I just imagine you having a slightly heated phone call with someone then as you say your goodbyes you hear a loud bang of their expensive iPhone being slammed followed by the shattering of a glass table and the phone screen then you barely make out the words
You can tell because they post a screenshot style image with some random comment. The community it basically a dumping ground for anything they thought was funny. No one wants to spend a little extra time to make a meme.
I miss the memes on Reddit but I'm not good enough to make anything worth posting.
I used to take the order for food deliveries
They had usually mis-dialed so I'd never hear from them again.
I'd offer extras too just to jazz it up a bit
Indeed it was, but I'm also happy to be alive these days, now that's it's very rare to call someone and when it's normal not to pick up because you hate being on the phone with someone. Most calls are scammers and telemarketing anyway. Text me and come over if you want to have a conversation.
And slam it over and over. And the phone was fine.
Beating the earpiece against the metal pay phone and not even a scuff mark.
JERRY!
No soup for you.
"Why don't they make the whole plane out of Bakelite?"
Reminds me of the first time I worked in a newsroom in the early 2000s. When the repeated slamming wasn't enough, the whole phone would go flying across the office. I, unfortunately, had the desk by the wall, in the prime firing line. My reflexes became boss in those first 3 months.
"YOU'RE AN INANIMATE OBJECT!!!"
I enjoyed the flip phone, like, this convo sucks, clap and closed
Answering on flip phones was equally boss. When you master that perfect wrist flip where you can just crack the hinge a little with your thumb and let the flip do the rest of the work.
So satisfying every time.
The older startacs where you could whip if out of a pocket and wrist flip it open without fear of ending up with a 2 piece phone
Technically you still can, just saying...
sadly just once, (don't) ask me how I know.
Boomer moment: I'm 30 but never got used to the feeling of modern smartphones against out ears. It's terrible and I can never hear or be heard well enough. It's to a point where I always answer in speakerphone or with headphones, facilitated by not answering the phone often. Recently I've been wishing to get an old phone-like accessory for my smartphone so I could do calls in a comfortable way.
... Then again, during covid I learned to answer phones around the lab on speakerphone, too, and these were classic-style phones. So maybe I'm a lost cause
Edit: old cellphones were fine, it's just smartphones that have the worst possible shape and texture to hold them against my ear. Sadly, my parents still see that as the primary use for a phone.
I wonder if there's anybody that's comfortable with slab-style phones being used as phones.
If you're over a certain age, you grew up with proper telephone handsets. Even early cell phones had a vaguely ergonomic shape. Like, the original Motorola Razr didn't open to 180 degrees, and had a "chin" near the bottom so you could get good contact with your ear while keeping your mouth near the microphone.
Then there's people under a certain age who grew up with texting, instant messages, etc. For them, it's not the shape that's an issue, it's that using a phone as a phone that's odd. They'd much rather do anything other than voice calls.
Nah, I completely disagree with that. I think phones were always a terrible means of communication, but they were the most used thing for a while because we didn't have anything better for communication at a distance. Phones force you into an audio-only form of communication where you don't get gestures, facial expression, or a moving mouth to watch. That cuts out a lot of the nuance of the communication. In addition, it's immediate so there's no time to think and interpret what someone is trying to say. It's also initiated by the caller and the callee has to drop whatever they're doing and respond immediately. It's just bad.
Video calls with something like Facetime have some of those issues. The positive is that you get facial expressions and some body language as cues The downside is that it's still expected that you respond immediately. But, it seems like there's a convention to ask before doing a video call, or to schedule one. That means you're generally not pulled into a conversation when you're not ready. Even more so with video meetings like Zoom, where they're almost never spontaneous, and always scheduled ahead of time. Phone calls are often spontaneous, and can catch someone at a terrible time.
Text messages in some ways are even worse than phone calls, because you don't even get tone of voice or volume as cues to what someone means. OTOH, they're not as immediate. Sure, sometimes you're watching the little chat bubbles waiting for a response. But, the asynchronous nature of that kind of chat means there's still a bit of a chance to think before you respond.
IMO, people of all ages abandoned phone calls because phone calls are just bad. Much better are either asynchronous ways of communicating where you can take a chance to think before you respond, or high-bandwidth forms of communication involving video where you can see gestures, facial expressions, etc.
Yeah to me it's weird that phones are flat slabs now. That whole concept would have looked stupid in the 80s or even the 90s.
Its cause they're all pocket computers that just happen to be a phone too.
Even this phone only mobile phone from punkt still has that form factor so it can fit in your pocket.
Exactly, I say modern cell phones are "phones" like those colored plastic data slabs on original Star Trek were "tapes".
I saw a toddler pretending to take a phone call from an imaginary phone a few weeks ago, and it really threw me that she was holding her "phone" like one would a smartphone (As opposed to putting your thumb to your ear, and outstretching your pinkie towards your mouth).
A few years ago I saw an ad for a kids workshop set, with fake tools and a workbench. The workbench had a little bracket for a toy cellphone, and the photo had the kid "playing" in the workshop by pretending to talk on the phone. Saws, hammers, pliers, etc. all around, but he's on the phone. I thought it was weird.
There are several reasons why people don't call each other nowadays. This is one.
Yes, the usability and affordances are worse.
We have a "landline" (actually VOIP) at our house and I have a desk phone in my office that I use often. This is one of the reasons. It's also nice not having to run around the house trying to find my cell phone in emergencies, not to mention VOIP service is dirt cheap.
If I wanted a bluetooth phone device I would use a headset. Why not leave both hands free?
Oh, sorry, I'll delete it
Please don't, it's cute and I'm sure some people would love it.
If you had a Touch Tone phone, you could hold any button while on a call and the noise would annoy sales callers, or the creepy heavy breathers that would call.
beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
"....so, anyway, as i was say--"
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP
"..."
Also, each button was a combination of 2 frequencies, each row and each column had a certain frequency. So, each button was a combination of those two.
But, if you pushed two buttons on the same row, or two buttons in the same column, you could get a single "note". So, you could play very basic tunes.
That still works with modern phones no?
Cell phones only register a momentary tone. Landlines (POTS) still do this though, yes.
And the ringer in the phone was a physical bell with a little magnetically-actuated hammer, so if you slammed the receiver down hard enough, the bell would actually resonate for a little while after. You know how some people use a bell slowly fading out as a meditation tool? That's the association I have for that sensation.
"AND NEVER CALL ME AGAIN!" slam
ding
Oh man, this comparison is going to stick with me; it's one of my favourite things I've read in recent weeks
Thanks! I debated whether to include it, because it's definitely one of those "well my brain sure isn't normal!" things, but now I'm glad I did.
And, the phones were built to take it.
Landline phones were mostly plastic and took lots of abuse for years just fine.
Mechanical bells in phones were nice. If you slammed the phone on the receiver you would get a nice ring from them.
People also didn't own the phones themselves. They were usually rented from the phone company as part of the service contract. So the phone companies had an incentive to buy sturdy equipment. Consumers buying things for themselves often buy the cheapest they can, resulting in lower quality. Yes, lots of products today are worse than they could be, consumer demand for cheap devices plays a role here as well.
There are only a handful of companies making the core component magnetrons. Various brands just package it differently.
My Bosch vacuum cleaner is 11 years old and works great. The only problem it has is weaker cable retraction. My Bosch washing machine is 7 years old and works fine. My Samsung fridge is 5 years old and great. My Miele dishwasher is at least 15 years old and works great. My no name brand cheap toaster is 17 years old and works great. So from personal experience, I think this is acceptable.
The old heavy ones were bakelite
Bakelite is plastic
AFAIK, one reason for that is that AT&T was the monopoly provider of telephone equipment. They didn't have to compete with anybody who might undercut them for price. In addition, people often rented their phones, paying a small rental charge every month. That meant that AT&T built the phones to last. They were extremely solid because AT&T didn't ever want to have to replace a phone that someone was renting.
Flip phones are where it was at. Conversation had you mad? Bye! CLACK!
Dropped my old Nokia 5 floors. Mom on call didn't even notice. Thing worked afterwards too.
Like straight down? On what kind of surface?
I spiked the fuck out of an old Nokia in like 2093 against the carpeted floor in my office. Sadly I slightly cracked the corner of where the battery case met the phone. The phone still worked but the battery wouldn’t stay connected. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on the internet who ever broke a Nokia.
Yes straight down to smooth Concrete. Fell out of my hand as i was opening a door at the top. Thing wasn't even damaged. Battery popped out was all. Thing was epic for a cheap phone.
So it kept your mom on the call with no battery?
Old Nokias are so great, they don't need battery.
No she didn't notice the falling just the call drop.
And if you were on the receiving end, you heard the slam. Or, so I've been told...
I got phone slammed once. I died.
Through the announcers table.
Because the handset ended up in a "cradle", there was almost always contact between the handset and the cradle before the switch cut off the phone. That was true even when someone was hanging up normally. There was a bit of a rattle as the phone went into the cradle. When someone slammed the phone down, that contact between the handset and cradle was much louder, but was cut off much more quickly. It wasn't painfully loud, but the person on the other end was very aware that the phone had been slammed.
Slam it so hard you could make it ding. If you were still mad, you could then yank the cord out of the wall. If you still weren't done, you could throw it across the room, and it would be just fine, when you calmed down, plugged it back in, and set it on the table again.
The phone would, but the wall impacted would have a hole
They still sell land line phones.
I use a desk phone every day in my office.
Yup! Most are office phones and don't make the most satisfying part. When you made the bell on the phone ring you slammed it so hard.
I got the 2024 moto razr+ flr my work phone when ATT had it on sale for almost nothing since nobody was buying them
I'd forgotten how satisfying it was to hang up by snapping the phone shut.
This was so unbelievably satisfying….Fuck you! SLAM … brrring …SLAM … brrring … over and over again
Oof, this speaks to me. I hang up on marketing calls 3-4 times a week, and boy this does sound way more satisfying than just tapping a touchscreen.
There's a pizza place in the nearby city that has almost the same number as mine, there's just one number difference. For the last few years I've been answering numbers I don't know as the pizza place. When they ask for me I act frustrated and say,
"look I'll tell you what I tell all the other telemarketers, you bought a bad list and got the number for a pizza place. "my name" doesn't work here, and never has. Now do me a favor and drop this number, I'm getting sick of giving this speech 10 times a day".
If they haven't hung up by that point, which they usually have, I say have a good day then hang up. I've noticed my spam calls have significantly dropped off after starting this, maybe it's coincidence and they're dropping my number because it's not generating income, but just in case it is working I'm going to keep doing it.
We had one that had a really long cord on it and when my older sisters would walk into another room with it, I'd run up and unplug it from the base then disappear. Fuck I had some good hiding spots.
And you could mumble what an they are afterwards.
I had a friend that would do this regardless of the phone call he had even if it was a pleasant one. It was pretty comical.
I just imagine you having a slightly heated phone call with someone then as you say your goodbyes you hear a loud bang of their expensive iPhone being slammed followed by the shattering of a glass table and the phone screen then you barely make out the words
bitchThe boomers are arriving.
lmao. no, mostly gen x and millennials. boomers are stuck on Facebook and xitter.
You can tell because they post a screenshot style image with some random comment. The community it basically a dumping ground for anything they thought was funny. No one wants to spend a little extra time to make a meme.
I miss the memes on Reddit but I'm not good enough to make anything worth posting.
I would usually call my friends from lowest to highest digits in their phone number
You can always tap your phone on a hard surface a few times to wake up the telemarketers.
I pretended to be brutally murdered while on the phone with a scam caller.
bloody gurgling screams and all.
you'd think they would be more sympathetic but hung up after shouting, "fuk u!"
I bet they angrily pushed their disconnect button and were only left with the ringing in their ear.
Back when we used to *69 everyone’s mom.
A good hang-up and slam was just poetic.
You can still do that if you don't mind buying a new phone after.
https://oldphoneworks.com/collections/bluetooth-ready
I used to take the order for food deliveries They had usually mis-dialed so I'd never hear from them again. I'd offer extras too just to jazz it up a bit
Back in the days when you could dial numbers using the hook. Great for those taxi phones in supermarkets that had the keypad covered over.
Indeed it was, but I'm also happy to be alive these days, now that's it's very rare to call someone and when it's normal not to pick up because you hate being on the phone with someone. Most calls are scammers and telemarketing anyway. Text me and come over if you want to have a conversation.