Hold this thought for every single time you hear someone argue that things were better when they were a kid.
It’s exactly the same mechanism: if you weren’t an adult dealing with the pros AND the cons of living at that time, you don’t know exactly how ‘great’ that time in history actually was.
Maybe you’re just not down with the kids any more.
Holdeth mine ale…
Fair enough. Although I don’t think even most SCAs types really wish they lived in the medieval period even if they like the swords and costumes. If nothing else, the lack of modern plumbing makes most time periods before the late 19th century pretty unappealing.
I’’m going to hypothesize that a Black man doesn’t really wish he lived during Segregation, even if he likes vinyl records, either.
Most that I’ve spoken to do, but it’s because they:
A) Assume they would have been noble or someone important, not (as is vastly more likely) a land-slave serf living a short, brutal, miserable life
and
B) Fail to genuinely appreciate modern wonders like indoor plumbing, central heating, and dentistry, because they have never experienced a world without them.
Right now is the best time to be alive in the history of the planet, bar none. It’s not even close. No comparison. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deeply ignorant and needs to appreciate what science and the hard work of others have brought them. We have the best lives, on average that any human has ever had.
That’s not to say things are fair of course, or that there isn’t much work to do, but I’m speaking in broad strokes and over long time frames here. Before anyone jumps down my throat, I am not making the “poor people have fridges so why are they complaining” argument that conservatives love.
This is giving me flashbacks to my old Mimi doll (I had the one with the purple beret):
Sadly, her tiny turntable and neon-colored records did not survive my brothers’ experiments. 
If only we’d had the Internet back then…
Or perhaps inspire an interesting version of Big Ten Inch Record.
The cool kids are starting to get back into CDs. You can find tons of great stuff for a dollar.
As far as I can understand, this is really just an extremely junky mp3 player, that has some hardware to make it recognize three “records,” right?
While this is a cheap (though undoubtedly cute) version, I think the idea is a good one, though better represented elsewhere, particularly represented as kids’ music players.
The first I had seen was the Toniebox, where you have a bunch of little plastic toys that the kids places on top of the box, each of which can be programmed for a playlist or audiobook.
I then saw this really nice Mini Yoto player. It fits in the hand well, has cards that you buy with music and audiobooks that you slot in, and you can also get blank or abstract cards that you program with whatever you like. It also has a dial that leads you to two kid radio stations.
I almost sprang for it as an mp3 player for my kids, but the cards are pretty expensive. But there is something about wanting to hold tactile representations of media, and also not wanting to deal with a screen.
I had one of those. I also have one of the little decorative players this article refers to. And this guy was my first turntable
I used to deliver pizzas to apartments that were smaller than motel rooms, yet they could somehow afford to cover their walls with racks of CDs—of all the greatest albums, of course. So, I guess some people do have their priorities in order. Now, I suppose, if they had only invested in vinyl……
Techmoan did an interesting YouTube video on these recently
I’ll give you $10 for all of 'em.
Especially when those waxing nostalgic explicitly acknowledge that they do still have the option to collect vinyl records and choose not to for reasons of practicality. People looking for rare vinyl have never had it better: finding records online is way easier than scouring record stores and following hot tips to track down something that used to be hard to find.
Anyone who wants to live life like it’s the 1950’s, 1960’s or whatever still has many opportunities to do so. Vintage clothing, cars, furniture, appliances, sound systems etc are all still out there, often at very reasonable prices. I’m pretty retro myself: I own a 1960 car, a ‘61 Vespa, a rotary phone, and a 100-year-old house. But I never wished that I lived in an earlier era. If people want to wax nostalgic about eras predating environmental damage or things like that, that’s totally legit. But pining for old technology that’s still readily available today seems silly.
My mom is still alive; that’s her property.
Oops…no offense intended. It’s kind of a running joke among record collectors that people underestimate the value of old records.
Depending on the condition; yes, they often do.
And sometimes, people overestimate the value of old records.
