A couple of them recognize the buttons. One of them – and not one of the younger ones – makes a great show of not recognizing the buttons, and thumping on the Walkman cassette slot as if she expects that to do something.
The buttons do have feedback, particularly the play button, which locks into position with a loud click, but most of them would noticeably have an effect on the axles that turn the cassette, which you could feel and see through the window on the cassette slot. And the buttons are quite prominent – you might not realize instantly what the buttons do, but if you were trying to figure out how to operate the device, anyone would realize the buttons are important.
Still not buying it. Where’s the speaker on an iPod Nano? I’ve almost never heard anyone playing music over the built-in speaker on a smartphone or small MP3 device, except by accident, when they’ve forgotten to plug in the headset. When I was posting earlier, I was on a commuter train, at the train station adjacent to a large university; a large proportion of the people getting on, and nearly all the college-age passengers, were wearing earbuds or headphones, plugged into the 3.5 mm audio jacks on their smartphones or other portable devices – the same sort of audio jack that the Walkman popularized, and that is prominently highlighted in light green on the Walkman in the video. Listening to music through headphones is ubiquitous – in my experience, it’s now rare for people to listen to music any other way, especially kids. And headphones are often treated as fashion accessories, especially for teens. Yet two of the kids express surprise at even seeing headphones – one claims he last saw a pair six years ago, and another claims her grandpa owns a pair.
No, the more closely I look at this video, the more obvious that this whole thing is a sort of hoax, intended as click-bait in self-pity articles for Gen-Xers to complain about feeling old.
