SS – Day 1 of 30: Anacondas & The iPod Classic

Day one of Share Something. I wake up excited and immediately scroll through my RSS *cough* Facebook feed to look for something good to send to Laurie.

Jessica
Source: U.S. Weekly
Topic: Animals

Immediately my eyes land on this headline from the oh so reputable U.S. Weekly: PETA Slams Discovery Channel, Eaten Alive Star Paul Rosolie for Anaconda Stunt

First, there was an awesome photo of a man wrestling with a huge anaconda…

2 second music break…

My anaconda don’t, my anaconda don’t
My anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hun

Wait, I don’t think that’s the same thing somehow. *Innocent blinking* I digress.

The other eye catchers in the title was that PETA was protesting the Discovery Channel, and am I reading this right? A man would be eaten alive by an anaconda! In my head I imagined a man who looked much Crocodile Dundee in a vest and cargo pants armed with a machete ready to be eaten and slashing his way out leaving the bloody carcass of a snake, or the anaconda would end up crushing this man with it’s insanely strong muscles via a twist or curl. Sirens blare. Medic comes running. Hijinks ensue.

Reading further I see that there is a snake-proof suit, whatever that means. I’m almost compelled to sign up for cable just so that I can watch this one episode, but I don’t.

Laurie
Source: Wired
Topic: Tech

Laurie sends through an article about the death of the iPod Classic properly titled On Death and iPods: A Requiem. It’s a love letter filled with nostalgia, chronicling how the iPod  revolutionized our experience with music. The death of this device symbolizes another great shift in how we relate to our music and that we now lose this window into our soul.

Laughed when I saw that this article also mentions Anacondas and how fitting it is for this exchange.

However nostalgic and passionate Mat Honan is however, I personally disagree with some of his conclusions.

In all likelihood we’re not just seeing the death of the iPod Classic, but the death of the dedicated portable music player. Now it’s all phones and apps. Everything is a camera. The single-use device is gone—and with it, the very notion of cool that it once carried. The iPhone is about as subversive as a bag of potato chips, and music doesn’t define anyone anymore.

I adore that I don’t have to carry a huge bag with all my single-use devices, now at max I have two things that cover all occasions: an iPhone and a battery pack. It’s not a undefinable “cool” that is lost, but with the multi-use device we’re no longer living in one moment, but trying to maximize every moment. Our attention spans are limited by 140 characters or a game, or Facebook.

Are we only defined by our music? Sure, it’s one aspect of our personality, but I don’t see how this is lost, rather we’re publicly defined by more than we were before an intersection of music, apps, news, etc. Furthermore the last iPod Classic that was available could support 160GB of music. Imagine trying to scroll through all that music to be defined. More of what defines us isn’t our whole library but is still our playlists, which Mat says well here:

We made playlists that spoke to the lives we lived at the moment. Looking at someone’s iPod was like looking into their soul. In their music you could see who they were. You could tell if they were sophisticated or rough. You could see in their playlists the moments they fell in love and the moments they fell back out again. You could see the filthiest, nastiest hip hop in the little white boxes of the primmest people, and know their inner lives a little better than you did before.

While nostalgia is nice, I embrace the future, and I still don’t feel like anything has been lost to the iPhone, except for possibly the art of conversation. Ah for Share Something, it makes good food for thought.

Now back to playing Nicki Minaj.

Note: My views above are my own.

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