The AirPod Connect Sound Is Beautiful
I spend a lot of my time in Google hangouts. This confers a number of benefits, connecting me with my boss and other members of the Medium team, which is largely based in San Francisco. I live in New York and have colleagues and direct reports in many U.S. cities. This technology brings us closer, but it also introduces friction. Shitty AV is a daily frustration, and the sound of people’s voices coming out of a laptop speaker is the actual soundtrack in hell. Wired earphones are a drag. Those gigantic wireless ones take up too much room in the handbag and they mess up your hair. You know where this is going.

I am told I am a Xennial (’78) but I identify firmly as a Gen Xer, mainly because I like talking on the phone for hours at a time. I stopped talking on the phone several years ago. We all did, because of smartphones and texting and the other ways we waste our time. (Also, we dislike the humid, slippery sensation that comes from holding up a phone to our cheek for more than a few minutes at a go.)

So I text, but I prefer talking. I have text-tone misunderstandings, we all do. I connect less with friends who suck at text, we all do. I try to strengthen my emoji game. You know where this is going.

The first iPod came out a month after I moved to New York. I was a big music lover, working at a music magazine, and my boyfriend at the time got me the white one. I remember walking around New York alone, listening to music, feeling powerful and free, and like anything could happen. It was like I was sharing stolen moments with some other part of myself that emerged only in these conditions. The world felt gigantic.

Over time, I would lose earbuds with more frequency than a deli umbrella, or the cord would become too tangled to reach my back pocket and so fuck it. Later, I’d hear there was a new Dreamville record and I would wonder how it was. I didn’t know who Post Malone was (maybe for the best). It took me forever to listen to Lemonade. You know where this is going.
["Siobhan O'Connor"]
['Self', 'Airpods', 'Digital Life', 'Technology', 'Culture']