I was texting recently with an old friend from back home who’s recently gotten off social media so now we text if we want to share a podcast or whatever.
Oh, mixtapes, how I miss thee! I made a lot, some by recording *off the radio* and trying to avoid commercials and voice over interruption. Sometimes I had to try several times to get one song (which can end up being a lot of time glued to a radio with a tape deck!) I also made tapes of vinyl, since then the albums were portable. Still have a few of those mixtapes (and a tape deck that works!) We had an 8 track player in our car when I was growing up; that thing was great.
I've gotta say, I am slightly bitter about having to convert music from vinyl to cassette, to CD, then mp3, and now the whole streaming mess. Just pick something and stick with it already. I like physical things that can't be taken away from me by the tech overlords. (Why I've been buying DVD sets of things I love, although I recognize the basic danger of this given how finicky DVD players and the DVDs themselves can be. VHS was in some ways better because it was sturdier).
I was saying to someone the other day that cassettes were just so much sturdier than CDs. They could be unwound, rewound, and basically work, even if the tape got cut, you could splice it and barely notice the jump. As long as the magnetization was good, they took a beating and kept on playing. CDs, you look them wrong and they're like, 'oh my feelings are hurt and I'll never play for you again.' I like to think of cassettes as the GenXers of the playable music world.
Growing up then was a blessing because we were experiencing life in a way that felt freer, simpler, and more connected in the most genuine ways. Afternoons were spent outside until the streetlights came on, riding bikes and knocking on friends’ doors instead of sending a text. Music was something you saved up for—buying a tape and memorizing every lyric, reading the liner notes like they held secrets. TV shows were events, not something to binge; if you missed an episode, you had to wait for a rerun. Friendships thrived on long phone calls, passing notes in class, and showing up for each other, not just reacting to posts. There was a thrill in developing film and flipping through the glossy prints, never knowing exactly how a photo would turn out. Even with that, there is generally not a lot of photographic history of it escapades, which makes reminiscing a creative memory lap. Life had a natural patience to it—no instant notifications, no curated feeds, just moments lived fully and memories made without the need to prove them to anyone else. It was a time when boredom sparked creativity, and the world felt big, waiting to be explored in person, not just through a screen.
Life really was better before social media and smart phones and the internet in so many ways (will admit that it has definitely made some things better, but not sure the tradeoff has been worth it). I often think how much more awful social media makes high school and just growing up in general. I am glad that I grew up when I did when things were less structured and just simpler in so many ways. How I remember poring over the liner notes in an album and obsessing about the photography and art work. Was there a hidden message in there somewhere???
Oh yes, taping off the radio with a regular casette player, and staying up really late to record when they played the unusual stuff. And then I remember how excited I was to get a stereo with a double casette player so I could make mix tapes. And yes, making the cover was absolutely just as important as making the tape itself. This post really hit a nerve. I've been missing the 90s, especially the early 90s, SO HARD. And I don't think it's just the "things were better in my day" nostalgia kind of thing. Another memory: buying all the new magazines (Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, etc.) for the month and sitting next to your friends and flipping through them, judging everything, picking out looks for each other. Sigh.
Man you have the best essays (?) do we call things essays anymore? I just lost a brother, he was 59. Clearing out his place I found that he saved everything. Packets of those actual letters from the 80s, actual mixed tapes and comics he drew. Ive lived across the country for 30 years and wrote many of those letters so it was such a gift to get to know him again and remember the exact things you mention. He also managed a movie theater and is the reason I saw a gajillion movies (and flunked a few things because I should have been doing something else) . Thank you and thank substack, Im still messing with my phone but this still feels like a good use of time. Keep em coming, what she said, we will cringe with you.
Yep to all this. I don't remember doing this to make mix tapes for other people, but I remember trying to record songs off the radio for myself and trying to time it just right and hoping the DJ didn't talk over the first part of the song. I shared my first apartment -- 2BR and 3 other girls -- and my rent was $97/month. $97!! Definitely the good old days.
Elder millennial reporting to the comment thread! I still have my mixtapes with homemade covers and my partner is currently digitizing them for me! I have a whole tote full of handwritten letters sent back and forth to friends, and a pen pal in the UK. I loved the intensity of friendships I made in person in the 90s, and through blogs and message boards in the 00s.
Boy all this music and media stuff escalated quickly.
I really miss the twirling of squiggly phone cord in my fingers, and the actual rotary dialing before push buttons, and the satisfying snap of hanging up on people with my flip phone when I moved off campus and had no landline.
I am SO GLAD I didn’t have as much tech while my brain was still forming. I grew up with minimal, terrible photos and almost no digital documentation of my teenaged years which is definitely for the best.
Thank you for this thoughtful post. I recently found my college journal and re-read it. Not as embarrassing as I feared, but my Lord, THE EMOTION. It is a wonderful record of all the bands we saw and people we hung out with. No actual record of classes I went to. :-)
I do still have a couple of mixtapes that a friend made for me. He owned a record store, and I arrived every Friday with my meager K-Mart pay to buy whatever he thought I'd like. I had three Peaches crates full of records after four years.
This brings me so much joy! I'm so glad you still have those tapes. Gah, the simple joys of life pre-internet that we had no idea would be fleeting. The art of mixtape making on cassettes might as well be alchemy now. And I wrote SO many letters back in the day. It was a weekend ritual to cart my paper and envelopes to a coffee shop and write and write. I thought it would could never be replaced by email and then suddenly it was! p.s. Somewhere in my basement I still have a very special stack of mysterious letters from you carefully stored.
Oh one of the most mortifying moments of my college life was riding to a concert with my big crush, and realizing that the music he was playing on our drive was RECORDED OVER the mix tape I had labored over for hours and sent to him during the summer. Still makes me feel things thinking about that horrifying moment!
Yes to the mixtapes and recording off the radio! And your mention of not having a phone line reminded me of when I went away to college. I was one of 3 girls renting bedrooms in a house owned by a very angry woman who would not let us use her phone, so had to walk to the corner to use the payphone (this is in the UK so it was one of those red phone boxes that always smelled of pee!). One time I was really ill, but was supposed to call my boyfriend back home - we had to set specific times in those days. So I staggered up the street, made the call long enough to tell him I was not well, and staggered back. But then I could not get out of bed to call him the next day and eventually he was so concerned he called the house. She was *furious* but eventually consented to ask me to come to the phone. She was a harridan! Needless to say I moved out of that house into a bedsit the following term, but still only had a payphone for the rest of that year.
Yes to the excerpts. Maybe a monthly feature with a few paragraphs on the background for the excerpt! Yes! I will cringe with you but it will also be awesome.
Oh, mixtapes, how I miss thee! I made a lot, some by recording *off the radio* and trying to avoid commercials and voice over interruption. Sometimes I had to try several times to get one song (which can end up being a lot of time glued to a radio with a tape deck!) I also made tapes of vinyl, since then the albums were portable. Still have a few of those mixtapes (and a tape deck that works!) We had an 8 track player in our car when I was growing up; that thing was great.
I've gotta say, I am slightly bitter about having to convert music from vinyl to cassette, to CD, then mp3, and now the whole streaming mess. Just pick something and stick with it already. I like physical things that can't be taken away from me by the tech overlords. (Why I've been buying DVD sets of things I love, although I recognize the basic danger of this given how finicky DVD players and the DVDs themselves can be. VHS was in some ways better because it was sturdier).
I was saying to someone the other day that cassettes were just so much sturdier than CDs. They could be unwound, rewound, and basically work, even if the tape got cut, you could splice it and barely notice the jump. As long as the magnetization was good, they took a beating and kept on playing. CDs, you look them wrong and they're like, 'oh my feelings are hurt and I'll never play for you again.' I like to think of cassettes as the GenXers of the playable music world.
Ha!
I have a distinct memory of waiting for "Love Plus One" to come on the radio so I could record it with a tape recorder.
Growing up then was a blessing because we were experiencing life in a way that felt freer, simpler, and more connected in the most genuine ways. Afternoons were spent outside until the streetlights came on, riding bikes and knocking on friends’ doors instead of sending a text. Music was something you saved up for—buying a tape and memorizing every lyric, reading the liner notes like they held secrets. TV shows were events, not something to binge; if you missed an episode, you had to wait for a rerun. Friendships thrived on long phone calls, passing notes in class, and showing up for each other, not just reacting to posts. There was a thrill in developing film and flipping through the glossy prints, never knowing exactly how a photo would turn out. Even with that, there is generally not a lot of photographic history of it escapades, which makes reminiscing a creative memory lap. Life had a natural patience to it—no instant notifications, no curated feeds, just moments lived fully and memories made without the need to prove them to anyone else. It was a time when boredom sparked creativity, and the world felt big, waiting to be explored in person, not just through a screen.
Life really was better before social media and smart phones and the internet in so many ways (will admit that it has definitely made some things better, but not sure the tradeoff has been worth it). I often think how much more awful social media makes high school and just growing up in general. I am glad that I grew up when I did when things were less structured and just simpler in so many ways. How I remember poring over the liner notes in an album and obsessing about the photography and art work. Was there a hidden message in there somewhere???
Oh yes, taping off the radio with a regular casette player, and staying up really late to record when they played the unusual stuff. And then I remember how excited I was to get a stereo with a double casette player so I could make mix tapes. And yes, making the cover was absolutely just as important as making the tape itself. This post really hit a nerve. I've been missing the 90s, especially the early 90s, SO HARD. And I don't think it's just the "things were better in my day" nostalgia kind of thing. Another memory: buying all the new magazines (Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, etc.) for the month and sitting next to your friends and flipping through them, judging everything, picking out looks for each other. Sigh.
Man you have the best essays (?) do we call things essays anymore? I just lost a brother, he was 59. Clearing out his place I found that he saved everything. Packets of those actual letters from the 80s, actual mixed tapes and comics he drew. Ive lived across the country for 30 years and wrote many of those letters so it was such a gift to get to know him again and remember the exact things you mention. He also managed a movie theater and is the reason I saw a gajillion movies (and flunked a few things because I should have been doing something else) . Thank you and thank substack, Im still messing with my phone but this still feels like a good use of time. Keep em coming, what she said, we will cringe with you.
Thank you! And I'm so sorry for your loss.
Yep to all this. I don't remember doing this to make mix tapes for other people, but I remember trying to record songs off the radio for myself and trying to time it just right and hoping the DJ didn't talk over the first part of the song. I shared my first apartment -- 2BR and 3 other girls -- and my rent was $97/month. $97!! Definitely the good old days.
Elder millennial reporting to the comment thread! I still have my mixtapes with homemade covers and my partner is currently digitizing them for me! I have a whole tote full of handwritten letters sent back and forth to friends, and a pen pal in the UK. I loved the intensity of friendships I made in person in the 90s, and through blogs and message boards in the 00s.
Boy all this music and media stuff escalated quickly.
I really miss the twirling of squiggly phone cord in my fingers, and the actual rotary dialing before push buttons, and the satisfying snap of hanging up on people with my flip phone when I moved off campus and had no landline.
I am SO GLAD I didn’t have as much tech while my brain was still forming. I grew up with minimal, terrible photos and almost no digital documentation of my teenaged years which is definitely for the best.
YES PLEASE PUBLISH EXCERPTS 😄
Thank you for this thoughtful post. I recently found my college journal and re-read it. Not as embarrassing as I feared, but my Lord, THE EMOTION. It is a wonderful record of all the bands we saw and people we hung out with. No actual record of classes I went to. :-)
I do still have a couple of mixtapes that a friend made for me. He owned a record store, and I arrived every Friday with my meager K-Mart pay to buy whatever he thought I'd like. I had three Peaches crates full of records after four years.
100% feel you, friend.
This brings me so much joy! I'm so glad you still have those tapes. Gah, the simple joys of life pre-internet that we had no idea would be fleeting. The art of mixtape making on cassettes might as well be alchemy now. And I wrote SO many letters back in the day. It was a weekend ritual to cart my paper and envelopes to a coffee shop and write and write. I thought it would could never be replaced by email and then suddenly it was! p.s. Somewhere in my basement I still have a very special stack of mysterious letters from you carefully stored.
Ha! That was among the top weirdest things I’ve ever done. Your mix tapes were epic, of course I still have them.
🙋🏽♀️ me…I’m with you!
This entire comment thread is oozing with nostalgia and I am HERE FOR IT!
Oh one of the most mortifying moments of my college life was riding to a concert with my big crush, and realizing that the music he was playing on our drive was RECORDED OVER the mix tape I had labored over for hours and sent to him during the summer. Still makes me feel things thinking about that horrifying moment!
Yes to the mixtapes and recording off the radio! And your mention of not having a phone line reminded me of when I went away to college. I was one of 3 girls renting bedrooms in a house owned by a very angry woman who would not let us use her phone, so had to walk to the corner to use the payphone (this is in the UK so it was one of those red phone boxes that always smelled of pee!). One time I was really ill, but was supposed to call my boyfriend back home - we had to set specific times in those days. So I staggered up the street, made the call long enough to tell him I was not well, and staggered back. But then I could not get out of bed to call him the next day and eventually he was so concerned he called the house. She was *furious* but eventually consented to ask me to come to the phone. She was a harridan! Needless to say I moved out of that house into a bedsit the following term, but still only had a payphone for the rest of that year.
Yes to the excerpts. Maybe a monthly feature with a few paragraphs on the background for the excerpt! Yes! I will cringe with you but it will also be awesome.