Mix Tape Generation

The year is 1999 and Napster has just revolutionized the popular music scene. Songs are available for the first time individually and for free – well, not legally – but free, nonetheless. And mixtape compliers have never been so happy. I know, I was one of them.

Previously, you would have to purchase an entire album to get a particular song that you wanted, even if that meant shelling out 15 bucks for a “one hit wonder.” In fact, I still remember carefully scrutinizing the tracks of every album at the record store near my house –  “this song is crap, this one is crap, this one is even worse, this one is crap, crap, crap, crap, oh but I love this song… fuck, I guess I’ll have to buy the whole thing.” Fifteen dollars later I found myself sorely regretting it. The mix didn’t even come out that great. Or another option for music lovers if you were really cheap, you’d do what I did and just wait dutifully by your radio with a cassette player attached so that you could record songs straight off the air. As painstakingly fun as that was, I can’t tell you how many times the DJ thought he had something uber important to say and would then talk over the intro of my favorite song, my mix ruined. Something had to change because all of this time, effort, and money was making mixtapes very hard work. So when Napster arrived on the scene in the summer of 1999, I was as happy as every hormone driven teenager to browse through a virtually endless virtual library, clicking and downloading songs in a music-frenzy.  My life seemed complete. Harmonious, even.

Now this was before iTunes when myriad music players roamed the internet, fighting for a spot among the world’s leading music software programs. None had truly emerged in the market as a dominant number one since organizing and compiling music was a relatively new development. In fact, Windows Media Player, the default music playing software on every Windows computer, was debatably the most popular, but only because it was the default program and came with your computer (not due to functionality) – Microsoft’s last victory over Apple, at least for a while. But like any true music lover, I had to be different. Therefore, using Windows Media Player was absolutely, positively beneath me; that was something old people used. So to appropriately distinguish myself from my contemporaries and the elderly alike, my music player of choice was Musicmatch Jukebox. It had everything: customizable skins, a neat, hypnotic visualizer, and, of course, the ability to create and burn playlists.

I would spend countless hours fixated on finding the perfect order for my mixtapes, slaving over my mouse and keyboard as I listened to the same 12 songs in different variations. While this process made creating mix CDs unnecessarily laborious, it also preserved with it the blood, sweat, and tears from the ancient art of making mixtapes on cassette. I personally enjoyed the hell out of that. A large portion of the beauty and perfection stemmed from that labor. However, there were definitely different music aficionados who subscribed to a different method altogether; they churned out mix CDs like mass produced art, naming them by number and counting them by how many could be produced per hour. A defamation in my regard, but art is subjective. And while you may think I am overdramatizing the role of mixtapes in our society, consider the words of New York Times contributor and cultural historian Geoffrey O’Brien, as he calls mixtapes “the most widely practiced American art form” to date (wikipedia). Agreed. Not only did mixtapes become an art form in and of themselves, strung together like hand-woven emotive collages, but they also became an easy, nearly effortless form of personal communication for an entire generation. Teens, tweens, and pre-teens alike could all compose a complex musical accompaniment to the self-imposed drama of their lives without even knowing how to read music. Consequently, mixtapes quickly became the most convenient form of self-expression nearly overnight. And like any art form, many regard it more as craft or talent than as mere compilation. Silly, I know, but true. Books, films, and lives were dedicated to it. Mine included. Author Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, later adapted for film, serves as the practice’s most pervasive example of this shift toward a mixtape society. “There are a lot of rules,” explains the Hornby-inspired character played by John Cusack, in near-instructional soliloquies to the viewer. “The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. It takes ages longer than it might seem,” he continues. “You’ve got to kick it off with a killer to grab [their] attention, then you’ve got to take it up a notch but you don’t want to blow your wad, so you’ve got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.”

So at the height of music piracy in the early 2000’s, amidst Napster’s far, now international reach, the ultimate product for every music lover was our beloved mixtape – a testament to its maker’s rich and varied music taste that we all wanted so desperately to show off to its recipient, usually a boyfriend, girlfriend, or significant other to-be. But why? Why did we choose this medium to inject all of our innermost feelings? What happened to hand-written letters and sonnets? When did mixtapes replace diaries, mothers, and psychologists?  Obviously mixtapes and mix CDs existed before Napster and have now lingered around long afterward, but their boom in popularity took an unprecedented place in our generation’s emotional upbringing for nearly a decade, and now they’re starting to fade out completely. I mean, when was the last time you made a mixtape?

My Explanation:

In the same way that going to H&M to buy a knit sweater isn’t “cool,” neither is pressing the genius button on iTunes and letting it concoct a brilliantly poignant and moving musical symphony for you in seconds. That playlist, however well-constructed, fails to capture the true emotional beauty that good mixes are capable of because it fails to do any real research on its subject. Sure, it’s convenient, because you’ve plugged in your favorites into iTunes and have marked a sea of songs with four and five stars; however, it will never be able to fully replace the process of arduously hunting down the 12 songs that comprise the perfect mixtape.

You’re still not convinced.

“What’s wrong with using the genius button? And what’s wrong with H&M?” you might be wondering. Well, nothing really. I guess they’re both acceptable – uncool, certainly, but acceptable.  I say “cool” in this rather odd, and bizarrely ironic sort of way, too, because what is often found to be cool in society is usually very uncool to those who truly understand the meaning of the word individuality. Therefore, if you love shopping at H&M and would prefer to have iTunes create playlists for you, please take no offense – but you are the opposite of cool despite how badly Apple and the mainstream media have convinced you that such activities are in fact “cool.” Sorry.

So to avoid this tragedy, where can one shop for knit sweaters and playlists anymore? Brooklyn? Secondhand stores and public markets? Garage sales? Hmm… let’s think.

Well, of course, the “coolest” thing to do would be traveling down to South America yourself on some spiritual journey after a hard breakup or some sort of religious conversion, then befriending all the natives and having the village’s oldest resident hand-make you a gorgeously “vintage” sweater before her unexpected death. Obviously the cooler option from making the trip to your neighborhood (or likely suburban) H&M. But you wouldn’t be able to brag about it too much to your friends. Because that would also be “uncool.” And, of course, not all of us have the time and money to fly down to South America every time we need a new sweater. So what are you supposed to do?

Compromise. Duh.

The process of creating a mixtape is just as important, if not more important, than the final product, for it is in this artistic endeavor you create an emotional relationship exclusive to that mix and its recipient (that’s what makes them so personal). Think about it. Even while you’re just browsing through your music library and skipping over songs you know you don’t want to include, doing so still espouses emotions and memories you thought you’d long forgotten – things that make you consider harshly which songs to add and which to leave out, that might even remind you why you’re making a mix CD in the first place. This whole process is precisely what defines the mix, filters it into something deeply personal, unexpected, and brilliant; it’s what makes it more unique than anything the genius button could ever dream up. And it’s what makes it feel like a mix CD from the last village in South America still using Windows Media Player.

Now I hope that some of this is sinking in and that you are once again realizing how meaningful hard work can be when put into frivolous activities such as making mixtapes. After all, it is you and you alone who are capable of making the mix CD cool again by reintroducing and preserving the human element. Not apple. And not the genius button. But this all begins to beg the question that if Apple is so cool (and we all know it is), then how could something like the genius button ever be considered uncool? Well, it’s too convenient. That’s why.

Convenience is nice, of course, but we have started to repackage our entire lives into seemingly personal experiences that we assume have some semblance of individuality left in them. The genius button is a perfect example of this. It operates out of your iTunes library, so already you have a façade of personalization. Now I know what you’re thinking, but no matter how large and how eclectic your music library might be, you are only capable of listening to so much music. In fact, the bigger your library is, the more songs you are likely to have never listened to before; therefore, the genius button is capable of shrinking your entire iTunes library into a surprisingly manageable and predictable modicum from which to draw from and then create a “genius” playlist. And since its selection has now diminished substantially, iTunes fails to capture that individuality that it promises, and you are left with nothing but the usual suspects. And this smarter-than-average computer program then formulates your mix into something unique from there. This process is exactly what led three of my friends in college to create nearly identical mixes. Very unique.

These critical elements of convenience (Napster, the genius button, etc…) were largely responsible for the commercial spread of mixtapes into mainstream society, making them wildly popular among many Americans. They became so common, in fact, that they started to replace how various groups communicated with one another – an innocent flirtation here, an act of seduction there, a pledge of devotion, an overdue apology, a ‘thank you,’ or the soundtrack to a good road trip – all traditional forms of self-expression were replaced almost entirely by a host of 70 minute compact discs. However, these same instruments that gave mixtapes life are also what led to their death less than a generation later.

Pre-mixtape era, when modes of self-expression seemed limitless, creativity thrived under the direction of various mediums; however, once Napster began to popularize their use, the mix CD became almost synonymous with teenage self-expression. Nothing else compared. Many might even look at the trends from the 1990’s and 2000’s and logically conclude that the reason mix CDs spread so much faster than mixtapes did in their era was largely due to their ability to connect personally and emotionally with their audience (like how ‘emo music’ blindly hypnotized a generation along with other heavily emotional music that erupted from a period of ‘raw’ and ‘radical’ artists). However, my assertion here is that this conclusion was made without considering the specifics of that transition, and that the arrival of certain ‘emo’ and pop sounds was more of a coincidence than anything else.

What is often overlooked in this transition is the lingering sentiment of personal connection that cassettes had with both the creator and the receiver of the mix. Many assume that since the practice of making a mix CD is generally the same as cassettes (compiling songs into a playlist), that the same level of personal connection is created between the parties involved. This assumption, however, would be wrong. Dead wrong. The easier technology made the process of creating mixtapes, the less personalized it became for precisely the same reason that your H&M sweater is nothing more than a price tag. If it were to be lost or stolen, you’d simply buy a new one because acquiring it was of no real hassle to you, and getting a new one isn’t very difficult – you simply go to the store and purchase it a second time; if you manage to get lost, I’m sure muscle memory will kick in and direct you. Therefore, the sweater’s true value rests near zero because it can be replaced without serious issue. The same could be said of mix CDs. But could you say the same thing about a mixtape?

So now that personal connection and emotional associations have been eliminated as reasons for the mix CDs’ popularity, what’s left? Convenience. Pure convenience.

It’s like Walmart’s rise to the top of the wholesale chain: people may be fully aware of the implications of shopping at and supporting the corporate behemoth, but it’s far too convenient not to do it. So you do. Similarly, in the earliest stages of the mix CD craze, youngsters all over the country found themselves drawn to this easy idea of transforming their every thought, their every emotion, into loud and expressive 70 minute mixes. That’s how they communicated. Because it was easier than forming their own words.  Now there’s nothing wrong with trying to simplify the process of expressing oneself – it can be an extraordinarily complicated task, yes – however, it’s the way we’re doing it.

At its height in society, communication stood completely independent of technology. However, it now appears as though communication is more dependent on technology than ever before. And the consequences are dire. Personal communication has begun to deteriorate into debased, thoughtless compilation, rendering most unable to accurately express themselves because they have, for so long now, relied on technology (or others) to tell them how to feel. Consequently, we have produced an entire generation that suffers from some serious emotional stagnation, and is thus confined to speak only in the words provided to them by others.

Professor and linguist Naomi Baron shares her thoughts on this issue in her book, “Always On,” a study of technologies and how we have begun to communicate differently in the digital age. She, along with a large group of linguists across the world, argues that the recent amendments to language due to the overwhelming presence of technology have ultimately produced negative effects on our ability to communicate with one another. However, other linguists stress that these changes are necessary to amalgamate our language to the constant transformation of the modern world. Examples of such changes range from the truncation of the word “you” to a one-letter stand in (u), to the formation of verbs such as “facebook” and “google.” My personal favorite, however, is the word “meatspace.” Meatspace refers to the reality which we inhabit every day – the one where we live, breathe, and poop –the scary thing is that we had to create a new word that differentiates our world from “cyberspace,” because these two lives are now so closely integrated that a clear distinction had to be made.

While our ability to communicate with each other has evolved in the respect that we have added some new 250,000 words to the English language over the past decade, it has simultaneously regressed when you consider how we actually use those words, especially in regard to the fact that a majority of that vocabulary was created because new technological devices required names, terms, and associated vernacular rather than a creative synthesis of thoughts or ideas. Consequently, the statistics that show an evolution of language are somewhat skewed; they reflect an advancement in our ability to label things, not in conceptualizing them, which brings me to my point. Just like we have used technology to transform the beautiful art of creating mixtapes into yet another faceless form of mass production, we have similarly done so with our emotions and how we communicate them with one another.

Therefore, for a sad generation of mixtape kids, self-expression is just as one-dimensional as the CDs they’re burned onto. And for those who haven’t grown out of the habit, portable hard drives with shit-tons of memory now exist so that you never have to stress over making a playlist again – you simply take your super cool and eclectic library with you everywhere. And if you think I’m some kind of music snob immune to the cultural practices I’ve mentioned, you’re wrong. I’m simply making an observation about how we’ve started to turn even our deepest and most intimate emotions into convenient, store-bought packages. And it affects all of us. I mean, I bought a bitchin’ sweater from H&M last week. Just $15.99. And I love it.

Garage Sales

Garage sales are peculiar things. I think because they have the capability of blending two estranged worlds with an intimacy that no other meeting could provide. Consider this: two strangers meet on the street finding solace in the fact that they both bought the same hideous H&M sweater during their annual winter sale. They exchange a look, perhaps a ‘hello,’ or even a quick comment about the sweater (and how they only bought it because it was on sale, omg!), but before the conversation begins, it is effectually over; they have finished their cordial pleasantries and are back to the routine of their humdrum lives, the whole event forgotten just moments later.

Now what makes a similar event at a garage sale more memorable and more unique are a few key elements that seem only to coalesce in the front yards of old, suburban couples who have just cleared out the contents of their garage, attic, or basement.

The first factor is time. Obviously, in our example of the street run-in, the exposure that the two people have with one another is pretty minimal; therefore, no matter how significant the shared item or conversation might be, time is a pretty limiting factor in their exchange because one or both people may not have time for anything longer than what we outlined earlier. However, time is up for debate at a garage sale instead of fixed; it exists outside the confines of society and floats freely on the yards of the elderly and ambitious spring cleaners.  Additionally, people tend to find themselves at garage sales because they have ample time to look through everything, not because they’re in a hurry – no one says, “I only have two minutes, let me just browse through this entire estate sale quickly.”  Consequently, time is a fundamental difference that allows the entire garage sale experience to blossom into something much more meaningful than most other random interactions might permit.

Next, we must consider the purpose and presence of the parties involved. The first party, the owner or seller, is quite vulnerable in this situation because he or she has laid out a buffet of personal items to be scrutinized intensely by a host of strangers. And while their purpose is pretty clear (to sell their used and unused items), they may also wish to pass on a bit of history with their possessions by relaying stories with every t-shirt, toy, or stuffed animal sold (in fact, that might help them get sold). Therefore, lifetimes of irreplaceable memories lay open and exposed for a group of strangers to examine in just seconds as they go through countless items looking for something, or perhaps, nothing. But the interesting thing here is that these stories require the seller’s physical presence, or else they lose that history almost altogether (for without that history, what are they?), and it is imperative that they couple their items to intensify the personalization of the garage sale experience as to differentiate them from the cold banality of commercial retail.

The second party found at a garage sale is composed of all the customers who stop by to peruse the items on sale. While their reasons for stopping by may differ, they all represent a group that is in search of something –whether the calming feeling of a nice, leisurely browsing experience, a certain antique item, or just a great bargain– they all have a very specific reason for visiting. And when their search is intertwined with the purpose and presence of the seller, the customers suddenly occupy a role more closely akin to a private investigator than a consumer. Think about it. As they browse through a personal library of used items, they explore the memories of a complete stranger, assembling their life little by little through the discarded pieces of their past.

Imagine, if you will, that each item at the garage sale is a distinct memory that has been stored in the mind of the seller. With all these items lined up and categorized, the garage sale literally becomes a physical mind map of that person’s life. So when these “private investigators” rummage through old clothes and knick-knacks, they probe through the seller’s mind combining their own wants and needs with the life of a person they know nothing about. However, all of that quickly changes because the greatest appeal of the garage sale is its personalization to the buyer; so as they browse through the sale, each item, with its rich, historic past, reveals distant memories (some told, others projected) that might resonate with their own life, ultimately persuading them to make a rather emotional purchase.

In contrast, commercial retail typically interacts with a consumer’s wants and needs very one dimensionally with profit existing as the only variable on the other axis; however, at a garage sale, more variables emerge that are capable of playing with the buyer’s consumer wants, and they are inexplicably linked with the items being sold.

So while garage sales are one of the few consumer experiences left where invaluable personal connections can be made, the digital world has attempted to replicate the face-to-face exchange with its own devices. eBay is probably the most recognizable name in this respect as it has created a garage sale-styled space through auctions and storefronts where customers can buy new and used items from across the world. However, it can’t quite compete with the experience of a real garage sale because the internet company has expanded to include a host of seller’s who offer products that hold no past, no history, and no extra variable to compete with either garage sales or the rest of the commercial market – their selection, however, is unbelievably large with an estimated 4 million sellers and over 16 million items, usually found at a lower price as they are typically manufactured abroad and can be obtained with fewer intermediaries.

eBay, accumulating a great deal of success since its inception in 1995, is an unusual entity in that it doesn’t have a physical store – it doesn’t occupy front yards, back yards, or parking lots to conduct its billions of dollars worth of sales and transactions each year. Instead, they are headquartered in San Jose, California with more than 17,000 employees working full time to keep the online auction giant up and running. In fact, this little phenomenon is so atypical of the business models we are accustomed to that it has earned mention in several films, television shows, and popular music.

1)      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzNfvvAp63s

2)      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbnGiXm02OY

Despite profits, eBay’s attempt at a global garage sale falls a little short of the real thing because of its inability to capture the exact buyer experience of a real garage sale; however, this has pushed a few others to try tapping into the market. Etsy and Artfire, similar storefront websites, have experienced mild success in that they’ve managed to keep the “garage sale effect” alive by limiting the types of items sold (Etsy strictly sells antiques, homemade crafts, and artwork). While this limitation has provided them with very unique and personalized items, it still misses an integral part of the garage sale process: the face-to-face, in person interaction of buyer to seller. Rest assured though, Etsy’s working on it.

One of their featured online sellers, Pass The Baton, is a small “upcycling” store with several locations in Japan, and they serve as an interesting combination of traditional garage sales and eBay’s online marketplace because they have both a physical store as well as access online (via Etsy). But what fascinates me most about the idea behind Pass The Baton is that it bridges a vital gap in the garage sale market place.

The traditional garage sale, as personal or successful as it might be, typically stems from just one household and, therefore, disperses a very limited number of items and their history throughout a fairly small area. So while it may gain a decent amount of attention and/or capital, it does not have the capability of extending beyond a certain physical location (a neighborhood, town, city, etc..), but eBay does. However, when eBay commercialized the garage sale experience, they lost something in translation and fell further away from that personalized experience and closer to a massive conglomeration of cheap, online retailers.  Etsy, however, has created a unique network of smart, talented sellers (some with physical stores, others not needing them) that has a larger focus on bringing together community based stores into a larger online community.

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Pass The Baton, for example, collects used items from all over Japan and houses them in its various stores throughout the country. So in a new approach to a more modern garage sale, this Japanese upcycling shop disperses its used items back into the country as well as making them available internationally. This large-scale model is innovative in that it creates a truer “global garage sale” than what eBay currently has created. Pass The Baton also mandates that every item entering the store be left with some sort of personal note from whoever donated it.  This idea once again bridges the personal touches of a traditional garage sale with a commercialized process that will allow it to compete in a global marketplace, for now used items do not have to be accompanied by their owners to relate fascinating stories about their past, but potential buyers can discover them at their own leisure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dcXTgaM-PM

Additionally, Etsy’s digital marketing campaign has launched a series of videos that cleverly introduces their artists and store owners to the public – a genius strategy that allows Etsy to begin harnessing the power of the personalized, garage sale experience.

And that’s just the beginning. Like Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking websites, you can create an online profile with “Circles” of friends, connections, likes, and dislikes. This helps both you and Etsy better figure out your tastes and what you’d like to buy.

With the obvious success of companies like eBay, Etsy, and other large, consumer-focused marketplaces, you can see a dramatic shift in how retailers are addressing customer needs and trying to engage them in a more welcoming and personalized environment. For example, the Target Corporation made a very conscious effort several years ago to switch the name of their customers to “guests.” Everything else in their marketing campaign flowed from there as they geared both small and large scale changes toward a more guest-centric shopping experience. And as we look to the future of customer service, we see technology pervasively growing alongside it; many companies have started to rely heavily on social media and various online databases to provide them with a more complete customer map they can use to increase sales. For example, certain high end retailers have begun investing in software that will synchronize with customer profiles to remember what you’ve bought, what you’ve tried on, and also predict your tastes for upcoming seasons. And this isn’t just an online project for all these commercial giants like having a Facebook or Twitter. They want to move this technology in stores, in dressing rooms, and embedded in their clothing so that everything is completely wired and integrated to your every move. Impressive or scary?