Remember when love was measured in blank cassette tapes, and not the number of TikTok likes you received? Ah, the glorious days of the '80s and '90s, when we sacrificed our precious Sony Walkman batteries to create the perfect mix tape. If you wanted to woo someone, you needed mad dubbing skills and the ability to catch “I Will Always Love You” on the radio—because, boy, hitting record on your double-decker tape deck was like trying to bunker down during a nuclear scare, praying that your mom wouldn’t burst in demanding to know why the house sounded like it was auditioning for a bad sitcom.
Fast forward to today, where playlists are more abundant than the hairspray we used to create those majestic 80s bangs. Now everyone just hits “shuffle” on Spotify and claims they’re presenting an “emotional soundscape” of their innermost feelings. Pfft. Back in the day, we had to work for our earworms! We would take the time to handwrite charmingly awkward notes to accompany our tapes. I would carefully craft a small essay claiming that our love had the potential to be as everlasting as the lyrics of “Endless Love.” Little did I know that, much like my cassette collection, our youthful crushes would eventually turn into faded memories or awkward Facebook stalking sessions.
Let’s talk about the delicate art of choosing the songs. Each track was a bold statement about what you felt and, more importantly, how many times your friend bartered for a copy of “Ice Ice Baby.” It was a treacherous task involving intense deliberation, timed pauses (we did not want extra noise after the last note), and a desperate race against the tape length. If your favorite song was too long? Sorry, Carly Simon, but “You’re So Vain” might just have to be cut shorter than my pair of JNCO jeans because “Livin’ on a Prayer” was the real MVP of romance.
Now, we live in an era where the concept of the mix tape is merely a sad footnote in history, somewhere between cassette rewinds and rotary phones. I mean, truly, who could have imagined that we’d go from crafting physical expressions of our emotions to merely sharing a link via text? To quote the wise philosopher, my mom, “This just isn’t how it used to be.” So, as we plunge head-first into this streaming abyss, let’s raise a glass of Tang (preferably neon-orange) to the innocent days of the mix tape, where love was personal, songs were picked with sweaty palms, and at least one of us was bound for an awkward encounter at the roller rink. May we all embrace the nostalgia…and the complete lack of social media engagement. Cheers!