(Mixtapes were popular for road trips and even as a form of love letter, Hilderbrand observed.) Even the telephone had critics Shortly after the Walkman came into being, cassettes dethroned vinyl records as the top-selling music format, giving rise to mixtapes, the granddaddy of today’s digital playlists. Transistor radios had paved the way in the 1950s and ’60s, followed by boomboxes in the 1970s.īut neither predecessor had as much cultural impact, she said. Of course, portable music wasn’t a totally novel concept when the Walkman premiered, she noted. Reshaping the industry, and culture at largeĪlthough adored by millions, the Walkman and its “featherweight” stereo headphones also came under fire for causing ear damage, mishaps (pedestrians and cyclists couldn’t hear oncoming cars) and social withdrawal as users tuned out the world around them.Īppearing on campus last week in conversation with Lucas Hilderbrand, an associate professor of film & media studies at UC Irvine, Tuhus-Dubrow discussed how the Walkman reshaped the music industry, helped fuel a fitness boom and altered the nature of boredom. Many of her complaints about the iPhone mirror reactions to Sony’s portable cassette player when it debuted in 1979. When Tuhus-Dubrow – a writer-in-residence at the University of California, Irvine’s Newkirk Center for Science & Society – began researching the Walkman’s history for a forthcoming book, she made a curious discovery. “But I hate my iPhone – and I hate your iPhone.”

In contrast with today’s less civilized smartphone era, you didn’t see folks getting into accidents because they’re distracted, or behaving rudely because they’re more interested in their devices than other people, the journalist recalled. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow said she longs for the halcyon days of the 1990s, when she was a teenager and portable music players could do only one thing: play songs.

Rebecca tuhus dubrow