Cruising the hovers in my igoogle recently, a post on Trend Hunter.com caught my eye “The Return of ‘New Retro’ – First Gen iPods As Fashion Accessory “ prompting a click through to the following:
“…. I was surprised to notice a new, rather trendy, urban acquaintance sporting an iPod Classic.
Launched in October 2001, this very first product in the Apple iPod range is chunky, white and now retro looking. Perhaps the latter suggests why my new friend was showcasing it attached to his graffiti-print man bag. When asked why he still used his 5 GB internal hard drive iPod, whilst his iPhone has a 32 GB flash memory and does everything but make him cheese on toast and wipe his behind, he simply said, “I found it the other day amongst my things and thought it looked so cool.”
Who would have thought this revolutionary technology would return as a vintage fashion accessory so soon? Yet compared with the capabilities and aesthetics of todays models, the iPod Classic does look pretty old school and old school is always cool.”
The trendhunter.com post prompts all sorts of thoughts from – consumer fatigue; middens of obsolete ipods and iphones piling up as they are discarded for the next better, cooler, faster model; the hyperactivity of technology updates and upgrades and of course the ramifications for those whose vocations are co dependent on technology – like so many in the screen arts and broadcast industries.
So maybe the ‘return of the first gen ipod‘ is more than just a fashion statement and is also a political and moral stand ….