I should have written "With smartphones..." but that would negate the impact of the emotional reference to the movie Alien.
Decades ago, let's say in the 1980s, there was a device affectionately (or derisively) referred to as either a boombox or the ghetto-blaster. Despite the name, it was not a weapon as such. It was a giant portable stereo system, typically very wide and thin that could rest comfortably (depending on your arm size) upon the shoulder with a handle atop.
 A boombox with turntable |
The most popular configuration per my memory is that it would have a radio tuner built-in as well as a cassette deck. What made it a blaster is that it could play music very, very loudly.
There's a well-known seen in the Mel Brooks movie History of the World Part I where a fella is grooving down a crowded ancient Roman street with one on his shoulder. He was listening to Donna Summer's version of Funkytown.
 History of the World Part I: The Roman Empire. |
I should mention that the archetypal image has the speakers facing toward the head. It could be said to be a sort of early portable surround sound, albeit one that was both asymmetrical and brutal for the owner's ears.
If you perhaps have some misgivings that this image is stereotypical, possibly racist, then you may be right. Mel Brooks after all directed the cinema classic Blazing Saddles which unabashedly indulged the racial stereotype, more specifically, everyone's racial stereotype. But this is besides the point.
The point is that having to listen to someone play music loudly is not always very appealing. Even if you happen to like the music being played, it's still amounts to an invasion of space. I realize that may be a bit severe, and may categorize the sound of a car driving by as no different. But there is a difference between the two. A car driving by does not tax the attention the same way as a song, especially one with lyrics. If for instance, you are sitting at an outdoor cafe reading the Sunday editorials, the sound of a car driving by doesn't really jar the attention. You can tune it out. Now if there's music playing loudly, that's a whole different matter. Music engages the attention in a way that a car doesn't. You don't have to be a scientist to know this to be true.
Which brings me to the issue: Music played on cellphones.
For the past several months I have been running into situations where perfectly normal looking people will play their music, or a movie (for the love of god) on their cellphone using the external speaker. This makes it so I have to listen to their music or whatever. This means that I either have to put up with it, get the hell out of there, or confront the kid (because it has been the younger generation thus far).
The actual act is not as bad as the effect on my incredulity. I'm more flummoxed by the act of it, someone playing music out loud in a public space (waiting room, library, elevator, etc.) with no deference to others who have to listen to this crap. In fact it's always crap and will be crap as long as people insist on being buggers about it.
What does this mean? What is going through the mind of the person as he or she shares the music with people who may not be friends, even Facebook friends? That is the fun part. Trying to figure out what the angle is. My sense is that they don't care. That there is a lack of respect for the space of others. This is probably nothing shocking to the older generation who decry (to no end) the lack of respect these days. As always there's got to be more to it than that. The more could be the sense of entitlement that psychologists have been writing about, that these younger generations (the Millenial generation, of the ME Generation) have been imbued with the sense that anything goes. Not only that anything goes, but that this is a virtue unto itself. To do any less would render one in-genuine. They would be censoring themselves, end up being untrue to themselves.
The purpose here however is not to tender an explanation. It is to produce a kindly worded rant against those who would perpetrate space invasion.
Please note that if it already has not been coined, I hereby coin the idea of space invasion on this Tuesday, March 2, 2010.
Space invasion (n.) An act or instance of imposing an unsolicited burden on another person through the violation of implicit social mores. This person sitting next to me committed space invasion when he started playing music loudly on his iphone.
—This article could go a bit longer, but the time is nigh and I've other things to attend. Consider this a work in progress.
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