Do you remember when the CEO of TikTok was dragged in front of a Congressional Panel and the world had to watch a bunch of dinosaurs figure out how technology worked? I’m honestly shocked the poor man wasn’t taken to Salem, tried for being a witch, and burned at the stake. I will say I think the CEO of TikTok was paraded in front of the wrong panel—that man should have had to face the highest spiritual leader of every faith system on this planet—TikTok is sucking life from people like someone chose the wrong Holy Grail in an Indiana Jones movie. I’m guilty of it too. I’ll sit down after work, commit to a few minutes of doom scrolling, and realize it’s time to get up, and file for retirement.
No one ever prepared me for the young people on that app gushing over songs from the 80s and 90s, saying shit like “this song hits me in the feels.” It hits me in the feels too—mostly how it felt to have to hear the same song on the radio for the 47,952nd time on the radio. Let’s be perfectly clear, there was no skipping songs, hitting next, or streaming another channel. When you’re eight years old, locked in a vehicle while your mom is smoking her second pack of Marlboro Reds of the trip, and in the driver’s seat, there was nothing to listen to other than the radio, or the minutes of your life being stolen from you. Sure, we had cassette players, CD players even, but can you imagine how far that gets you when you have ADHD so bad you’re giving the people around you a learning disorder? Worse than that, if you caught a brief glimpse of a song you might like, and someone changes the station before you can find out what the song is, your only hope is that you’ll find out what the song’s name is in the next life.
Continue reading “I Hated 90’s Pop Radio (And Now I’d Do Anything to Have it Back)”
A.P. Miller 