Phone-ienza

In this day and age of ever expedient afluenza, consumer experts believe that your mobile phone says a lot about who you are and what you’re all about. Nielsen Media Research Associate Director, Mr Jody Loughlin, claimed recently that many Australians choose a phone that says something about them, and that the type of mobile you’re seen with could even be more important than the carrier you go with. This recent report went on to establish some commonalities between brand names, the types of people who normally go for the types and range fo phone on offer. From the corresponding reductive table I was able to deduce that, due to my long standing relationship with a Nokia mobile phone, I am a middle aged manager type, most likely 55+, with a penchant for health kicks and life balance. In this regard, I sit alongside affluent phone sistren Jennifer Lopez and Mary J. Blige.

However, what the table failed to include was whether or not the aforementioned Nokia phone, or other, was the initial choice of the consumer. What if they had inherited their mobile phone from not one, not two, not three but four other prior owners of the same phone, all whom decided it was no longer something they wanted to be seen with, and that the phone lacked so much class and hint of status that it might be described as an offensive abomination. On the surface, Nielsen Media seemed to have omitted this critical variable.

After two months of dealing with a Nokia phone whose battery, keypad, and front and back chassis would remain in tact only with the bonding aid of a rubber band, I feel I must distance myself from the Lopezes and J.Bliges of the world and go out on my own. In this regard, i can safely declare that when it comes to technology status, i am indeed a pioneer in a class of my own. What else could we really deduce about a man whose on/off button was snapped into the dark depths of his phone’s circuitry months ago, forcing him to carry a blue Artline fineliner around with him in order to jam the nib into the button cavity should the phone require re-activation? Many things can be said. ‘Complex, determined, problem solver, enjoys challenge. Likes antiques. Individual’. As well as, of course, ‘ladies man, showman, mover and shaker’.

But in all seriousness, lets get to the core of my inner being. How about this:
‘Refuses to give a shit about purported correlations between small pieces of technology and one’s inner self. Real. Remembers a day when you could deduce a personality by having a face to face conversation and doesn’t care much for a phone that works. Cheap bastard’.
Today I end my relationship with my Nokia 8310.
RIP, old girl. You’ve served me, and your four other owners well. For the agony and the pain I put you through in your dying years – all the the rubber bands and fineliner stabbings, I commend you. Your service is over. And now, it seems, I have little choice but to go and discover a new personality; but you can forget it if you think I’m going to pay money for it.