[Watch] Kids React: Walkman
Hey, I haven’t seen a walkman in– uh, I’d rather not say.
Remember the satisfying click when you pressed on actual, physical buttons to make a cassette player do its thing? Remember untangling the tape because some kid pulled it out of the cassette and unwound it all? Remember using a pencil to wind it back up?
Feeling old, yet?
Of course, these kids have never seen a walkman. They’ve never seen a cassette tape. They’ve probably never had to turn any thing over to access the rest of the content, and to them, 90 minutes of music sounds less like a feat of technology and more like what their mom purchased on iTunes yesterday.
When The Fine Brothers Benny and Rafi tell the kids what the walkman does and that it needs a cassette tape, one boy responds, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
One thirteen-year-old struggles to find the – what? what is he looking for? A touch-screen interface?
By the time these kids grow up, music will be downloaded directly into their brains with a thought, assuming Skynet allows that kind of thing.
Once handed the mysterious cassette tape, one girl coos, “Ooo! Are these like in the movies?”
One girl exclaims as she opens the walkman and inserts the cassette tape, “I feel like I’m Indiana Jones!” You know. The fictional archaeologist who has to dodge ancient boulders to steal equally ancient artifacts.
Ouch.
But, hey, one young kid recognizes the walkman, and even knows how to operate it!
Make sure to watch the “Kids React to Walkman” viral video to hear even more painfully hilarious commentary from the kids. The Fine Brothers, who have nearly 8 million subscribers on their YouTube page, post “Kids React” or “Teens React” every Sunday. April 6th’s episode was “Teens React to Flappy Bird” and has over three-and-a-half million views. “Kids React to Walkman”already has four-and-a-half million views. On Thursdays, The Fine Brothers post “YouTubers” and “Elders” reaction videos (“Elders React to Selfie“). See their “about” page for more details on their show schedule. In case that’s not enough Fine Brothers for you, they also run a secondary YouTube page full of extra content, “FineBrothers2.”
A for the walkman, the walkman debuted in 1979, which may or may not be before I was born. Cassette tape sales peaked in the 1990s, which seems so much more recent, but apparently that was over twenty years ago.
Excuse me, I’m going to grab my walkman for my trip to the store. To buy a cane.
Related: Watch the viral video, Cellphone Crashing Comedian Hits Disneyland.