My ringtone was a funky chiptune version of O Green World by Gorillaz.
These days I don’t even want a ringtone on my phone.
Back in that day, before everything had an app, most notifications were important
And before 99% of the calls and texts you receive were spam, political campaigns inevitably addressing you by the wrong name with heartfelt pleas for money, IRS scams, “Bob” from Microsoft technical support, Your Car’s Extended Warranty, AI generated robocalls telling you not to vote, or someone’s hysterical babymomma who refuses to understand that whoever she’s looking for might have had this number in 2007, but they don’t have it anymore.
For a while I kept getting calls from this old lady who didn’t realize she had to dial an area code before calling her son. After the first couple I answered it and explained to her that she’s dialing the wrong area code, but she didn’t remember and kept calling me and I’d let it go to voicemail. They were pretty sad and I think she was just lonely and wondering why her son wasn’t answering.
Eventually she stopped so I hope she figured it out.
You just unlocked a memory for me, and this happened from about 2008-2010 (not cell related, but it is phone related).
One day we got home and there was a message on the machine from someone asking us to remember to bring something when we visited him. Unfortunately, we had no idea who it was, so we just wrote it off as a wrong number. It happened a few more times after that, and we were getting curious.
I’d moved into the house in 2006 and received that phone number at that time. We often got calls from bill collectors looking for the previous residents, so we generally let everything go to the machine.
One evening we got a call, and I think I recognized that the number was this person’s, so I answered it. I told him he had the wrong number, and he said he’d had that same number for years and read back my number, the one he’d just called. I was like, “Uh, I don’t know what to tell you, but I’ve had this number since 2006.” He tried a few more times, and it was sometimes late in the evening.
At some point I looked up the number he was calling from and found it was a nursing home, and the pieces started to fall into place. My wife and I talked about it a few times, and we decided that if our relative was doing that, we’d want to know. We weren’t upset, but it felt like information the family should have. Who knows who else he might be calling, or getting calls from. So, we decided that when he called again, we’d call the nursing home and let them know it was happening.
But, we never got the chance. He never called again.
⛅️ To all of Joe Biden’s Supporters, please do not click away from this important message. 🇺🇸
President Biden is humbly asking you to donate $20 or whatever you can afford directly to his reelection campaign for President today.
As you read this, our campaign is getting absolutely pummeled with attacks online and in crucial states by Trump and other MAGA Republican groups.
If everyone getting this text donated just $20 to Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, we would have the resources he needs to respond without asking for another donation for weeks.
Unfortunately, not everyone gives. A lot of folks look away, waiting for others to act.
That’s why we are hoping people like you who know the stakes in this election will contribute directly to his campaign today.
Our average online donation is around $40. Some give more, some give less. All that matters is that you are chipping in today to stand with President Biden.
Here’s the link to give: https://m.joebiden.com/lY9su6i0
Team Joe
STOP2quit
Is this satire?
Yes. Commenter mentioned spam texts and I got this one today.
I think this went over some people’s heads.
My fault
without asking for another donation for weeks.
Lol, thats not very long
Got another one today:
Here’s the truth, folks:
March is an FEC deadline month.
This means that at the end of the month we will be required to report how much money we’ve raised, and everyone will be watching.
The President needs you now more than ever. Chip in $20 here: https://m.joebiden.com/o4zM3Wi0
Biden HQ
STOP2quit
So its not even about the money, its just about them being able to show off how much money they raised?
Oh Team Joe. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but all of what would have been my discretionary income is servicing student loans.
I still have my phone set that way. I turn off all notifications that aren’t messages. Though, I guess now it all goes through my watch first.
i only unmute when i’m expecting an important call (like the pizza man at my door)
I can get away from unmuting thanks to my Mi Band 😬
How much you spending on custom vibration patterns?
I would throw a dollar at shave and a haircut for texts.
Do you have an iPhone? You can make your own!
Settings > sound & haptics > [pick any tone] > haptics (at the top) > create new vibration
Mine’s always on silent mode too.
Ay but there are still notification chimes
Man, OPs caption unlocked a core memory I have of calling my high school boyfriend at 858 pm, and talking on the phone with him for about 2.5 hours before he got notified that he was under 10 mins left for the month.
We had thought he was only going to lose 2 of his minutes 😭.
I remember when they finally came out with the free unlimited minute plans.
Mind=blown
Yeah but at first it was only Cingular to Cingular or Verizon to Verizon “free unlimited”
How about Alltel’s “Fave 5”?
I stayed with Sprint through years of them being the shittiest in my area because I was grandfathered into an old plan with free nights starting at 5pm. Just taking non-stop at 6pm like a baller.
Oh yeah those were the days!
Now you’ve gotta pay me a hecking salary for me to use the damn TELEPHONE function. Ew
Never bought a ring tone. I just stuck with the default Canon in D.
not to brag but tabbed out Tool’s Forty Six & 2 as my programmable ring tone myself
Don’t forget ringback tones so u could force anyone who called to listen to a scratchy version of a shitty song any time they called. My sister still had hers til like 2015 or something.
A story the descendants will need to have strong search skills to understand.
One day, Merv Griffin was going through his snail mail and found a hefty check to him from a company he’d never heard of.
He used the intercom to summon his assistant. They explained to him that his people had licensed the ’ Final Jeopardy’ music to be a ring tone.
Then they had to explain to Merv what a ring tone was.
I want to believe this but I don’t want to search for it.
You can believe me. No body ever lies on the interwebs.
Merv Griffin? The elevator killer?
Let’s not forget, you could also compose your own ringtones on those 😁. Well, that’s what I did 😂.
A friend of mine had self-composed Darude - Sandstorm as his ringtone. Amazing shit
I used to buy the songs that would play as my phone ringing. Like I’m not sure how to say it but when you called me you were forced to listen to a shitty song I liked instead of hearing the riiing riiing. Or when I called my weed guy instead of hearing the riiing or was 36 Mafia "where is the bud, where is the bud playing.
The good ol days of asking Jeeves to find you tabs/sheet music.
Exactly! 😂
Or you just lay in bed at night and just try to properly edit the score notation to a song you really like, but it’s kinda niche, still all your friends know it, and then brag about it when you meet up “yo, check out my ringtone 😏” 😂.
You still can if you want to. My phone uses an MP3 for ringtone that I selected. It’s music that I wrote and recorded in my home studio even
Meeh, it’s just not the same 😂. I miss the quirky score notation on those ancient things 😂.
My ringtone has been the same one for the last 15 years, Cowbell Rock. I paid for it twice, once when Ringtone Feeder was a thing, and then again from iTunes. Worth it. Best ringtone ever. Would buy again if I could.
I just go with a telephone ringing. I always have. Why not have my phone make the same sound phones made for over a century? Nothing wrong with it as-is.
Yup that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up…
I never cared much about my ringtone but I got used to “dream it possible” so now I keep using it 🤷
Anyone remember paying ten cents or honestly usually more per text until someone did out the numbers and we all realized we were paying more to text than NASA pays to beam data back from the goddamn Hubble? Like 5x as much on average? And only then did unlimited texting become common?
Best part was that SMS was specifically designed to use the current infrastructure at the time without inducing any real demand on it. It didn’t cost the companies much of anything to implement it.
my first purchased ringtone was hips don’t lie by Shakira
I bought 2 ringtones on my Nokia 2112:
Linkin Park - Numb
t.A.T.u - All About Us
It was funny to listen to them over and over!
I’m sorry but paying for a rington was never cool. And it’s not a generational thing, just gullibility
When I was young I would edit my own mp3 to make ringtones and figure out how to transfer them to my phone.
Now I’m old and I work and I don’t have time, so I’d rather just pay for it.
Of course I don’t even do that because I don’t give a shit and just keep the default one.
I spent my money on a yak bak
To be fair, also born at the right time to have a mobile phone as a convenience that allowed you to stay in touch as you went places. As opposed to a smartphone, aka voluntary shackle that keeps you indoors doom scrolling social media.
