Consumable

Stuff. It’s built to break.

The world is full of used cell phones and mp3 players, iPods and electronic picture frames, televisions and laptops, vacuums, vehicles, freaking toasters and washing machines. There is no longer any quality.

Sony. Quality electronics. The Walkman. The more expensive VCRs and then DVD players. This quality was always derived from the fact that Sony was, well, Japanese. If you lived through the latter part of the twentieth century you understood that Sony meant Japan and Japan meant two things: fine electronics and rubber-suit monster movies.

A few years ago when my wife and I bought a Sony Cybershot digital camera, we thought we were laying our cash down on a sure thing. Then, after three years, the camera up and died for some reason. No beep, no crunch, no smoke even. It just wouldn’t turn on, even with the freshest of fresh batteries. Weird.

So we took it to our local big box electronics store and seeing that the warranty (a paltry year) had expired, the repairs to fix the camera—which no one guaranteed would work because no one knew any better than we did what the hell was actually wrong—would cost more than just buying a new camera. My “But what do we do with the old one?” was answered with a shrug and a mumbled something that may have been “You could find a place that recycles” or may have been “Throw it in the garbage like an old bicycle.”

Anyway, turned out that digital camera technology had shed water a dozen or so times in the three years since our last purchase and we bought a newer, smaller, vastly superior camera for a much cheaper price than our original. Swell. Once again the best model (price + quality) was a Sony Cybershot.

We loved this new camera. We documented our son’s first year of life with it. We were really pleased with some of its funky new options, including superior video.

Then the dang thing died too. In exactly the same freaking way as the first. It just stopped working. Change batteries, shake it, smash it against the wall—nothing would do the trick. Sucker was deader than teenage telephone etiquette.

Guess what? It died one day after the warranty expired. I found this so ludicrously coincidental that I suspected a plot of Dickensian proportions.

What could we do? Back to the same dang store to hear the same dang speeches.

“Sorry. I guess it could be the motherboard.”

I was suspicious. Had Sony doctored its motherboards? Perhaps a timing chip clipped onto the motherboard to kill it just after your warranty expires thus guaranteeing perpetual camera purchases? I mean, call me crazy, but as a consumer I think that things I consume should be food and beer and things I don’t intend to keep around long term. I buy cameras, preferably not in the plural—I don’t wanna consume them.

“We could try to fix it, but it’s cheaper to buy a new one.”

Seriously? That old chestnut? Not even any remorse? I became agitated. I near made a scene. I mean, two straight Sony cameras had died on us, the same stinking way! And Mr. New-and-Improved had lasted two fewer years than his predecessor. Didn’t anybody besides me see this as odd?

“It’s just a reality you’ll have to face, sir. These cameras only last a couple of years.”

There it was, the impossible truth. Stated with a complete calm that belied the madness of the statement.

Built to break.

And then—the gall!—he actually tried to show me the newest model of built-to-break cameras, recommending—with dull-eyed incomprehension of the vein popping on my forehead—the newest Sony bloody Cybershot.

Whatever happened to craftsmanship? Time was a person, a group of people, took pride in making something that lasted.

My whole young life, my mother had the same camera. The thing was sold to her in the early 1980s with one extra-feature: a built-in flash that popped up on demand. Zounds! No zoom, no red-eye reduction, no light filtering, no damn video. Every Christmas, graduation, birthday, wedding, new baby, twenty-nine point cribbage hand was documented with that old black piece of work.

That camera lasted her for twenty years. It never broke. It’s probably still usable though the decline of film showed its years more than wear and tear ever could. Mom just wanted some options. She wanted to play with images a bit more. So she retired the old thing and bought a shiny silver digital camera about four years ago. She’s already on her second of those palm-size hunks of feces.

The 21st century, defined by our ever-increasing need for gadgets with insect-like lifespans. Cameras, computers, listening devices—we’re so slow to follow technology that this is the best name we can give this stupid category! If you want to remain trendy, you need to get a new one of everything every year. The makers of these plastic junk-boxes know that, so they don’t worry for a second about building quality. They just make sure it’s flashier than the last one you bought and will keep your interest and the envy of your peers for the next couple of months.

Did we all wake up one morning and decide we were six?

If my mother wanted to buy another camera to last twenty years she’d have to fork out at least a grand, and she’d also have to spend hundreds of dollars on one of those stupid service plans, that’ll maybe get her two or three years of service. That’s where those big box stores really make their money.


Now, I’m not above buying gadgets myself. I have a cell phone, a laptop and an iPod. I only get a new cell phone when my old one breaks. I’m on my third in five years which some people say is an impressive run, but it disgust me. A laptop is a great tool. I’m working at my second in eight years, bought because my first one—though it had only crashed once—couldn’t support the ever-advancing demands of the Internet.

As for my iPod, it was a birthday present from my wife three years ago. It’s an eighty gigabyte version, which holds my entire music collection. It’s also an invaluable portable hard-drive. I love it. It’s an iPod Classic. Called “classic” because it’s of the style that’s existed—in who knows how many generations—since about 2002.

2002 is classic? Where the hell is this going?

“I just bought a vintage April Mustang Convertible. Original seats and everything.”

Or: “For Sale, Samsung Phone. Last Thursday Edition. Like new.”

People look at my iPod and ask me when I’m going to trade up. What for? This one still works fine. “Ah, but it’s not the latest.”

As of this writing, the iPod Touch is the lean, mean superior to my grand-dad Classic. The Touch’s largest version is sixty-four gigs. By the time I post this, touch technology will be passé and there’ll be some new thing where they beam the songs right into a plastic receiver surgically implanted into your noggin. A plastic receiver that you’ll need to replace every six months.

I like my Classic iPod just fine, thanks. I still think the clicker is pretty fast. I mean, in my life—which hasn’t been that long—I’ve placed needles on records, fast-forwarded through cassettes and skipped tracks on CDs to find a song. I still think the clicker is pretty wicked by comparison.

A friend of mine is editor of a great magazine. One of its constant features is articles on the theme of sustainability. It decries our horrifying consumption habits. There are more people alive in the twenty-first century than if you added up every century before up until the nineteenth. Earth can’t satisfy that kind of resource-rape.

Millions and millions of these billions are using laptops, cell phones and iPods. We are discarding mountains of plastic and only some can be reclaimed from the recycling process, a process that itself gobbles up resources, energy and money.

Here’s my little plea: be satisfied. Sustain. If you have something that works, keep it. Use it until it breaks. Force quality workmanship back on Sony and all the other corporations who are gagging us with the latest geegaws and doodads constructed under their built to break philosophy.

Your life is not going to magically get better if you get the next cell-phone on the market. I promise. Complete life satisfaction is not tied directly to touch technology. Instead, squeeze every last drop of happiness from the crap you’ve already got and realize it’s just crap and the happiness comes from not needing to live to collect crap anyways.

Then go outside and throw a ball.