Please tell me, why do people still buy me? Do me a favor and imagine me for a second without the mint-colored upholstery and my stylized look, parallel to a briefcase. I am just a record player. A shitty, grade-D, record player. But I’m not like the other record players, I was born to die.
Every day that my knob is turned, I wheeze, I cough—I am calling out for help and no one is listening, they can’t hear me scream over their thrifted Bob Dylan record. I already feel my turntable being scratched, my headshell becoming deformed. Do you care? Was this worth the cheap buy? I want to scream “WHY! WHY DID YOU BUY ME?!” Is it because Urban Outfitters paired me in the display window with your favorite fall outfit that complimented my coloring oh so well? Or is it that you only wanted to use me when you would plug in your twinkle lights and put on a brand new forty dollar Frank Ocean vinyl for your sex guests? Which by the way is so ignorant of you. If you didn’t know this by now, I am contagious. And will disease any new record you buy.
“You’re a dumb bitch” I want to say. If you just invested fifty dollars more, you could have a non-cancerous record player. Someone who treats you better, someone who isn’t suffering. Now you’re suffering. You’re calling Urban Outfitters' customer helpline and begging for a refund!
Don’t you now see little boys and girls? I was always like this. I’ll always be like this. It’s not your fault that you fell into this trap. This dark, sexy, intriguing, adventurous trap. I scream easy and fun and among other things, not heavy.
Perhaps you should have read the fine print in my instructional manual, so you could see that it in fact does say “single use only.” I am pretty sure when they were pitching me in a room of investors, their tag line was “A taste from the '80s.” A taste. Just a taste. They went in knowing that they didn’t want to give you the whole damn meal with me!
Not to be dramatic, but it’s like they made a gene-mutated baby and nobody is talking about it? Like helloooooo? I know I still turned out hot and everything, but I’m also miserable and my lifespan like totally sucks.
I’m sure you’re reading this now while drinking your oat matcha seated next to your nonfunctional Fjallraven backpack. You’re reading this and you feel pity for me. Well don’t. I might be ill, but at least I’m not sick. Someone who spends their rent money on polaroid film and vinyl has much bigger problems than me. See you and I, we're not so different. I was created to be an enemy… and you have made yourself a universally hated enigma as well with your thoughtless hipster antics.
This is my call to action: just let me be a briefcase, let me pass in peace. Get a new record player, play Bjork on someone that you at least have to make a trip to Best Buy for. I’ll blend in with your tapestry, a wallflower if you will. I want to thank you for at least seeing something in me that Crosley mamma and pappa never thought I could do.
Look at me now, I’ve been through Father John Misty, Lorde, Glass Animals, and I wish to take my last breath with The Lumineers. So I can fuck that record up and do you a favor, so you can never play it again.