Nicole Randone, a 24-year-old from Westchester, New York, takes calls from her bedroom using a purple Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen-branded landline first sold in 2003, when she was three years old. "One of my first memories is the tan landline that my parents had mounted to the kitchen wall," Randone said. "I always fantasised about the day I'd have one in my own room."
All of Randone's style takes influence from what she calls "2000s nostalgia" - on Instagram, she posts to her audience of 118,000 followers showing off a bedroom decorated with a bright pink boombox, Von Dutch accessories and Chad Michael Murray wall posters. "Having a landline really bridges that gap between reality and my childhood fantasy," Randone said. "I feel like the main character in my favourite TV shows - One Tree Hill, The OC, Gilmore Girls - when I use it."
The overwhelming majority of American adults do not own landlines. According to the Washington Post, barely a quarter of Americans lived in homes that had one in 2022. The number has basically deathdropped since 2010, when about 63% of Americans had both wireless and landline options.
This story is from the February 23, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the February 23, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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