UPDATE: see the results of our online “therapy” at the end of this post!
Have you ever brought home a new gadget which you had high expectations for, and it then broke your heart? Or did your favourite, 10 year old pair of headphones finally die on you, leaving you bereft? Or perhaps you tried in vain to keep your laptop alive and then watch it flatline before your eyes?
For Valentine’s Day, we would like to hear more about your electronics relationships and heartbreaks. Tell us a story, or post a photo of the electronic gadget that broke your heart. If you’re on Twitter, use the hashtag #ITbrokemyheart
Clearly, there are some broken hearts out there. Beyond the comments on this post, we had a fun interaction on Twitter with our followers. Virgin even responded to a tweet about a modem.
“Repair is Essential” – this is the theme we chose for this year’s International Repair Day. In London, an online team of volunteers mapped 45+ repair businesses in London to be considered for inclusion. Small groups met repair businesses in Crystal Palace, Shepherd’s Bush and Tooting.
We appear on The One Show this evening, calling out in-built obsolescence and short product lifetimes and fixing with our community in Brixton. If you feel moved to get involved anywhere in the UK, we’re here for you.
After much deliberation I bought my first XBOX360 – second hand and out of warranty. I enjoyed it for a year before one day, the dreaded Red Ring Of Death appeared. Devastated, I researched and repaired my beloved console and many months’ more pleasure were had.
Then it happened again. After a period of grievance I once more repaired and upgraded the box. A month passed. It died again.
After several more repairs and collapses I can no longer bring myself to face the emotional rollercoaster of watching it come to life, and dreading the inevitable moment it fails again. So my XBOX lives in my room, loved but not used, and never thrown away, to this day.
Wow Ben, what a story to kick this off. Your story has us thinking, perhaps we need to do something with your Xbox, reuse it for something else? Perhaps a toolkit for your repair tools? Would that help you move on? 😉
A minidisc man broke my heart. I used it for a couple of years in the early 2000s while doing field research. I also started making mixes with the mp3s I got from filesharing at university. I really liked the format – kind of like cassettes for the digital age. I love the tangible and material aspect of them, when I compare to the Mp3 players that took over afterwards. This was the last format that made me feel “connected” to my data and my production. Now everything feels ephemeral and sad for me.
I bought Nintendo Wii, then I realised that I am not into this new style of games of nowadays, I prefer the old-school game, as well as old-school controllers, not into those hifty-nifty motion controls, may be I am too lazy to use them or something. In the end, it broke my heard that I seldom play with it.
After much deliberation I bought my first XBOX360 – second hand and out of warranty. I enjoyed it for a year before one day, the dreaded Red Ring Of Death appeared. Devastated, I researched and repaired my beloved console and many months’ more pleasure were had.
Then it happened again. After a period of grievance I once more repaired and upgraded the box. A month passed. It died again.
After several more repairs and collapses I can no longer bring myself to face the emotional rollercoaster of watching it come to life, and dreading the inevitable moment it fails again. So my XBOX lives in my room, loved but not used, and never thrown away, to this day.
And that is how my XBOX360 broke my heart.
Wow Ben, what a story to kick this off. Your story has us thinking, perhaps we need to do something with your Xbox, reuse it for something else? Perhaps a toolkit for your repair tools? Would that help you move on? 😉
A minidisc man broke my heart. I used it for a couple of years in the early 2000s while doing field research. I also started making mixes with the mp3s I got from filesharing at university. I really liked the format – kind of like cassettes for the digital age. I love the tangible and material aspect of them, when I compare to the Mp3 players that took over afterwards. This was the last format that made me feel “connected” to my data and my production. Now everything feels ephemeral and sad for me.
Photo of my minidisc man: https://twitter.com/JanetGunter/status/301985579619459072/photo/1
I bought Nintendo Wii, then I realised that I am not into this new style of games of nowadays, I prefer the old-school game, as well as old-school controllers, not into those hifty-nifty motion controls, may be I am too lazy to use them or something. In the end, it broke my heard that I seldom play with it.