Sony's MDR-3R headphones are alarming

In certain hipster parts of Seoul there were countless dingy bars filled with young people quietly listening to music on old-school turntables. so we get that retro + music is a thing.

But Sony reintroducing headphones that look like the same things we owned in 1987, somehow feels defeatist.

Was 1987 really that cool, or has the world of design honestly run out of ideas?

Sure some older things can still be cool - like The Doors is still rad...and Led Zeppelin. But nobody in 1987 was consciously craving any industrial design from 1947 (which is the same time gap backwards then as this is now).

What is the appeal here?

Is it that there is a functionality / utility threshold past which the design aesthetic of an artefact dissolves and design itself devalues?

Does design then need to produce an artefact with tangible / visible / narrative value that gives it social currency, even if the design itself is not functionally optimal?

Maybe that's it. Design needs to work for people. Even if the design is shitty, it's shitty design that makes sense to people.

So as somebody who has had a lot of experience with this style of shitty headphone kids, prepare yourselves for severe head yanks when you forget that you're wearing a harness on your head tethered to an immovable object (your phone lodged under a pillow). And don't be sad when the little foam ear-cushion things start to dissolve with time and exposure to sunlight.

If you love 1987 then we'd also recommend landlines (a cabled telephone stationed at your home / office) that enables a delightful sense of freedom away from other people when you are not in its physical locality.