First came the rhinestone-encrusted turntable. Then the cherry red lips. Then the cheeseburger.
Last summer, Chanell Karr had amassed a collection of six landline telephones. Her most recent, a corded orange model, created as a promotional item for the 1986 film “Pretty in Pink,” was purchased in June. Although she only has one – a more understated VTech phone – plugged in, they all work.
“During the pandemic, I wanted to disconnect from all the things that distract you on a smartphone,” said Ms Karr, 30, who works in marketing and ticketing at a music venue near her home in Alexandria, Ky. to go back to the original analog ways of having a landline.”
Once a kitchen staple, bedtime companion and plot device on sitcoms like “Sex and the City” and “Seinfeld,” the landline phone has nearly been replaced by its newer, smarter wireless counterpart.
In 2003, more than 90 percent of respondents to a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they had an operational landline at home. As of June 2021, that number — including internet-connected phones and phones wired the old-fashioned way (via copper pipes running from a house to a local junction box) — had fallen to just over 30 percent.
But like record players and VHS tapes, landlines are embraced by nostalgic fans who say their non-scrolling and non-walkable nature is an antidote to screen fatigue and excessive multitasking. The crescent shape of many phone receivers, users say, is also a more natural, more comfortable fit against a cheek than the flat body of a smartphone. And with a cordless device, one has to focus more on having a conversation; the phone call becomes more intentional.
In January, Emily Kennedy, a communications manager with the Canadian public service, began using an old Calamine lotion-pink rotary phone from her father’s office as a way to distance herself from her social media work.
Ironically, it was on Twitter where Ms. Kennedy got the idea. When Rachel Syme, a staff writer at The New Yorker, tweeted in January over a landline phone she had connected via Bluetooth, Ms. Kennedy was one of many to reply that Ms. Syme had inspired them to install one of their own.
“Having my old phone as an object in my house is an identity signal that I like a slower pace,” said Ms. Kennedy, 38, who lives in Ottawa, Ontario.
Like Ms. Syme and many other modern analog phone users, Ms. Kennedy doesn’t have her landline with copper wire — so it doesn’t have its own number — but uses a Bluetooth attachment to connect it to her smartphone’s cellular service. (In other words, when connected, she can take a mobile call on the landline.)
Matt Jennings has been with Old Phone Works, a Kingston, Ontario, firm that refurbishes and sells landline telephones since 2011. Now, the chief executive, Mr. Jennings, 35, said customer demand for 1950s and 1960s candy-colored rotary telephones has skyrocketed in the past two years.
“About a year and a half ago it absolutely exploded,” said Mr. Jennings. “Over the last six or seven years, we might have gotten one or two orders for them, and now it’s probably one of our main sources of income.”
As to what motivated the recent desire for landline telephones, Mr. Jennings: “It’s a return to basics.” He added: ‘You can’t go anywhere with a landline, you’re basically stuck within a three-foot radius of the base. You can have a real conversation without being distracted.”
Rachel Lahbabi, 37, noticed a similar surge in interest after she began selling landline phones online through her Etsy shop Robert Joyce Vintage in early 2021. Lahbabi, living in Charlotte, NC. lives
“The ones I was putting up just went so fast,” she said. “I thought, ‘Okay, people are obviously looking for this, so I should really focus on this trend.'”
Pink lips shaped phones are particularly popular among her customers, Ms. Lahbabi said, as are models that are clear or neon. Also in demand: Garfield phones.
All of these styles, she added, “are probably similar to a phone they had when they were younger.”
On Etsy, there was a 45 percent increase in searches for Y2K and 90s phones and a 26 percent increase in searches for rotary phones in 2021 compared to 2020, said Dayna Isom Johnson, a trend expert at the company.
“Talking on a landline is like going to a movie at the cinema, rather than watching at home where you have distractions,” says Nicole Wilson, 32, who owns two rotary telephones in her Manhattan home: a pink princess. and another model that is baby blue.
Ms. Wilson, a sales director at Upfluence, an influencer marketing platform, also says landlines provide respite from her screen-heavy work. She bought her first phone in 2019 and started using it after watching a TikTok video explaining how to connect to her cell phone via Bluetooth.
While many who have recently purchased a landline phone use it with newer technology, some prefer a more traditional approach.
Janelle Remlinger, 37, received a landline outside her home in Plymouth, Massachusetts in December 2020 after a storm disrupted cell service in her area. She plugged it into her modem, but when Mrs. Remlinger went out of power for eight days during another storm in October, she looked for a more reliable connection.
“I’m working on getting an authentic, real, old-fashioned landline that plugs in through the wires,” said Ms. Remlinger.
As attractive as landline phones are, even their most ardent fans recognize that it is basically impossible to use them exclusively.
Alex McConnell, 30, a personal banker at KeyBank in Fort Collins, Colorado, has a Western Electric rotary phone at home that is connected to copper pipes. On February 14, he celebrated not Valentine’s Day, but the 146th birthday of Alexander Graham Bell who filed the patent application for the telephone.
“I prepared a meal with ‘Paprikas’ and ‘Graham’ crackers,” said Mr. McConnell. “Then I made a circular cake on which I used blue icing to put the Bell logo on, and the original patent number for the phone.”
His landline is not only more reliable than a cell phone, he said, but also encourages him to remember friends’ phone numbers, which he sees as a form of intimacy.
“Since I have to call my friend’s phone numbers, I find that linking them to memory really helps me,” said Mr. McConnell.
But even he cannot avoid the call of modern life.
“My secret grief is that I do have a cell phone.”
All Consuming is a column about things we see – and now want to buy.
