They Still Make You?

A tribute to the nearly bygone

For the first time in six years, you meet someone who uses dial-up Internet. Your best friend starts dating a Trotsky-ite. You log onto a computer that uses Windows 95. You see someone on the train wearing sock-garters. And each time, you just want to ask

"They Still Make You?"

They Still Make You? is an exploration, discussion and celebration of customs, technologies and products we thought we had left behind, but still encounter in 2009.

The rules of They Still Make You? are simple.

1. You encounter something you thought had disappeared and express surprise that such a thing still exists;

2. You send us (theystillmakeyou@gmail.com) a concise write up of your encounter with an optional photo.

3. If we agree that the thing you located has nearly escaped the public conscience, we'll post your story and ask "They Still Make You?"

But, what do we mean by things?

By things we mean anything (helpful, no?), including but not limited to:

Consumer products,

brands,

technologies,

appliances,

political ideologies,

idioms,

slang,

rituals,

fashions,

food,

drink,

literary genres, and so on.

The idea is that this thing must be something you assumed no longer existed, so that when you do encounter this thing, it takes you by surprise.

This sense of surprise can come from many places: overwhelming nostalgia for a simpler era, bemusement over that thing's continued existence and the person who uses it, disgust that inefficient and outmoded things pollute your contemporary world, delight in finding something you thought had disappeared, or a compulsion to build a cult following around this rare find.

Concrete examples of things that make us go "They Still Make You?" include TAB soda, analogue wrist watches, car phones, Marxists, webpages with GIF images, hippies and new documents written using a typewriter (manual or electric).

We here at They Still Make You? look forward to finding out what pieces of the near-past still exist.

* They Still Make You? would like to thank wikipedia contributor Jon Sullivan for placing his wonderful photograph of an old Smith Premier Typewriter in the public domain. Jon's photo serves as our profile picture.