Hello, Moto
With the return of the Moto Razr, here is a requiem to a rather random year.
D ear Mo - torola Razr — or, okay — RAZR, To many 2007 was a rather unremarkable year. It wasn’t 1999, when Fight Club and The Matrix hit theaters and the Y2K bug was mistakenly projected to wreak havoc on computer networks everywhere at the start of the new millennium. Neither was it historic like 1815, when Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at Waterloo, nor pivotal like 1955, which the BBC pegs as the year the rock ‘n’ roll fan was born.
No, few would agree that 2007 was the greatest year in human history, but I beg to differ. It was the last year we were together and what an amazing time that was.
So when an ad, released sometime last month, led me to believe that you were set to undergo a Lazarus-like resurrection, I was struck by a pang of nostalgia. Instantly, I imagined myself using a metal flip phone the way Channing Tatum did — totally suave — in that classic movie She’s The Man. We were going to be back in business again. Yay.
But indeed, the Internet is a weird, fascinating place. A Motorola spokesperson has since made clear that the Lenovo, the company that now owns you, would not be re-releasing you on June 9. Rather, that date is a reference to the Beijing-based multinational’s upcoming Tech World conference, when news about the latest products will be announced, possibly boring all but the most hardcore of gadget fans. Still, it’s too late. I want you back. I want 2007 back.
I couldn’t help but lose myself in the mist of the recent past. Back then, as the world’s mightiest financial institutions began crashing all around us, you and I were at the revamped Embassy, exchanging pleasant nothings with reliable alcoholics, fellow insomniacs and, at some point, after-hours deities such as Cory Kennedy, The Cobra Snake and Steve Aoki. (Remember them?) This nighttime diorama carried on as a Justice or MGMT remix, among other floorfillers, thumpthump-thumped in the background.
It’s oddly comforting to remember that, despite 2007 also being the year that saw the debut of the iPhone (i.e., what eventually led to your demise), I chose to stick it out with you. After all, if flip phones were good enough for the privileged Upper East Siders of Gossip Girl or the first-generation
Skins kids, then it was good enough for me. Alas, as Nelly Furtado once emoted, all good things must come to an end. No one — not Apple, anyway — held a gun to my head and commanded me to line up for a shiny new device. I stayed true to you, but you eventually cracked then broke in two, and I had to throw you away. This built-in obsolescence is cruel but essential; without it the natural order would be disrupted, making the world’s geek population incredibly cranky. I decided to replace you with your cousin, the Pebl — or, okay, PEBL. I did my best to put off getting an iPhone no matter what I read on the earliest version of Tumblr, launched by 20-year-old David Karp in 2007. It really wasn’t the same.
I’m aware that, in 2011, Motorola brought your brand back for a line of Android smartphones: the Droid Razr for Verizon Wireless. Since I don’t live in the US, however, this piece of information was as useful to me as a Kardashian makeup update.
Still I’m not giving up hope that somehow, someway, you will come back. How poignant is it that the digitally weary clamor for old-fashioned “dumb phone” handsets that could only make and take calls. (Yes, I know you also came with a camera then, but compared to today’s smartphone features, I might as well have taken photos with a panini maker.) Take my advice and take advantage of the demand.
In the nine years since you’ve been gone, the scene has changed dramatically. Of course, my tender musings are the result of our shared pixelated memories, made even hazier by one too many Bombay Sapphires. But dare to ask anyone who wore shutter shades willingly (and in public!) what they remember from 2007 and chances are their faces will light up. That year was — wait for it — legendary because of you. xoxo Me