Jan 15 2008
Your Ringtone Sucks
Last Friday I went up to my local town centre. I’ve mentioned it before; it’s “chav capital”, full of teenage mums and truanting children. Not the most inspiring of places really. Anyway, it was a short trip so that I could spoil myself and buy all of the things I wanted for my birthday but didn’t actually ask for.. good excuse for a splurge if there ever was one!
I got what I wanted and caught the bus back. This sounds like a simple procedure but ended up being the most tedious, drawn-out journey I have ever taken. There’s something about sharing a bus with people in Telford that contributes to this.
I was sat in front of some cockmunch and his possible girlfriend, who — as well as sharing their conversation at the top of their voice — decided that the bus would be the perfect place to share their vast depository of mobile ringtones. Or rather, the first 3 seconds of every track. Doo-bee-doo *skip* bee-bop-bah *skip* and so on. There is nothing more infuriating than a) having to listen to what some people consider “music” these days and b) having to listen to only 3 seconds of each shitty bloody track.
It is because of this foul specimen we call a human that I have decided to buy my next t-shirt: Your Ringtone Sucks. Yes! Finally, a new t-shirt I like and a subtle way to mock the ignorant. Of course, that assumes they can read…
Warning
This post is over 6 months old. This means that, despite my best intentions, it may no longer be accurate. Age, motherhood, experience, loss... these things have all changed me from when this blog was started back in the heady (ha) days of my youth.
As much as I would like to go back and edit 10 years of archives to provide an insight into the 'me' of now — to update coding snippets and revise website advice — it would probably take years to do so (by which point I'd have to start again!) This would defeat the point of keeping these archives anyway.
Please take these posts for what they are: a brief look into my past, my history, my journey.
41 Responses so far
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I’m positive that you may have seen what I’m about to speak of, but there’s a website that has flash movies of this.. squirrel thing, and one of them is a rant about ringtones. I really wish I remember what the website was, because it had a bunch of other flash movies on it. My graphic design teacher had me look at it, and I laughed my ass off. I guess I’ll be spending the next few hours googling the different variations of it so I can link you to it. :)
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At least I *have* a ringtone! :P Do you even know what yours is? I’m guessing it’s some single-tone beeping noise… ;)
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Haven’t you ever been tempted to just grab their phone and chuck it out of those tiny bus windows? I think that will be my new years resolution ;)
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Do you even know what yours is?
Yes. It goes “ring ring, ring ring”. :P -
Oh and I forgot to mention I much prefer the darker theme you recently made; gives the overall look much more depth.
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Even worse than chavs proudly playing every ringtone in their phone is chavs playing music out loud on their phones. A lot of phones these days come with mp3 playing capabilities so they choose an mp3, put the phone on loud speaker mode and a tinny UNSA-UNSA-UNSA will then ensue. Tinny music and chavvy crap are bad enough on their own, but together? DIE.
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I can’t see the point of ringtones these days now anyway, when all phones can vibrate to alert you of it ringing. I don’t use a ringtone and it infuriates me when people are using a ringtone that’s clearly loud enough to be used as a rape alarm!
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I’m glad I don’t get the bus anymore
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This shirt is on my wishlist… But I bought the perfect earphones so I don’t have to listen to hyperactive kids in the bus, they have a rubbery tube that fits tightly in your ear and blocks the outside noise. Without them I had to keep my volume to the max, and I still heard their annoying ringtones!
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I can’t help but snicker whenever a cellphone rings a sorry-ass pop song in public. It’s a mixture of awe and empathic embarrassment — all simultaneously.
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I usually try to counteract it with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Surprising how fast it becomes uncool listening to ringtones becomes with that masterpiece blaring out :D
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I have to use Telford’s buses all the damn time, it does suck. Not long ago me and the rest of the bus were subjected to a loud, “interesting” conversation between two chavettes about how “minging” their exes were and that the one’s current boyfriend was being sent to prison for battering someone outside a nightclub. Nice.
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I feel your pain in a way. I work for a cellphone company (call center) that takes inbound calls for tech support. And the #1 !!! thing people complain about is not being able to download a ring tone.. and 90% of the time it’s user error… siiigh. i have a cellphone. but it’s permanently on vibrate. I don’t even know what my default ring is ~_~
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I keep mine on vibrate or the standard ring it comes with. PS nice new visited link style ;)
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My mother is actually one of those “play with ringtones and pretend it doesn’t bother people when you’re bored” people. Drives me berserk. Also drives me nuts that phone manufacturers think it’s fun to put a meowing cat as a standard ringtone option, and change the only one that sounds like an actual phone to some annoying service provider tune. What ever happened to phones sounding like phones? Also, hooray for an impromptu lesson in British slang!
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I want that shirt. If I ever get a cell phone, it will say “ring ring, ring ring”, like yours. ;)
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@Jordan: I think you’re thinking of Foamy the Squirrel? I hate cell phones and the annoying ringtones that everyone downloads. They have their volume set up way too loud and the song is always really crappy. If I ever had a cell phone, I would just make mine go “ring ring ring” like a normal phone.
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my message tone is the commentators from the scotland and france match, when mcfaddedn scored and my ring tone, well i dont know its always on silent
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The font on the shirt needs to be bigger. Not everyone carries magnifying glasses around in their back pockets. :p TBH my ringtone [ found here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nd_oAfQ0XNQ ] is the best ringtone in the existence of ringtones, and by the best ringtone I actually mean it makes me look like a loser, but I care not. ;)
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My ringtone rocks! It’s Simple Plan! It inspires conversation with the teeny boppers! It scares the shit out of me whenever someone calls!
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I need that shirt, Jem. I can’t stand some of these people’s ring tones. At least, I have the decency to hurry and pick my cell phone up quickly when it goes off. Plus I would never dream of changing the tones in public. I do that in the privacy of my car or at home. But then my ring tone is the song called “The Battle of New Orleans”. For some reason that song always puts a smile on my face. Plus, it actually sounds like the song and not like a ring tone. I hate people when they do that in public. It is so rude.
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@ Annie – Yeah, that’s who I was referring to; Jem ended up reminding me and I told her she could find it on http://illwillpress.com (and for anyone else that is interested..)
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Your T shirt however, rocks :o)
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I like the t-shirt, it’s funny. Like Annie I don’t like mobiles but the realtones don’t bother me so much, it’s the fact that people don’t have the decency to keep the music/radio to themselves.
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I hate the chavs who go around listening to the music on their phones at full volume! grrr!
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OMG Foamy! xD I want that shirt. Except it will have a picture of Foamy murdering a ringing cellphone. Whee.
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I have High School Musicals “Everyday” as my ringtone. I think your t-shirt is appropriate! :(
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I too have a hate-on for ringtone surfing, but nothing is funnier than someone’s phone ringing and then them taking it out and dancing to it … which I’ve totally seen.
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OK, lets be serious, public transport aint glamerous, hell its a freekin hell hole. People palying music, i do it hell i like to listen to my music. If i want to skip tyhrough i will. People who moan about babys scrwaming get a f’in grip. Your where a baby once you have limitec control on what you can do for yourself get a grip. You tell me to stop my neise ro nephew to stop screaming, crying, playing there noisy toys theres a good chance i would punch you. You know gotta set a good example. Ok @Han and @hev! what where you as a child? Did you ike music? If you could a bet you would have. Hell Chavs, what the hell are they? I aint one i lk rap music dont make me a gangster, i like indie music but dont mer me a emo/goth i hate dance music but i like mcing dont make me a chav or ned i hate goth music dont make me a got…. So what am i? and what are you? maybe your another complaining member of society like most other people here (including my self, that what im doing., ranting/complaining) Also jem i aint a fan of that t-shirt to plain for my liking but im glad you treated yourself….
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Grant.. what the fuck has a screaming baby, something that is completely natural/normal, got to do with the idiotic desire to force your music tastes on someone else?
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Clearly Jem, one makes a horibble sounding noise and the other is a baby.
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Ooh, I say… Has someone been on the white lightning? Or maybe the shandy? Or is it your time of the month, Grant? PMT? Temper, temper. I have a lovely class of 12 year olds here…if you’d like, I’m sure I could find you a space..:)
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send him to me Karl mwahahaha you know what I would do :)
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Hahahaha! That’s all I have to say.
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Rofflecopter @ Grant. Karl, you would be doing him a favor, because I’m sure most 12 year olds can spell better than that.
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I hate it when people publicly play all of their ringtones… as if anyone actually wanted to hear them. Last time I was in a hospital waiting room a caco (a puerto rican version of a chav) sat next to me playing all the 30-second tracks of hip hop he had in his cell phone. Later he moved to another chair, sitting next to another girl, and played the songs again. The girl actually liked it and talked to him, she looked impressed. I suppose they were having sex two hours later. Love the t-shirt, by the way XD
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The best thing here is the “gangsters” that carry speakers around. Yes, SPEAKERS. They feel the need to share their music with everyone in the vicinity, and it’s not pretty.
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Thanks for all the nice comments! @Arwen you cheeky bloater, Yea i can spell but I can clearly not type fast and whilst at college i don’t have time to get caught doing things i shouldn’t. And IE don’t have no spell checker… @Kaylee NONONONONONONONONONONO Gangsters carry guns andlean to the left and crank that fang…. But seriously, gangsters you obv dont now the meaning. And these rappers that i think are good to listen to aint gangsters either, hustlers maybe but thats about it…
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I hate the Telford town centre too…I know exactly what you mean. ><
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There is nothing more infuriating than a) having to listen to what some people consider “music” these days and b) having to listen to only 3 seconds of each shitty bloody track.
Isn’t it better than having to listen to the entire song? Apart from that, I agree with you entirely and find the new T-shirt pretty awesome. :) -
[...] can get on a bus outside my mum’s on a Friday (my day off work) and take the 30 minute journey to our town centre; by the time I reach the [...]
