[HN Gopher] Archive of novelty answering machine recordings
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Archive of novelty answering machine recordings
Author : xk3
Score : 80 points
Date : 2023-08-09 15:02 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.noveltyansweringmachine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.noveltyansweringmachine.com)
| dustincoates wrote:
| Answering machine greetings, instant messaging statuses, custom
| ringtones... My first instinct is that these types of things have
| gotten less fun over the years, but it's probably just that I'm
| old and don't know what the fun micro forms of self-expression
| are for the youth.
|
| Which raises the question: what _are_ the equivalents of the
| above in 2023?
| gdprrrr wrote:
| Twitter bio maybe?
| dhosek wrote:
| I usually update my Twitter bio on a monthly basis. Only once
| has anyone commented on the humor but it's entertaining for
| me.
| angst_ridden wrote:
| Not Twitter. Not X. Tik-tok maybe?
| tristor wrote:
| Based on my teenager and her friends, it's mostly collecting
| enamel pins and stickers. They have a collage of stickers on
| nearly everything they own and most especially their phone
| case. The other thing they do is relentlessly curate their
| Instagram profile, including doing things like posting photos
| in such a way that they form a triptych or similar on the main
| profile view.
| smolder wrote:
| One example I can think of is Discord profile pictures and
| background artwork, custom emoji for their "servers", etc.
| petercooper wrote:
| Based on what I see in the <18s: tchotchkes attached to their
| phones, bracelets, pin badges (which, to my surprise, my kids
| are allowed to wear to school), custom avatars, Roblox
| skins/clothing.
| irrational wrote:
| Add in swatch watches and all of that sounds like my peers
| and I in school in the 80s.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| "The time was 6 o'clock on the Swatch watch/gotta
| date/can't be late..."
| giantg2 wrote:
| Why is it surprising they can wear pins to school? Public
| schools are required to allow speech in most forms, like
| messages on clothing.
| xp84 wrote:
| Probably just the pointy part. I certainly wouldn't put it
| past kids to use any sharp object for bullying purposes.
|
| But on the other hand, pins and badges weren't banned when
| I was in high school either, I distinctly remember at least
| our resident punks wearing dozens of them on their clothes
| and backpacks. And pens and pencils and paperclips aren't
| much less sharp than a typical enamel pin.
| petercooper wrote:
| I failed to give the context behind that statement. I live
| in the UK where school uniform is universal in
| secondary/high school, strongly enforced, and considered to
| be _very important_ for some reason (enough so that
| breaching the uniform rules can result in being segregated
| from the other students for the day). They seem to allow a
| little more of a personal touch now than in my day, though,
| and can wear buttons on their blazers as well as hair
| accessories.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Ah, ok. Many private schools are similar to that in the
| US.
| rdiddly wrote:
| Don't forget email signatures with "pithy" quotes.
| ********************** * "Suck my balls." * *
| --Maya Angelou * **********************
|
| Thing is, there's a firehose of self-expression modes available
| now. Maybe "micro forms of self-expression" were more important
| back then because they were the only, or one of the few, ways
| of doing it. Whereas now maybe they're mostly no longer needed?
| I dunno. Asserted for discussion without supporting material.
| macintux wrote:
| The .plan file for finger on Unix systems was particularly
| obscure yet popular once upon a time.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| With regard to custom ringtones, what happened? It seems to me
| like Android, in particular, started making it harder and
| harder to customize. I don't even know if I could set a custom
| text/ring tone for my wife on my current phone.
| Dwedit wrote:
| Your custom voicemail prompts are useless because after the
| prompt, you get another prompt from the system asking you to
| leave a message after the beep.
| xp84 wrote:
| I read confirmation somewhere that the origin of this idiotic
| practice, including the absurdly verbose script they use[1],
| was to waste people's airtime. And it sure seemed to be true,
| because some carriers literally went to the trouble, even as
| late as the 2010s, to modify their voicemail systems to
| remove the option that used to be there to omit the
| boilerplate language. Plus, if you had any goal besides
| wasting people's time, why would you coin the phrase "an
| automated voice messaging system"?
|
| I wish they'd reverse course now, though, since almost zero
| subscribers of any of these big carriers have limited talk
| minutes.
|
| [1] I believe this is the full exact text that Verizon and
| AT&T used, verbatim from memory. "Your call has been
| forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. Four...
| One... Five... Five... Five... Five... Zero... One...
| Seven... Four... is _not_ available. At the tone, please
| leave your message. When you are finished recording, _hang
| up,_ or, press _one_ for _more_ options. To leave a callback
| number, press seven. "
|
| I wonder if this is what actually killed voicemail. Who was
| going to wait through all that crap to say "Hey it's Steve,
| wanted to talk to you about X, call me back."
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Apparently my mom!
| kotaKat wrote:
| The old trick back in the day was "one-star-pound" - one of
| the three would often skip the recording and dump you right
| to the beep based on what carrier's VMB it was.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| Not if you host your own PBX!
| justjash wrote:
| I remember having some goofy message for my voicemail when I
| was in college. Some recruiter left me a voicemail scolding me
| for being so unprofessional... finally changed it several years
| later when I upgraded phones.
|
| Custom ringtones on my old Nokia were always fun. I guess I'm
| old and lame now and just have the standard iPhone ringtone.
| gpvos wrote:
| Are custom navigation prompts still a thing?
| genewitch wrote:
| for example: https://soundcloud.com/djoutcold/snoop-dogg-gps
|
| I think it was a Garmin that had this feature, but it may
| have been a TomTom, i haven't used a separate GPS unit since
| two got stolen. My new used car has built in GPS, so 100% of
| my desire to have a stand-alone GPS has vanished.
| gpvos wrote:
| That is what I was thinking: either the car has built-in
| GPS now, or people use their phone with Google Maps or
| another nav app, and I haven't heard of those offering
| custom voices.
| whall6 wrote:
| Instagram bios
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| You can make any recording a ringtone on an iPhone using
| GarageBand https://osxdaily.com/2020/09/11/how-set-song-
| ringtone-iphone...
| subpixel wrote:
| Memories of my stoner college friend who would update his
| voicemail greeting regularly to feature 30sec of obscure, always
| amazing music.
| peteforde wrote:
| I really enjoyed some of these. Hearing Richard Nixon making fun
| of his own political disgrace is oddly charming, given the
| current state of things. And hearing Truman Capote's real voice
| again sent me down a rabbit hole thinking about how much I miss
| Philip Seymour Hoffman.
|
| It's funny how others simply do not retain any clues of why they
| were once funny. Steve Martin's clip is bewildering, for example.
| Many years ago, I was excited to find an early Robin Williams
| standup LP from 1980 or so. I remember listening to the whole
| thing, and getting almost to the end before realizing that I
| hadn't come close to laughing even once. The audience was
| laughing like it hurt; combine that with my expectation that
| Robin Williams is always-on funny, and my brain just sort of
| waited for the drug to hit without ever getting satisfied.
|
| It's simply true that political comedy ages like fine milk.
| tunesmith wrote:
| I think those are impersonators though, aren't they? Maybe it's
| the tape quality but some of those voices don't sound anything
| like the actual people.
| droptablemain wrote:
| Missing George Costanza's answering machine jingle:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ria37d9mInY
| js2 wrote:
| Special mention for Kramer's "Hello and welcome to Moviefone"
| imitation:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM79_itR0Nc
| treypitt wrote:
| "Believe it or not, I'm not home!" The length and detail of the
| jingle makes me nostalgic... The prominence of the answering
| machine and payphones throughout the show are an
| underappreciated element of the show's cultural millieau! As
| well as Jerry's desktop computer getting updated every couple
| of seasons
| jareklupinski wrote:
| that computer is the only marker of time in that show to me
|
| almost any episode could take place in any time period of
| nyc... until that computer creeps into frame
| dhosek wrote:
| Oh man, I never saw that one--must have been during one of the
| many times in the 90s I didn't have a tv.
| lazycog512 wrote:
| Archer voicemail gags were pretty good. "Please leave your
| message after the _air horn_ "
| CharlesW wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5kIVXNCzDA
| 01100011 wrote:
| My first job out of college was at Casio in the PhoneMate
| division. They were the company responsible for commercializing
| the mass-market answering machine(https://americanhistory.si.edu/
| collections/search/object/nma...).
|
| By the time I was hired we were the largest buyer of TMS320 DSPs
| to use in our digital answering machine devices. We paired them
| with DRAMs which were QA rejects and used a 3rd party library to
| map out the bad regions to facilitate shipping a digital
| recording device in the 90s at consumer friendly prices.
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| When John & John (of They Might Be Giants) we're first getting
| their start as TMBG, they got publicity by recording songs (or
| bits thereof) to an answering machine, and then advertising the
| number in the Village Voice (as a personals ad).
|
| The song "Untitled" (https://tmbw.net/wiki/Untitled) was a
| recording of two people who called the number, and discussed what
| they heard.
|
| More info on the original answering machine:
| https://tmbw.net/wiki/Dial-A-Song
|
| The service is now available, by phone and Internet, here:
| https://dialasong.com/about/
| ufo wrote:
| The song in question:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiYg1jRV2cM
| bambax wrote:
| In the early nineties (yeah) my answering message was a montage
| of bits of previous messages I had received (I kept all of them
| on different tapes, never erased any); word spread and people I
| didn't know started calling my number just to listen to the
| message, and sometimes leave funny messages of their own.
|
| I did a couple of variations on this. It did take quite some time
| to make though, but it was great fun.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Strangely, this reminds me of another bit of "lost culture": the
| bathroom book.
|
| My grandma had 3 or 4 in each bathroom, and probably 3 of the
| books were along the lines of "50 funniest answering machine
| messages!" On each page it'd give you a script for something like
| the messages on this site. Pretty good gimmick, you read them,
| laugh, never actually make a single one.
| morkalork wrote:
| That's what reddit is for now
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| I grew up with a handful of "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader"
| books, thick books with a selection of short essays on varied
| topics. I learned a lot of trivia from them, largely true.
| kouru225 wrote:
| Reminds me of this collection of voice messages from the 1980s:
| https://98bowery.com/return-to-the-bowery/voices-from-98-bow...
| Dwedit wrote:
| We need the Seinfeld answering machine prompt.
| jolt42 wrote:
| I figured this was a comment somewhere! Can I use AI to create
| the song with my name?
| dhosek wrote:
| You need to sing it yourself. That's half the charm/humor.
| jlev wrote:
| Believe it or not, George isn't at home Please leave a
| message, at the beep I must be out, or I'd pick up the
| phone Where could I be? Believe it or not, I'm
| not home!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrkKvk2Lrjw
| [deleted]
| damnesian wrote:
| This really brings back great memories. From the late 80s to mid
| 90s a few of my friends and I played games of oneupsmanship with
| our messages both inbound and outbound. I was (am) a musician and
| used my DX-7 synth and multitrack cassette recorder to great
| effect. I obtained a Casio SK-1 at some point and began sampling
| my friends' greeting messages and chopping them up and using them
| for mine. Fun times.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I am reminded of my freshman year of college, which was the first
| time I had my own voicemail box.
|
| I wrote a little script for me to follow, and recorded a track of
| me speaking on my computer. Then, I recorded my voice message
| with me essentially arguing with myself as the voicemail, as to
| who was the real me.
|
| It was quite funny - I would usually get 2 voicemails after that:
| one of a person laughing and hanging up, and one of the person
| calling back to leave their actual message.
| zote wrote:
| Now I'm curious about your script.
| RajT88 wrote:
| It was something along the lines of:
|
| Me1: Hi, this is [Raj]
|
| Me2: Actually, I'm [Raj]
|
| Me1: What, no! I'm [Raj]
|
| (both me's start talking over each other, arguing. I had
| actual stuff written out, but can't recall it)
|
| Me(?): Anyways - I'm not available at the moment, so please
| leave a message.
| macintux wrote:
| The animated show Archer prominently features the titular
| character recording absurd, confusing voicemail messages
| designed to mislead the caller into believing he has
| answered the phone, and the inevitable mixups when people
| actually reach him.
|
| Ah, I see someone already shared a link:
|
| https://youtu.be/k5kIVXNCzDA
| biagidp wrote:
| This reminds me of a gag recording I did for missed calls on an
| early cell phone. Back in those days it wasn't uncommon to get a
| recorded error message along the lines of "Wireless Provider
| error 123: explanation of reason you're getting this error". I
| recorded a message in my best imitation of the error voice that
| said "Wireless Provider error 427: The wireless customer you're
| attempting to contact has passed away. Leave a message and we'll
| be sure to pass it on to their next-of-kin". This message lasted
| until the first time I missed a call from my mother, who was
| understandable very upset!
| angst_ridden wrote:
| Had a related thing, back when landlines were expensive. A
| roommate went off on Peace Corps to Sierra Leone for a year,
| and I inherited her landline.
|
| A telemarketer called asking for her, and I said "oh, she'll be
| in Africa for a year." The marketer had a minor meltdown.
| Evidently, he had been close to the end of his rope already,
| and this (honest) answer pushed him that much closer. "Don't
| mock me. Just hang up or say she's not taking calls," he begged
| me.
|
| This is when I finally realized I didn't need to be honest with
| telemarketers. Subsequently, whenever I'd get a call asking for
| her, I'd try to come up with more and more exotic reasons she
| couldn't answer the phone. Since her name was not pronounced
| the way the spelling suggested it might be, it was easy to know
| whether the caller knew her or not, and I could respond
| accordingly.
| mwcremer wrote:
| In college we used the title sequence from _The Rockford Files_ :
| "This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and number.
| I'll get back to you." Followed by the _entire_ two-minute Mike
| Post theme song. The only message anyone ever left was, "Christ,
| what a long message!"
| suzzer99 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg1Cx26-928
| [deleted]
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| Fantastic, really takes you back.
|
| My own voicemail has been degraded to being the "We're sorry, the
| number you have called has been disconnected" recording on loop
| to discourage spam calls. It works, but is not great when I'm
| getting a call from someone I don't know but would find the
| voicemail useful for.
| russnewcomer wrote:
| This doesn't feel like an archive to me, it feels usable.
|
| When I was 16, my parents got a new answering machine. My dad's
| recording of the message was yelling into the machine "You have
| reached xxx-xxx-xxxx. Leave a message" It was aggressive. I re-
| recorded saying, not yelling, "You have reached xxx-xxx-xxxx. We
| don't sign autographs, but you can leave us a message." He did
| not like that I re-recorded it. His father, however, loved it for
| some reason. (never could figure out what Grandpa found funny.)
|
| 20+ years later, when my sister got them a new answering machine
| (yes, you can still get new ones, my parents still have their
| landline), the message has now changed to "... we don't sign
| autographs or send texts, but you can leave us a message."
|
| We also buy my dad VHS auto-rewinders whenever we see them at
| thrift stores.
| albert_e wrote:
| More questions than answers :)
|
| Why autographs? Are your parents celebrities?
|
| Why VHS rewinders (plural)? One is not enough?
| qup wrote:
| > Why VHS rewinders (plural)? One is not enough?
|
| My father uses these to rewind some old VHS tapes he likes to
| study. They just don't last, is all.
|
| He went through a bunch of VCRs before we were buying the
| rewinders, though.
| monknomo wrote:
| I think the joke is that his parents are not celebrities, and
| so they don't need to specify that they don't sign autographs
| bombcar wrote:
| Grandpa may have been amused by the fact his son didn't like
| it.
| rdiddly wrote:
| Some stuff skips a generation!
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Ctrl+F Archer
|
| treasure mine of voicemail gags, ideally just watch but if it's
| not your thing there are always excerpts on YT
| (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m_DryY69ciw)
| petecooper wrote:
| >For best results, please set your display to 1024x768 screen
| resolution or higher.
|
| I wasn't expecting wistfulness today.
| denvaar wrote:
| My dad ran his own business, and I remember his answering machine
| recording well, because my room was right next to his office at
| home: "Hi, this is Dennis, I'm sorry that I can't come to the
| phone right now, but it's a jungle out there, and I'm trying to
| make a living. So please leave your name [...]"
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(page generated 2023-08-09 23:01 UTC)