Anatomy Of An Audio Cassette (For All The Youngins)

I know one of the first things someone is going to ask me about this article is what is a “youngin.” According to the Urban Dictionary, the word youngin is country slang, and it means young people. I live in the south, and a lot of people here who use that word, so I can assure you it’s alive and well. So, with that being said, I dedicate this article to all the youngins out there since I’m sure you’ve never seen an audio cassette IRL before.

We’ve written about Sounds Kids Born Today Will Never Know and Gadgets Our Kids Will Never Know, but today I’m going to focus on one very small yet very important piece of that puzzle, and it’s the audio cassette.

I remember when CDs first came out, and everyone marveled over how sophisticated they were. I was about 11 or 12 years old when that happened, and I remember it clearly. Before CDs came out, we listened to music on audio cassettes. People were a bit hesitant to try the new-fangled CDs at first, and audio cassettes remained popular for several years after CDs were available. I still have a few of my old ones, and every time I look at them that feeling of nostalgia rushes over me. Audio cassettes were so very special, and so very fragile. They weren’t robust like our music options these days. With one quick move, you could unravel that tape right out of there. Remember that?

This vintage screen print poster depicting the anatomy of an audio cassette was created by Belgium artist Ramzi Mesaddek. It’s available for sale in his DefenseDAfficher Etsy Store for about $40. Go ahead kids, click on the image below and look at it closely. You will most likely marvel over our prehistoric ways, but for those of us who know better, this will bring back a lot of fun memories.