Picture this: it’s a hot summer night in 2016. I’m driving my dad’s 2003 Chevy, and my hand is carefully twisting the radio dial to match the channel of the universal FM transmitter I have connected to my aux cord so I can play the new Chainsmokers song for the five friends sitting in the back seat. I might’ve had you at the year 2016 – because it was obviously the best year ever – but it was also when aux cords were at their peak usage.
Whether it was in the car or at a house party, “having aux” wasn’t just a privilege, but a chance to prove yourself and yourmusictaste. We all remember the friend who got it by default, and we definitely remember the times we fumbled it with a bad song choice. Nothing was worse than being excited to play your favorite track and hearing someone in the back say “skip” – or even more lethal, the dreaded, “give someone else aux.”
One little cable with a3.5mm jackhad such a cultural impact that it made “aux” synonymous to “who is playing music” – even without the cables in thisBluetooth-saturated world. However, for logistical and nostalgic reasons, I wish that cord was still in our lives for three different reasons. Let me elaborate.
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Easy transferrability
For when the aux rights are revoked
Let’s say you’re in the car with someone who has absolutely atrocious music taste. Even if they’re riding shotgun, it doesn’t mean that they’re safely in control of the tunes. Being ‘on aux’ was equivalent to stepping onto a pedestal and putting yourself up for brutal critique. If the assessment gets too brutal, the car could knock you off that pedestal and replace you as quickly as it took to unplug the cord from your phone and jam it into someone else’s port.
Competition aside, people often share cars. My sister and I shared that Chevy growing up, and getting set up on the stereo didn’t require any reconnecting, reconfiguring, or removing/adding new devices each time we got in the driver’s seat. With Bluetooth, there was a constant grapple against unseen frequencies and all the frustrations that go with software troubleshooting over hardware – even today. If Starships by Nicki Minaj didn’t play back then, it was because our aux cord was either unplugged or frayed to the point of replacement. I’ll take a hardware troubleshoot every day over software struggles.
Now, both Spotify and Apple Music have ways to ‘share’ control over music, with Spotify Jam and SharePlay. Personally, I miss the immense pressure that comes with single-handedly entertaining an entire car or party. No risk, no reward – right?
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Personalization
You can’t wrap a Bluetooth connection in rainbow string
This one is probably niche – or my friends and I had way too much time on our hands – but you simply cannot personalize an invisible radio frequency the same way you can a physical cord. In fact, you can’t decorate it at all unless you count the colorful language that comes out of my mouth when the darn thing just won’t connect in the present day.
We used to tie intricate knots around our aux cords that made them appear wrapped in layers of soft color. Everyone had unique patterns, and some of these decorations actually prevented damage from overhandling and getting crushed by closed center console compartments. I even had friends who bought beads with extra-large holes that the cord could pass through, making their aux turn into an inedible candy necklace that played One Dance on hot warm nights.
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Culture point loss
“Who’s on Bluetooth?” doesn’t hit nearly the same
Do the kids even know what ‘aux’ means nowadays? You could be at a house party in 2015 or 2025, and if the playlist is absolutely bumping at either, the first thing you’ll hear is someone ask: “who is on aux?” It doesn’t matter that everything is Bluetooth speakers and collaborative playlists anymore – the question has become synonymous with determining who is in control of the music, no matter the means of getting the sound to the speaker.
It’s almost never with a physical cord anymore – no one is particularly concerned with lossless audio when it comes to the All American Rejects blasting in a two-bedroom apartment. However, between years of memes and repetitions, the phrase stuck in American pop culture. It obviously takes home the cheddar when you put it side-by-side with “who is on Bluetooth,” but I’m worried about the sustainability of the phrase. There’s no element of this within my control on the greater scale, of course, but I’ll keep using the phrase until the meaning is lost somewhere in the invisible radio frequencies of Bluetooth. Then again, it might become something that turns into a culturally normal phrase that kids someday are intrigued to hear the origin story of – who knows.
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