Magnetism.

Awhile ago I made a joke in passing about how I planned to get rich in about 10 years. My scheme was to go to all the pawn shops, flea markets and yard sales and buy up every last cassette Walkman that I could find. Then around 2010 I could start selling them--- perhaps repainted or decorated--- to teenagers as fashion accessories. The trick would be to get whoever the Paris Hilton or Avril Lavigne of the day was to be seen wearing one first.

I can actually see this working... it has a component of nostalgia (the good kind... the kind for things you never participated in in the first place), it has kitsch, it has functional uselessness, it promotes uniformity with enough variety to make a fad viable (you got a red Kenwood? mine's a Sony--- the kind you could take in the shower!) etc.

One of the reasons I started thinking about this again, and thinking it could catch on, is the alarming rise in people asking if we carry cassettes at the store. We haven't for about 5-6 years by the way. At first it was just the people who only had a tape deck in their car... usually a car less valuable than the cost of installing a CD player. Then it was mostly hipsters on tour with their skinny bands who wanted a few yucks listening to the soundtrack of Against All Odds. Now it seems to be confused young men in their early 20s looking to "collect" them for their eventual skyrocketing value. Again only people who hadn't previously been exposed to cassettes would believe that they have any secondary value.

I mean the Bubonic Plague is rare... but I wouldn't buy it on eBay. Or would I?