The groundbreaking ringtone work at Nokia is largely kept alive by hobbyists who extract ringtones from old firmware. With younger people interested in ringtones, how have perceptions changed about their origins, and how have ringtones lived on in modern soundscapes? As he howls in confusion at the shrill bleeps, I realize that if you yanked me back to 2002 after years of quiet, discreet phone etiquette, I would probably feel the same. It sends me down a YouTube rabbit hole of old Nokia ringtones until I realize that my cat hates them and isn’t afraid to tell me. Reaching out to Fusoxide about a defining part of my lived childhood - the ’90s were a very special but awkward teething period for mobile phones - feels like a weird dream where time makes no sense. With others, like he helps to maintain Andre Louis’ phonetones directory - a repository of phone software, sound banks, ringtones, and audio ephemera from a bygone era. Today, Fusoxide is behind the popular Twitter account. “I love the sound of old ringtones, partly due to nostalgia and partly because I think there’s genuine underlooked gems,” he says. The 20-year-old Scottish musician, who prefers to be known by his online handle Fusoxide, got hooked through an Alcatel flip phone he had as a kid. One of the internet’s better-known ringtone archivists was barely alive to witness the golden age of his biggest hobby.
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