Just what the world needed: More cute overpriced retro vintage hipster bait!!

[Doktor Howl]

My mom still has my great-grandfather's old beater of a keystroke typwriter.  My sons like typing on it just for the experience.  It's the kind of machine I learned on in the 80's, so I tend to beat the hell out of my keyboards out of habit.

I still have the last typwriter I was ever bought as a high schooler--a little electric jobbie that still works.  Has a bit of a computer inside so it can "memorize" text and then print it out on paper when you hit this key.  But that's a specialization feature, and mostly it just uses this little plastic wheel with the letters on it.  It's ribbon spooled, even.

I used to be fascinated by the huge electric typwriter my grandmother used as church secretary that had one of those spinning steel balls for keys.

I still have an old Underwood manual typewriter.  My daughter had fun with it for a while, but it is now sitting in the storage racking in my garage.

At least until I can find a hipster that will pay $$$ for it.

I don't know if he qualifies as a "hipster" (he pretty much exists in the 20th century) but my friend Jake loves those. http://www.bluemooncamera.com/

I own a very decent typewriter, and the reason is that I would like to still be able to type after the Revolution collapse.

Fixed that for accuracy.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My mom still has my great-grandfather's old beater of a keystroke typwriter.  My sons like typing on it just for the experience.  It's the kind of machine I learned on in the 80's, so I tend to beat the hell out of my keyboards out of habit.

I still have the last typwriter I was ever bought as a high schooler--a little electric jobbie that still works.  Has a bit of a computer inside so it can "memorize" text and then print it out on paper when you hit this key.  But that's a specialization feature, and mostly it just uses this little plastic wheel with the letters on it.  It's ribbon spooled, even.

I used to be fascinated by the huge electric typwriter my grandmother used as church secretary that had one of those spinning steel balls for keys.

I still have an old Underwood manual typewriter.  My daughter had fun with it for a while, but it is now sitting in the storage racking in my garage.

At least until I can find a hipster that will pay $$$ for it.

I don't know if he qualifies as a "hipster" (he pretty much exists in the 20th century) but my friend Jake loves those. http://www.bluemooncamera.com/

I own a very decent typewriter, and the reason is that I would like to still be able to type after the Revolution collapse.

Fixed that for accuracy.

Same thing.

[deadfong]

I used to have a manual typewriter.  I kind of miss it.  I loved the noise it made, and loved watching how everything moved with each press of a key.  But I never wanted to compose on the fucking thing.  My fingertips would've started bleeding before I got through even half a page.

[Kai]

I think, if you're going to use a typewriter, you might as well just use a typewriter.

And USE THE HELL OUT OF IT, of course. Nothing can be halfway.

As for why people enjoy typewriters, I think it goes to what LMNO said, and is the same reason people enjoy making things by hand. It's the physicality of it, we're tool users, and there's probably some physiological pleasure response to using tools and crafting by hand. But again, if you're going to use a typewriter, just use a typewriter.

I'm also thinking about how posession of retrograde and anachronistic objects is a status symbol, because only people who aren't preoccupied with survival have time to collect such things.

[Jasper]

Whenever I see things like this, I feel the urge to say that authenticity is overrated.  I don't believe that, but I feel that way.

It's becoming more of an industry codeword, like "gourmet".

[Doktor Howl]

Whenever I see things like this, I feel the urge to say that authenticity is overrated.  I don't believe that, but I feel that way.

It's becoming more of an industry codeword, like "gourmet".

Authenticity is and has always been bullshit.

[Jasper]

In marketing, yes.  But good human-level authenticity pleases me no matter how unfashionable it gets.

[Doktor Howl]

In marketing, yes.  But good human-level authenticity pleases me no matter how unfashionable it gets.

There's no such animal.

[Jasper]

In marketing, yes.  But good human-level authenticity pleases me no matter how unfashionable it gets.

There's no such animal.

How I know I'm still young:  I still hope I'm never as cynical as that.

[Doktor Howl]

In marketing, yes.  But good human-level authenticity pleases me no matter how unfashionable it gets.

There's no such animal.

How I know I'm still young:  I still hope I'm never as cynical as that.

Youth is wasted on you young bastards.   

[Jasper]

That's what it's there for.  To be inconsequentially frittered away along with our potential, our health, and our dreams.

[PopeTom]

Hipsterdom is love of retro, only removing the inconvienience of the downsides that go with it.

Hipster polio: Some otherwise healthy guy who still goes to the club in an iron lung.