I have a money-making idea. OK, I have many money-making ideas. It’s just that I think this one actually has a chance to work—unlike, say, the software that automatically sends an admonishing email to employees you suspect are pretending to be sick. Who could have predicted $2,500 was too much for something that clever?
Anyway, my new idea attempts to capitalize on this whole retro thing, which I can’t exactly call a fad, because there’s really nothing new about it. It’s a very old idea to be enamored with the old.
In the 1970s, people were constantly reminiscing about the 1950s, which is why “Happy Days” and even “Laverne & Shirley” were such big hits—not to mention “Grease.” Not many people actually adulterated their hair with Vaseline, as that would have made a huge mess on their big collars and gold chains, but they could dream about it. Not many people thought fat Elvis was really all that entertaining, but he reminded you of when he was young, thin and unbeatable.
In the 1980s, people—well, certain people—longed for the idealism of the 1960s. There was no war to protest, but there was pot to smoke and a nuclear arms race to denounce. The ‘80s were when the likes of Jefferson Airplane made a big comeback…although by this time, they were known as Starship and “We Built This City” bore about as much resemblance to “White Rabbit” as Michael Moore does to Angelina Jolie.
But no matter. In the ‘80s, nostalgists loved the ‘60s, even if they didn’t really know very much about what happened back then.
Then, in the ‘90s, the ‘70s got a turn to be cool—which was funny, because the ‘70s did no such thing during the actual ‘70s. By the ‘90s, retro was pretty corporatized, so ‘70s nostalgia was limited to stuff like ‘70s night at your local bar, a rather hilarious sitcom and a comeback for bell-bottom jeans.
Of course, you did have the odd “Starsky & Hutch” car cruising around town, but since the ‘70s were about the most ridiculous decade ever, they served as proof that retro had reached the point where we did it just for the sake of doing it. Otherwise, we would have all done the rational thing and forgotten that the ‘70s ever took place.
But that’s why I’m convinced that my idea can make money. I’m going to produce and sell retro business gear and concepts that no one could possibly need in this day and age, and I’ll get people to pay me for them simply because they’re retro.
We’ve already established that the most appealing retro stuff is usually about 20 years behind us, so what kind of business stuff can you bring back from the late 1980s? I have a few ideas:
Fax paper rolls. Remember these things? They came in a gigantic roll that looked like toilet paper for an elephant. You’d load it into your fax machine and then you’d send someone a message, which, when received, would promptly curl up on their desktop like that John Travolta poster you got at the ‘70s Retrofest when you took it out of the canister. Then they would roll off your desk and disappear into a floor vent. Good times!
I expect fax paper rolls to be a huge hit on the business retro scene. Granted, the people who send and receive faxes now use plain paper. But since faxing is utterly useless in an age when everything is digital, why not bring back the full experience by also making the faxes impossible to read?
Management information systems. You don’t remember this? After “data processing” and before “information technology,” we had MIS. This was the term used to describe the giant mainframe systems and all the connected computers we ran in our companies.
These days, you get a couple of laptops and an Internet connection, and you can customize your system and store everything you need without so much as a desktop hard drive to back it all up. What fun is that?
Imagine the wide-eyed wonder your customers and employees will experience as you take them through your “technology wing” and show them the whirling reels of tape and blinking lights on gigantic machines that house all your…er, well, there’s no need to complicate this by putting any actual information on these monstrosities. In fact, just to keep it affordable, let’s actually make them function as dispensers of soft ice cream that just look like mainframe computers. Then they would actually be useful.
The 1-900 phone line. Who wouldn’t want one of these? You make people pay $4 a minute to call and listen to you ramble on about whatever. My favorite 1-900 line was that of baseball bumblebrain Jose Canseco, who would record a message daily about that night’s ballgame. No, I never called. Even a man as wealthy as I can’t afford to spend that kind of change to listen to a moron.
But a local radio station once did so as a public service, and I must say I was impressed by Mr. Canseco’s ability to forget the final score of the game he’d just finished playing three minutes earlier. That’s good stuff.
We’ll set up a 1-900 line, and you can invite people to call and listen to you talk about the weather, your dog, your employees’ shortcomings or the things that annoy you about your spouse. Inflation has taken its toll in 20 years, so you can expect people to happily pay $20 a minute to hear your insights.
Who needs a blog? Who needs Facebook? 1-900-CALL-BOB, baby!
I’m just getting started. Obviously, you’d have to be a moron to buy any of this stuff, but that’s what I’m counting on. You who once reminisced fondly about “Saturday Night Fever” can surely be counted on to waste considerable money on my retro crap.
By the way, it’s almost time to get rolling with ‘90s nostalgia. I’m sure I have some filthy flannel around here somewhere.
