The stock Apple earbuds give me nostalgia

Oliver Norred, 14 January 2021

In eleventh grade I listened to a ton of music on my Apple earbuds, the classic EarPods® with Lightning® Connector®. The past few years, though, I’ve switched primarily to the Sony headphones I use with my keyboard and computer or my beloved TOZO wireless earbuds. The inconvenience of the thin white cable and their objectively inferior sound turned me away whenever I reached for a device.

But earlier this week, when I pushed those rusty pearls back in my ears for the first time in about a year, nostalgia hit me like I’ve never had it. Weirder still, I was listening to music I had just found. It could be that quarantine has me desperate for any sort of melancholy, but I really think the ubiquitous undertones of those little buds’ sound signature were something I grew to love in high school.

I think, at least for the time being, my favorite headphones are the stock Apple earbuds. Nostalgia is a frightening beast.