Blasterbating Needs to Stop. Turn Down For What? | Opinion

From the backseat of the Uber I was driving, two teenage boys sat, captivated by their phones. I could hear every word and lyric each phone emitted. Neither passenger appeared to be troubled by the competing content of the other's, but I could no longer hear the Uber navigation's directions.

I asked of anyone who could hear me in the car, "Hon, do you have earbuds?"

"No ..."

"OK, may I ask you to please turn down the volume? I just can't hear the driving directions."

They both complied, but I could not help but feel that I—the one whose car they were riding in—was the grumpy dinosaur defying a newly accepted cultural norm.

Ergo, from the Mesozoic era I emerge with a term (I believe?) I have coined to explain this behavior. I call it blasterbating—one part projecting at a high volume, one part self-satisfaction. Blasterbating is the loud consumption of digital content that is only intended for oneself, but to which all in proximity are subjected. I would like to politely request all blasterbaters to please cease and desist of their blasterbation.

Blasterbaters are everywhere. Constantly, I am met with a barrage on the subway, in airports, in the back of my Uber. Blasterbation Nation comprises the young and the old. Teenagers wait at the hair salon watching videos at loud volumes and giggle. Elder fast food employees sit at booths, watching videos so loud I can hear them across the restaurant. They are not listening idly, but appear enchanted. And all appear unbothered that someone in close proximity might not be so amused.

Reddit threads abound on the matter of the shared blare. A 2022 inquiry to Miss Manners in which a cafe patron asked if it was appropriate to ask another patron to put on headphones stated, "My feeling is that playing anything loud enough for someone else to hear amounts to forcing your choice on others, and is therefore inconsiderate." Miss Manners was in agreement.

To be sure, this is not the busking of yore, with street corner and subway entertainers providing boom box beats for all to enjoy. This is rudeness writ large for which there is a solution—headphones, for which almost all cellphones purchased now include.

Blasterbating may seem like a First World problem, yet, its implications are far more insidious. We are clearly not struggling to find an errant pair of AirPods. We are struggling to geolocate our manners—and even to agree what the etiquette is.

Cellular phones in and of themselves have certainly shaped American society—an amalgam of cultures and languages—rather than the existing culture pushing back on the cellphone's ubiquity. What was once the provenance of day traders and surgeons-on-call (for whom urgent communication was essential), we no longer question a mail carrier or a would-be sixth grader needing to step away from present company to attend to their phone. An expensive pocket robot bosses us around, and not vice versa.

Yet, a general decorum of respecting shared spaces predates cellular phones, and phones in general. When we look at our forefather's social contract theories, for example, what strikes me is that ol' curly mop headed Franc, Jean-Jacques Rousseau specifically believed that individual rights, including rights to private property, were to yield to the general will. Rousseau undoubtedly would have had his breeches in a bunch over blasterbaters' breach of this part of the social contract. However, Rousseau may also have observed that cellphones had already been compromising the volonté générale for some time. Rather than serving the common good, we had simply accepted them as commonplace, undermining any evaluation of what was good and right.

Because of this relatively rapid adoption of cellphones' prime place in modern life, questions of courtesy are often slippery. But I believe we can hold up a mirror to our use of them and make changes accordingly. I want the same chagrin people feel when called out for picking their nose or picking their wedgie in public to be their lot with blasterbating.

As one redditor observed, going sans headphones was symptomatic of "main character syndrome." That is, "people are becoming increasingly self-absorbed and it shows in how we glorify social media and this whole 'look at me' culture." If everyone with a cellphone is now capable of casting themselves as main characters, then no wonder I (and others who resist blasterbation), feel like the villain. I am not simply asking folks to turn down the noise. I'm asking them to be minor players on a major stage.

And I see no problem with this demotion. In fact, that sounds to me like the best ending to any book or film. The unsung hero scores the winning goal. The nice guy finishes first. The erstwhile self-centered alpha male saunters off into the sunset as the ending credits roll. Cue the theme song as he puts on his new pair of Beats by Dre.

Kendra Stanton Lee is a teacher, writer, mother, and an occasional Uber driver. For more of her work visit www.kendrastantonlee.com.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.