MINNEAPOLIS — Exasperated millennial Mitch Kurtz struggled to define “DVD-ROM,” a piece of portable technology popular in the 2000s, sources reported.
“Let me try this one last time. A ‘DVD’ is a disc you insert into a player, like how a VCR played a VHS. Wait, that’s not helpful. OK, you know how people stream movies? A DVD was like that, except it was physical and shaped like a donut and only played one movie,” the flustered Kurtz said. “So you insert this disc, and a movie pops up on a screen. You with me? Well, sometimes a movie didn’t show up. Sometimes it was data, like files and photos and stuff. That’s a DVD-ROM. Hmm? No, we didn’t stare at files on big screens like watching a movie in a theater. You know what a movie theater is, right? Hmmm. OK, once upon a time we had to see new movies in a secluded room with strangers. Yes, this was seen as normal. It’s like how you weren’t supposed to get in cars with strangers, but now there’s Uber. Basically, society shifted its creepers from dark rooms to cars. I guess that’s progress. What were we talking about? DVD-ROMs? I gotta tap out. I can’t start over again.”
The younger generations had no clue what Kurtz was trying to say.
“My older cousin tried for dear life to explain it to me, even though I never once asked about it,” said 24-year-old Taylor Rayworth before checking their phone to get the definition. “He was going on and on about how a DVD-ROM could hold movies while a CD-ROM could not, except when CD-ROMs did. So, CDs held music, but you didn’t call a music CD a CD-ROM, because a CD-ROM was what you put in a computer, while a CD was what you put in a Walkman, but not the Walkmans that took cassettes. Or something like that. Safe to say I had no follow-up questions for him.”
Experts also struggled to define the optical storage disc.
“Confusing naming conventions in tech date back to when floppy discs were square, not round, and also not floppy,” said Tara Byet, curator for the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. “Simply defining ‘DVD-ROM’ only scratches the surface. Subtypes included DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, and you know what? I don’t get paid enough to spend 11 hours explaining this. Nonetheless, those were somehow simpler times.”
As of press time, everyone agreed DVD commentaries were fucking rad.
