Last week I took my five-year-old nephew to a garage sale where he pointed to an old rotary telephone, gave me a quizzical glare, and asked “What kind of weapon is that?” Our warp-speed advancement of technology has created some amusing blind spots when it comes to cultural artifacts. The Age Test is a puzzle series that maximizes on those generational gaps by pairing up two unlabeled objects and asking the viewer to determine the relationship between the two: do you know what the connection between aluminum foil and a TV set is?
But the recent resurgence in vintage styles and retro-tech may make these tests a little less effective as younger generations are looking to the past for inspiration. Just look at vinyl records. So if you’re staring at the photo above with a look of extreme bewilderment, it’s called a cassette tape kid (use the pencil to wind the loose tape back in). It’s probably how your dad got your mom to go out with him.