A+ Roundtable: Our Most Out-There Voice Memos

You’re either someone who takes voice memos, or you aren’t, I think. Either you’ve found a need for recording your thoughts this way, or you’ve stuck to pen and paper or to typing into a device. You might have guessed that I’m personally pro-voice-memo. I can’t always hold a pen for any length of time because of issues I have with my hands, and so moving my mouth and speaking is less of a strain. Also, notes on bits of junkmail envelopes and old receipts get lost, or if you manage to keep them, then you have to hang onto all that way-too-crinkly paper just going crinkle crinkle crinkle! Eww! When you tuck it into your notebook, it makes it expand all weird and then nothing is fresh anymore. The venerable voice memo, on the other hand, exists within very little physical space. They also pose a significantly lower danger to your person if you’re driving or walking somewhere. Because, yes, you can pull out a whole notebook, put it onto the car’s steering wheel, shift up your knee under the wheel to help steer, and uncap a pen you found in your console with your teeth — but should you? Significantly less trouble! A voice memo is a highly personal thing. These are recordings we likely only intended to re-listen to ourselves, but now they are here, for your enjoyment, too. Thank you for being an A+ member, for listening. I hope you’ll share some of your most out there voice memos in the comments if you want!

Xoxo,
Nicole

P.S. Whenever I get out my tiny Sony voice memo recorder, or start leaving one in my phone, my girlfriend, if she spots me, always shouts “Diane!”

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17 Comments

  1. Great idea for an article! “no more white people … for personal growth” bwahahaha Caucasian abstinence, and also now I am wondering why my girlfriends never sent me voice memos of them touching themselves, is this a long distance thing lol. I will explore this.

  2. The most important thing i learned from this article is that you can marry(?) Kronos, and I’ve been playing a lot of Cozy Grove lately, but I might need to do a new playthrough of the ol’ Stardew now.

  3. This felt so intimate and voyeuristic. Wow. I feel like I saw your secret diary entries or something.

    I don’t do voice memos. I applaud you all not only for doing them but for sharing them here!

  4. As someone who has a whole Dropbox file of voice memos from approx. 2010-2018, this is EXTREMELY my shit and I appreciate and salute you all for sharing these clips with us 💕

    • Here’s a 30 second voice memo I rediscovered on my phone recently, recorded last year:

      “This Cascade detergent pod smells like hand soap for Sour Patch Kids. Like if a Sour Patch Kid needed to wash his little sugary, sour hands.”

  5. i love this article? but also i reject the voice memo/written note dichotomy! personally i prefer to think ‘gotta remember this,’ forget for an extended period of time, and then be reminded by an absolutely random and obscure connection.

    nicole i love that you end your memo to yourself with ‘love you bye’ !

    • I never considered that “just trying to remember” could be an option and I am SWEATING thinking about it!

      • to be clear this does not work in my current untreated adhd state! but in my one glorious month of prescribed stimulants it was a resounding success and made me feel the coolest I’ve ever felt

  6. OMG, what an awesome treat to hear y’all’s voices! Face is pretty much look identical to me, so voices are like faces. Does that make sense?

  7. I got the shock of my life on one of my morning commutes when a voice memo got mixed in with my playlist. Hearing myself speak my innermost thoughts unexpectedly so early in the morning ! Even more unnerving since my recorded voice sounds to me like it’s almost, but not quite, entirely at the wrong pitch. Brrrrr

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