How Nokia ringtones became the first viral earworms

One of the internet’s better-known ringtone archivists was barely alive to witness the golden age of his biggest hobby. The 20-year-old Scottish musician, who prefers to be known by his online handle Fusoxide, got hooked through an Alcatel flip phone he had as a kid. “I love the sound of old ringtones, partly due to nostalgia and partly because I think there’s genuine underlooked gems,” he says. Today, Fusoxide is behind the popular @ringtonebangers Twitter account. With others, like @OldPhonePreserv, he helps to maintain Andre Louis’ phonetones directory — a repository of phone software, sound banks, ringtones, and audio ephemera from a bygone era.

Reaching out to Fusoxide about a defining part of my lived childhood — the ’90s were a...

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