sodcasting

Sodcasting: the term, according to urban legend, was coined in Pascale Wyse’s Wyse Words column in the excellent Guardian Weekend magazine in 2007 and defined thus: ‘Music, on a crowded bus, coming from the speaker on a mobile phone. Sodcasters are terrified of not being noticed, so they spray their audio wee around the place like tomcats.’

Oh how vehemently I agree. Having been victim to sodcasters for three days running now, I can unequivocally state that it is not cool to play opera to the world at large on the tinny speakers of your shitty phone. In fact, it’s not cool to play anything that might otherwise pass as a perfectly acceptable tune aloud on your mobile phone, any time, any place, whatever your age.

I mention age not because I have been finding men in uniform increasingly attractive of late (more of that in another blog perhaps) but because according to sodcasting exponent Dean ‘Dexplicit’ Harriott, age is key to understanding sodcasting. Given air time on Radio 4 recently, he said it’s ‘great fun to be listening to music while travelling with your friends. Where else can young people enjoy music together without a car or club?’

Actually, there are plenty of places – the sanctity of their own bedrooms being one arena that springs to mind.

But I don’t think the fact that I find this audio intrusion socially unacceptable (indeed, to the extent that I’m backing a Sheffield group that’s lobbying the council to ban it) means that I’m too old to ‘geddit’. I didn’t think much of ghetto blasters or transistor radios in public either. Which yes, makes me square, but at least not intrusive.