Case Study No. 2: Plastic Materiality
Once again, the product’s sturdiness is highlighted, this time attributed directly to its “polyethylene case.” Therein lies the dichotomy and contradictions of the product’s plastic materiality—a material whose name is “a metonym for artificiality and inauthenticity”, and ultimately “impermanence”—and its aspiration for a long-lasting “indestructible” lifespan (Cope 2022). In her 2022 dissertation, Angela Cope discusses how plastic commodities “quickly encounter devaluation”—a process in which “new objects replace the former before the end of their useful life”—despite itself being “a material that, paradoxically, never goes away” (Cope 2022). This tension is evident in the product’s marketing—while it attempts to distance itself from disposability, its classification within the children’s market reinforces its ephemeral nature. Perhaps the repeated emphasis on the record player’s durability may, ironically, stem from anxieties about plastic’s inherent transience, leaving the product forever doomed to the many attempts to resist devaluation.GENERAL ELECTRIC
“RECORDMATE”
PHONOGRAPH NO. V211
THE PERFECT PARTY PACKAGE FOR YOUNG SWINGERS—THE GE RECORDMATE MONAURAL PHONOGRAPH HAS A STRONG DOUBLE WALLED POLYETHYLENE CASE THAT YOU CAN CARRY ANYWHERE. PLAYS 33½ AND 45’S. (fig. 19)
