YELLOW PENCILS AND REWIND

NYC’s First Tape Fair Proves Walkmans Are Cool Again (Seriously)

This Sunday, Bushwick’s Selva gallery hosts the first-ever NYC Tape Fair, where more than a dozen vendors will sling vintage VHS tapes, cassette albums, and enough analog nostalgia to short-circuit a Spotify server.

Why now? Because, apparently, tapes are back. Big names like Taylor Swift and Charli XCX moved tens of thousands of cassette copies last year, according to Luminate — proving there’s no sound Gen Z won’t put on magnetic ribbon.

Ted Schmiedeler, 21, former station director at Columbia’s WKCR, is hyped. “When I listen to a cassette, I can’t skip songs. I’m stuck — and that’s good,” he said, proudly admitting he bought his Walkman on eBay like a true vintage warrior.

For under $20, fair co-founder Anthony Morton promises you can score some “amazing stuff” — or at least own a piece of America’s glittery, glitchy VHS past. Morton’s bringing backup too: the Found Footage Festival gang (veterans of The Onion and The Late Show) will be selling off duplicate weirdness from their trove of videos-that-should-not-exist.

Alongside indie stores like Paradise of Replica and Captured Tracks, the fair will also feature Brooklyn’s newly rebooted Night Owl Video and some deep crate-divers with tapes older than TikTok itself.

Tapes, Schmiedeler insists, are more than a fad. They’re survival tools. WKCR still spins rare cassettes on shows like “Raag Aur Taal,” because a lot of world music simply never made it to the internet — and, honestly, it sounds better without Spotify’s “Recommended for You” guessing badly.

Prediction: Tapes will become the next aesthetic flex. Walkmans dangling from belt loops will replace iPhones. Schmiedeler’s advice?

“Get in early.”

Because nothing says cutting-edge rebellion quite like rewinding by hand with a pencil.