Pundits and techies pounced on the appearance of a flip phone in the video for Adele’s latest song “Hello”, calling it all kinds of anachronistic ridiculous. They may have missed the point but the minor uproar slightly spoiled what should have been a flawless release of Adele’s first new song in 5 years. Director Xavier Dolan found the attention given to the flip phone to be unwelcome. It is, he says, the grizzled, overgrown British K2 phone box which appears later in the video that has far more significance. The old phone box, however, seems to have attracted fewer social media zingers than the flip phone.

Perhaps Dolan was unaware that as recently as 2013 Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was mocked – mocked, I tell you – when he was seen on national TV talking on his flip phone. That was a couple of years ago (a long time in technology years) but contrary to what the finger-pointers seemed to be saying about Jones’ use of obsolete technologies I think the incident demonstrated that flip phones are still around, and why shouldn’t they be? I know I still see them occasionally and it is not Luddites who carry them. The social media reaction to Jones’ use of a flip phone was not that of shock and amazement over use of a technology that had ceased to exist. They were reacting to the sight of somebody worth billions of dollars using a device commonly associated with Luddites and the poor.

The LA Times quoted Dolan on the matter of telephones in the video:

“The phone booth, he said, was more resonant for him ‘It says she is stranded in nature, which has regained its rights. It’s an element of the past. It’s much more important,’ he added sarcastically, ‘than the flip-flop and trying to identify whether it’s Samsung or an AE9 or whatever.’”

Yeah, whatever. I’ve watched this video many times. It is a beautiful song, though Adele is one singer who cannot do much wrong by me. The film’s attention to detail is admirable, notwithstanding the flip phone gaffe. The phone box contains a rotary dial payphone from which a dial tone is briefly heard. That’s a nice touch.

I understand the use of the phone box in this video, but I have to agree with the catcallers. The flip phone has gotta go. It’s just not obsolete enough in 2015 to make the intended point, and it creates a visual distraction from an otherwise amazing experience. If Dolan wanted to limit each communication visual to “an element of the past” I think he could have better chosen a rotary dial landline phone, a shot of Adele writing a hand-written letter, or something means of communication that has faded more thoroughly from modern use than the flip phone.

I also think Adele’s utterance of the question “Can you hear me now?” could have been better chosen, as it obtrusively evokes the Verizon tag line. That tag line always puzzled me, by the way. It is intended to promote the reliability of the Verizon network by using a question people ask when they are having trouble with their connection.