Ringtones

The anonymous narrator from Fight Club reminisces, "I flipped through catalogs and wondered what kind of dining set defines me as a person?" The same kind of post-modernist, consumerist indulgence defines the culture surrounding ringtones. No matter who you are or who you pretend to be, a ringtone is a chance to advertise to the world your signature style.

A whole culture of cynics have struggled to be more "meta" than anybody else. Many just have the ringing sound from the old mechanical rotary-dial telephones for a breezy retro flair. Or recordings of voices; imagine your most bored, lethargic voice saying "Ring." or "Answer me!" in a loop. Some just leave it at the default or on vibrate. And there's the sound effects ones, with everything from barking dogs to nuclear detonations to sirens.

Urban legends and memes plague the world of ringtones. There's the inventor in Japan who theorizes that ringtones can be used to make a woman's breasts bigger. And there's the "Teen Buzz" ringtone, said to be at a high enough frequency that only teenagers can hear it; actually, it's only inaudible to adults who have suffered hearing loss - unfortunately that's almost everyone! And at least a few critics have called the way Apple runs ringtones on the Apple iPhone to be a racket.

Still, buying ringtones by subscription or on a case-by-case basis is usually the most convenient way to go. It's only a few dollars, after all! Just remember that owning a phone does not make you a DJ! It can be perceived as obnoxious or rude to have a top-40 song play out at maximum volume, interrupting dinner, movies, concerts, and college lectures.

Some of the hippest, funniest, or most audacious ringtones out there:

• Video game themes. The theme from Super Mario Brothers is a popular one. Or how about Still Alive from Portal?
• Meme songs. Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, the song that gave the world the concept of "rickrolling", is a common one. And The Final Countdown by Europe (the band, not the continent), for those who are real masochists.
• Retro TV show music. The fight music from Star Trek, 50s and 60s sitcoms, and songs from popular kid's shows like LazyTown and Sesame Street can remind you of your playful side.
• Other ironic jokes include: Jingle Bells... all year 'round. Yakety Sax from The Benny Hill Show. Using the Ironside or Mission Impossible themes when caller ID says it's from your boss. Or the Mr. Grinch theme from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas... for your spouse!

But XKCD is tired of this nonsense.

Ringtones typically come in three major types. The monophonic and polyphonic types are dying out, replaced by the Truetone type, which is an audio recorded track like any other sound file. That's a good thing, since the old way practically had every mobile phone manufacturer coming up with their own zany scheme of file format, incompatible with every other device, of course.

Most common ringtone formats include AAC, MP3, WMA, or some variation on one of these.

A popular diversion today is making your own ringtone. It's surprisingly easy! There's online services, software you can download, and instructions on doing it yourself for various platforms:

• How to make a free custom ringtone for the iPhone.
• Mobango, a mobile user community, hosts ringtones for upload and download.
• ToneBee, an online ringtone maker.
• Make Your Own Ringtone, from MP3, WMA, or Ogg format.
• Another iPhone ringtone maker tutorial.
• Here's something different: ringtones made from mathematical formulas.
• Another ringtone maker. They're a dime a dozen!
• Nature ringtones, giving your phone the mating call of a wild moose or a snowy egret and such.

Finally, one ringtone method stands alone: Audacity. Audacity is the free, open source audio program which can record, playback, mix, filter, and convert almost any audio you can think of, and it's also a professional-quality program and used by sound engineers the world over. Here is a great step-by-step tutorial on making your own ringtones with Audacity.

Now with all that variety, you don't have any excuse to have your phone sound just like everyone else's. So when yours goes off, we'll know it's you, right?