9-year-old 'invents' landline accidentally while asking family for a phone

Landlines were a staple in the 90s, found in every household, office, and public place. However, with the rise of mobile phones, landlines have nearly vanished. Recently, TikTok user @weirdochicken shared a story about a 9-year-old who wanted a phone in the house that everyone could use. Little did she know, she was describing a landline. Her nanny had a witty comeback for that.

In the video, TikTok user Stephanie Rae narrated the incident. She is a nanny to three children aged 6, 9, and 12. Rae explained how their afternoons are often quite hectic. She recalled, "Yesterday I had to take the 6-year-old to a party and be back in time to get the 9-year-old to gymnastics but traffic was crazy, and I was running late. So, the 9-year-old has an iPad, and [I] tried to call her on it, but she didn't have it with her. So the 12-year-old just got his new phone so I called him and I was like go tell your sister, and of course, he was annoyed."

When Rae got back to the house, the 9-year-old had something important to share. “She was like, ‘They need to come up with like a phone that’s for the whole family that stays in the house, so if you need any person in the house, you can call that phone,'” Rae relayed. “Like, it’s not just that one person’s number — it’s like the whole family.”

Rae replied that it was an amazing idea. The girl continued, “But do you know how we’re always like losing the remote and stuff? For this phone, let’s attach it to a chord, maybe like stick it on the wall, so that if there’s an emergency, we can always find it. It can’t leave the house, and it’s for the whole family.”

Basically, the girl wanted her house to have a landline phone. Rae concluded, "So, we’re not techie people. We don’t know how to invent things,” Rae continued. “But if you’re a developer of stuff, reach out, ’cause we think it’s an awesome idea and maybe a moneymaker.” The video soon went viral with more than 2.8 million views. It was captioned, "@apple @google @amazon please get in touch to take advantage of this opportunity." While some TikTok users couldn't understand that Rae was being satirical, many replied with satirical comments of their own.

User @stephaniesummer123 wrote, "who's gonna tell her??? and I really hope this is a joke..." and @oops_diving commented, "And we'll need a small device that will tell us who is calling before we pick up. We can call it 'Caller ID.'" Another user @leeleeface83 wrote, "oh! the cord should look like a curly noodle so you can go far from the base and then it spins back to normal!"

@sheismeiamher6 sarcastically wrote, "You really should reach out to Alexander Graham Bell he’s so good with this type of stuff," and another by @thateinchevyguy read, "Allow me to introduce the landline. Used from the creation of the home telephone till cellphones became popular." But it was user @aaron0quinn0 who echoed what was going through the mind of every millennial when they watched this video: "OMG I have never felt so old. Maybe instead of individual buttons you can put a circular dial with the numbers also. And call it dialing a phone number."

This article was originally published on June 13, 2024. It has since been updated.