At work tonight, Modern English’s 1982 song Melt With You came on over the Pandora stream, and I remarked that I bought the single when it came out.
A 21-year-old coworker looked puzzled and asked, “What’s a single?”
I mentioned to her later that I wasn’t entirely sure if she was serious, and she assured me she was.
I like this link better.
I started buying single CDs in 1994. At that time, I had no idea that single vinyl records also existed.
When I was in college (early/mid 90’s), I worked as a roadie for a wedding DJ, hauling around his decks and PA and MASSIVE collection of records. One gig was a pool party at some suburban subdivision. Once we got setup and started a sound check, some little girl, maybe 10came up with her lilttle sister (maybe 8?), and requested something (Ace of Base I think, ugh). She pointed at the record spinning around and turned to her sister and said “See those? Grandpa has a bunch of those”
Gotta love that post-sex banter.
Damn, I feel old. When I was about 7, I had a little 45 rpm record changer. No LPs, it was only a single speed with a big fat spindle for the hole in the center. You stacked a bunch of 45s on it and each record would drop down in turn. Kind of like this one, except it was red and white.
I still have all of my father’s 78s. That was when an album was an actual album.
A few years ago we were in a meeting at work coming up for a playlist of songs for our group’s yearly holiday party. We were naming a bunch of songs and a woman just out of college was keeping a list of the songs we were naming.
One of the songs on the list was Maneater by Hall and Oates, or as she wrote on the list “Haulin’ Oats”
At least she didn’t write “Holland Oats.” 
I would have thought that, with digital distribution, singles would be even bigger now than they were Back In The Day. Hardly anyone buys whole albums any more, it seems.
Not music, but to me the level of WTFness is greater: I had an aeronautics project in which a lot of the documents from the Quality consultant mentioned “an important client, Roroy”. The “important client” actually happened to own a large chunk of the company. Anybody familiar with a double-R logo and a winged figurehead?
Back to media, when my mother finally classified her two VCRs “to be recycled”, the Nephew got to poke around in them and with the tapes (both those and the music ones) and learn why the RW and FFWD buttons are labeled that way. He thought it was “so cool!” that his Grandpa Jay had made those machines (well, he worked in the factory).
A few years ago, a friend of mine dug out a vinyl album to play a song he thought his teenage daughter would like. She thought it was OK, but when he flipped it over to play side B, her reaction was, “OMG! It’s got music on BOTH sides?”
I dug through a drawer and located my vintage Beatles 45 of I Want to Hold Your Hand b/w I Saw Her Standing There, and took that to work to show my young coworker. She said, “Oh, so it’s a little record with just two songs?” So, apparently, she’d seen vinyl records before, but had never seen a 45. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I personally haven’t purchased vinyl in her lifetime. CDs came out when I was in my 20s, and even though vinyl albums were still available ISTR that 45RPM singles had mostly been phased out. I’m guessing this young woman’s parents are ~10 years younger than I am, so they might have had some vinyl but probably not in 45RPM format.
I used to have a stack of 78s that used to belong to my grandparents. Some still in the original albums. Unfortunately, they disappeared along with the rest of my records (aside from the 45s) when my storage unit got jacked a few years ago.
Got you all beat: I have my dad’s wire recorder out in the garage. Have not tried it recently, not sure if it still works. May need to have a tube or two replaced (if that is even possible).
I’m 42 years old and I can’t remember ever seeing a 45 in the wild. My parents never bought any, and by the time I started buying my own music - 1987? - they were pretty much history.
I had my first moment when I was wearing a Green Day t-shirt at a Home Depot.
The youthful cashier looked at me and said, “Green Day? Who’s that? Is that some kind of European band?”
Then she asked me why I was wincing. ''Did I offend you?"
“No, you just made me feel very, very old.”
I should have seen it coming, the shirt was from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and they were just inducted in 2015.
My husband, who treats OCD in children, once explained to a kid that repetitive thoughts are like a ‘‘broken record.’’
Blank stare.
Oh, and he uses videogames to try to connect with them.
‘‘I bet I can guess which system you started playing on!’’
‘‘Go ahead.’’
‘‘Game cube!’’
‘‘Uh… no. That was college.’’
‘‘N64!’’
‘’…Keep going…’’
I bought “Careless Whisper” and “Smooth Operator” as 45s in Spring 1985. Those are the last ones I remember getting.
Technology-related: there was an episode of The Middle where the oldest kid is locked in the library without his cell phone. There’s a rotary desk phone and he just kind of looks at it – how do you use this thing?!
These days, I preface some comments with “You’re too young to remember, but…” – it’s finally happened to me too. 
I’m 41 and the first piece of recorded music I ever bought was Tony Basil’s “Mickey”…on a 45 back in 1982. I had one of those little plastic adapters so I could play it on my mom’s record player.
One day at school, this girl I liked was talking about the song, so I offered to sell the 45 to her for a buck. The next day my mom got a call from the girl’s mom saying I had sold her daughter an album that was inappropriate for second graders. I had to give the money back and I lost my album.
I still have mine. And my 45’s
That gag goes all the way back to the early 90s, in a Frank Oz movie called In & Out. The model who is perplexed by the rotary phone had one of the best lines, “Right now? But I promised Isaac I would do a show. I have to shower and vomit.”
