Recently, while I was walking down the street in Brooklyn, I caught a whiff of a scent that transported me back to my childhood so instantly and intensely, it felt like my brain was spinning inside my skull. It was the Smell of a dense, eggy, store-bought cake I devoured often (and always voraciously) as a kid, but that's incidental. I mention this because seeing one of these cakes, hearing someone mention them by name (they're called mushi-pan, by the way), or even holding one in my hand would not have induced the same full-body reaction. In general, I find, no other sense spurs emotion quite like smell. Do you agree? Send me a note and let me know what smells stir nostalgia in you.
This was, no doubt, what inspired Joel Lloyd Bellenson and Dexster Smith to develop the "iSmell," a device that, they promised, would play back smells much like an MP3 player does songs. As Charles Platt details in his 1999 profile of their nascent company, DigiScents, the founders were optimistic that their technology would transform how we consume media. "Imagine: Digitized party invitations could carry the aroma of food, wine, or more exotic stimulants," he writes. "'Make money fast!' chain letters can arrive smelling of new dollar bills. And spam could smell of Spam—or perhaps emit a scent that's so irresistible, you'll let the text linger on your screen just to enjoy it."
Needless to say, the iSmell wasn't a runaway success. The company failed just a few years after its WIRED feature, and its main claim to fame was that it would go on to make PC World's list of the "25 Worst Tech Products of All Time." It's not hard to see why, really—I'm perfectly happy for my emails to remain odorless. But what if we had the technology to conjure just a few scents? What smells would you want at your fingertips? I'd love it if you shared with me in the comments below Platt's story or via email.
See you next week!
Eve
