Ring Ring! Our Favorite Landline Phones Are Calling 

The first few minutes of the 1996 slasher send-up Scream makes up one of the most iconic movie scenes ever. (This is not open to discussion). The whole thing is genius: Drew Barrymore's Casey is home alone, getting ready to watch a scary movie, when a stranger calls. There's no caller ID, of course, and it turns out the creepy call is coming from inside the house—or at least, right outside the house. Throughout the flick, the phone is a character itself. Every time a phone rings, the story progresses. But the most iconic phone in the movie is the white block cordless that Casey uses in the opening scene.

It's like a plastic-coated brick with a long white antenna jutting out of the top; it's big enough to beat someone with, and she does at least try that. Casey hangs on to the phone the entire time she's running from the killer, as a kind of security blanket—her connection to help. And it brings the story together when her parents finally arrive home and, through a different phone, they hear Casey's muffled breathing from the cordless she's still grasping.

This phone design was popular for the time, similar to this old Sony. No matter the make, it's clear that no dinky cell phone would have survived what Casey put this handset through.

My childhood babysitter—a cigarette-smoking cool girl—had the ultimate symbol of teenage independence: her own phone line in her bedroom and a phone shaped like big red lips.

In the heyday of phone popularity, you could get one shaped like nearly anything—Garfield, a hamburger (notably used by the title character in Juno), or a duck like in Jersey Shore. Yes, it quacked.

Just as your poster-adorning walls were an extension of your aesthetic, phones like these allowed you to further express yourself. I like to think that lip phones walked so that early cell phones—which could be housed in Britney Spears cases decked out in charms—could run.

Picture this: You're a teenager trying to have a private phone call, but your family's corded phone was attached to the wall in a common area. You'd duck into another room, extending that curly cord to its limits. Sure, that doesn't seem that special now that we can take our phones wherever we want, but it was, at one time, part of growing up. Nostalgia doesn't always make sense.

Of all the phones mentioned, this corded phone might seem the least interesting. But models like this were in nearly every house for a while, probably hanging in the kitchen. Bonus points if yours had a rotary dial.

You might be noticing a theme here, but there's something about the analog experience—especially the ability to end a conversation by firmly hanging up—that can't be replicated by a cell phone. Although I prefer the mid-century handsets like those on most rotary phones, which are heavy and thinner in the middle, the feel and shape of this handset is very '90s. Plus these phones often came in interesting colors like sage and dusty rose.

The cell phone's evolution was quick, and filled with interesting and unique signposts. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X—think Zach Morris—was released to the public in 1983. It cost $3,500. Then came flip phones, indestructible Nokias, and BlackBerries with slide-up keyboards. But the reigning champ of mobiles within youth culture was the Sidekick.

The Sidekick's keyboard didn't slide up. The screen swiveled 180 degrees and locked into position with a springy click, exposing the keypad beneath. You could get on AIM ... from your cell phone! As Complex expertly outlined in 2015, the Sidekick was promoted by celebrities and heavily appealed to teenagers, so it quickly became the epitome of coolness. I've already mentioned phones being a symbol of cool—and if you were wondering, my first cell phone was a TracFone that looked like an oversized pink Jelly Bean and ate through its expensive minutes. I was not a cool clear-phone girl or a Sidekick kid. But I am an adult who writes about these devices as my actual job, so maybe I win.

Phones are so intertwined with human behavior that countless toy phones exist for those who are too young for the real thing.

I had many fake phones, including the Barbie Super Talking Phone With Answering Machine that came with cassette tapes with recorded messages. Just like real phones allowed me to connect with friends and grow as a person, each toy phone represented a different stage in my life. One Christmas, I thought a purple Barbie cell phone I found under the tree was a real cell phone, and I ran through my house screaming with the plastic brick still in its impenetrable packaging. My mom had to tell me it was merely a toy, though the sadness only lasted a minute. Real or fake, Barbie has been a friend of mine through all facets of my life.

The coolest toy phone I had? Well, it was two phones connected by a long wire. They could be placed in different rooms so two people could use the handsets to talk to each other, like a set of walkie-talkies. You can still buy a similar version.

While writing this story occasionally made me want to trade in my iPhone for something with more personality, I won't actually be doing that anytime soon. But it's clear that I'm not the only one with a yearning for the good old days.

You can buy smartphone cases that look like old school bricks, Baby Phat flip phones, Nokias, and even a classic toy phone. The unconventional fashion brand Moschino made a '90s-inspired big pink phone case. If you're more of a fan of the big red lips novelty phone, there's a case for that too.

In the early iPhone days, corded phone handsets that connected to the phone's headphone jack were everywhere; VTech even makes a shiny version that looks exactly like an original. There are also docks that give you a handset you can physically hang up, a way to end a call that's so much more satisfying than tapping on a touchscreen. If you want to try one of these but your phone is missing a headphone jack, you can probably use an adapter. Success or failure will depend on your model of mobile phone.