Is a long recorded song clip on one's answering machine or outgoing voicemail -- a form or symptom of egocentrism?

They probably might just want to share the song with other people and see if they like it, but it could also be something else.

My old answering machine was set for a 20 second outgoing message. I could not change it.
I remember when my daughter was born, I put a part of “Isn’t She Lovely” on there. It stayed there for almost a year.
When my son was born, I put on part of “Beautiful Boy”

I used to have one of those song ones in the 90’s…

Currently it’s:
“Who knows where we are or what we’re doing but I’m sure we’d love to talk to you when we get home”

And, it’s a LIE! I hate the phone & chances are, I’ll never call back.

I suspect they like the song in question and assume others will like it, too, or at least get some notion of what the person is like.

Why would it be egocentric to use a song instead of words on the message? I would think being egocentric would mean you would put either a long, dry and unfunny message that speaks mainly of the inconvenience to the person being called of being called when they are unable to answer the phone, or the opposite. This would be that you would put a very short and brusque message on the line, something like “I’m not home. You know what to do.”

Of course, if it is a song that the device owner wrote, sang and recorded themselves, then it might be a bit egocentric.

Not necessarily. But it’s fucking annoying as hell.

I’m with @NewZen on this one. Completely.

I agree with @NewZen, music as an outgoing message is annoying as Hell.

That’s why when you call my house phone, you get a message generally stating that you have reached the Orgasmic Church of Evelyn, and that Evelyn is not able to take your message, but she will return your call when she gets back to the church. It ends with the obligatory Evelyn loves ya, baby!, and so far, so good, everyone that calls, hangs up. No one but telemarketers and other solicitors call that phone anyway. We have the ringer turned off, so it occasionally surprises us to hear the OG message crop up out of nowhere.

Everybody else knows to call either of us on our cell phones. My voice mail OG message is just some line of crap about how I’ve lost my cellphone and I’ll call you back if and when I find the damn thing.

Any idiot can put a song on their phone; it takes creativity to put something original on there.

The best messages confirm the number called along with a first or full name of the person you’re trying to reach, that’s it.

When I find anyone at all with an answering machine message that annoys I always do the same thing. I make a digital recording of it using my computer then keep calling them and leaving it as a message. I like to guess how long it will be before they buy a new answering machine. Four days is about normal.

Great observation

I don’t know if it is egocentric or not but I particularly hate it and will not sit and listen unless I really need to leave the message.

I think it’s not such a major life choice that it needs to be broken down and analyzed. With the many ways that people can communicate nowadays, one’s voicemail message isn’t that important. I couldn’t tell you what most of my friends’ messages say. I can imagine that, if someone uses a song or some such thing, it’s either to be clever or unique or to express an interest they currently have. I rarely leave voicemails anymore; I’d rather just text someone.

I have a long message solely because half my friends like to leave me Voicemails saying “hey dude it’s me call me back later, see ya…”

fuck ass, I have caller ID, I know you called…

so now they only leave a message if it’s important. which is how I like it.