Now, this isn't going to be a long, "Let's all pile on how bad the internet is and only think about the good ol' days when the rocks were soft and we only communicated using cans with string."
Reddit user, u/IRunFast24, wanted to know what the best things in life were before we were plugged in when they asked:
People old enough to remember life pre-Internet, what are some less obvious things you miss about that time?
Many habits we used to possess were made completely irrelevant thanks to the internet. Not that we didn't enjoy doing them, we just started asking ourselves, "What's the point?"
Completely Devoid Of Technological Interference
"Leaving home and just being gone for the day. No cell phones. If there were cameras, it was really different. You used them to take pictures of things or had people take pictures of you. But there was no social media to preoccupy your mind. It was just doing something. And whoever you were with, was who you were with."
No One Needs 24 Hours Of Nonsense
"News only being on at 6pm. That was it. Now we have 6 hours of local news and 24 hours of cable news. Not being bombarded all day with "news." And when you saw "Breaking News" on the screen you knew something serious went down."
You Mean We Actually Have To Go?
"It used to be a lot harder to bail on things. You'd have to call the person at home and tell them yourself, or at least leave a message if you wanted to be risky. Typically if you were gonna bail you'd give at least 24 hours notice. Nowadays people can let you know they're bailing last second since you're always reachable."
Take My Cocktail Napkin Map
"I miss the days when people didn't have immediate directions to any place. There was an art required to giving effective directions and drawing an abstract map of the important turning points."
"RSVPing mattered. If you said you were going to be there, you made sure to be there. None of this facebook invites that everyone blows off without any form of social repercussions. If you said you were going to go and didn't go, you were the a--hole and everyone knew it."
The Art Of The Bar Argument
"Bar bets. And just bar discussion, generally. So many fun, running conversations involving friends and strangers are now cut short because you can just Google the answer."
You can get almost anything on the internet. Almost.
Still no sign of real working Lightsabers anywhere out there, but the internet has eliminated many of our purchasing practices.
Just In Time For The Holidays!
"The Sears catalog. That was how I found out about all the cool new toys."
"Catalogs in general, for me. Before the internet made mindless browsing of stuff you didn't need ~really~ easy to do, we still liked doing this without having to drive to the mall. The solution? Sign your mom up for those cool seed catalogs, those not safe to browse at the office gag gift catalogs and then everything in between. That stuff was really nice to have when you grew up somewhere that was not even cable ready."
1 Good Song Out Of 15
"When you bought new music you just had to hope it was good. The single might be popular but otherwise unless someone had it you just bought it and hoped for the best."
"There was so much excitement to going to a cd store to buy an album that you only knew one song of or the band/artist name and just listening to that entire cd over and over again picking out which tracks were your favorite while still learning every lyric to all the songs on the album.
Building a cd collection was also fun."
Talk About The "Immediate Gratification" Generation, Huh?
"The instant win bottle caps / candy / chocolate bar wrappers where you could turn them back into the store and immediately get a free one. Now it's just codes you have to register on their website so they can get your info, i don't even bother anymore."
Reddit Users Share Their Best 'It's A Small World After All' Experience
Finally, there's these activities, too difficult to explain to anyone who wasn't there. How do you illustrate to someone not having a supercomputer in your pocket at all hours of the day radically changed your life?
Keeping It In Front Of You
"I miss having an attention span of more than three seconds"
"It's so weird. I can only vaguely remember what it feels like to not have a smartphone and to be alone and think.
Wondering what my friends are doing and if they'd like to do something on the weekend. We'd have to talk during lunch break at school and plan it...
Trying to find the answer to a math problem... Having to figure it out by re-reading the problem and explanations 5 times."
Click-Click-Search
"Information you had meant something.
Now a 5 year old that knows how to google has more information than you."
Learning Was A Little Slower
"Media consumption was different. If you were reading a book, you couldn't search for it on a forum where 100 people had already analyzed it and figured out the twist.
It was more difficult to have a movie spoiled. When The Phantom Menace came out I had no idea what was in any part of the movie.
If you didn't know a skill you had to find someone who knew and have them teach you, you couldn't look it up on YouTube.
It was plausible that you could get the Triforce in Ocarina of Time and that your buddy's uncle really did work for Nintendo, because you couldn't look it up and find that it was not true."
There Used To Be A Time When You Couldn't Play Everything
"Not being overwhelmed by choice.
Don't get me wrong, having nearly every form of media downloadable is great, but back in the day, i rented a video game and i played that video game as much as i could.
Now, its hard to give it more than 2 seconds before i try one of the 20,000 games i have access to.
New game plus used to be cool. Now, I'm happy if just beat the game"
Floundering. Just A Little.
"My formative years were the 1980s. I remember like yesterday going to study in Paris my junior year of college. I got off the plane with no cell phone, no internet, a Let's Go Paris book, and just a hostel address written on a piece of paper I'd stuck in a French dictionary. I did not know a single person in all of France.
I had $500 of cash stuck in a money belt. The belt was tight and sweaty but that money had to last me for at least a month until I could find a part-time job with my lousy French. My "credit card" was my father's credit card numbers written down on a piece of paper. He told me I could only use it to buy a plane ticket home in an emergency.
I remember standing in the airport and having this powerful emotion of being 21 years old, scared sh-tless, but in absolutely completely control of my own destiny. There was absolutely nobody who could come rushing to my aid if I needed it. I was 100% on my own.
I'm actually very thankful for that experience. I found the hostel. I found a job. I made friends. I learned French. I made it all on my own which was just a big boost in life confidence.
I have no doubt if I'd had a cell phone I would've called my parents on Day 2, told them it was too hard, and been on the next plane home. But I had no other choice but to succeed."
We can never go back.
Not really, anyway.
The only way is to keep going forward, be aware of the effect the internet has on us, and do our best to not let it take away the things that really matter in our lives.
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Employees Of The Super Wealthy's Craziest Experiences
"Reddit user AMGBOI69420 asked: 'People who work for the super wealthy, what stuff have you seen?'"
When I was a cater waiter I saw it all.
People being flown in for entertainment.
All of the furniture in the building being replaced for one short evening.
Or buying out a building for an intimate dinner party.
It's crazy.
And I want enough money to do it too. Although I did see a ton of waste.
And I hate to waste.
Like who doesn't love a lavish wedding?
But a lavish wedding with a $500,000 price tag, and you have to be out by midnight?
That party better have had Madonna performing, live fire acts, and ice cream served with diamond spoons.
Redditor AMGBOI69420 wanted to hear about what it was like to work for the insanely rich, so they asked:
"People who work for the super-wealthy, what stuff have you seen?"
I've also had rich friends who didn't clean clothes.
They bought new every week.
You can't make this stuff up.
Musical Chairs
Make It Rain Money GIF by Tim and EricGiphy"Pumped a bunch of money into the Malibu City counsel in order to change a few seats. This would allow him to have the local ordinance changed so his front doors could be taller than 20 feet."
losthours
A Personal Willow
"Worked as one of four full-time groundskeepers at a large estate. 46 acres of lawn to mow twice a week. 2 clay tennis courts, 3 pools, one for the main house, and one for each of the two guest houses. 100+ acre private lake with boat house. No clue how big the whole estate was including the woods. My personal favorite was the 3-mile personal race track."
"But what really blew my mind was that he hosted his niece's wedding one summer, and paid $350k to have this massive willow tree trucked in and planted by the lake for wedding photos. Only to pay another $50k to have it removed and the landscaping returned to its original state after the wedding because he did not like the look of it."
Rarnah
Different Shades
"I used to work at a jeweler that sold Argyles amongst other precious things. We had one big money customer who never wore anything more than Hawaiian shirts and shorts (think on-holiday Adam Sandler) who would come in and tell us 'I’m feeling like a (color) diamond today.' And we’d show him the collection we had at the time of those colors."
"He had dozens just sitting in our vault. Loved collecting them but he never took one home. Sometimes he’d book a visit and we’d get them out of the vault for him to look at over a glass of whatever drink he felt like. The cheapest I saw him buy in my time there was $130k."
princess_bubble
I Don't Understand
"I often do work for the wives of wealthy professionals. The thing that has always stood out to me is that if I tell them that something they want isn't doable, they respond with literal confusion. It isn't anger. It's confusing. They are so unaccustomed to not being given exactly what they want that it's as if they don't understand what is happening when they are told they can't have something."
ShakyTheBear
Take This
Cash Gifts GIF by DigiGiphy"Not the craziest thing but wild to me."
"I was working for a kind of well-off family during a summer. I went inside to get a drink and the mom was cleaning the kitchen putting things away and such. She picks up a Macbook and says to me 'Hey, do you want this? No one uses it.' Got a brand new Macbook for college."
kingJoffi
I held onto my last Macbook in hopes that someone would just give me a new one.
Like on TV.
It didn't happen.
Let's Party!
Real Estate Thanks GIF by The Masters Division at Nest Seekers InternationalGiphy"I set up a party for a family out in the Hamptons that bought the house next door just to level it and set up a giant temporary party tent on the plot. Wild sh*t."
BinxieSly
Take it All...
"My brother-in-law builds custom homes in the redneck Riviera belt of Florida. One day, he called me to come over to this $15m beach house he was doing a complete remodel of. He was the original builder. He asked me to bring my truck and trailer. I show up, and he walks me through all four floors. He then says, 'The owners have removed all the stuff they want to keep. She has told me to dispose of everything as I see fit. Get what you want.'"
"Furniture, appliances, outdoor furniture, rugs, lamps, artwork, you name it. I don't know the value of everything I took home with me that day, but it was the highest-end stuff I've ever seen. FOUR floors of it, and I only got one trailer load because I simply couldn't fit anything else in my house. I likely had over $20k worth of furniture and appliances on that trailer."
Blackhawk-388
Money well spent
"Had a client come into our 3D printing office. His attention was immediately caught by a large industrial 3d printer in our showroom. Pulled out a credit card and bought a $250k machine on the spot. The best part was when we installed the machine at his facility. The first thing he wanted to print was a meter-tall penis. A few weeks after the install we got a photo of him standing next to the meter penis. Money well spent."
robertcboe
Not a Bad Dude
"An old boss did extremely well and sold off the lion's share of his ownership but wanted to stay involved in the company anyway, so he'd drive his absurd supercar to the office and just hang out. One day he came into the office and it was set up in such a way that the executive offices were in a little 2x2 office glass pod in the middle (with curtains for privacy if needed) and our rows were arrayed around them."
"I'll say this though, he wasn't a bad dude. We may not have seen eye to eye on politics but if you worked for the company he knew your name and would hang around and chat. Super generous around the holidays with time off and the big holiday party/door prizes/stuff of that nature. The company went way downhill when he finally let go of the reigns completely."
GWindborn
Money well spent...
kennedy center honors mic GIFGiphy"I moved the guy that created eBay. He had Aretha Franklin's grand piano (played it) and Elvis Presley's coat (didn't wear it)."
Interesting-Step-654
I want Aretha's piano and Elvis' coat.
I would wear the coat while playing the piano.
People say the craziest things.
Sometimes I stand in silence, my jaw on the floor, after I hear a person speak.
I hate to call anyone dumb, but let's get real.
Redditor JasperMidnight wanted to hear all the things we've heard that left us in shock, so they asked:
"What is the stupidest thing you’ve heard someone say that they were 100% serious about?"
Sometimes I want to faint when I hear people speak.
Leo Lives! Then Dies!
Leonardo Dicaprio Ok GIFGiphy"English teacher here. Once, while showing my class the Leonardo DiCaprio version of 'Romeo and Juliet,' I had a student staring at the screen in utter confusion for half the movie before she said, 'How can he be in this movie? He died on the Titanic.'"
BlakeMP
Turn Around
"At one of my first jobs as a graphic designer, a client called me into his office and pulled up a photo he took. He then asked me if I could turn it around. No, not rotate it, but turn the viewpoint around. He wanted to see what was behind the camera when he originally took the photo. God, I have so many stories from that job."
HerNameIsRain
Change Direction
"A guy I work with said that a football referee runs over the distance of a marathon during a game. I pointed out that a football game was only 90 minutes long and that the marathon record was just over two hours so that would be impossible. He said it was possible, because a football referee 'changes direction a lot during a game, and it all adds up.'”
tommyhashbrown
Time Zones
"Someone I know argued with me that I do not live anywhere near Canada. He got pretty nasty about it too."
"When I showed him proof he said 'Well I only know Texas.'"
"I live right outside of Detroit, Michigan. Closer to Canada than I am to any other state."
"I have also had a few people argue with me that I do not live in the Eastern time zone. I guess they know better than someone who actually lives here."
msspider66
BRO!
Nbc GIF by SunnysideGiphy"'Yeah bro, it says carbonated because they removed the carbs' while standing in line at a drugstore. Best eavesdrop of my life."
sigmaswan35
Carbs aren't the issue we make them out to be.
They are our friends.
Back then...
No Way Wtf GIF by HarlemGiphy"I was on a date at an art museum. The painting tag said who it was made by the title and made Circe 1600 and she said 'Do you think the earth was even around back then? You just never really know.'"
hi_im_watson
Every Thanksgiving
"I was stationed in Germany in the late 80’s-90’s. Every Thanksgiving multiple dudes would be perplexed as to why the Germans didn’t celebrate. A dude once told me he was excited to celebrate the 4th with the Germans and asked if they did fireworks. I love you my brothers, but some of you are dumb."
420stoner332
"When I was in Germany on a rotation they actually put on an incredible fireworks display for us. So did the Afghans (who used flares from their lil lookout thingies around the fob) when I was deployed. I was astonished and then extremely touched in both scenarios."
LavishnessFew7882
Really Real.
"When I was a kid (and on and off when I was older, until after it was decommissioned) my dad worked at a nuclear power plant. I was mentioning this to a college-aged coworker at one point (I think I was telling a story about taking your daughter to work day or something) and the coworker stops me. 'Wait, those are really real?'"
'I stopped talking, at a loss for words. I then had her repeat what she wanted to know. 'Nuclear power plants are actually real things? I thought they were made up for like The Simpsons.'"
bestem
Thanks, Mr. Murphy
"In college, my teaching assistant in my dinosaur class insisted that roadrunners weren’t real and laughed at me for suggesting it as an answer for a bird that runs fast. But the real dummy was me because I’ve seen one in real life and I still said oh ok."
natsugrayerza
"In grade 6 my class read a poem about ptarmigans where every word starting with 't' was changed to 'pt'. The teacher said that ptarmigans were made-up animals. I countered that they were a type of arctic bird, so he sent me to the school library to find evidence."
"I came back with an encyclopedia and turned to the entry for Ptarmigan and he read it out to the class and told everyone that teachers don't know everything and they should never be afraid to speak up. One of the best teachers I ever had - thanks, Mr. Murphy!"
TheMightyGoatMan
Multiplies...
paul muffins GIF by Big BrotherGiphy"'Blueberry muffins you buy premade don't have any blueberries in them. Blueberries cost too much. They dye bleeds blue because they have the same texture and use them.' He has 'explained' it to multiple people multiple times."
By0z
BAD
"Maybe too obscure but anyway I was the radiation safety office for our lab group many years ago and was telling one of our more truly brilliant (not being sarcastic) PhDs that his badge came up hot, meaning his technique was BAD and he was going to have to be retrained and he said, 'It doesn't affect me, I'm done having my children.' Like being careless with radioactive isotopes can only affect your gonads and not, IDK, give you f**king cancer."
feliciates
Some people really need to think harder before they speak.
This piece is proof.
Do you have any stories to add? let us know in the comment below.
A person who loudly mouths their opinion about a certain topic with so much confidence isn't always right.
They're usually lacking self-awareness.
Or they're just being obnoxious.
We know who these people are. They are the ones who think they can get their point across effectively simply by raising their voice because that'll register.
Umm, no.
Curious to hear about the humbling behavior, Redditor Generalmogar asked:
“'The loudest voice in the room is usually the dumbest' what an example of this you have seen?"
When wanting to be heard backfires.
Stranger In A Strange Land
"When someone thinks that shouting in English at a person who does not speak English will help them understand more. 🤦🏼♀️"
– Charlotte-Milf
Family Talk
"IMMEDIATELY thought of my partner's uncle when I read the post title. He speaks at 110% volume all the time and needs a diaper wrapped around his chin to catch all the sh*t he dribbles out."
– canisaureaux
Not The Brightest
"He who laughs last laughs best. But he may get a reputation for being a little slow on the uptake."
– jackneefus
"He who laughs last, obviously didn’t get the joke."
– Excellent_Recipe240
People can be so unpleasant.
The Worst Kind Of Customer
"Anyone who has ever worked retail or a customer facing position will understand this. You as an employee have next to no power over anything apart from a bit of product knowledge to learning the basics of returns/exchanges. Any person who has worked in one of these positions can almost always count on at least once a week being faced with a colossal, screaming idiot who will fight tooth and nail over the most idiotic minutia when they are dead wrong. I don't know if it stems from a need to be correct (narcissism) or from just plain stupidity that they can never concede in a fight, but it is at least a weekly occurrence in retail."
"My most recent example was when my partner and I were in Muji, an Asian-themed home goods and clothing store. The ambience of these stores are super chill, with diffusers going, soft music, and so on. As we were coming in a woman was losing her mind on the cashier because a pair of socks scanned up at let's call it $10 when they should have been $8. Numbers are made up because this was a month or so ago. She is arguing impressively that these socks scanned up wrong and they should be free."
The cashier has the 'wut' look on her face and is calmly explaining, that no, she can get a refund for the difference. This lady was not having it, seemingly pulling what she believed was the ultimate trump card, she shouted 'well other stores have policies where they give you the wrong scanned item for free!'. The cashier again, without a breaking a sweat said 'well, that isn't our policy. I can either refund you the difference, refund you the whole thing, or you keep it as it is.' This loop went on for much longer than it had to before the angry customer relented, visibly disturbed that this made-up policy did not exist at Muji.I will add that she was talking/yelling so that the entire store could hear, of course, instead of calmy discussing the issue and taking the solution like a normal adult."
– MADEUPDINOSAURFACTS
Unsatisfied Constituent
"You know the weirdos that show up at town hall meetings? Those voices."
– Leeser
"There's a sign at Ramsett Park that says, 'Do not drink the sprinkler water,' so I made sun tea with it and now I have an infection."
– I_might_be_weasel
Losing arguments is not an option.
Default Noise Level
"My ex-husband. We couldn't discuss anything."
"His answer to every problem was just to scream over me until he got his way."
– Bebe_Bleau
Loudest Side Of The Family
"On my father's side of the family, it's somehow common practice that the one who speaks loudest has the right to speak. Was much worse with my aunt, now that her and my dad aren't talking anymore it's less people. But i still don't always get to chip in on conversations with everyone, i can talk loudly but not as loud as my dad or my grandpa. When my aunt and her husband were there, i had even less of a chance to speak. Plus It's incredibly tiring and just annoyingly loud when everyone tries to be louder than the others and talks over each other... Now i catch myself not saying anything even when I could because I'm so used to just not speaking when everyone is there."
– mycrazyblackcat
The Internet Can Be A Loud Place
"Finding out everyone on the internet is suddenly an expert in the operation, design, and recovery of deep submergence vehicles has certainly been an eye-opener."
– ExpectedBehaviour
I was driving a vanpool late at night after work and after dropping my co-workers off, I pulled into a gas station to avoid doing filling up the tank the next morning.
I just went straight to the available pump, but apparently, there was another vehicle waiting for the pump I pulled up next to.
The driver exited from her vehicle, totally irate, and started yelling at me but very slowly and over-enunciating the words, "This was supposed to be mine. I was here first!" I'm Japanese American, but I guess I looked like a foreigner to her.
First of all, I had no idea I cut in front of her at a not-so-busy gas station at 1:30 a.m., and I was too exhausted for a confrontation.
So I played the part and spoke back to her in fluent Japanese, mouthing off about what I had for lunch or something because it didn't matter.
She stormed off and muttered an ethnic slur.
In retrospect, I don't know why I didn't explain to her that I wasn't aware she was waiting for the pump. I just wanted to get home.
Thanks and goodnight.
Be it an old familiar, or a new establishment that has been the talk of the town, restaurant diners are always faced with a challenge once they are handed a menu.
Do they stick with what they know, and order the burger and fries or spaghetti and meatballs, which are both difficult to screw up?
Or do they get a little adventurous, and try the restaurant's specialité, even if it's something they've never tried before in their lives?
Generally speaking, it tends to be on a case-by-case basis based on the restaurant they are dining in.
Of course, some people have such an aversion to certain ingredients or dishes, that no matter the location, they will never order it.
"Reddit. What will you never order at a restaurant?"
Not What, But When...
"I'll never order 10 minutes before closing."- bearstrugglethunder
Speaking From Experience
"Ice in my drink."
"After decades in the industry, I've only ever seen one change the ice machine filters and clean the bin regularly."-Anna_Namoose
"I have almost twenty years of experience managing bars and restaurants."
"What do you think I won't get? "
"Stylish or not?"
"Ice."
"In everything."
"I can assure you that I have saw far more appalling ice machines in back of houses than immaculate ones."- Tricky_Routine138
ice waiting GIF by tarninabarnGiphyStay Consistent
"Anything outside of what their core business is."
"Not ordering fish at a steakhouse, a burger at a Mexican restaurant etc."- KinkyPTDoc
Why Pay For What You Can Make Yourself?
"Quesadilla."
"I'm not paying for tortillas and cheese."
"I always have that sh*t at home."- DGex
"Pasta."
"I can make it at home, I'm a decent cook and can make most pasta dishes at home."
'I eat out to have foods I can't make."
'I'm usually disappointed when I do order it."- bensmom2020
"Tuna fish sandwich."- Limp-Persimmon-5729
"A grilled cheese sandwich."
"There's just no way a restaurant can elevate it to make it worth the cost."- manderifffic
Hungry Grilled Cheese GIF by U by Kotex BrandGiphyCasear, Cobb, Waldorf...NOPE!
"Salad."
"It’s so cheap to buy the ingredients and most restaurant salad comes from a bag."
"It’s just dumb in 85% of the cases."- humancalculus
"$17+ salad."- Monowakari
Split It, Maybe?
"Oh, I've got a good one."
"Do not order the lasagna if you visit Brio Tucsan Grille."
"It's not awful, fantastic, or extraordinary; it's just normal."
"But why, you say, would you advise against eating a typical meal?"
"Considering that it contained 5200 calories. calories for two days."
"When I removed empty dishes from the table in front of guests, I would shudder."- KeyPersimmon445
If You Can't See The Sea, Maybe Avoid Seafood...
"In a location not known for its seafood, lobster."
"Where are they going to get lobster, anyway?"- WillingnessInner9666
"Rocky Mountain Oysters."- Rollin_Soul_O
Eight Is A Few Too Many Legs...
"Anything cephalopod."- FarewellMyQueen
Pbs Nature Sea GIF by Nature on PBSGiphyUnless They Pick The Leaves Themselves...
"Tea."
'Compared to how much it costs to make at home, it's stupidly overpriced at restaurants."- Pure_Block_5309
There's nothing wrong with being a picky eater.
That being said, it's always worth trying something new before deciding you don't like it.
Even if no one should blame you for refusing to order sushi at a pizza counter.