Older Generations Explain Which Things Young Folks Get Wrong About Past Decades
Reddit user WeirdJawn asked: 'Older Redditors, what do young people get completely wrong about past decades?'
I have no aesthetic or emotional issues with getting older as it certainly beats the alternative, so I freely admit I have reached a certain age.
It's the age of sound effects when I get up from a chair and asking younger people to pick things up off the floor for me.
It's the age of having to use Urban Dictionary daily to understand messages I get from younger friends and relatives.
But as much as I don’t understand their language, music or hobbies, there's a lot they'll never understand about my childhood and adolescence.
I was reading an article by writer Eric Chilton who pointed out Gen X—the generation born between 1965 and 1980 of which I'm a part—was the last to live in a world without the internet, cellular phones and social media.
And those are only a few examples of the paradigm shifting innovations in our lifetimes.
Reddit user WeirdJawn asked:
"Older Redditors, what do young people get completely wrong about past decades?"
As a young person, I was fascinated with the idea my maternal Grandmother lived through the transition from horses to combustion engine vehicles, the inception of commercial air travel, the creation of the motion picture industry and the invention of television.
But I've lived through vinyl LPs and 45s, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs and digital music players.
If I wanted to see a movie as a kid, I went to a theater—or drive-in—or waited for an often heavily edited version to air on TV. Then cable movie channels were introduced, followed by LP size video disc players, then Betamax and VHS, DVDs, HD and Blu-ray and now?
Digital downloads and streaming services—I haven't been to a theater in years.
GiphyTV
"Up until video rental stores in the early 80's, at school the next day every kid was talking about what was on TV the night before, as every single family was watching tv together every single night."
"With some exceptions, most people watched the same thing as their schoolmates or co-workers, just to be a part of the conversation."
~ Grimjack2
"There's something very isolating about modern media.
"You can be into a TV show, or YouTube series, and nobody else you know has heard of it."
"I'm a fan of aYouTube series—RedLetterMedia—that's pretty popular and very well regarded amongst its fans, and only one of my friends has heard about it.
~ SlashThingy
GiphyUnanswered Questions
"Probably just how often you had to accept that you couldn't find out the answer to something."
"If you had a question you could ask your family, maybe your friends, maybe your teachers, and your last chance was the check the library."
"But if the library didn't have the answer, then you just had to accept that you weren't going to get an answer (or you'd have to hope to come across that answer someday in the future)."
"Now you just ask Google and get 10 answers in just seconds."
~ john_jdm
GiphyOne & Done
"How on-time you had to be for your favorite shows because there was little to no chance you’d see that same episode again until they (hopefully) did re-runs during summer."
"I remember waiting anxiously for the nightly news to be over so I could watch my favorite TV shows."
"Commercial breaks were just mad rushes for the bathroom, or to the kitchen to get something quick to drink."
~ ladyeclectic79
"Once it was done, it was gone."
"The happy tears I cried when they finally released The Stand miniseries on DVD about a decade after airing."
~ Barrys_Fic
"I feel I was in the last generation of this, even though channels were much more prevalent and reruns of everything was the norm."
"I remember rushing off the bus with all my friends because we were absolutely SURE Goku was gonna defeat Frieza this episode. And it was a crap shoot whether or not the driver would be fast enough for us to make it."
"Years later when DVDs started becoming more prevalent, they STILL didn't put shows on collectable media regularly. You couldn't just get an entire season of a show and binge it."
"At most you could find a 'best-of' compilation of five or six of the most popular episodes, and that was only if the show was incredibly popular."
"And what I am describing here was considered 'having it good' compared to older people."
~ McFlyyouBojo
GiphySay Cheese!
"That it was incredibly common to just not have pictures of events or other things we see as important now."
"Not only did we have entire vacations where no pictures were taken, we could go months without a single picture being taken of any member of our family unless it was particularly notable."
"A trip to St Louis? No pictures. A trip to Disneyland? Maybe a picture at the entry gate or one of the souvenir pictures of us with a character."
"A trip to zoo? No pictures. An average day? Forget about it!"
"Frequently, the only pictures taken were at major holidays like Christmas or on someone's birthday."
~ bbbbbthatsfivebees
"I explained that to my kids the other day."
"What if every picture you took cost a dollar?
"And you don’t know if it’s even good until probably weeks later, as long as the photo lab doesn’t f*ck up processing."
"Or your film or pictures don't get lost in the mail going to or from the developer or they don't send you someone else's photos by mistake."
~ beebsaleebs
"You had to plan ahead to take a photo."
"'Did you remember the camera? Did you remember to buy film or flashbulbs?”
~ brazilliandanny
GiphySo Few Options
"It's an exceptional AMOUNT of media to consume now. In the 90s, you had 3-4 super popular channels, and 4-5 low rated channels. They all showed one show at a time."
"Now we have a dozen streaming services with infinite media options."
"It's becoming increasingly difficult to engage in office conversation because so much content is available, people do not have to stray as far from their interest to consume content they want to consume."
~ MemeTeamMarine
Smoking Or Non?
"They understand restaurants had 'smoking sections' and that bars & clubs were filled with cigarette smoke. But I don't think many understood how pervasive smoking was."
"Non-smoking areas or sections didn’t exist before the 1980s. There were ashtrays and people smoking literally EVERYWHERE."
"Jury boxes had ashtrays in front of every juror. Judge smoked, lawyers smoked, the gallery smoked."
"You smoked on planes, trains, busses, taxicabs, and in all transportation centers."
"You smoked at the library, the PTO meetings at schools, the town hall and all city offices. Hell, you could smoke at the courtyard at my High School as a student."
"You smoked in the elevator and on the escalator. The mall. The grocery store. Sports venues. Doctor's offices. Hospitals. Sitting at your desk at work even if you were in a cubicle or open area."
"The movies. The plays, opera, concerts and every other public performance, people smoked."
"A non-smoker would come home often smelling like smoke. One was constantly surrounded by smoke. It was insane."
~ parkerjh
"You literally made ash trays as a grade school art project, that’s how common it was."
~ _Poffertje_
GiphyWhat Choices?
"Probably under estimating how few choices there were."
"Today, it seems like everything imaginable is available in a variety of sizes, delivered to your door over night."
"Catalogs and mail order had 4-6 week delivery."
"Malls were the best thing ever—all the stores in one place, a wide variety of products and sizes and not downtown."
~ 2Loves2loves
"And also just how little people knew they were missing out. If it wasn't on network evening television (Channels 2, 4, 7, 9, and 11), or on a store shelf in your town, or in the Sunday newspaper... it simply didn't exist for you."
"If you had an inkling something existed—say, tin foil that comes in sheets instead of one giant roll—you could go around asking people, if you wanted. But you were more than likely to just get a shrug and, 'Why would you want such a thing?'."
"Let's say you were particularly enterprising, so you dial '0' and ask the operator for the number for corporate headquarters of Reynolds Aluminum Foil, if you knew the city it was in. Because there was no internet, and the only way to find a number was by dialing '0' and speaking to a telephone operator."
"But even if you spoke to someone at Reynolds, they had no way to exchange money for goods at that level, and they probably would just tell you they sell it in the Ohio area, and that would be that."
"You went to the market. They have one brand of pancake mix, and no one had ever heard of anything different, and why would you want a different brand, anyway?"
"Then you go to the hardware store, and they carry one brand of paint, and no one had ever heard of any other brand of paint."
"And it was that way for a long, long time."
~ nOwsL-ACEna-pe2323
GiphyOne For the Road
"How common drinking & driving was."
"Until MADD came along, people did this routinely."
"It's where 'one for the road' originated."
~ HailRoma
"Yes! When my friends and I had our 18th birthdays in late 1979, the thing to do was to celebrate by driving through Beer Barn, where you could literally drive-through to get beer, wine, wine coolers, whatever."
"Then open them up and drive while drinking. At 18. This was in Texas."
"It also was not uncommon for my dad to drive while drinking when he was taking us wherever at night."
"Zero education on why you should not do that."
~ emeraldcity4341
Good & Bad
"I am definitely older (born in 1949 so Baby Boomer)."
"What today's young people don't appreciate is how, growing up, we had to invent our own sources of fun."
"There were no video games (which I enjoy playing), just 3 channels on a black-and-white tv (we didn't get color until 1967), and no real entertainment aimed at kids."
"All we could do is interact with each other and play established games like marbles or maybe an organized sport like Little League baseball."
"There was a baseball diamond, overgrown with weeds, across the street from us, but mostly we played in the woods that surrounded us, climbing trees pretending to be pirates or some such.
"I loved the bookmobiles that would visit my street, and I must have read every biography (all bound in blue covers) in my elementary school library."
"It was a different era with many fewer distractions and much more time for sustained imagination."
"Being a different place and time, we developed different skills for interacting with the world and each other than young people do today."
"Was it better? That's hard to say. We tended to have an insular view of our own little world, while today it is hard to escape what it happening everywhere on Earth."
"We had to wait days for a letter to arrive, and we shared a party phone line with our neighbor's phone. That is a far slower pace than today's instantaneous texting culture. (Yes, I do text.)"
"Some things have been lost while others have been gained. That's the way it always will be. Just wait."
~ BOBauthor
GiphyIn Chilton's article—referenced at the beginning—he stated:
"We [Gen X] will be the last generation to know the world without...
- Cable TV
- Cell Phones
- The internet
- Seat belt laws
- Remote controls for the TV"
What would you add to the list?
People Who Grew Up In The 1990s Describe What It Was Really Like
With certain trends coming back into fashion from the 1990s, as well as reboots from '90s kids' favorite TV shows and movies, some who were born since then might be wondering what all the fuss is about.
And the '90s kids were ready for a walk down memory lane.
Redditor Anitoko_chan182 asked:
"To all those who grew up in the 1990s, what was life like?"
What Homework?
"Get home from school, lie and say I had no homework, and go ride bikes or hang out in the tree house with neighborhood kids until it got dark."
"Go home, eat dinner, watch cartoons or play video games, and lay in bed with anxiety because I didn't do my homework."
"Rinse and repeat."
- Slawth_x
"Car!"
"'Car!'"
"What amazes me is the universality of this. Because there was no other phrase. And I think people think it's a reference to 'Wayne's World,' but let's be real, that was art imitating life, not the other way around."
- whatever_befall
The Sweetest of Afternoons
"Don't forget riding bikes with a group of like eight kids to 7-11, all of you leaving your bikes out in front unlocked while you went in and loaded up on candy and Slurpees, and then going back to someone's house to play cards and listen to music while we ate the junk food."
- brasslamp
Unlimited Nights and Weekends
"I remember my parents got cell phones when I was pretty young. Like early-early versions."
"My mom turned hers off unless she needed to make a call. And then one day my dad had road trouble or something and then couldn't get ahold of her because she just didn't turn her phone on."
"It was a whole thing. But it was like this light bulb moment of, 'if I have a mobile phone so I can be reached wherever I am, I need to keep it turned on.'"
- Catsdrinkingbeer
Ghost in the Graveyard
Staying out playing in the front yard until dark (yes, the cliche was true). We played 'Jurassic Park' a lot and made up dances to the Spice Girls."
"My personal favorite was Ghost in the Graveyard (Hide and Seek in the dark), but it sounds like that may be a regional thing."
- midnightlightbright
That Dial-Up Sound
"No social media, which means all my f**kups are only captured on Polaroids and the mind of people slowly approaching dementia, thank merciful Christ."
"The internet was slow as s**t, like it took 20 minutes to get online with dialup. China's economy was still dominated by Hong Kong, and Russia looked like they were going to modernize into a real democracy. The president of the US played jazz on live TV, and hair gel sold faster than crack."
"We were definitely more optimistic than we are now, but maybe that was just delusion rather than fact. It's hard to tell sometimes if things were actually better, or if I was just a kid who could enjoy the simple moments in life."
- Cyanora
The Little Things
"No social media, or cell phones, was the absolute best. If we wanted a picture, we had to remember that the person, who in my case was a real gossip at high school, was going to see it."
"I was in high school in the mid-90s, my elementary days were spent playing hide and go seek with the neighborhood kids, and every front yard on the block was fair game; not one neighbor ever complained."
"Everyone seemed kinder, the music was awesome, and we were all so much more connected it seemed. Lots of basketball, rollerblading, and 'jacka**' type shenanigans that we would come up with."
"And Dunkaroos, Surge, and Flinstone push-ups were the ultimate treats."
- expecto_your-mom
Just Relax
"Colorful, unashamedly campy, and everything basically had that 'your lame parents trying to impress your friends' vibe... and it worked."
"I was born in 87, but I grew up in the 90s. I miss that decade immensely. It was so laid back and carefree (as a child)."
"Everything now takes itself so f**king seriously. It's depressing."
- MateriaMuncher
Before the Crash
"I was reading something about this not too long ago. Compared with much of the previous century, the 90s would have come off as amazing."
"No world wars, the cold war had just ended. The economy was doing very well. The modern tech industry was up and coming and the downsides that we're aware of today hadn't become apparent yet. 9/11 and its aftermath hadn't happened yet."
"Someone growing up in the 90s would have definitely felt pretty optimistic."
- Always_Statsing
What Health Issues?
"We all had health issues and ate the terrible 1990s all-carb diet."
"We just didn't discuss mental health, etc. Those topics were incredibly taboo. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, nobody wanted that diagnosis, nobody wanted to have to be in special needs classes, etc."
"Tony Soprano being public (on tv) about taking Prozac was a HUGE deal."
- imnothereurnotthere
Entertainment on the Rise
"Pretty cool. The Internet was fresh and exciting. Video games were this really creative interactive medium that was seeing rapid development."
"3D animation became a thing and had some really creative TV shows like 'Reboot.' 'Chumbawumba' made us all feel like nothing could keep us down. 'The Simpsons' were a comedy powerhouse."
"Pokemon became an international craze and kids were obsessive about it."
- ILikeToThinkOutLoud
Living Slower
I am super grateful for my coming of age in the 90s! I’ve written about it before, but looking back, it was a great time for a childhood. It was hard to beat Friday night at the local video rental place, perusing the horror VHS movies from the 80s."
"I was born in the early 80s and remember the late 80s well and had my formative years in the 90s. It was actually really amazing, gaming on the early consoles, but having a full life outside that the digital world just didn’t really intrude upon. Playing outdoors on summer days and retiring to the Super Nintendo at night was a really great balance."
"We watched and participated in the growth of the internet, with a pretty solid delineation between a time before the net and the time after. To a middle schooler, getting the internet for the first time was damn near a magical experience."
"Things were slower. We didn’t have instantaneous gratification or access to so much information/goods/services so quickly. Even though I enjoy getting my stuff within a day or two as much as the next yak, I would be lying if I said that we didn’t sacrifice something important for the wonders of same-day shipping."
"In short, I wouldn’t trade my childhood in the ’90s for anything. While I love my awesome gaming PC, my home theater, and above all else, my iPad that I’m typing this out on, I miss the slower-paced world of the 90s and wish we could get a little of that patience back."
- The_Best_Yak_Ever
The Information Age
"Hank Green recently did a video talking about how, in an earlier video he'd joked about the internet being as big a change for society as the printing press. And while he'd originally intended that as joking hyperbole, it's become apparent that it might be an understatement."
"Us born in the 80s kids are more or less the last generation to remember life before the internet. My family had a computer early on, and I'm really nostalgic for the early days of chatrooms and message boards before everyone was online and in these walled gardens."
"It's a little helpful to realize we're still in the early days of the Information Age. It takes time for society to adjust and figure out healthy ways to live with big things like this in our lives."
"It doesn't help, though, that big things like this seem like they're happening at an increasing rate."
- Krail
Knowledge in Your Pocket
"I am still impressed with the idea of literally having a repository of essentially all human knowledge in my pocket."
"Back then you couldn't remember something or wanted to know what was the primary language of a different country? Hope you know someone reliable who knows that or you own an encyclopedia or can get to the library. Good luck with the dewy decimal system in the card catalog."
"The amount of effort to obtain knowledge has become so minute that we should all be smarter than we are but when it's so accessible the value is diminished to some degree."
"I remember seeing on inspector gadget penny his niece have a book that was effectively a mobile computer and videophone and thinking it was pure insanity if that were to ever exist. I am literally typing on such a device now."
"When I saw the internet become accessible on a phone for the first time it was 2006 and my friend's sidekick and I about lost my mind. We are living in the future."
- DanielFyre
I.R.L.
"Everything felt a lot more real, and a lot more wholesome, for the most part. Mind you, I was a child back then so I'm sure I'm biased. Things felt slower. Kids used to play outside whenever they could, and no one was EVER using electronics outside, except for the occasional Walkman."
"I preferred the houses back then a lot since they still had some semblance of beauty and color. Unless you were in a big city, almost everyone had yards. There were a lot more trees everywhere. People weren't just constantly cutting down every single tree in every town for no reason."
"And the average person's language skills were MILES better than they are today."
- RebeccaETripp
Watching a Movie
"When the commercial came on, you RAN to the bathroom. Then your sibling yelled, 'it's back on!' And you RAN back to the couch!"
- chompytown
Snuggled in-between wars and economy crashes, the 1990s felt like a uniquely safe time that we may never fully see again. But it sure is fun to reminisce.
Ah, the 1990s. A simpler time.
Blockbuster Video was king. I remember when DVDs first became a thing and they were such a novelty item. We kept our VCR with us for a long time even as we upgraded. There was something about going to the store and just browsing for a long time and coming across cool and interesting titles that took my breath away.
I recently watched this Netflix show called Blockbuster, a comedy about the last Blockbuster in the United States. I cannot recommend it. The 1990s fill us with such nostalgia, of course, it's just a shame to see people capitalize on that nostalgia in such an uncreative way.
People shared their memories with us after Redditor LoneStar2920 asked the online community:
"'90s kids of Reddit, what do you miss most about the '90s?"
"Malls."
"Malls, there was literally everything there. I lived at that place. Also, for some reason, floppy disks. I don't know why, but I really miss them."
rabid-panda
It's been kind of sad seeing malls go. They were really the center of the universe for kids growing up at that time.
"Waking up on Saturday morning, eating a bowl of cereal while watching cartoons. Then hopping on my bike to ride to my best friend’s house to see if she could hang out with me."
Thicki_Mikki
Aww, this is so wholesome. Remember when people played outside?!
"I used to record..."
"The music. I used to record the local pop radio station on cassette and there would be pop, ska, punk, rap, electronica, hard rock, grunge all kinds of things. The summer songs were always catchy and fun."
gapajeff
You can thank the Telecommunications Act of 1997 and Clear Channel for this ending.
"Summer afternoons..."
"Summer afternoons, where you had no digital distractions and for that you had to come up with (often stupid) ideas. Also MTV." -Reddit
Honestly, MTV was often the distraction!
"Being able to own things..."
"Being able to own things without having to take out a subscriptions."
qzcl
We're looking at you, Adobe!
"I miss going to video stores..."
"I miss going to video stores and browsing."
sonic_towerTrying to figure out what movie to watch was always a fun time! So many choices!
"Basically just living in the moment."
"Technology has helped us a lot and I do enjoy it. But I miss the days where I woke up and had the sheer motivation to go outside to the park, or to genuinely sit down with friends and have a meal and not have the need to rush anywhere else. Basically just living in the moment."
623568
Tell us more about this so-called park you speak of.
"Being able to sleep."
"Being able to sleep. Having an imagination. Having dreams and artistic ideas."
[deleted
It sounds like adulthood ruined these things for you.
"Having to watch the scroll..."
"Having to watch the scroll at bottom of the TV screen to see if you got a snow day. Anticipation of the charts then excitement to sled ride all day long. That feeling can never be duplicated."
ClearAssistance87
Yes! The anticipation was a killer.
"Geocities web pages, made with heart, not for money."
[deleted]
Aww, man, Geocities takes me back. It was nice that people could have a website for free hosted on a server that was relatively fast and reliable.
Nostalgia is killing us. If you'll excuse us, we're going to go watch old Cartoon Network shows.
Remember when that channel was good? My age is definitely showing.
Have some memories of your own? Feel free to share them with us in the comments below!
Oh the 90's. What a decade.
Who knew we were in the time of revolution?!
So much happened, yet so much stayed the same.
And not decades later, so much has changed.
Who doesn't love to look back upon a decade and discuss the things that were a common part of life and are now basically obsolete?
You never know in real time.
Redditor Apart-Scalewanted to reminisce about the glory days.
They asked:
"What was normal in the 1990s but rare or non existent now?"
For me... it's Madonna having a #1 song. It can still happen, but highly unlikely.
Music
New Music Football GIF by Black PrezGiphy"A disc man plugged into a cassette tape with a wire to play music in your car."
freehi_5
Call Me
"Hotlines for the weather report, current time, and movie show times."
redacted_4_security
"The time and temperature phone number for my small hometown still exists to this day. Same Pre recorded voice and everything. It still advertises caller-id as an add on feature for land lines. Know who’s calling you. It’s easy and convenient with caller id. The time is x. Temperature y."
Bushelsoflaughs
Let's Chat
"Talking to your friends mom to see if they were home."
Espeon2022
"I've always thought that having to go through the parents to talk to your friends made things more controlled and respectful. Now kids can just blast each other with every thought that pops in their heads 24/7, that must make things more toxic."
RupFox
Fly Away
"When picking someone up from the airport, you could wait for them at their gate."
Facelesspirit
"When I have flights going through cities with people I know I will intentionally schedule a couple hour layover so I can go hand lunch with them and then just go through security again and board the next flight."
ItsEntsy
I'm Out
Bye Bye Goodbye GIF by Mickey MouseGiphy"Being unreachable."
BTW_The_Names_Marcus
"I still do this to this day. I'll go on vacation for a week and just turn the phone off, or be far enough out in the boonies that there is no cell signal whatsoever."
libra00
I wish I could put my phone down. Who knew we'd never be without them?
Let's Fandango
Movie Theater Popcorn GIF by filmeditorGiphy"Calling the movie theater or looking in the paper for movie times."
yepitsjen22
Music Library
"Keeping a binder full of CDs in your car."
PMMeUrHopesNDreams
"I once left the door on my car unlocked and came back to find my car stereo gone but not my full 100 disc binder. The stereo had completely died 2 weeks prior and I just hadn't gotten around to swapping it out yet. I just laughed."
v1ct0r326
"My car CDs were stolen in 1998. I’m still pissed."
Whatwhyohhh
Multitasking
"Pressing play and record at the same time."
MoistnSquishy
"I don't know why but this one made me feel the saddest. I guess it just snapped me back to a moment when I was bored and had no where I had to be, no where I planned to go. My life's todo list completely empty. Just me and the weird 90's dust that seemed to float around in front of sunny windows."
bannablecommentary
"Putting tape over the security tab/square so you could record over any tape you had in your collection."
candiebelle
Dial Up
"Telephone booths."
Zen_Anarch
"I had to check for the phone booth that I used the most as a teenager (not in NYC, in the beach town where I spent my summers) and it was still there in the most recent Street View! I'll have to see if it's there now when I go by tomorrow. This was where I checked in with my parents and friends circa 1990 to see what was going on. The arcade was just down the street."
superluke
And the White?
yellow pages GIFGiphy"Yellow Pages."
zekesaltspider
"I got a phone book in my mailbox the other day. First one in years. It was about the size of a Goosebumps book."
dragon_book_hoarder
Well those were the days. Weren't they?
Are you like me and the 1990s were only 10 years ago?
Yes, I can do the math, but 1990 being 32 years ago still seems unreal.
Why is that?
Maybe it's the fact it marked the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st.
Either way, it just doesn't seem that long ago and the nostalgia for the trappings of the 1990s is strong.
Redditor PrimaryYam9432 asked:
"What is something outdated from the 90s you want back?"
Affordable Housing
"I lived in a one bedroom apartment in San Diego in the nineties to the tune of $400 a month. I'd like that back, please."
"I looked up the specific place I lived. That one bedroom runs $1,650 now."
– stupidlyugly
Missed Opportunities
"the lighter side: malls, there was literally everything there. I lived at that place. Also, for some reason, floppy disks. IDK why, but I really miss them"
"the darker side: a sense of hope for my financial future. I was 15 in 1999, working my first job. Trying to leave a sh*tty situation, had plans to join the military after high school to pay for college.
"Had a grand mal seizure the summer after I graduated (got diagnosed with epilepsy) so that nixed that; and after multiple failed attempts at college, finally graduated when I was 32. I'm making 4x what I did in high school, but I've never left the midwest. never seen the ocean, or been on a plane."
"Had to file bankruptcy twice because of medical issues, and have always had clunker cars. Unfortunately I'm not the only one in this situation, but it still sucks"
- rabbid_panda
Cheesy Video Games
"Westwood Studio's real time strategy games featuring cheesy live action videos between the levels. I'm fine without the dial-up multiplayer though."
– 3Bonhomme7h
Subscribe, Subscribe, Subscribe
"Software that you buy one time and own. Looking at you Adobe."
– mtsai
"Being able to own things without having to take out a subscriptions."
– qzcl
"This is exactly what I was going to say. Being able to buy something and be done. Now everything has a subscription attached to it."
"Software is one of the worst examples but even the auto industry is trying to get in on the subscription money by requiring additional monthly plans to access features of your car that you already paid for."
"A local HVAC company is attaching a subscription to their work. So you pay them to install it all and then a monthly fee for them to be on-call in the event it needs maintenance."
"At work our IT support company stopped doing ad hoc service calls unless you subscribe to their monthly service plan. So the company is paying triple the price and getting basically the same thing except in theory the amount of service call they can request is 'unlimited'."
– sullivan80
Your Local Video Store
"I miss going to video stores and browsing."
– sonic_tower
"I do too. That was a fun Friday night as a kid. Going to Blockbuster to pick out a new movie to watch."
"It's not the same getting on Netflix and spending an hour looking for something to watch to only wind up watching something you've already seen."
– brokendowndryer
"Yep! As a kid my dad would come home from work on Friday evening and take us to Hollywood video."
"We’d pick out a movie and get a pizza on the way home. Good times."
– Its_Juice
Commercial Breaks
"Reasonable commercial lengths."
"Now ESPN has 5 minute commercial breaks..."
– coreynj2461
"My least favorite trend is a commercial break, then they come back for 1-2 minutes with some tiny snippet of 'coming up next!' then go to another commercial break."
– thishasntbeeneasy
"Or they smash the credits into a tiny window, while running ads on full screen. Can't even read the credits if you wanted to."
– reddit_bandito
Accountability
"Not having to make an account for EVERYF'KINGTHING!"
– Dapper-Discipline-54
"And lately every time I sign up for something, they send me texts now too in addition to emails that I don’t want. Leave me alone!!"
– Sefira23
"I'm so over this. Especially when you're supposed to make a different password for every account you have. My brain only has so much memory for passwords anymore."
– McUberForDays
Social Media
"This is probably more late 90s/early 00s than the 90s as a whole, but a social media-less internet."
"It felt like an escape from real life, as opposed to an extension of it."
– Spooginho
"Remember when they told us to never identify yourself on the internet? And now they put their whole life on it."
"I miss web 1.0 where anonymity was the point."
– duffman13jws
"Remember when our parents told us not to trust anyone on the internet, but now believe everything they see online and lecture us about it?"
– Harsimaja
"My mom when I was 16 and got my first PC: 'Don't put your pictures online!'"
"My mom now: 'Send me grandson pics nowww! Need new profile pic and header!!'"
– Myrmele
RIP Geocities
"Geocities web pages, made with heart, not for money."
– RaminGold
"I do miss Geocities. It was sh*t, but atleast anyone could have a web site for free hosted on a server that was relatively fast and reliable."
"Nowadays, good luck to find a good free web hosting..."
– thephantom1492
"Oh my god, my bff would purposely go to my crappy Geocities site and sign the guestbook as ridiculously over the top characters like 'Madame Consuela de Soliz-Camacho-Dubois St Bernard,' and she'd write their comments in Spanish, German, French, whatever she felt like that day."
"It was so stupid but for idiot teenagers back in the 90's, it was the height of hilarity that she could prank me without being in the same room. Good times."
– avoidance_behavior
Why Is This Phone Smart?
"Not being able to be reached 24/7."
"Remember when the only people who had cell phones or pagers were doctors and high end business professionals that NEEDED to be reached at a moments notice."
"Now, everyone is expected to be available at any time. And if you elect to stand your ground and establish a separation between work/personal life you're considered 'rude' or 'difficult to communicate with'."
– Luke5119
"Yeah, remember when you let the house phone ring during dinner?
"I remember my dad grumbling if the phone ever rang: 'It's dinner time, nobody should be calling now. Who calls during dinner?!'"
"You didn't call people's house after about 8pm either unless you knew it was okay. It was rude—that was private, home time."
– what_the_a
Buttons & Knobs & Dials
"Technology with buttons and knobs."
– Ashtar-the-Squid
"Agreed! Some things I just don’t want a touch screen for."
– Knightly-Bird
"I hate touchscreens in cars because 1) you just know they'll wear out and be expensive to replace and 2) I can't use it by feel and have to take my eyes off the road to adjust anything."
– Msktb
"Agreed! Why does my Microwave need to have touchscreen? I don't want to touch the panel with my fat butter and chips fingers. I want use the back of my hand."
– MedonSirius
"All my touchscreen appliances start to fizzle and fail pretty quickly. All the analog or mechanical ones still work from decades ago, or I can at least open them and clean some contacts."
– F*kM0reFromR
Pinball Wizard
"Arcades, I think going to arcades to play classic games or new games would be fun."
- T3Dofficial
"I miss arcades, they're still around but not as common as they once were. You could go to the mall and it had one, movie theaters would have a little arcades, there were cabinets all over.
"Now, if you find an 'arcade' it's usually prize games. Claw machines, those stacker games, etc..., you rarely find the actual video games."
- Crissxfire
Low Tech
"Appliances that didn’t have any smart features! I want a bloody fridge that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that can last 2 decades."
"I don’t want a smart fridge that dies in 5 years because a circuit board in it is destined to fail in that time frame."
- vp2008
One Stop Shopping
"Toy stores. Toys R Us died years ago, KB Toys way before that."
"We have toy sections at Walmart, Target, and others but it's not not same. Getting some birthday money and browsing an entire store with all these options."
"Way better than just looking at pictures on a site like Amazon. Shame we don't have any big chains like that anymore."
- Crissxfire
Top 10
"I miss the music charts (and if you are in the UK you will know, Top Of The Pops). They still exist, but aren’t the same now that streaming is included."
"Back then if you wanted to hear you favourite song you had to wait for it to come on the radio and record it on a tape, or find it on CD in a shop."
"Now you can listen to whatever you want whenever you want, and that’s really f'ked up the charts, and the association of particular sub cultural movements in music with a time, like grunge and Brit pop."
-
Look Forward To All Week
"Saturday morning cartoons. WB Kids, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Static Shock, Jackie Chan Adventures, you name it."
"Used to sleep over at my best friend's house on Friday nights and we'd wake up at 7 in the morning on Saturday to watch cartoons and eat pancakes. His mom would always make the pancakes small and we'd sit and brag about eating 14 pancakes."
"Brown sugar, maple syrup. By noon we were drunk on Dr. Pepper, by 2 in the afternoon we were destroying each other with Smash Bros.
"Wash, rinse, repeat. Every weekend."
- brashull
Exploration Over JFGI
"A feeling of the unexplored, of adventures."
"Is that BBQ place any good? Only way to know was to try it."
"What’s over in that neighborhood next to ours? Take a drive for yourself."
"Even wondering about facts, like when something originally happened or who did it, or the capital of Kazakhstan."
"The world felt bigger, full of unknown places, things and people."
‐ LoveSpiritual
Work/Life Separation
"The lack of expectation that your employer and coworkers are entitled to your entire life, including your web activities."
"I get labelled as 'weird' or 'secretive' because I refuse to give out any social media accounts to current co-workers. In fact, I preemptively block my coworkers' accounts if I can find them."
"You had work friends and they were just that: work friends. They knew you at work."
"If they were a truly great person you wanted in your non-work life, you invited them in."
"Now people feel entitled to your entire life just because they see you regularly."
"P.S. Make one easily found 'work' account under your legal name if you must, post nothing, say 'you have x account but you don't really use it much'."
"Set up a second account, be intentionally vague about identifiable info, NEVER mention your employer/school by name and DON'T SHARE THE ACCOUNT WITH ANYONE IN YOUR OFFLINE LIFE."
"Even if they won't intentionally give it out, the algorithms will."
- -ArtFox-
Offline Learning
"Decent offline encyclopedias and learning software."
"Encarta or another decent offline digital encyclopedia of some form would be ace even today. As soon as you've lost signal/WiFi, or out of data, your mobile phone or computer suddenly becomes a lot more useless than before."
"So if I could purchase a one time reputable program, then I could learn stuff free from the biases and distractions of the internet.
"Computers before the internet exploded, seemed to rely a hell of a lot on offline software for research purposes. So there were a lot of good ones."
"I remember there were decent bundles, so as well as Encarta 99, we also had this really cool Space educational disk."
"I suppose, technically Apps on phones could fulfill this to a degree these days. But all the ones I've used are online connected and ad-ridden."
- Quit_social_media
🎵 J - E - LL - O 🎶
"Jell-o Pudding Pops."
"They were the best thing ever!"
- hamiltd3
Nostalgia is a funny thing—we tend to romanticize our past.
If we truly went back, we'd probably discover all the things we'd miss from our future.
But we still miss a lot from the 1990s.
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