The world is ever-changing.
One need only look at the evolution of home entertainment.
First, we had to go to the video store to buy or rent video cassettes, then video cassettes were wiped out by DVDs until video stores became obsolete owing to streaming services.
Making the one-season failure of the Netflix series Blockbuster painfully ironic.
However, those of us who grew up rushing to Blockbuster, hoping the last copy of Jurassic Park will still be there, can't help but wish we could relive the experience.
On the other hand, we are glad to see other things from our childhood have become extinct.
Redditor AnalysisFrequent was curious to hear about things that people used to see all the time in their childhood which have all but vanished leading them to ask:
"What was normal when you were a kid, but you never see anymore?"
Honestly... Rude then, Rude Now!
"Showing up to someone’s house without a text or call."- lpkrew
Walking In Season 2 GIF by FriendsGiphyBefore There Was Bluetooth...
"Cassette tape innards strung out along the highway, glimmering in the sunlight."- bigolfurryhead
No More Second Hand Smoke!
"Parents smoking in a car with kids with the windows rolled up."- WonderfulEmergency77
"Everybody smoked everywhere. At restaurants, the office, airports, everywhere."
"There's a picture of my grandma holding me as a baby in one hand and a cigarette in the other."
"Nobody thought that was the least bit strange."- MeghanFI
mothers day smoking GIFGiphyNow We Have Google!
"Using a set of 20 y/old encyclopedias as reference for my homework."
"JFK is president!"- ResplendentAmore
It Got Them Off Shelves...
"Toys in the cereal box"- NightDreamer73
How Sad...
"Fruit bats."
"There used to be a *ton* of them in my neighborhood as a kid and every evening you could look at the sunset as twilight set in and see flocks of bats flying around."
"Apparently, around the time I was in middle school, a fungal disease ravaged the local bat population and they never recovered."
"You never see them anymore."
"Funnily enough though, at the time, a local high school girl had this huge campaign to set up bat feeders to help bolster the local bat population and help them survive the fungal disease by giving them easy access to food."
"Said local girl has since become a federal Park Ranger as an adult and currently works for a state fish and wildlife service."- DoctorWatchamacallit
Now They'll Just Send Them A Text...
"Moms yelling from the front door to their kids to come home for dinner."- sflogicninja
Depending On Your Circle
"People talking about the Bermuda Triangle."- GarconMeansBoyGeorge
Best Not To Give Them Bad Ideas
"Candy Cigarettes."- Mechhammer
They're a dying breed indeed...
"Pay phones and answering machines."- Mondayslasagna
phone call mall GIF by South Park GiphyEven Printers Are Uncommon, Thanks to PDFs...
"Computer paper filled with lightly printed numbers and it had tear-off sides."
"My dad used to bring lots of it home for us kids to draw on."- reverendgrebo
...what were you watching?...
"Quicksand in movies and TV shows."- kzab81
Well That's Poignant
"Fireflies."
'I swear I saw them every year, in our back yard or when we went camping etc."
"Now I never see them no matter where I am, except for a few nights in the summer of '21 after I moved to a new house."
"It was so nice to see them again."- ModernCivilWar
North America Lights GIF by BBC AmericaGiphySadly, Not Because People Started Reading Maps...
"Printing out directions from Map Quest."- Keone_710
To think there was actually a time when we couldn't say "I'll text again when I'm close" and had to ask a friend to record a movie or tv show we wanted to watch.
Simpler times...
Redditor fire-lord-momo wanted to discuss the movies we thought would never end, so they asked:
"What film made you say: 'Holy sh*t, there is still 50 minutes left?'"
I have a long list films that knocked me into slumber.
"The Talented Mr. Ripley."
Good Lord.
Speed Up
Ben Affleck Reaction GIFGiphy"Pearl Harbor. There's the climactic attack on Pearl Harbor. It's explosive and tragic. So many people getting hurt and killed. And then... the movie slows down. And keeps going. For another hour. UGH."
Snoo-35252
The Who is Coming?
"The Sound of Music. They get married and I said 'that was a nice ending' and my wife says “the Nazis haven’t arrived.'"
Davicitorra
"Some people didn’t realize that The Sound of Music had an intermission. They only watched half the movie."
Booklady1998
"There was a great story where they interviewed someone that grew up with only the first VHS. Thought that was the movie. Had zero clues."
"So they asked her to guess the plot, and watch it again. As a kid, literally she didn't notice that the mail man was a Nazi soldier. Just a nice boy! She is sixteen going on seventeen, he's just a cute mailman!"
"So upon watching as an adult... Think it was an NPR story, fun to listen to."
"I definitely didn't catch EVERYTHING as a kid."
ShameOnAnOldDirtyB
Not Him
"I have the opposite problem with David Lynch projects, you realize there's ten minutes left, and there's no way he's going to wrap this up in that time and have it make sense, unless he comes out right now and reads it to you. But I always come back for more, like a victim of confused abuse."
Guvnuh_T_Boggs
"I never assume I will fully comprehend any David Lynch film ever, even after the 20th re-watch, without looking up additional theories online."
desrever1138
He Left
"Gladiator made me say 'holy sh*t, there is only 50 minutes left. He enters the Coliseum in second half of the movie. I felt like it had just started."
Heath_co
"Gladiator the movie ended after the first 10 minutes of the movie. The battle sequence at the start was awesome. A shame the rest of the movie was such a disappointment with such poor pacing, dialogue and the only action we see after that is the weak sword fight with his rival the senator at the end."
pm_a_stupid_question
Sink Already
kate winslet GIFGiphy"Titanic, when you put that second tape in the VCR."
Hot_Task1408
"According to my mother, about 30 minutes in, I loudly asked when the boat was gonna sink. I was 5 years old."
Idontcareboutyou
The ship sunk faster in real life.
Bizarre
I Feel It Coming Daft Punk GIF by The WeekndGiphy"Daft Punk’s Electroma. Good freaking God, it was like a solid hour of a robot walking through the desert."
Girhinomofe
"Hahaha yes, and I LOVE daft punk. That crap was excruciating even by French film standards."
Lord-of-the-junk
Merry Christmas
"Full Metal Jacket. In an excellent way."
masma1313
"When I was a kid, my family used to watch this on LaserDisc. I think it's the only movie we had that you not only had to flip the disc, but there was a second disc. I'm pretty sure the multiple intermissions are why it was our family Christmas movie, although my dad claims it's because they sing Happy Birthday to Jesus."
Quizzical_Kumquat
"Full Metal Jacket, the Family Christmas movie that everyone will love."
palesnowrider1
BOMBS AWAY!
"Transformers: Age of Extinction, that movie was so awful I never even finished it."
EliseOvO
"My husband won free tickets. We went to the cinema together. I was actually enjoying it, I found the whole thing ridiculous and not-believable but I enjoyed myself. Then there was a loooooong time of explosions. And then the movie ended, I thought. I was like, great, 90 mins is a good length for a movie."
"And then they went to f**king China, and it took another hour to end. It was so incredibly boring which could all be avoided if they just cut it off at 90 minutes."
Toiletdisco
Hey Jimmy
"The Irishman 3.5 hour run time was a little long for one sitting."
firecow745
"I felt The Irishman was too long until I finished it. The whole thing builds up to an ending is such a gut punch. I'm not sure there's much you could cut that wouldn't take away from the weight of that ending. Definitely hard to finish in one sitting though."
xpinballwizard
"Came here to find this. I knew the film dealt with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. Jimmy Hoffa 'disappears' and there is still an hour to go."
Max_Rocketanski
Boring Adam
Dc Blackadam GIF by Warner Bros. DeutschlandGiphy"Black Adam. I know it was only 2 hours, but to me it felt so much longer."
Logical_Garlic_4548
"My husband and I thought the same thing. I paused it saying God d*mn how much longer do we have? And then saw it was two hours total. Felt like a glitch in the matrix or some crap."
*itchfacevulture
Some movies really need better editors.
Redditor mymiddlenameswyatt wanted to hear about all of the famous people run-ins we've had, so they asked:
"Who's the most famous person you've ever met?"
I once hit LL Cool J with a video camera while being an extra on set. And nobody could've been kinder.
He just laughed it off. Thanks LL.
Sporty Harry
Daniel Radcliffe Chaos GIF by The Roku ChannelGiphy"Daniel Radcliffe worked out at my universities rec center for about a month because his girlfriend used to work at the rec back in her college days. They were in town visiting her family."
Shadow948
Let's Bolly...
"My wife was a PA on a Bollywood movie filming in Chicago years ago. I met this dude Amir Khan at a party and he ended up inviting me over to his temporary condo a bunch to basically be his drinking buddy. I think he enjoyed the fact that I didn't really appreciate how famous he was and just talked to him like a normal guy, because he's basically like the Tom Cruise of India."
mustardtruck
My Favorite
"Ringo Starr. He and his wife were my passengers on a flight many years ago. They were both awesome!"
MizzyvonMuffling
"Ringo will always be my favorite Beatle. Not because of anything in real life but in this weird a** druggie movie featuring the Beatles there was this weird looking guy and Ringo was the only one who wanted to be his friend."
master_a_skywalker69
Sir Yes Sir
"I met Tom Cruise way back in the Days of Thunder era when I worked event security. I was 19 he was easily the most recognizable famous person I'd dealt with and was a fan of at the time. I kept calling him Sir while escorting him to the sky box at a stadium. He told me if I called him Sir one more time he was going to deck me."
"To which I immediately said 'Yes Sir, Tom Sir, sorry Sir, sorry tom, Sir Tom, sorry' he stopped gave me a tap on my shoulder flashed that smile and laughed his a** off. Somewhere I have a autograph he had passed back to me addressed to sir from Sir."
tdasnowman
HOLLER!!
Carol Burnett GIF by Golden GlobesGiphy"Carol Burnett. I even asked her to do the Tarzan yell, and she did!"
MacduffFifesNo1Thane
"That's awesome. I've always liked her but that definitely moves the peg up the board."
tacknosaddle
I love Carol. How could one not?
I Know
Happy Star Wars GIFGiphy"I met Carrie Fisher at Comic Con once. She gave me a big hug and I told her I loved her. She said, 'I know.' I got to pet her dog."
floydfan
On the Job
"Alice Cooper at the Quiznos I was working at."
"The woman he was with wanted a sandwich. But he only wanted to empty our cookie rack. He got like 10-12 of em lol."
"Apparently I just missed Stephen King one day at another job."
"And I worked on Halle Barry's garage door once. But she wasn't even in town at the time."
boogers19
The Good Guy
"Kobe was a regular at a restaurant I worked at. He was super nice and very engaging. It was a counter service place, which usually had a line out the door on weekends. He would sign autographs and take pictures with anyone who asked while he waited in line. I once offered to bring his food out to the back door so he didn't have to deal with all the fans. He declined, said it was all part of the job, basically. Super good dude, so sad he is gone."
Dad2DnA
Mr. Generous
"Ben Affleck... I met him like 10 years in Las Vegas. He came up to the bar and just sit down right beside me. We talked for a few minutes. He was asking me about what I was studying in college. I never let on that I knew who he was. He got up and told me to keep being kind to people and study hard and get that degree. When I got up to leave the bartender told me that Mr. Affleck paid for my drinks. Super nice guy.
Content_Pool_1391
So Professional
rocky balboa win GIF by RockyGiphy"Sylvester Stallone. Due to the circumstance I had to pretend it was totally normal to be chatting with Rocky. He was very chill and professional, and he acted as though he didn't know he was 10000x richer and more famous than anyone else on that set."
Phormicidae
Famous people... they're just like us. Well, mostly!
Do you have any amazing experiences to share? Let us know in the comments.
