Think back to the thing you grew up with that makes you cringe now. Chances are there's plenty: My memories of the early 2000s are filled with awful oversized hoodies, Rocawear, and crappy Lifetime movies. We're not even going to mention the music or that Dungeons and Dragons film.
"What has aged well?" –– This was today's burning question from Redditor meganthekitten, who reminded us that there's actually a lot more out there that we can look back on with fondness.
"I feel like..."
I feel like the only thing in the movie Office Space that hasn't aged well is their use of floppy disk drives. Aside from that, it's still an accurate microcosm of life on a cubicle farm.
"Many pretenders..."
The word "Cool."
Many pretenders to the throne have tried to replace it such as rad, groovy, awesome, wicked, aces, tubular, lit, etc but none have passed the test of time.
"As such..."
Astronomer here! Many extremely sensitive particle experiments looking for neutrinos or dark matter will use lead ingots from Roman shipwrecks over 2,000 years ago. Why? The reason is lead has a very slight radioactivity to it that takes a few hundred years to decay. It basically never matters unless you're looking for very sensitive particles and want to cut down on false positives.
As such, the going rate for ancient lead is about 40 times that of normal lead. I always thought this was an interesting mix of old and new.
"A lot of games..."
Super Nintendo games. A lot of games from the N64 and PS1 era have aged very poorly because of the wonky controls and low polygon graphics but SNES was the peak of side scrollers. The games still look great and the controls are tight.
"The movie was funny..."
Idiocracy is more and more becoming a reality at a shockingly fast rate. The movie was funny in 2006, it's hauntingly familiar in 2019.
"Its format..."
Deep Space Nine. Its format, plot and themes were well ahead of its time, and the show is better now than it was when it originally aired.
"She turned 98..."
My grandmother. She turned 98 this weekend. She lives alone, has never been ill or had any health problems, the only med she takes is for high blood pressure. No hearing aides or anything. I went over last week to find her on a ladder cleaning the gutters on her roof.
Redditor istrx13 wanted to discuss the products that went nowhere, so they asked:
"What product was supposed to be the next big thing but wound up failing miserably?"
Life is all hit or miss.
Especially when inventing.
Transport Revolution
"The Segway was once touted as a revolutionary transportation device, but ultimately failed to live up to its hype due to its high cost, limited practicality, and safety concerns."
fulfillmen25
Drunk Fried Chicken GIF by Ethan BarnowskyGiphyShattered
"Google Glass."
doublebankshot
"I dropped I think it was $1400 on it back then, and when I got them it was immediately obvious that they were going to be a huge disappointment; everything from UI to battery life to comfort to photo quality was so bad that my first impression was that they felt almost like a joke product rather than an actual product manufactured by a tech company, not even an early developer version."
ds445
A great idea...
"Zune was supposed to be the death of Apple's monopoly on MP3 players."
HoopOnPoop
"Zune actually wasn't a bad piece of hardware. It was just that by the time it came out, iPod was already entrenched. It was around the same price, so it couldn't undercut Apple on pricing. ZunePass was actually a pretty great idea, years before Spotify."
Wulfbak
"My favorite thing about Zune is that it featured what was actually a pretty cool and interesting design feature wherein a user could send a song to another Zune user for free, but Microsoft chose the single worst possible name for this feature, calling it 'squirting.' Zune kids back in the day had to be like 'Ayyy bro that song is fire, squirt that at me.'"
HostileSkittles
Fly High
"Hoverboards. I think their primary problem was their lack of ability to hover. Also 300 ish dollars for something that goes as fast as... legs is just dumb."
IceClimbers_Main
"Their main downfall was the many, many cheap and dangerous clones from china. When the OG hoverboards were too expensive for most, the big Chinese companies saw a hole to get into the market making them for pennies on the dollar by removing safety devices, using cheaper batteries, lower gauge wire, etc. It was for the worst."
ptthree420
Entertainment Options
"Curved TVs… oh and 3D TVs we’re a thing for a while too!"
Sherlockssocks
"I own a curved 3D TV. I've probably used the 3D less than a hundred times. I think if they'd pushed the spilt screen gaming thing a bit more they would have sold more."
Signal-Morning7669
Shake Your Rump Television GIF by Beastie BoysGiphyThose curved TVs freak me out.
I just liked my DVD
"Laser discs...? I think they were called. Picture a DVD the size of a record."
Drawn-Otterix
"Laserdiscs were successful, they're just an obsolete format now."
Born_Anteater_3495
digital audio spinning GIF by Feliks Tomasz KonczakowskiGiphyCleansed
"Olestra/Olean. It was going to transform all junk food into low fat. Instead, it transformed lower GI tracts."
1800sMan
"OMG this! Around 1998 I worked for a huge ad agency on Madison Ave in NYC that had the Pringles account. They were pushing that Olestra trash at the time and obvi it was to be part of the campaign we were creating. One day I grab a can and start munching away."
"Well 15 minutes later I feel like I’ve swallowed a hand grenade and start racing to the bathroom where I proceed to destroy the bathroom for a good half hour. It just would not stop. I swear I saw a demon that day while emptying my poor bowels. Never ever again with that Olestra garbage."
bruh_wut69
Guess What?
"Oh man this is really specific to my career field in childcare."
"Smart diapers. Yep, diapers that will inform you on your app when your child uses them. I don’t know anyone who seriously considered getting these. But I remember seeing ads on my social media for them. Guess what? No one wanted them."
Onlyfansnanny
"As a law student, my son worked on getting the patent and prototype on these a little over ten years ago. At the time, however, they were being marketed to nursing homes. IDK whatever happened with that."
Ok-Bee1579
The Mess
"Meta."
SuperScario
"I finally decided to look up what meta was on Youtube a few months ago and I swear I thought I was watching some Nintendo wii game or something. My jaw hit the floor when I realized that's what meta actually looked like, billions of dollars for a Nintendo looking world, what a f**king dumpster fire."
twister55555
Bute Sized
"Quibi."
chyna094e
"Part of it was the worst timing imaginable. The service was meant to be 'bite sized' entertainment, something you could watch in 5 minutes while standing in a queue or maybe a couple segments on a public transit ride."
"They launched the first week of April 2020. Remember all the queues you were standing in and public transit rides you took then? Yeah, the same as everyone else - NONE because 95% of the population was stuck at home for 6 months!"
alinroc
Minis...
"Spore. It was hyped as a game that went from spark of life to galactic conquest. It's just a bunch of mini games."
rosanymphae
College Hoops Sport GIF by NCAA March MadnessGiphyI missed the spore phenomenon.
Oh well.
Redditor Hot_Wine_2004 wanted to hear from the guys out there, so they asked:
"Men of reddit, what would be your response to a guy who suddenly starts flirting with your girl?"
I've always let a partner handle their own flirts.
Just like I do.
Thanks
"Had a guy buy our margaritas when my GF ordered them for us at the counter. I thanked him from across the restaurant, free margaritas taste better."
whiskeyriver0987
Episode 2 Margarita GIF by FriendsGiphySweet
"I’d step in and say something. Not because I feel I need to or because my wife can’t handle herself, but because I know her and she likes the feeling of being looked after. I know this because she’s told me."
Psycle_Sammy
"That’s very sweet. Just because you can stand strong doesn’t mean you should always have to. It’s good to know you have backup whether that’s your friends or your husband."
mickbubbles
Give Move Guy
"My wife had a guy offer to buy her drink and when she said she was married he said something to the effect of 'Then let me buy the lucky man his drink instead.' Which I thought was a great way to handle it, and gets you a bar friend most of the time since the guy gets a free drink, and if he is jealous or protective will respond better because he didn't buy her a drink after all."
WurthWhile
I Get It
"Nothing, She is beautiful and I get it. When she shoots them down and they keep trying is when I would step in because its harassments at that point and that is a problem."
To_Fight_The_Night
"Exactly. I had a customer invite my wife on a helicopter ride the other day, totally trying to chat her up. When he asked what she did there she just pointed at me and said 'I’m just hanging out, I’m married to him.' You could see him deflate like a balloon."
Nippon-Gakki
"Yep. My wife's a grown adult and can handle her own."
Kiss my Wife
"I looked at the dude and said 'sorry dude you are not my sister's type' then I immediately kiss my wife. We are both blonde so people think we are related all the time lol."
sled-gang
Let Me Go Love GIF by 3 Doors DownGiphyKeeping it in the family is healthy.
Hey Stud
"Ask him if he’s down for a 3 way to make him uncomfortable."
Smellmyhand
"Plot twist - dude is bi and is totally down for that."
RandomJPG6
Ice Cream Summer GIF by MochimochilandGiphyShe Got It
"I once let my girlfriend handle a situation on her own, and the thing I learned in the process is that it takes a woman a lot more work to deter an aggressive guy."
"As soon as I stepped in, Handsy McNoboundaries apologized to me. Not the stranger whose a** he touched and complimented. She absolutely could handle the situation on her own, and my first impulse was not to treat her like a possession some other guy was touching. But on some level it feels I was condoning the behaviour."
ClusterMakeLove
Trust
"My wife constantly gets hit on.I don't care if men hit on her. I trust her completely and have since the start she has never given me a reason not to trust her."
"When we used to goto the bar together she would get hit on. Guy's would offer to buy her drinks, she would always tell them my drink of choice."
"After she gets the drinks she would thank them walk away then hand the drink to me."
"If people don't respect her boundaries that's where I step in. We have never had any bad experiences with men hitting on her. Normally once they see her with me they basically just walk away."
Islefive
They Get the Idea
"It depends on the situation. Most the time I think good luck man, hope she doesn’t embarrass you. I know she’s coming home with me at the end of the day."
"If the guy is obviously creepy and making her uncomfortable, I typically step in and make sure he gets the point."
"I’m not a small guy so they usually get the idea."
"I don’t really care for confrontation or violence, but with that said, I won’t tolerate someone harassing my wife or making her uncomfortable."
assa9sks
Beautiful
"My wife is gorgeous in my eyes, but she is incredibly hard on herself. After kids, antidepressants, and being 20 years older than she was when we started dating she doesn’t always see that she’s the most beautiful person for me. Someone else gonna start talking her up and wants to get in her pants? I’d just tell her I told you so."
fuqaduck
beautiful happy endings GIFGiphyThe ladies got it handled and so do the men apparently.
