So weird to see this! I know this was 25 years ago but that really doesn’t seem that long ago. Cell phones did exist but not as walking miniature laptops and no social media. I miss this sometimes.
Problem is to get this scene back everyone around you also has to choose to put away their phones and quit social media, not just you.
It's never coming back.
In The Netherlands mobile phones are forbidden in school (since January) and the dynamic changed at school. Students are talking with each other and play games together. Just like in the 90’s.
I can't upvote you enough. I teach and I usually keep a low profile/don't make waves, but I'm seriously thinking about advocating for this big time. It's out of control. I asked my principal what we should do and he said: "We lost that battle."
There was a pay phone outside of the office in my middle school. We used to call collect and say our message really fast and you’d wait until they got the message before hanging up.
Totally agree and they said the same thing about calculators back in the day thought they would ruin learning, but really it's about how you use the tools. Plus not having phones might actually force kids to deal with boredom creatively, could be a little bump in innovation by forcing em to look up from screens.
That’s amazing, I hope more places begin to implement this. Phones were banned usually when they first came out and I think schools just gave up trying to enforce it
They're trying to do it right now in Quebec, but I don't think people are going to roll over easy on this one. There's an awful lot of debate over something that seems commonsense to me.
This right here. Even just chilling with your friends like watching a movie or playing casual board games, even when I make it a point to not be on my phone everyone else is and it just makes me sad how disengaged we are from even passive activities with people who are present.
The best part of being a teenager in the 90's for me was a little more than that. Because practically no one had a cell phone, no one *could* call you when you were out and you couldn't call anyone else. No texts. You could be completely unreachable by just being... out.
It was the ultimate freedom and as well added a bit of a feeling of adventure to life. My parents might not have known where I was for days at a time. I didn't know all the intimate details of everyone's personal lives from social media so we had shit to talk about.
Lots of rose coloured bias I'm sure.
When you could spend an hour trying to figure out who was the guy in that movie?! You know, the guy with the hair? I'll call Jim, he would know because we saw it together. Ah, shit, he's not home. No, I know it wasn't that guy. No, I KNOW it wasn't him...
The thing that annoys me the most is some people’s absolute refusal to put it away and in some cases be angry that you are asking politely for them to give you attention rather than the phone.
I remember going on a date and the girl found it almost impossible to talk to me without having the phone in her hand, it’s just another level of obsession, and the sad thing is that I am sure at a certain age group that is totally acceptable and normal. I would be the rude one asking them to stop.
But yeah, I seriously miss a time when a phone was just a phone. The world seemed bigger, more mysterious and exciting, social interactions felt more special and it did not infect my life as it does now.
I'm in the same boat. Well, moreso the last part. Lately I've been bored out of my mind looking through my phone, and whenever I put it down, I'm like, "this is so much better. Why didn't I do this sooner?"
Partially because every app is designed to keep you on it as long as possible. Between bright colors, rage bait, and endless scrolling, it's a slot machine for the brain.
I do digital breaks every now and then. Take a full day off from screens (other than tv/movies). It’s lovely. Every time I enjoy it. But I don’t do it nearly often enough.
It’s so weird knowing I’ll enjoy it and still not just doing it. lol
Same. Xer here. I don't hate computers. I hate the fact your always connected and portable in a pocket. We have turned into zombies who can't live the moment
I graduated HS in 99 and am upset that I feel like a crotchety old man when I get irrationally angry at people with their phones out recording at events. Lol
I miss it too sometimes. Everyone was more in the moment. You were entertained by talking to your friends and doing things. Staring at a TV or computer wasn't cool. People weren't always looking to see what everyone else was doing. You were either at the spot, or you weren't. Maybe you'd page a few friends to tell them where to meet. If not, you'd drive to their house to see if they were home. You made the best of every hang out and didn't resort to just staring at a device. We were disconnected. We didn't have instant updates about everything going on in the world. If some war was going on in Ukraine, we didn't care. It didn't effect us. You could logon to the internet on your home PC and maybe get some updated news or turn on cable TV news.....but that wasn't what the younger people were doing. They were outside living life.
As much as a phone and the internet has a ton of great benefits I'd hate to lose....it really has screwed up our society. I'd be fine going back to 1999. Very limited use of cell phones. No social media sites. No instant attachment to everything/everyone.
You're joking, right? Half of "hanging out with friends" was watching MTV or listening to the radio. Hell, in 95 I was having friends over to pile around the computer and we'd go into chat rooms and surf the internet all night. And who the fuck didn't call their friends house before driving over? That's just dumb as shit.
That's the one good thing about the internet. The information. I want to know about a war going on in Ukraine. My mum always says to me "if we didn't have the internet we wouldn't know about all that" and she means that would be good but I think of it the opposite way. Social media and our reliance on the internet is the bad part - the "convenience" that has now become required. But the knowledge is something I would really miss if we suddenly didn't have the internet.
People knew about wars before social media...
You'd get a paper delivered to your doorstep every morning with big headlines, you'd have CNN and the evening news (which, at the time, A TON of people watched). You just didn't get bombarded about it nonstop.
It's wild to think about how fortunate we truly were. I was born in 1985, I feel like I really got a great deal of being able to experience the last decade prior to the tech boom. I still think the millennial age gap seems too wide, I don't think a lot of people born in the mid-90s would even remember a world without the internet.
Fellow '85er and often think about those last few years. How much anticipation there was for dial-up, DSL, pre-paid 3210s. And then how fast everything happened. The way we talked with our friends and family completely changed every 6-12 months for a while.
For me, the big thing about our era (say born '83-'87) is how this rolled-out right as we were coming of age. The change on the outside ramped-up right as we were going through the biggest changes on the inside. Looking back it's so difficult to parse what disorientation was caused by tech vs. us losing the naive innocence of starting to adult.
> I don't think a lot of people born in the mid-90s would even remember a world without the internet.
I'm nearly a decade younger and the internet has existed for as long as I remember, but it was a soft presence in our lives growing up - an occasional tool you'd use to read newsletters, video game hints and encyclopaedia entries, with the odd simple flash game thrown in. It started only really getting more and more intrusive after the social media / smartphone boom of around 2010, in my opinion.
Yes. I count my blessings often that smart phones weren't a thing until I was in my early 20s. I think I was about the last generation that had a childhood without them.
There are numerous reasons for why I feel this way:
1. I could do stupid stuff and not worry about it going viral.
2. We did stuff all the time. None of our time was wasted looking at a screen. Yes we had TV but there was no streaming or binge watching things. So we never wasted a minute of our time scrolling through (mostly shit) videos and ads.
3. When I didn't know something as a child (which was very often) I usually had to wonder about it for a long time and ask people around me etc. until the answer would be revealed to me randomly through a book or TV or school or life experience. Now when I don't know something I Google it and I have the answer (which is cool but it makes me think about how all that wondering about stuff may have helped my development and shaped me as a person).
To name a few.
Absolutely agree. My teenage years were filled with a lot of fuckery I would never want cataloged. There's a lot of stuff kids have to deal with these days that have made them grow up way too quickly, in my opinion. I feel like I was still able to be a kid and experience the innocence that comes with it. I didn't get a phone until 18, a Nokia 3310 with the good ole T9 texting system! It baffles me that children have unregulated access to tthe internet because their parents gave them an iPhone at 8.
Google has been a great tool, but like any tool, used in the wrong ways it can do massive damage. I truly think instant information has done a world of good, but I also think it's created a large drift away from critical thinking and developing problem-solving skills for a many people in recent years.
As someone who graduated high school in '94 I feel like I fit this demographic. With that said, some of the most fun nights I had as a teen and early 20 something started by wandering through a video store, finding something we had never seen or heard of, renting it, picking up food and beer, heading to someone's house as a group, and then watching the movie and hanging out. It wasn't a wild party or anything, but even our screentime was in-person socializing.
I got my first cell phone when I was 16 in 2001 because my mom wanted me to be able to call if my ‘95 2-door Yukon with 100,000 miles on it broke down anywhere between the 72 mile trips to Houston and back that I had to take 4 times a week. I was the first in my class to get a cell phone (also I’m a September birthday, so might add to it).
Cell phones were definitely around, but not many high school kids had them depending on where you were growing up.
Anytime we go for a walk or hike or pretty much do anything, my wife has to take pictures. My oldest and I get frustrated and say, well time for another photo shoot….
Then she gets mad 😁
grew up in the 70s. we were feral. but some things never change -- back then the lament was kids were too glued to the tv. probably true, but I guess at least we couldn't carry it with us when we got kicked out of the house by annoyed moms.
We're the Dazed and Confused parents now, not the highschool kids. DEALWITHIT.
It's cool though - being old actually doesn't necessarily suck. Like yeah my 1999 was great but my 1997 sucked. My 2023 was awesome, 2022 was bleh.
Rose tinted glasses and all but damn growing up in the 90s early 00s was great. Gaming was getting better, the alt scene was epic, and no smart phones.
Yea, the tech advancement was so rapid and everything new had actual new functions etc. as a bit of a tech nerd I loved it. Also music videos on MTV, then came MSN etc
I read an article recently talking about how millennials, overall, have a better grasp on how to use new technologies and can adapt more quickly to changes in tech compared to Gen Z. It stated that because we grew up when tech was changing so rapidly, we just evolved with it and had to learn new systems constantly, whereas the tech in the last decade and a half has been so stagnant that most Gen Z struggles with changes, comparatively
Not to mention the amount of trouble-shooting you had to do to get computers to function properly back in the day.
Nowadays when cell phones and iPads stop working correctly, the answer 99% of the time is. “That sucks guess you have to buy a new one now.”
I feel like with AI chat the upcoming generation is really going to become even more reliant on technology and not self sufficient. Like even now most college students I know coast away making their assignments with Chat GPT - and that's when the thing is both new and honestly, still shitty.
Just imagine 10 years from now, the generation that grew up with AI and will actually have super powerful and reliable versions of it... They won't do shit on their own lol
Wild how we went from cassette players, to cd players, to mp3 players, to just phones as far as portable music goes in the span of 20 years, but we cant find anything to top smartphones. Hard to beat everything in one place lol.
I feel like that's a definite double edged sword.
There were good things that I miss. But watching my kids grow up with society being more sensitive to social issues like bullying and bigotry has been eye opening. The amount of casual discrimination and marginalization we did back then has been good to surface and start addressing.
Dude I was just thinking about this not too long ago. Remember when “f-ggot” or “r-tard* were just completely normal and acceptable words? It actually kind of makes me cringe now to look back on how we used to talk back in the early 2000’s. If I heard my son saying those words now I would lose my fucking mind on him.
At the same time though I feel like our generation deserves some credit for adapting to social change. There were generations before us that lived through the civil rights movement and stayed racist pieces of shit until the day they died.
We had the ability to change, and influenced those that came after us, is how I like to see it. I spent 5 years in boarding school, so to be seen as gay was to worse thing you could be. Still, we were far more considerate than previous generations, and I expect coming generations will be more so.
I think back to how I'd get dropped off for Warped Tour, with a group of friends, no cell phone, a couple quarters for an emergency. Some cash for food and drinks. And a deal with the folks to meet back RIGHT HERE at 5pm. And off we went. You lost the group? Get fucked lmao 😂 be at meetup at 5pm. We were lawless! Weightless! I envy that some days. This damn phone is metaphorically heavy AF.
I remember being 17 and going to Disney with my parents and my sister (who was 16).
Sister and I went off on our own to do what we wanted and my parents went in another direction.
No phones. Had cash and our hotel room cards.
The only two rules were no leaving the specific park we were in and meet back at *specific location* at *specified time*.
This was in 2000.
Oh you were fancy with calling cards LMAO I was stuck doing the 1-800-collect "momcomegetmenow" which always leads me to remember the "wehadababyitsaboy" commercial 😂💀
I believe calling cards were for emergencies, and quarters (then quarters + dimes), were the first line of defense. 1-800-collect was last resort.
I also randomly remember that commercial often🤣🤣🤣
Right? I have a 19 year old (who I’ve had to learn to let go of, she’s an adult) and a 15 year old who go out. It’s really stressful and I have ability to track them and they have phones with them 24/7. AND my 15 year old is in the same 3 places all the time so I could find him. Yet yesterday I couldn’t track him and I got so nervous.
I know it’s stupid. I feel so stupid. Because like you, I had all that freedom. I could roam the city. Why am I so paranoid now?
Kids not home? Outta sight outta mind. Nothing you can do so no point in worrying til they are late. Nowadays you can do something. Constant text, phone calls, constantly looking where they are.
Its much easier to feed the worry nowadays.
Millenial here, this was me circa 2008, I was like 16-17 and all I had a flip phone for an emergency (cuz you had to pay for minutes still I think) and I had a blast at Warped Tour. Good times.
Oh god I’m 32 and reminiscing on old school cool…
I need a moment
I remember 2004 coachella, I was 16 and went with my sister. We got dropped off. Exactly as you said. My sister and I got in a fight and separated and remained separated for the entire festival LOL it was a fun adventure
Right, go to any tailgate or obviously social event and most everyone is in the moment playing a game, getting drinks, cooking stuff, or hanging out with the group next to you. Sure, phones suck and everyone now has undiagnosed ADD/ADHD, but if at a social event, people still interact with each other and phone use is minimal. People use their phones when they are bored or the current external stimulus isn't hitting that dopamine trigger, so they pull their phones out. So make the moment fun and people will put their phones down and connect.
I truly believe we all have undiagnosed ADD, but first step is realizing how addicted you are to constant entertainment/stimulus-seeking and you can start to mediate in your own mind and take steps to improve your behavior. This tailgate doesn't look much different than a tailgate in today's world. If it's a boring tailgate, then sure, phones will come out. It's a fun tailgate, phone will stay in my pocket.
ADD is one of the most over diagnosed disorders. We don't all have it, people think just because they have a hard time focusing at work or school that means they have it. That's not how it works.
The older millennials had it good because they grew up with computers and technology but before the advent of ubiquitous personal devices and social media. I feel like we saw both sides of that inflection point and a good age to appreciate what it was like before while learning skills that allowed them to fully engage in the modern economy as well.
Downside is literally every milestone has had something awful? Going to college? 9/11! Out of college? Economic collapse (one of three!) on your feet and starting a family? Pandemic time baby!!!
It’s been fun!
Historically I think it's one of the more interesting generations. Old enough to remember what it was like to live as an adult without a cel phone at all, no less a smart phone, but young enough to be able to seamlessly adapt to it once it was unleashed.
You just gotta look for what it is about right now that we’ll be missing in 10-15 years. There is absolutely a thing or two and it’s just as big and so obvious we don’t notice it right out.
Yeah... I really do miss just experiencing things with the people around me. Now it seems like everyone is so worried about capturing these snapshots in time and framing them for their social media ... And honestly for what? Do people go back and look at them again? My wife does the timehop thing and I guess it's kinda interesting but I'm generally just not interested.
I feel a little bit like we're living in a crazy dystopia where our attention is the most valuable asset in existence these days and we're constantly being milked for it by the social media platforms. And they're so god damned ingenious that they've tricked us into generating the content they need to do it.
And here I am posting a comment on Reddit perpetuating it, which I can't even begin to reconcile what that means about me. Shit is fucking wild man.
My dad was always carrying around a camera and extra film. He had boxes and boxes of photos. Before he died, he went through them all and sent me and my sister tons of them. I went through them and remembered many of places, events, and people.
My wife is constantly taking pictures on her phone, posting many on FB.
Me? I do neither. I tried getting into film photography like my dad, but didn't. I tried getting into digital photography when film died out, but really didn't get into it then either. I tried getting into social media and taking pics on my phone, and I just can't get into it.
It's not about looking back at the pictures/video. I think it's more because social media has created this strong desire (almost a NEED for many) to project this happy eventful life into the social media world.
It's not enough to go see this awesome band that you love. You have to tell the world that you were there. YOU were one of the person at this awesome show. People need to know that you were there.
>I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering.
>The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this -- the peak of your civilization.
>I say *your* civilization, because as soon as we started thinking for you, it really became *our* civilization, which is of course what this is all about.
I notice at any event with a DJ, everyone just stands around staring at the DJ or recording them...I remember when the DJ was a nerdy kid hidden in the back or up in an inaccessible DJ booth giving us songs to dance to.
Right? I mean, sure, some people are on their phones. But to act like everyone at a party is just staring down at their phone is so out of touch it's ridiculous lol.
Love all the chronically online people in the comments complaining about people being addicted to their phones when parties in real life still look like this.
Same here. Before we became cogs in the corporate and social media circle jerk wheel works, life was certainly not perfect but it was damn good to be young for most of us at the time. Guess every generation can say that to some degree though. But yea, I missed the 90s
My buddies all say it’s such a good thing we didn’t have the ability to record all the dumb shit we did. Yeah camcorders were a thing but we couldn’t afford those and bulky as hell. Miss those days man. Maybe I’ll hit up a 90s bar tonight.
If you want to trip out, look at train pictures from 100 years ago. Everyone was reading the newspaper, nobody was talking to each other. Time is a flat circle.
Man... internet, smartphones and social media were a mistake. Internet istself is world changing and we are only seeing the beginning of it... that shit is only like 25-30 years old...
Imagine if life randomly went back to this stage...like if the internet just crashed and was inoperable (even for a month). I know it sounds far fetched, but with how interconnected everything is these days, I wonder and worry about how it would be if our modern technology didn't serve its purpose.
so many dudes in the 90s looked exactly like that guy in the yellow backwards hat who gave the thumbs up. it’s funny. i’m not even just talking about their style i’m talking their physical characteristics
I miss the 90s!!! Best time ever to be coming of age. We had a ball, unsupervised, untracked, figuring it out as we went. You still had to approach someone you were interested in and talk to them. You weren’t always reachable and could disappear when you wanted or needed to. No cell phones yet we still all managed to figure out when and where the party was at. I swear our communication was light years better than it is now and because we had to talk to each other you learned how to do so in a civilized manner because you weren’t hiding behind a computer screen. I fear for the future of our society because once us Gen Xers are gone no one will be left to remember life as it was before all the completely invasive tech that permeates our lives.
Ragebait title
Tbh I doubt people are standing around on their phones non-stop at a College Football tailgate today... Some people, sure. But it wouldn't be a quiet parking lot with people looking down JFC
I went to school less than a decade ago and it was pretty similar to this scene still..
A lot of people here have just never been in a party atmosphere and it shows. Acting like this doesn’t happen anymore because they don’t witness it as a 43-year old introvert
Yeah, this post has the sole purpose of attracting the "the old days were better!" crowd so they can once again proclaim that they were the last ones to live life to the fullest and complain about how everyone is only om their phone nowadays, can't think for themselves and bla, bla, bla.
I also graduated less than 10 years ago and it was pretty much the same vibe as in the video.
If everyone around you is always on their phone, maybe it's because you bore them to death.
A lot of understimulated brains here. You can see it in their eyes, the ability to think about nothin because often there is nothing to think about. Good times. And boring. Also beers.
I loved when world was much bigger place in the 90s.
Now it's very small, globalized, I am everywhere at once and talk to everyone at once. I am overstimulated af. Even writing this, I am watching yt vid a the same time....
Stop multi tasking.
Do not text and watch videos at the same time.
That is your first step towards recovery from the “frictionless” tech that is destroying your ability to process the world around you.
I graduated HS a decade earlier in 89 and honestly it was a much more connected social environment than we have now with everything being a second or third hand consuming experience online.
The days of hopping on a bike or in a vehicle to go head out and see what was going on and then recounting or embellishing the tales of activity the next week via narrative vice recordings on a phone.
There was a lot to be said to being somewhat ignorant of all the worlds problems and growing up without the manufactured social media stressors.
I do appreciate concerts and other performances banning cellphone usage during the performances.
We teased the kid that filmed a plastic bag in the wind who called it "the most beautiful thing I've ever filmed" now we've all become that kid.
God I miss those days. College block parties. Drunkenly walking to quik pita for a shish tawook with a side of their amazing French fries. Parties at the dorm that had rooftop apartments with a view of the river nearby. Dancing and grinding, to Next - Too Close, and laughing when she says “I feel a little pole coming thru, on youuu” 😂
This is like when I describe the 80's to someone younger and they say it sounds boring then you show them footage of concerts and big parties back then and they are like holy shit that looks fun why don't we do it anymore and you just want to scream.
I’m from 1981 and I watched humanity being kidnapped by gigantic corporations and humans turned into slaves by them given a device that would screw your eyes, your mind and turn you into a phat zombie with no human interactions anymore. The time before smartphones was the best ever. Everything and everyone were much more interesting. It creeps me out to imagine what is coming. The Matrix movie is becoming real.
So weird to see this! I know this was 25 years ago but that really doesn’t seem that long ago. Cell phones did exist but not as walking miniature laptops and no social media. I miss this sometimes.
I miss this more every day. I'm on my phone and here on reddit a lot and I think my life would be much healthier and better without it!
Problem is to get this scene back everyone around you also has to choose to put away their phones and quit social media, not just you. It's never coming back.
In The Netherlands mobile phones are forbidden in school (since January) and the dynamic changed at school. Students are talking with each other and play games together. Just like in the 90’s.
“But what if the parents need to get ahold of them!?” They call the damn office like before. Ya, phones have no business in school.
I can't upvote you enough. I teach and I usually keep a low profile/don't make waves, but I'm seriously thinking about advocating for this big time. It's out of control. I asked my principal what we should do and he said: "We lost that battle."
> I asked my principal what we should do and he said: "We lost that battle." The easiest way to lose the battle is to completely surrender
To be fair. I think the default school administration response to every conflict with parents is to immediately surrender. Bullying, phones, grades…
go to Six Flags (amusement park) "be back at this gate by 6pm, here's $20, see ya later"
There was a pay phone outside of the office in my middle school. We used to call collect and say our message really fast and you’d wait until they got the message before hanging up.
Collect call from: Hadababyitsaboy
Totally agree and they said the same thing about calculators back in the day thought they would ruin learning, but really it's about how you use the tools. Plus not having phones might actually force kids to deal with boredom creatively, could be a little bump in innovation by forcing em to look up from screens.
That’s amazing, I hope more places begin to implement this. Phones were banned usually when they first came out and I think schools just gave up trying to enforce it
They're trying to do it right now in Quebec, but I don't think people are going to roll over easy on this one. There's an awful lot of debate over something that seems commonsense to me.
The whole what about an emergency, well your workplace and schools have telephones where emergency calls can be placed.
The right asteroid could change all that
Or solar flare
We could dance to the Aurora and nobody can film it!!
This right here. Even just chilling with your friends like watching a movie or playing casual board games, even when I make it a point to not be on my phone everyone else is and it just makes me sad how disengaged we are from even passive activities with people who are present.
The best part of being a teenager in the 90's for me was a little more than that. Because practically no one had a cell phone, no one *could* call you when you were out and you couldn't call anyone else. No texts. You could be completely unreachable by just being... out. It was the ultimate freedom and as well added a bit of a feeling of adventure to life. My parents might not have known where I was for days at a time. I didn't know all the intimate details of everyone's personal lives from social media so we had shit to talk about. Lots of rose coloured bias I'm sure.
When you could spend an hour trying to figure out who was the guy in that movie?! You know, the guy with the hair? I'll call Jim, he would know because we saw it together. Ah, shit, he's not home. No, I know it wasn't that guy. No, I KNOW it wasn't him...
Like tears in the rain....
The thing that annoys me the most is some people’s absolute refusal to put it away and in some cases be angry that you are asking politely for them to give you attention rather than the phone. I remember going on a date and the girl found it almost impossible to talk to me without having the phone in her hand, it’s just another level of obsession, and the sad thing is that I am sure at a certain age group that is totally acceptable and normal. I would be the rude one asking them to stop. But yeah, I seriously miss a time when a phone was just a phone. The world seemed bigger, more mysterious and exciting, social interactions felt more special and it did not infect my life as it does now.
I'm in the same boat. Well, moreso the last part. Lately I've been bored out of my mind looking through my phone, and whenever I put it down, I'm like, "this is so much better. Why didn't I do this sooner?"
Partially because every app is designed to keep you on it as long as possible. Between bright colors, rage bait, and endless scrolling, it's a slot machine for the brain.
And then 5 minutes later it’s back up again
But we're addicted so we self justify our addiction constantly. I love my phone. Has anyone married an iPhone yet?
It would not surprise me. Annnnnnnnd after a quick google (on my smartphone lol) there is a LA man named aaron chervenak who did so a few years back
"This man's iphone is in his balls. Steve Jobs did not die for this!"
Ugggh...With an iPhone *11*?!? There's always someone newer, and younger...
I do digital breaks every now and then. Take a full day off from screens (other than tv/movies). It’s lovely. Every time I enjoy it. But I don’t do it nearly often enough. It’s so weird knowing I’ll enjoy it and still not just doing it. lol
That last sentence… so true. It’s like a lack of motivation to have a better experience. Ugh why.
Same. Xer here. I don't hate computers. I hate the fact your always connected and portable in a pocket. We have turned into zombies who can't live the moment
yeah it’s so strange to have lived through both eras. it really doesn’t seem that long ago. everything happened so fast.
I graduated HS in 99 and am upset that I feel like a crotchety old man when I get irrationally angry at people with their phones out recording at events. Lol
[удалено]
And a shaky, terrible sounding video, too.
I also graduated in 99. Go class of 99! And ya, this makes me feel so damn old.
Yeah… we’re the adults now. And not even the young, cool adults. We’re *middle aged*.
I miss it too sometimes. Everyone was more in the moment. You were entertained by talking to your friends and doing things. Staring at a TV or computer wasn't cool. People weren't always looking to see what everyone else was doing. You were either at the spot, or you weren't. Maybe you'd page a few friends to tell them where to meet. If not, you'd drive to their house to see if they were home. You made the best of every hang out and didn't resort to just staring at a device. We were disconnected. We didn't have instant updates about everything going on in the world. If some war was going on in Ukraine, we didn't care. It didn't effect us. You could logon to the internet on your home PC and maybe get some updated news or turn on cable TV news.....but that wasn't what the younger people were doing. They were outside living life. As much as a phone and the internet has a ton of great benefits I'd hate to lose....it really has screwed up our society. I'd be fine going back to 1999. Very limited use of cell phones. No social media sites. No instant attachment to everything/everyone.
You're joking, right? Half of "hanging out with friends" was watching MTV or listening to the radio. Hell, in 95 I was having friends over to pile around the computer and we'd go into chat rooms and surf the internet all night. And who the fuck didn't call their friends house before driving over? That's just dumb as shit.
That's the one good thing about the internet. The information. I want to know about a war going on in Ukraine. My mum always says to me "if we didn't have the internet we wouldn't know about all that" and she means that would be good but I think of it the opposite way. Social media and our reliance on the internet is the bad part - the "convenience" that has now become required. But the knowledge is something I would really miss if we suddenly didn't have the internet.
People knew about wars before social media... You'd get a paper delivered to your doorstep every morning with big headlines, you'd have CNN and the evening news (which, at the time, A TON of people watched). You just didn't get bombarded about it nonstop.
Those who got to live life prior to the wave of smart phones and social media truly got the last helicopter out of vietnam.
The millennial generation.... They got to see both sides of the coin.
It's wild to think about how fortunate we truly were. I was born in 1985, I feel like I really got a great deal of being able to experience the last decade prior to the tech boom. I still think the millennial age gap seems too wide, I don't think a lot of people born in the mid-90s would even remember a world without the internet.
Fellow '85er and often think about those last few years. How much anticipation there was for dial-up, DSL, pre-paid 3210s. And then how fast everything happened. The way we talked with our friends and family completely changed every 6-12 months for a while. For me, the big thing about our era (say born '83-'87) is how this rolled-out right as we were coming of age. The change on the outside ramped-up right as we were going through the biggest changes on the inside. Looking back it's so difficult to parse what disorientation was caused by tech vs. us losing the naive innocence of starting to adult.
> I don't think a lot of people born in the mid-90s would even remember a world without the internet. I'm nearly a decade younger and the internet has existed for as long as I remember, but it was a soft presence in our lives growing up - an occasional tool you'd use to read newsletters, video game hints and encyclopaedia entries, with the odd simple flash game thrown in. It started only really getting more and more intrusive after the social media / smartphone boom of around 2010, in my opinion.
Yeah was born in 1982 and formative years are VASTLY different than my sister who was born in 1995. Both are considered Millennials apparently.
Yeah I feel like my childhood had more in common with my parents born in the late 50's than kids born in the 90's.
Yes. I count my blessings often that smart phones weren't a thing until I was in my early 20s. I think I was about the last generation that had a childhood without them. There are numerous reasons for why I feel this way: 1. I could do stupid stuff and not worry about it going viral. 2. We did stuff all the time. None of our time was wasted looking at a screen. Yes we had TV but there was no streaming or binge watching things. So we never wasted a minute of our time scrolling through (mostly shit) videos and ads. 3. When I didn't know something as a child (which was very often) I usually had to wonder about it for a long time and ask people around me etc. until the answer would be revealed to me randomly through a book or TV or school or life experience. Now when I don't know something I Google it and I have the answer (which is cool but it makes me think about how all that wondering about stuff may have helped my development and shaped me as a person). To name a few.
Absolutely agree. My teenage years were filled with a lot of fuckery I would never want cataloged. There's a lot of stuff kids have to deal with these days that have made them grow up way too quickly, in my opinion. I feel like I was still able to be a kid and experience the innocence that comes with it. I didn't get a phone until 18, a Nokia 3310 with the good ole T9 texting system! It baffles me that children have unregulated access to tthe internet because their parents gave them an iPhone at 8. Google has been a great tool, but like any tool, used in the wrong ways it can do massive damage. I truly think instant information has done a world of good, but I also think it's created a large drift away from critical thinking and developing problem-solving skills for a many people in recent years.
I remember a coworker complaining about his kid sending and receiving texts all night. The phone bill showed all the text time stamps
As someone who graduated high school in '94 I feel like I fit this demographic. With that said, some of the most fun nights I had as a teen and early 20 something started by wandering through a video store, finding something we had never seen or heard of, renting it, picking up food and beer, heading to someone's house as a group, and then watching the movie and hanging out. It wasn't a wild party or anything, but even our screentime was in-person socializing.
I got my first cell phone when I was 16 in 2001 because my mom wanted me to be able to call if my ‘95 2-door Yukon with 100,000 miles on it broke down anywhere between the 72 mile trips to Houston and back that I had to take 4 times a week. I was the first in my class to get a cell phone (also I’m a September birthday, so might add to it). Cell phones were definitely around, but not many high school kids had them depending on where you were growing up.
Those 2 doors were the shit. Just one on the road today and now your comment... Maybe I need to pick up an autotrader. Does that exist anymore?
If there is one thing i could wish to be un-invented, it would be social media and yes i realize the irony of this post.
Social media is a cancer. There’s so much fear, uncertainty and doubt being used to drive engagement at the detriment of our mental health.
My wife gets very upset that I don’t take pictures and prefer to just enjoy whatever it is we are doing.
Anytime we go for a walk or hike or pretty much do anything, my wife has to take pictures. My oldest and I get frustrated and say, well time for another photo shoot…. Then she gets mad 😁
HAHA we go through that at dinners. It drives me nuts. I just want hot food.
Get a swastika tattooed on your face, photobomb her constant and she wont be able to post anything.
Gen x was a whole-ass fukkin vibe.
grew up in the 70s. we were feral. but some things never change -- back then the lament was kids were too glued to the tv. probably true, but I guess at least we couldn't carry it with us when we got kicked out of the house by annoyed moms.
Outside? That place with all the scary things out to get you all the time? You want to send kids there?
That's another note that your comment is old school. Annoyed moms. Moms raised kids. Dads were... present?
1999 is considered old school? Fuck my life . . .
It’s Friday. Go out and party like it’s 1999.
RIP
too soo, my man.
soo soo
I just listened to that song yesterday again and felt so old 😂. 1999 was the distant future back then. Now if the distant past! Ugh
Remember the TV show "Space: 1999"? They had a moon base and everything.
The song came out in 1982. The time between 1999 and now is longer than the time between when the song came out and 1999. Sigh.
Look at it this way, this was 25 years ago. It would be like the kids in this video watching a concert from 1974. Yup, it's old-school.
You know, I was having a good day. We were all having a good day.
We're the Dazed and Confused parents now, not the highschool kids. DEALWITHIT. It's cool though - being old actually doesn't necessarily suck. Like yeah my 1999 was great but my 1997 sucked. My 2023 was awesome, 2022 was bleh.
Yeah, 2 short years before 9/11. None of us had idea how much things were going to suck in a short period of time.
Quarter a century ago, gramps.
Rose tinted glasses and all but damn growing up in the 90s early 00s was great. Gaming was getting better, the alt scene was epic, and no smart phones.
Yea, the tech advancement was so rapid and everything new had actual new functions etc. as a bit of a tech nerd I loved it. Also music videos on MTV, then came MSN etc
I read an article recently talking about how millennials, overall, have a better grasp on how to use new technologies and can adapt more quickly to changes in tech compared to Gen Z. It stated that because we grew up when tech was changing so rapidly, we just evolved with it and had to learn new systems constantly, whereas the tech in the last decade and a half has been so stagnant that most Gen Z struggles with changes, comparatively
Not to mention the amount of trouble-shooting you had to do to get computers to function properly back in the day. Nowadays when cell phones and iPads stop working correctly, the answer 99% of the time is. “That sucks guess you have to buy a new one now.”
Yea trying to find that one aids file that was downloaded on napster or limewire.
I feel like with AI chat the upcoming generation is really going to become even more reliant on technology and not self sufficient. Like even now most college students I know coast away making their assignments with Chat GPT - and that's when the thing is both new and honestly, still shitty. Just imagine 10 years from now, the generation that grew up with AI and will actually have super powerful and reliable versions of it... They won't do shit on their own lol
I agree, it was so fun to see the new stuff come out. The tech topped out a long time ago and everything has looked the same since.
Wild how we went from cassette players, to cd players, to mp3 players, to just phones as far as portable music goes in the span of 20 years, but we cant find anything to top smartphones. Hard to beat everything in one place lol.
I feel like that's a definite double edged sword. There were good things that I miss. But watching my kids grow up with society being more sensitive to social issues like bullying and bigotry has been eye opening. The amount of casual discrimination and marginalization we did back then has been good to surface and start addressing.
Yeah... I think back to the number of times I and my friends used "gay" as some catch all pejorative and wonder, wtf were we thinking?
Dude I was just thinking about this not too long ago. Remember when “f-ggot” or “r-tard* were just completely normal and acceptable words? It actually kind of makes me cringe now to look back on how we used to talk back in the early 2000’s. If I heard my son saying those words now I would lose my fucking mind on him. At the same time though I feel like our generation deserves some credit for adapting to social change. There were generations before us that lived through the civil rights movement and stayed racist pieces of shit until the day they died.
We had the ability to change, and influenced those that came after us, is how I like to see it. I spent 5 years in boarding school, so to be seen as gay was to worse thing you could be. Still, we were far more considerate than previous generations, and I expect coming generations will be more so.
No era is perfect and the better era, but to me it's about the way people are PRESENT and ENGAGED.
Halo LAN parties
I don’t think the 90 early 00 is better than say the 70s 80s but pre social media seems like a real dividing line of suck for teenagers
I think back to how I'd get dropped off for Warped Tour, with a group of friends, no cell phone, a couple quarters for an emergency. Some cash for food and drinks. And a deal with the folks to meet back RIGHT HERE at 5pm. And off we went. You lost the group? Get fucked lmao 😂 be at meetup at 5pm. We were lawless! Weightless! I envy that some days. This damn phone is metaphorically heavy AF.
I remember being 17 and going to Disney with my parents and my sister (who was 16). Sister and I went off on our own to do what we wanted and my parents went in another direction. No phones. Had cash and our hotel room cards. The only two rules were no leaving the specific park we were in and meet back at *specific location* at *specified time*. This was in 2000.
Dude life changed FAST. It's pretty wild to look back on.
If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
That’s what we did back in the 70’s too. “Meet us in front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle at….”
You had the emergency call quarters too. I had completely forgotten about those.
my broke ass just called collect and said what i had to in the 4 second window
Bob adababyitsaboy
Yessss! And a calling card.
Oh you were fancy with calling cards LMAO I was stuck doing the 1-800-collect "momcomegetmenow" which always leads me to remember the "wehadababyitsaboy" commercial 😂💀
I believe calling cards were for emergencies, and quarters (then quarters + dimes), were the first line of defense. 1-800-collect was last resort. I also randomly remember that commercial often🤣🤣🤣
Omg calling cards!! I totally forgot those existed! Memories are flooding in. I had the Globe one I think.
I forgot calling cards existed until reading this comment. My mom used to give me calling cards.
Right? I have a 19 year old (who I’ve had to learn to let go of, she’s an adult) and a 15 year old who go out. It’s really stressful and I have ability to track them and they have phones with them 24/7. AND my 15 year old is in the same 3 places all the time so I could find him. Yet yesterday I couldn’t track him and I got so nervous. I know it’s stupid. I feel so stupid. Because like you, I had all that freedom. I could roam the city. Why am I so paranoid now?
Kids not home? Outta sight outta mind. Nothing you can do so no point in worrying til they are late. Nowadays you can do something. Constant text, phone calls, constantly looking where they are. Its much easier to feed the worry nowadays.
Millenial here, this was me circa 2008, I was like 16-17 and all I had a flip phone for an emergency (cuz you had to pay for minutes still I think) and I had a blast at Warped Tour. Good times. Oh god I’m 32 and reminiscing on old school cool… I need a moment
And now my apartment complex is pushing app based access control, so I can't even leave my home without my phone. There is no escape.
I remember 2004 coachella, I was 16 and went with my sister. We got dropped off. Exactly as you said. My sister and I got in a fight and separated and remained separated for the entire festival LOL it was a fun adventure
IU tailgates still look like that. You just hear a lot less Christina Aguilera.
The best. I miss IU
Terrible football but good tailgating......I've tailgated in that same meadow.
As is tradition
Hold up. We were supposed to goto the football games?
Awesome college town. I got to go and watch them beat Penn State this year.
You must've tailgated pretty hard, Penn State won that game.
Right, go to any tailgate or obviously social event and most everyone is in the moment playing a game, getting drinks, cooking stuff, or hanging out with the group next to you. Sure, phones suck and everyone now has undiagnosed ADD/ADHD, but if at a social event, people still interact with each other and phone use is minimal. People use their phones when they are bored or the current external stimulus isn't hitting that dopamine trigger, so they pull their phones out. So make the moment fun and people will put their phones down and connect. I truly believe we all have undiagnosed ADD, but first step is realizing how addicted you are to constant entertainment/stimulus-seeking and you can start to mediate in your own mind and take steps to improve your behavior. This tailgate doesn't look much different than a tailgate in today's world. If it's a boring tailgate, then sure, phones will come out. It's a fun tailgate, phone will stay in my pocket.
Shhh. Let all the people staring at their phones comment how they wish people wouldn’t stare at their phones.
Joke's on you, I'm not using my phone, I'm just staring at a computer screen! Wait...
ADD is one of the most over diagnosed disorders. We don't all have it, people think just because they have a hard time focusing at work or school that means they have it. That's not how it works.
Hang on, if everybody has ADD, then doesn't that by definition not make it a disorder anymore?
Immediately recognized the IU tailgate fields before seeing a single Indiana shirt. Incredible times were had out there
I mean the first guy, center screen, has an INDIANA shirt on. lol. But yeah those fields are instantly recognizable.
To be fair, if you were there, the trees are more recognizable than his shirt.
Certain millennials are the last generations to remember a time before everyone had a cell phone
The older millennials had it good because they grew up with computers and technology but before the advent of ubiquitous personal devices and social media. I feel like we saw both sides of that inflection point and a good age to appreciate what it was like before while learning skills that allowed them to fully engage in the modern economy as well.
Downside is literally every milestone has had something awful? Going to college? 9/11! Out of college? Economic collapse (one of three!) on your feet and starting a family? Pandemic time baby!!! It’s been fun!
Exactly, and a feeling of not fitting in with people slightly older and slightly younger than us.
All of GenX does though.
Historically I think it's one of the more interesting generations. Old enough to remember what it was like to live as an adult without a cel phone at all, no less a smart phone, but young enough to be able to seamlessly adapt to it once it was unleashed.
You have no idea how nice it was.
>~~You have~~ *We had* no idea how nice it was. FIFY
Exactly. It was the best of times. If only someone had told me.
*I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them* -Andy Bernard -AintDatSwell
-Cajova_Houba
You just gotta look for what it is about right now that we’ll be missing in 10-15 years. There is absolutely a thing or two and it’s just as big and so obvious we don’t notice it right out.
Turns out Agent Smith was right, 1999 was the peak.
Yeah... I really do miss just experiencing things with the people around me. Now it seems like everyone is so worried about capturing these snapshots in time and framing them for their social media ... And honestly for what? Do people go back and look at them again? My wife does the timehop thing and I guess it's kinda interesting but I'm generally just not interested. I feel a little bit like we're living in a crazy dystopia where our attention is the most valuable asset in existence these days and we're constantly being milked for it by the social media platforms. And they're so god damned ingenious that they've tricked us into generating the content they need to do it. And here I am posting a comment on Reddit perpetuating it, which I can't even begin to reconcile what that means about me. Shit is fucking wild man.
My dad was always carrying around a camera and extra film. He had boxes and boxes of photos. Before he died, he went through them all and sent me and my sister tons of them. I went through them and remembered many of places, events, and people. My wife is constantly taking pictures on her phone, posting many on FB. Me? I do neither. I tried getting into film photography like my dad, but didn't. I tried getting into digital photography when film died out, but really didn't get into it then either. I tried getting into social media and taking pics on my phone, and I just can't get into it.
It's not about looking back at the pictures/video. I think it's more because social media has created this strong desire (almost a NEED for many) to project this happy eventful life into the social media world. It's not enough to go see this awesome band that you love. You have to tell the world that you were there. YOU were one of the person at this awesome show. People need to know that you were there.
The matrix was right, ‘99 was the peak of western civilization.
>I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. >The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this -- the peak of your civilization. >I say *your* civilization, because as soon as we started thinking for you, it really became *our* civilization, which is of course what this is all about.
Why isn't everyone standing there silently, staring down at their hand?
I notice at any event with a DJ, everyone just stands around staring at the DJ or recording them...I remember when the DJ was a nerdy kid hidden in the back or up in an inaccessible DJ booth giving us songs to dance to.
Nobody used to look at the DJ, they would face the giant wall of speakers and roll their nuts off
idk, because they're at a party? Have you been to a party recently?
Right? I mean, sure, some people are on their phones. But to act like everyone at a party is just staring down at their phone is so out of touch it's ridiculous lol.
This thread is genuinely hilarious The rose colored glasses are strong, that’s for sure
No one does this in real life at a party
Love all the chronically online people in the comments complaining about people being addicted to their phones when parties in real life still look like this.
The year I graduated high school. Maybe I am in that crowd!
Hey graduation year twin! Maybe we both are 😂
I'm so sad that 1999 is oldschoolcool. It was just a few years ago to me.
Same here. Before we became cogs in the corporate and social media circle jerk wheel works, life was certainly not perfect but it was damn good to be young for most of us at the time. Guess every generation can say that to some degree though. But yea, I missed the 90s
Frat bro overload
My God, I feel so old typing this, but those truly were the good old days😂😂
My buddies all say it’s such a good thing we didn’t have the ability to record all the dumb shit we did. Yeah camcorders were a thing but we couldn’t afford those and bulky as hell. Miss those days man. Maybe I’ll hit up a 90s bar tonight.
The Greatest gen made similar rants about the Silent's and Boomer's addiction to TV screens.
If you want to trip out, look at train pictures from 100 years ago. Everyone was reading the newspaper, nobody was talking to each other. Time is a flat circle.
And it probably was nice to get together with people and talk or play cards, etc, instead of just sitting mindlessly in front of a TV set for hours.
Man... internet, smartphones and social media were a mistake. Internet istself is world changing and we are only seeing the beginning of it... that shit is only like 25-30 years old...
I was about this age in this year, I would go back and do it over in a hot second if I had the chance.
Imagine if life randomly went back to this stage...like if the internet just crashed and was inoperable (even for a month). I know it sounds far fetched, but with how interconnected everything is these days, I wonder and worry about how it would be if our modern technology didn't serve its purpose.
Everyone paying attention to each other lol
We must find a way back!
Turn off your phone
So I can look at the tops of everyone else's head?
so many dudes in the 90s looked exactly like that guy in the yellow backwards hat who gave the thumbs up. it’s funny. i’m not even just talking about their style i’m talking their physical characteristics
I miss the 90s!!! Best time ever to be coming of age. We had a ball, unsupervised, untracked, figuring it out as we went. You still had to approach someone you were interested in and talk to them. You weren’t always reachable and could disappear when you wanted or needed to. No cell phones yet we still all managed to figure out when and where the party was at. I swear our communication was light years better than it is now and because we had to talk to each other you learned how to do so in a civilized manner because you weren’t hiding behind a computer screen. I fear for the future of our society because once us Gen Xers are gone no one will be left to remember life as it was before all the completely invasive tech that permeates our lives.
Ragebait title Tbh I doubt people are standing around on their phones non-stop at a College Football tailgate today... Some people, sure. But it wouldn't be a quiet parking lot with people looking down JFC I went to school less than a decade ago and it was pretty similar to this scene still..
A lot of people here have just never been in a party atmosphere and it shows. Acting like this doesn’t happen anymore because they don’t witness it as a 43-year old introvert
These comments are insane lmao, no one here has been to a party or tailgate in years and just goes “those damn kids on their phones”
exactly, they probably just dont like their lives
Yeah, this post has the sole purpose of attracting the "the old days were better!" crowd so they can once again proclaim that they were the last ones to live life to the fullest and complain about how everyone is only om their phone nowadays, can't think for themselves and bla, bla, bla. I also graduated less than 10 years ago and it was pretty much the same vibe as in the video. If everyone around you is always on their phone, maybe it's because you bore them to death.
A lot of understimulated brains here. You can see it in their eyes, the ability to think about nothin because often there is nothing to think about. Good times. And boring. Also beers.
I loved when world was much bigger place in the 90s. Now it's very small, globalized, I am everywhere at once and talk to everyone at once. I am overstimulated af. Even writing this, I am watching yt vid a the same time....
Stop multi tasking. Do not text and watch videos at the same time. That is your first step towards recovery from the “frictionless” tech that is destroying your ability to process the world around you.
The transition in tech between the 80s - 2013 was insane to live through
Just young folks enjoying themselves and living in the moment. Soaking all of it in. Man I miss those days!
I graduated HS a decade earlier in 89 and honestly it was a much more connected social environment than we have now with everything being a second or third hand consuming experience online. The days of hopping on a bike or in a vehicle to go head out and see what was going on and then recounting or embellishing the tales of activity the next week via narrative vice recordings on a phone. There was a lot to be said to being somewhat ignorant of all the worlds problems and growing up without the manufactured social media stressors.
Truly the good old days
Somehow I knew this was IU before seeing the sweatshirt. There's a fair chance I was at this party.
😭😭😭 I hate the way the world is now
That is awesome! I graduated in 99. What I wouldn’t do to go back, even for one day.
Before someone let the genie out of the bottle you mean?
My high school days! Dang, crazy to think about. I honestly think the world was better without cell phones/pocket computers, in many, many ways.
I do appreciate concerts and other performances banning cellphone usage during the performances. We teased the kid that filmed a plastic bag in the wind who called it "the most beautiful thing I've ever filmed" now we've all become that kid.
I miss this all the time. Socializing hardly exists anymore
God I miss those days. College block parties. Drunkenly walking to quik pita for a shish tawook with a side of their amazing French fries. Parties at the dorm that had rooftop apartments with a view of the river nearby. Dancing and grinding, to Next - Too Close, and laughing when she says “I feel a little pole coming thru, on youuu” 😂
 Those were the days
People talking to each other instead of talking to people that aren't there/recording for people that aren't there to never watch.
This is like when I describe the 80's to someone younger and they say it sounds boring then you show them footage of concerts and big parties back then and they are like holy shit that looks fun why don't we do it anymore and you just want to scream.
I miss this life.
This was such a good time to be alive
I’m from 1981 and I watched humanity being kidnapped by gigantic corporations and humans turned into slaves by them given a device that would screw your eyes, your mind and turn you into a phat zombie with no human interactions anymore. The time before smartphones was the best ever. Everything and everyone were much more interesting. It creeps me out to imagine what is coming. The Matrix movie is becoming real.