You must log in or # to comment.
Not knowing everything all the time led to more interesting conversations.
On a related note, not having to know literally everything a public person has done before feeling safe to express even the most basic support for their work.
I appreciate the accountability, I don’t want to support bad people, but back in the day it was like “I enjoyed that album” and then you went back to living your life. Lack of information made separating the art from the artist the default and it made enjoying new stuff take so much less effort.
And at least half of this is just the fact that these people had less reach and weren’t able to be on TV all the time. Back then the CEO of Sears may have thought trans people were monsters, but he wouldn’t have been pushing it on the news or Twitter every day/week.
Orson Scott Card - Ender’s Game
DilbertOne thing that was interesting to me about OSC is that he publicly came out in support of gay marriage pretty early. His reasoning wasn’t moral or supportive, though; he just said that it was inevitable and therefore not worth fighting.
That makes it even more bizarre to me that he’s a practicing Mormon.
No disagreement.
I still say I prefer wild conjecture.
Yes, also. More strongly I feel not being able to contact or be contacted, on chronic but varying intervals, gave me a freedom i didn’t grasp by then, free from worries or work dependancies. I feel I was more independent and more relying on myself.
The mobile communication tool has became something else.
Also less self proclaimed experts.
As a self-proclaimed expert of grammar, I can tell you that the word is “fewer”, as self-proclaimed experts are (supposedly) countable.
I made a friend a few years ago that would whip their phone out during our conversations to answer my questions or theories about the topics we were discussing. Every single time.
IMO a conversation is just that, I enjoy discussing ideas and theories about subjects I’m not 100% familiar with and want to hear your thoughts and theories as well.
To slice through all of that with a ‘let me google that for you’ was very much not the interaction I found enjoyable at all.
We could go outside unsupervised.
Which is odd, since not only can you call for help, but crime is way down now
But fear mongering is way way up.
Ironically, it’s much safer now because of all the horrifying things that happened to kids when we were young
I think it’s more that the crimes that are committed are just more widely reported.
I don’t even live in the US but every time someone in Florida throws a bagel at an alligator it gets reported internationally.
This is actually the result of specific differences between Florida’s laws around publishing crimes in the news compared to other states. I forget what the right term is and the exact laws, but basically in Florida everything can end up in the news right away while I believe other states limit what can be published before the court rules on a crime below a certain threshold, so the crazy stuff stops being interesting and gets forgotten about long before it could ever get published in other states.
Or something along those lines.
It’s called the sunshine law. All police reports in Florida are a matter of public record that can be obtained by anyone. The press trolls those reports multiple times a day.
We’ve also seen the death of third spaces and a major wave of helicopter parenting that simply could not exist before the way it does today.
My parents were shocked when me and some people around my age were ambivalent about getting our driver’s licenses as teens, because for them it was like the first real bit of “adult freedom” in their lives. But by the mid 2000s, it was a very different world from when they were kids. Malls were dying, 3rd spaces were being monetized or removed, and existing in public for free was already becoming a difficult prospect. The idea of being able to go to a place to hang out had already been dying off when we were kids. What were we going to do, spend our time after school working to spend that money to drive somewhere that we’d then have to spend more money at to just hang out? When we could just sit around and play video games for free? Owning a car largely just meant suddenly having bills to pay and more responsibilities.
And the advent of cell phones (and social media) made it even worse. The prospect of people getting a call at any time from their parents asking where they were and who they were hanging out with was starting to raise its head as an issue. Today it’s even worse with the tracking apps on kids’ phones and devices in their backpacks or cars. I still remember the first and last time I posted something on Facebook. Right when Facebook was first starting to get big, a friend of mine made me a Facebook account. My first and last post was a comment about how 8am classes sucked, which my dad commented on “But they’ll go anyway.” Immediately upon reading that, I wondered to myself why anybody would willingly subject themselves to having their personal thoughts broadcast and judged/criticized like that and never logged in again.
GPS tracking kids like that is child abuse. It’s miserable what kids these days are subject to. No wonder mental health is in the toilet. I’m probably about a decade younger than you, can I can confirm there was nowhere to go.
I assume if you remember that you’re old enough to go outside now unsupervised too.
And yet, cameras everywhere
There were cameras everywhere in the 90s too, though. They’re just a bit smaller now.
It was such a blessing to not have every aspect of your life monetized by shadowy tech billionaires. I see that now. You could simply exist as a person without worry that something or someone would gather the most intimate details of your existence to sell to the highest bidder so they could better psychologically manipulate your purchasing decisions. If you wanted, you could disappear for a while to recharge in solitude - no cellphone cataloging where you are, no cameras generating records of your movements. Friendships were more solid. These were people like you that sought connection whether it was an activity or common experience. There were whole seasons when you were free to roam about and socialize or not, there was no expectation of you being productive every waking moment. It was a time when science and technology felt exciting - the next new discovery or invention would be something that would improve our lives. Computers were simple by todays standards and were centered around what YOU wanted to do with them, not just a conduit to shovel content to consume. It was an exploratory experience and you felt so accomplished when you got the hang of the interface. I can barely recall the feeling of knowing there was a brighter future ahead of you and that there were others in this world who cared and reached for it too.
Fuck, I’m crying as I write this. I’m mourning a world that no longer exists and can’t ever again.
Yours is the root cause of a lot of grievances posted here in response to this question, thank you for so aptly putting to words a thing that is so real yet hard for many to see.
Damn it.
I knew this thread was gonna make me feel things, and that those things were most likely to be ennui and worse, but did you have to cut right to the bone?
I wanna return to the 70s
The shared experience of Television and Movies.
Nearly everyone watched The Simpsons, for instance. It was more reliable than Game of Thrones ever was.
More truth and fewer media bubbles. The “WMDs in Iraq” lie was a huge understanding, and not everyone believed it, just enough. Now you can do that more easily with some social media accounts and algorithms. People just choose their own news.
I remember when return of the Jedi was broadcast for the first time on public tv, the next day 100% of the kids were playing light sabers at school. It was the original dub so we had some names wrong (Yan solo and for some reason Z6PO) , and being kids in sure most of the plot had gone over our heads but man, those lightsaber battles 🤌
Legit the lack of a monoculture has been one of the worst results of connectivity and has had some terrible knock on effects.
Things that happened at the party, mostly stayed at the party. Now you can find yourself on TikTok the next morning
Not needing an account to do everything.
You paid at the door, you enjoyed your bowling/concert/etc, you didn’t get adverts for the rest of your life.
I just don’t like the account nonsense.
If it’s required at a physical business, guess I’m going home.
Nowadays, if the phone rings or if someone knocks on the door, it causes fear and anxiety.
When I was a kid, if the house phone rang or there was a knock at the door, we’d rush to answer in excitement. “the cousins are coming over.”
simpler times
Eh, in fairness, I remember the phone ringing and my dad just being like, “Don’t answer it,” because telemarketers were definitely a thing in the '90s.
That’s why answering machings had speakers on them. It was a great way to screen calls. If someone you wanted to talk to was on the line you just picked up.
Lol yeah and my mum being like if someone knocks/rings when we’re out just say “my mum is in the shower but she will be RIGHT back”. I think to stop us getting kidnapped 😂 then people wonder why we’ve grown up to avoid people knocking on our doors 😂
It really is just how reality intrudes on any safe calm space we have.
Meh, that changed for me when I got my own place, long before the internet.
Even then most calls were spam, which is why filtering via answering machine became a thing.
And friends didn’t visit unannounced.
And how the phone rang during a thunderstorm
That’s not times, that’s you being a kid.
Enjoying music concerts without a sea of cell phone screens blocking my view.
The concept of monoculture.
My car, refrigerator, microwave, TV, etc. not having to have updates or a subscriptions.
Not having to be asked my phone number at every single store checkout.
The monoculture sucked
Why don’t you choose 1 of the 3 available flavours of counterculture then? It still seemed like simpler times.
The ability to not be available 24/7 or expected to be. Employers with the advent of cellphones and their ubiquity expect that from you and they can fuck right off.
That’s what do not disturb is for. I tell them I don’t even get alerts after 5 pm and before 8 AM. My phone won’t ding so don’t call.
Only time it isn’t is when we negotiate overtime before the emergency.
They still expect it and some raise hell if you miss a single call for even the smallest of things.
i’ve got my boss trained to not bother calling after hours. He was grumpy at first, and probably still is, but i just cant make myself care enough to read that email.
why don’t you miss that?
Could probably word it better, one moment.
The ability to disappear, just go out and come home a few hours later with no one, not even my parents have any way to verify my whereabouts during this time.
I started doing this again. I leave my phone at home and just go out with a bit of cash in my pocket. I bought an mp3 player so I can bring along some music.
That actually inspired me, I even still hav a perfectly working iPod nano
Perfect, nothing like the little click wheel. Enjoy
“Stand By Me” is now X-rated for child neglect and smoking,
Da Fuck?!!
Calm down.
I was being melodramatic.
Don’t do me like that bruh, even though it would fit with today’s world if they did
I know. Everybody gets so butt hurt at the slightest thing anymore I totally believed it for a split second.
otoh, ever watched “Midnight Cowboy?”
It was rated X because of a few allusions to gay life.
There was one [implied] blowjob.
Garage sales! Holy shit garage sales used to be so fucking awesome. As a 12-15 year old I scored so much computer stuff dirt cheap at garage sales, along with books and music. Just about every Saturday in the summer you could see me with a box precariously balanced or a shopping bag hanging from my bike’s handlebars.
Nowadays everything worth more than a couple bucks goes up on FB marketplace and Kijiji, and the only stuff anyone puts in a garage sale is actual garbage that the thrift stores wouldn’t even put on the shelf.
Estate sales are where it’s at now
Good one here. Garage sales were just fun to look through and you could find cool stuff you wanted for the want (not the resale value) for a few bucks. They were happy to make a few bucks and you were happy with your new thing.
Now stuff seems to either be dumped (in the bins or outside donation places in a rubbish heap) or sold because it has become valuable over time (RIP finding cool pokemon cards for a bargain 😭)
Garage sales were also just a cool community thing, depending where you live of course. You could be going for a little walk and just wander into a garage sale and chat to people from your neighborhood or strangers. Marketplace is just “my cousin’s dogs friend will pick it up” 🤑
I miss not experiencing the pressure to be always available. To always respond.
If you were out of the house and someone wanted you they waited until you got home. If it was a true emergency, they could figure out the phone number to wherever you were, maybe, but short of that? You wouldn’t be bothered.
There was also a level of spontaneity I miss where you might drive looking for a place to eat and just stop at the first place that looked good. Or you were going somewhere specific but you just drive to the general area and look for a sign.
I delivered pizza using a map of my city and I got real familiar with how roads worked.
It was so much easier to keep friendships. Holy fuck. The amount of people who get upset if you don’t text back within a few hours is insane. And it just keeps going forever - like a never ending game of tag.
I’d rather be lonely. God damn.
Sounds like you just need better more understanding friends
The idea that I would do something useful with my life
For me, I changed my definition of useful. I won’t change the world with something or contribute to a world changing thing, no. But I can change the world for a few people
Play. Actual children’s play. I have kids in the house, two sets, one lives with mom most of the time, others live with me. One set has screen limits, the other doesn’t. One 10 year old plays with their Legos and one doesn’t. Now this could be chalked up to personal differences, but it seems very correlated to me. And I see it clearly when other kids are visiting, less screen time = more creativity and play.
A lot of parents today just hand their kid a tablet when they expect the kid to be bored and leave it at that. Instead of learning to entertain themselves, they learn to sit passively and consume content. It starts young, too - toddlers with tablets with unfettered access to Youtube Kids, sitting back watching Cocomelon or AI kids’ slop (it’s out there, boy is it out there.)
To those of us who grew up without access to screens at any given time sometimes take issues with it, but not everyone does. There are some kids I work with whose parents explicitly say they don’t want their kid watching videos at school. I get it, you want your kid to interact with other people and explore their creativity instead of sitting around watching something - I love that.
Recently a new coworker, much younger than me, asked why some parents don’t want their kids watching videos. I was surprised, but I guess I shouldn’t be. That coworker probably grew up with screens from an early age. Perhaps she can’t fathom the world without it. Either way, the idea that some parents want to limit their kids’ screen time was a foreign concept to her, which concerns me somewhat.
Look up a sociologist name Alvin Toffler.
His book ‘The Third Wave’ posited that the change between the Industrial Age and the Digital Era was as big as the shift from hunting/gathering to farming, and the shift from farming to factories.
Not linked directly to the tech, but generally the thing I miss the most was the optimism. In the 90s people were excited for the future. Crime was trending down, the economy was doing well, the government was paying down the debt, the internet was new and full of wonder. In general there was a push for you to be whatever you wanted to be no matter who you were. The beginning of a lot of breaking down and removing stereotypes and gender norms.
Some of this seems to have reversed, most of it ended on 9/11/2001. That attack killed a lot of the optimism and things line the PATRIOT ACT really put us on the dystopian track we find ourselves on now. Also a lot of the economic boom were from the deregulation that would cause massive problems later…
So, yeah generally I miss the optimism we had.
