"RSVPing mattered. If you said you were going to be there, you made sure to be there. None of this facebook invites that everyone blows off without any form of social repercussions. If you said you were going to go and didn’t go, you were the @$$hole and everyone knew it."
"News only being on at 6pm. That was it. Now we have 6 hours of local news and 24 hours of cable news. Not being bombarded all day with “news.” And when you saw “Breaking News” on the screen you knew some serious sh#t went down."
"The instant win bottle caps / candy / chocolate bar wrappers where you could turn them back into the store and immediately get a free one. Now it’s just codes you have to register on their website so they can get your info, i don’t even bother anymore"
"I loved being away from tech completely. It was pure freedom to go “exploring” in the woods. No one to call you or get in touch with you. It was just assumed that the dog and I would make it home at some reasonable hour, typically before the sunset for the day"
"I miss my video game magazines. The thrill of getting one in the mail (often multiple because I had several different subscriptions) to read up on the next thing coming out, strategies for games that recently came out, and just the fun articles about related material were some of my favorite memories"
"The Saturday morning cartoons and sitcoms I watched."
"When you bought new music you just had to hope it was good. The single might be popular but otherwise unless someone had it you just bought it and hoped for the best"
"It used to be a lot harder to bail on things. You’d have to call the person at home and tell them yourself, or at least leave a message if you wanted to be risky. Typically if you were gonna bail you’d give at least 24 hours notice. Nowadays people can let you know they’re bailing last second since you’re always reachable"
"Making plans was an adventure, especially if you and your friends all relied on public transportation. Look up the movie times in the newspaper (or later call moviefone), decide on a time to meet (and tell that one friend who’s always late an earlier time), walk our your house and check the bus timetable (that’s hardly accurate anyway), and then hoping nothing happens en route since you had no way of telling your friends if you’re late"
"You had to call someone’s home phone number and talk to their parents first before you could talk to your friend"
"The absolute absence of push notifications.
Life just waited for you like a good person"
"Not being accessible to my boss 14 hours a day."
"Sitting down in the evening to read a book because there was nothing on tv. With today’s streaming services, there is so much more media being produced – and it’s all available at the click of a button whenever you damn well please. It can easily become an endless loop of what to watch next. I remember when there used to be 8 channels. You either had to watch “General Hospital” or find something better to do."
"You could be the cool guy that remembered sh#t. Like who was in what movie or the themes to TV shows. Now IMDb makes everyone that guy and it’s not special. There’s a lot of little things like that"
"People would forget things you did that where maybe not the smartest"
"The Sears catalog. That was how I found out about all the cool new toys"
"Reading the newspaper and magazines used to be just about one of my favorite things.
Now it seems pointless to clutter the house with so much paper when I can access all of it online – but of course I don’t. I pick and choose just a few articles, I don’t really browse the way I would before and I encounter a lot fewer new or enlightening things.
Getting the Sunday New York Times and then going out for brunch and reading it with your friends/dates was such a treat
Editor’s Note: Did this really happen? Sounds like something out of Gen-X indie film."
"Leaving home and just being gone for the day. No cell phones. If there were cameras, it was really different. You used them to take pictures of things or had people take pictures of you. But there was no social media to preoccupy your mind. It was just doing something. And whoever you were with, was who you were with"
"I miss having an attention span of more than three seconds"
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9 and 10 - you mean to say things are more convenient now?
14 - you mean you were the annoying guy who always claimed to "know" stuff. Now people can call you on your sh#t.
19 - I am guessing you never had much of an attention span
I miss not being surrounded by smug dill weeds.
I know right?
I think history proves you wrong there... In practically all of Europe for example you either were a Christian or you were dead. Just one of themany examples I'm afraid.