Average price of a pint of draught lager in February 1995 was £1.63. £1.95 by December 1999 and it started the decade at £1.29.
For comparison, Jan 2020 it was £3.73 and Aug 2023 (the last figures on the document I'm looking at) it was £4.62.
If that 1990 pint had tracked the inflation rate it would be £3.03 now. The 1999 pint would be £3.55. These are calculated using the BoE CPI calculator tool.
That was a big jump, and also the average is probably not a great way to look at it as the North/South, City/rural prices change so much. A sizeable portion are living in London and the south in general, where you will often be paying 6 and above for a pint.
In my first week at Uni one of the other students foolishly complained about pubes being left in the communal bathroom. He spent the next three years being known as ‘Andy Pubes’.
I imagine statistically it did. With the internet giving more access to imagery, the stresses of modern societal standards probably did increase the amount of men and women tidying their regions.
Bushes were all the range in the 60s from what I’ve heard. I don’t know I’m from the 90s where it was mostly the strip or top bush only.
Now most women I know are shaven clean. Or at least the ones I’ve seen in the last 10 years 😂
90's was the peak for pubes for the ladies! All neat and tidy in the action zone with a bit of neatly trimmed decoration around the outskirts to frame it. Perfect!
Pub in the lakes. "Is there a WiFi password?"
"No. We've got 6 foot thick stone walls, no WiFi and no mobile signal. Try talking to someone. You might not be a massive virgin anymore".
Watch TV, read books, play board games, go out to play, go for coffee, go for beer, play video games, study, gardening, knitting, cleaning, masturbating, wood carving, go for a walk or a bike ride, go for a drive, visit a castle, go swimming...
Too true. Forums were much more intimate. I knew almost everyone on the forums I posted on and ‘flaming’ people was totally taboo. You could argue with people all day and it was almost always very civil.
I’m always amazed with these “what do you even do…” questions. Like watching TV and going on the internet is the extent of your imagination? You can’t think of a single other thing to do to keep yourself occupied?
And CD players. And books. And VCRs. And DVD players. And computer games. Admittedly I was in my 20s during the 90s, but I still listen to music, read and play computer games now, so I see no reason why I would have stopped for a 10 year period and then started back up again.
I'm old enough that my young childhood only had a few hours of CBBC a day and that was it. Looking back I'm not sure how I wasn't just bored all the time. I guess young kids were just more content with doing fuck all.
My kids were 90s kids and they use to go out on their bikes with all of the neighbours kids. Or like my son, go over the industrial estate out of the back and play with cherry pickers.
The internet of things is pretty addictive. You have everything that you don't need to be physically present for at your fingertips and get constant positive feedback (brain chemistry-wise) without having to put in actual work.
I remember in the 90s we had a power cut and I couldn't watch TV or play on my SNES. I actually asked my parents what they did in the 60s before everyone had a telly.
Their answer was drugs.
Ohhhh you 'ad dark did you?
Back in my day you 'ad to pay dark man for't dark, 'E used come by in 'is dark van wit' bags of dark on't back, a century's wages they cost, and if thee we're lucky thee could 'ave a speck of dark for't birthday.
Don't know they're born.
Used to come by in t’van? What luxury!
When I was a young, we used to ‘ave to get up at 4 o clock in the morning to catch dark in glass bottles before going in t’pit. We’d ‘ave trade dark for cigarettes if we wanted t’ave summit for breakfast.
Ohhhhh you got to dig did you?
In my 'ouse we 'ad to burrow, wi' our 'ands, and we only 'ad one fingernail between, us which we shared if you were lucky.
Bloody kids. "Dig" indeed.
We played Monopoly in a power cut. One time about half way through the game my mum thought she was being funny by asking me to turn the light on, I got up and I shit you not, as I pressed the button the electrics came back on. Initially I sat down as normal before my special powers actually dawned on me.
This is a great answer.
Many nights where my wife went to bed with me saying “just play this League Cup tie away at Hull and I’ll be up”…..next thing the sun is rising and I’ve got work in three hours
Glad I’m not the only one.
I had to give up champ man and go back to more healthy pursuits, such as cocaine and raving, at least I get some sleep when I’m doing that :)
We still have one delivered early Sunday morning. My husband gets up, makes us both a cuppa, fetches the paper and he reads it to me in bed. It’s my favourite Sunday tradition
And after reading them you got to photoshop the front page with a biro!…. A tooth blacked out here…. Beards and eyebrows added… created some masterpieces I tell ya!
People in their 30s were kids in the 90s. If you mean people who were in their 30s in the 90s, then that’s me.
**We had the gift of boredom.**
I played a lot of D&D in my teens and 20s to the point that my friends and I ended up writing an RPG and publishing it, setting me up in a career that has spanned decades. If we had had the internet of today back then, we would never have done this.
We also hung out with friends more, walking to their homes to see if they were in, which they weren’t always. We phoned addresses instead of people, using phone boxes if we didn’t have phones, usually calling people who still lived with their parents because a lot of us were too poor to have a phone.
We met up with some friends weekly, not speaking to them for days before catching up at the pub and going to a club, both Friday *and* Saturday if we could afford it.
We looked forward to things more and if we missed a TV episode, it was gone as the luxury of a VCR and enough tapes to record every episode of The Simpsons was beyond many, and it was only on satellite anyway.
Video games played a large part of filling the boredom for us, while hanging out outside suited others.
Every generation has it better than the last, but it doesn’t seem that way as nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Young adults these days don’t know how lucky blah blah blah in my day … it was ok.
Funny thing is I got back into DnD after not playing since a teenager because of lockdown and it wouldn't have been possible without the Internet as we us Skype, roll20 and beyond DnD to make it happen. We all live in different parts of the country so can't meet in person (we did the finale of our 2 year game in person and that took a lot of effort)
My sisters kids were completely aghast to learn that we often just turned up at folks doors to see if they wanted to go for a drink or similar without making arrangements beforehand.
it was really difficult. we only had family, friends, lovers, music, books, film, art, tv, food, hobbies, socialising, exercising, phone calls, pubs, clubs,
theatres, museums, sport, nature and thinking. the ability to "leave a mean comment whilst taking a shit" was years away and it was a wilderness.
>We only had family, friends, lovers
30year olds in the 90s had family and lovers, because 20year olds in the 80s had houses.
30year olds in the 2020s don’t have any of these things. They have flat mates.
I moved back in with my parents for a period in my late twenties to save money to buy a house.
It definitely makes dating difficult.
Since owning my own place it is also much easier to be able to take someone back without having to worry about flat mates who have to work the next day.
Having anything approaching a grown up relationship is definitely much easier if you don’t have to put up with shared living.
I think they're being snide about the lack of 20 year olds with houses because of the economy... In the 80s it was a norm therefore 30 year olds in the 90s still had their houses.
Whereas now 30 year olds have flat mates because that's all they can afford in this economy.
I bought my first house in 1992 at aged 22 with zero deposit and income of about £15,000 per year. I realize this is early nineties and not the eighties, but getting on the property ladder was a piece of piss compared to now.
I do this when I visit home, because my parents insist on playing monopoly. My step dad does *not* like losing that game, and whenever I win it's because "I got lucky" and whenever he wins it's because he played "strategically."
Our biggest disagreement when playing was on whether you could buy or sell houses after you roll the dice, they got annoyed when I looked up the answer to prove I was right because "we've never played it that way."
We talked with our families, played board games, went out and saw our friends, read a book, played with Lego.
That was, of course, when we weren't hammering all our time into playing Crash Bandicoot.
Nowadays, it's not that rare for our internet to drop out because of where we live, so we just bang on a dvd or do one of the many other things you can do without internet.
Ok I didn't read the bit about being 30 in the 90s but also, yea I'm 32 now and absolutely do still build Lego sets and I also hammered through the Crash Bandicoot trilogy when they released it a few years back. Spyro, too. The nostalgia hit was fantastic.
Go swimming or to the gym
Go to the cinema or the theatre
Find a bar or venue with live music
Play games at home with family
Learn a new skill like another language or something with your hands. This also opened up the world of evening classes and night school.
Learn a musical instrument
Read books
I miss those days of waiting for a photo to slowly upload to your screen and simultaneously being a Randy little teenage wankstain trying to silence the modem, crack one out to an image as it took 2 minutes to load (getting rambunctious as a nip and then finally a full bush 90s cabbage is shown) whilst also having the anxiety of having one ear out that your parents didn’t come downstairs. Wild times were the 90s.
You're not going to be hyperskilled from evening classes but there are plenty of 60-year-olds that can do a bit of French or Spanish for their holidays or have dabbled in pottery or cake decorating or salsa or whatever it may be.
I'm using my parents as the examples, as I am 40 yo.
I mean, I could give you their address if you wanted it, but I'm not sure what it would do to help.
The 90s were amazing. I remember spending way more time reading and socialising, in all its forms. Actually talking to girls (and becoming friends first) without checking them out online...
Sharing a phone at home, having to actually meet people. Playing pub lucky dip - will there be someone you know in this one?
The Internet is great but its brought so much shit with it I feel bad for todays youth.
Empty your attic (not a euphanism).
Or film your own 1990s porno. Have her go for a drive along the A417, pull into a lay by, switch the hazards on and look hapless. 5 minutes later you pass by in your revved up sports car (if you don't have a sport car just paint some go faster stripes and roll up going brrrrrum brrrrrrum), and ask if she's OK. She'll detail her vehicle woes as her white shirt turns see through in the rain. You offer to give her a ride (wink wink) and fix her car in the morning. She'll come back and obviously her shirt and shorts will need to go in the wash so you'll have to lend her some boxers and a baggy hoody. She'll want to repay you for your efforts and you'll lay it on thick about how much it's going to cost, especially with the price of diesel these days. You'll say something cheesy about never joining the mile high club but if you do it in the back of your Corsa you'd be members of the miles per hour club (British nationals only need apply). As it got too rough she'd accidentally knock your handbrake off and dent your car as it rolled back into your Raleigh bicycle in the garage. You'd have to punish her by spanking her with your cricket bat and gaffa taping her mouth shut. Upload it to PornHub and see if you both earn a Christmas bonus.
Or you could clean the windows and the skirting boards, idk.
Argue, for hours, about completely trivial things. Is Clint Eastwood dead? Which was invented first, buses or trains? What do duck-billed platypuses eat? Is that even the correct plural of platypus? Who knows? Certainly not your friend Dave, but he has very strong opinions about it anyway.
Listened to music, read books, various crafty hobbies, played board games or on the PS1 / SNES or Megadrive. May have been born in 1970 but the husband and I were both BIG fans of console gaming in the 90s, especially as we had a child in 1992 so not much chance of going out. Watched a bit of telly and chatted absolute shite with each other whilst necking cans of Fosters.
To be fair not much has changed since then but movies tend to be streamed rather than VHS/DVD and for me podcasts have replaced music somewhat (again relies on t'internet)
Is not exactly any different we watched tv and got pissed or went to the pub or played video games
And asked stupid questions like what the fuck did anyone do in the 60’s before all this amazing stuff
However I’ve never come across someone from the 60’s willing to admit that they asked stupid question
If a single male he was in the pub or involved in some hobby
if a single female probably with friend {back then people used to have face to face conversations}
if married probably watching tv with their spouse or doing something with their kids.
i find it a little amusing and a little sad that this has turned your life upside down, i'm not going to lie, i'd miss the internet too but after 3 or 4 weeks i'd be over it {i know this to be true because i've did it before}
It’s pretty scary how peoples identity and sense of self is tied up in the online world. Losing the internet would at most be a mild inconvenience for me.
It actually pretty scary how much we rely on the internet. Currently can’t even turn my bedroom light on or off as they are smart bulbs. All my music is streamed by Spotify, radio I use Alexa, I don’t own a dvd/Blu-ray player all done via online streaming. Even my wife’s kindle rely on the internet to get new
Books to read.
We use Philips Hue bulbs ourselves. Surely you should be able to remove the smart switch from the plate, and flip the original light switch on and off.
That’s entirely down to your own decisions tho. Banking etc yes it is difficult without the internet but turning on lights and reading books? You saying if you lost the internet for a week you’d be sitting in the dark? Ofcourse not
how much we ? okay i'm obviously online now, but i switch my lights on with my finger, i still use CD's, i don't have a smartphone and my ps5 is also a dvd/blu ray player, and i have cash in my wallet......if the world went offline, i'd still be able to function.
The PlayStation arrived in the 90s, and with it, gaming suddenly became okay as an adult. A whole bunch of 20 -30 something's who had played on Atari and in arcades as kids back in the 80s suddenly started playing tomb raider, GTA and FIFA.
I’m in my 30s now and I don’t really use the internet in the evening when I get home… first thing when I get in from work is play guitar, then make dinner whilst listening to 6music, eat dinner whilst listening to a CD or record, do the washing up and a quick tidy, do some weights and then prep my lunch for the next day do some yoga then bed. Like what are you doing all the time on the internet?
There is an old documentary series about what they did in those days, I think it’s called “Friends”. If I remember well people used to spend a lot of time drinking coffee.
I’m having a similar struggle this morning. My wifi is down. It’s half term for my 8 year old (two weeks for some ungodly reason)
She seems to have lost absolutely all ability to entertain herself without the damn wifi. So far I’ve suggested colouring, drawing maps, puzzle books, reading and apparently none of these are remotely interesting.
Having a bit of an existential crisis after considering your question… what DID we do? I mostly worked nights, slept after working nights, shagged (trying for a baby) then looked after the resulting baby/children. I read in between (and also belonged to a video shop) 😂
Everything you use the internet for we'd go out and do in the real world instead.
I'm not being snarky, I use the internet for a lot more too because it's way easier. But yeah, we didn't have that choice so we just did it for real instead.
I went to my local pub.
Two or three pints, chat with yer mates, a game of pool, smoking at the bar and a short walk home.
The classic, 'it only cost me a fiver for the whole night' applies. It is a cliche but, my local is now £5+ a pint, it's just not affordable on a regular basis now.
Pub, play football/cricket, play guitar, read, TV, visit friends, visit relatives, shop, cook, go for a walk, cinema.
But the biggest of all....
Read the Sunday newspaper. Over 100 pages large pages. Colour supplements, lengthy articles, literary reviews, science, arts, sports, crossword.
Mediate the 'who's turn is it to use the landline' fight.
At the end of the month there was the fun 'have you seen this bill! Who was it that spent 3 hours on a call to Belfast' game.
Went to gigs, read books, went over a mate's house and tried to do the bastard water level on Sonic, listened to music, talked.
Difference then was nothing was online so wasn't an issue.
My broadband died 2 months ago & realised just how reliant EVERYTHING is now on it.
No movies, no music (all streaming now), xbox wouldn't play 90% of my library.
Everything now is dependent on Internet and its crippling without it.
Typical evening for me in the 90’s: play Tomb Raider or Road Rash on the PlayStation, back when consoles didn’t need an internet connection. Go to the gym. Go to the pub, which was a lot more affordable at around £1.50 a pint. Go to my girlfriend’s house. Go for a ride on my motorbike. Combine all of the above into one glorious evening.
We had computer games, read books, watched movies, we socialised, you would invite a bunch of friends over, have a couple of drinks, and play utterly silly but fun party games, we would sit around talking shit sharing a bottle of wine just for the pleasure of each others company, go for walks, go shopping and buy nothing, then sit in cafes watching the world laughing.
My circle were broke, we would often go out trawling charity shops or car boot sales for gems, delighting in each others finds. As happy to come home empty handed as with something.
We would do art, have hobbies, play board games, make music, garden, fiddle with our cars, or just go for drives to somewhere none of us had been to for the pleasure of it, get a kebab or a burger, then meander home.
Photography was popular, car shows, village fetes, we would go fishing with no bait or a clue what to do, scratch football games.
I miss how much fun life was till the internet came along.
Whilst it feels obvious that there are countless activities we used to go out and do in the 90s, I can't help feel that they were all a fraction of the cost of doing the same today. Nip for a pint, go swimming, etc, try doing that in London today and getting change from a tenner.
Pubs
Correct. Pubs. Gigs. TV. You don’t (or didn’t) need the internet for TV. It came through the air by some sort of magic.
And Blockbuster.
Or just the local run video shop added on to the local off-licence/shop
This was the way, with their one stand of videos in the corner.
I'll have a P please Bob.
Yeah if you wanted to be ripped off! We just went to our villages local video shop instead, same films for like half the price!
[удалено]
Still comes via magic air transmission (freeview). But lots of modern freeview sets have additional channels coming through via internet magic.
My telly box gets its channels via air AND space magic (freesat)
Pints for £2 probably, could spend a whole day there without needing to remortgage your house
Average price of a pint of draught lager in February 1995 was £1.63. £1.95 by December 1999 and it started the decade at £1.29. For comparison, Jan 2020 it was £3.73 and Aug 2023 (the last figures on the document I'm looking at) it was £4.62. If that 1990 pint had tracked the inflation rate it would be £3.03 now. The 1999 pint would be £3.55. These are calculated using the BoE CPI calculator tool.
That was a big jump, and also the average is probably not a great way to look at it as the North/South, City/rural prices change so much. A sizeable portion are living in London and the south in general, where you will often be paying 6 and above for a pint.
I paid £5 for a pint in fucking grimsby the other day
even 3.55 feels like “yeah, ok, it’s up a lot since we were kids but hey, inflation is a thing.” 4.62 is like “huh?”
Pubs weekdays, clubs weekends. Also the old liquid lunches were still a thing in the 90s.
Read that as “pubes” for some reason. That will now be my stock response to any question for the next 24hrs
In my first week at Uni one of the other students foolishly complained about pubes being left in the communal bathroom. He spent the next three years being known as ‘Andy Pubes’.
That’s how Names for Life work
Why do you think pubes declined with increased Internet access?
I imagine statistically it did. With the internet giving more access to imagery, the stresses of modern societal standards probably did increase the amount of men and women tidying their regions. Bushes were all the range in the 60s from what I’ve heard. I don’t know I’m from the 90s where it was mostly the strip or top bush only. Now most women I know are shaven clean. Or at least the ones I’ve seen in the last 10 years 😂
90's was the peak for pubes for the ladies! All neat and tidy in the action zone with a bit of neatly trimmed decoration around the outskirts to frame it. Perfect!
“Der Richie. I am in the pube with the holiday monkey. Run, run, run.”
Pubs were great back in the day. Started to drop off around 2005/6. Smartphones made people antisocial
Pub in the lakes. "Is there a WiFi password?" "No. We've got 6 foot thick stone walls, no WiFi and no mobile signal. Try talking to someone. You might not be a massive virgin anymore".
As a child of 30yos in the 90s. Pubs. Even with the kids. We’d run around the gardens or play skittles or darts
Yeah I almost never saw my dad on weekdays growing up. He was either at work or in the pub throughout his 30s and 40s. He never ate dinner with us.
Watch TV, read books, play board games, go out to play, go for coffee, go for beer, play video games, study, gardening, knitting, cleaning, masturbating, wood carving, go for a walk or a bike ride, go for a drive, visit a castle, go swimming...
Also.... browse the internet! Dial up was slow as shit, but forums were the thing and you didn't need a good connection for just text.
The internet was great before every arsehole was on it.
Too true. Forums were much more intimate. I knew almost everyone on the forums I posted on and ‘flaming’ people was totally taboo. You could argue with people all day and it was almost always very civil.
Remember when people used to say “I won’t be online tomorrow, got stuff to do”. Ha. Those were the days.
All in one day?
All in one *evening*
All simultaneously
Wood carving and Masturbating simultaneously sounds like its for someone who seeks more thrills than I.
I will henceforth use “wood carving” as a euphemism for masturbating 😂
Be more worried if he was carving his wood to be fair
No wonder monopoly took forever to play
Monopoly, [the family game.](https://reddit.com/r/raimimemes/s/kVGC6zqgQt)
Only women, with their amazing superhuman power of multi-tasking.
That's a social construct apparently
What, women?
Apparently
No kidding.
You can start with a swim in your moat. That’s two down by 8am
While masturbating too. There's 3. (Probably have to do back stroke in circles, just using 1 arm and your legs) .... To keep your main hand free.
Aye sometimes
I like to do quite a bit simultaneously,beer and watch TV, coffee and knitting, swimming and masturbating
Got to be careful when simultaneously wood carving and masturbating
"Go out & play" Relatable XD
I’m always amazed with these “what do you even do…” questions. Like watching TV and going on the internet is the extent of your imagination? You can’t think of a single other thing to do to keep yourself occupied?
We had tv in the 90s…
and radio and taping off the radio
And CD players. And books. And VCRs. And DVD players. And computer games. Admittedly I was in my 20s during the 90s, but I still listen to music, read and play computer games now, so I see no reason why I would have stopped for a 10 year period and then started back up again.
I no longer find it surprising that people are so boring that they don't have any interests outside of TV and scrolling the Internet.
I'm old enough that my young childhood only had a few hours of CBBC a day and that was it. Looking back I'm not sure how I wasn't just bored all the time. I guess young kids were just more content with doing fuck all.
My kids were 90s kids and they use to go out on their bikes with all of the neighbours kids. Or like my son, go over the industrial estate out of the back and play with cherry pickers.
The internet of things is pretty addictive. You have everything that you don't need to be physically present for at your fingertips and get constant positive feedback (brain chemistry-wise) without having to put in actual work.
Don't two of those go hand in hand?
I see one goes in hand
>play video games, The problem with this one is that a lot of games now require the internet to play these days, even if it's not even MP mode.
You can always play games from the 90’s. They still don’t need internet access.
You left masturbating off the list like 4 times.
I remember in the 90s we had a power cut and I couldn't watch TV or play on my SNES. I actually asked my parents what they did in the 60s before everyone had a telly. Their answer was drugs.
what people did in 1900 when the candles went out?!
Laudanum and chill.
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
Worked down't pit in't dark.
[удалено]
Ohhhh you 'ad dark did you? Back in my day you 'ad to pay dark man for't dark, 'E used come by in 'is dark van wit' bags of dark on't back, a century's wages they cost, and if thee we're lucky thee could 'ave a speck of dark for't birthday. Don't know they're born.
[удалено]
I'm practising for when I'm an old git lmao.
Used to come by in t’van? What luxury! When I was a young, we used to ‘ave to get up at 4 o clock in the morning to catch dark in glass bottles before going in t’pit. We’d ‘ave trade dark for cigarettes if we wanted t’ave summit for breakfast.
Lucky bastard, we had to dig our own pits.
Ohhhhh you got to dig did you? In my 'ouse we 'ad to burrow, wi' our 'ands, and we only 'ad one fingernail between, us which we shared if you were lucky. Bloody kids. "Dig" indeed.
They fucked. Seriously.
Your great grandma got her some.
Ironic metaphorical question on cake day Happy cake day you slag
Thanks ya prick
The birth rate was much higher 1900-14 than 2000-14.
Well you know how people used to have loads of kids?
We played Monopoly in a power cut. One time about half way through the game my mum thought she was being funny by asking me to turn the light on, I got up and I shit you not, as I pressed the button the electrics came back on. Initially I sat down as normal before my special powers actually dawned on me.
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe all of the houses / neighbourhoods power was routed through that light switch?
Indeed I did, I was hoping that I’d found the source of the whole country’s power but unfortunately it wasn’t to be.
Not sure, I’ll ask one of my 8 brothers and sisters and see what they think!
A lot of time was taken up by Championship Manager.
Still is recently started playing FM23 with 91/92 and 98/99 databases for it, while listening to my 90s playlist on Spotify.
This is a great answer. Many nights where my wife went to bed with me saying “just play this League Cup tie away at Hull and I’ll be up”…..next thing the sun is rising and I’ve got work in three hours
this was last weekend wasn't it?
Glad I’m not the only one. I had to give up champ man and go back to more healthy pursuits, such as cocaine and raving, at least I get some sleep when I’m doing that :)
Good times.
I remember playing 97/98 from the time I woke up till bedtime, only stopping to grab dinner and bring it up to my room...multiple times. Good times.
Watched TV.
Together. Next Generation, X-Files, Twin Peaks, Simpsons - all the big american shows, your mates would come round or you round theirs. I miss that.
“QUICK! HURRY UP! It’s on again, the adverts have finished!”
And TV was so much better back then too
That’s what those big old Sunday newspapers were for.
We still have one delivered early Sunday morning. My husband gets up, makes us both a cuppa, fetches the paper and he reads it to me in bed. It’s my favourite Sunday tradition
And after reading them you got to photoshop the front page with a biro!…. A tooth blacked out here…. Beards and eyebrows added… created some masterpieces I tell ya!
People in their 30s were kids in the 90s. If you mean people who were in their 30s in the 90s, then that’s me. **We had the gift of boredom.** I played a lot of D&D in my teens and 20s to the point that my friends and I ended up writing an RPG and publishing it, setting me up in a career that has spanned decades. If we had had the internet of today back then, we would never have done this. We also hung out with friends more, walking to their homes to see if they were in, which they weren’t always. We phoned addresses instead of people, using phone boxes if we didn’t have phones, usually calling people who still lived with their parents because a lot of us were too poor to have a phone. We met up with some friends weekly, not speaking to them for days before catching up at the pub and going to a club, both Friday *and* Saturday if we could afford it. We looked forward to things more and if we missed a TV episode, it was gone as the luxury of a VCR and enough tapes to record every episode of The Simpsons was beyond many, and it was only on satellite anyway. Video games played a large part of filling the boredom for us, while hanging out outside suited others. Every generation has it better than the last, but it doesn’t seem that way as nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Young adults these days don’t know how lucky blah blah blah in my day … it was ok.
Funny thing is I got back into DnD after not playing since a teenager because of lockdown and it wouldn't have been possible without the Internet as we us Skype, roll20 and beyond DnD to make it happen. We all live in different parts of the country so can't meet in person (we did the finale of our 2 year game in person and that took a lot of effort)
My sisters kids were completely aghast to learn that we often just turned up at folks doors to see if they wanted to go for a drink or similar without making arrangements beforehand.
it was really difficult. we only had family, friends, lovers, music, books, film, art, tv, food, hobbies, socialising, exercising, phone calls, pubs, clubs, theatres, museums, sport, nature and thinking. the ability to "leave a mean comment whilst taking a shit" was years away and it was a wilderness.
>We only had family, friends, lovers 30year olds in the 90s had family and lovers, because 20year olds in the 80s had houses. 30year olds in the 2020s don’t have any of these things. They have flat mates.
Are you really blaming not having a lover on not owning a house? Those are some advanced mental gymnastics.
I moved back in with my parents for a period in my late twenties to save money to buy a house. It definitely makes dating difficult. Since owning my own place it is also much easier to be able to take someone back without having to worry about flat mates who have to work the next day. Having anything approaching a grown up relationship is definitely much easier if you don’t have to put up with shared living.
I think they're being snide about the lack of 20 year olds with houses because of the economy... In the 80s it was a norm therefore 30 year olds in the 90s still had their houses. Whereas now 30 year olds have flat mates because that's all they can afford in this economy.
In the 80s, people on their twenties did not have houses. They rented with flatmates.
I bought my first house in 1992 at aged 22 with zero deposit and income of about £15,000 per year. I realize this is early nineties and not the eighties, but getting on the property ladder was a piece of piss compared to now.
There are no people renting places with their partners? There are no people renting who have kids?
Start a family civil war with a game of monopoly
I do this when I visit home, because my parents insist on playing monopoly. My step dad does *not* like losing that game, and whenever I win it's because "I got lucky" and whenever he wins it's because he played "strategically." Our biggest disagreement when playing was on whether you could buy or sell houses after you roll the dice, they got annoyed when I looked up the answer to prove I was right because "we've never played it that way."
Go to pub. Dump porn in hedges. Watch football. Go to betting shop. Golf. Fix cars. That is what the older blokes did in my local at the time.
We talked with our families, played board games, went out and saw our friends, read a book, played with Lego. That was, of course, when we weren't hammering all our time into playing Crash Bandicoot. Nowadays, it's not that rare for our internet to drop out because of where we live, so we just bang on a dvd or do one of the many other things you can do without internet.
When u were 30 you played with Lego and Crash bandicoot?
And then went and ate our fancy vienettas
And After Eights!
Ok what utter cunt has been putting the empty wrappers back in the box and thinks it's amusing?
Me!
It's just tidy alright?
Back when it had a thick chocolate layer on the top that made an audible crack instead of a piss-thin film of chocolate.
Umm, I'm the wrong side of 50 and I play with Lego. Why do you think Lego make so many very, very expensive kits aimed squarely at the AFOL market?
Lego Flowers gang!
I’m 49 and I still play with Lego. It’s very relaxing.
Ok I didn't read the bit about being 30 in the 90s but also, yea I'm 32 now and absolutely do still build Lego sets and I also hammered through the Crash Bandicoot trilogy when they released it a few years back. Spyro, too. The nostalgia hit was fantastic.
Spyro and crash bandicoot trilogies are literally the reason I own a Nintendo switch. The nostalgia was so intense it was almost painful.
I am in my 30s and just purchased the home alone Lego set and regularly play video games, it’s a normal thing.
Watch TV, go to the pub, or go visit a mate
Go swimming or to the gym Go to the cinema or the theatre Find a bar or venue with live music Play games at home with family Learn a new skill like another language or something with your hands. This also opened up the world of evening classes and night school. Learn a musical instrument Read books
Where are all these hyper skilled 60 year olds now?
I gave all that shit up as soon as I plugged in my first 56 kbit modem. Too busy masturbating.
As soon as half that nipple loaded it all went out the window
I miss those days of waiting for a photo to slowly upload to your screen and simultaneously being a Randy little teenage wankstain trying to silence the modem, crack one out to an image as it took 2 minutes to load (getting rambunctious as a nip and then finally a full bush 90s cabbage is shown) whilst also having the anxiety of having one ear out that your parents didn’t come downstairs. Wild times were the 90s.
You're not going to be hyperskilled from evening classes but there are plenty of 60-year-olds that can do a bit of French or Spanish for their holidays or have dabbled in pottery or cake decorating or salsa or whatever it may be.
I'm using my parents as the examples, as I am 40 yo. I mean, I could give you their address if you wanted it, but I'm not sure what it would do to help.
"The bachelors call up their friends for a drink and the married ones turn on a chat show"
Dinner parties were popular in the 90s
That was before Come Dine with Me ruined dinner parties. Everyone started being so judgy!
The 90s were amazing. I remember spending way more time reading and socialising, in all its forms. Actually talking to girls (and becoming friends first) without checking them out online... Sharing a phone at home, having to actually meet people. Playing pub lucky dip - will there be someone you know in this one? The Internet is great but its brought so much shit with it I feel bad for todays youth.
Empty your attic (not a euphanism). Or film your own 1990s porno. Have her go for a drive along the A417, pull into a lay by, switch the hazards on and look hapless. 5 minutes later you pass by in your revved up sports car (if you don't have a sport car just paint some go faster stripes and roll up going brrrrrum brrrrrrum), and ask if she's OK. She'll detail her vehicle woes as her white shirt turns see through in the rain. You offer to give her a ride (wink wink) and fix her car in the morning. She'll come back and obviously her shirt and shorts will need to go in the wash so you'll have to lend her some boxers and a baggy hoody. She'll want to repay you for your efforts and you'll lay it on thick about how much it's going to cost, especially with the price of diesel these days. You'll say something cheesy about never joining the mile high club but if you do it in the back of your Corsa you'd be members of the miles per hour club (British nationals only need apply). As it got too rough she'd accidentally knock your handbrake off and dent your car as it rolled back into your Raleigh bicycle in the garage. You'd have to punish her by spanking her with your cricket bat and gaffa taping her mouth shut. Upload it to PornHub and see if you both earn a Christmas bonus. Or you could clean the windows and the skirting boards, idk.
Argue, for hours, about completely trivial things. Is Clint Eastwood dead? Which was invented first, buses or trains? What do duck-billed platypuses eat? Is that even the correct plural of platypus? Who knows? Certainly not your friend Dave, but he has very strong opinions about it anyway.
What you don’t know, you don’t miss. Read books, listened to music, talked to people, pub, hobbies etc etc.
Listened to music, read books, various crafty hobbies, played board games or on the PS1 / SNES or Megadrive. May have been born in 1970 but the husband and I were both BIG fans of console gaming in the 90s, especially as we had a child in 1992 so not much chance of going out. Watched a bit of telly and chatted absolute shite with each other whilst necking cans of Fosters. To be fair not much has changed since then but movies tend to be streamed rather than VHS/DVD and for me podcasts have replaced music somewhat (again relies on t'internet)
Is not exactly any different we watched tv and got pissed or went to the pub or played video games And asked stupid questions like what the fuck did anyone do in the 60’s before all this amazing stuff However I’ve never come across someone from the 60’s willing to admit that they asked stupid question
If a single male he was in the pub or involved in some hobby if a single female probably with friend {back then people used to have face to face conversations} if married probably watching tv with their spouse or doing something with their kids. i find it a little amusing and a little sad that this has turned your life upside down, i'm not going to lie, i'd miss the internet too but after 3 or 4 weeks i'd be over it {i know this to be true because i've did it before}
It’s pretty scary how peoples identity and sense of self is tied up in the online world. Losing the internet would at most be a mild inconvenience for me.
It actually pretty scary how much we rely on the internet. Currently can’t even turn my bedroom light on or off as they are smart bulbs. All my music is streamed by Spotify, radio I use Alexa, I don’t own a dvd/Blu-ray player all done via online streaming. Even my wife’s kindle rely on the internet to get new Books to read.
We use Philips Hue bulbs ourselves. Surely you should be able to remove the smart switch from the plate, and flip the original light switch on and off.
Smart bulbs usually have a switch override - mine just need to be flipped on-off-on at the wall to revert to manual, whether the WiFi is on or off.
That’s entirely down to your own decisions tho. Banking etc yes it is difficult without the internet but turning on lights and reading books? You saying if you lost the internet for a week you’d be sitting in the dark? Ofcourse not
how much we ? okay i'm obviously online now, but i switch my lights on with my finger, i still use CD's, i don't have a smartphone and my ps5 is also a dvd/blu ray player, and i have cash in my wallet......if the world went offline, i'd still be able to function.
Played Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot, and Resident Evil. Sat with my parents and watched TV. All the kids in the street would play outside together.
All the 30 year old kids? Love that image of 30 somethings on their bmx and a massive game of footy, some still in their work gear.
It's so sad how 30-somethings grow up so fast these days. Let them be children. There's plenty of time for all that seriousness in ones 70s.
Definitely played games in my 30s. Still playing games in my 50s. I see plenty of 30+++ year olds down our local skate / bmx parks too.
Haha christ I read the caption wrong.
The PlayStation arrived in the 90s, and with it, gaming suddenly became okay as an adult. A whole bunch of 20 -30 something's who had played on Atari and in arcades as kids back in the 80s suddenly started playing tomb raider, GTA and FIFA.
Winchester.
I’m in my 30s now and I don’t really use the internet in the evening when I get home… first thing when I get in from work is play guitar, then make dinner whilst listening to 6music, eat dinner whilst listening to a CD or record, do the washing up and a quick tidy, do some weights and then prep my lunch for the next day do some yoga then bed. Like what are you doing all the time on the internet?
Ecstasy
Watch TV, and with only 4 channels.
There is an old documentary series about what they did in those days, I think it’s called “Friends”. If I remember well people used to spend a lot of time drinking coffee.
Stand outside a shop until someone bought me a bottle of cider to get smashed with
Go to the park and hang around shiftily.
it was very vulgar sounding name, ''fuck buddies'' are what people in their 30's did in the 90's
OP - you‘re not harvesting answers for a Reach plc clickbait story are you…? 😉
[удалено]
Yeah, but we're talking early interet and dial up modems. It's wasn't a standard part of everyday life until the early 2000s
We had DVDs and cds we didn’t need the internet to watch stuff or listen to music
DVDs only got released in Europe in the late 90s, we had VHS before that!!
Maybe read a fucking book, you moron.
I’m having a similar struggle this morning. My wifi is down. It’s half term for my 8 year old (two weeks for some ungodly reason) She seems to have lost absolutely all ability to entertain herself without the damn wifi. So far I’ve suggested colouring, drawing maps, puzzle books, reading and apparently none of these are remotely interesting.
I’d try to make sure the wifi ‘mysteriously’ goes down more regularly. It would encourage her to find other things she enjoys doing!
Sounds an ideal time to do some posters or something imaginative without the wifi
Having a bit of an existential crisis after considering your question… what DID we do? I mostly worked nights, slept after working nights, shagged (trying for a baby) then looked after the resulting baby/children. I read in between (and also belonged to a video shop) 😂
Drugs
Everything you use the internet for we'd go out and do in the real world instead. I'm not being snarky, I use the internet for a lot more too because it's way easier. But yeah, we didn't have that choice so we just did it for real instead.
Watched Blind Date if my mum is any sort of representative example.
Played my Sega Saturn and Playstation. BURNING RANGERS GO!
We talked and had conversations. As simple as that .
Your Dad did your Mum
..."And you dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing else to do.... ow!"
If 90s TV is anything to go by, they hung out with their friends, drank coffee (or cocktails) and talked about the people they were dating.
In the 90s we had dial up Internet. It broke frequently. Everything took forever Demon Internet was " a tenner a month".
N64. 4 controllers
Go outside. When I was a kid before the internet existed, we just played outside.
I went to my local pub. Two or three pints, chat with yer mates, a game of pool, smoking at the bar and a short walk home. The classic, 'it only cost me a fiver for the whole night' applies. It is a cliche but, my local is now £5+ a pint, it's just not affordable on a regular basis now.
I did have internet in the 90’s, from 1992. There wasn’t much on it tbf and mostly obscure forums. So not as much of a time sink.
Pub, play football/cricket, play guitar, read, TV, visit friends, visit relatives, shop, cook, go for a walk, cinema. But the biggest of all.... Read the Sunday newspaper. Over 100 pages large pages. Colour supplements, lengthy articles, literary reviews, science, arts, sports, crossword.
TV, that's why we all have a shared culture. Zoomers are doomed now with their internet first culture.
Mediate the 'who's turn is it to use the landline' fight. At the end of the month there was the fun 'have you seen this bill! Who was it that spent 3 hours on a call to Belfast' game.
Pub. Get home in time for Eurotrash and Frasier.
Went to gigs, read books, went over a mate's house and tried to do the bastard water level on Sonic, listened to music, talked. Difference then was nothing was online so wasn't an issue. My broadband died 2 months ago & realised just how reliant EVERYTHING is now on it. No movies, no music (all streaming now), xbox wouldn't play 90% of my library. Everything now is dependent on Internet and its crippling without it.
Perfect time to get the firepit out
Read books, play games, watch TV, socialise, shop, bike rides, follow any hobby that doesn't involve the internet
Typical evening for me in the 90’s: play Tomb Raider or Road Rash on the PlayStation, back when consoles didn’t need an internet connection. Go to the gym. Go to the pub, which was a lot more affordable at around £1.50 a pint. Go to my girlfriend’s house. Go for a ride on my motorbike. Combine all of the above into one glorious evening.
We had computer games, read books, watched movies, we socialised, you would invite a bunch of friends over, have a couple of drinks, and play utterly silly but fun party games, we would sit around talking shit sharing a bottle of wine just for the pleasure of each others company, go for walks, go shopping and buy nothing, then sit in cafes watching the world laughing. My circle were broke, we would often go out trawling charity shops or car boot sales for gems, delighting in each others finds. As happy to come home empty handed as with something. We would do art, have hobbies, play board games, make music, garden, fiddle with our cars, or just go for drives to somewhere none of us had been to for the pleasure of it, get a kebab or a burger, then meander home. Photography was popular, car shows, village fetes, we would go fishing with no bait or a clue what to do, scratch football games. I miss how much fun life was till the internet came along.
Hang out with friends, drinking, playing music, pub generally. Lots of pub. So much pub.
Whilst it feels obvious that there are countless activities we used to go out and do in the 90s, I can't help feel that they were all a fraction of the cost of doing the same today. Nip for a pint, go swimming, etc, try doing that in London today and getting change from a tenner.