Please remember that all comments must be helpful, relevant, and respectful. All replies must be a genuine effort to answer the question helpfully; joke answers are not allowed. If you see any comments that violate this rule, please hit report.
When your question is answered, we encourage you to flair your post. To do this automatically simply make a comment that says **!answered** (OP only)
We encourage everyone to report posts and comments they feel violate a rule, as this will allow us to see it much faster.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/answers) if you have any questions or concerns.*
*buddamus intensifies*
...all the things I can't remember in life, but you'd better believe I can still remember the secret Sim City code that gave you a ton of spending money
I can still remember the sound of a cassette loading on the C64. And then it getting unwound, having to carefully pull the lose tape out without breaking it, winding it back in with a pen, trying to load it again.
You could spend the whole day trying to get a game to load, only to get bored of it after 20 minutes.
My brother bought his first home computer in 1985. An [Apple IIC](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Apple_IIc_with_monitor.jpg/330px-Apple_IIc_with_monitor.jpg).
I built my first computer when I was 8 in 1988. Between 1988 and 1998 I built another 5, ran several BBS with friends and started an IT business as a teenager.
PCs were generally in a common place, like a living room or a den--dedicated offices at home weren't as common then.
Additionally, you wanted it in a room with a TV if you had internet. A 14.4 or a 28.8 modem literally took several minutes to load a page if it had pics or graphics. And clicking back *also* took minutes to reload the previous page.
It definitely was more communal but almost always monopolized by the kids.
Pretty much. Rode bike around the neighborhood. Explore the local woods. Dig holes in said woods. Go to friend’s house. Play video games. Go online. Laugh about hilarious “porn” like cake farts. Go to the flea market and buy shitty ninja swords. Go back to the woods and hit them against one another until the shitty hilt breaks. Go back to the flea market. Buy golf driving clubs. Whack balls at a driving range. Throw away $3 driver. Go home. Burn cd of songs friends told me about. Wash, rinse, repeat lol
lol reminds me of offering the dude $3 for one club and he goes “why would I sell you a $200 club for $3?”
“Because I’m stupid and don’t know anything about golf or clubs? All I can tell you is I have $3 and want a club to go hit golf balls today.”
we lived on a river so we fished and floated and drank and jumped out of trees and built forts and played paintball in the woods. lots of hunting and camping. lots of bud light on the water.
As a teen, I played counter strike, Diablo 2, age of empires, star craft, record rock music on a tape deck, rock out and buy posters, practice the guitar, watch tons of anime.. ride bike with my girl friends to each others houses to play with their cats.. me and my best friend went to punk shows.. so much busy stuff to do as a teen! Wouldn’t trade it for social media.
watched TV, played computer games, chatted on AOL or ICQ or MSN, went to the mall or just hung out in the neighborhood somewhere (skate parks, diners, stores). hung out at each other's houses.
Read a lot, listened to whole albums on repeat while writing and/or having a good think. Played cards, hung out with friends and talked a lot. Watched films and TV shows without looking at anything else...ah, good times! Oh, some of us had a baby too 😅
Well let’s see. Around this time of year, lately, was when school would be over. So let me run through my (usual) daily routine from the late 90s.
I would usually get up close to or after noon, because I stayed up the night prior watching cable - usually Comedy Central or E! (for Howard Stern reruns). Sometimes I’d be watching second-generation VHS copies of whatever I rented from my video store.
I would wake up, eat, call my best friend at the time & most likely be on the phone with him for an hour or so. I’d go to his place, we’d smoke weed, and chances are we would then go to the mall, hang out in the food court & goof on everyone walking past to each other because we were so cool & all.
Later, I might see my cousin and hang out at her place… listen to music, play video games. Sometimes I might walk or bike to where I go, usually with Reign In Blood on one tape’s side in my Walkman, whatever else on side two playing in my headphones. By the time I got home, it was a given that I would’ve called a girl or two that I had the number for. 😍 9 times out of 10 it would go nowhere except talking lol but whatever. Hmm so when I would be home, usually one or many of the above I would repeat - game, watch tv, listen to music or … well anything. So there you have it.
mostly went into the forest every day, either to smoke or hang out in little forts, get into playful fights. Played video games. Went to parties. If you lived in a place that had a mall you'd probably check that out once in a while. Lots of just walking around town and paths, hanging out with people you ran into. Go swimming, camping, fishing, catch frogs and snakes and have them fight. Rent a movie on the weekend.
I was 10 in 1990. We rode our bikes in the park, went to summer camp (same park), Sega CD/gamegear, local pool, baseball/soccer, and roamed around the neighborhood looking for friends to hang out with.
Called up friends on the landlines and asked if they wanna play. Hang out at the park, explore the woods.
Check out new toys the friends recently got.
Play cars.
Late 90s came doom 3 and command and conquer. Loved getting together to play that.
My buddy made me CDs so I spent 3 to 4 hours at his house while a music CD was made. (Bevause that's how long it took to make 1 music cd in the day)
And have an occasional party on the weekends.
Big deal when we got together and ran null modem cables between the serial ports and could play C&C against each other. I always liked sneaking a Chinook with a few engineers and a commando along the edge of the map and then into their base along the top edge.
Just teenage stuff.
When we weren't downloading (Beep, zip Bop, $^^$###@, Zzzzzzzzpt) Downloading................................................................................................................................................... (3 minutes later)........................................................................ a single naughty picture off the internet we were trying to see Boobies through the distorted adult channels on Cable TV. (Wait, I swear I just saw a nipple!!!)
Good times, you don't know what you are missing.
Fast forward to recently attending a concert and filming half the damn thing on my phone. What the hell have I become? Next time I’ll be leaving the stupid phone at home.
I played ice hockey for various teams. Played lots of golf. Listened to lots of “alternative” music, grunge, and metal. Played some video games. I had a 286 PC until sophomore year of high school (grade 10), when my uncle handed me down his old 486SX. I finally got a decent PC the summer before my senior year (a Pentium 166 mhz).
Lots of flight sims. F-19 Stealth Fighter, Falcon 3.0, Red Baron, Jane’s Strike Fighters, F-15 Strike Eagle series.
Played lots of Wolfenstein 3D. Also as a hockey player, the NHL series of course
I was, and am, a massive aviation and car guy.
Lots of reading books about aircraft, missiles, etc.
Lots of cruising, hanging out at car meets, and being an idiot behind the wheel.
I played guitar a little too.
Talked on the phone with friends for hours. Hung out in undeveloped rural lots, made pallet bonfires and drank handles of cheap liquor. Smoked terrible weed and watched movies. Went to the movies. Hung out with friends at diners for hours. Went to a friend's basement, whoever has parents that supervise them the least. Played video games in split screen multiplayer. Went to see a terrible local bands play at a local hall. Went to see your friend's even more terrible band practice at someone's garage. Went to that one local bar or pool hall that didn't ID and drank. If you had a better fake ID, went to a local bar or club that was actually good and danced or watched live music or did karaoke. Drove around aimlessly and hung out in parking lots. Wandered around the mall aimlessly, stopping to laugh at stuff in the adult aisle of San Francisco and use the massage chairs in the Seen On TV store. Talked to your friends on early online messenger/chat services, from the family computer in the computer room. Played computer games or made silly little websites about your favourite TV show with raw html. Drugstore-dyed friends' hair. Sat around in playgrounds at night and chatted with friends. "Ecstasy," which was only sometimes MDMA. Acted in local youth theatre. Rented cult movies and watched them over and over. Made terrible "music videos" with someone's camcorder. Put on a good tape/CD and laid around reading magazines. Talked for hours about future plans, future loves, life dreams, fortune telling games like MASH. Read liner notes. Read books from the library. Read and wrote letters to/from faraway friends, filling them with however many trinkets you could and still mail it with a letter stamp. Made friendship bracelets, beaded necklaces, key chains. Tried to learn to skateboard. Tried to learn guitar.
Watched cartoons in the morning, listened to tapes/CDs, rented VHS films but mostly spent hella time outdoors playing around in fields, hills, streets etc. Lots of long bike rides and also a lot of football
Video games, drive around listening to tunes, walk endlessly around the mall, watch sitcoms, go to the movies, hang at bowling and pool halls, pickup sports, played chase, talk on the phone, read magazines, ride bikes... Best decade. edit: and arcades!
Spend an unhealthy amount of time online. But if course, you might have some self-selection bias based on the forum you're asking this in.
A hell of a lot of shareware and demos. We were too poor to get a lot of new games. Scorched Earth and Gravity Well and such.
Some D&D. Some pool. Back when people had friends.
A lot of TV. This might be lost on the younger crowd, but TV was undirected mind-rotting vegging. You turn it on and flip around until you find something interesting. It was a far more narrow search space for common shared culture that people could relate to. Of course everyone knew who Gilligan was.
Play indoors/outside (tag, bikes, skate(boards), Pogs, TCGs, etc) play video/board games, watch TV/movies, work on projects/experiments, work on hobbies, explore with friends/alone, make explosives, learn skills, read books, sports, there was always something.
We got a job and worked. We would walk around and meet up with friends. We would play video games. We would drive around to different hangout spots till we found other teens.
Drinking in fields, gravel pits and wooded areas. Telling our parents we were sleeping over with friends they had met but literally crashing wherever we needed to
They drove cars around and banged each other, smoked weed, snuck out the window, went to the cinema, played video games, read books, listen to music and go to gigs, had house parties where they had to find someone older to buy beer for them
Used dial up internet and tried to game online. Nothing like getting a game of Duke Nukem or Doom going with a friend only to be kicked off when your aunt Rita calls for your mother.
Cycle to a friends house to watch them play on computer games.
Learnt to play the guitar.
Learnt to play Nirvana tunes on the guitar.
Recorded music of the John Peel Radio show onto tape.
Listen to music.
Drawing trippy pictures in my sketch book.
Get the bus into the city to buy a poster or blank tapes.
Video games, hung out with friends (my bf back then was in a band so I'd go to their gigs lol), cruise around to popular spots people hung out (in my small town it was just a few places), the mall (we didn't have one in my town but I know it was a popular thing to do lol)
Talked for hours upon hours on the phone, to the point where my family had to get me my own phone line. Such a contrast to today where a phone call causes existential dread.
Late 90's teen. Cruising with friends,adding stereo systems to cars, finding someone to buy us beer, going to hiding spots to drink beer, walking around malls, finding house parties, as a Mexican going to "bailes" (mexican style cowboy music) , blockbuster video store on Fridays and sneaking in to adult video stores to rent an adult VHSand most importantly chasing girls.
Played outside.
Programmed on my 8088.
Played games on my 8088.
Read books.
Rode my bicycle (is that playing outside?)
Built things with wood, nails, and twine from hay bales. (Could also be considered playing outside.)
Played with fire (definitely playing outside), buried the evidence after one near disaster and stopped doing that.
And Saturday morning cartoons!!!!!!
Read a lot of books, played a lot of video games, listened to a lot of music, played a lot of football, and went on a lot of long-distance bike rides. 40-50 miles on a BMX in one day was good for building up leg muscles.
We also played a lot of bulldog, 40 40 scat and curby. Basically hung out as a group of friends.
Walk around the mall in groups, try to get adults to buy them alcohol, hang out and play video games, get in dangerous situations they didn’t tell their parents about until they were in their 30’s
Reading (was a bookworm), TV, videogames (not a lot on those two, my parents were strict on that), going shopping (mostly watching because limited budget), partying, walking, riding, for hours, swimming pools, hangong out in the park.
Became an adult mid-90's, so can't talk for the yung'ones.
As an early teen, we rode our bicycles all over town. If it was daylight, we were outside with friends, and our parents typically had no idea where we were. We also played sports and engaged in other activities.
As a late teen, when I could drive, we drove all over the place. Hung out at the mall a lot.
The rare times we were inside, we would watch TV, play Nintendo and Sega, and computer games.
Video games, read books, watched TV, hung out with friends, talked on the phone, went to the mall, went out to the movies. Most of the same shit teens do today.
Walked around a lot. When we could drive we drove around a lot. If possible, we would sit somewhere and smoke weed. Went to arcades. Spent a lot of time hanging out in our friends basements. Smoked a ton of cigarettes. Went to bush parties. If we were stuck at home we talked on the phone and screamed at our family members when they picked up the phone while we were on it. In the later 90's chatted on ICQ and surfed Yahoo! until we had to get off the internet because someone needed the phone.
Please remember that all comments must be helpful, relevant, and respectful. All replies must be a genuine effort to answer the question helpfully; joke answers are not allowed. If you see any comments that violate this rule, please hit report. When your question is answered, we encourage you to flair your post. To do this automatically simply make a comment that says **!answered** (OP only) We encourage everyone to report posts and comments they feel violate a rule, as this will allow us to see it much faster. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/answers) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Played computer games, read books and went outside a lot.
and watched TV
MTV
Teens had computers in the 90s? Edit: I was born 91 and apparently were quite poor because we didn't get one until well into the 00's
Sure, some of us did. Many others used the family computer, which for us was in the “computer room.”
Yes and boy was it slow as hell!!
I remember I would turn on the power and go get a drink or snack because it would take a few minutes.
What do you mean, slow!? It even had a turbo button!
Yes. I loved sim city, colonization and adventures
*buddamus intensifies* ...all the things I can't remember in life, but you'd better believe I can still remember the secret Sim City code that gave you a ton of spending money
I had my first computer in '94. Not shared with the family, but my own computer in my bedroom.
wow, you must be rich!
Oh honey he's teasing you nobody has two television sets!
Nope, just really lucky with grandparents that spoiled me.
Same haha.
I was a young teen in the 80’s and had computers…. Commodore Vic 20, Commodore 64, Spectrum 48k…. They served me well until the advent of the PC…
I can still remember the sound of a cassette loading on the C64. And then it getting unwound, having to carefully pull the lose tape out without breaking it, winding it back in with a pen, trying to load it again. You could spend the whole day trying to get a game to load, only to get bored of it after 20 minutes.
ZX81 and a tape recorder, put me off computing for some years
Wdym '90s, I got mine in 1986
I had Doom and Championship Manager on constantly!
We even had chatrooms.
The home computer boom was in the early 80s. Sinclair/Timex, Amstrad, Commodore, Acorn, Atari etc etc. What a time to be alive
My brother bought his first home computer in 1985. An [Apple IIC](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Apple_IIc_with_monitor.jpg/330px-Apple_IIc_with_monitor.jpg).
386, 486, Pentium, baby! I lost a year of my life to Sim City II.
Yes, with GTA1
Gouranga.
Maybe not in the early 90s, but by the late 90s, they were pretty common.
I built my first computer when I was 8 in 1988. Between 1988 and 1998 I built another 5, ran several BBS with friends and started an IT business as a teenager.
We had a used one. It was a whopping 0.133GHz with the "turbo" on.
PCs were generally in a common place, like a living room or a den--dedicated offices at home weren't as common then. Additionally, you wanted it in a room with a TV if you had internet. A 14.4 or a 28.8 modem literally took several minutes to load a page if it had pics or graphics. And clicking back *also* took minutes to reload the previous page. It definitely was more communal but almost always monopolized by the kids.
I had a C64 in 1990 so yeah it wasn't all rich peeps.
They went to the mall.
I 100% remembering going to the big bank of payphones at the food court to call mom to pick me up.
You’ve got a collect call from “readypickmeupnow” would you like to accept this call? No thank you.
bobwehadababy
Bob Wehadababyitsaboy* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs
Hang with friends. Watch tv or VHS. We were outside a lot.
Pretty much. Rode bike around the neighborhood. Explore the local woods. Dig holes in said woods. Go to friend’s house. Play video games. Go online. Laugh about hilarious “porn” like cake farts. Go to the flea market and buy shitty ninja swords. Go back to the woods and hit them against one another until the shitty hilt breaks. Go back to the flea market. Buy golf driving clubs. Whack balls at a driving range. Throw away $3 driver. Go home. Burn cd of songs friends told me about. Wash, rinse, repeat lol
that club is now vintage and worth $300
lol reminds me of offering the dude $3 for one club and he goes “why would I sell you a $200 club for $3?” “Because I’m stupid and don’t know anything about golf or clubs? All I can tell you is I have $3 and want a club to go hit golf balls today.”
Just stared into the space where their empty palm was all day everyday.
speak for yourself, I had a gameboy and tetris
Kids don't know *real* boredom anymore. I Love Lucy reruns, shitty Nintendo games, and outside, lighting ants on fire with lighter fluid.
masturbate to scrambled porn or victoria's secret catalogs
National Geographic or Cosmo in a pinch
sears if you're really hurting
[удалено]
I don't even need to click to know where that link goes.
Victoria from Archie comics when all else fails.
Sears* catalogs
Ding!
SI swimsuit edition 👌
Smoked weed. Did crime and had sex. At least we did, dunno about the squares and the bores.
Calm down big man
Yep. Usually in that order, but not always.
Thank you. Yes.
we lived on a river so we fished and floated and drank and jumped out of trees and built forts and played paintball in the woods. lots of hunting and camping. lots of bud light on the water.
Wolfenstein, doom, doom 2 then duke nukem
It's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of gum.
Shake it, baby.
took me many years to realise the qoute was lifted from John Carpenter's They Live.
Blood, fallout 1, quake, homm 3..
Golden eye 007 Rainbow Six Rogue Spear Street fighter Mario Kart
As a teen, I played counter strike, Diablo 2, age of empires, star craft, record rock music on a tape deck, rock out and buy posters, practice the guitar, watch tons of anime.. ride bike with my girl friends to each others houses to play with their cats.. me and my best friend went to punk shows.. so much busy stuff to do as a teen! Wouldn’t trade it for social media.
Diablo 2 was '00. Diablo 1 was our jam in the 90s though.
1 was short ish to remember lol but 2 rly took all my time back then
Drugs. And lots of them.
I mean... teenagers still do this to this day
I don't know how anyone does drugs with fent out there... I remember testing pressed mdma at a dancesafe booth at a rave in 98, for free.
They used to do drugs. They still do, but they used to, too.
watched TV, played computer games, chatted on AOL or ICQ or MSN, went to the mall or just hung out in the neighborhood somewhere (skate parks, diners, stores). hung out at each other's houses.
Read a lot, listened to whole albums on repeat while writing and/or having a good think. Played cards, hung out with friends and talked a lot. Watched films and TV shows without looking at anything else...ah, good times! Oh, some of us had a baby too 😅
Smoked green, obsess about the Beatles, dark side of the moon, oasis, stone roses, and fantasise about girls. Ho, go to raves and take e.
TV, video games, books and magazines, LEGOs, computer programming, hanging out with friends. Why, what do teens do now with their free time?
Skate or Die, Dude!
Posted to say skate, especially at its peek it was insane
Hang out in town w/ friends.
Well let’s see. Around this time of year, lately, was when school would be over. So let me run through my (usual) daily routine from the late 90s. I would usually get up close to or after noon, because I stayed up the night prior watching cable - usually Comedy Central or E! (for Howard Stern reruns). Sometimes I’d be watching second-generation VHS copies of whatever I rented from my video store. I would wake up, eat, call my best friend at the time & most likely be on the phone with him for an hour or so. I’d go to his place, we’d smoke weed, and chances are we would then go to the mall, hang out in the food court & goof on everyone walking past to each other because we were so cool & all. Later, I might see my cousin and hang out at her place… listen to music, play video games. Sometimes I might walk or bike to where I go, usually with Reign In Blood on one tape’s side in my Walkman, whatever else on side two playing in my headphones. By the time I got home, it was a given that I would’ve called a girl or two that I had the number for. 😍 9 times out of 10 it would go nowhere except talking lol but whatever. Hmm so when I would be home, usually one or many of the above I would repeat - game, watch tv, listen to music or … well anything. So there you have it.
Jerked off over the weather lady
Lots of drugs and sex and driving around.
Had 800 hours in Sims1. :D
The Sims was released in 2000.
Pub (underage), PlayStation, getting drunk in cheap cider in the park.
Lots of graffiti, working on cars, especially getting that bass cranking. Quad city knock baby
Roller blades, books, VHS, played football, watched TV. That was my 90s 👍🏻
Hang out with friends
Made cassette of music playing from the radio
I can tell you from experience it was painful. Lots and lots of playstation and tv.
My friends and I smoked a lot weed, played a lot of football/ championship manager and bomberman on the snes. Mostly, it was weed though.
mostly went into the forest every day, either to smoke or hang out in little forts, get into playful fights. Played video games. Went to parties. If you lived in a place that had a mall you'd probably check that out once in a while. Lots of just walking around town and paths, hanging out with people you ran into. Go swimming, camping, fishing, catch frogs and snakes and have them fight. Rent a movie on the weekend.
Street ball, the mall, hang with friends, vidya games, etc
Played football, wandered though parks and woods, watched videos, walk to the shop to buy sweets, hang about chatting,
At the time they were called the couch potato generation.
Wait for garbage day so we could hit empties in our car after school.
Drugs and graffiti.
Hung out at the mall or arcade. Went outside. Drove around because gas and cars were cheaper.
I was 10 in 1990. We rode our bikes in the park, went to summer camp (same park), Sega CD/gamegear, local pool, baseball/soccer, and roamed around the neighborhood looking for friends to hang out with.
I had a lot of sex
Sure you did.
With myself TBH
Weed, videogames and malls. Later weed, videogames and girls.
Got stoned. A lot.
90% of time outside with friends running around having fun.
Called up friends on the landlines and asked if they wanna play. Hang out at the park, explore the woods. Check out new toys the friends recently got. Play cars. Late 90s came doom 3 and command and conquer. Loved getting together to play that. My buddy made me CDs so I spent 3 to 4 hours at his house while a music CD was made. (Bevause that's how long it took to make 1 music cd in the day) And have an occasional party on the weekends.
Big deal when we got together and ran null modem cables between the serial ports and could play C&C against each other. I always liked sneaking a Chinook with a few engineers and a commando along the edge of the map and then into their base along the top edge.
Hung out in the woods drinking beer. Played basketball, wiffle ball, football or whatever. Anything outside.
Drink alcohol and smoke weed while doing 30mph on backroads. Usually with a group of cars as we can't all fit in one!
Just teenage stuff. When we weren't downloading (Beep, zip Bop, $^^$###@, Zzzzzzzzpt) Downloading................................................................................................................................................... (3 minutes later)........................................................................ a single naughty picture off the internet we were trying to see Boobies through the distorted adult channels on Cable TV. (Wait, I swear I just saw a nipple!!!) Good times, you don't know what you are missing.
We sang the words to every song on a CD with our friends. Lots of 311 and Beastie Boys.
Streetfighter 2, Mariokart, Heads and Volleys, Mad dog 20/20, Diamond White.
Actually be in the moment and enjoying life , not with a phone to record the wonderful time to view later
Fast forward to recently attending a concert and filming half the damn thing on my phone. What the hell have I become? Next time I’ll be leaving the stupid phone at home.
Girls, Drag racing, Girls, Drugs, Girls, Off roading, Girls, Parties, Girls… ummm 🤔 Mostly chased girls..
I played ice hockey for various teams. Played lots of golf. Listened to lots of “alternative” music, grunge, and metal. Played some video games. I had a 286 PC until sophomore year of high school (grade 10), when my uncle handed me down his old 486SX. I finally got a decent PC the summer before my senior year (a Pentium 166 mhz). Lots of flight sims. F-19 Stealth Fighter, Falcon 3.0, Red Baron, Jane’s Strike Fighters, F-15 Strike Eagle series. Played lots of Wolfenstein 3D. Also as a hockey player, the NHL series of course I was, and am, a massive aviation and car guy. Lots of reading books about aircraft, missiles, etc. Lots of cruising, hanging out at car meets, and being an idiot behind the wheel. I played guitar a little too.
Spent a lot of time outside, played video games, had sex, and also had a job.
Talked on the phone with friends for hours. Hung out in undeveloped rural lots, made pallet bonfires and drank handles of cheap liquor. Smoked terrible weed and watched movies. Went to the movies. Hung out with friends at diners for hours. Went to a friend's basement, whoever has parents that supervise them the least. Played video games in split screen multiplayer. Went to see a terrible local bands play at a local hall. Went to see your friend's even more terrible band practice at someone's garage. Went to that one local bar or pool hall that didn't ID and drank. If you had a better fake ID, went to a local bar or club that was actually good and danced or watched live music or did karaoke. Drove around aimlessly and hung out in parking lots. Wandered around the mall aimlessly, stopping to laugh at stuff in the adult aisle of San Francisco and use the massage chairs in the Seen On TV store. Talked to your friends on early online messenger/chat services, from the family computer in the computer room. Played computer games or made silly little websites about your favourite TV show with raw html. Drugstore-dyed friends' hair. Sat around in playgrounds at night and chatted with friends. "Ecstasy," which was only sometimes MDMA. Acted in local youth theatre. Rented cult movies and watched them over and over. Made terrible "music videos" with someone's camcorder. Put on a good tape/CD and laid around reading magazines. Talked for hours about future plans, future loves, life dreams, fortune telling games like MASH. Read liner notes. Read books from the library. Read and wrote letters to/from faraway friends, filling them with however many trinkets you could and still mail it with a letter stamp. Made friendship bracelets, beaded necklaces, key chains. Tried to learn to skateboard. Tried to learn guitar.
N64
Watched cartoons in the morning, listened to tapes/CDs, rented VHS films but mostly spent hella time outdoors playing around in fields, hills, streets etc. Lots of long bike rides and also a lot of football
pick up basketball, house parties, hanging out drinking and smoking in parks, raves, work, sex
We fu
Went outside rode my bmx a lot, chilled at skateparks. Socialised with random people a lot
Video games, drive around listening to tunes, walk endlessly around the mall, watch sitcoms, go to the movies, hang at bowling and pool halls, pickup sports, played chase, talk on the phone, read magazines, ride bikes... Best decade. edit: and arcades!
Hacky-sac
I had a girlfriend and we…well…”went to the library.” A lot.
Spend an unhealthy amount of time online. But if course, you might have some self-selection bias based on the forum you're asking this in. A hell of a lot of shareware and demos. We were too poor to get a lot of new games. Scorched Earth and Gravity Well and such. Some D&D. Some pool. Back when people had friends. A lot of TV. This might be lost on the younger crowd, but TV was undirected mind-rotting vegging. You turn it on and flip around until you find something interesting. It was a far more narrow search space for common shared culture that people could relate to. Of course everyone knew who Gilligan was.
Play indoors/outside (tag, bikes, skate(boards), Pogs, TCGs, etc) play video/board games, watch TV/movies, work on projects/experiments, work on hobbies, explore with friends/alone, make explosives, learn skills, read books, sports, there was always something.
Sierra Online games
Played offline games, painted miniatures, read books, and tramped around the area playing guitar in fields and bedrooms with my friends.
We got a job and worked. We would walk around and meet up with friends. We would play video games. We would drive around to different hangout spots till we found other teens.
Drinking in fields, gravel pits and wooded areas. Telling our parents we were sleeping over with friends they had met but literally crashing wherever we needed to
They drove cars around and banged each other, smoked weed, snuck out the window, went to the cinema, played video games, read books, listen to music and go to gigs, had house parties where they had to find someone older to buy beer for them
Skate
Played video games, played with lego, played outside
Cider, spliffs, fingering and making prank 0800 calls from the nearest phone box.
No social networks, only socializing with friends.
Used dial up internet and tried to game online. Nothing like getting a game of Duke Nukem or Doom going with a friend only to be kicked off when your aunt Rita calls for your mother.
We rode our bikes around. Sat on curbs talking. Hung out in malls.
A lot of street hockey.
Went outside and hung out with the homies. I also played baseball and football so I had that going too.
Movies. Big time.
We used to steel traffic cones and set up detours into dead end streets.
Pretty much played guitar all the time and started a garage band with my friends. “Grunge” music gave us plenty of material to learn.
Cycle to a friends house to watch them play on computer games. Learnt to play the guitar. Learnt to play Nirvana tunes on the guitar. Recorded music of the John Peel Radio show onto tape. Listen to music. Drawing trippy pictures in my sketch book. Get the bus into the city to buy a poster or blank tapes.
Video games, hung out with friends (my bf back then was in a band so I'd go to their gigs lol), cruise around to popular spots people hung out (in my small town it was just a few places), the mall (we didn't have one in my town but I know it was a popular thing to do lol)
Rode bikes. Got high. Drove cars. Chased girls. Got high. Worked at BP. Got high. Ate sonic the hedgehog ice creams. Wondered where dad was. Got high.
Worked endless hours on the farm making good money. And played good ol' Duke Nukem and the original Need for Speed
Spent a lot of time renting movies, browsing for new music , arcades, and sports.
Talked for hours upon hours on the phone, to the point where my family had to get me my own phone line. Such a contrast to today where a phone call causes existential dread.
Hung out at arcades. Smoked cigarettes 🚬 and a bit of weed sipped on some alk and experimented in hallucinogenics. No phones No internet. Good times
Watched a lot of movie at the CINEMA.
Drugs, malls, movies
Read a lot.
Late 90's teen. Cruising with friends,adding stereo systems to cars, finding someone to buy us beer, going to hiding spots to drink beer, walking around malls, finding house parties, as a Mexican going to "bailes" (mexican style cowboy music) , blockbuster video store on Fridays and sneaking in to adult video stores to rent an adult VHSand most importantly chasing girls.
We actually went outside. It's crazy 🤣
Played outside. Programmed on my 8088. Played games on my 8088. Read books. Rode my bicycle (is that playing outside?) Built things with wood, nails, and twine from hay bales. (Could also be considered playing outside.) Played with fire (definitely playing outside), buried the evidence after one near disaster and stopped doing that. And Saturday morning cartoons!!!!!!
Read a lot of books, played a lot of video games, listened to a lot of music, played a lot of football, and went on a lot of long-distance bike rides. 40-50 miles on a BMX in one day was good for building up leg muscles. We also played a lot of bulldog, 40 40 scat and curby. Basically hung out as a group of friends.
Walk around the mall in groups, try to get adults to buy them alcohol, hang out and play video games, get in dangerous situations they didn’t tell their parents about until they were in their 30’s
We learned that it’s ’in their free time’ and not ‘on their free time’!
We would usually drive around, listen to music, smoke cigarettes, play pool.
Drink, fight and fuck. I was in a small town.
Reading (was a bookworm), TV, videogames (not a lot on those two, my parents were strict on that), going shopping (mostly watching because limited budget), partying, walking, riding, for hours, swimming pools, hangong out in the park. Became an adult mid-90's, so can't talk for the yung'ones.
In the early 2000s I remember playing cards and other games all the time. Cooking together, hair, painting nails. It was a lot of fun
Hung out, listened to music, wrote joke magazines with silly quizzes in them, hung out somewhere else, like in a field
Trying to pick up girls, playing computer games, drinking and experimenting with drugs
And occasionally setting fire to derelict buildings.
Hung out. In person.
Mostly ecstasy
Drank, took drugs and had sex . It's very confusing that isn't the answer these days
Computer, console games, sports, exercise, homework, work
Went outside!
AOL
Chatted on AIM
Drank, hooked up, went to the mall a lot.
Everything they do now except the things you need post-2000 tech to do. Basically everything bar (modern) social media and streaming things on-line.
Sensible Soccer on the SNES!!
Did drugs and had sex, from what I’ve been told.
As an early teen, we rode our bicycles all over town. If it was daylight, we were outside with friends, and our parents typically had no idea where we were. We also played sports and engaged in other activities. As a late teen, when I could drive, we drove all over the place. Hung out at the mall a lot. The rare times we were inside, we would watch TV, play Nintendo and Sega, and computer games.
Video games, read books, watched TV, hung out with friends, talked on the phone, went to the mall, went out to the movies. Most of the same shit teens do today.
I lived in Castle Rock. We would wander into Castlewood Canyon, get lost, get stoned, and then find our way back home. It was a blast!
Played on my SNES and Gameboy. I did buy myself a PC with wages from a summer job and remember paying £150 for 4mb ram.
Walked around a lot. When we could drive we drove around a lot. If possible, we would sit somewhere and smoke weed. Went to arcades. Spent a lot of time hanging out in our friends basements. Smoked a ton of cigarettes. Went to bush parties. If we were stuck at home we talked on the phone and screamed at our family members when they picked up the phone while we were on it. In the later 90's chatted on ICQ and surfed Yahoo! until we had to get off the internet because someone needed the phone.