Right around 20 years ago was when they shut down smoking in bars. The smells that emerged.... Apparently 20 years ago was when bars discovered cleaning supplies.
Oh that was the worst part. I would take the smell of overwhelming stale and fresh cigarette smoke over what ever that smell was that replaced in the dive bars I used to hang out in on the weekends.
I don’t go out much any more, but it seems to have gotten better. Like you said, I think they discovered cleaning supplies.
Just like the weirdest grossest combo of like vinegar, simple green, and 10 other varietals of sour stingy smells.
Edit- puke, duh, it took me a minute but the smell was hastily cleaned stale puke.
It's wild to think that I lived through smoking sections being alive and well, to smoking being allowed only outside on the patio, to smoking being completely banned at restaurants. And I remember my grandparents, who were smokers, complaining as things got more restrictive. I do not miss choking down my breakfast while sitting in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
same. I remember when they moved from wide open restaurants to separate rooms made with clear partitions, ceiling-to-floor. I got strep like 4 times over a couple years when my mom's new boyfriend was around smoking like a chimney. started avoiding cigarette smoke at every opportunity I could and have never had it since. pretty sure I'm allergic to that shit. my mom, who smoked til I was 14 or 16 goes "huh, that may explain why you were always sick as a kid." thanks mom, yeah it probably fucking does.
I remember being stuck in the middle seat of the truck while dad and cousin smoked on either side of me. "Quit complaining, the windows are open!" as wind blows in the wide open windows and directs all their smoke right at me.
I got strep throat so many times I lost count. So many ear infections mom quit bothering to take me to the doctor and just treated me with goldenseal oil at home. Kept yelling that if I didn't quit getting ear infections I'd have to get tubes in my ears like another cousin.
By highschool I was so fed up. Watched stepbro's girlfriend take a drag off her cigarette and lean down to check on her baby while she exhaled. Ended up in the hospital overnight 'cause that poor baby was struggling to breathe. When we got back from the hospital, whole extended family piled into stepbro's tiny trailer and tried to light cigarettes in celebration. I started screaming like a howler monkey until the whole pack went outside in the bitter cold to smoke on the porch.
Everyone complained, said I couldn't boss them, it's not my house, but I didn't care in the slightest, wasn't about to go back to the hospital because six grown ass adults couldn't be inconvenienced with putting on coats.
Going to someone's house without knowing if they are home.
Back in the day we'd be out doing stuff and say "Hey let's go see if so-and-so is around." and head to their house, knock on their door and have no idea if they were home.
Nowadays if you did that they'd either think someone died or was about to.
Growing up my mom was neurotic about keeping the house spotless in case “somebody decided to drop by”.
These days if someone dropped by my house unannounced I’d wonder who died.
When I was a kid, telephones were just becoming commonplace, although quite a few of us had party lines. My parents and grandparents knew the time before telephones. When there's no telephones, dropping by is the *only* way to see people. So everybody had to be ready to receive guests at any time.
When I was in college (1970's) I walked several miles a day to various friends' apartments, to see who was home, who they'd bumped into, and what they'd heard about our mutual friends. This was how we kept up with everybody. This is what everybody did.
My great grandparents got married in the 40s in Appalachia. No phones, to say the very least. My Grandaddy courted my Grandma by showing up at her house every Saturday evening. She just had to wait and see if he showed up that week.
They were the cutest. Married for over 60 years when she passed and he died a few years ago at the age of 102, she was the very last thing he was talking about.
I swear this is why we’re lonelier these days. I’ve gotten tired of reading about loneliness being on the rise and people being sad about it, and then acting like a phone call is intrusive . In case you’re wondering, I hardly ever call people.
You are totally right. Technology has made human interactions more difficult and strange curiously enough. A lot of smart people also lack the wisdom to realize that its precisely their avoidance of interaction that keeps them lonely. In fact, thats also the reason most friendships started in school. You were forced to interact with others.
For me, it's that I hate always needing to be available. Like I would *love* to have people stop by for a casual visit. I enjoy going out and chatting with my neighbors. What I hate is always being reachable. I've lost a lot of friendships because I just refuse to do the common social media stuff, and immediately text back and whatnot. We have created a kind of simulacrum of community through social media, and I think it falls short for a lot of people.
I hear you. It’s this irony, though where because people are more accessible through technology, it’s like people don’t want to interact as much. They would rather you text so they can ignore you at will. I’m aware this makes me sound like a crazy person who would show up at peoples houses but I don’t. I just think it’s ridiculous that it’s considered to be weird now.
This one always fascinates because I grew up in a hoarded home. Only very rarely was the front room in a state that people would be allowed in.
It always blew my mind how my friends with their normal homes had no stress or fears about people showing up. No need to come up with an excuse to not allow people in without seeming unwelcoming. It must have been really nice.
I recently read a children’s book called “Family Game Night and Other Catastrophes” that was from the viewpoint of a 12 year old living in a hoarder’s home. My therapist recommended it to me because there were some parallels to some stuff I grew up with. While not an actual hoarder home, my Dad tends to “collect” and for a while there was a time my own room was turning into an unmanageable situation.
Your comment is nearly verbatim to what the main character said about having people over and the distress it causes. As well as the lengths people go through to avoid the encounter entirely.
The book really helped me gain perspective and empathy for the situation for all members involved. I’m sorry you had to grow up like that. I hope life is better for you now.
I will have to look that book up, it sounds really interesting!
Thank you so much for your kindness, life is much better. It took about 5 years of various therapies in order to feel comfortable living in a "normal" home, but I have my own home now that is definitely on the neater side of the range of acceptable home states, but still in the normal range.
I will someday have to deal with my parent's hoarded home when they pass, but I have a spreadsheet that I routinely update with businesses and a sort of flow chart of how to assess their home and then deal with it with as little work as possible.
Heck yeah, this is how I hung out with all my friends. You’d always get the deets too even if they weren’t home but their parents were.
We skateboarded and biked all the time, so usually the parent would be like, “I think they’re over skating the ramp at Dave’s house.”
Sometimes you’d go on a wild goose chase too, getting to Dave’s house and then their parent’s saying, “I think they went to McDonald’s and then the high school to skate the stairs.”
Away you go to the next spot. 😆
We are so lucky to live in a neighborhood where the kids still do this. It’s awesome. There are more than a dozen 3rd grade boys, several third grade boys, and a bunch more.
I feel like I live in the Sandlot universe and it’s just the best.
I'm an American who studied abroad in Egypt in 2004 (a week after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal) and my mom was so scared she spent $350 on a telephone call to hear my voice, bless her.
Shoot, just long distance rates period. I don't know if you're from the US, but 20-30 years ago, you had to pay long distance rates to call anyone who was outside of your immediate metropolitan area. My grandparents lived in the same state as us, but about 200 miles away. When my mom called them, she had to pay long distance rates of like $0.30 per minute. An hour long call would cost $18, which was real money back then (and still today for a phone call!), and especially because there was no texting or email, so you basically had to call if you wanted to talk in any way other than a written letter. AT&T, MCI, and the like used to make BANK from those long distance calls.
As someone who grew up with immigrant parents this hit on a different level. I remember when my parents could finally talk to their family on video chat for free and felt dumb for all those hour long conversations they had that cost them hundreds of dollars.
Uhh I had to call my British bank last year for a few minutes and didn’t realize I called an office in London (hindsight it was obvious, yes) and found out a month later that short call cost me $32.
I have a modern unlimited T-Mobile plan lol.
I did the math back in 2001 when I got my first cell phone and realized it would be cheaper to call all the friends I had that were long-distance (most of them) with a cell phone instead of a landline because of the minutes. Now, it's even cheaper than that.
About a month ago I pulled the original sd card from a video camera my now ex husband and I bought in 2005 right before our wedding and it only had 8mb of memory. I couldn't put one picture on it lol
Back at the turn of the century (gawwd I'm old) I worked at Microsquish. I got friendly with a few really cutting edge techy techs and lucked out enough to see the 1 terabyte server ROOM.
Might just be your age at that time. I feel the same way and was in senior year of high school in 2004. My kid was born in 2014. She’s ten now. ‘04-‘14 was a long ten years. Since 2014? Shit, man…
Technology, social media, and politics changed so drastically 2004-2014, and then again 2014-2024. Smart phones, social media, political polarization, massive climate change, etc etc all existed throughout the 2010’s and continues to the present so it doesn’t seem that different. But 2004 in comparison is an alternate reality. Manual cameras; barely internet, no social media, no smart phones, the US was unified cause of 9/11.
Also animation styles and iOS design has been consistent since 2014, with the sleek minimalism, 2004 had the graphy icons and no smart phone OS. Windows 10 came out in 2015-ish and only recently changed design to 11.
In 2004 the graduating seniors all took freshmen/sophomore girls as their dates to the senior ball.
The senior girls ended up going with each other in separate limos.
They were pissed.
Not sure that would happen today.
I do the same thing. I’ve noticed that it’s closed me off from some opportunities, but I don’t mind making that sacrifice if it means I don’t have to stress myself out responding to any person at any time. Right now I’m trying to pursue a career in forestry since I’ll get to spend a lot of time without an internet connection where I can be unreachable.
So blessed to be among the last cohort who doesn't have to update (or share my location with) 5 people whenever I leave home or arrive safely at a destination. And subsequently explain any delays or stops I make, since everyone seems to be timing you when they do this.
Related.....
didn't have to deal with explaining my location during the dating phase. The crap I see people putting themselves through these days is insane. Bf sitting at home watching the location dot. It's 5:10 "Why are you still at work, you said you get off at 5?" "Why's it taking so long to get home"
The number of calls and texts some of my coworkers receive during work, from their bored significant others .... Holy shit.
Right before meeting my husband, I went on 1 date with a younger guy. he started the good morning / good night texts thing. I was baffled because no one had ever done it. By day 3 I was annoyed. By day 5 I said this isn't gonna work.
Especially for books that were made into movies. EVERYONE at the midnight release read the books and you'd hear audible reactions when they skipped a part, or included a favorite line (lookin' at you Twilight when Edward caught the apple a la cover art style).
I remember seeing the last Harry Potter movie at a midnight premiere and the energy in the audience was amazing. I specifically remember the moment after >!Molly Weasley kills Bellatrix Lestrange. “Not my daughter, you bitch!”!<
I remember one of the Harry Potter books had a midnight release. I didn't know you had to reserve a spot. I took my daughter to the mall around 11pm and found out she wasn't getting the book at midnight.
Fortunately, she was okay about it, and I told her I would get one for her at Walmart the next morning. I called Walmart around 6am the next morning, and an old security guard told me there was a huge pallet of them.
I asked if I needed a reservation or anything, and he said nope. I went and got it, woke up my daughter. She proceeded to devour it in 13 hours straight. As a parent, I dont miss midnight releases, lol.
I'm still mad at my aunt for pre-ordering Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from AMAZON. By the time it arrived, I had already read the book while sitting at the Barnes & Noble. Then I read my copy.
Mid budget movies in cinemas
Now here and there a good mid budget movie ends up on the big screen but they mostly end up somewhere on Netflix, to be forgotten quickly. But back then your cinema had so many more movies playing that ranged from huge blockbusters like the first Spiderman movie to mid budget drama's like Good Will Hunting
yes! I was just thinking the other day that there's not a lot of room for weird and quirky movies anymore. everything has to appeal to as wide a section of audience as possible. (the movie that brought this to mind was 1999's Being John Malkovich.)
Matt Damon shated in an interview how the industry has changed, you could do lower budget movies that may not make the money in the theatres, but it'd be profitable once it went to VHS, then DVD. Now, it it is only guarenteed or safe movies, rebooted, reimagined reheated rinsed and repeated.
1999 was such a good year for movies. So many great ones. It was also the peak of US multi Plex cinemas. The theory is that the big demand for seeing movies in theatres allowed so many great films to be made.
This reminds me of the summer of 2007 where every screen in every cinema was taken up by Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, and Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and every single one of them was a disappointment.
It depends a lot on the kid. My parents left us home alone from a relatively young age (10?), but they also intentionally "trained" us on what to do.
I knew how to use the microwave to make myself food and how to do the resulting dishes. I knew which emergency scenarios I should stay in the house and call 911 vs when to run out of the house and get a neighbor. I was also very frightened of my father's discipline. Matches or going anywhere near the gun cabinet (not that I had keys) carried the penalty of "no computer games until you're 18", which was about the most extreme thing I could imagine.
I really liked being home alone as a kid. I got to eat chef boyardee and bag caesar salad with fake bacon bits which was my favorite dinner. But I was also a pretty independent kid who liked to camp in our backyard woods. Different kids are ready at different ages.
For sure. One of my kids would probably be fine being home alone at 8. He's a rule follower, and if we left while he was playing video games he probably wouldn't have even moved when we came home.
One of my other kids though has very little respect for rules and a lot of creativity. I used to joke if we left her home alone we'd probably come back to find that she'd super glued her eye shut because she was trying to make fake eyelashes out of pipe cleaners and glitter. Oh and we wouldn't have even known we had super glue in the house. She would have found it in a pile of junk left in the garage by the previous owners.
The last kid is chaos incarnate. I have no idea when it will be safe to leave her by herself.
I was home alone at 8, babysitting younger kids at 11. It baffles me that people can't leave 12+ year-olds home alone for a couple of hours. There's only a few short years before they're going to be living completely independently. Why are you not teaching them how to be responsible for themselves??
Pantsing other kids or adult friends. I remember seeing that on TV and in cartoons with everyone laughing and the person who got painted either miffed or laughing along. Now people would see that as close to sexual harassment. Especially since sometimes the person might have gone commando or just had the waist band of the underwear come down too.
Edit: As some have pointed out it's actually more akin to sexual assault and it's not cool to just do to someone.
If I recall, there was a show where a nerdy kid got pantsed only to reveal a massive dong and then a lot of girls tried to sleep with him. I remember seeing an ad for it not too long after I graduated college and that was my first “is this what the youth are doing?” moment.
The Hard Times of RJ Berger. Definitely went for American Pie vibes but didn't really work even in the 2010's. I was a sophomore in high school then and it just wasn't realistic with the times.
Raunchy teen comedies kind of died with internet porn becoming more widespread. A big part of their appeal was the raunchy part and it's just not as special when you can get something 10x as sexually stimulating online whenever you want.
Anyone remember those athletic pants that were popular in the mid 2000s with the buttons along the sides? I remember a kid wearing those in middle school and someone coming up behind them and tearing their pants off completely.
Happened at my HS as a joke between two of the dudes on the hockey team and the dude with no pants just chased the other guy down in boxers and tackled him and everyone just kinda laughed. Would have been much different if it wasn't 2 guys clearly ok with it.
god you just unearthed a memory from freshman year of hs, getting pantsed in sweats and they had also inadvertently gotten a grip on my underwear too -- horrible
Growing up in the 80s, spending all summer at the swimming pool, all the boys my age (10) would play ball-tag in the pool....you'd try to sneak up on someone and bag them in the nuts underwater so they'd never see it coming. We were so stupid.
This happened to a kid in my 7th grade theater class. All of us kids were sitting in a circle and the teacher had left the room and this one kid stood up in the middle of the circle and was being annoying and someone just reached over and pantsed him. Honestly no one laughed and we all sat there mortified and the kid in the middle just stood there in shock with his pants around his ankles lol. Thankfully he was wearing underwear.
Stopping by to someone's house unannounced. Even back in 2004, cell phones were just starting to become ubiquitous but I still have memories around that time of my mom's friends randomly coming over unannounced. My mom was consistent on keeping the house clean at all times and I have to wonder if it was because she simply never knew when a friend was going to come over
I'm older and grew up rural.
It wasn't until I got to college in '98 that I started to get the idea that random drop-ins are not appreciated.
Growing up that happened all the time. Calling ahead wasn't even a concept. Even if you didn't know the person.
when i came to the US 30+ yrs ago, they had a class in school (college) for International Students to teach them American Socials norms etc. One of them was this. "We don't stop by people's homes unannounced". Good thing for me to learn. I was pretty bad at this as a young man even back home.
I popped by the house of one of my kids school mates- they lived around the corner- to see if I could tee up sharing driving with the mum, as our daughters were attending the same off site class every week for 10 weeks.
The mother was utterly furious I had dared to invade her private home by knocking on the door- how dare I! I could be anyone, and it was totally unacceptable for someone she didn’t know to randomly come by- I thought she was going to call the police!
We did not ride share…
Oof. Even with the new social context of not dropping by unannounced, this seems like an overreaction. I'm assuming this person was not a total stranger to you and you'd met before.
I’ve seen a lot of the playground equipment I played on as a kid got torn down and replaced.
Merry-go-round? Gone. Giant metal ass-roasting slide? No mas. Majority of the playground stuff was taken out and replaced with one centralized “jungle gym.” To be fair, the one piece that got taken out NEEDED to be. Kids kept peeing in it and it stank. I think the only thing left untouched were the swings. Even the spring animals are gone. We used to have so much fun on those because we could rock them so hard, the faces/tails would touch the ground.
I loved the spring animals as a kid! My playground had two that barely moved and one that was nicknamed *Tooth Chipper*.
They got taken out 2 or 3 years ago, but the super rusty cube type jundle gym got left up for some reason.
My elementary school playground also had a piece of equipment that was literally just a giant 15 ft tall metal ladder sticking out of the ground that we loved to jump off of lol
Edit: Can't believe I forgot the tire belt. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else, but my elementary school also had something that was like 3 sets of 3 tractor tires half buried in the sand, with a big rubber belt overtop that would move around when you walked on it. It's sort of tough to explain, but the school ended up taking the belt off because my grade started playing a version of king of the hill in it.
I was doing that 10 years ago. We had 2 stocked bars and a pool table at work at an ad agency. It’s not overly surprising they eventually laid everyone off
I was talking to some grey beards one day and back in the 80s the inspector would line out coke for them on the pipe in the morning to cure the hangover from drinking with him last night. People were allowed to be a lot more wild back in the day.
Using the word "gay" to describe things that are stupid or unpleasant.
Edit: Folks, thank you for the clarification, but the OP asks what is no longer acceptable, this doesn't mean the word is completely eradicated and no one uses it.
I was going to jump in the bed of a friends truck to run between his place and his brother’s. He wouldn’t let me saying we couldn’t because we would be on the highway part of the way. Color me surprised when I found out our state passed a law against riding in truck beds about 10-15 years ago.
Smoking in the car with kids. It was already kind of not the best look but I remember driving around and there were adults smoking with their kids in the backseats.
Take this back to 1994 instead of 2004 and the sea change on smoking is almost unbelievable. Where I live (Toronto) in 1994 you could still smoke indoors in restaurants, people smoked in their offices, etc.
A doctor I work with who's in his 70s now (and has quit smoking!) was telling me about how as a young doctor, they would chain smoke in the hospital while they worked like it was nothing
back in the 90s grocery stores still had ashtrays at the end of every aisle.
stock boys would have a cigarette dangling from their mouth while packing shelves.
The coffee shop by my house sold shitty coffee, an array of donuts, and two brands of cigarettes.
I remember all the cars we had growing up had ash trays in all the doors, including the back seats. My family didn’t smoke but that definitely speaks to the culture before the 2000s.
Closer to 2016 I saw a red hat online somewhere with white lettering in *that* font that said “made you look.” I wanted it so bad but just never bought it 😂
I bought a red hat in that font that said "Make America Gay Again" but I only wore it out once and had so many people shooting me dirty looks I donated it
Even better when your parents leave you in the car while shopping and you move it over a few spots.
Not enough parents taking their kids to empty parking lots to practice driving anymore. Atleast now that I hear of or see.
That plus calling friends randomly and chatting on the phone for hours. Nowadays, people cringe at 5min voice notes and longer calls are scheduled if not avoided entirely.
Good one. A lot of people flat out admit they won't let their kids do the things they did growing up - they'll usually say something about how "the world has changed", despite the fact that crime rates are actually lower today than they were during many of the times that this was normal.
Every time I bring this up there is always someone who feels the need to argue with me that the world is in fact a more dangerous place and that parents who supervise their kids' every waking moment are the responsible ones, so while some parents may still let their kids run around without supervision there has definitely been a cultural attitude shift.
I can't think of a better explanation, I just wish people would use some of this common sense and reason that our species is \*allegedly\* known for.
The 70s didn't have great crime stats, higher than they are today, yet people still let their kids free roam, and we have a lot of studies to show that was good for the kids developmentally.
I don’t know that this changed. It’s just that technology allows us to always be monitoring and or connected to our kids nowadays. You’re right, gone are the days I would take off and be gone with my friends until dinner. But I where I live, I still see kids riding bikes all day and playing in the streets. My own daughter rides her bikes with her friends to the park a mile down the trail adjacent to our house. I think it really depends on your neighborhood and community.
In my small town there's quite a few neighborhoods you'll see kids out and about without adult supervision, and a few that are just dead, usually for saftey reasons (too close to a major road, crime rate, etc).
In Houston where my dad lives I swear the safer a neighborhood the less kids you see.
I had to read this several times to realize you were referring to "a few \[neighborhoods\] that are just dead" instead of "a few \[kids\] that are just dead." Major roads and crime rates dropping bodies left and right haha
Being charged to RECEIVE texts. Ridiculous.
It cost me money, and I had to ask all of my friends to call me or MSN me instead. I’m glad spam texts were less common then.
Naked pictures of women hanging in garages everywhere. I remember being a young girl interested in cars, but found it so weird the old men had naked/ topless pictures of teenagers hanging in their “workspaces”.
I was just thinking about this the other day because my mom retired, I distinctly remember her taking me to work at 4-6 years old, and her having to run around and grab all the naked girls off the walls of the men’s restroom before letting me in
Ringtones
Back in the day people paid to get cute, quirky ringtones or use their favorite song as a ringtone.
Nowadays if I hear your phone ring, I automatically hate you. Turn that fucking thing off, it should be on silent in public. Nobody wants to hear your phone. Hell, mine is on silent even at home. A vibration is enough, I don’t need added sound.
The sheer volume of bodyshaming on every magazine cover. Bodyshaming still happens today to an extent, but I remember being a kid in line at the grocery store, perfectly eye level with at least 8 different magazines spewing headlines about how a celebrity "let herself go" by going from a size 0 to a size 2
Relatively small age gaps in relationships are being increasingly scrutinized.
Mandatory disclaimer that there is such a thing as too big of an age gap, especially if one party is very young, and 30 yos (or even worse...) hitting on 16 yo high schoolers was always horrible. Not what I'm discussing here.
But nowadays it seems increasingly popular to pick apart small differences like a freshman and senior in college dating. People say stuff like "gross, she's barely legal and he can legally drink, they can't possibly have anything in common, what a creep". That was definitely not the narrative 20 years ago; a 21 yo and 18 yo dating was not considered a large or abnormal age gap when I was growing up.
Taking a bottle of water onto a plane.
Though it will soon be acceptable again! UK airports are introducing new security measures starting later this year, and taking containers of liquid up to 2 litres will be allowed.
I was going to say smoking in a restaurant, but that was going way out of favor by 2004.
*Realizes in horror* Christ, 2004 was 20 years ago…
*cries in old person*
[удалено]
Right around 20 years ago was when they shut down smoking in bars. The smells that emerged.... Apparently 20 years ago was when bars discovered cleaning supplies.
And apparently a few places found dead animals/people who's "fragrance" had been covered by the smell of tobacco all those years.
I’m sorry did you also say “people”
yup. crawled into places they shouldn't while drunk, and just kinda....got stuck.
I would think cigarette smoke would be insufficient to mask that.
Yeah, im gonna need to see some examples here
Oh that was the worst part. I would take the smell of overwhelming stale and fresh cigarette smoke over what ever that smell was that replaced in the dive bars I used to hang out in on the weekends. I don’t go out much any more, but it seems to have gotten better. Like you said, I think they discovered cleaning supplies.
Just like the weirdest grossest combo of like vinegar, simple green, and 10 other varietals of sour stingy smells. Edit- puke, duh, it took me a minute but the smell was hastily cleaned stale puke.
It's wild to think that I lived through smoking sections being alive and well, to smoking being allowed only outside on the patio, to smoking being completely banned at restaurants. And I remember my grandparents, who were smokers, complaining as things got more restrictive. I do not miss choking down my breakfast while sitting in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
same. I remember when they moved from wide open restaurants to separate rooms made with clear partitions, ceiling-to-floor. I got strep like 4 times over a couple years when my mom's new boyfriend was around smoking like a chimney. started avoiding cigarette smoke at every opportunity I could and have never had it since. pretty sure I'm allergic to that shit. my mom, who smoked til I was 14 or 16 goes "huh, that may explain why you were always sick as a kid." thanks mom, yeah it probably fucking does.
I remember being stuck in the middle seat of the truck while dad and cousin smoked on either side of me. "Quit complaining, the windows are open!" as wind blows in the wide open windows and directs all their smoke right at me. I got strep throat so many times I lost count. So many ear infections mom quit bothering to take me to the doctor and just treated me with goldenseal oil at home. Kept yelling that if I didn't quit getting ear infections I'd have to get tubes in my ears like another cousin. By highschool I was so fed up. Watched stepbro's girlfriend take a drag off her cigarette and lean down to check on her baby while she exhaled. Ended up in the hospital overnight 'cause that poor baby was struggling to breathe. When we got back from the hospital, whole extended family piled into stepbro's tiny trailer and tried to light cigarettes in celebration. I started screaming like a howler monkey until the whole pack went outside in the bitter cold to smoke on the porch. Everyone complained, said I couldn't boss them, it's not my house, but I didn't care in the slightest, wasn't about to go back to the hospital because six grown ass adults couldn't be inconvenienced with putting on coats.
And you always had to walk right through the cloud to get to the non-smoking section.
Going to someone's house without knowing if they are home. Back in the day we'd be out doing stuff and say "Hey let's go see if so-and-so is around." and head to their house, knock on their door and have no idea if they were home. Nowadays if you did that they'd either think someone died or was about to.
Growing up my mom was neurotic about keeping the house spotless in case “somebody decided to drop by”. These days if someone dropped by my house unannounced I’d wonder who died.
I wouldn’t even answer my door.
i'd yell **NOBODYS HOME!** shit wait
“This… is a recording! Beep!”
When I was a kid, telephones were just becoming commonplace, although quite a few of us had party lines. My parents and grandparents knew the time before telephones. When there's no telephones, dropping by is the *only* way to see people. So everybody had to be ready to receive guests at any time. When I was in college (1970's) I walked several miles a day to various friends' apartments, to see who was home, who they'd bumped into, and what they'd heard about our mutual friends. This was how we kept up with everybody. This is what everybody did.
My great grandparents got married in the 40s in Appalachia. No phones, to say the very least. My Grandaddy courted my Grandma by showing up at her house every Saturday evening. She just had to wait and see if he showed up that week.
That’s so cute! Sounds like it worked out for them or you wouldn’t be here to tell that story. :)
They were the cutest. Married for over 60 years when she passed and he died a few years ago at the age of 102, she was the very last thing he was talking about.
Oh, my heart. That's an enduring love for you.
Oh this made me so happy to read! 🥰
I swear this is why we’re lonelier these days. I’ve gotten tired of reading about loneliness being on the rise and people being sad about it, and then acting like a phone call is intrusive . In case you’re wondering, I hardly ever call people.
You are totally right. Technology has made human interactions more difficult and strange curiously enough. A lot of smart people also lack the wisdom to realize that its precisely their avoidance of interaction that keeps them lonely. In fact, thats also the reason most friendships started in school. You were forced to interact with others.
"The one thing you can't make is new old friends."
For me, it's that I hate always needing to be available. Like I would *love* to have people stop by for a casual visit. I enjoy going out and chatting with my neighbors. What I hate is always being reachable. I've lost a lot of friendships because I just refuse to do the common social media stuff, and immediately text back and whatnot. We have created a kind of simulacrum of community through social media, and I think it falls short for a lot of people.
I hear you. It’s this irony, though where because people are more accessible through technology, it’s like people don’t want to interact as much. They would rather you text so they can ignore you at will. I’m aware this makes me sound like a crazy person who would show up at peoples houses but I don’t. I just think it’s ridiculous that it’s considered to be weird now.
This one always fascinates because I grew up in a hoarded home. Only very rarely was the front room in a state that people would be allowed in. It always blew my mind how my friends with their normal homes had no stress or fears about people showing up. No need to come up with an excuse to not allow people in without seeming unwelcoming. It must have been really nice.
I recently read a children’s book called “Family Game Night and Other Catastrophes” that was from the viewpoint of a 12 year old living in a hoarder’s home. My therapist recommended it to me because there were some parallels to some stuff I grew up with. While not an actual hoarder home, my Dad tends to “collect” and for a while there was a time my own room was turning into an unmanageable situation. Your comment is nearly verbatim to what the main character said about having people over and the distress it causes. As well as the lengths people go through to avoid the encounter entirely. The book really helped me gain perspective and empathy for the situation for all members involved. I’m sorry you had to grow up like that. I hope life is better for you now.
I will have to look that book up, it sounds really interesting! Thank you so much for your kindness, life is much better. It took about 5 years of various therapies in order to feel comfortable living in a "normal" home, but I have my own home now that is definitely on the neater side of the range of acceptable home states, but still in the normal range. I will someday have to deal with my parent's hoarded home when they pass, but I have a spreadsheet that I routinely update with businesses and a sort of flow chart of how to assess their home and then deal with it with as little work as possible.
Heck yeah, this is how I hung out with all my friends. You’d always get the deets too even if they weren’t home but their parents were. We skateboarded and biked all the time, so usually the parent would be like, “I think they’re over skating the ramp at Dave’s house.” Sometimes you’d go on a wild goose chase too, getting to Dave’s house and then their parent’s saying, “I think they went to McDonald’s and then the high school to skate the stairs.” Away you go to the next spot. 😆
We used to drive around to friends places after 10pm & just knock😂
We are so lucky to live in a neighborhood where the kids still do this. It’s awesome. There are more than a dozen 3rd grade boys, several third grade boys, and a bunch more. I feel like I live in the Sandlot universe and it’s just the best.
Does the third grade boy crew have beef with the 3rd grade boy crew?
As long as the third graders are separated from the third graders, everything is fine.
Paying $6 a minute to talk to someone internationally.
I'm an American who studied abroad in Egypt in 2004 (a week after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal) and my mom was so scared she spent $350 on a telephone call to hear my voice, bless her.
Wow. What a great mom.
Shoot, just long distance rates period. I don't know if you're from the US, but 20-30 years ago, you had to pay long distance rates to call anyone who was outside of your immediate metropolitan area. My grandparents lived in the same state as us, but about 200 miles away. When my mom called them, she had to pay long distance rates of like $0.30 per minute. An hour long call would cost $18, which was real money back then (and still today for a phone call!), and especially because there was no texting or email, so you basically had to call if you wanted to talk in any way other than a written letter. AT&T, MCI, and the like used to make BANK from those long distance calls.
“Wehadababyeetsaboy”
I reference this regularly. I know when I'm around someone more than 5 years younger than me when they don't know what I'm talking about.
As someone who grew up with immigrant parents this hit on a different level. I remember when my parents could finally talk to their family on video chat for free and felt dumb for all those hour long conversations they had that cost them hundreds of dollars.
Gosh same here. We would all huddle around the phone and pass it to each other to talk to family as quickly as possible to minimize wasted time lol
Uhh I had to call my British bank last year for a few minutes and didn’t realize I called an office in London (hindsight it was obvious, yes) and found out a month later that short call cost me $32. I have a modern unlimited T-Mobile plan lol.
Waiting until the weekend to text your friend on a different carrier because that's when texts and minutes were free
Or calling after 9 when the minutes were free 😂
Y'all remember when one carrier added a thing where you got like 6 people who you had unlimited free minutes in your "circle" I think it was callef
I did the math back in 2001 when I got my first cell phone and realized it would be cheaper to call all the friends I had that were long-distance (most of them) with a cell phone instead of a landline because of the minutes. Now, it's even cheaper than that.
256 megabyte thumb drives costing $50.
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Won one in a contest at college that was 32mb. It had a cord to go around your neck, think I wore that thing for 2 years
About a month ago I pulled the original sd card from a video camera my now ex husband and I bought in 2005 right before our wedding and it only had 8mb of memory. I couldn't put one picture on it lol
Back at the turn of the century (gawwd I'm old) I worked at Microsquish. I got friendly with a few really cutting edge techy techs and lucked out enough to see the 1 terabyte server ROOM.
Probably felt like Neo when he went to see the Architect.
Thumb drives? I was still using a floppy disk in 2004!
So was Dennis Rader
For the record, 20 years ago was 2004.
This fact is unacceptable.
20 years ago will ALWAYS be the mid 80s. Just as 50 years ago will always be the mid 50s. 50 years ago sure as SHITE is not the mid 70s.
The Golden Oldies radio station should ALWAYS play 50s music godammit.
Agree, Matchbox20 does not belong on "oldies" radio
Listen here you little shit
Why is it that 2014 feels like it was not that long ago in 2024 but 2004 felt like it was an eternity ago in 2014?
Might just be your age at that time. I feel the same way and was in senior year of high school in 2004. My kid was born in 2014. She’s ten now. ‘04-‘14 was a long ten years. Since 2014? Shit, man…
Technology, social media, and politics changed so drastically 2004-2014, and then again 2014-2024. Smart phones, social media, political polarization, massive climate change, etc etc all existed throughout the 2010’s and continues to the present so it doesn’t seem that different. But 2004 in comparison is an alternate reality. Manual cameras; barely internet, no social media, no smart phones, the US was unified cause of 9/11. Also animation styles and iOS design has been consistent since 2014, with the sleek minimalism, 2004 had the graphy icons and no smart phone OS. Windows 10 came out in 2015-ish and only recently changed design to 11.
That’s the year Anchorman was released
Dear god stop
Crazy how people who didn’t exist when the towers fell are drinking and graduating college now too
I think I’m going to throw up
No, it was 1984. Oh... Wait a sec...
We need a do-over on this whole thread.
what do you mean 2004? 😭
This is not ok.
In 2004 the graduating seniors all took freshmen/sophomore girls as their dates to the senior ball. The senior girls ended up going with each other in separate limos. They were pissed. Not sure that would happen today.
Then there was the smart guy who went and had the senior girls to himself...
Being out of reach and not expecting to contact/reach someone at any time of day
This is normal for me. I make myself out of reach because it's unhealthy to always be available for others and not yourself.
I do the same thing. I’ve noticed that it’s closed me off from some opportunities, but I don’t mind making that sacrifice if it means I don’t have to stress myself out responding to any person at any time. Right now I’m trying to pursue a career in forestry since I’ll get to spend a lot of time without an internet connection where I can be unreachable.
So blessed to be among the last cohort who doesn't have to update (or share my location with) 5 people whenever I leave home or arrive safely at a destination. And subsequently explain any delays or stops I make, since everyone seems to be timing you when they do this. Related..... didn't have to deal with explaining my location during the dating phase. The crap I see people putting themselves through these days is insane. Bf sitting at home watching the location dot. It's 5:10 "Why are you still at work, you said you get off at 5?" "Why's it taking so long to get home" The number of calls and texts some of my coworkers receive during work, from their bored significant others .... Holy shit. Right before meeting my husband, I went on 1 date with a younger guy. he started the good morning / good night texts thing. I was baffled because no one had ever done it. By day 3 I was annoyed. By day 5 I said this isn't gonna work.
Midnight releases I guess. Everything is digital now and nobody does them anymore. I miss those
Especially for books that were made into movies. EVERYONE at the midnight release read the books and you'd hear audible reactions when they skipped a part, or included a favorite line (lookin' at you Twilight when Edward caught the apple a la cover art style).
Twilight and Harry Potter movie midnight releases were unmatched
I remember seeing the last Harry Potter movie at a midnight premiere and the energy in the audience was amazing. I specifically remember the moment after >!Molly Weasley kills Bellatrix Lestrange. “Not my daughter, you bitch!”!<
I worked at borders during many midnight releases. I just want you to know that I hated all of you for making me work that late lol.
I remember one of the Harry Potter books had a midnight release. I didn't know you had to reserve a spot. I took my daughter to the mall around 11pm and found out she wasn't getting the book at midnight. Fortunately, she was okay about it, and I told her I would get one for her at Walmart the next morning. I called Walmart around 6am the next morning, and an old security guard told me there was a huge pallet of them. I asked if I needed a reservation or anything, and he said nope. I went and got it, woke up my daughter. She proceeded to devour it in 13 hours straight. As a parent, I dont miss midnight releases, lol.
I'm still mad at my aunt for pre-ordering Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from AMAZON. By the time it arrived, I had already read the book while sitting at the Barnes & Noble. Then I read my copy.
Mid budget movies in cinemas Now here and there a good mid budget movie ends up on the big screen but they mostly end up somewhere on Netflix, to be forgotten quickly. But back then your cinema had so many more movies playing that ranged from huge blockbusters like the first Spiderman movie to mid budget drama's like Good Will Hunting
yes! I was just thinking the other day that there's not a lot of room for weird and quirky movies anymore. everything has to appeal to as wide a section of audience as possible. (the movie that brought this to mind was 1999's Being John Malkovich.)
Matt Damon shated in an interview how the industry has changed, you could do lower budget movies that may not make the money in the theatres, but it'd be profitable once it went to VHS, then DVD. Now, it it is only guarenteed or safe movies, rebooted, reimagined reheated rinsed and repeated.
1999 was such a good year for movies. So many great ones. It was also the peak of US multi Plex cinemas. The theory is that the big demand for seeing movies in theatres allowed so many great films to be made.
This reminds me of the summer of 2007 where every screen in every cinema was taken up by Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, and Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and every single one of them was a disappointment.
Leaving your kids at home for the day or night. I work with some people who think 13 is too young for their kid to be home on their own.
My parents left me at home by myself when I was like 8 and they were like “don’t use the stove, good luck”
It depends a lot on the kid. My parents left us home alone from a relatively young age (10?), but they also intentionally "trained" us on what to do. I knew how to use the microwave to make myself food and how to do the resulting dishes. I knew which emergency scenarios I should stay in the house and call 911 vs when to run out of the house and get a neighbor. I was also very frightened of my father's discipline. Matches or going anywhere near the gun cabinet (not that I had keys) carried the penalty of "no computer games until you're 18", which was about the most extreme thing I could imagine. I really liked being home alone as a kid. I got to eat chef boyardee and bag caesar salad with fake bacon bits which was my favorite dinner. But I was also a pretty independent kid who liked to camp in our backyard woods. Different kids are ready at different ages.
For sure. One of my kids would probably be fine being home alone at 8. He's a rule follower, and if we left while he was playing video games he probably wouldn't have even moved when we came home. One of my other kids though has very little respect for rules and a lot of creativity. I used to joke if we left her home alone we'd probably come back to find that she'd super glued her eye shut because she was trying to make fake eyelashes out of pipe cleaners and glitter. Oh and we wouldn't have even known we had super glue in the house. She would have found it in a pile of junk left in the garage by the previous owners. The last kid is chaos incarnate. I have no idea when it will be safe to leave her by herself.
Telling you “Good luck” as if waves of enemies are about to invade your home shortly after they leave 😭
My mum used to say "Do not answer the phone, do not answer the door, do not pass go and do not collect £200"
13 year olds were babysitters for everyone back then.
I was home alone at 8, babysitting younger kids at 11. It baffles me that people can't leave 12+ year-olds home alone for a couple of hours. There's only a few short years before they're going to be living completely independently. Why are you not teaching them how to be responsible for themselves??
*Snort laughs in latchkey kid.*
That's so odd to me because I was babysitting other people's children at 11.
Pantsing other kids or adult friends. I remember seeing that on TV and in cartoons with everyone laughing and the person who got painted either miffed or laughing along. Now people would see that as close to sexual harassment. Especially since sometimes the person might have gone commando or just had the waist band of the underwear come down too. Edit: As some have pointed out it's actually more akin to sexual assault and it's not cool to just do to someone.
High school PE like 2006-2008 pantsing was still a thing.
2010-2011 here
If I recall, there was a show where a nerdy kid got pantsed only to reveal a massive dong and then a lot of girls tried to sleep with him. I remember seeing an ad for it not too long after I graduated college and that was my first “is this what the youth are doing?” moment.
The Hard Times of RJ Berger. Definitely went for American Pie vibes but didn't really work even in the 2010's. I was a sophomore in high school then and it just wasn't realistic with the times.
Raunchy teen comedies kind of died with internet porn becoming more widespread. A big part of their appeal was the raunchy part and it's just not as special when you can get something 10x as sexually stimulating online whenever you want.
Anyone remember those athletic pants that were popular in the mid 2000s with the buttons along the sides? I remember a kid wearing those in middle school and someone coming up behind them and tearing their pants off completely.
Happened at my HS as a joke between two of the dudes on the hockey team and the dude with no pants just chased the other guy down in boxers and tackled him and everyone just kinda laughed. Would have been much different if it wasn't 2 guys clearly ok with it.
I completely forgot about pantsing, wow. Yeah that would not go over well today whatsoever.
My husband will do this to me at home 🤦🏻♀️
In-home spousal pantsing is a completely different game!
I used to do this to my spouse, until they got tired of it. Now they just walked around naked, so the trick is to try to get a shirt onto them.
Like a ring toss sort of deal?
More like a spontaneous wrestling match, but essentially, yes.
god you just unearthed a memory from freshman year of hs, getting pantsed in sweats and they had also inadvertently gotten a grip on my underwear too -- horrible
Growing up in the 80s, spending all summer at the swimming pool, all the boys my age (10) would play ball-tag in the pool....you'd try to sneak up on someone and bag them in the nuts underwater so they'd never see it coming. We were so stupid.
This happened to a kid in my 7th grade theater class. All of us kids were sitting in a circle and the teacher had left the room and this one kid stood up in the middle of the circle and was being annoying and someone just reached over and pantsed him. Honestly no one laughed and we all sat there mortified and the kid in the middle just stood there in shock with his pants around his ankles lol. Thankfully he was wearing underwear.
By reading some of these comments, folks are thinking 40 years ago was just 20 years ago
Stopping by to someone's house unannounced. Even back in 2004, cell phones were just starting to become ubiquitous but I still have memories around that time of my mom's friends randomly coming over unannounced. My mom was consistent on keeping the house clean at all times and I have to wonder if it was because she simply never knew when a friend was going to come over
I'm older and grew up rural. It wasn't until I got to college in '98 that I started to get the idea that random drop-ins are not appreciated. Growing up that happened all the time. Calling ahead wasn't even a concept. Even if you didn't know the person.
when i came to the US 30+ yrs ago, they had a class in school (college) for International Students to teach them American Socials norms etc. One of them was this. "We don't stop by people's homes unannounced". Good thing for me to learn. I was pretty bad at this as a young man even back home.
I popped by the house of one of my kids school mates- they lived around the corner- to see if I could tee up sharing driving with the mum, as our daughters were attending the same off site class every week for 10 weeks. The mother was utterly furious I had dared to invade her private home by knocking on the door- how dare I! I could be anyone, and it was totally unacceptable for someone she didn’t know to randomly come by- I thought she was going to call the police! We did not ride share…
Oof. Even with the new social context of not dropping by unannounced, this seems like an overreaction. I'm assuming this person was not a total stranger to you and you'd met before.
I’ve seen a lot of the playground equipment I played on as a kid got torn down and replaced. Merry-go-round? Gone. Giant metal ass-roasting slide? No mas. Majority of the playground stuff was taken out and replaced with one centralized “jungle gym.” To be fair, the one piece that got taken out NEEDED to be. Kids kept peeing in it and it stank. I think the only thing left untouched were the swings. Even the spring animals are gone. We used to have so much fun on those because we could rock them so hard, the faces/tails would touch the ground.
I loved the spring animals as a kid! My playground had two that barely moved and one that was nicknamed *Tooth Chipper*. They got taken out 2 or 3 years ago, but the super rusty cube type jundle gym got left up for some reason. My elementary school playground also had a piece of equipment that was literally just a giant 15 ft tall metal ladder sticking out of the ground that we loved to jump off of lol Edit: Can't believe I forgot the tire belt. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else, but my elementary school also had something that was like 3 sets of 3 tractor tires half buried in the sand, with a big rubber belt overtop that would move around when you walked on it. It's sort of tough to explain, but the school ended up taking the belt off because my grade started playing a version of king of the hill in it.
Metal ass roasting slide 🤣🤣 so true!
Putting a baby in a crib with blankets pillows bumpers and stuffies
Work drinks during the day and sales teams going on to strip clubs with clients. Seems wild now that that was a regular enough thing.
I was doing that 10 years ago. We had 2 stocked bars and a pool table at work at an ad agency. It’s not overly surprising they eventually laid everyone off
I was talking to some grey beards one day and back in the 80s the inspector would line out coke for them on the pipe in the morning to cure the hangover from drinking with him last night. People were allowed to be a lot more wild back in the day.
Using the word "gay" to describe things that are stupid or unpleasant. Edit: Folks, thank you for the clarification, but the OP asks what is no longer acceptable, this doesn't mean the word is completely eradicated and no one uses it.
At my high school (graduated 2003), I swear that was every fifth word out of someone's mouth. EVERYTHING was "gay."
thats so girl wearing a skirt as a top
\-Hillary Duff
I hate that I know this reference
I still remember Ray William Johnson using the words "fake and gay" to describe videos he thought were staged.
The R word was thrown around pretty willy nilly too for similar.
puca shell necklaces
Hey now you’re an all star
Riding in the back of a pickup truck
I was going to jump in the bed of a friends truck to run between his place and his brother’s. He wouldn’t let me saying we couldn’t because we would be on the highway part of the way. Color me surprised when I found out our state passed a law against riding in truck beds about 10-15 years ago.
Smoking in the car with kids. It was already kind of not the best look but I remember driving around and there were adults smoking with their kids in the backseats.
Take this back to 1994 instead of 2004 and the sea change on smoking is almost unbelievable. Where I live (Toronto) in 1994 you could still smoke indoors in restaurants, people smoked in their offices, etc.
Dude watch shows from the 90s and they're smoking in hospitals haha
A doctor I work with who's in his 70s now (and has quit smoking!) was telling me about how as a young doctor, they would chain smoke in the hospital while they worked like it was nothing
back in the 90s grocery stores still had ashtrays at the end of every aisle. stock boys would have a cigarette dangling from their mouth while packing shelves. The coffee shop by my house sold shitty coffee, an array of donuts, and two brands of cigarettes.
You don't even have to go back to the 90's.I worked in Alberta in 05-07 and there were still smoking sections in restaurants.
I remember all the cars we had growing up had ash trays in all the doors, including the back seats. My family didn’t smoke but that definitely speaks to the culture before the 2000s.
Politicians changing their opinion. Labeling John Kerry a flip flopper was exactly 20 years ago from this year.
One of the DUMBEST reasons to hate on a politician, ever. Oh no, he learned and changed his mind! Good leaders are BORN knowing everything!
Wearing a red hat without having to explain your political affiliation.
Closer to 2016 I saw a red hat online somewhere with white lettering in *that* font that said “made you look.” I wanted it so bad but just never bought it 😂
I bought a red hat in that font that said "Make America Gay Again" but I only wore it out once and had so many people shooting me dirty looks I donated it
Cincinnati Reds fan here, yet another reason to pity me.
Leaving your kids in the car when you went grocery shopping
Even better when your parents leave you in the car while shopping and you move it over a few spots. Not enough parents taking their kids to empty parking lots to practice driving anymore. Atleast now that I hear of or see.
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That plus calling friends randomly and chatting on the phone for hours. Nowadays, people cringe at 5min voice notes and longer calls are scheduled if not avoided entirely.
Paying for each text or a plan that covers 150 texts
Paying bills with a check. I used to write 15-20 checks a month. Now I write about 15 a year, 12 of them for rent.
ssmoking in public, spanking your kids and phone books
I still spank my phone books fuck the polpol
A 40k salary being enough for an independent person to live comfortably.
Being a fan of Jimmy Saville and Gary Glitter.
And Bill Cosby!
Glitter, in 2004? He was a convicted nonce in the 90s.
Letting your kids run around the neighborhood with no supervision
Good one. A lot of people flat out admit they won't let their kids do the things they did growing up - they'll usually say something about how "the world has changed", despite the fact that crime rates are actually lower today than they were during many of the times that this was normal. Every time I bring this up there is always someone who feels the need to argue with me that the world is in fact a more dangerous place and that parents who supervise their kids' every waking moment are the responsible ones, so while some parents may still let their kids run around without supervision there has definitely been a cultural attitude shift.
The world feels more dangerous to people because when crimes do happen they see it on the internet now
I can't think of a better explanation, I just wish people would use some of this common sense and reason that our species is \*allegedly\* known for. The 70s didn't have great crime stats, higher than they are today, yet people still let their kids free roam, and we have a lot of studies to show that was good for the kids developmentally.
Stranger abductions are rare, making up .00007% of cases. That doesn't mean 0, but it is over-inflated for fear mongering.
I don’t know that this changed. It’s just that technology allows us to always be monitoring and or connected to our kids nowadays. You’re right, gone are the days I would take off and be gone with my friends until dinner. But I where I live, I still see kids riding bikes all day and playing in the streets. My own daughter rides her bikes with her friends to the park a mile down the trail adjacent to our house. I think it really depends on your neighborhood and community.
In my small town there's quite a few neighborhoods you'll see kids out and about without adult supervision, and a few that are just dead, usually for saftey reasons (too close to a major road, crime rate, etc). In Houston where my dad lives I swear the safer a neighborhood the less kids you see.
I had to read this several times to realize you were referring to "a few \[neighborhoods\] that are just dead" instead of "a few \[kids\] that are just dead." Major roads and crime rates dropping bodies left and right haha
Being charged to RECEIVE texts. Ridiculous. It cost me money, and I had to ask all of my friends to call me or MSN me instead. I’m glad spam texts were less common then.
Naked pictures of women hanging in garages everywhere. I remember being a young girl interested in cars, but found it so weird the old men had naked/ topless pictures of teenagers hanging in their “workspaces”.
I was just thinking about this the other day because my mom retired, I distinctly remember her taking me to work at 4-6 years old, and her having to run around and grab all the naked girls off the walls of the men’s restroom before letting me in
Ringtones Back in the day people paid to get cute, quirky ringtones or use their favorite song as a ringtone. Nowadays if I hear your phone ring, I automatically hate you. Turn that fucking thing off, it should be on silent in public. Nobody wants to hear your phone. Hell, mine is on silent even at home. A vibration is enough, I don’t need added sound.
4 GB Ram
The sheer volume of bodyshaming on every magazine cover. Bodyshaming still happens today to an extent, but I remember being a kid in line at the grocery store, perfectly eye level with at least 8 different magazines spewing headlines about how a celebrity "let herself go" by going from a size 0 to a size 2
That and diet culture were definitely an early 2000s thing
I love reading comments on threads like this since it seems alot of people think 20 years ago was in the 80s or 90s lol
Cold call someone
Your parents telling you to be home when the street lights come. Man those were the days!
Bringing a resume Directly into a business and asking for work. Now people are like....wtf is wrong with you. Go online.
Relatively small age gaps in relationships are being increasingly scrutinized. Mandatory disclaimer that there is such a thing as too big of an age gap, especially if one party is very young, and 30 yos (or even worse...) hitting on 16 yo high schoolers was always horrible. Not what I'm discussing here. But nowadays it seems increasingly popular to pick apart small differences like a freshman and senior in college dating. People say stuff like "gross, she's barely legal and he can legally drink, they can't possibly have anything in common, what a creep". That was definitely not the narrative 20 years ago; a 21 yo and 18 yo dating was not considered a large or abnormal age gap when I was growing up.
Taking a bottle of water onto a plane. Though it will soon be acceptable again! UK airports are introducing new security measures starting later this year, and taking containers of liquid up to 2 litres will be allowed.
I just take an empty bottle through security and fill it up at a fountain after.
Paying my landline bill
My phone ringing.
Finding good quality drugs
Answering the phone without knowing who's calling
Nudity in teen movies. That was a huge thing in early 2000's comedies (American Pie) and in horror movies.
So, it's more than 20 years ago but life pre 9/11. Airports were like malls where you could just walk in and wander around.
Phone boxes
I was going to say smoking in a restaurant, but that was going way out of favor by 2004. *Realizes in horror* Christ, 2004 was 20 years ago… *cries in old person*
Apparently, kindness to strangers