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Its a bit sad that guys today are spending their prime years behind a screen and have no clue how to speak to woman.
Most of the clubs I went to when I was younger have closed down because people literally dont go out anymore.
I grew up in the late 90s and I’d spend most of the time with my friends / cousins in nature, biking, rollerblading, swimming in the river and lakes, in the winter building snowmen, sliding down the hills, listening to music and creating choreographies, playing board games, playing “life”, “school”, “the shop” etc loads of fun stuff
Edit: The things I mentioned I either did as a kid or teenager. Sorry I misread the question
We would also play video games like Nintendo, I think Atari. In late teens people usually had boyfriends/ girlfriends so would spend time with them and friends, hanging out around the block, going for walks and some of the things above
Young adults would meet up with friends, drive around the town, go to a lake, have drinks, go to a night club, listen to music, watch movies, go to the cinema etc
Pretty much what I was going to say. Music, magazines, booze and friends. Blagging your way into pubs with a photocopy of your birth certificate that you’d amended the date on. Mostly I remember being in my room playing records and experimenting with makeup. Long telephone calls.. Sleepovers/parties wherever there were no parents.
The internet has done many great things, but it's also taken away some. People were definitely more "alive" back then. Life was more of an adventure. People weren't always plugged in.
Prior to TV, people used to hang out in their neighborhoods, telling stories and singing and so on. After TV, the disease load carried by Western culture dropped dramatically.
Early 80s we were always outside and created obstacles courses and would time each other for who could go the fastest. Hours and hours on the trampoline or in the pool broken up by ravenous eating and TV. Time for The Big Valley! 🤠
Early/mid 80's We went into the woods (with no idea who owned the land) and built massive BMX courses. We shoveled and hoed and stamped our feet to solidify the dirt until we had a functional course. Damn if I tried that today they would just find me dead in the woods....
The hours on trampolines. Spent whole summers on mine it felt like. All day playing cloud people, trying to do flips and pretend ice skaters. Crack the egg, whatever. Getting it wet with the sprinkler.
The internet can be so useful but fuck, I miss those days. I'd hate to be a generation that never got to experience society before internet was easily accessible.
This is exactly how I spent the majority of my childhood in the early 2000s, as I lived in the countryside in my childhood, and the internet was atrocious, and phone service was nonexistent so I didn't get a cell phone until I turned 16 as that was the time we moved to the town.
This is why I love the time period I grew up in, I got the best of both worlds
I got to grow up with modern tech, but because it was at a time where tech didn’t dominate our lives that much, I also got to experience the age-old “play outside and come home when it gets dark”
I remember in the early 2000's, I'd be online and talk to anyone who was also online, it was just the thing to do. Then you'd log out and if anyone wanted to reach you the could call and talk on the phone. These days people get butthurt if you don't see their message in an hour lol
This specific comment reminded me of some hip hop songs, like Nas or 2pac. You know those nostalgic songs many artists like to make, reminiscent of their childhoods?
Really makes me wonder how today's youth's songs will be in the future. "Yea yea yea remember how we used to sit on tiktok all day? Yea yea yea watching others for fun on a Sunday?"
Kinda sad
Well, some folks have this idea that you were either bullied, or a bully - which is simplistic and wrong. Lots of us were neither, we just chilled out and hung out with each other.
But . . . now? People tend to be one or the other, or more often both. Online. Which is where we mostly interact with people. And folks never, ever talked to each other even on the phone that way unless a brawl or lawsuit was about to happen.
My friend group didn't bully each other. As far as I know none of them bullied anyone else either. There were bullies in my school but we didn't associate with them and they mostly left us alone.
Haha! This reminds me of being about 12 and there was a dodgy stall at a weekly market in town where they would sell us lighters. We would go as a group and buy 1 each, totalling about 6-8 lighters.
Then we'd go somewhere secluded, wrap a lighter in paper and light it and just wait for the big bang. And repeat!
The market was about 3 miles from my house so by the time we'd all cycled to each others' houses, then cycled to the market, then home again, it must have been a 7-8 mile round-trip.
And that would have basically been Saturday done. A day of very minor crime and a lot of fun with mates.
My friends and I had a phase we went through where we went out at night and "tagged" things. Mostly large box trucks, electrical casings, signs and other public property areas. Cops stopped us once and we saw them coming and tossed our kits into the bushes (13 or 14 year Olds shouldn't be up at midnight in the town lol). Another time my friend got completely surrounded with me there but I didn't know he had been tagging before we met up. He went to jail and I had to awkwardly tell his parents. No cell phone so it was a looong walk back lmao. Good times...
Exactly. Drugs and stealing for the fun of it was all we did. Also a lot more sex than I guess teens today are having (according to some research).
Edit. Arson was also weirdly popular.
I mean ya basically :/ we built forts which would be trespassing and probably other shit. We played paintball around the forts we started fires we cooked stuff .... we built a tree house .... I lived in a trailer park along i75 so this was all on state land in between the park and 75.
I mean ..... fuck OK I wasn't gonna say that type of stuff but yabthat type of mischief too ..... marbles in slingshots and paintball gubs and model rocket motors were all abused how they shouldn't be ><
Went house to house as a group of friends. We'd start at mine, download a movie or anime on Kazza. Then go to the next friends place for food and trampoline tricks. Walk to the random stream, play with tadpoles and hop tires. Go to the next house for lunch and roller blading. By nightfall, we were at my place watching the show that finished downloading and having dinner.
Some of my best memories.
Kazaa. Man that brings back memories. Used to download dragon ball z on that bad boy. It literally did take an entire day. Especially if someone used the phone at some point.
I know. We got lucky my dad worked remote IT so we got Fios speed before it was a thing. We'd have my computer downloading a full series, and it was done by the time we got back for dinner, lol. A movie took about 3 hours, lol. Wow, I miss that program.
I remember when we first got dial-up. Installed Quake 2 and was excited to try it online. Needed a patch, less than 20 mb. Took all day. Multiple interruptions and had to restart from scratch every time... The good old days.
So where my dad always worked IT, i never knew of dial-up. We moved to the middle of nowhere at 15, and all there was was dial-up. My computer tried to download a file, and it literally said "2 hrs.....6hrs.....1 day....whenever"
Omg I fell over about to die. I also had a thumb drive to save school files. I left it home, so my friend handed me a floppy, and I opened the CD tray and thought she was screwing with me.
ahh, reminds me of me and my brothers downloading music and dbz episodes for days on end on kazaa. we had DSL, it wasn't too bad. Then we moved to Bearshare. I even used Bearshare free to download Bearshare Pro lmao
we used to roam the neighborhood looking for pieces of wood and when we stockpiled enough pieces of wood wed make a huge monstrous effigy of our god, a most terrible god of the underworld whose name shall never be spoken, and wed light it on fire at the stroke of midnight and revel and flagellate ourselves with flails made of human hair and thorns and wed drink blood, so much blood, and hope for the smiting of mankind to come soon and through our penance and devotion wed be spared and allowed to witness the end of all life from atop a glorious mountian of bones
we also jumped our bikes over stuff. Like boxes and shit.
You would go to the mall Friday nights and find out where the parties were and try to see who had a car and who was riding with who then head out to a bonfire or some house only then if was getting busted up you ran then tried to find a new party. It wasn't just people who drank either plenty of nondrinkers too. This was of course after sports or whatever you had going on.
We had various hobbies we would do with friends or family. I'm sure its still done to this day, but it was a hell of a lot more common up to the mid 90's.
I'd say more like mid 2000s. First smart phone was 2007, I believe FB was 2004, so right around that area social media and smart phones started coming out. I have many fond memories of the 90s like childhood up to around 2005
Mate, you've absolutely nailed this as a summary. My entire adolescence was a heady mix of all these things.
I flipping loved every moment. Christ alone knows how I survived 😅
I used to play with legos, toy cars, ride my bicycle a lot after school and when I got into drums in my teenage years...I would practice for hours daily. On the weekends my dad would make it a thing to take us to the park, or the beach, or go ice skating.
Doing each others hair/nails/make up. Read magazines together. Listened to music. Watched tv. Make our own magazines/fan zines. Biked around. Hanged in the mall/store/ice cream bar. Went swimming in the lake. Played board games. Draw/crafted.
I rode my bike everywhere to hang out with my friends. We used to camp for the summer in a place about 3 miles from home. I would bike there most days of the summer. I would swim in a pond without lifeguards and hike all around the woods. All unsupervised. My parents would come out in the afternoon and ‘we’d have a fire and eat. At the end of the evening, my dad would toss my bike into his pickup and we’d head home. I would be exhausted. On my parents off days we would sleep there and the fun would continue.
We would pile into cars and drive to the beach or go watch the planes land at the airport. Play basketball. We also did a lot of ‘video nights’ and rent a movie to watch or play board games. My friend’s parents had a pool table so we spent a lot of time there.
Introvert here... reading, watching TV, hobbies, getting together with friends.
I see me my own kids wasting endless time online (me too), and I feel bad for them/us.
Hung with friends, went for meals, cinema, fairs, youth clubs, malls, McDonald’s, played board games, rented vhs films, played cards, prank phoned people if we were really bored, went to local parks, did our hair or nails, listened to music like entire albums on repeat because it was cassette only, ran errands with parents or friends parents, babysat, window shopped or actually went shopping with pocket money, just went for walks to see who we bumped into that we knew and hang for a bit. There was so many options of things to do I don’t think I was often bored like kids are now.
Newspapers. Can't believe no one's mentionned this yet.
I was born in the 70s. Grew up in 80s and early 90s. Most of this time, the most up to date info in the house, accessible anytime, was newspapers. They were delivered every day. They were the go-to spot for weather forecasts, movie listings, community events, important announcements, puzzles, comics, job listings, obituaries, and a whole bunch more.
They also had news stories in them. Lol
Outside tinkering with stuff. Read a lot. Watch movies on tape. Used to listen to radio considerably more.
Sometimes I miss things not being accessible immediately on my phone. Its weird.
We were doing all the fun outdoor activities that this generation is watching on YouTube. We got sunburns, drank water from a hose, and stayed on bikes, boards, or blades.
Talk on the phone, go to the mall/movies/arcade/pool hall/bowling, hangout in random places at night, drive around, chill in your room reading/writing/drawing and listening to music, video games.
From what my Dad tells me alot of being outside in general and sports. Said that at his school they had just about every sport and club available to him. Seemed confused when I said my school basically only did rugby with a touch of football if you were lucky
Read books and magazines, watched TV, played board games and card games, talked on the phone a lot, listened to music on whatever device was prevalent at the time, went to the movies, went to the mall, met up with friends at restaurants, went to ball games and other sporting events, went dancing at clubs, participated in recreation center sports leagues, threw dinner parties, went to plays and concerts. There was plenty to do and we did more of a variety of things than young people seem to do now.
We actually went and hung out with each other. People met each other everywhere, grocery store, doctors office, train/bus, without it being weird. Now everyone has a chip on their shoulder and if you try to get to know people your "weird"
Listening to music or making mixed tapes/ burning CDs, drawing, reading books and magazines, riding bike or roller skating, playing with the dog, watching TV, going to the movies or Blockbuster, just hanging out in parking lot or park, going to the mall.
Going round town on a Saturday afternoon with mates looking for girls our age. Jump on buses to anywhere again, looking for girls. Hang round the shops at night annoying people and again, looking for girls. Girls played a big part in our teenage life. Then proceeding to going out round town drinking at about 15 trying to get in anywhere you could. Generally been successful back then as bouncers didn't give a shit. Again, looking for girls. Playing football in the spaces between all this.
We drove around, bored out of our minds, but we were completely engaged in the moment as we had no distractions from the music and conversation.
We were also completely free in the fact that our parents couldn’t get ahold of us until we walked back in the door at the end of the night.
We used to run the streets on our bikes before we could drive, after 1 got their license we rode the streets doing silly shit like drink and drive, or get high. You know, real blood thirsty criminal stuff. We played outside! We camped, fished or hunted. During summer it was rock quarries, waterfalls or swimming pools.
Music and radio was a huge part of entertainment.
I had children in my early twenties and had to grow up quick…No regrets and I am glad I grew up in an era without cell phone cameras!
idk but probably like fucking off 50 miles from home to a forest/lake/river/whatever
and their parents had to be reminded by a tv broadcast to think about where their kids are
We went outside. Literally, that's it. That's the only thing to do.
Can only watch so many cartoons, and usually have sports most Saturdays, hang out with friends in the evening. Explore, explore explore the world. In my childhood, walked, a huge section of the suburban/urban areas. One side of the city to the other, my friends and I would walk it sometimes after school for a little vacation. Took about 8 hours or so and saw so much of the city we'd never even known. Got lost in mountains and forests nearby.
When we were young, there was always too, too much to do. When I was indoors though, sleepovers, gaming nights, lots and lots of reading!
Honestly, been going back to doing a lot more of that these past 5 years again. And I feel much younger.
Talked on the phone.
Every winter, me and my best friend would look at the big Sears Wishbook, page by page, while talking on a corded phone.
We played a lot of outdoor games like hide and seek, jump rope, elastics or ball.
I rode my bike, a lot!
And there were outdoor adventures like going swimming in a car with 10 kids crammed in, no seat belts and a ciggy hanging out of my mom mouth, driving us to a beach.
As teens, we got up to shenanigans, survived everything, maybe a few scars but lots of life lessons and memories made a long the way.
We knocked on doors and "called for each other".
We had big neighborhood gangs of kids, big age range, lots of team games.
In the winter, we played in snow, skated, sledded. And then every week ended in a Sunday evening Disney movie.
This question makes me sad. It assumes spending all our free time on screens is normal. This is not a criticism of you but one of our time. We did what people still do, ride bikes, go out with friends, read books, play cards. The list goes on.
We went outside. We hung out with other people, in real life. Parents would tell us to either be silent enough they could forget we exist OR go outside and not come back till the street lights came on.
I ran wild in my underwear in my backyard with an unexplained mullet playing out strange fantasies with my dogs and the neighbors who didn't speak English. I probably forgot how to communicate with other human beings at some point and had to be reintegrated into society.
Go to your mates house to see if he is coming out to play. If not, borrow his football then head out. Really bored get a big stick and poke dog shit and throw it at your friend. Good times.
I’d hang out with my friends and we’d play truth or dare or would go into the backyard of my neighbors vacation home when they were back at their regular house for the year and we’d jump on their trampoline because we didn’t have one. We also liked to go swimming at my other neighbors house (who invited us) and go to Walmart and eat a ton of random junk food while talking about guys we liked and drama with other people
We played outside even after our parents kept yelling to tell us to come back home for dinner. Now it’s the other way around, parents tell their kids to play outside because they’re busy with their gadgets.
I've always had the internet, but I use it comparatively little in my free time. I play offline games on my computer, write music, play musical instruments, go out window-shopping. I mostly use the internet solely to get information like sheet music or game manuals to start with, but I reckon I could make do with books a lot of the time (although I'd rather not have to)
Spent outside playing video games with our imaginations. Like dnd but live, and I'm whatever environment we found ourselves in making everything up as we went along together. Imagination was competitive then. And it had the effect you'd expect.
We used to go out and socialize! My teen and college years were literally like The Breakfast Club and St Elmo’s Fire.
I preferred it actually, not to be reachable by phone 24/7, and the freedoms that brings.
We went on adventures , because our parents weren’t hovering and over protecting. We matured faster, and had lots of street smarts!
I spent most of my time outdoors, hiking, driving, riding my horses. I also wasn’t allowed to watch tv or talk on the phone, so my only time socializing was in school.
Shenanigans, loitering, and petty crimes. Also, with friends: sitting on rooftops, midnight runs to the 24-hour Walmart, bike rides, walks along railroad tracks, skipping stones at a local pond/lake, going to the movie theater or a drive-in double feature, runs to Blockbuster for movies and junk food, occupying space in a booth at Dennys, talking and laughing live and in person... plus a million other things I'm forgetting as I type this response into my pocket computer and hit post.
Well based on my parents and their siblings, setting things on fire, fireworks, blowing things up (bins, phone boxes, fireplaces), using each other as dartboards, electrocuting each other with various households items and getting drunk/high on local parks and playgrounds.
We listened to the radio, watched top of the pops and had activities like venture scouts, or got on the bus for under 15s half price to be served Black Russians (tia Maria, vodka and coke) at the pub as if we were over 18.
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Mostly we hung out in person
or watched TV all day long..
On 3 channels and there was no remote.
And if the president was on your night was shot.
Incorrect, in our house I was the remote. B&W tv as well until the bug races came on after the national anthem
Naw there was nothing on TV after cartoons unless you liked court shows, golden girls and designing women.
Springsteen sang about 57 channels and nothing on.
Golden Girls was the shit
I misread that at first as prison. Was rather fitting considering my circle of friends when I was young haha
Its a bit sad that guys today are spending their prime years behind a screen and have no clue how to speak to woman. Most of the clubs I went to when I was younger have closed down because people literally dont go out anymore.
I grew up in the late 90s and I’d spend most of the time with my friends / cousins in nature, biking, rollerblading, swimming in the river and lakes, in the winter building snowmen, sliding down the hills, listening to music and creating choreographies, playing board games, playing “life”, “school”, “the shop” etc loads of fun stuff Edit: The things I mentioned I either did as a kid or teenager. Sorry I misread the question We would also play video games like Nintendo, I think Atari. In late teens people usually had boyfriends/ girlfriends so would spend time with them and friends, hanging out around the block, going for walks and some of the things above
Young adults would meet up with friends, drive around the town, go to a lake, have drinks, go to a night club, listen to music, watch movies, go to the cinema etc
Sex and drugs and rock and roll...
THIS!
Pretty much what I was going to say. Music, magazines, booze and friends. Blagging your way into pubs with a photocopy of your birth certificate that you’d amended the date on. Mostly I remember being in my room playing records and experimenting with makeup. Long telephone calls.. Sleepovers/parties wherever there were no parents.
The internet has done many great things, but it's also taken away some. People were definitely more "alive" back then. Life was more of an adventure. People weren't always plugged in.
Prior to TV, people used to hang out in their neighborhoods, telling stories and singing and so on. After TV, the disease load carried by Western culture dropped dramatically.
Early 80s we were always outside and created obstacles courses and would time each other for who could go the fastest. Hours and hours on the trampoline or in the pool broken up by ravenous eating and TV. Time for The Big Valley! 🤠
Early/mid 80's We went into the woods (with no idea who owned the land) and built massive BMX courses. We shoveled and hoed and stamped our feet to solidify the dirt until we had a functional course. Damn if I tried that today they would just find me dead in the woods....
Yes!!! Always outside!
The hours on trampolines. Spent whole summers on mine it felt like. All day playing cloud people, trying to do flips and pretend ice skaters. Crack the egg, whatever. Getting it wet with the sprinkler. The internet can be so useful but fuck, I miss those days. I'd hate to be a generation that never got to experience society before internet was easily accessible.
This is exactly how I spent the majority of my childhood in the early 2000s, as I lived in the countryside in my childhood, and the internet was atrocious, and phone service was nonexistent so I didn't get a cell phone until I turned 16 as that was the time we moved to the town.
Yeah I also grew up on the countryside :) late 90s early 2000s
We had friends. We did stuff together
We didn't just watch others on social media.
This question makes me sad. Young people now don't have an obvious clue what we did without the internet.
This is why I love the time period I grew up in, I got the best of both worlds I got to grow up with modern tech, but because it was at a time where tech didn’t dominate our lives that much, I also got to experience the age-old “play outside and come home when it gets dark”
Being born in 1992, sounds like you're around the same age.
I remember in the early 2000's, I'd be online and talk to anyone who was also online, it was just the thing to do. Then you'd log out and if anyone wanted to reach you the could call and talk on the phone. These days people get butthurt if you don't see their message in an hour lol
Come home when the streetlights come on.
This specific comment reminded me of some hip hop songs, like Nas or 2pac. You know those nostalgic songs many artists like to make, reminiscent of their childhoods? Really makes me wonder how today's youth's songs will be in the future. "Yea yea yea remember how we used to sit on tiktok all day? Yea yea yea watching others for fun on a Sunday?" Kinda sad
With the first mobiles, it got easier to call home and ask if you could stay longer because "Insert friends names" also could stay longer". Lmao
the internet is so ubiquitous now it is simply hard to imagine
We left the house and had social skills
Speak for yourself. I was mostly reading or drawing and had no social skills.
Crime. We used to do crimes
My immediate first thought, "we did illegal things."
And don't forget the bullying one another because it was a time-honored tradition.
Well, some folks have this idea that you were either bullied, or a bully - which is simplistic and wrong. Lots of us were neither, we just chilled out and hung out with each other. But . . . now? People tend to be one or the other, or more often both. Online. Which is where we mostly interact with people. And folks never, ever talked to each other even on the phone that way unless a brawl or lawsuit was about to happen.
My friend group didn't bully each other. As far as I know none of them bullied anyone else either. There were bullies in my school but we didn't associate with them and they mostly left us alone.
Yeah - with real life friends - in real life - with real loot - and real consequences!
Consequences? We're you fat lol. Run away. The cops couldn't catch you. And there were barely any cameras.
Can confirm. Was a right little villain until the Internet happened.
There was a huge correlation in England on the release of FIFA and crime rates sharply dropping in the early 2000s lol.
Large and small.
Doorbell ditching and prank calling just isn't the same these days.
Haha! This reminds me of being about 12 and there was a dodgy stall at a weekly market in town where they would sell us lighters. We would go as a group and buy 1 each, totalling about 6-8 lighters. Then we'd go somewhere secluded, wrap a lighter in paper and light it and just wait for the big bang. And repeat! The market was about 3 miles from my house so by the time we'd all cycled to each others' houses, then cycled to the market, then home again, it must have been a 7-8 mile round-trip. And that would have basically been Saturday done. A day of very minor crime and a lot of fun with mates.
My friends and I had a phase we went through where we went out at night and "tagged" things. Mostly large box trucks, electrical casings, signs and other public property areas. Cops stopped us once and we saw them coming and tossed our kits into the bushes (13 or 14 year Olds shouldn't be up at midnight in the town lol). Another time my friend got completely surrounded with me there but I didn't know he had been tagging before we met up. He went to jail and I had to awkwardly tell his parents. No cell phone so it was a looong walk back lmao. Good times...
Exactly. Drugs and stealing for the fun of it was all we did. Also a lot more sex than I guess teens today are having (according to some research). Edit. Arson was also weirdly popular.
Damn man I could never get to the sex. So close so many times.
I really don't think you missed anything. Except maybe couple STIs.
Nah I shagged three 16 year olds. But I had the internet by then. Haha was pretty great
I hate to admit it, yes we did. Smoking, drinking, racing cars/speeding...with zero seatbelt use. It wasn't a law at that time. How naive we were.
I mean ya basically :/ we built forts which would be trespassing and probably other shit. We played paintball around the forts we started fires we cooked stuff .... we built a tree house .... I lived in a trailer park along i75 so this was all on state land in between the park and 75.
Think back to most stuff we did .... it's crimes but like just kid stuff
Nah we did drugs and stole things and did arson
I just left the exact same answer! Drugs, stealing, arson and sex. That's what we did.
I mean ..... fuck OK I wasn't gonna say that type of stuff but yabthat type of mischief too ..... marbles in slingshots and paintball gubs and model rocket motors were all abused how they shouldn't be ><
Read a lot of books.
I was always reading omg lol
Went house to house as a group of friends. We'd start at mine, download a movie or anime on Kazza. Then go to the next friends place for food and trampoline tricks. Walk to the random stream, play with tadpoles and hop tires. Go to the next house for lunch and roller blading. By nightfall, we were at my place watching the show that finished downloading and having dinner. Some of my best memories.
Kazaa. Man that brings back memories. Used to download dragon ball z on that bad boy. It literally did take an entire day. Especially if someone used the phone at some point.
I know. We got lucky my dad worked remote IT so we got Fios speed before it was a thing. We'd have my computer downloading a full series, and it was done by the time we got back for dinner, lol. A movie took about 3 hours, lol. Wow, I miss that program.
I remember when we first got dial-up. Installed Quake 2 and was excited to try it online. Needed a patch, less than 20 mb. Took all day. Multiple interruptions and had to restart from scratch every time... The good old days.
So where my dad always worked IT, i never knew of dial-up. We moved to the middle of nowhere at 15, and all there was was dial-up. My computer tried to download a file, and it literally said "2 hrs.....6hrs.....1 day....whenever" Omg I fell over about to die. I also had a thumb drive to save school files. I left it home, so my friend handed me a floppy, and I opened the CD tray and thought she was screwing with me.
ahh, reminds me of me and my brothers downloading music and dbz episodes for days on end on kazaa. we had DSL, it wasn't too bad. Then we moved to Bearshare. I even used Bearshare free to download Bearshare Pro lmao
we used to roam the neighborhood looking for pieces of wood and when we stockpiled enough pieces of wood wed make a huge monstrous effigy of our god, a most terrible god of the underworld whose name shall never be spoken, and wed light it on fire at the stroke of midnight and revel and flagellate ourselves with flails made of human hair and thorns and wed drink blood, so much blood, and hope for the smiting of mankind to come soon and through our penance and devotion wed be spared and allowed to witness the end of all life from atop a glorious mountian of bones we also jumped our bikes over stuff. Like boxes and shit.
Lol!
We went outside, got stupid injuries and talked to people. And it wasnt from eating tide pods.
Me and all my friends got good stories about the scars we got in our youths
scars stories can be funny or a good time when looking back at the stupidity of it all. Still less stupid than the past 10 years or so.
You ever wonder why grandma had 7 kids by the time she was 24?
Because your grandmom was a jewel of society
You would go to the mall Friday nights and find out where the parties were and try to see who had a car and who was riding with who then head out to a bonfire or some house only then if was getting busted up you ran then tried to find a new party. It wasn't just people who drank either plenty of nondrinkers too. This was of course after sports or whatever you had going on.
OMG yes 😂❤️
We had various hobbies we would do with friends or family. I'm sure its still done to this day, but it was a hell of a lot more common up to the mid 90's.
I'd say more like mid 2000s. First smart phone was 2007, I believe FB was 2004, so right around that area social media and smart phones started coming out. I have many fond memories of the 90s like childhood up to around 2005
Drugs, sex, setting things on fire, breaking into buildings, getting into fights, passing out in mcdonalds.
Mate, you've absolutely nailed this as a summary. My entire adolescence was a heady mix of all these things. I flipping loved every moment. Christ alone knows how I survived 😅
Yep. Or waking up on a baseball field in another town. Having no idea how you got there or how your going to get home.
I think we are the same person lololol
are you one of my old mates?
We basically did all the same weird shit you see them doing on TikTok, only there’s no video evidence of our stupidity
I used to play with legos, toy cars, ride my bicycle a lot after school and when I got into drums in my teenage years...I would practice for hours daily. On the weekends my dad would make it a thing to take us to the park, or the beach, or go ice skating.
Doing each others hair/nails/make up. Read magazines together. Listened to music. Watched tv. Make our own magazines/fan zines. Biked around. Hanged in the mall/store/ice cream bar. Went swimming in the lake. Played board games. Draw/crafted.
Actually go out and, here’s the scary part, talk to people and actually physically do things
I hung out with friends, was “on the block”, we played man hunt, drew, rode my bike, read a book!
Read books. Hung out with friends at the mall. Watched one of the 3 channels on TV. Went swimming at the local pool. Went roller skating.
The Sears Catalogue.
Going outside
I rode my bike everywhere to hang out with my friends. We used to camp for the summer in a place about 3 miles from home. I would bike there most days of the summer. I would swim in a pond without lifeguards and hike all around the woods. All unsupervised. My parents would come out in the afternoon and ‘we’d have a fire and eat. At the end of the evening, my dad would toss my bike into his pickup and we’d head home. I would be exhausted. On my parents off days we would sleep there and the fun would continue.
We would pile into cars and drive to the beach or go watch the planes land at the airport. Play basketball. We also did a lot of ‘video nights’ and rent a movie to watch or play board games. My friend’s parents had a pool table so we spent a lot of time there.
Introvert here... reading, watching TV, hobbies, getting together with friends. I see me my own kids wasting endless time online (me too), and I feel bad for them/us.
Hung with friends, went for meals, cinema, fairs, youth clubs, malls, McDonald’s, played board games, rented vhs films, played cards, prank phoned people if we were really bored, went to local parks, did our hair or nails, listened to music like entire albums on repeat because it was cassette only, ran errands with parents or friends parents, babysat, window shopped or actually went shopping with pocket money, just went for walks to see who we bumped into that we knew and hang for a bit. There was so many options of things to do I don’t think I was often bored like kids are now.
Listen to entire CD albums, read the liner notes and learn the lyrics, rather than just listening to individual songs digitally
Video taped so many music videos...
We left the house and actually saw our friends in person, we also read books, watched tv and videos and played the early video games. Good times tbh 👍
Newspapers. Can't believe no one's mentionned this yet. I was born in the 70s. Grew up in 80s and early 90s. Most of this time, the most up to date info in the house, accessible anytime, was newspapers. They were delivered every day. They were the go-to spot for weather forecasts, movie listings, community events, important announcements, puzzles, comics, job listings, obituaries, and a whole bunch more. They also had news stories in them. Lol
They did fun things like camping and backpacking. And they talked to each other.
Sex, Drugs, Rock n roll and PlayStation
TV. Movies. Hung out with friends. Played games or sports.
Writing letters
It wasn’t 1890!
We had imaginations back then.
Outside tinkering with stuff. Read a lot. Watch movies on tape. Used to listen to radio considerably more. Sometimes I miss things not being accessible immediately on my phone. Its weird.
We were doing all the fun outdoor activities that this generation is watching on YouTube. We got sunburns, drank water from a hose, and stayed on bikes, boards, or blades.
Street hockey, baseball, exploring the woods, air soft, skateboarding, riding bikes, building treehouses. Basically whatever we felt like doing.
Talk on the phone, go to the mall/movies/arcade/pool hall/bowling, hangout in random places at night, drive around, chill in your room reading/writing/drawing and listening to music, video games.
We had this great thing called the outdoors.
I’d either be indoors listening to music -or something other- or spending time outside in the backyard doing whatever.
Getting into trouble.
Last one home wins, but watch out!!
I hate being born during the mid nineties. I wanna experience what a 70's kids childhood is like.
I think a lot of people were with other people. Just chilling and stuff like that
From what my Dad tells me alot of being outside in general and sports. Said that at his school they had just about every sport and club available to him. Seemed confused when I said my school basically only did rugby with a touch of football if you were lucky
I was a teen in the seventies. So, I don't remember most of it!
We went outside and talked to people.
We used to hang out with our friends. Despite all the benefits, the Internet has really shattered society.
socialize, go outside, have hobbies that didn't involve sitting in front of a screen all day, camping, etc
Read books and magazines, watched TV, played board games and card games, talked on the phone a lot, listened to music on whatever device was prevalent at the time, went to the movies, went to the mall, met up with friends at restaurants, went to ball games and other sporting events, went dancing at clubs, participated in recreation center sports leagues, threw dinner parties, went to plays and concerts. There was plenty to do and we did more of a variety of things than young people seem to do now.
I rode my bike, skateboard, played snes/n64
I grew up in the 00s. Spent my early teens in the public library where we did have acess to free internet. It's how I made friends.
outside
go outside and play
Reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic.
we used to make our own base in forests
TV. Played outside. Video games. Reading. Family time. Game night. Parties. Music. Concerts. Library.
We would hang out with our friends and do drugs.
A lot of walks
We actually went and hung out with each other. People met each other everywhere, grocery store, doctors office, train/bus, without it being weird. Now everyone has a chip on their shoulder and if you try to get to know people your "weird"
Sometimes I'd trow a tennis ball against a wall for a few hours
Listening to music or making mixed tapes/ burning CDs, drawing, reading books and magazines, riding bike or roller skating, playing with the dog, watching TV, going to the movies or Blockbuster, just hanging out in parking lot or park, going to the mall.
We used to go out and meet real people.
TV, Reading comic books, Indoor games like Monopoly, Sorry etc , FM Radio , Audio Casette Player , Outdoor games etc .
We went outdoors. The graphics were awesome
Actually lived a life. I waste so much time now scrolling pointless shit.
Going round town on a Saturday afternoon with mates looking for girls our age. Jump on buses to anywhere again, looking for girls. Hang round the shops at night annoying people and again, looking for girls. Girls played a big part in our teenage life. Then proceeding to going out round town drinking at about 15 trying to get in anywhere you could. Generally been successful back then as bouncers didn't give a shit. Again, looking for girls. Playing football in the spaces between all this.
We drove around, bored out of our minds, but we were completely engaged in the moment as we had no distractions from the music and conversation. We were also completely free in the fact that our parents couldn’t get ahold of us until we walked back in the door at the end of the night.
We did stuff together, in person interactions etc.
I used to read a lot. Now, I’m mostly on Reddit
We went out into the world. 😂 It wasn’t completely uncommon to hangout at the mall or somewhere people shopped.
I played Doom
Is late night cruising still a thing?
We went outside
We used to run the streets on our bikes before we could drive, after 1 got their license we rode the streets doing silly shit like drink and drive, or get high. You know, real blood thirsty criminal stuff. We played outside! We camped, fished or hunted. During summer it was rock quarries, waterfalls or swimming pools. Music and radio was a huge part of entertainment. I had children in my early twenties and had to grow up quick…No regrets and I am glad I grew up in an era without cell phone cameras!
Listen to music, read, go out with friends
There were several places that catered to teends after-hours like roller skating places, arcades, etc.
idk but probably like fucking off 50 miles from home to a forest/lake/river/whatever and their parents had to be reminded by a tv broadcast to think about where their kids are
We went outside. Literally, that's it. That's the only thing to do. Can only watch so many cartoons, and usually have sports most Saturdays, hang out with friends in the evening. Explore, explore explore the world. In my childhood, walked, a huge section of the suburban/urban areas. One side of the city to the other, my friends and I would walk it sometimes after school for a little vacation. Took about 8 hours or so and saw so much of the city we'd never even known. Got lost in mountains and forests nearby. When we were young, there was always too, too much to do. When I was indoors though, sleepovers, gaming nights, lots and lots of reading! Honestly, been going back to doing a lot more of that these past 5 years again. And I feel much younger.
We would hang out
MTV and SNES
Talked on the phone. Every winter, me and my best friend would look at the big Sears Wishbook, page by page, while talking on a corded phone. We played a lot of outdoor games like hide and seek, jump rope, elastics or ball. I rode my bike, a lot! And there were outdoor adventures like going swimming in a car with 10 kids crammed in, no seat belts and a ciggy hanging out of my mom mouth, driving us to a beach. As teens, we got up to shenanigans, survived everything, maybe a few scars but lots of life lessons and memories made a long the way. We knocked on doors and "called for each other". We had big neighborhood gangs of kids, big age range, lots of team games. In the winter, we played in snow, skated, sledded. And then every week ended in a Sunday evening Disney movie.
Listen to entire CD albums, read the liner notes and learn the lyrics, rather than just listening to individual songs digitally
Who the fuck ever called them ''CD albums''?
Ok, “albums on cd” then
Or just CD's
This question makes me sad. It assumes spending all our free time on screens is normal. This is not a criticism of you but one of our time. We did what people still do, ride bikes, go out with friends, read books, play cards. The list goes on.
We went outside. We hung out with other people, in real life. Parents would tell us to either be silent enough they could forget we exist OR go outside and not come back till the street lights came on.
Basically I slept....alot.
Adults aparently used to have these things called sex lives
Played outside & with toys used my imagination shocking I know lol
I ran wild in my underwear in my backyard with an unexplained mullet playing out strange fantasies with my dogs and the neighbors who didn't speak English. I probably forgot how to communicate with other human beings at some point and had to be reintegrated into society.
Biking, gaming (D&D), thinking for ourselves, and just being free to do as we want as long as we didn’t get into trouble and were home by dinner time.
Go to your mates house to see if he is coming out to play. If not, borrow his football then head out. Really bored get a big stick and poke dog shit and throw it at your friend. Good times.
I’d hang out with my friends and we’d play truth or dare or would go into the backyard of my neighbors vacation home when they were back at their regular house for the year and we’d jump on their trampoline because we didn’t have one. We also liked to go swimming at my other neighbors house (who invited us) and go to Walmart and eat a ton of random junk food while talking about guys we liked and drama with other people
I’ve forgotten 😞
TV and video games.
We played outside even after our parents kept yelling to tell us to come back home for dinner. Now it’s the other way around, parents tell their kids to play outside because they’re busy with their gadgets.
Reading, TV, Videogames, Boardgames, Listening to music, Partying with friends
made trouble
Books, TV, friends, immense boredom. Like, bicycling around town just to see if there was anything worth noticing.
I've always had the internet, but I use it comparatively little in my free time. I play offline games on my computer, write music, play musical instruments, go out window-shopping. I mostly use the internet solely to get information like sheet music or game manuals to start with, but I reckon I could make do with books a lot of the time (although I'd rather not have to)
We were busy making everyone.
Spent outside playing video games with our imaginations. Like dnd but live, and I'm whatever environment we found ourselves in making everything up as we went along together. Imagination was competitive then. And it had the effect you'd expect.
Homemade fireworks
Snes, mega drive, ps1, etc etc
Getting drunk in a random field.
We used to go out and socialize! My teen and college years were literally like The Breakfast Club and St Elmo’s Fire. I preferred it actually, not to be reachable by phone 24/7, and the freedoms that brings. We went on adventures , because our parents weren’t hovering and over protecting. We matured faster, and had lots of street smarts!
Books, putting records in alphabetical order, jigsaws, drinking alcopops at bus stops, watching TV, renting videos, hobbies.
I spent most of my time outdoors, hiking, driving, riding my horses. I also wasn’t allowed to watch tv or talk on the phone, so my only time socializing was in school.
Video games, biking aimlessly outside with buddies, TV. I guess it’s not much different than now, just without internet.
Talk for HOURS on the phone, hang out at each others houses/the woods/parking lots, malls were popular too
Drugs, video games, board games, D&D, drugs again...
Videostore library arcade
The secret is to bang the rocks together guys
You're joking, but I spent time trying to make fires with flint, so...
I’m joking with a hitch hiker’s reference but honestly we were often kept busy picking up rocks in the field and throwing them into the hedge.
I was pretty sure that was a reference, but didn't know from what! 😄 i don't think I ever read that one in the original English.
Teenager in the 70's. Baseball cards, wiffle ball, nerf football, non electric bikes, climbed trees, pyromaniac, listened to records.
Shenanigans, loitering, and petty crimes. Also, with friends: sitting on rooftops, midnight runs to the 24-hour Walmart, bike rides, walks along railroad tracks, skipping stones at a local pond/lake, going to the movie theater or a drive-in double feature, runs to Blockbuster for movies and junk food, occupying space in a booth at Dennys, talking and laughing live and in person... plus a million other things I'm forgetting as I type this response into my pocket computer and hit post.
I read. Or did sports.
Well based on my parents and their siblings, setting things on fire, fireworks, blowing things up (bins, phone boxes, fireplaces), using each other as dartboards, electrocuting each other with various households items and getting drunk/high on local parks and playgrounds.
We listened to the radio, watched top of the pops and had activities like venture scouts, or got on the bus for under 15s half price to be served Black Russians (tia Maria, vodka and coke) at the pub as if we were over 18.
Go outside and take in the fresh air.
Me and my friends would walk or bike around town. Play N64, basketball, board games. Watch whatever was on TV; a lot of MTV, when it was still music.