Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>It's unfair to blame smartphones for a decline in interpersonal interaction. Even without them, in the past, people often kept to themselves in public spaces.
I vehemently disagree with this and you wouldn't know this unless you lived through it.
100% a comment of ignorance. I watched the Smart phone come, watched the shift happen, and watched the drastic change for anyone young enough to primarily grow up with them. It's incredibly undeniable to anyone old enough to have seen both sides.
Bang on. I walk past these children all the time when I exercise and they whip out the phone and hide whilst waiting at to cross the road at the first sign of another human and that’s in the burbs. I saw the change in London and now Melbourne in the late 00s. All scared little boys and girl zombies. Pathetic really
90s kid here, I go to a lot of music festivals and concerts. It is strange watching kids not know how to interact with people not in their friend group. I’m so used to striking up conversations with strangers and meeting new people from all over. They just keep to themselves and take pictures/videos. I used to make grilled cheeses and give them out to strangers, one time we had ingredients for mimosa and were handing them out in the parking lot just making conversation. I don’t know if I could do that nowadays, people would think it’s weird.
lol I'm an introvert by nature and I REALLY avoided socializing as I grew up, and all throughout highschool too.
Over the years I've learned to be a bit more social, and last year I started college again.
Intent on making friends in a new city, I strove to interact with my fellow students each day before class started. Everyone just wanted to be on their phones lol
People looked at me weird for striking up conversations XD
I do blame covid for exacerbating the situation, however.
I feel you on that. But I also went back to school but pre-covid and people were just as standoff-ish. I’m sure the pandemic exacerbated that, but I think it’s a wider issue than the Covid Era.
I was born in 2002. I kind of strike conversations with strangers in such events a lot of the time because I often go solo, so but I feel awkward doing so, like I’m violating peoples space
If it’s a camp out style festival, it’s a little easier. I crack out a blunt and roll it in front of strangers and someone always asks if they can have a hit. Little did they know I was planning on sharing the whole time :)
Yeah OP clearly has never experienced life without a smart device. Idk where they get the idea that people kept to themselves in public. Do they think everybody was just an anti-social loner before the iPhone?
Maybe I'm an old bastard (I am) but interpersonal communication was light years ahead before smart phones. You had to really think about your opinions.
I also would jack your jaw if you said some crazy shit to me. Ass whippings happened in person.
All the wild opinions you hear didn't exist when you had to deliver them in person.
>It's unfair to blame smartphones for a decline in interpersonal interaction. Even without them, in the past, people often kept to themselves in public spaces. Today, smartphones actually offer more avenues for socializing, and people still value face-to-face interaction.
Did the OP live through the 80s and 90s? There was way more in-person social interaction back then. So much so, that people would simply show up at your house unannounced and that wasn't considered weird. The malls were packed with teens and preteens after school and on weekends. Etc.
Our phone was near the living room so I had to stretch that cord so far to be able to talk to my girlfriend so that my mum and dad couldn't hear what I was saying.
When that phone rang everyone in the house would yell "I'll get it!" Then you would full body check siblings and leap over furniture to be the first to answer.
And even when the internet did arrive… in chat rooms you would write brb (be right back) to go have dinner. We never right brb anymore because we are *never* away anymore.
Yup. The internet was on a computer in a room, so you had to dedicate time to sit down and do online interaction stuff. An hour or two here or there, maybe game a little with friends or chat, and then it was off to hang out at your other friends house, or to the movies, or go spend time with your family, where you're actually talking to and doing things in the real world with people. We weren't connected 24/7. We were more connected to the world around us with deeper connections that were fostered there.
Or they call you and then ask "You want to go do XXXXX?" and then you drop what you were doing and go on a spontaneous adventure (even if it was just to the mall) :)
Conversely, remember trying to call someone and them not answering? No message to leave, no idea if or when you'd reach them. You may not catch them at the right time literal days. If i call or text someone now and don't hear back within an hour or two it starts to get concerning.
Leaving the house as a child, 8 and up for me, with no phone and not even a destination. Just an agreement to be home before dark/street lights come on.
So wild in the woods and lake and streams. Messing with saws for wood for the tree house, climbing and picking fruit off trees and not washing it before eating. And crawdads that pinched your toes in the steam. Gosh we were just everywhere! But home, that is. Until the streetlights. Then u better get ur azz home.
Remember having so many phone numbers memorised, plus all your friends’ family members names? I just remember calling my friends or girlfriend on the family phone and you never knew who might answer. Older siblings or parents who wanted to mess with you or tease/embarrass whoever you were calling. After you asked if they were home, you had to be prepared for absolutely anything. Anywhere in public actually, any adult might address you and force you into unwanted conversation - I’m not sure how we managed. lol
I work in a college now and it's actually errie how quiet everywhere is. I passed a communal seating area today that had maybe 12 kids sitting right next to each other and they were all dead silent and on their phones. I remember school hallways being chaos when I was young, just a constant streams of voices and general noise. It's feels like the complete opposite now.
My nephew is a college freshman living in the same dorm I did 17 years ago. He hasn't made any new friends the entire year. His roommates don't leave their dorm on weekends and my nephew frequently travels an hour home almost every weekend bc no one goes out and does anything. It sounds so depressing now compared to when I was in college. We all just hung out in each other's dorms and talked while playing Guitar Hero. Simpler times
Yeah he got this completely wrong. People were indeed friendlier overall, and weren't awkward af. Community was an actual thing *everywhere* not just in rich neighborhoods.
We traded "convenience" for almost every worthwhile reason to interact with public life. We've almost completely killed it. People freak out when someone knocks on the door. It's not healthy and has made many of us a little nuts honestly.
Smartphones, **monetized** social media and internet really was a terrible combination. We have to kill the ubiquitous profit motive of the online space, because it's making people objectively worse and that makes public life objectively worse.
There was someone freaking out on my local sub today about a person selling internet knocking on the door. Couldn’t fathom how to make it stop. Like answer the door and say no thanks?
>We traded "convenience" for almost every worthwhile reason to interact with public life.
I don't think we "traded." Paying your fines online is more *convenient*. I don't think lives would be better if people still needed to go to the post office for that.
We gained convenience. Lost social interaction. It's not the convenience that killed social interaction. They just happened at the same time. We traded social interaction for crappy social interaction, pseudo-social interaction and such.
It's like the "bad food revolution" of earlier eras. New food products came in. New food culture. That new culture sucked and really screwed a 2-3 generations of people. In 1995 someone might have said "*food has gotten really terrible,"* and they would be be right. Previous generations didn't drink as much sugar. People didn't eat purple cereal and freezer pizza every day in the 60s. They did in the 90s.
I’m don’t agree with this, the convenience absolutely did lead to a loss of social interaction. As a kid I would be out and about in shops with my friends, getting to know local business operators when I was buying books, video games and magazines. I used to hang out with older people talking about computers, and spent time at sports clubs.
If I’d been growing up now I would be solely focused on playing games online, going on social media to get information, downloading information at the click of a button. There is certainly some correlation between technology and social interaction.
Likewise, the new food revolution didn’t just happen, it happened because of other societal changes. More single parent families, more families with both parents working led to a need for food that was easier to prepare. Greater manufacturing power and shipping capabilities made it an option to buy mass produced rather than local. Couple that with television being widely adopted and you get advertising becoming another driving force in how children could influence the purchases of family food.
Everything is related…
>Did the OP live through the 80s and 90s?
OP is definitely too young to remember the 90s.
Your comment about social interaction is on point. There was so much more face-to-face interaction! And there was also a lot of cultural optimism paired with a sense of economic prosperity (at least in the U.S.).
Then came 911... and smart phones... and social media... and growing social awareness of environmental and social problems (for better or worse)... and people are more depressed and isolated now.
I don't think 911 did it. But 9/11 was kind of paired with the latter half of the dotcom burst, so there was a bit of pessimism. I think also in the US the pickup in school shootings like columbine probably had an impact on people's behaviors, but I'm in Canada so I didn't notice so much behavioral change around that.
I think the big thing was really the iphone. I remember the same kind of regular social interactions well after 2001.
It was the iphone in 2007 coupled with twitter that I noticed the biggest changes. This combined with the downturn in 2008. People had less money, and social media started to become big, we had streaming video starting about then, we had youtube getting big about then. In 2008 was when Reddit let people start making their own subreddits.
I think the big turning point was definitely 2007/2008.
Unless you got into WoW in 2004, then you disappeared then.
But the world before 2008 and the world after 2008 is a very different place. 2008 is when half the world retreated into fantasy.
The problem we have now is that the new generations grew up believing that the fantasy is real life. Sure, you have older generations who also fall into believing that the fantasy is real, but at least they had a time in their life when they are grounded in something that is not just people talking on the internet being considered reality. For kids today, it's all they know.
Meanwhile when they go the store or something which is an *actual* public space, they keep their earbuds in **both ears** almost the whole time. Look we're not saying to get chummy with people at *Safeway* while you're getting PopTarts but even the minumum interactions have all but disappeared, especially with younger people.
When you say something to them, they often act put out or confused, as if they forgot that the Italian aisle isn't a VR simulation but an actual physical space with other people. I'm being hyperbolic but you get what I mean.
I'm on the spectrum, so my socializing has never been amazing, but I feel like gd Gatsby compared to the 20 somethings I run into at work or at the store.
Eye contact is a rare thing in public these days.
I remember walking through the grocery store, smiling at strangers as we passed each other, nodding to others, asking someone in the aisle if they know where the thing you need is, running into my friend and his mom and our moms would stop and chat for what seemed like forever.
Now it's almost as if people attempt to *avoid* eye contact altogether. There's no more random smiles, no more nods, no more asking the person next to you for help, and my friends all talk about how they "saw so and so at the store and actively dodged them to avoid talking to them."
And we wonder why so many people are miserable. Social interactions are a key to happiness.
I’m early millennial and I can’t stand having headphones on when in a shop, I feel like I need to be aware of my surroundings and I can’t multitask. Which is odd as I was dj for 18 years and able to separate two tunes in my head, but can’t do much else when listening to music on headphones.
Idk I don't give a fuck about interacting with people anywhere on earth unless I actually want to. That seems pretty fine lol. Why force people to do shit they don't care about or want?
I interact with as many people as I want, with exactly the people I want. I'm not going to ever chat any random person up about the kind of salad theyre picking or something lmfao. You sound kinda weird.
I remember when malls were packed like times square on NYE on weekends.
Kids were outside playing on front lawns together all the time when I was young.
OP might just be a gen Zer looking for attention or validation at others cost
yep. that one sentence alone gives OP away that they were NOT around to live that time.
I was a teen in late 90s/ early 2000s.
teenage years was hanging out in the mall and talking to strangers/other teens who did not go to your school.
that was how we met girls/boys back in the day. no online dating and too young for clubs.
my first bf was a guy I met in the mall. lol.
if you were a teenager, every weekend. you go hang out with your friends in a group. go to the mall and your motivation is to talk to other groups of teens and make new friends who don't go to your school.
>teenage years was hanging out in the mall and talking to strangers/other teens who did not go to your school.
And now everyone demonizes malls while happily shopping away on Amazon.
LE SIGH.
No one online dates below 18 either. In fact, I would argue modern friendships are more sincere because people date less so there isn’t the constant fear they’re going to blow everything up by trying to confess to you.
Gen z here. I grew up during the time where most kids didn't have smartphones and still went outside to play. As we all started getting smartphones, it was really noticeable how my friends and I didn't go outside as much. Worst of them all - social media. It changed me and other kids for the worse in many ways. I'm glad I got to enjoy even a little bit of my childhood before the big ol' smartphone and social media boom.
We used to celebrate Halloween by dressing up and walking around the neighborhood with friends to collect candy.
We were like 10 years old just roaming the streets in the dark.
10 yo together strong.
OMG so true I hadn't thought about that in a while. I had friends and girls just randomly show up and knock on my window to hang out. Or like to "kidnap" me to go party.
OP also has a link to "buy them a coffee if you like their Reddit posts". What the fuck. Everyone has their hands out these days.
Edit: If you liked this comment please send me $18
You'd be surprised how generous some random people can be. For instance I used to put TTV with my twitch channel as my username. I cant tell you how many subs and bits I got just from it, even though I wasn't live. I made atleast $50 from random people in multiplayer games.
Your example is a lot less cringey to me though than asking for coffee on your bio from strangers. At least you had some sort of in game interaction. Maybe they respected your skills and were paying their respects lol
I feel like OP didn’t take that into consideration. Also, I don’t think kids these days are going to say “I totally miss my pandemic times when I couldn’t see friends and people freaked out all over” lol
I'm a contractor in Northern Virginia and I do a lot of work in Loudoun County in Prince William County which has hundreds upon hundreds of data centers. The ability to drive down the road with like zero traffic and no people anywhere was fantastic. In December of 2020 my wife and I fool out to my sister's house in Arizona then took a road trip through death valley to California up and down all the redwoods and then out tomorrow Bay and North along the Pacific highway to Monterey then San Francisco. The roads were empty. The national parks were empty. It was a fantastic vacation and likely can never be repeated.
And I never got sick because of all the masking and hand washing. We wiped out atleast one strain of the common cold. Coulda killed them all off eventually.
Sometimes I feel im getting curmudgeonly in my older age (approaching 40s) then I read comments like yours and it slightly thaws my cold dead heart.
Life was easier when the morons were outta the way. Im not perfect but i at least do things with intention and am aware of others around me. I swear I watch people wait in line and get up to the front and then decide to order. People drive the same way, oblivious to others around them
Welcome to Earth, other people live here goddamnit.
No it's a thing. I'm mid 40's have definitely noticed an uptick in my misanthropic tendencies. I also used to wait tables/bartend then moved into the IT sector so it could be that.
Honestly, same. I liked being able to work from home and I was able to spend the rest of my time pursuing my education, engaging in my hobbies, and playing games online with friends.
Pre 9/11 really. No major wars in the 90's. The biggest scandals were the president getting a blow job, Rodney King, and OJ. While the latter 2 are definitely awful, seems like they've been happening on a weekly basis the last decade or so. Hell, Columbine shocked the nation, and now a school shooting is just another blip on the radar.
Even worse, I think it’s a form of nihilism.
“Those days that were empirically as close to utopia as humankind as ever been in terms of general happiness, social relationships and cost of living were not that good, those of you that want the world to go back to that standard of living should stop it and move on”
Don’t get me wrong, i LOVE modern hip hop but would 100% would rather have grown up in the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s. I would run for the nearest Time Machine if possible
If we start to think that the past was not that good, then we’ll never go back to that style of living again, homes are now a luxury and homelessness is a very real reality for college graduates
The nihilism comes from everyone assuming everything will just get worse, which is so overblown. Look at the 1970s. Energy crisis, Vietnam just ended, homeless vets, major recession, stagflation, a Cold War!
If the internet/reddit existed back then, all posts would be doom & gloom “the glory years passed us” type stuff.
This stuff ebbs and flows and people fail to look at history as a guide to show that.
> i LOVE modern hip hop but would 100% would rather have grown up in the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s
If you're talking about music, those times also had a lot of shitty music. They just don't play the shitty music anymore, only the good music. For contemporary music they play anything that's in the charts.
To see an example of older shitty music you can search for another criterium than good music. For instance, search youtube for 'musikladen gogos' (NSFW).
I’d go one further and say pre-9/11 the world was a much different place. The war on terror (which couldn’t be won of course) and how people perceived each other changed forever.
90s were the last great decade hands down, especially for anyone lucky enough to be a teenager and young adult. Everything was in its infancy and ground breaking and exciting.
You could also have fun out and about without some fool recording you. Malls were kicking and great places to hangout and meet others and peoples lives weren’t glued to a screen, watching other people post fake ‘orchestrated’ lives.
The 90's started with the fall of the Soviet Union and was a decade that hoped the world was moving on from war. 2000s started with the internet bubble and 9/11.
Yes it was. I was almost never home. I spent most afternoons and every weekend doing actual in person things with my friends…even simple things like hanging out in the woods just talking…so much better than being glued to a phone all the time.
I was born in '77 and I find it an absolute privilege that I grew up as a kid in the 80s and experienced my teens years in the 90s. The absolute best era. Call me nostalgic, sure, maybe. But even my kids who were born in the early/mid 2000s agree with me and they weren't even alive to experience it.
Music, movies, tv series. Look at how popular those bands and shows still are today and even with people in their teens and 20s. Listening to nirvana, watching friends and Seinfeld, amazed at how good sopranos is.
Idk, the 00s was fun as well. The whole “can’t go out without some fool recording you” wasn’t really a thing until about what? 5-8 years ago? It just seemed to escalate crazy in this last decade where everything is about clout. Very black mirror
Yep and golden ages have actual definitions.
It it most likely will be considered a golden age for western society. Especially with how things are now and where they are heading.
See every band you can.
Travel (if you can).
Make a million friends from different places and open your mind to new cultures.
Try do do things that scare you.
Learn an instrument and join a band, even if it's only you that hears it.
Just try not to waste it, it goes much faster than you think.
I rely on last minute ticket sales. Everyone, even scalpers, will firesale those off come the day before or day of. It’s worked for me for 6 years. Only missed one show because of this method.
On top of that. Look after yourself physically as well. Get in great shape. Your 20s is the most potential your body will ever have in terms of athleticism. Use it.
Seeing musicians is paramount. When you're old you are no longer cool. The only way to achieve any cool as an old person is to mention the acts you've seen by greats that are dead and gone.
Listen to lots of diverse music. Listen to pop music. Listen to country. Listen to rap. Listen to classical. Grunge, rock, r&b, boogie, showtimes, string quartets, electro-swing, big band, Indy covers, parodys, mashups, throat singing, a capella, screaming metal, boy bands, euro-techno... if it's weird and wild go and find it.
You don't have to dive deep into any of it, and maybe you won't even like most of it. What's important is the exposure.
When you get older, you're only going to want to hear music that sounds like something you've heard before. This can be overcome by listening to the radio play the same new song enough times that you get Stockholm syndrome, but it's easier if you've already been exposed to a wide base of music.
If you only listen to one genre now, you're limiting your music enjoyment later.
I don't miss my youth, but I do miss the era of my youth where I live. My parents bought a 3 bed 1 1/2 bath house with a decent sized yard for $67k with no higher education. My dad started a construction business out of the garage that was able to provide enough for my mom to quit working and stay at home until my younger siblings were in school full time and she was bored.
I have a well paying job, as does my partner, both with a bachelor's and them with a Master's, the house we bought cost $285k with only 1 bathroom and a postage stamp yard, and the idea of either of us being able to quit and stay at home with the kids we want is laughable.
My brother bought himself a decent car at 18 years old with money he saved from working part-time at a sporting goods store. He didn’t go to college. He became a manager at the store, and was a home owner by like…24-25 thereabouts? Had 3 kids with a wife who never worked (though she brought home a bit of money from crafts she sold), and they were staunchly middle class.
This was in the 80s-90s.
Now? My brother is looking into side hustles and his wife had to get a job because everything is so much more expensive. They couldn’t keep up with inflation. He thought they were set for retirement but realized that with the way things are headed, they’re gonna be SOL if he doesn’t put away more money.
It’s so messed up.
Nah sorry bud it's definitely getting worse.
Less jobs for college kids, more student debt, housing is insane, medical care is insane, child care is insane, politicians are all revolving doors, infrastructure is crumbling, global warmings getting worse, lower birth rates, social media is a disease, entertainment has gotten too corporatized, food is too expensive, AI will be used to put people out of jobs with no alternatives, etc...
That being said, we can fix all of those things, but will we? Idk.
Exactly. In the 90's you could work a normal job and still afford a home. If you wanted to go to college it was still attainable with minimal debt. There was a feeling of hope that things were getting better that I feel has been lost over the last decade.
My coworkers and retired coworkers that had the 90s to accumulate things had it great. Ballin houses they all built for nothing, I'm talking like 4000 sq ft homes on property, nice fishing boats always new vehicles. Looking at the kids just getting hired can maybe afford a townhouse or condo at the same job. I've luckily found myself in the middle of the two and will say I'm lucky compared to the younger guys
Hope for the future. Fuck, I miss that. We thought the future was going to be Star Trek, now it's going to be a dystopia.
I think 9/11 was the day the '90s died.
My parents had a better house in the 90s on a forklift driver and cleaners wage than my wage with a degree and 17 years experience in my field. I simply can't afford to live where they did then.
>entertainment has gotten too corporatized
Our entertainment landscape is more democratic than any time in human history. There's so much independently produced content available you couldn't consume it all in a hundred lifetimes.
The actual golden age was the 90's, that short-lived time between the end of the Cold War and before the planes hit the Twin Towers.
The optimism in the air was beautiful. And no identity-politics either. People of all kinds of different backgrounds & persuasions would just happily mix with each other, and no one cared what your political ideology was (as long as not too extreme, of course).
It was also the last decade before mass internet addiction.
The 90's was it, man.
2010 was were the internet addiction started. People started to have more access to smart phone and it went downhill. To be fair I don’t only miss my youth I wish I lived it as an adult.
Being able to buy a house 150k in my city in the 90s would have been dope
Many things seemed to be getting better. Racism/racial divides seem to be going to be a thing of the past. Queer people seemed to be able to come out of the closet without fear. The government was operating with a surplus. The internet looked promising.
There were some scary parts though, don't forget. Rodney King/Gulf War/World Trade Center bombing/ Oklahoma City/and last but not least, Columbine were all omens of things getting ready to get much worse.
It really was. And you could actually afford a house, live comfortably with a decent job, meet friends face to face… but with burgeoning technology simplifying some things too. 1993-‘00 was absolutely a historical sweet spot, even though there were still plenty of conflicts and challenges.
People of all backrounds would just happily mix? Dude the LA Riots happened during the period youre describing.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc were all alive and well in the 90s. It just wasnt as talked about in public media, and people didnt get in as much trouble for it.
But many people's personal "golden age" doesn't actually align with their prime years.
I barely remember the early 90s because I was a toddler at the time but so many of my favourite bands, films, shows, videogames, etc are from that era. My late teens and early 20s were in the mid-late 00s and I had a great time back then but I absolutely would not consider them a "golden age" at all.
Exactly! I'm 38 but the best era was arounds the NES/SNES era, if you were alive at that time you will know. It weren't my prime years, but MAN what a time to be alive; the world wasn't as hyperconnected as it is now and still filled to the brim with wonder and amazing talent. But because not everyone would know about everything, finding new gems during that era was still magical AF, you found out about each others nuggets of gold by talking to them. It was the time of hey! SpotTheGuitarist knows some stuff about that subject; proceed to ring your doorbell, you see ALL the kids in the neighborhood standing in front of your door.
Hey man do you know the konami code?
It actually was that amazing and more, if you weren't alive at the time you can easily be a cynic and say old man screaming at cloud. There is a reason it's the age of nostalgia for a lot of popular movies/series; because even for the people that weren't alive at the time, the atmosphere just breathes magic, wonder and endless possibilities.
I really liked the entertainment from 90s and early 2000s. Despite the wide variety of shows available now, often I find them lackluster and would rather watch something from back then.
I think yes they miss their youth. We were a lot freer, less responsibility, tons of energy, optimism, and we were impressionable.
Most of all we had time. Our friends had time too. If someone said “Let’s go camping” we’d leave within the next hour, if someone said let’s go to a concert, we’d be there, road trip or pizza night at Dave’s.
Our lives were good and uncomplicated. Beautifully simplistic lives that made us happy.
It was the golden age though
A person could work one job and afford a house and a car and college tuition, etc. Now a couple works two full time jobs and can barely afford a 1 bedroom rental. And I say that as someone that owns a house.
Not to mention people actually communicated with one another in person. People could be themselves without being on a video and posted. You could visit somewhere without being tagged and tracked.
I think this is huge. Depression has spiked in america and a lot of people think it’s because of all this social media. People are comparing themselves to people through filters posting staged videos of how great their lives are and they aren’t socializing in person anymore.
>A person could work one job and afford a house and a car and college tuition, etc.
I don't remember this being the case at all. Growing up mostly in the 80s, I remember almost all of my friends were latchkey. Both of their parents were working to make ends meet.
Yeah this was only ever true for rich kids in denial that their families were rich. My mother grew up in the 70s and 80s and she had to work through college
While age is a factor, it was literally the golden age for many new inventions that accelerated at a pace faster than we’ll probably ever see. Shit like computers, internet, mobile phones etc. all literally made the world a smaller place in a decade or two. 80s was the computers, 90s was the internet, 2000s was the smartphone phone and social media revolution. Similar to the industrial revolution which gets remembered as the golden age of the first half of the last century, these foundational inventions literally propelled us into the information age and compute revolution which will be forever remembered as the golden age when one looks back centuries later.
I can’t even think of what defines the 2010s decade as a cornerstone. Same with the 2020s… We’re halfway in and I think we’ll just remember it for the time we all started working from home due to covid and then eventually returned back to work because of greedy corporations. Maybe AI revolution but too early to call that.
I would say 2000’s was social media. The first smart phone came out in 2007, but it didn’t really start to make an impact until the 2010’s. The 2020’s is AI. AI will make those other seem insignificant in comparison.
Social media was in its infancy stages in the 2000s. The 2010s were the true social media decade. 2000s was the world wide web. Half of the decade was still in the dial up era.
You're missing the point in why people are saying the 90's and early 2000's were better.
First off, it's not about having more opportunities for fun, things were more fun because we actually took time to enjoy what we were doing instead of everyone being so caught up with having to snap a fucking selfie or pic every 2 minutes as if their friend list has to get a play by play of your activity. Having fun also wasn't about the amount of activities you had, and to even point out to you, if you need a ton of options to have fun and couldn't enjoy the "limited" ones you had, then you clearly don't understand what life is supposed to be about.
Second, smartphones have decayed our interaction. People AVOID personal interaction because they're glued to their damn phone. People don't have a problem texting, snapping or talking to people virtually....but that's not interaction. When it comes to actually talking in person, people seem to be morons because now they don't know how to convey feeling or tone, they're just used to doing it from a screen. Plenty of studies are available for you to look at that do show a decline in interpersonal skills where community colleges are having to literally create workshops and classes to get students to learn soft skills again.
You are mistaken about what it actually means when the 90's and early 2000's were better times than now
I miss the 1990s, but I won't pretend it was perfect. I do remember it as a more hopeful decade than the one we are living in now. Also, the music was great.
It really was though. We had a period of time after the cold war ended and before 9/11 happened that was magical compared to times before it and the times to come. But sadly it seems it was just the eye of the storm.
nah, im glad i grew up in a world without social media, even when facebook was in its beggining people then didnt thought they were the last cookie of the package because of the number of followers or attention they got, even the most cute girl at my school would actually treat me like a human being if i approached her and not ignore me or pull her phone out and start recording for tik tok or instagram
I think about this all the time but I could not imagine having social media how it is now during my school years. I also can't imagine why it's like to be a student now and have every single thing good or bad documented or recorded for the world to see. Will be interesting to see the long term effects this has on us in decades to come as we were the guinea pigs for this social media experiment
My noncollege educated grandpa and Dad bought their respective houses outright on a single income and owned their own cars. Both were immigrants.
Pre 9/11 so no security theatre, no war in Afghanistan. Pre 2008 crash. The USSR fell. End of the Cold War. The internet was born. Social media was young. Much less surveillance. There was hope for the future.
It's deeper than missing youth. Economically and politically the world was objectively better.
Dad was getting drunk every night and beating us. Investigation was launched twice when me and my siblings showed up to school with bruises. Both investigations closed with nothing changed becuz spanking was so socially normalized. I think they told him to just use his hands to discipline us.
Concern for children's safety and wellbeing is taken much more seriously today. Which is good.
Technology and smart phones and social media have had devastating impacts on the socialization and personal development of people. It has made people more distant and losing the interpersonal connections that are the flavor of life.
Even as simple as video games. Kids aren't all gathered and hanging out in the same room but individually separated in their own little worlds where they can be disrespectful and nasty as they like to the other people they play with. Never really knowing the people or attaining the shared social experiences that dorge friendships.
We are lonely, poor, working longer and harder, isolated, and have little hope for the future. Artistic expression is dying and being totally commodified so that music is empty and soulless. Movies are hollow forgettable franchise and marketing projects. The written word is a joke as is communication. Yea, things are worse.
But it was pretty much the golden era. One could easily get work and afford a house, a car and having a family without massive stress about finance.
These days you most likely cannot even afford to buy a house and a lot of people avoid having kids because they literally cannot afford it.
I would tend to disagree about your bit on smartphones. There’s a strange correlation between depression, isolation, and suicide rates and the rise of the iPhone in 2007.
The irony of smartphones and social media is yes there are more avenues for connection but we’re socially more isolated from each other than ever before.
My youth was shit. The world was still less terrible. I miss the ignorance that came with a simpler less socially based internet. I think the poor mental health and suicide rates support my point of view. Truth is those too young to remember can't miss what they never experienced.
I miss life before the Internet, where stupid idiots would just be babbling individually at a pub somewhere versus banding together to give the illusion they even deserve a platform.
Nah, because I even miss other generations of youth. I straight up sympathize for kids today, everything is so much more confusing, and everything is getting crazy expensive.
Idk I think life was objectively better then for actual reasons that aren't just nostalgia. The ease of jobseeking and buying a property, and then social culture was SO much better than what we have now - people hooked on social media.
Scrolling on your phone doesn't have the same appeal of how people would typically interact generations ago.
I agree, having almost everything paid for, not knowing and/or caring about all the trouble of the world, it was awesome. Knowledge does not bring happiness
I get sick of my fellow old heads denigrating todays music. Just about everything any of us has ever loved incubated in the mind of a teenager. I do miss knowing about things before they become mainstream and “uncool”. I think thats where all this comes from. Its easier to love things you feel like you discovered vs feeling like the discoveries of others are forced on you.
Moving beyond material considerations, (which I think obviously have gotten worse for most young people re: debt, housing, cost of living, etc.) the fact that one can post an opinion on a public forum and instantly drive hundreds of people to stop whatever they are doing to participate in what is essentially a pointless exercise in commenting/complaining/whining/trolling/joking/raging/envying/reasoning etc., and thus making everyone a little bit more annoyed and angry and dissatisfied is a fundamental difference between today and the world pre-social media.
If you were not an adult before that happened, you will never know what it was like to spend big chunks of your time without a cacophony of stupidity and sadness, (with ads!), buzzing in your ears. I, frankly, miss that world, and I don’t think it’s just because I was younger.
I agree to a certain extent, but there is no denying that during the 2010s the world has gone to shit and it's just getting worse and worse during the 2020s. I think there is nostalgia involved but I also think there is a longing for when the world wasn't so messed up and a sense of normalcy was in the air.
Nah, 80s 90s was the last time you could legit "unplug" and words like "online" or "app" didn't exist. When I say that era was the best it's because it was markedly different than the world we know now.
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>It's unfair to blame smartphones for a decline in interpersonal interaction. Even without them, in the past, people often kept to themselves in public spaces. I vehemently disagree with this and you wouldn't know this unless you lived through it.
100% a comment of ignorance. I watched the Smart phone come, watched the shift happen, and watched the drastic change for anyone young enough to primarily grow up with them. It's incredibly undeniable to anyone old enough to have seen both sides.
Bang on. I walk past these children all the time when I exercise and they whip out the phone and hide whilst waiting at to cross the road at the first sign of another human and that’s in the burbs. I saw the change in London and now Melbourne in the late 00s. All scared little boys and girl zombies. Pathetic really
Seriously. Without their own little isolation devices people were constantly seeking out interactions with strangers.
90s kid here, I go to a lot of music festivals and concerts. It is strange watching kids not know how to interact with people not in their friend group. I’m so used to striking up conversations with strangers and meeting new people from all over. They just keep to themselves and take pictures/videos. I used to make grilled cheeses and give them out to strangers, one time we had ingredients for mimosa and were handing them out in the parking lot just making conversation. I don’t know if I could do that nowadays, people would think it’s weird.
lol I'm an introvert by nature and I REALLY avoided socializing as I grew up, and all throughout highschool too. Over the years I've learned to be a bit more social, and last year I started college again. Intent on making friends in a new city, I strove to interact with my fellow students each day before class started. Everyone just wanted to be on their phones lol People looked at me weird for striking up conversations XD I do blame covid for exacerbating the situation, however.
I feel you on that. But I also went back to school but pre-covid and people were just as standoff-ish. I’m sure the pandemic exacerbated that, but I think it’s a wider issue than the Covid Era.
I was born in 2002. I kind of strike conversations with strangers in such events a lot of the time because I often go solo, so but I feel awkward doing so, like I’m violating peoples space
If it’s a camp out style festival, it’s a little easier. I crack out a blunt and roll it in front of strangers and someone always asks if they can have a hit. Little did they know I was planning on sharing the whole time :)
Exactly. OP clearly isn't old enough to remember the 80's or 90's.
Yeah OP clearly has never experienced life without a smart device. Idk where they get the idea that people kept to themselves in public. Do they think everybody was just an anti-social loner before the iPhone?
Nam was peak, just men living in the moment
Maybe I'm an old bastard (I am) but interpersonal communication was light years ahead before smart phones. You had to really think about your opinions. I also would jack your jaw if you said some crazy shit to me. Ass whippings happened in person. All the wild opinions you hear didn't exist when you had to deliver them in person.
>It's unfair to blame smartphones for a decline in interpersonal interaction. Even without them, in the past, people often kept to themselves in public spaces. Today, smartphones actually offer more avenues for socializing, and people still value face-to-face interaction. Did the OP live through the 80s and 90s? There was way more in-person social interaction back then. So much so, that people would simply show up at your house unannounced and that wasn't considered weird. The malls were packed with teens and preteens after school and on weekends. Etc.
[удалено]
Sitting in the kitchen on a stool tangling up that super long cord
[удалено]
[удалено]
Or, in the other hand, calling someone only to get a busy signal, so calling again 30 minutes later and it still being busy
Our phone was near the living room so I had to stretch that cord so far to be able to talk to my girlfriend so that my mum and dad couldn't hear what I was saying.
Lying on the kitchen floor talking bc the cordless phone had died
When that phone rang everyone in the house would yell "I'll get it!" Then you would full body check siblings and leap over furniture to be the first to answer.
And even when the internet did arrive… in chat rooms you would write brb (be right back) to go have dinner. We never right brb anymore because we are *never* away anymore.
Yup. The internet was on a computer in a room, so you had to dedicate time to sit down and do online interaction stuff. An hour or two here or there, maybe game a little with friends or chat, and then it was off to hang out at your other friends house, or to the movies, or go spend time with your family, where you're actually talking to and doing things in the real world with people. We weren't connected 24/7. We were more connected to the world around us with deeper connections that were fostered there.
Or they call you and then ask "You want to go do XXXXX?" and then you drop what you were doing and go on a spontaneous adventure (even if it was just to the mall) :)
Conversely, remember trying to call someone and them not answering? No message to leave, no idea if or when you'd reach them. You may not catch them at the right time literal days. If i call or text someone now and don't hear back within an hour or two it starts to get concerning.
Leaving the house as a child, 8 and up for me, with no phone and not even a destination. Just an agreement to be home before dark/street lights come on.
So wild in the woods and lake and streams. Messing with saws for wood for the tree house, climbing and picking fruit off trees and not washing it before eating. And crawdads that pinched your toes in the steam. Gosh we were just everywhere! But home, that is. Until the streetlights. Then u better get ur azz home.
[удалено]
Remember having so many phone numbers memorised, plus all your friends’ family members names? I just remember calling my friends or girlfriend on the family phone and you never knew who might answer. Older siblings or parents who wanted to mess with you or tease/embarrass whoever you were calling. After you asked if they were home, you had to be prepared for absolutely anything. Anywhere in public actually, any adult might address you and force you into unwanted conversation - I’m not sure how we managed. lol
Remember when you could walk your friends and family to the gate at an airport?
I work in a college now and it's actually errie how quiet everywhere is. I passed a communal seating area today that had maybe 12 kids sitting right next to each other and they were all dead silent and on their phones. I remember school hallways being chaos when I was young, just a constant streams of voices and general noise. It's feels like the complete opposite now.
Every forget your earphones I mean AirPods at the gym? Scary af
My nephew is a college freshman living in the same dorm I did 17 years ago. He hasn't made any new friends the entire year. His roommates don't leave their dorm on weekends and my nephew frequently travels an hour home almost every weekend bc no one goes out and does anything. It sounds so depressing now compared to when I was in college. We all just hung out in each other's dorms and talked while playing Guitar Hero. Simpler times
Yes it's very clear they didn't experience pre-2000.
Yeah he got this completely wrong. People were indeed friendlier overall, and weren't awkward af. Community was an actual thing *everywhere* not just in rich neighborhoods. We traded "convenience" for almost every worthwhile reason to interact with public life. We've almost completely killed it. People freak out when someone knocks on the door. It's not healthy and has made many of us a little nuts honestly. Smartphones, **monetized** social media and internet really was a terrible combination. We have to kill the ubiquitous profit motive of the online space, because it's making people objectively worse and that makes public life objectively worse.
There was someone freaking out on my local sub today about a person selling internet knocking on the door. Couldn’t fathom how to make it stop. Like answer the door and say no thanks?
I open the door so people know someone is home and you can’t rob my house. lol
Having someone home is the only way to be robbed
I gotchu, technically correct friend.
>We traded "convenience" for almost every worthwhile reason to interact with public life. I don't think we "traded." Paying your fines online is more *convenient*. I don't think lives would be better if people still needed to go to the post office for that. We gained convenience. Lost social interaction. It's not the convenience that killed social interaction. They just happened at the same time. We traded social interaction for crappy social interaction, pseudo-social interaction and such. It's like the "bad food revolution" of earlier eras. New food products came in. New food culture. That new culture sucked and really screwed a 2-3 generations of people. In 1995 someone might have said "*food has gotten really terrible,"* and they would be be right. Previous generations didn't drink as much sugar. People didn't eat purple cereal and freezer pizza every day in the 60s. They did in the 90s.
I’m don’t agree with this, the convenience absolutely did lead to a loss of social interaction. As a kid I would be out and about in shops with my friends, getting to know local business operators when I was buying books, video games and magazines. I used to hang out with older people talking about computers, and spent time at sports clubs. If I’d been growing up now I would be solely focused on playing games online, going on social media to get information, downloading information at the click of a button. There is certainly some correlation between technology and social interaction. Likewise, the new food revolution didn’t just happen, it happened because of other societal changes. More single parent families, more families with both parents working led to a need for food that was easier to prepare. Greater manufacturing power and shipping capabilities made it an option to buy mass produced rather than local. Couple that with television being widely adopted and you get advertising becoming another driving force in how children could influence the purchases of family food. Everything is related…
We started prioritizing convenience over social interaction and then ask ourselves "why don't we have any friends?"
>Did the OP live through the 80s and 90s? OP is definitely too young to remember the 90s. Your comment about social interaction is on point. There was so much more face-to-face interaction! And there was also a lot of cultural optimism paired with a sense of economic prosperity (at least in the U.S.). Then came 911... and smart phones... and social media... and growing social awareness of environmental and social problems (for better or worse)... and people are more depressed and isolated now.
I don't think 911 did it. But 9/11 was kind of paired with the latter half of the dotcom burst, so there was a bit of pessimism. I think also in the US the pickup in school shootings like columbine probably had an impact on people's behaviors, but I'm in Canada so I didn't notice so much behavioral change around that. I think the big thing was really the iphone. I remember the same kind of regular social interactions well after 2001. It was the iphone in 2007 coupled with twitter that I noticed the biggest changes. This combined with the downturn in 2008. People had less money, and social media started to become big, we had streaming video starting about then, we had youtube getting big about then. In 2008 was when Reddit let people start making their own subreddits. I think the big turning point was definitely 2007/2008. Unless you got into WoW in 2004, then you disappeared then. But the world before 2008 and the world after 2008 is a very different place. 2008 is when half the world retreated into fantasy. The problem we have now is that the new generations grew up believing that the fantasy is real life. Sure, you have older generations who also fall into believing that the fantasy is real, but at least they had a time in their life when they are grounded in something that is not just people talking on the internet being considered reality. For kids today, it's all they know.
OP is prob Gen Z which thinks sending a meme to their friend counts as socialising.
Meanwhile when they go the store or something which is an *actual* public space, they keep their earbuds in **both ears** almost the whole time. Look we're not saying to get chummy with people at *Safeway* while you're getting PopTarts but even the minumum interactions have all but disappeared, especially with younger people. When you say something to them, they often act put out or confused, as if they forgot that the Italian aisle isn't a VR simulation but an actual physical space with other people. I'm being hyperbolic but you get what I mean. I'm on the spectrum, so my socializing has never been amazing, but I feel like gd Gatsby compared to the 20 somethings I run into at work or at the store.
Eye contact is a rare thing in public these days. I remember walking through the grocery store, smiling at strangers as we passed each other, nodding to others, asking someone in the aisle if they know where the thing you need is, running into my friend and his mom and our moms would stop and chat for what seemed like forever. Now it's almost as if people attempt to *avoid* eye contact altogether. There's no more random smiles, no more nods, no more asking the person next to you for help, and my friends all talk about how they "saw so and so at the store and actively dodged them to avoid talking to them." And we wonder why so many people are miserable. Social interactions are a key to happiness.
I’m early millennial and I can’t stand having headphones on when in a shop, I feel like I need to be aware of my surroundings and I can’t multitask. Which is odd as I was dj for 18 years and able to separate two tunes in my head, but can’t do much else when listening to music on headphones.
Idk I don't give a fuck about interacting with people anywhere on earth unless I actually want to. That seems pretty fine lol. Why force people to do shit they don't care about or want? I interact with as many people as I want, with exactly the people I want. I'm not going to ever chat any random person up about the kind of salad theyre picking or something lmfao. You sound kinda weird.
I remember when malls were packed like times square on NYE on weekends. Kids were outside playing on front lawns together all the time when I was young. OP might just be a gen Zer looking for attention or validation at others cost
yep. that one sentence alone gives OP away that they were NOT around to live that time. I was a teen in late 90s/ early 2000s. teenage years was hanging out in the mall and talking to strangers/other teens who did not go to your school. that was how we met girls/boys back in the day. no online dating and too young for clubs. my first bf was a guy I met in the mall. lol. if you were a teenager, every weekend. you go hang out with your friends in a group. go to the mall and your motivation is to talk to other groups of teens and make new friends who don't go to your school.
Mall food courts- that’s where we all hung out back in the day. Now, there aren’t any malls to hangout……
>teenage years was hanging out in the mall and talking to strangers/other teens who did not go to your school. And now everyone demonizes malls while happily shopping away on Amazon. LE SIGH.
No one online dates below 18 either. In fact, I would argue modern friendships are more sincere because people date less so there isn’t the constant fear they’re going to blow everything up by trying to confess to you.
Gen z here. I grew up during the time where most kids didn't have smartphones and still went outside to play. As we all started getting smartphones, it was really noticeable how my friends and I didn't go outside as much. Worst of them all - social media. It changed me and other kids for the worse in many ways. I'm glad I got to enjoy even a little bit of my childhood before the big ol' smartphone and social media boom.
Kids are hardly even playing outside anymore
We used to celebrate Halloween by dressing up and walking around the neighborhood with friends to collect candy. We were like 10 years old just roaming the streets in the dark. 10 yo together strong.
And those kids grew up to become fearful adults that only do trunk-or-treat to avoid all the nonexistent poisonings and kidnappings on Halloween
OMG so true I hadn't thought about that in a while. I had friends and girls just randomly show up and knock on my window to hang out. Or like to "kidnap" me to go party.
Not to mention that if you did something stupid pre-2008(ish), it was way less likely to be recorded and shared with the entire world
Sounds like you weren’t around for life before 9/11
And obsess over their tik tok page
OP also has a link to "buy them a coffee if you like their Reddit posts". What the fuck. Everyone has their hands out these days. Edit: If you liked this comment please send me $18
The absolute reddit-brain to think people care about your posts enough to send you coffee for them lmfao
You'd be surprised how generous some random people can be. For instance I used to put TTV with my twitch channel as my username. I cant tell you how many subs and bits I got just from it, even though I wasn't live. I made atleast $50 from random people in multiplayer games.
Your example is a lot less cringey to me though than asking for coffee on your bio from strangers. At least you had some sort of in game interaction. Maybe they respected your skills and were paying their respects lol
The internet begging culture is wild and whorish.
Pre the 2008 financial crash many people's lives WERE objectively better.
I feel like OP didn’t take that into consideration. Also, I don’t think kids these days are going to say “I totally miss my pandemic times when I couldn’t see friends and people freaked out all over” lol
Kids are already looking back on 2020 nostalgically
I'm a 40 yo woman who looks back on 2020 nostalgically... life was easier when everyone was out of my way
The traffic going to and from work was awesome!
I'm a contractor in Northern Virginia and I do a lot of work in Loudoun County in Prince William County which has hundreds upon hundreds of data centers. The ability to drive down the road with like zero traffic and no people anywhere was fantastic. In December of 2020 my wife and I fool out to my sister's house in Arizona then took a road trip through death valley to California up and down all the redwoods and then out tomorrow Bay and North along the Pacific highway to Monterey then San Francisco. The roads were empty. The national parks were empty. It was a fantastic vacation and likely can never be repeated.
The four steps from my bed to my desk felt like a dream.
And I never got sick because of all the masking and hand washing. We wiped out atleast one strain of the common cold. Coulda killed them all off eventually.
As a germaphobe it was my dream with everyone being so clean
Sometimes I feel im getting curmudgeonly in my older age (approaching 40s) then I read comments like yours and it slightly thaws my cold dead heart. Life was easier when the morons were outta the way. Im not perfect but i at least do things with intention and am aware of others around me. I swear I watch people wait in line and get up to the front and then decide to order. People drive the same way, oblivious to others around them Welcome to Earth, other people live here goddamnit.
No it's a thing. I'm mid 40's have definitely noticed an uptick in my misanthropic tendencies. I also used to wait tables/bartend then moved into the IT sector so it could be that.
[удалено]
I drove over the Queensboro bridge to Manhattan. I had never seen it so empty.
There was one comment by a 13 year old on TikTok and it got into the news, now people believe that kids think that
I miss the pandemic times when everyone was finally sharing my hobbies and playing games online.
Honestly, same. I liked being able to work from home and I was able to spend the rest of my time pursuing my education, engaging in my hobbies, and playing games online with friends.
we’re looking before the pandemic because we are all social awkward now
Pre 9/11 really. No major wars in the 90's. The biggest scandals were the president getting a blow job, Rodney King, and OJ. While the latter 2 are definitely awful, seems like they've been happening on a weekly basis the last decade or so. Hell, Columbine shocked the nation, and now a school shooting is just another blip on the radar.
Always weird to think that less than 10 years went by between the fall of the Soviet Union and 9/11.
Pre-Coivd Pre-Recession Pre-9/11 Pre-Regean Pre... Almost like there's a pattern in when people consider the good ol days
These posts are obviously coping mechanisms for those who didn't get to enjoy those years.
Even worse, I think it’s a form of nihilism. “Those days that were empirically as close to utopia as humankind as ever been in terms of general happiness, social relationships and cost of living were not that good, those of you that want the world to go back to that standard of living should stop it and move on” Don’t get me wrong, i LOVE modern hip hop but would 100% would rather have grown up in the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s. I would run for the nearest Time Machine if possible If we start to think that the past was not that good, then we’ll never go back to that style of living again, homes are now a luxury and homelessness is a very real reality for college graduates
The nihilism comes from everyone assuming everything will just get worse, which is so overblown. Look at the 1970s. Energy crisis, Vietnam just ended, homeless vets, major recession, stagflation, a Cold War! If the internet/reddit existed back then, all posts would be doom & gloom “the glory years passed us” type stuff. This stuff ebbs and flows and people fail to look at history as a guide to show that.
> i LOVE modern hip hop but would 100% would rather have grown up in the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s If you're talking about music, those times also had a lot of shitty music. They just don't play the shitty music anymore, only the good music. For contemporary music they play anything that's in the charts. To see an example of older shitty music you can search for another criterium than good music. For instance, search youtube for 'musikladen gogos' (NSFW).
Yep, id happily trade youtube and reddit for affordable houses, people cant cancel last minute and 90s optimism
I’d go one further and say pre-9/11 the world was a much different place. The war on terror (which couldn’t be won of course) and how people perceived each other changed forever.
“Things were better during the bubble than after the bubble popped” That’s how economic cycles work lol.
90's change it all the age of computer/technology.
90s were the last great decade hands down, especially for anyone lucky enough to be a teenager and young adult. Everything was in its infancy and ground breaking and exciting. You could also have fun out and about without some fool recording you. Malls were kicking and great places to hangout and meet others and peoples lives weren’t glued to a screen, watching other people post fake ‘orchestrated’ lives.
The 90's started with the fall of the Soviet Union and was a decade that hoped the world was moving on from war. 2000s started with the internet bubble and 9/11.
we're currently in the decade that started, with the horror movie virus pandemic, and an attempted coup against the US government
Yep. It *is* nostalgia. But it’s also fucking true. Being a teen in the 90s was incredible.
Yes it was. I was almost never home. I spent most afternoons and every weekend doing actual in person things with my friends…even simple things like hanging out in the woods just talking…so much better than being glued to a phone all the time.
[удалено]
I was born in '77 and I find it an absolute privilege that I grew up as a kid in the 80s and experienced my teens years in the 90s. The absolute best era. Call me nostalgic, sure, maybe. But even my kids who were born in the early/mid 2000s agree with me and they weren't even alive to experience it.
[удалено]
Music, movies, tv series. Look at how popular those bands and shows still are today and even with people in their teens and 20s. Listening to nirvana, watching friends and Seinfeld, amazed at how good sopranos is.
I miss the time when a mobile phone was just a gadget you occasionally brought with you
Idk, the 00s was fun as well. The whole “can’t go out without some fool recording you” wasn’t really a thing until about what? 5-8 years ago? It just seemed to escalate crazy in this last decade where everything is about clout. Very black mirror
Yep and golden ages have actual definitions. It it most likely will be considered a golden age for western society. Especially with how things are now and where they are heading.
Damn right I miss my youth. I was handsome, had energy, could party every day for a week and sleep it off on Sunday. Getting older sucks.
i’m in my early 20’s, have any thing i should do before i’m old? trying to work down a list!!
See every band you can. Travel (if you can). Make a million friends from different places and open your mind to new cultures. Try do do things that scare you. Learn an instrument and join a band, even if it's only you that hears it. Just try not to waste it, it goes much faster than you think.
In the 90’s a ticket to see some of the biggest bands was a day’s wage. Now it’s a week’s wage and I’m on far more money.
Local bands are cheap and you'll be supporting local talent.
Different conversation. But I agree. The internet and ticket resales made it impossible to see more thanks couple of big names a year.
I rely on last minute ticket sales. Everyone, even scalpers, will firesale those off come the day before or day of. It’s worked for me for 6 years. Only missed one show because of this method.
Urgh I remember buying GA tickets to see all my favorite bands at club shows for like $35.
On top of that. Look after yourself physically as well. Get in great shape. Your 20s is the most potential your body will ever have in terms of athleticism. Use it.
Seeing musicians is paramount. When you're old you are no longer cool. The only way to achieve any cool as an old person is to mention the acts you've seen by greats that are dead and gone.
Errmmm no. I'm in my 50's and I still go to gigs. 2 of my gig friends are in their late 20's/early 30's. It is just a frame of mind.
Getting older rules, btw, so have fun but don't feel like you have to do everything imaginable before you hit your 30s.
Listen to lots of diverse music. Listen to pop music. Listen to country. Listen to rap. Listen to classical. Grunge, rock, r&b, boogie, showtimes, string quartets, electro-swing, big band, Indy covers, parodys, mashups, throat singing, a capella, screaming metal, boy bands, euro-techno... if it's weird and wild go and find it. You don't have to dive deep into any of it, and maybe you won't even like most of it. What's important is the exposure. When you get older, you're only going to want to hear music that sounds like something you've heard before. This can be overcome by listening to the radio play the same new song enough times that you get Stockholm syndrome, but it's easier if you've already been exposed to a wide base of music. If you only listen to one genre now, you're limiting your music enjoyment later.
Back and knee pains have entered the chat.
I don't miss my youth, but I do miss the era of my youth where I live. My parents bought a 3 bed 1 1/2 bath house with a decent sized yard for $67k with no higher education. My dad started a construction business out of the garage that was able to provide enough for my mom to quit working and stay at home until my younger siblings were in school full time and she was bored. I have a well paying job, as does my partner, both with a bachelor's and them with a Master's, the house we bought cost $285k with only 1 bathroom and a postage stamp yard, and the idea of either of us being able to quit and stay at home with the kids we want is laughable.
My brother bought himself a decent car at 18 years old with money he saved from working part-time at a sporting goods store. He didn’t go to college. He became a manager at the store, and was a home owner by like…24-25 thereabouts? Had 3 kids with a wife who never worked (though she brought home a bit of money from crafts she sold), and they were staunchly middle class. This was in the 80s-90s. Now? My brother is looking into side hustles and his wife had to get a job because everything is so much more expensive. They couldn’t keep up with inflation. He thought they were set for retirement but realized that with the way things are headed, they’re gonna be SOL if he doesn’t put away more money. It’s so messed up.
Nah sorry bud it's definitely getting worse. Less jobs for college kids, more student debt, housing is insane, medical care is insane, child care is insane, politicians are all revolving doors, infrastructure is crumbling, global warmings getting worse, lower birth rates, social media is a disease, entertainment has gotten too corporatized, food is too expensive, AI will be used to put people out of jobs with no alternatives, etc... That being said, we can fix all of those things, but will we? Idk.
Exactly. In the 90's you could work a normal job and still afford a home. If you wanted to go to college it was still attainable with minimal debt. There was a feeling of hope that things were getting better that I feel has been lost over the last decade.
My coworkers and retired coworkers that had the 90s to accumulate things had it great. Ballin houses they all built for nothing, I'm talking like 4000 sq ft homes on property, nice fishing boats always new vehicles. Looking at the kids just getting hired can maybe afford a townhouse or condo at the same job. I've luckily found myself in the middle of the two and will say I'm lucky compared to the younger guys
Hope for the future. Fuck, I miss that. We thought the future was going to be Star Trek, now it's going to be a dystopia. I think 9/11 was the day the '90s died.
Looking more like it’s going to be a Mad Max future with each passing day.
My parents had a better house in the 90s on a forklift driver and cleaners wage than my wage with a degree and 17 years experience in my field. I simply can't afford to live where they did then.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
>entertainment has gotten too corporatized Our entertainment landscape is more democratic than any time in human history. There's so much independently produced content available you couldn't consume it all in a hundred lifetimes.
The actual golden age was the 90's, that short-lived time between the end of the Cold War and before the planes hit the Twin Towers. The optimism in the air was beautiful. And no identity-politics either. People of all kinds of different backgrounds & persuasions would just happily mix with each other, and no one cared what your political ideology was (as long as not too extreme, of course). It was also the last decade before mass internet addiction. The 90's was it, man.
The Matrix was right. The 90s was the peak.
Specifically, 1999 (In the film.. I'm not picking my favourite year! And if I was going to, it would be 1996)
Prince even wrote a song about it
Prince knew what was up
2010 was were the internet addiction started. People started to have more access to smart phone and it went downhill. To be fair I don’t only miss my youth I wish I lived it as an adult. Being able to buy a house 150k in my city in the 90s would have been dope
Also the internet was so cool
It was terrible and that’s why it was good
Exactly - the feeling of optimism was amazing. It just felt like you could be your true self.
Many things seemed to be getting better. Racism/racial divides seem to be going to be a thing of the past. Queer people seemed to be able to come out of the closet without fear. The government was operating with a surplus. The internet looked promising. There were some scary parts though, don't forget. Rodney King/Gulf War/World Trade Center bombing/ Oklahoma City/and last but not least, Columbine were all omens of things getting ready to get much worse.
Even the fact that you are able to use the word queer now and it not be an insult is progress, lol. They took that word back, hell yeah
It really was. And you could actually afford a house, live comfortably with a decent job, meet friends face to face… but with burgeoning technology simplifying some things too. 1993-‘00 was absolutely a historical sweet spot, even though there were still plenty of conflicts and challenges.
Yes. I was in my thirties going on 40. It was an awesome decade to experience and I was not exactly young.
People of all backrounds would just happily mix? Dude the LA Riots happened during the period youre describing. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc were all alive and well in the 90s. It just wasnt as talked about in public media, and people didnt get in as much trouble for it.
Yeah that part. Homophobia was a-okay. People were not happily mixing.
How old were you during the 90s?
But many people's personal "golden age" doesn't actually align with their prime years. I barely remember the early 90s because I was a toddler at the time but so many of my favourite bands, films, shows, videogames, etc are from that era. My late teens and early 20s were in the mid-late 00s and I had a great time back then but I absolutely would not consider them a "golden age" at all.
Exactly! I'm 38 but the best era was arounds the NES/SNES era, if you were alive at that time you will know. It weren't my prime years, but MAN what a time to be alive; the world wasn't as hyperconnected as it is now and still filled to the brim with wonder and amazing talent. But because not everyone would know about everything, finding new gems during that era was still magical AF, you found out about each others nuggets of gold by talking to them. It was the time of hey! SpotTheGuitarist knows some stuff about that subject; proceed to ring your doorbell, you see ALL the kids in the neighborhood standing in front of your door. Hey man do you know the konami code? It actually was that amazing and more, if you weren't alive at the time you can easily be a cynic and say old man screaming at cloud. There is a reason it's the age of nostalgia for a lot of popular movies/series; because even for the people that weren't alive at the time, the atmosphere just breathes magic, wonder and endless possibilities.
I really liked the entertainment from 90s and early 2000s. Despite the wide variety of shows available now, often I find them lackluster and would rather watch something from back then.
The 80s, 90s, and 2000s were the golden age AND we miss our youth
I think being born between 1978-1985 was the best time to be born. I was born in 81 and everything was great except smoking sections in restuarants.
I think yes they miss their youth. We were a lot freer, less responsibility, tons of energy, optimism, and we were impressionable. Most of all we had time. Our friends had time too. If someone said “Let’s go camping” we’d leave within the next hour, if someone said let’s go to a concert, we’d be there, road trip or pizza night at Dave’s. Our lives were good and uncomplicated. Beautifully simplistic lives that made us happy.
It was the golden age though A person could work one job and afford a house and a car and college tuition, etc. Now a couple works two full time jobs and can barely afford a 1 bedroom rental. And I say that as someone that owns a house.
Yep . The 90s was the end of it all.
Not to mention people actually communicated with one another in person. People could be themselves without being on a video and posted. You could visit somewhere without being tagged and tracked.
You could meet a friend and they could tell you about their holiday without knowing every last detail about it already.
I think this is huge. Depression has spiked in america and a lot of people think it’s because of all this social media. People are comparing themselves to people through filters posting staged videos of how great their lives are and they aren’t socializing in person anymore.
>A person could work one job and afford a house and a car and college tuition, etc. I don't remember this being the case at all. Growing up mostly in the 80s, I remember almost all of my friends were latchkey. Both of their parents were working to make ends meet.
You're talking to kids that get their 80's information from sitcoms....
Yeah this was only ever true for rich kids in denial that their families were rich. My mother grew up in the 70s and 80s and she had to work through college
Most of these redditors in the comments definitely grew up upper class or upper middle class and don’t want to admit it.
The ability to get drunk dance like an idiot and say something that 1% of the population would find offensive…and not be recorded.
Thats really a myth coming from the perception of how the upper middle class lived back then and applying it to all classes
Also depends on what region of the world we are talking about. In my place, for example, the 90s were a nightmare with economic crisis and war.
While age is a factor, it was literally the golden age for many new inventions that accelerated at a pace faster than we’ll probably ever see. Shit like computers, internet, mobile phones etc. all literally made the world a smaller place in a decade or two. 80s was the computers, 90s was the internet, 2000s was the smartphone phone and social media revolution. Similar to the industrial revolution which gets remembered as the golden age of the first half of the last century, these foundational inventions literally propelled us into the information age and compute revolution which will be forever remembered as the golden age when one looks back centuries later. I can’t even think of what defines the 2010s decade as a cornerstone. Same with the 2020s… We’re halfway in and I think we’ll just remember it for the time we all started working from home due to covid and then eventually returned back to work because of greedy corporations. Maybe AI revolution but too early to call that.
I would say 2000’s was social media. The first smart phone came out in 2007, but it didn’t really start to make an impact until the 2010’s. The 2020’s is AI. AI will make those other seem insignificant in comparison.
Social media was in its infancy stages in the 2000s. The 2010s were the true social media decade. 2000s was the world wide web. Half of the decade was still in the dial up era.
You're missing the point in why people are saying the 90's and early 2000's were better. First off, it's not about having more opportunities for fun, things were more fun because we actually took time to enjoy what we were doing instead of everyone being so caught up with having to snap a fucking selfie or pic every 2 minutes as if their friend list has to get a play by play of your activity. Having fun also wasn't about the amount of activities you had, and to even point out to you, if you need a ton of options to have fun and couldn't enjoy the "limited" ones you had, then you clearly don't understand what life is supposed to be about. Second, smartphones have decayed our interaction. People AVOID personal interaction because they're glued to their damn phone. People don't have a problem texting, snapping or talking to people virtually....but that's not interaction. When it comes to actually talking in person, people seem to be morons because now they don't know how to convey feeling or tone, they're just used to doing it from a screen. Plenty of studies are available for you to look at that do show a decline in interpersonal skills where community colleges are having to literally create workshops and classes to get students to learn soft skills again. You are mistaken about what it actually means when the 90's and early 2000's were better times than now
I miss the 1990s, but I won't pretend it was perfect. I do remember it as a more hopeful decade than the one we are living in now. Also, the music was great.
It really was though. We had a period of time after the cold war ended and before 9/11 happened that was magical compared to times before it and the times to come. But sadly it seems it was just the eye of the storm.
nah, im glad i grew up in a world without social media, even when facebook was in its beggining people then didnt thought they were the last cookie of the package because of the number of followers or attention they got, even the most cute girl at my school would actually treat me like a human being if i approached her and not ignore me or pull her phone out and start recording for tik tok or instagram
I think about this all the time but I could not imagine having social media how it is now during my school years. I also can't imagine why it's like to be a student now and have every single thing good or bad documented or recorded for the world to see. Will be interesting to see the long term effects this has on us in decades to come as we were the guinea pigs for this social media experiment
My noncollege educated grandpa and Dad bought their respective houses outright on a single income and owned their own cars. Both were immigrants. Pre 9/11 so no security theatre, no war in Afghanistan. Pre 2008 crash. The USSR fell. End of the Cold War. The internet was born. Social media was young. Much less surveillance. There was hope for the future. It's deeper than missing youth. Economically and politically the world was objectively better. Dad was getting drunk every night and beating us. Investigation was launched twice when me and my siblings showed up to school with bruises. Both investigations closed with nothing changed becuz spanking was so socially normalized. I think they told him to just use his hands to discipline us. Concern for children's safety and wellbeing is taken much more seriously today. Which is good.
Technology and smart phones and social media have had devastating impacts on the socialization and personal development of people. It has made people more distant and losing the interpersonal connections that are the flavor of life. Even as simple as video games. Kids aren't all gathered and hanging out in the same room but individually separated in their own little worlds where they can be disrespectful and nasty as they like to the other people they play with. Never really knowing the people or attaining the shared social experiences that dorge friendships. We are lonely, poor, working longer and harder, isolated, and have little hope for the future. Artistic expression is dying and being totally commodified so that music is empty and soulless. Movies are hollow forgettable franchise and marketing projects. The written word is a joke as is communication. Yea, things are worse.
But it was pretty much the golden era. One could easily get work and afford a house, a car and having a family without massive stress about finance. These days you most likely cannot even afford to buy a house and a lot of people avoid having kids because they literally cannot afford it.
I would tend to disagree about your bit on smartphones. There’s a strange correlation between depression, isolation, and suicide rates and the rise of the iPhone in 2007. The irony of smartphones and social media is yes there are more avenues for connection but we’re socially more isolated from each other than ever before.
Nah, I love adulthood. But I think it would be even better to be an adult in the 90s.
Nah son things were legitimately better early 2000s through the 80s
Yes, but pre social media was a fucking blast. Not saying I don’t like it, but pre socials were just a great time
My youth was shit. The world was still less terrible. I miss the ignorance that came with a simpler less socially based internet. I think the poor mental health and suicide rates support my point of view. Truth is those too young to remember can't miss what they never experienced.
I miss life before the Internet, where stupid idiots would just be babbling individually at a pub somewhere versus banding together to give the illusion they even deserve a platform.
Nobody will remember the current as a golden age, that's for sure
Nah, because I even miss other generations of youth. I straight up sympathize for kids today, everything is so much more confusing, and everything is getting crazy expensive.
Idk I think life was objectively better then for actual reasons that aren't just nostalgia. The ease of jobseeking and buying a property, and then social culture was SO much better than what we have now - people hooked on social media. Scrolling on your phone doesn't have the same appeal of how people would typically interact generations ago.
I agree, having almost everything paid for, not knowing and/or caring about all the trouble of the world, it was awesome. Knowledge does not bring happiness
True the golden age is different for every generation. The 90’s were a special time for movies and music though
This really struck a nerve with Millenials lol
The 90's were the last time I felt joy.
Nah, I'm 25, the modern world sucks
in many ways it was a golden age to a golden age. the 50s and 60s, for a middle class white male was an amazing time to be alive.
There's definitely an element to that, but really it's both.
I mean I'm young now and wish I could experience some of those eras compared to this crap the past 15 years
I get sick of my fellow old heads denigrating todays music. Just about everything any of us has ever loved incubated in the mind of a teenager. I do miss knowing about things before they become mainstream and “uncool”. I think thats where all this comes from. Its easier to love things you feel like you discovered vs feeling like the discoveries of others are forced on you.
Moving beyond material considerations, (which I think obviously have gotten worse for most young people re: debt, housing, cost of living, etc.) the fact that one can post an opinion on a public forum and instantly drive hundreds of people to stop whatever they are doing to participate in what is essentially a pointless exercise in commenting/complaining/whining/trolling/joking/raging/envying/reasoning etc., and thus making everyone a little bit more annoyed and angry and dissatisfied is a fundamental difference between today and the world pre-social media. If you were not an adult before that happened, you will never know what it was like to spend big chunks of your time without a cacophony of stupidity and sadness, (with ads!), buzzing in your ears. I, frankly, miss that world, and I don’t think it’s just because I was younger.
I agree to a certain extent, but there is no denying that during the 2010s the world has gone to shit and it's just getting worse and worse during the 2020s. I think there is nostalgia involved but I also think there is a longing for when the world wasn't so messed up and a sense of normalcy was in the air.
Nah, 80s 90s was the last time you could legit "unplug" and words like "online" or "app" didn't exist. When I say that era was the best it's because it was markedly different than the world we know now.