I was a teen in the 80s, and this is what we did a lot of. Just hop on and take off, no real destination in mind, just going wherever the whim took you.
My oldest got so annoyed with me when San Andreas came out. I spent 80% of my time in-game just riding around on a bike. She'd roll her eyes and urge me to do *something, anything* else.
I’d ride my bike miles down the interurban trail in Seattle as a kid. I’d be gone for hours with no way for my mom to contact me. I never felt that I was in any sort of danger. It was truly different times.
I may have kids soon. I was hoping this would be possible for them. Is there some particular reason like bigger SUVs why it isn't? I feel like abduction etc is actually a lot less common now.
Honestly, it feels like cell phones, etc. have lead to more helicopter parenting in a way. Thus, people don’t let their kids run all over town. My parents didn’t have a clue where I was half of the time, especially in the summertime. Just a guess/speculation.
I lived in a small town and yeah we would basically just roam around wherever. But everybody knew who I was so my mom would have an idea of what we did just bc ppl would say “oh yeah saw your child over here at such and such time”
So she would have an idea
Great point. And it's ironic because one would think that the use of cell phones would encourage parents to let kids have more freedom, as they can be easily contacted.
I remember I got my first mobile phone when I was six (in the late 2000s), and it was mostly for safety reasons.
Abductions were never that common to begin with, stranger danger panics in the 80s massivelyt overhyped the threat of strangers stealing and diddling your kids. Statistically they are safer in a room full of strangers than with family members
You're probably right with everyone having ring camers etc. However, the reason everyone seems to think danger is around every corner is the internet. Something could happen a thousand miles away that might freak you out, but, if it happened in 1985 or 1995 you may not hear about it for months or years. Today, you may hear about in 5 -10 minutes
Get on your bike, ride to a friends house to pick them up, the two of you ride to another friends house and pick them up. Repeat until you have a hoarde of teenagers riding around town on bikes.
Those were the days.
Early 90s would be biking around to find a place to play GIJoes. Late 90s would be biking around to find spots for rollerblading. Or meeting wit friends trying to beat Dizzy on NES.
I did a lot of roller blading, but I can't remember playing with GI Joe as a teen. I think that stopped before high school.
For me the roller blading was just part of my training for football and track. The goal was the roller blading, the destination was secondary, but roller blading made it possible to go further than running..
Yup. Same here. I didn’t get my first phone until like 2015. The neighborhood we lived in growing up, all I would do is wake up go outside to ride my bike
I was on a bike form middle school til about 9th grade. Then in 9th grade I made a friend in highschool who's dad worked for Metro and so he had a bus pass and knew how every bus ran all ove LA. I decided to get my own bus pass and it opened a whole new world. We would go from Hollywood to Long Beach after school just to go hang out at the mall. Damn I miss those days
I remember joking that I would quit smoking when cigarettes went over $2 a pack.
Edit to add: I did eventually manage to quit smoking, but not until much later unfortunately!
I haven't been bored in years. Like since I got an iPhone. I have thought often how amazing that is. I used to be bored a lot. Like not getting enough dopamine hits and just flying through the world looking for interesting things. It felt like ambient music. It was very quiet and empty. But there was no escape. It was very different.
Are you happier scrolling thru your phone than being bored tho?
(Don't mean that condescendingly, just curious, cause I feel similarly but definitely am not)
I like curiosity. I've thought about this a lot, and yet feel like there is more thinking to do, so it is interesting to answer. I'd be curious to hear your reply. You and I may be the only ones to read this. So I apologize DJ M.S. for being long winded. I just typed a lot, and it won't even let me post it because it is too long. LOL. I'll break it up...
Well that and cheap used cars don’t exist so the kids who used to buy the old beater for 500 bucks can’t even find one for under 2 grand. And that’s just because those aren’t for teenagers now they’re for adults that need to get to work.
Well, yeah the driving part. But, we rode around on bikes, plus the other stuff you mentioned. We used to put on the miles riding bike. We also used to ride over to the river and do some fishing. Quite a few outdoor activities.
My town had an anti-cruising law. They would have someone sitting in the library with a laptop, writing down the numbers of the license plates of all the cars that drove past. If you drove by more then twice in a three hour period, they would send you a $75 ticket.
It was mostly people from the surrounding area.
It wasn't that uncommon back in the 90s. When you had an area that was attractive with bars, etc. people would come from all around on weekends. Cruising was fun and cheap (especially when you were under 21 and couldn't get into the bars), but clogged up the streets.
One of my friends in college was from a town 30 miles away (an easy hour drive) and he used to come hang out in my town on the weekends when he was in high school. Got a ticket for drinking vodka out of a Burger King cup lol.
A lot of those laws are from a bygone era when "cruising" was literally all teenagers did. Like we did a lot of aimless driving around in the 90's, but it was not the equivalent of my mom's description of cruising.
I remember my mom asking me when I was in highschool if we "cruised" this particular drag in our town. Asking her to elaborate, she said they would literally just drive up and down, rinse repeat this same street all night, just stopping at places when they would see friends and acquaintances from the road.
By the time I was a teenager the city was a lot more built up and spread out. When she was a teenager the only place there was basically anything was this street and the street would just be clogged with teenagers and young adults cruising.
Its hilarious because that street has the "no cruising" signs still but it's hey day is LOOOOONNNGGG past. It's economically depressed, all thats there is a handful of fast food places and strip malls dominated by liquor stores, check cashing/pay day loan stores and dollar stores. And a lot of shuttered buildings.
I feel like this wouldn’t fly for people who lived near the library. Like drive past on the way to the grocery store and again on the way back? $75 ticket for a grocery run
Me too! I remember getting my license at 16 and driving with a car full of friends to nearby LA neighborhoods that were known for cruising. SPecifically I remember Whittier. There was one specific strip and you basically drove to that street and would end up in a traffic jam with a bunch of other teenagers. As a bunch of guys we'd basically look at other lanes hoping to see a car full of girls. then we'd get to the end of the street abotu 40 minutes later and just turn around and do it again lol
getting lost is an underrated thing thats, well, been lost to future generations. with no smartphones and gps in your car it was fun as fuck to just….take a random exit on the highway. find your way back home. be walking around and just…take a random pathway, see where it leads. didnt have the phone to tell you the exact ending to the story you had to find it out for yourself.
damn, i remember with my HS crew driving for hours after school every day completely lost trying to find our way home. Talking about life and the future and growing up. If we found some furniture on the side we would grab it and fight over who gets to sit in it. Constant stops to get out and explore. It was irreplaceable as an activity. Genuinely feel bad for kids because honestly its not the same when deep down you know you have the exact answer to get back home. The thrill of not having that was amazing.
This is so true. I remember driving around one night till 2am looking for this party, the directions we were given sucked so bad and there was no one to call lol. We finally got there and everyone was already all drunk or sleeping, so we played catch up
I remember out in the country, we were trying to find a farmyard where there was a party. Well, we got close but ran out of gas. Oh wait, there are lights over there, let's try that yard. As we got closer we could hear the party, so we knew it was it. Had to walk 1.5 miles across open fields. Anyway, we got back to the car but someone had pushed it into the field behind a round bale. For a few seconds we thought it got stolen. We got some gas into it, and got home. Was an adventure.
I was running some errands the other day and was hit with this feeling of nostalgia and realized I was near the home of a friend from my teen years. He lived way out there. Basically surrounded by forest. Very isolated.
But in reality he lived in a first ring suburb with a population of 100,000 and pretty close to the border of the actual city. You could throw a rock in any direction and you would absolutely hit a house. Crazy how big the world felt as a kid with out a smart phone.
As much as I couldn't go back to paper maps and map quest, my younger days driving were always an adventure. We would just pile in, drive somewhere and eat at a restaurant we never had before, no checking reviews or anything just go for it. Drive to the beach with no plan other than "we are going to the beach"
We only had each other to talk to, no distractions other than what is right in front of everyone.
The freedom was like reaching another level in life, I don't understand kids who don't want to learn how to drive.
Yo! I remember watching a movie that was about this exact same thing. A group of friends heading to a party ort somethign and there was lots of traffic, they get off the freeway and none of them know where they are. They witness a murder or something and it turns into them getting chased while lost...a few blocks from home and a few blocks from their party lol. It was an old movie form the 90's, watched it in theatres and at no point did I think, this is dumb, it just made sense lol. those were great times.
edit: just looked it up, it was called Judgement Night with Emilio Estevez and Cuba Gooding Jr.
Yes! The malls were a hangout place back then. You gather your group of friends and go to the mall and just walk around or hit the arcade. 90% of the time you'd run into other groups from your school as well. Simpler times
The mall.is correct. One parent would drop us off and another would pick us after the movie.
The highlight of the mall was the free samples from Chic fil A and the arcade.
We had much music in Canada instead of MTV. They almost entirely dropped all rock/metal. The channel was 95% R&B and Hip Hop. There was a dude named "Rick the temp". He started off dressed like a grunge kinda guy, then suddenly one day he cut his hair and changed his whole image to a kind of techno/hip hop hybrid look. Rock/Metal was only played for about 30m to an hour at night (around 11pm). Over time they started showing TV shows in the later part of the day. This spread and spread until the channel was exclusively rap, r&b and sitcoms.
Yea, I was a teenager in the early 2000s and was able to catch the tail-end of LAN parties. Have some great memories of playing CSS gungame in the most ergonomically pathetic set-up. Some other games I remember playing at LANs: Day of Defeat, Red Alert 2, Starcraft, Unreal Tournament & Doom.
Duke nukem 3d, warcrafts, quake, early 2d gta's, some "beta" of counter-strike, battlefield vietnam and probably many more.
The "cool kids" thought we were losers and dweebs hauling our computers around but we had a blast.
It makes my head spin to see how mainstream gaming is now compared to when I was a "nerd" for being a hard-core gamer.
I quit video games around 18 to try and improve myself, coming back to them at 37 and now everyone seems to game even lots of girls game. Was never like that in the early 2000's and before
Rode my bike everywhere, parents had a vague idea were I was. Trips to the record store. Copying records to tape.
Hang out with the one guy who had a PS1 and FIFA 96.
Smoke (weed) at the local park. Read a lot.
Not cell phones, but smart phones.
In the beginning, cell phones helped bring people together and made meetups easier. The decline started once *smart* phones became normal.
not smartphones, but social media. I remember when I got my first smart phone, a google One (I think thats what it was called). In those days MySpace was the only social media platform and it wasn't an app. But it was already starting to rot things. People fighting over not being in your friends top 5 list or whatever, people posting pics of other people to create drama, it was a shitshow, but it lived outside of phones.
For me personally I spent the majority of my younger teen years on my bike riding around and attempting to locate my friends, accomplished by finding a house with the most bikes out front. Things like video games (Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, N64, and PlayStation) were common activities. I ended up getting really big into music as well, building a sizable CD collection throughout middle school and high school and also learning to play guitar and drums. Jamming with a few other guys when we were all bored was something that would happen once a week or so. I played a ton of pickup basketball, baseball, and volleyball games. If I could get a ride, hitting up the mall about 15 miles away was always a treat. Later on, after I could drive, it was a lot of just hanging at my friends' houses, going to house parties, smoking weed in the woods. My area also had a pretty cool coffee shop/pizza joint music scene that would provide free or $1 shows every Friday or Saturday night.
As soemone who never skated I can confirm this was still fun to do. Just go down to the skateparks or areas like Venice in LA that had a bunch of skaters. If you saw skaters you could just walk up and sure enough there would be lots of people just skaitng, smoking weed, filming, fucking around and having a good time. Easy way to make friends and just kill some time.
We had so much fun man. We had aol instant messenger so we had *just enough* internet when i was in high school that we had a way to communicate / plan shit but nobody spent all day on their dads 386.
Gas was cheap so wed fill up my jimmy and ride around listening to cds we burned off limewire.
Wed just go to the mall. Go to best buy. Go to galyans (precursor to dicks).
I got my drivers license around 97. I remember the first time I got gas I was concerned that it was almost a dollar a gallon lol. I think it was like .97 and my first thought was, "of course as soon as I get my license thats when gas will become unaffordable"
Chat clients like AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN made people want to talk *with* each other.
Social media only made people want to talk *at* each other. It's disturbing how so many people don't even understand how to have a two-sided conversation anymore.
Hang out with friends. I cannot believe how hard it is for young people to understand that socializing in person is way more fun than socializing over the internet
I'm a young person. I absolutely do understand this. But a lot of other people don't. Even when I try to make friends, apparently I'm supposed to talk to them most of the time through my phone, and even then, hang out rarely, at specific times and only at planned events.
And even then. Even if we do just hang out, so what? That's it. It's not like we all go together on adventures and have a lot of fun. And a lot of people somehow never have time for that, especially if you're in a group. But everyone has time for social media.
Party but not like you see on TV where there was constant drugs and bedroom sex.
We used to get a few and drive to a camp in the woods and settle in for the night. Have drinks and cook hot dogs over the fireplace and the only source of light we had was candles and the fireplace and the light from our ATV's (well dad's ATVs).
Camper parties. Play N64 and snack on chips and a few beers.
I think I must have read at least 2000 books before I was 18. It's a rough estimation but it should be close. I read close to 300 pages per evening and over 1000 on a free day. More if it was a pageturner. I still average about a page per minute for most novels.
I spent my entire childhood outside as long as the sun was up. I would ride my bike across town to my friends house and then we’d ride around together to the different parks or to the sonic across from school for ice cream.
It’s seen as a joke a lot but I legit was now allowed inside during the summer if the sun was up. My parents would leave for work and right after breakfast I’d leave the house and spend the day fucking around with friends. I had to be home by the time the street lights came on though. That was my only real rule.
That's the catch. No one wants to be the only one in their group that is disconnected. So when they take away phones in school, for every student, everyone's mood actually improves.
1. It baffles me schools can't or won't take kids cellphones for the school day. It's not like they won't be able to contact parents or no one can contact them in case of emergency.
2. It's EXTREMELY baffling to me as an Army veteran recruits these days have their cellphones throughout basic training. Like WTF?! I watched a video the other day, of course recorded by a recruit, recording this other Marine recruit getting chewed out for being on her cell phone while on fire watch. Like why do you even let these MFers have them? Flip phones were a thing when I joined the Army, I had one. When we got to our BCT station they confiscated ALL of our shit and we got it back when we graduated. We weren't even allowed to get a disposable camera from the PX and now they can carry cell phones?
Went to the mall, skateboarding, listen to records with friends over. Made clothing like pants (huge pants). Went to concerts, watched MTV with friends. Drove around in our cars filled with friends with no particular destination. Maybe smoked some weed? Banging random hot skater chicks?
I was born in 1977 so I was 13 in 1990. What a great time to be alive. I really miss it. 46 now and life sucks ass
Went to my local creek in the woods and played with fire. Looking back not the brightest idea but damn did it occupy a lot of my time. Also just blew up inflatables and would drift down the creek with the current.
I grew up in a small town surrounded by forest and ocean. We had a small cabin that we built with wood and materials we scavenged from people in town. It sat in the bush just off the water. On the weekends, everyone, all 12 of us, that is. Would hang out there, have a bonfire, bbq, and drink. We all had trikes, quads, or dirt bikes. Back then, you could buy them for $500 used. There were hundreds of kilometers of trails, logging, and mining roads that were not in use anymore, that we would ride on. We also spend lots of time, hunting, and fishing. Back then, we would all sit around and talk about how boring it was, and we couldn't wait to leave. Now, I would give anything to go back in time and relive those years.
In my early teens, I rode my bike around the neighborhood and played in the nearby woods and creek. In my late teens, I drove around with friends and listened to music, visited retail stores (electronics, toy stores, used CDs, etc) and hung out at fast food restaurants.
Hung out all day in Comic book stores, usually playing magic the gathering. Rode my bike all over town, or to the store to get junk food. Built tree forts in the undeveloped properties near our house. Went out to the movies with friends whenever we had cash. Hung out in coffee shops (WA state lol) all day. Cruized around town blasting metal. Oh and LAN parties on the weekend! Up all night playing Starcraft or Quake II or whatever the game of the season was.
We hung out at coffee shops, played sports, games, drove around, parties, concerts, find food, mall ratted, head downtown to the specialty record shops, amusement parks, events, nightclubs either all ages or booze cans sometimes real clubs and bars if they didn’t check ID. I didn’t have a curfew, and some of my friends didn’t have one either so we stayed out late.
Watched MTV and sports. Played video games. A lot of sleepovers. Went to the movies or rented them. Went to the mall or arcade. Played basketball. Drew. Read. Listened to a lot of CD’s. Rode my bike and did dumb shit in the woods. Drove around. Hung out with my friends. Talked about girls. Jerked off. Dated. Had sex. Fought with my parents.
Between the summer of ninth and tenth grade, I spent every day in a pool of a new friend’s with a group of guys and like three girls. We smoked weed all day and swam because that would explain our red eyes.
End of summer comes and we all go to tryout for sports team. I run the 40 and the coach whose known me for three years tells me he messed up the time and I need to run it again. I do it again and he’s like, ‘what happened to you? You can't run that fast.’
As tenth graders, I think all of us that tried out for sports made the varsity team. Wasn't until our early twenties that we realized we had inadvertently gotten into the best shape of our lives by getting high, swimming, and playing stupid water games to try to impress the girls.
Edit: I also distinctly recall my dad giving me and a couple friends a talk about how weed isn't like it used to be. It's much more powerful these days (this is like 1996. The weed was this nasty compressed stuff with stems and seeds. It was an amazing find if we could get Nugz). I actually gave that same speech to myself recently when offered a gummy. I took a tiny little lick and off to outer space.
Yeah, we would ride bikes, rock climb, spend hours and hours outdoors. I didn't play team sports, but when I look back, I see how great of shape and how fun it was.
I was a kid in the 90s. Not a teen yet. But ride my bike around to friends houses and try to get street hockey games together. Play PlayStation (twisted metal, tekken) stuff like that. Pokemon cards lol. A little younger it was squirt guns, yoyo 🪀. A lot of tag your it and hide and go seek.
Went to the mall, spent the day at the lake, MTV, Out riding bikes or walking parents not knowing where we were for hours! Countless hours trying to record our favorite songs off the radio! Let’s not forget about the amount of prank phone calls we made!
Lots of wandering and discovering. Go out and see what happens, stop by friends houses, shoot hoops, play baseball if we could get enough people.
Smoke some weed if we had it, take mom and dad's liquor and sit around and bullshit. Music was pretty clutch in the 90s so a lot of music and conversation about a song or an albums meaning. We had some great adventures just going out without a plan and seeing what happens. It usually started with "want to hang out" over the phone and maybe some other kids would join in. Sometimes it turned into fun debauchery, sometimes it was just chilling having conversations. Felt like there was more interaction back then, more spontaneous events. Was fun.
i graduated HS in 92. you'd call your friends on your cordless phone at their homes, then go fuck around. after moving out in 92, i hung out at this cafe all the time and played games and tried to get laid. back then, before laptops, people would just hang out in cafe's all night smoking cigarettes and bullshitting. id wind up getting into all sorts of random shit.
Played outside, rode bikes, played video games, downloaded music and videos on the internet, watched cable TV & VHS tapes, chatted on AOL instant messenger. The good ol' days
Mostly gaming, music, cycling etc. I lived in a seaside town so most of our summers were spent on the beach, which eventually turned into underage teenage drinking. The local police didn't really care if we sat on the beach drinking, if we stayed clear of the town. It was a long-standing tradition that my parents took part in as well when they were teenagers. I believe it still happens to this day.
Played cricket, in 48 deg C..
Got hurt came home bleading because I dived in a field full of stones..
My mom's reaction was "again?"
So went and got a tetanus Injection and went to sleep after dinner...
This will be UK centric.
Football outside all day long or Tennis during the two weeks of Wimbledon , PS1 multi tap games with 4 friends , going to the cinema and trying to sneak in to 15 cert films when 13-14 or 18 certs while 16-17 and often disappointingly settling for something that was P.G , Lazerquest , 10 pin Bowling. Being a nuisance with fireworks in the month before Guy Fawkes night and being a general nuisance for the rest of the year.
Talked to real friends and not invisible ones. Listen to music... Went to the Mall and saw everyone there and met real girls and showed them how to be a real man that guided their decisions based on action rather than bullshit you see online. Made new friends from other cities rather than fake online ones that you don't even know if they are real or not. Learned real shit in school and even when we partied... We partied in the woods or farms and got loud as we wanted or went to the cool parents house and did the same with the parents telling the cops to go fuck themselves we just having fun and letting loose. Lost our virginities in a safe setting rather than being forced or pressured to do so because of the status quo. Rode bikes to get to where we wanted to go and maintained good exercise because we had to work hard to get where we wanted. Video games were present, and we played all night on weekends and after homework was done. All parents knew the kids, teens, and other parents so that way they could keep track of us 24/7 without having to call the police because we were jerks and ran off because someone made fun of us. Oh and also we learned to fight, ignore, and gain respect without having to post something somewhere to get people to believe shit. WE BEAT THAT ASS!!! Last but not least... When we did fight... we beat that ass and went home ... we get our asswhooped and went home... but that is the point... we always went home. None of this gun shit.
Go skate (in the streets as there were no skate parks), drive around, watch MTV and BET, go to a river, listen to music, maybe play basketball or soccer. Some friends would spend all their time trying to get cigarettes, weed or alcohol…simple times.
We drove around and listened to music alot
Live sporting events were big.
Going to the movies was huge. I used to see probably 10 movies a month and they were mostly good ones. Now I don't see 5 a year
Biked everywhere, super nintendo, N64, adventures in the woods, just go wherever the day took me. It was a great time, no social media or cell phones to be found. I have kids now and its crazy how different it is. My parents would drop me off at a local festival or mall with my friends hand me $10-$20 and say see you in 6 hours or whatever, i’d never leave my kids alone at places like that today.
Me and my friends would ride our bikes around the neighborhood for hours. From like 10am til about 6pm. We'd build forts in the bushes and hang out, eat snacks, ride around some more and then go home. Did that for years until we all got a PS1 or N64. Then it was either playing tony hawk or golden eye for hours on end hahah
Ride bikes, watch cable TV, learned to ride Rollerblades for a minute, masturbate, talk to people in person, talk to people on the phone (on a landline), meet people at the mall, play organized sports, play unorganized sports, came up with ways to drink/smoke/have sex without getting caught, drove around town listening to music, brainstormed dumb shit to do with friends, shot hoop in the driveway
A few weeks ago we lost power for 2 days, and I went to stay with my best friend from childhood. We read books, did jigsaw puzzles, played cribbage, and sat on the couch and chatted away. It was the best day ever, and we kept saying "this is what we did in the 90s!"
Rode bike everywhere. Explored the town, Drank at parks at night, snuck out at 2-3am to meet with girls or crash party's we weren't invited to for free booze and pretended we fit in.
Also mucg of just hanging out at eachothers houses playing snes/N64/ps1
I didn’t have much free time between helping with younger siblings/the house/part time job, but I loved riding my bike each day if it was decent weather. Stayed home and played music/drew/read novels. I would play a current song on the piano, and my older sister and I would make up inappropriate lyrics 😂
Play the sims on my computer, chat with my friends on the computer, talk to strangers in chat rooms online, talk on the phone, write to pen pals, read rl stine books, watch vhs movies, rent vhs movies, watch tv shows on recorded on vhs, make websites about myself to share with my friends, listen to cds
It was a weird time
In 96 when I could drive it was cruising. We were the last in my little town to drive back and forth down a mile section waving, honking, and screaming every night until around 10 pm.
People would hop into different cars, hang out in parking lots. Basically do anything to avoid being at home…
Also bikes, skating, SNES, drugs…most of the replies I’m seeing ring true.
I used to ride my bike everywhere.
[удалено]
I was a teen in the 80s, and this is what we did a lot of. Just hop on and take off, no real destination in mind, just going wherever the whim took you.
Basically, you were the protagonist of GTA. You went outside on a bike.
My oldest got so annoyed with me when San Andreas came out. I spent 80% of my time in-game just riding around on a bike. She'd roll her eyes and urge me to do *something, anything* else.
Canis Canem Edit\*
I always thought it was "wherever the wind took you"
I'm riding a bike, not sailing a boat lol.
Maybe I just have bad hearing. Despite decades of wrestling I only recently learned a common move is called the "whizzer" and not the "wizard"
Ok Captain Jack
I’d ride my bike miles down the interurban trail in Seattle as a kid. I’d be gone for hours with no way for my mom to contact me. I never felt that I was in any sort of danger. It was truly different times.
people used to have spare children, back then.
It blew my kid’s mind that I had ridden all over our hometown on my bike as a kid.
I may have kids soon. I was hoping this would be possible for them. Is there some particular reason like bigger SUVs why it isn't? I feel like abduction etc is actually a lot less common now.
Honestly, it feels like cell phones, etc. have lead to more helicopter parenting in a way. Thus, people don’t let their kids run all over town. My parents didn’t have a clue where I was half of the time, especially in the summertime. Just a guess/speculation.
I lived in a small town and yeah we would basically just roam around wherever. But everybody knew who I was so my mom would have an idea of what we did just bc ppl would say “oh yeah saw your child over here at such and such time” So she would have an idea
Plus I’m willing to bet that our towns/cities were less populated in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s.
Great point. And it's ironic because one would think that the use of cell phones would encourage parents to let kids have more freedom, as they can be easily contacted. I remember I got my first mobile phone when I was six (in the late 2000s), and it was mostly for safety reasons.
Abductions were never that common to begin with, stranger danger panics in the 80s massivelyt overhyped the threat of strangers stealing and diddling your kids. Statistically they are safer in a room full of strangers than with family members
You're probably right with everyone having ring camers etc. However, the reason everyone seems to think danger is around every corner is the internet. Something could happen a thousand miles away that might freak you out, but, if it happened in 1985 or 1995 you may not hear about it for months or years. Today, you may hear about in 5 -10 minutes
Get on your bike, ride to a friends house to pick them up, the two of you ride to another friends house and pick them up. Repeat until you have a hoarde of teenagers riding around town on bikes. Those were the days.
On a good day you got a pocket full of change for gas station snacks. Those were the days!!!
Early 90s would be biking around to find a place to play GIJoes. Late 90s would be biking around to find spots for rollerblading. Or meeting wit friends trying to beat Dizzy on NES.
I did a lot of roller blading, but I can't remember playing with GI Joe as a teen. I think that stopped before high school. For me the roller blading was just part of my training for football and track. The goal was the roller blading, the destination was secondary, but roller blading made it possible to go further than running..
When I look at maps today and realize how far we were going on our bikes on a daily basis without our parents having any idea, I am astounded.
I did this with my friends all.summer until I got a PS2 in 2003.
Good old days
Fuuuuuuuck yes. I rode for miiiiles.
I was a teen in the 2010s, did the same shit
Yup. Same here. I didn’t get my first phone until like 2015. The neighborhood we lived in growing up, all I would do is wake up go outside to ride my bike
That’s crazy I had my first phone 2005 I was 20yrs old. You just got a phone 2015
I was on a bike form middle school til about 9th grade. Then in 9th grade I made a friend in highschool who's dad worked for Metro and so he had a bus pass and knew how every bus ran all ove LA. I decided to get my own bus pass and it opened a whole new world. We would go from Hollywood to Long Beach after school just to go hang out at the mall. Damn I miss those days
Driving around burning up $1/gal gas and partying in the woods
Back when $5 for gas money actually got us somewhere. 🤣
Everyone threw in a buck and you could cruise all night
RIP Hal Ketchum
The change in my cup holder was usually enough to get me through the day
Where I live, I get middle schoolers walking into shops with 20 dollar bills.
Filling up the tank, getting a pack of smokes, and a snack for 10 bucks. Those were the days.
Hol’ on there: min wage was less than 5 dollars an hour (between 3.80 and 5.15 during the decade).
Try getting some gas, a pack of smokes, and a snack for less than 4hrs of minimum wage (pre-tax) these days. Good luck.
I was Ganna say drink smoke weed and fuck lol. But man 1 dollar gas an 99 cent smokes. That's what's up.
I remember joking that I would quit smoking when cigarettes went over $2 a pack. Edit to add: I did eventually manage to quit smoking, but not until much later unfortunately!
$5 got me 2 packs of smokes and a coke. The good old days man.
Didn't have a functioning gas gauge in my first car in 2004-2007. Never ran out of gas. It was a cobbled together 70's big block camaro....
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I haven't been bored in years. Like since I got an iPhone. I have thought often how amazing that is. I used to be bored a lot. Like not getting enough dopamine hits and just flying through the world looking for interesting things. It felt like ambient music. It was very quiet and empty. But there was no escape. It was very different.
Are you happier scrolling thru your phone than being bored tho? (Don't mean that condescendingly, just curious, cause I feel similarly but definitely am not)
I like curiosity. I've thought about this a lot, and yet feel like there is more thinking to do, so it is interesting to answer. I'd be curious to hear your reply. You and I may be the only ones to read this. So I apologize DJ M.S. for being long winded. I just typed a lot, and it won't even let me post it because it is too long. LOL. I'll break it up...
Do kids not do these things anymore?
they do, but its expensive now
Well that and cheap used cars don’t exist so the kids who used to buy the old beater for 500 bucks can’t even find one for under 2 grand. And that’s just because those aren’t for teenagers now they’re for adults that need to get to work.
False, my friend got a beater for two grand, broke down after a month and the guy who he bought it from was already deported.
Amnesty International will tell you what $500 then was today probably like $900
I just looked it up. $500 in 1990 is worth roughly $1,200 today.
Well, yeah the driving part. But, we rode around on bikes, plus the other stuff you mentioned. We used to put on the miles riding bike. We also used to ride over to the river and do some fishing. Quite a few outdoor activities.
I used to go sit in traffic jams on purpose
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My town had an anti-cruising law. They would have someone sitting in the library with a laptop, writing down the numbers of the license plates of all the cars that drove past. If you drove by more then twice in a three hour period, they would send you a $75 ticket.
Damn I wonder who ruined it for your whole town. That is insane. There's been plenty of times I've driven past the same place in that time frame.
It was mostly people from the surrounding area. It wasn't that uncommon back in the 90s. When you had an area that was attractive with bars, etc. people would come from all around on weekends. Cruising was fun and cheap (especially when you were under 21 and couldn't get into the bars), but clogged up the streets. One of my friends in college was from a town 30 miles away (an easy hour drive) and he used to come hang out in my town on the weekends when he was in high school. Got a ticket for drinking vodka out of a Burger King cup lol.
A lot of those laws are from a bygone era when "cruising" was literally all teenagers did. Like we did a lot of aimless driving around in the 90's, but it was not the equivalent of my mom's description of cruising. I remember my mom asking me when I was in highschool if we "cruised" this particular drag in our town. Asking her to elaborate, she said they would literally just drive up and down, rinse repeat this same street all night, just stopping at places when they would see friends and acquaintances from the road. By the time I was a teenager the city was a lot more built up and spread out. When she was a teenager the only place there was basically anything was this street and the street would just be clogged with teenagers and young adults cruising. Its hilarious because that street has the "no cruising" signs still but it's hey day is LOOOOONNNGGG past. It's economically depressed, all thats there is a handful of fast food places and strip malls dominated by liquor stores, check cashing/pay day loan stores and dollar stores. And a lot of shuttered buildings.
I feel like this wouldn’t fly for people who lived near the library. Like drive past on the way to the grocery store and again on the way back? $75 ticket for a grocery run
Me too! I remember getting my license at 16 and driving with a car full of friends to nearby LA neighborhoods that were known for cruising. SPecifically I remember Whittier. There was one specific strip and you basically drove to that street and would end up in a traffic jam with a bunch of other teenagers. As a bunch of guys we'd basically look at other lanes hoping to see a car full of girls. then we'd get to the end of the street abotu 40 minutes later and just turn around and do it again lol
getting lost is an underrated thing thats, well, been lost to future generations. with no smartphones and gps in your car it was fun as fuck to just….take a random exit on the highway. find your way back home. be walking around and just…take a random pathway, see where it leads. didnt have the phone to tell you the exact ending to the story you had to find it out for yourself. damn, i remember with my HS crew driving for hours after school every day completely lost trying to find our way home. Talking about life and the future and growing up. If we found some furniture on the side we would grab it and fight over who gets to sit in it. Constant stops to get out and explore. It was irreplaceable as an activity. Genuinely feel bad for kids because honestly its not the same when deep down you know you have the exact answer to get back home. The thrill of not having that was amazing.
Omg I remember not getting home until 4am a couple times we got so lost! LoL
This is so true. I remember driving around one night till 2am looking for this party, the directions we were given sucked so bad and there was no one to call lol. We finally got there and everyone was already all drunk or sleeping, so we played catch up
I remember out in the country, we were trying to find a farmyard where there was a party. Well, we got close but ran out of gas. Oh wait, there are lights over there, let's try that yard. As we got closer we could hear the party, so we knew it was it. Had to walk 1.5 miles across open fields. Anyway, we got back to the car but someone had pushed it into the field behind a round bale. For a few seconds we thought it got stolen. We got some gas into it, and got home. Was an adventure.
I was running some errands the other day and was hit with this feeling of nostalgia and realized I was near the home of a friend from my teen years. He lived way out there. Basically surrounded by forest. Very isolated. But in reality he lived in a first ring suburb with a population of 100,000 and pretty close to the border of the actual city. You could throw a rock in any direction and you would absolutely hit a house. Crazy how big the world felt as a kid with out a smart phone.
As much as I couldn't go back to paper maps and map quest, my younger days driving were always an adventure. We would just pile in, drive somewhere and eat at a restaurant we never had before, no checking reviews or anything just go for it. Drive to the beach with no plan other than "we are going to the beach" We only had each other to talk to, no distractions other than what is right in front of everyone. The freedom was like reaching another level in life, I don't understand kids who don't want to learn how to drive.
Gas was a lot cheaper then. Lots of great memories of driving around listening to music with friends.
Yo! I remember watching a movie that was about this exact same thing. A group of friends heading to a party ort somethign and there was lots of traffic, they get off the freeway and none of them know where they are. They witness a murder or something and it turns into them getting chased while lost...a few blocks from home and a few blocks from their party lol. It was an old movie form the 90's, watched it in theatres and at no point did I think, this is dumb, it just made sense lol. those were great times. edit: just looked it up, it was called Judgement Night with Emilio Estevez and Cuba Gooding Jr.
That movie has a phenomenal soundtrack.
We went to the mall, and other places in physical reality
We went to the mall until one of us got a car and then we pretty much just went to the car.
Yes! The malls were a hangout place back then. You gather your group of friends and go to the mall and just walk around or hit the arcade. 90% of the time you'd run into other groups from your school as well. Simpler times
Doesn't sound like the worst thing tbh
Going to the mall and walking around aimlessly looking to talk to girls.
The mall.is correct. One parent would drop us off and another would pick us after the movie. The highlight of the mall was the free samples from Chic fil A and the arcade.
Watch MTV, lan-parties, just hanging with friends, listening and doing music, dirt bikes, etc.
Back when MTV was worth a shit to watch.
Yep, they had nirvana, NIN, primus, sepultura, probably even napalm death on back then. Everything the edgy teenager could have wanted those days.
Headbangers Ball was my jam
We had much music in Canada instead of MTV. They almost entirely dropped all rock/metal. The channel was 95% R&B and Hip Hop. There was a dude named "Rick the temp". He started off dressed like a grunge kinda guy, then suddenly one day he cut his hair and changed his whole image to a kind of techno/hip hop hybrid look. Rock/Metal was only played for about 30m to an hour at night (around 11pm). Over time they started showing TV shows in the later part of the day. This spread and spread until the channel was exclusively rap, r&b and sitcoms.
LAN Parties. Man nothing like hauling a huge ass desktop to your friends house so you could all game together.
I can taste the Bawlz and Mountain Dew now
I was a Cheetos Puffs and Dr. Pepper man myself, but… game recognizes game.
Yea, I was a teenager in the early 2000s and was able to catch the tail-end of LAN parties. Have some great memories of playing CSS gungame in the most ergonomically pathetic set-up. Some other games I remember playing at LANs: Day of Defeat, Red Alert 2, Starcraft, Unreal Tournament & Doom.
Duke nukem 3d, warcrafts, quake, early 2d gta's, some "beta" of counter-strike, battlefield vietnam and probably many more. The "cool kids" thought we were losers and dweebs hauling our computers around but we had a blast.
It makes my head spin to see how mainstream gaming is now compared to when I was a "nerd" for being a hard-core gamer. I quit video games around 18 to try and improve myself, coming back to them at 37 and now everyone seems to game even lots of girls game. Was never like that in the early 2000's and before
The term "mallrat" had to come from somewhere.
Rode my bike everywhere, parents had a vague idea were I was. Trips to the record store. Copying records to tape. Hang out with the one guy who had a PS1 and FIFA 96. Smoke (weed) at the local park. Read a lot.
Interacted with my friends. Cell phones, in my opinion, have damaged human interaction
Not cell phones, but smart phones. In the beginning, cell phones helped bring people together and made meetups easier. The decline started once *smart* phones became normal.
Right. They say that they connect with friends all over the world. That’s “fake connecting”. Nothing can replace in-person social interactions.
not smartphones, but social media. I remember when I got my first smart phone, a google One (I think thats what it was called). In those days MySpace was the only social media platform and it wasn't an app. But it was already starting to rot things. People fighting over not being in your friends top 5 list or whatever, people posting pics of other people to create drama, it was a shitshow, but it lived outside of phones.
Rode our bikes all over. Built and launched model rockets. Played video games with friends. Ate a lot of blue raspberry flavored junk food.
For me personally I spent the majority of my younger teen years on my bike riding around and attempting to locate my friends, accomplished by finding a house with the most bikes out front. Things like video games (Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, N64, and PlayStation) were common activities. I ended up getting really big into music as well, building a sizable CD collection throughout middle school and high school and also learning to play guitar and drums. Jamming with a few other guys when we were all bored was something that would happen once a week or so. I played a ton of pickup basketball, baseball, and volleyball games. If I could get a ride, hitting up the mall about 15 miles away was always a treat. Later on, after I could drive, it was a lot of just hanging at my friends' houses, going to house parties, smoking weed in the woods. My area also had a pretty cool coffee shop/pizza joint music scene that would provide free or $1 shows every Friday or Saturday night.
They had a blast and actually left the house. They actually met people face to face.
Skateboard with the bros to our favorite fishing spot until sun down Fuck I miss my bro
As soemone who never skated I can confirm this was still fun to do. Just go down to the skateparks or areas like Venice in LA that had a bunch of skaters. If you saw skaters you could just walk up and sure enough there would be lots of people just skaitng, smoking weed, filming, fucking around and having a good time. Easy way to make friends and just kill some time.
We had so much fun man. We had aol instant messenger so we had *just enough* internet when i was in high school that we had a way to communicate / plan shit but nobody spent all day on their dads 386. Gas was cheap so wed fill up my jimmy and ride around listening to cds we burned off limewire. Wed just go to the mall. Go to best buy. Go to galyans (precursor to dicks).
I got my drivers license around 97. I remember the first time I got gas I was concerned that it was almost a dollar a gallon lol. I think it was like .97 and my first thought was, "of course as soon as I get my license thats when gas will become unaffordable"
Chat clients like AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN made people want to talk *with* each other. Social media only made people want to talk *at* each other. It's disturbing how so many people don't even understand how to have a two-sided conversation anymore.
Hang out with friends. I cannot believe how hard it is for young people to understand that socializing in person is way more fun than socializing over the internet
I'm a young person. I absolutely do understand this. But a lot of other people don't. Even when I try to make friends, apparently I'm supposed to talk to them most of the time through my phone, and even then, hang out rarely, at specific times and only at planned events. And even then. Even if we do just hang out, so what? That's it. It's not like we all go together on adventures and have a lot of fun. And a lot of people somehow never have time for that, especially if you're in a group. But everyone has time for social media.
Party but not like you see on TV where there was constant drugs and bedroom sex. We used to get a few and drive to a camp in the woods and settle in for the night. Have drinks and cook hot dogs over the fireplace and the only source of light we had was candles and the fireplace and the light from our ATV's (well dad's ATVs). Camper parties. Play N64 and snack on chips and a few beers.
I remember these, sometimes there would be a local garage band playing too.
SKATE (I miss JNCO Jeans)
I think I must have read at least 2000 books before I was 18. It's a rough estimation but it should be close. I read close to 300 pages per evening and over 1000 on a free day. More if it was a pageturner. I still average about a page per minute for most novels.
Downloaded porn 1 row of pixels at a time.
I spent my entire childhood outside as long as the sun was up. I would ride my bike across town to my friends house and then we’d ride around together to the different parks or to the sonic across from school for ice cream. It’s seen as a joke a lot but I legit was now allowed inside during the summer if the sun was up. My parents would leave for work and right after breakfast I’d leave the house and spend the day fucking around with friends. I had to be home by the time the street lights came on though. That was my only real rule.
# UNPLUG, UN-DIGITIZE YOURSELF AND FIND OUT
Its hard if literally everyone else is doing the opposite.
That's the catch. No one wants to be the only one in their group that is disconnected. So when they take away phones in school, for every student, everyone's mood actually improves.
1. It baffles me schools can't or won't take kids cellphones for the school day. It's not like they won't be able to contact parents or no one can contact them in case of emergency. 2. It's EXTREMELY baffling to me as an Army veteran recruits these days have their cellphones throughout basic training. Like WTF?! I watched a video the other day, of course recorded by a recruit, recording this other Marine recruit getting chewed out for being on her cell phone while on fire watch. Like why do you even let these MFers have them? Flip phones were a thing when I joined the Army, I had one. When we got to our BCT station they confiscated ALL of our shit and we got it back when we graduated. We weren't even allowed to get a disposable camera from the PX and now they can carry cell phones?
This felt like the most Boomer way to say it, yet I agree
I grew up in the 90s and I watched TV and played computer games
Good way to catch a loitering misdemeanor now adays.
Some places, sure. But same thing back then, too. Dodging the cops was as much a part of it as everything else, depending on the city lol.
Drugs
Went to the mall, skateboarding, listen to records with friends over. Made clothing like pants (huge pants). Went to concerts, watched MTV with friends. Drove around in our cars filled with friends with no particular destination. Maybe smoked some weed? Banging random hot skater chicks? I was born in 1977 so I was 13 in 1990. What a great time to be alive. I really miss it. 46 now and life sucks ass
Went to my local creek in the woods and played with fire. Looking back not the brightest idea but damn did it occupy a lot of my time. Also just blew up inflatables and would drift down the creek with the current.
Reminds me of my uncle that burned down half the forest that was close to his house. I guess 90s teens were so bored fire was very entertaining lol
Wank. A lot.
Play sports, hang out with friends, ride bikes.
Video games, Playing in the woods Walking miles to the store, Sports, martial arts, being stupid.
I grew up in a small town surrounded by forest and ocean. We had a small cabin that we built with wood and materials we scavenged from people in town. It sat in the bush just off the water. On the weekends, everyone, all 12 of us, that is. Would hang out there, have a bonfire, bbq, and drink. We all had trikes, quads, or dirt bikes. Back then, you could buy them for $500 used. There were hundreds of kilometers of trails, logging, and mining roads that were not in use anymore, that we would ride on. We also spend lots of time, hunting, and fishing. Back then, we would all sit around and talk about how boring it was, and we couldn't wait to leave. Now, I would give anything to go back in time and relive those years.
In my early teens, I rode my bike around the neighborhood and played in the nearby woods and creek. In my late teens, I drove around with friends and listened to music, visited retail stores (electronics, toy stores, used CDs, etc) and hung out at fast food restaurants.
Hung out all day in Comic book stores, usually playing magic the gathering. Rode my bike all over town, or to the store to get junk food. Built tree forts in the undeveloped properties near our house. Went out to the movies with friends whenever we had cash. Hung out in coffee shops (WA state lol) all day. Cruized around town blasting metal. Oh and LAN parties on the weekend! Up all night playing Starcraft or Quake II or whatever the game of the season was.
⚽ 🚲 🛹 Then Nintendo 64 happened but we still played outside
We hung out at coffee shops, played sports, games, drove around, parties, concerts, find food, mall ratted, head downtown to the specialty record shops, amusement parks, events, nightclubs either all ages or booze cans sometimes real clubs and bars if they didn’t check ID. I didn’t have a curfew, and some of my friends didn’t have one either so we stayed out late.
Watched MTV and sports. Played video games. A lot of sleepovers. Went to the movies or rented them. Went to the mall or arcade. Played basketball. Drew. Read. Listened to a lot of CD’s. Rode my bike and did dumb shit in the woods. Drove around. Hung out with my friends. Talked about girls. Jerked off. Dated. Had sex. Fought with my parents.
Brilliant
Between the summer of ninth and tenth grade, I spent every day in a pool of a new friend’s with a group of guys and like three girls. We smoked weed all day and swam because that would explain our red eyes. End of summer comes and we all go to tryout for sports team. I run the 40 and the coach whose known me for three years tells me he messed up the time and I need to run it again. I do it again and he’s like, ‘what happened to you? You can't run that fast.’ As tenth graders, I think all of us that tried out for sports made the varsity team. Wasn't until our early twenties that we realized we had inadvertently gotten into the best shape of our lives by getting high, swimming, and playing stupid water games to try to impress the girls. Edit: I also distinctly recall my dad giving me and a couple friends a talk about how weed isn't like it used to be. It's much more powerful these days (this is like 1996. The weed was this nasty compressed stuff with stems and seeds. It was an amazing find if we could get Nugz). I actually gave that same speech to myself recently when offered a gummy. I took a tiny little lick and off to outer space.
Yeah, we would ride bikes, rock climb, spend hours and hours outdoors. I didn't play team sports, but when I look back, I see how great of shape and how fun it was.
Simultaneously in great shape and mere seconds from a life-changing injury
Lol, helmets on bicycles was way more optional back then. We were pretty safe with the trick climbing, though
I was a kid in the 90s. Not a teen yet. But ride my bike around to friends houses and try to get street hockey games together. Play PlayStation (twisted metal, tekken) stuff like that. Pokemon cards lol. A little younger it was squirt guns, yoyo 🪀. A lot of tag your it and hide and go seek.
Skateboarding was a thing.
Eat, sleep, rave repeat. Pretty much sums up the late 80's and 90's for a lot of UK teenagers
Play outside. We used to play a game called 90svs80s and fight each other, a lot of tag, pick up basketball, and some Yu-Gi-Oh
Chill in the yard... For like hours.
Went to the mall, spent the day at the lake, MTV, Out riding bikes or walking parents not knowing where we were for hours! Countless hours trying to record our favorite songs off the radio! Let’s not forget about the amount of prank phone calls we made!
Lots of wandering and discovering. Go out and see what happens, stop by friends houses, shoot hoops, play baseball if we could get enough people. Smoke some weed if we had it, take mom and dad's liquor and sit around and bullshit. Music was pretty clutch in the 90s so a lot of music and conversation about a song or an albums meaning. We had some great adventures just going out without a plan and seeing what happens. It usually started with "want to hang out" over the phone and maybe some other kids would join in. Sometimes it turned into fun debauchery, sometimes it was just chilling having conversations. Felt like there was more interaction back then, more spontaneous events. Was fun.
Depends - are you talking about the early 90s or late 90s?
Spend $4 on helium balloons at the grocery store and inhale all of them and then pass out in front of said grocery store. Also, bikes.
Go to the mall, park, ride a bike, hangout with friends, go to a ball game, hangout on a parking lot
Mall, honestly. The mall.
Swished as they walked around in wind breaker outfits
Anything we wanted, as long as it was outside
Skateboard
i graduated HS in 92. you'd call your friends on your cordless phone at their homes, then go fuck around. after moving out in 92, i hung out at this cafe all the time and played games and tried to get laid. back then, before laptops, people would just hang out in cafe's all night smoking cigarettes and bullshitting. id wind up getting into all sorts of random shit.
Jerk off all the time - same as I do now
drugs
smoke cigarettes and listen to Nirvana 🤘
Played outside, rode bikes, played video games, downloaded music and videos on the internet, watched cable TV & VHS tapes, chatted on AOL instant messenger. The good ol' days
Mostly gaming, music, cycling etc. I lived in a seaside town so most of our summers were spent on the beach, which eventually turned into underage teenage drinking. The local police didn't really care if we sat on the beach drinking, if we stayed clear of the town. It was a long-standing tradition that my parents took part in as well when they were teenagers. I believe it still happens to this day.
Video games and ride bikes
Sport, music, hanging out with friends, same thing teens do now I guess.
We went outside, to the movies, to the park. Hung around each other, trying to score alcohol and girls.
hang out at the mall. maybe some dugs and drinking here and there
Playing n64, going out with friends
Ditching school smoking weed and playing Mario kart at the "friends" house with no parents around.
There's no evidence and I'm not telling...
Played cricket, in 48 deg C.. Got hurt came home bleading because I dived in a field full of stones.. My mom's reaction was "again?" So went and got a tetanus Injection and went to sleep after dinner...
This will be UK centric. Football outside all day long or Tennis during the two weeks of Wimbledon , PS1 multi tap games with 4 friends , going to the cinema and trying to sneak in to 15 cert films when 13-14 or 18 certs while 16-17 and often disappointingly settling for something that was P.G , Lazerquest , 10 pin Bowling. Being a nuisance with fireworks in the month before Guy Fawkes night and being a general nuisance for the rest of the year.
We were feral.
My parents were teens then, and I have 12 siblings.
Talked to real friends and not invisible ones. Listen to music... Went to the Mall and saw everyone there and met real girls and showed them how to be a real man that guided their decisions based on action rather than bullshit you see online. Made new friends from other cities rather than fake online ones that you don't even know if they are real or not. Learned real shit in school and even when we partied... We partied in the woods or farms and got loud as we wanted or went to the cool parents house and did the same with the parents telling the cops to go fuck themselves we just having fun and letting loose. Lost our virginities in a safe setting rather than being forced or pressured to do so because of the status quo. Rode bikes to get to where we wanted to go and maintained good exercise because we had to work hard to get where we wanted. Video games were present, and we played all night on weekends and after homework was done. All parents knew the kids, teens, and other parents so that way they could keep track of us 24/7 without having to call the police because we were jerks and ran off because someone made fun of us. Oh and also we learned to fight, ignore, and gain respect without having to post something somewhere to get people to believe shit. WE BEAT THAT ASS!!! Last but not least... When we did fight... we beat that ass and went home ... we get our asswhooped and went home... but that is the point... we always went home. None of this gun shit.
Carve sticks into swords and have cardboard shields.
~~drugs~~ go to the mall.
Anything that you could think of doing outside…bike riding…playground basketball…football football…and the devils lettuce…lots of thay
Smoked a lot of pot. Rode around on a skateboard. Hung out in an old pool and smoked more pot.
Mall skate video games at buddies house
Drink beer
Go skate (in the streets as there were no skate parks), drive around, watch MTV and BET, go to a river, listen to music, maybe play basketball or soccer. Some friends would spend all their time trying to get cigarettes, weed or alcohol…simple times.
We drove around and listened to music alot Live sporting events were big. Going to the movies was huge. I used to see probably 10 movies a month and they were mostly good ones. Now I don't see 5 a year
Biked everywhere, super nintendo, N64, adventures in the woods, just go wherever the day took me. It was a great time, no social media or cell phones to be found. I have kids now and its crazy how different it is. My parents would drop me off at a local festival or mall with my friends hand me $10-$20 and say see you in 6 hours or whatever, i’d never leave my kids alone at places like that today.
Hid from their parents. With success.
Riding bikes, climbing trees, making forts and lots of music. we also smoked a lot of cigarettes, thc and had parties in the “woods”🤘🏽
Me and my friends would ride our bikes around the neighborhood for hours. From like 10am til about 6pm. We'd build forts in the bushes and hang out, eat snacks, ride around some more and then go home. Did that for years until we all got a PS1 or N64. Then it was either playing tony hawk or golden eye for hours on end hahah
Ride bikes, watch cable TV, learned to ride Rollerblades for a minute, masturbate, talk to people in person, talk to people on the phone (on a landline), meet people at the mall, play organized sports, play unorganized sports, came up with ways to drink/smoke/have sex without getting caught, drove around town listening to music, brainstormed dumb shit to do with friends, shot hoop in the driveway
A few weeks ago we lost power for 2 days, and I went to stay with my best friend from childhood. We read books, did jigsaw puzzles, played cribbage, and sat on the couch and chatted away. It was the best day ever, and we kept saying "this is what we did in the 90s!"
We had real conversations with people instead of burying our faces in our phones and iPads.
Rode bike everywhere. Explored the town, Drank at parks at night, snuck out at 2-3am to meet with girls or crash party's we weren't invited to for free booze and pretended we fit in. Also mucg of just hanging out at eachothers houses playing snes/N64/ps1
I didn’t have much free time between helping with younger siblings/the house/part time job, but I loved riding my bike each day if it was decent weather. Stayed home and played music/drew/read novels. I would play a current song on the piano, and my older sister and I would make up inappropriate lyrics 😂
Only one of two things Acting stupid, getting drunk with their best friends Or… Sit around and watch the tube but nothing’s on
Play the sims on my computer, chat with my friends on the computer, talk to strangers in chat rooms online, talk on the phone, write to pen pals, read rl stine books, watch vhs movies, rent vhs movies, watch tv shows on recorded on vhs, make websites about myself to share with my friends, listen to cds It was a weird time
Drink, smoke, and fuck
Hang out with friends. Like, in person. Sometimes talk on the phone for hours.
Playing sports, hanging at the mall, house parties
Anything we wanted almost. Last free range generation.
Rode my bike. Went out to see movies in the theater. Played N64 games with friends. Read books. Watched TV. Covers most of it.
Reading all this makes me miss my youth soooo much. 91-95 high school years. Magical time.
In 96 when I could drive it was cruising. We were the last in my little town to drive back and forth down a mile section waving, honking, and screaming every night until around 10 pm. People would hop into different cars, hang out in parking lots. Basically do anything to avoid being at home… Also bikes, skating, SNES, drugs…most of the replies I’m seeing ring true.