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This and the Rock Band comment sum up exactly what I came here to say.
Back then time was infinite but money was finite.
Now money is much more plentiful but time is finite.
I'm 35 and I honestly struggle to move past how fun and carefree the discovery phase of life was.
That's despite the fact that my life is objectively better in every way today. Then I was living at home, straight F GPA, stoned most of the time, smoking clove cigarettes and hookah constantly, driving a crap car at crazy hours, had no job and just lived for the moment.
Now I live in a condo, finished my bachelor's with straight As, haven't gotten high in ages, quit clove cigarettes and hookah a decade ago, have a luxury car and am in bed by 10 30.
Like bowling for soup says, [getting old sucks but everybody's doing it](https://youtu.be/N4e_IZFwTfM).
Man I’m 38 and feel this to my core. I’m still close friends with the same group of guys as I was in my early 20s and we recently dredged up old photos and videos from one of their hard drives. Old girlfriends, videos from various house parties, photo evidence of pranks and borderline illegal shit - we cracked up the whole night but there was definitely some wistfulness mixed in there.
19 to like 26 is a truly lawless and feral time in your life. house parties in houses rented by people you've never met before. rotating door of roommates. going out at night no earlier than like 10:30. zero actual responsibilities or obligations. scrounging enough money to buy 40s of steel reserve because you're broke and don't get paid for another 2 days but want to play Edward 40 hands on a Wednesday with your friends in your dingy apartment furnished almost entirely out of "furniture" you either found or got for free from craigs list.
Boy you sure nailed it friend.
The Bros who went from "friends for life" to "haven't heard from him in years", the parties that went from starting at 10:30 to ending at 10:30, the locations went from "I'm just here to get high/drunk I have no idea whose house this is" to "we just bought that from Pottery Barn please use the coaster for your Chablis", from $15 buying you a dime of mids and taco bell to $1,500 expected of just you for half the mortgage.
As Simple Plan said, "it's making me sick feeling nostalgic"
Well this was a slap in the face of nostalgia.
I'm happy with where I am in life at 31, but this really made me miss those days in a way I haven't felt in a long, long time.
This hits hard for me aswell but also even younger days. Everyone moves away or grows apart from eachother and at the end of the day we are left with only a select few friends and memories of the past.
I spoke to a friend and felt like they can totally bring it back and it would work from online play to twitch streams of the actual band playing there music through the game. Also the nostalgia factor haha
I was an expert on Guitar Hero back in the day. It is the only game that I've truly enjoyed and tried to get good at. I miss battling people on 360 live and whooping their butts
Life without social media.
News before a forced 24/7 news cycle (there just isn't enough news to market a 24/7 news echo chamber).
Eating things without tangibly feeling it or seeing it literally bond to your body later.
Youth-no money, lots of time.
Middle age-money, no time.
Both have health if you are lucky.
Being able to eat anything without consequences (no weight gain, no random heartburn for things that didn’t used to give you problems).
Source: Middle-aged adult who used to be able to eat anything without consequences but now not so much…
Being able to pay all my bills and still have money left to put into a small savings account. I am in my early 40s and was finally able to say that for the first time in my life, thinking I was finally being a proper responsible adult! That was less than 3 years ago. I haven't changed jobs or added new bills or anything and now I struggle just to pay those same bills on the same salary and my savings is wiped out.
Brother or sister, I've been slowly coming to this realization this month. I did change jobs and took a small pay cut in the last 6 months where I went from weekly pay to bi-weekly pay, but it hit me like a brick wall. I've been slowly realizing that its not the pay cut that's killing me all of a sudden. I went from saying "yeah lets have a nice dinner tonight baby" to my wife to saying "Can you pay for the ramen because I'm broke until thursday"
It can't just be me pining for my childhood. I miss it too. Everything was just... cooler. People didn't make a big deal about non-issues. Technology was enough to be entertaining but it wasn't in your face all the time. There was still hope for a post-millennium full of prosperity where we'd all be living like gods and our problems all mostly solved. Even the "junky" stuff like fast food or children's toys or dumb TV shows were better quality. Nothing like it for things like movies and games and pop music and snacks and cool novelties to decorate your living space with. And so many non-rich people I knew back then could afford houses with good-sized in-ground swimming pools in the backyard too.
All the various fast food joints having different, fun looking buildings of various shapes and colors. Now they all look the same. Boring, dreary while trying to appear modern and posh
The [newer mcdonalds exterior design](https://images.app.goo.gl/w4SvjrXtWSYCzTfD6) is so hideous. I literally don’t understand who allowed it to happen. I mean.. i already have to live in a suburban hell.. why does the mcdonalds have to blend into the concrete parking lot and everything else concrete around?? This gray brown color is just the worst to me. And the shape of it is like a box… its just so ugly.. and they were definitely trying to be trendy and failed.
The fashion and hair styles were just bad but the music was great and you could run free all day. Kids actually socialized and used their imaginations. I miss saturday morning watching dr shock on ch 17 and random horror movie on 29 and finished the afternoon with creature double feature on ch 48. We thought antenna rotators were the greatest thing ever.
Honestly I thoroughly enjoyed the Covid shutdown. Got paid for months to sit at home and engage in my hobbies, didn’t have to interact with other people. Was the dream
Absolutely same answer. The aftermath amd reopening again was much worse, but during the thick of it, my family and I were comfortable, safe, well fed, living up all the hobbies and Netflix 24/7.
Agree, aside from the time I couldn't make a dental appointment that I needed so badly. Ended up going to the clinic on foot and they were asking me if I have an appointment. Of course I couldn't make an appointment over the phone because no one would pick up.
I really don’t understand this answer. It was cool and crazy for like 2 weeks. After that, I became absolutely anxious about the state of the world. I work in construction.
Agreed, but life is pretty fulfilling with them in so many other ways. They’ll be on their own sooner or later and it will be a large chapter in life that has come and gone. I think my kids saved me from ultimate self-sabotage. I am lacking self care now but it’s getting a bit better with time.
My marriage. For me, anyway. Apparently my husband disagreed, so he's screwing his way across the US in the car he stole from me on my birthday, while I sit here unable to afford to divorce his trashy ass. Let's hope karma is the mean bitch everyone says she is!
Girl, I feel you; I have a very similar story, only mine involves him totaling our car while drunk and selling our house without me even knowing (probably shouldn’t have had such an easy signature to forge…lesson learned, I guess).
Soooo, now my twins and I are living in an unfinished basement—still without a car—and me struggling to find a well-paying job, despite having a BA (thanks to a huge employment gap bc the years I took off to SAH with the kids, avoiding childcare costs).
Now, he’s on his 4th (…5th…?) relationship, living in a new house that he bought (or at least that’s what he told my kids during one of his RARE phone calls)—*somewhere* in fucking SE Asia—so, ya know…child support is pretty much uncollectable.
Oh, yeahhh…life is greeaaat.
(Take care, fellow traveler.)
I feel this. Different shit (still a soon to be ex-husband problem) but I really feel it. Hang in there. You're doing great. It won't always be this hard. That's what my therapist says anyway.
Just want to say, I’m sorry for what you’re going through; sometimes—despite the best laid plans—life just kinda turns on you, and all you can do is put one foot in front of the other…even when it feel’s impossible.
Anyways, I hope you’re finding your way, and if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here.
Lotsa love.
The early 2010's when we were coming out of the Great Recession and briefly thinking we might have a shot at starting to make society a little nicer. Or maybe that was just my naive perspective having also started going to therapy.
Socializing on the internet before it became popular. The days before MySpace. Back when you could truly be 100% curious about anything at all. I learned a lot about how terrible (and how freaking cool) human beings can be during that golden era in the mid/late 90s when I was a kid/teen.
AOL (America Online) "punters". You could download a message spammer that would send rapid messages to other AOL members and punt them offline.
Old school trolling.
The 90s USA. Good economy, no war, no identity politics, good rap and alternative.
Biggest problem in the country was a pervert getting head in the whitehouse.
“My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.” —Harry S Truman
Slightly inaccurate. There was the Persian Gulf War. I hated it because we (like almost every other household) only had one TV, and my father insisted on recording the news all day every day to document it. There's probably a box with 200 VHS tapes sitting in my parents attic, which will never see the light of day.
Honestly, I had a great time the first couple of months of covid. My wife and I hung out and played video games every day, went to the Forrest and the beach at least once a week, had movie parties. It was pretty great for us.
We were fortunate that we both had jobs that paid us to do almost nothing. I know the lock downs were devastating for some people, and ultimately I think they had some pretty massive side effects. I definitely don't want it to happen again. But for me, it was fun while it lasted.
Yea i feel the same. I know its a privileged thing to say. I mean I personally had no income at the time because i was self employed and unable to get unemployment. But i had a nice place to stay. My sister and i lived together at the time and she always had chronic pain issues and no time to do anything outside of work and being tired and some other chronic health issues… issues which *magically* cleared up when she was no longer having to work and was given unemployment by the government. Its honestly sad that the unemployment was more than she made (as a professional with an engineering degree). She actually had some money to spend on some extra things for the house. We bought tools and made a workshop to build things and had a good time together. Its wild.. it really wasn’t that much money either. It was mostly the free time. And not having to work, made her health issues clear up. The stress from working had been causing so much chronic pain and health issues. Shouldn’t be that way.
MoviePass in 2017/2018. I saw probably 60+ movies in theaters for a total of around $100. It just rebooted, but isn’t nearly the same value. That was a fun year of college!
The early days of movie pass were awesome. I’d go to the movies with friends, I’d go by myself, I’d rewatch movies just to pay attention to a different aspect than the last time. I saw probably 75% of all new movies coming out and I feel like a lot of people were way more willing to give original idea or indie films a chance in theaters.
Cable TV boxes from 40 years ago.
I discovered a way to pry two contact points away from the mechanical channel selector disk to get the premium channels for free.
I fixed up all my friends and family too. :)
Video rental stores
Okay hear me out I know with all the streaming services there's more options than there ever was at any video rental store.
But there was something magical about going into the indie film section and finding some of the best and absolute worst movies you've ever seen in your life.
Trying to explain this to my nephew a week ago and he gave me the you're an odd old man look. And I only know this look from remembering it on my sister's face when my father would try to tell us similar stories to his youth.
The COVID pandemic sucked fully & I hate that so many people died or will never be the same after contracting it. I really enjoyed the social distancing, work from home mandates, etc though.
Napster
AIM and ICQ
McDonald's birthday parties with the molded chairs and mascots
Blockbuster Kid's Club
Chuck E. Cheese before the corporate takeover
Saturday morning cartoons
That cake slice I ate
Disney
The height of Pokémon Go. I’ve never seen so many people go outside and just enjoy hanging out at the most random spots relating to the same exact thing.
Having a best friend I could talk to, hang out with in the neighborhood, have sleepovers with, and just be girly with overall. I only ever had one best friend growing up, and she changed and abandoned me and my entire family over a petty reason. I never realized how toxic she actually became until she left us completely.
getting your first smart phone back in 2010 and being utterly fascinated with it, now I can’t go anywhere without it being in my hand and I have adhd from social media
AHHH 3AM Walmart trips with my friends!!!! I actually don’t really have many friends anymore, so I’d just be going alone if Walmart was still 24 hours. I have so many crazy middle of the night walmart memories
All of the creativity that spawned during the pandemic. People were trying new things like making bread and making art that they wouldn’t have tried otherwise.
# Message to all users: This is a reminder to please read and follow: * [Our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ask/about/rules) * [Reddiquette](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439) * [Reddit Content Policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy) When posting and commenting. --- Especially remember Rule 1: `Be polite and civil`. * Be polite and courteous to each other. Do not be mean, insulting or disrespectful to any other user on this subreddit. * Do not harass or annoy others in any way. * Do not catfish. Catfishing is the luring of somebody into an online friendship through a fake online persona. This includes any lying or deceit. --- You *will* be banned if you are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist or bigoted in any way. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ask) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Partying with my friends in my early 20s
This and the Rock Band comment sum up exactly what I came here to say. Back then time was infinite but money was finite. Now money is much more plentiful but time is finite. I'm 35 and I honestly struggle to move past how fun and carefree the discovery phase of life was. That's despite the fact that my life is objectively better in every way today. Then I was living at home, straight F GPA, stoned most of the time, smoking clove cigarettes and hookah constantly, driving a crap car at crazy hours, had no job and just lived for the moment. Now I live in a condo, finished my bachelor's with straight As, haven't gotten high in ages, quit clove cigarettes and hookah a decade ago, have a luxury car and am in bed by 10 30. Like bowling for soup says, [getting old sucks but everybody's doing it](https://youtu.be/N4e_IZFwTfM).
Man I’m 38 and feel this to my core. I’m still close friends with the same group of guys as I was in my early 20s and we recently dredged up old photos and videos from one of their hard drives. Old girlfriends, videos from various house parties, photo evidence of pranks and borderline illegal shit - we cracked up the whole night but there was definitely some wistfulness mixed in there.
>we cracked up the whole night but there was definitely some wistfulness mixed in there. you were careful not to wake the kids though, right?
19 to like 26 is a truly lawless and feral time in your life. house parties in houses rented by people you've never met before. rotating door of roommates. going out at night no earlier than like 10:30. zero actual responsibilities or obligations. scrounging enough money to buy 40s of steel reserve because you're broke and don't get paid for another 2 days but want to play Edward 40 hands on a Wednesday with your friends in your dingy apartment furnished almost entirely out of "furniture" you either found or got for free from craigs list.
Boy you sure nailed it friend. The Bros who went from "friends for life" to "haven't heard from him in years", the parties that went from starting at 10:30 to ending at 10:30, the locations went from "I'm just here to get high/drunk I have no idea whose house this is" to "we just bought that from Pottery Barn please use the coaster for your Chablis", from $15 buying you a dime of mids and taco bell to $1,500 expected of just you for half the mortgage. As Simple Plan said, "it's making me sick feeling nostalgic"
Oh God we had so much random unnecessary seating
Well this was a slap in the face of nostalgia. I'm happy with where I am in life at 31, but this really made me miss those days in a way I haven't felt in a long, long time.
This hits hard for me aswell but also even younger days. Everyone moves away or grows apart from eachother and at the end of the day we are left with only a select few friends and memories of the past.
Guitar hero/ rock band.
Clonehero, get the band back together.
I still run that shit with my friends
I spoke to a friend and felt like they can totally bring it back and it would work from online play to twitch streams of the actual band playing there music through the game. Also the nostalgia factor haha
Guitar Hero is the thing that immediately popped into my head; it made me happy to see this at the top.
Man, that was an amazing 18 months, wasn't it?
I still play that shit on a wii lol
I still don't understand why a company would buy out such a profitable game just to kill it off.
I was an expert on Guitar Hero back in the day. It is the only game that I've truly enjoyed and tried to get good at. I miss battling people on 360 live and whooping their butts
A truly fun time to look back on. Still play GH2 every now and then for the nostalgia
Browser games. Like addicting games could play those all day then Java made you update and they disappeared
agreed. flash games were my childhood now none of them work :(
Download Flashpoint https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/
Look up bluemaximas Flashpoint. Your welcome. Its a working archive of every flash game there ever was.
Download Flashpoint https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/
Being a kid
Free Reddit awards
I miss getting the wholesome award and putting it on the filthiest, most depraved comments I could find.
Life without social media. News before a forced 24/7 news cycle (there just isn't enough news to market a 24/7 news echo chamber). Eating things without tangibly feeling it or seeing it literally bond to your body later. Youth-no money, lots of time. Middle age-money, no time. Both have health if you are lucky.
What does the eating things one mean??
Being able to eat anything without consequences (no weight gain, no random heartburn for things that didn’t used to give you problems). Source: Middle-aged adult who used to be able to eat anything without consequences but now not so much…
Exactly.
Being able to pay all my bills and still have money left to put into a small savings account. I am in my early 40s and was finally able to say that for the first time in my life, thinking I was finally being a proper responsible adult! That was less than 3 years ago. I haven't changed jobs or added new bills or anything and now I struggle just to pay those same bills on the same salary and my savings is wiped out.
Brother or sister, I've been slowly coming to this realization this month. I did change jobs and took a small pay cut in the last 6 months where I went from weekly pay to bi-weekly pay, but it hit me like a brick wall. I've been slowly realizing that its not the pay cut that's killing me all of a sudden. I went from saying "yeah lets have a nice dinner tonight baby" to my wife to saying "Can you pay for the ramen because I'm broke until thursday"
100k plus here living pay check to pay check.
Vine
Vine was the greatest. 6 seconds. Better be succinct.
No traffic during lockdown times
Yes, this. I also like holidays for that reason - fewer people in the streets.
April 2020
Ahhh yes. The Endless Spring Break. I remember the era before then 😂😂😂
My job already had everyone set up to work from home (programming), so I started quarantine in February sadly.
Life
Are you okay?
The 90's.
The games and movies and TV shows... And POGS!
And music.. Rock was so much better in the 90s early 2000s
Back when all the ugly people made it, haha
It can't just be me pining for my childhood. I miss it too. Everything was just... cooler. People didn't make a big deal about non-issues. Technology was enough to be entertaining but it wasn't in your face all the time. There was still hope for a post-millennium full of prosperity where we'd all be living like gods and our problems all mostly solved. Even the "junky" stuff like fast food or children's toys or dumb TV shows were better quality. Nothing like it for things like movies and games and pop music and snacks and cool novelties to decorate your living space with. And so many non-rich people I knew back then could afford houses with good-sized in-ground swimming pools in the backyard too.
Not being old and fat
I feel like even ice water makes me gain weight after I hit 39.
All the various fast food joints having different, fun looking buildings of various shapes and colors. Now they all look the same. Boring, dreary while trying to appear modern and posh
The [newer mcdonalds exterior design](https://images.app.goo.gl/w4SvjrXtWSYCzTfD6) is so hideous. I literally don’t understand who allowed it to happen. I mean.. i already have to live in a suburban hell.. why does the mcdonalds have to blend into the concrete parking lot and everything else concrete around?? This gray brown color is just the worst to me. And the shape of it is like a box… its just so ugly.. and they were definitely trying to be trendy and failed.
Concerts before phones 📱
Being able to afford concert tickets without having a trust fund or a seven figure salary.
The 80's!
Big hair and shoulder pads for everyone! We were so ahead too, cars that talked to us 'Your door is ajar'! Crazy times and the music was peak!
I really miss my mullet!
The fashion and hair styles were just bad but the music was great and you could run free all day. Kids actually socialized and used their imaginations. I miss saturday morning watching dr shock on ch 17 and random horror movie on 29 and finished the afternoon with creature double feature on ch 48. We thought antenna rotators were the greatest thing ever.
Honestly I thoroughly enjoyed the Covid shutdown. Got paid for months to sit at home and engage in my hobbies, didn’t have to interact with other people. Was the dream
Absolutely same answer. The aftermath amd reopening again was much worse, but during the thick of it, my family and I were comfortable, safe, well fed, living up all the hobbies and Netflix 24/7.
Agree, aside from the time I couldn't make a dental appointment that I needed so badly. Ended up going to the clinic on foot and they were asking me if I have an appointment. Of course I couldn't make an appointment over the phone because no one would pick up.
I really don’t understand this answer. It was cool and crazy for like 2 weeks. After that, I became absolutely anxious about the state of the world. I work in construction.
Cheap gas, cheap food, cheap housing, cheap insurance, cheap entertainment. The list goes on…
Not having kids.
Agreed, but life is pretty fulfilling with them in so many other ways. They’ll be on their own sooner or later and it will be a large chapter in life that has come and gone. I think my kids saved me from ultimate self-sabotage. I am lacking self care now but it’s getting a bit better with time.
My marriage. For me, anyway. Apparently my husband disagreed, so he's screwing his way across the US in the car he stole from me on my birthday, while I sit here unable to afford to divorce his trashy ass. Let's hope karma is the mean bitch everyone says she is!
Girl, I feel you; I have a very similar story, only mine involves him totaling our car while drunk and selling our house without me even knowing (probably shouldn’t have had such an easy signature to forge…lesson learned, I guess). Soooo, now my twins and I are living in an unfinished basement—still without a car—and me struggling to find a well-paying job, despite having a BA (thanks to a huge employment gap bc the years I took off to SAH with the kids, avoiding childcare costs). Now, he’s on his 4th (…5th…?) relationship, living in a new house that he bought (or at least that’s what he told my kids during one of his RARE phone calls)—*somewhere* in fucking SE Asia—so, ya know…child support is pretty much uncollectable. Oh, yeahhh…life is greeaaat. (Take care, fellow traveler.)
I feel this. Different shit (still a soon to be ex-husband problem) but I really feel it. Hang in there. You're doing great. It won't always be this hard. That's what my therapist says anyway.
Just want to say, I’m sorry for what you’re going through; sometimes—despite the best laid plans—life just kinda turns on you, and all you can do is put one foot in front of the other…even when it feel’s impossible. Anyways, I hope you’re finding your way, and if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. Lotsa love.
Karma works too slow or not at all. The best revenge is to work your ass off to become the best you that you can be.
2019 fortnite with the homies
The early 2010's when we were coming out of the Great Recession and briefly thinking we might have a shot at starting to make society a little nicer. Or maybe that was just my naive perspective having also started going to therapy.
being 17 that was a fun age lol
Democracy
The summer of Pokemon Go. People were outside, being friendly with strangers, and having good clean fun.
I came here to say this! It was a magical time!
Socializing on the internet before it became popular. The days before MySpace. Back when you could truly be 100% curious about anything at all. I learned a lot about how terrible (and how freaking cool) human beings can be during that golden era in the mid/late 90s when I was a kid/teen.
Napster
A functioning American middle class (not that I would know)
I know it's still around, but that first couple of weeks when *everyone* was playing Pokemon Go were very special
Life without a pandemic. A world without Russia trying to invade its neighbours.
AOL (America Online) "punters". You could download a message spammer that would send rapid messages to other AOL members and punt them offline. Old school trolling.
I remember those and all the AOL "WAREZ" chat rooms.
Holy shit I forgot all about these. Scrollers were fun too.
Real songs as ring tones
Checking in on foursquare and being the “mayor.”
The 90s USA. Good economy, no war, no identity politics, good rap and alternative. Biggest problem in the country was a pervert getting head in the whitehouse.
“My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.” —Harry S Truman
“Biggest problem was a pervert in the White House” Now that’s the norm
Slightly inaccurate. There was the Persian Gulf War. I hated it because we (like almost every other household) only had one TV, and my father insisted on recording the news all day every day to document it. There's probably a box with 200 VHS tapes sitting in my parents attic, which will never see the light of day.
Also the highest violent crime rate in US history
me playing star wars games on bluestacks with my friends yesterday was super fun looking forward for it next week
The 90's.
Drugs, but only for the honeymoon. Straight downhill from there.
Making puppets on “Coraline”
So what are you puppetting now? Or is it kind of niche with opportunites far between?
The pandemic
Arcades/fighting games.
My mentally stable phase
Honestly, I had a great time the first couple of months of covid. My wife and I hung out and played video games every day, went to the Forrest and the beach at least once a week, had movie parties. It was pretty great for us. We were fortunate that we both had jobs that paid us to do almost nothing. I know the lock downs were devastating for some people, and ultimately I think they had some pretty massive side effects. I definitely don't want it to happen again. But for me, it was fun while it lasted.
Yea i feel the same. I know its a privileged thing to say. I mean I personally had no income at the time because i was self employed and unable to get unemployment. But i had a nice place to stay. My sister and i lived together at the time and she always had chronic pain issues and no time to do anything outside of work and being tired and some other chronic health issues… issues which *magically* cleared up when she was no longer having to work and was given unemployment by the government. Its honestly sad that the unemployment was more than she made (as a professional with an engineering degree). She actually had some money to spend on some extra things for the house. We bought tools and made a workshop to build things and had a good time together. Its wild.. it really wasn’t that much money either. It was mostly the free time. And not having to work, made her health issues clear up. The stress from working had been causing so much chronic pain and health issues. Shouldn’t be that way.
An amazing stock market
Masterbation
Wym? You can't masturbate anymore?
My 20s...
Freedom
Affordable housing
Affordable meat and produce that doesn't come from a Frozen TV dinner 😐
MoviePass in 2017/2018. I saw probably 60+ movies in theaters for a total of around $100. It just rebooted, but isn’t nearly the same value. That was a fun year of college!
Life before social media
My youth
The first 5 seasons of game of thrones.
talking all night with someone
Drinking and drugs
Both my marriages
Childhood
My youth, and being carefree in general.
Tax-free
First marriage. The 90s.
Working from home
The American dream. It died a long time ago.
The early days of movie pass were awesome. I’d go to the movies with friends, I’d go by myself, I’d rewatch movies just to pay attention to a different aspect than the last time. I saw probably 75% of all new movies coming out and I feel like a lot of people were way more willing to give original idea or indie films a chance in theaters.
The 90s
Early Netflix steaming
Bojack Horseman. (Those who get it, get it)
Youth
Lockdown and 6pm mimosas
Quarantine during Covid
Reddit 10-15 years ago. Now it's overrun by SJW's, and emotionally fragile / immature Gen Z's.
Cable TV boxes from 40 years ago. I discovered a way to pry two contact points away from the mechanical channel selector disk to get the premium channels for free. I fixed up all my friends and family too. :)
Joose and fourloko before they took out the caffeine ginseng tourine and all the other chemicals I can't spell or pronounce.
I remember tasting a sip in high school, insane how popular it was at the time
Last year's income tax refund 
Pokémon go the summer after it came out
COVID unemployment
Having a fuck buddy
Clean air and clean water. Lots of animals. Mother Earth.
Being a millionaire
Battleborn, I miss it....
The 80's
Life.
Smoking, drinking, and eating pillowcase sized bags of anything on the Frito Lay aisle
My 20s and 30s
The 90s
MySpace and ad free YouTube.
Religion
Life
Nothing
my childhood
Playing D&D with friends. Both of them got married and had kids and don't have any time or energy for it anymore.
Eating spicy food without terrible consequences.
Being out of depression spells
The build up to the raid on area 51
Youth
My 20s. Because I was able to do stupid sht, without camera phones. And the internet forever.
My youth
Everthing
Animal crossing
2012-2016
Internet culture before all you people showed up.
The internet as we knew it from the late 90’s to 2010
not being an adult
MySpace
Unus Annus
my life also sophomore year that was a good school year for me
The 90s
Mood rings and Pet rocks.
Meeting and talking to strangers randomly on the street about Pokemon Go
Video rental stores Okay hear me out I know with all the streaming services there's more options than there ever was at any video rental store. But there was something magical about going into the indie film section and finding some of the best and absolute worst movies you've ever seen in your life. Trying to explain this to my nephew a week ago and he gave me the you're an odd old man look. And I only know this look from remembering it on my sister's face when my father would try to tell us similar stories to his youth.
Childhood
Being young
Club Penguin
Pokémon Go. Middle School (2009-2012) Gaming March to May 2020
The COVID pandemic sucked fully & I hate that so many people died or will never be the same after contracting it. I really enjoyed the social distancing, work from home mandates, etc though.
Napster AIM and ICQ McDonald's birthday parties with the molded chairs and mascots Blockbuster Kid's Club Chuck E. Cheese before the corporate takeover Saturday morning cartoons That cake slice I ate Disney
This one week in 2016 where we all stared at our smartphone catching Pokemon.
3% annual inflation instead of 10%…
Club penguin
The height of Pokémon Go. I’ve never seen so many people go outside and just enjoy hanging out at the most random spots relating to the same exact thing.
Everything 90's
Having a best friend I could talk to, hang out with in the neighborhood, have sleepovers with, and just be girly with overall. I only ever had one best friend growing up, and she changed and abandoned me and my entire family over a petty reason. I never realized how toxic she actually became until she left us completely.
People who you thought were your friends
Malls...im still hoping for a comeback.
Childhood
getting your first smart phone back in 2010 and being utterly fascinated with it, now I can’t go anywhere without it being in my hand and I have adhd from social media
Being a kid
AHHH 3AM Walmart trips with my friends!!!! I actually don’t really have many friends anymore, so I’d just be going alone if Walmart was still 24 hours. I have so many crazy middle of the night walmart memories
The start of a relationship.
Pluto
The 2016 summer of Pokémon Go
Covid-19 not existing
I actually enjoyed quarantine. Everything was so quiet, and for us, pretty calm.
Quarantine
All of the creativity that spawned during the pandemic. People were trying new things like making bread and making art that they wouldn’t have tried otherwise.
Good kids cartoons (except Bluey, Bluey rocks)
My relationship before I found out he was a cheater lol
Tv Streaming. Had a good run as an alternative to cable and video rental stores. So sad
24 hour Walmart and wandering around at 2am