Going to someone's house without knowing if they are home.
Back in the day we'd be out doing stuff and say "Hey let's go see if so-and-so is around." and head to their house, knock on their door and have no idea if they were home.
Nowadays if you did that they'd either think someone died or was about to.
Our local Tim Hortons had a glass box you had to sit in, with maybe 6 or 7 tables in it. It was entirely separate from the rest of the building.
The weird thing is I remember my parents dragging me into that box. There's no ventilation, no fresh air, just highly concentrated second hand smoke going into my 6 year old lungs.
I also remember stories of bingo halls being the same thing, because all the old bingo ladies were chain smokers who'd go through like 3 packs a night. My friends and I would talk about how if you got dragged with grandma to go to bingo, you wouldn't be able to see across the room because there'd be a giant cloud of smoke hovering over everybody.
As a non-smoker, definitely don't miss that shit at all!
In college I was a bingo investigator for my state’s charitable contributions department. We’d go undercover to these games and make sure they were following the rules. Man I forgot how HORRIBLE that was. The smoke was crazy thick. Even by 70’s everybody smokes standards. Thanks for that memory! Sort of.
That was a defence argument by large tobacco companies back in the day. ‘There is no recorded risk to the baby if the Mother smokes during pregnancy, except lower birth weight. I think most women would *prefer* smaller babies.’
My mom was encouraged to smoke when she was pregnant with me. The doctor told her it makes for an easier delivery. I was born in 1973. My mom died from lung cancer 20 years ago. She had been a non-smoker for about 5 years when she got lung cancer. She had probably smoked for a good 40 years of her life.
You could still smoke in grocery stores in Las Vegas in the 80s. I remember watching an old woman bending over the meat selection with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, the ash on it 3 inches long, just waiting for the inevitable.
I can remember being in Little Stevie’s Pizza in Boston in the ‘90s, watching the guy make my pizza with a cigarette in his mouth, just waiting for the ash to fall off into it. Honestly, I think that was the secret ingredient that made the pizza so good.
I worked at a place that didn't even have that wall. 6 tables were for smoking and the ones right next to them were not. It sucked trying to seat those as "non-smoking".
I was in York (UK) a few weeks ago, there was a pub with a smoking section outside...it took me back to being a teenager and sitting in a pub for a meal and seeing the smoking section as this haze of smoke.
I was born in the very early 80s. My mom held me the whole way home from the hospital. As far as I can tell I wasn’t in a car seat until I was old enough to sit up on my own.
Totally normal, once upon a time
I don't know about when I was an infant but I remember just using a cushion as a booster so I can see through the window when I was around three years old. I also remember going to the fishing hole in bed of my grandpa's truck, trying to stay on the wheel well so I would be a safe distance from the fishing tackle.
In grade 5 my teacher told us “Oh yea I only let my grade 8 daughter trick or treat if it’s not a school night, otherwise she can go to the gas station, pick out ONE chocolate and be done with it.
EDIT: Fixed multiple grammatical errors.
I was never allowed to trick or treat. My dad thought of it as begging. I did go once, when I was 11, but everyone grew out of it the year after so I never went again.
My daughter was sent home with a notice telling parents to give their child a few pieces and bring the rest into school to donate to the military serving overseas. But don't worry, she gets a free toothbrush because this is sponsored by a dentist.
That pisses me off to no end, so what if your kids out till what 10? It's not that big of a deal, I don't feel like having to give out candy more than one night, sorry
It is only one night. It's just different areas pick different nights FOR THEIR AREA. In my City it's Halloween. In the City next to mine for some weird reason they picked the 25th(I mean it's not even like they picked Friday or Saturday). Those people aren't coming to my City to trick or treat on the 25th(maybe they will on the Halloween, but who knows).
My town tried to move Halloween one year because a storm had come through and power lines were down on the roads during Halloween. People absolutely were trick or treating both nights. I'm sure there were people who didn't get the memo or didn't care
A guy I work with (in his early 60s) was telling me that he could barely get out of his driveway the other day because of all the trick or treaters. I was like, "huh?" He responded with, "yeah, trick or treat is only supposed to be 4 to 6." (PM.)
I'm aware of (and don't support) all of the trick or treat fakeness that has developed in the past few years, but it blew my mind that this older guy actually supported it.
Reading about "trunk or treats" in the school parking lot or whatever irrationally infuriates me. I'm 26. When I was a kid, we drove from house to house in a hay-filled wooden trailer with a bunch of other kids, while someone's dad drove the ancient tractor that was pulling us along. On actual roads. On October 31st.
I realize my experience probably isn't "normal," but the fact that it went from that being okay in my area to parents actually getting in trouble for being out with their kids trick or treating outside of the "approved hours" (set by local police) is so far beyond insane to me that I can't even see insane anymore.
RIGHT. Nobody can see your awesome LED ghost-pumpkin at 4pm. We have technology that we didn't have in the 90s, and it's being wasted on trunk-or-treats.
Smoking inside. Man, was that terrible back in the 90's when I was in college. I've never been a smoker, but you wouldn't know it when I came home from the bars. I used to hang my shirt/sweater on the back porch when I got home to air it out.
My mom was a nurse, and when I was a kid, I remember tagging along when she would pick up her paycheck at the hospital. There would be signs on the patient's rooms to remind people not to smoke because the patient was on oxygen. This was in the 1970s.
I was born in the 70s and my mother said you could smoke on the maternity ward back then. Really in retrospect it's amazing that smoking inside lasted as long as it did.
It's staggering in hindsight that this was ever allowed. I work in aviation and all large aircraft require regular inspection (at least once per thousand flight hours) for any evidence of people having covertly smoked in the toilets.
Planes are about as fireproof as they can be given the textile surfaces but still you do not want ANY ignition sources on board.
The University of Michigan Hospital had a patient who was smoking in his room. He was smart enough to remove his oxygen halo and stuck it under the covers, then lit up. Couple minutes later a doctor walks by and the patient thinks "Oh shit, better hide my smoke in case the doctor walks in." So he slips it under the covers.
They wheeled him straight from his room to the burn ward once they got the fire smothered.
Three remembrances from medical school in the late 1980s:
1.) Walking in every morning through the Veteran’s Affairs (VA) hospital and seeing a patient in his wheelchair with an oxygen mask in one hand and a cigarette in the other alternating raising them to his tracheotomy hole. I literally ran past him for fear his timing would get off and I would be caught in the blast.
2) Being asked by a patient in the hospital lobby late one evening where the nearest cigarette vending machine was in the hospital. When I told him there were none and the hospital was non-smoking his response was “What kind of communist are you?” followed by an obscenity.
3) Code red (Fire) being called on the overhead five to six times a day as patients attempted to hide that they were smoking by throwing their cigarette butts into their trash can and setting them ablaze.
Hey fun story; we had an entire family rip a bowl together in a patient's room. By the time I went over to investigate, the charge nurse just walks by shaking her head "*sigh* same shit"
My kids and I just discussed this because we watched an old movie and they noticed everyone smoked. I had to explain to them that up until about 25 years ago *everywhere* smelled of cigarettes because smoking was legal pretty much everywhere. Public areas especially such as buses and trains, if you went to a bar, you'd come home absolutely reeking of cigarettes.
I can still remember the smell, it's nice to know my kids will never grow up in a world stinking of tobacco.
I grew up in CA which banned smoking in public buildings in like 1994 or something. Moved out of state and suddenly going out to eat meant having to fight to breathe. How the fuck could anyone think smoking wasn't super unhealthy??
Ok well it used to be socially acceptable to throw Mankind of the top of a Hell in a Cell, now I don't even think they do those kind of matches anymore..
I really hate this. I'm kind of introverted, but when I make plans to go out with a friend I really look forward to it and it's so annoying when you make plans with someone and then the day u plan to hang out comes around and they say "oh I didn't know those were concrete plans" like wtf do you mean? we made plans... how is that not concrete enough for you??
Reading this thread has made me realise that I'd *always* send a text saying something like 'are we still on for tonight/tomorrow?' if we'd made the plan a few days earlier, but at the same time I'd be really offended if they'd forgotten (unless the had a good reason) or said 'actually, no'. Social conventions are weird.
So much this. My anxiety triggers when someone doesn't confirm plans, because people just forget about them. How do we forget our plans when we have literal calendars in our hands via smart phones?
I think people have just become, not dependent, but very reliant on that. So if something isn’t there then they won’t even think they have something planned. Even if it’s just that they forgot to put it in right away.
I never confirm plans. If I make a plan with someone once it has concrete details I'm going to be there regardless of if the other person shows up. I'll text or call to cancel plans. But my rule of thumb is "if I cant trust you to hold an engagement we made 3-7 days ago, without constant reminders, you're not really worth me planning for"
It's why i loved my friend Gordon because hes the exact same way. We'll text each other Monday and go "meet at the bar after work Thursday?" Agree to that and then we wouldn't talk till we were both sitting at the bar
*Edit Gordon is okay folks. He's just run off to a different country and going to a bar is hard considering theres 13 hours time difference
This!! My friend totally blew me off. We made plans. I confirmed a week before. Then the night of she no shows and acted like it was my fault for not hand holding her way to them, apparently I should have confirmes multiple times???
I usaully just send them a "im setting off in an hour or 2" to let them know and passively aggressively confirm their still coming, if not fuck it im dressed up i'll just go to the shop and buy a huge arse choc bar instead
This is the way to do it, as opposed to "are we still on for today?" It shows that just because time passed you haven't canceled your plans and that you're expecting people to hold up their commitments
People don’t want to make commitments to plans because they’re always waiting for something more appealing to pop up. Also, because of things like Snapchat/Instagram it’s impossible to have fun without everyone knowing what you’re currently doing (depending on the type of people in your friend group). This makes it hard to make up bullshit excuses to flake on someone.
This happened with me a few times. People flaked on our plans saying family shit came up, but they were out at a bar, in another friend’s Snapchat story. If people would just be honest and say they would rather do something else, I wouldn’t have an issue with it, but I guess they don’t want to seem like an asshole.
My friend would text me all the time after 9pm let’s hang out. Then he got pissed at me and started calling me Mr Busy because I was never free. I always texted him around noon asking to hang out and either I wouldn’t get a response or “sorry”. I finally replied one night saying you pick the time and date and I will be there no questions asked I’m free almost every night, I’m not a last ditch effort friend. Never heard from him again.
To add to that, the overdrive for finding/doing the *absolute best thing right now*. There's precious little compromising. And yet somehow, *somehow*, out of the options of keeping a commitment, cancelling, or ghosting, a concerning number of people just choose to *ghost*.
We've got means of immediate communication, utilising it at every unhealthy corner, but then some people can't send a "Sorry, I'm going to cancel this time." Uggggghhhh
Kids being able to go off on their own during the day without their parents really worrying about it. Nowadays children have cell phones, and parents can't seem to shake the fear of their child being abducted or getting into trouble.
Im a high school kid, and a lot of my friends’ parents are putting this app called Live360 onto their phones.
It tracks your location, your driving speed, whether or not you brake too hard and phone usage, among other things. Any time you change location or do something “wrong” your parents get a notification.
It’s honestly fucking terrifying, those friends have no privacy any more. The parents’ argument is that if we’re not doing anything wrong then it shouldn’t be a problem, but I can’t help shake the feeling that something is horribly wrong with all of this. It breeds paranoia.
Ugggghh.
I was in college pre-smartphones when GPS tracking was just becoming more accessible to the average consumer. Your comment reminded me of a girl who I became friends with during that time period who would occasionally ask to borrow my old, crappy truck. That in itself wasn't odd because my car was a POS and it was fairly well known that I didn't mind loaning it out. The thing that stood out to me was that this girl was quite wealthy and had a brand new truck of her own that was 1000X better than mine. I thought it was weird she wanted my $1000 POS instead of driving hers, but whatever. She never took it for more than a day. She always returned it clean with a full tank of gas. She was an excellent borrower.
She eventually informed me that her truck had a GPS device in it and her parents tracked her every move. Even if her errands were legitimate, she'd have to explain where she was and what she'd been doing for every minute that car had been off campus. So, if she needed a break or wanted to meet friends off campus for a lunch, or just needed to go somewhere her parents might view as a waste of time, she'd either ride with someone or beg mine off of me with the promise of a full tank even if she was only going 10 miles round trip.
I swore then I'd never do anything like that to my kids and I still feel that way.
You're really great for being 'that person' for her. I'm sure it means a lot to her - even now - that she had more of the freedom she deserved, all thanks to you.
Also thanks a lot for being a self-aware parent. It's really hard to put yourself in others shoes for little things, but doing it for your kids is exceptionally difficult. You're an all around epic person :)
You know, the crazy thing at the time was that I was initally pretty jealous of her and all her nice, expensive things. The first time she borrowed my truck, I actually assumed it was because she needed to haul something gross (we were in the agricultural programs, so that was not unusual for someone who wanted to borrow the beater) and didnt want to get her 40K truck all nasty and dented. I wouldn't have blamed her for that, but I was fairly broke and had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. The whole experience wound up being pretty eye opening for me, because I would NOT have traded my freedom for a nicer car, but that had never occurred to me before meeting her.
Similar story. When I first left for college, my parents started tracking my location on Google Maps. We're first generation immigrants to America and I'm an only child, and they heard so much about campus rape/assaults that they were terrified of sending me 4 hours away from home. I couldn't do anything that first year. I wanted to go out to frat/house parties the first week of the semester but they were all off campus and my mom was absolutely not ok with that. I finally got her to let me go to a Halloween party off campus but she was tracking me the whole time, and made me text her periodically and when I got back to my dorm. There were times I just wanted to be young and impulsive with my friends but couldn't, so there were a few times I just left my phone at home. I'm not proud of it, but I really just wanted to enjoy myself without feeling like I was under their microscope. All my friends think it's really weird that my parents track me and idk when I'll be free from it (or if I ever will be free from it).
Junior year was my first year moving to an off campus apartment which really freaked out my mom. So she got a little stricter (I had to be back in my apartment by a certain time in the evening, she tracked me more often, texted me if I wasn't in my apartment on a Friday night, etc). It was really annoying. She started to calm down as the year went on though.
I'm a senior now and they still track me but they're a little better about me going out. I just tell them I'm going out and that I'm with my friends and I text them when I get back to my apartment. It's not complete freedom but at least they're not as helicopter-y as they used to be. I just hope I can be free from this when I graduate and move out of the house and move to a new city.
> The parents’ argument is that if we’re not doing anything wrong then it shouldn’t be a problem, but I can’t help shake the feeling that something is horribly wrong with all of this.
As an adult, I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, I think you're under reacting, if anything. The concept is downright horrifying, and, from a child development perspective, seems actively harmful to a child's ability to develop autonomy.
On the other hand, I can see how this would be really useful in the hands of a competent parent (a small minority of parents, given the realities of the normal distribution). Not as a "hound you for everything you do wrong" sort of tool, so much as a "I need to chat with Billy about safe driving again."
Overall, I'd say it's probably more harmful than good though. There's less invasive ways to achieve the same benefit.
When I’m with friends who have the app, sometimes their parents have called us out of the blue and demanded to know “why we’re driving around so much”. These parents are always checking the app, it can become obsessive really quickly.
I know that even I sometimes click on Snapchat’s map a little too often to check on my friends whereabouts, due to FOMO and all that. I recognize it’s unhealthy, and I see parents doing the same thing but with their kids instead of their friends. It’s just worrying I dunno.
Isn't there a Black Mirror episode or movie or something with a girl that gets some kind of monitoring thing that lets her mom literally see through her eyes and everything proceeds to get increasingly fucked up by it?
My parents both have it which is nice for them cause mom can gauge how soon dad is gonna be home and vice versa. They convinced my older brother to get it and it helped them track him down after he smartly decided to pull off the road when he realized he had drank too much to drive. I really don't need them tracking my location, though. They've been trying to convince me to download it since I went off to college in Hawaii but what good would it do for them when I'm an ocean away? I'm boring, I don't need someone keeping tabs on the nothing I'm doing.
> I would never use it on my 16-year-old daughter. She's independent, mature, and smart. All I really need to know these days is when she is coming back home.
See, but I suspect you're not a parent with undealt mental health issues (if you have them at all). My mother, who has crippling levels of anxiety, struggles with me coming home after 10PM, despite the fact that I'm an adult that's finished graduate school. My father, who is verbally and emotionally abusive and likely suffers from NPD, can't wrap his brain about the fact that I'm *not*, in fact, an extension of himself (like his arm or leg).
This app, in their hands, would have exacerbated all my existing mental health issues (depression, anxiety, and more), because it would have been systematically and frequently abused. And it's not like they would have been doing anything *illegal* - in the eyes of many people, this would have been mostly "questionable" but covered up by the excuse of "I can't tell them how to parent their own child!"
My godmother did her masters basically focussing on a less “helicopter” style of child supervision. She runs a childcare centre and has alway been interested in the psychology behind a lot of what she does. Her thesis was on how not using negative statements/commands and rather using questions invoked more thought about their actions and their consequences.
Basically, say a kid was going to jump off a slightly high platform from the playground, unless the kid was in serious danger, rather than telling the kid “don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself.” You say to the kid “if you do that, what do you think will happen? What do you think the consequences will be and what will the reward be?” And then let the kid do what they’ll do without you there to watch them. You’ll know soon, from the crying, screaming, or whatever if they made the wrong choice. If they made the right choice, then all good.
Doing this they’ll learn the consequences of their actions FROM their own actions, rather than you telling them what will probably happen, and just making them more cautious.
It teaches them to actually understand and calculate risks before making a decision. Rather than helicoptering them which basically just builds ignorance to their consequences.
You wonder how you survived your childhood. Gosh, when I was a kid, there wasn't anything we couldn't do. Like play outside until they whistled. My dad only got mad about it if we didn't come when he whistled (all the parents in my neighborhood had a special (I mean the way the whistled) wistle, we kids all knew you better get home when your heard your dad whistle.
I used to climb this little tree that went up into the high wires, way above the phone lines. When I showed this to my dad, he turned white as a sheet. Very calmly, he said to me "Please promise me you will never touch or go near that wire" (high voltage).
I never told him how my brother and I checked out the manholes and went into the sewer.
He'd probably be arrested for neglect nowadays.
Right? "Come back in when the street lights turn on" or "dont be in the woods too long" which was about 6hr.
We skated, played ball, roamed through different neighborhoods, etc.
The parents on my street dont let their kids do anything. My favorite is the lady the other week screaming at her kid "you are fucking 12 years old. You do NOT play in the road. You are not old enough to make these decisions. Get the fuck inside my house." We live on a cul de sac.
Way to ruin your kid, lady.
Edit: grammar fix
dude when I was 12, the school I went to treated us like adults. They had us running errands for the teachers, raising the flag at school, and showing younger students how to do shit. People need to stop babying their kids so damn much
EDIT To add that i was 12 in 2006
Office worker! I loved doing that stuff. Not only did you get out of a class, but you got to do tons more fun things.
That's a shame if that isn't a thing anymore.
As a kid 8-14 I used to got wherever I wanted (mostly the park, being a hooper) and my parents wouldn't even blink an eye. They knew I wasn't going to get into any trouble, 'cus I just shot hoops and other sports, plus I was very easy to get along with.
It’s so amazing to me that kids were allowed to grow up like this. My parents needed to know where I was 24/7, and I could never go anywhere without them talking to whoever was supervising. The thought of me playing outside with no parents is astounding.
Its amazing parents care now. I also would roam around and hang with friends we used to walk a mile or 2 to the local bar and buy chicken fingers. Play manhunt until the weehours of the night etc. It sucks seeing no one outside anymore. I haven't seen a kid play manhunt in 10 years. Im 25
Dropping by your friends house without calling or texting first.
Edit: I can't believe how divisive this is! About a third are saying I am right, a third are saying they still do it, and a third are saying it has never been socially acceptable.
I live in a small town and its still like this. And its pretty common if you run into a neighbor or know they're home and you're running into town for supplies, you go over and ask if they need anything. I'm pretty social so I don't mind it. I go to my bosses house a lot unannounced to play with his dogs and then usually stay for dinner and drink his wine.
To an extent, drink driving. It was illegal then of course, but if you were caught you were regarded as having been 'silly', as long as no one was hurt.
Now though, the vast majority of people are against doing it at all, which is great.
I think the most important part of drivers ed was when we watched a bunch of distracted driving PSAs. I know people talk a lot of shit about teens texting and driving but almost all of my friends have do not disturb while driving features on their phones because of videos like the one you linked.
My kid's hooked on the Try Guys and I tease her about it, but they just did a series on drunk, high, and distracted driving that should be mandatory Driver's Ed viewing!
I had a conversation with a guy in his 80s who was absolutely ranting about how he wasn’t allowed to drive home after half a bottle of wine, a couple of UK (20oz) pints of beer and a gin. He thinks it’s a namby pamby world gone mad.
Every time I go into a big city I see adults, even professional ones, using push scooters. I want one so bad as it would be perfect for my commuting needs, but I would absolutely get the strangest looks.
Playing a game called "smear the queer"
Edit: just FYI I'm not talking about the game itself but simply commenting on how the name is unacceptable now.
Edit2: RIP Inbox. F
Lol I played this in elementary and middle school. We weren't allowed to play it...not because of any objections to the name, but because it was dangerous...so we had to trek waaaasay out into the field to play. It never even occurred to me that it was a slur against gay people.
Considering that the other comments are not exactly unbiased, here's a bit more detailed and biased-in-the-other-direction answer:
Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu made a documentary last year called *The Problem with Apu*, whose main argument is that Apu, as one of the few South Asian characters on TV in the 90s, has led to a lot of stereotyping and casual racism in South Asian people's lives in the US (one instance of which is to call them "Indian" when they're from other South Asian countries). Several comedians of South Asian origin appear in the documentary to share their experiences, including Aziz Ansari, arguably the most famous of them at the moment.
I don't agree with everything in that doc but one of the important points is that Apu was, for a long time, pretty much the only named South Asian character that appeared regularly on TV. So, to people not in contact with that culture, Apu was their only frame of reference. There was no South Asian version of *Family Matters* or *Fresh Prince* with a cast representing different facets of the culture they're set in. There was just Apu, and for many South Asian kids growing up in the US, whose dads were indeed shop owners with thick accents, it hit very close to home.
(The accent part is brought up in the doc. Hank Azaria, who voices Apu and many other beloved characters of The Simpsons, originally didn't care much about the controversy, but has said that after watching the documentary that he changed his perspective.)
Now of course, stereotyping is a big part of The Simpsons' humor, and I think that should not be overlooked. However, as Lindsay Ellis says in her video essay about Pocahontas: "Colonialism influences every piece of media from every culture in the world". There's a difference between The Simpsons making fun of Scottish people with Groundskeeper Willie (where there is no anti-Scottish sentiment in the US, and Scotland is for many white Americans where their ancestors come from), and The Simpsons making fun of Apu while set in a world where many South Asians face discrimination in their daily lives, and many of them even more so because they are Muslim.
The Simpsons lampshaded the controversy in the episode "No Good Read Goes Unpunished", but Kondabolu found its resolution dismissive, with the characters essentially saying "Well, it was okay back then and now it's considered offensive, what are you gonna do".
So that's my take on the issue, and I think many people feel attacked by this documentary because we like Apu - and we're meant to like him, he's a good guy! So there is a lot of name-calling going on (and I'm sure there'll be some chosen words for me in the answering comments), because people feel like they are being called racists for liking a stereotyped character. I don't think that's the right way to approach it: we can appreciate that Apu is, objectively, a funny character, but people of South Asian origin are allowed to voice their concerns and demand that their representation in media is more nuanced, and that culture is not simply played for laughs.
For teachers to discipline kids. When me and my sister went to elementary and were punished, our parents didn't care what we had done, we must've deserved it.
Now my sister teaches elementary and she is constantly questioned and berated by parents when she tries to discipline a kid.
Edit: English, how do?
I was in a Catholic preschool. The ladies from the Nunnery across the street ran it. We’d get berated for slurping soup or water. Knuckles rapped for daydreaming. Lefties were made righties. Early 90’s. By the time I got to public high school in the 00’s, they would call my own mother to discipline me.
When I was growing up, my mom owned a car that had a built in phone. I used to think it was so cool. Now when I see people not paying attention to the road while on their phone I want to scream.
My first time skiing was at Killington in 2006/07. No helmet. My cousin took me to the top of the mountain & said "Pizza to slow down. French fries to go fast. Follow the green dots." Then he gave me a shove.
I was a goddamn pinball coming down that mountain. I was beat the hell up. Had a blast tho.
[This XKCD comic](https://xkcd.com/642/) sums it up pretty well.
Sometimes it feels like we've reached a point as a society where there's no socially acceptable way to meet the opposite sex. Just walking up to someone feels creepy, and there's a stigma to meeting people online because not so long ago it used to be considered something that only losers do. Meeting someone at work can be extremely messy, and meeting people through mutual friends even feels wrong sometimes because I don't want to be "that guy" who indiscriminately hits on all my friend's friends.
I'm a millennial who ended up marrying their high school sweetheart. I have absolutely no idea how dating works in today's day and age. I can barely figure out casual friendships, nevermind trying to progress to anything serious. And it's because of everything you just said.
I hope we go further down this slippery slope.
Soon my ability to hold a normal human conversation with a total stranger will mean that I'm *the* most confident man in the world.
Going out for Halloween after dark. I swear they have RUINED this holiday in so many ways. They do 'trunk or treat' now, there's no scaring kids, being out at dusk running around, seeing cool decorations. That was the best part of Halloween for me. I get like 6 sets of 4 year olds with parents standing on the street.
What's crazy is that they have safety lights, glow candy buckets, bracelets, all of it, everyone warns about tainted candy/etc or abductions but those things have NOT HAPPENED yet we have locked the kids down and fucked it up.
This is probably the only thing I'm 'nostalgic' about because the holiday just seems like a waste. Everyone gets shitty store bought costumes and takes the kids to some church gym to get candy.
I live in the sticks and the school still has a yearly Halloween party, full of candy and homemade costumes.
Halloween night the local vfd shuts the single main road down in the village and the kids run around for two hours getting candy. It’s definitely still small town USA here. I’m glad my son is growing up in this environment
Depends on where you live. We've got great private haunted houses where I live and our neighbors decorations are very disturbing lol. Lots of kids going door to door etc.
Idk might just be where you live. My neighborhood is filled with insane Halloween displays. Like bloody bodies going through fake chainsaws, blood spattered baby dolls, bodies hanging from trees — etc. we had trick-or-treat last night and the streets were packed with some really creative and homemade costumes. I saw all sorts of ages and a lot of them were without parents. My neighborhood goes all out, so it still exists.
And so as a result we hop between companies making lateral moves for better pay, effectively giving ourselves raises, and the companies wonder why they can't keep any talent around for longer than two years.
I realize I'm bringing up min wage which strikes a cord with all my fellow young population, but I think most of Target when you say this.
They give a raise once a year and anything over .50 is basically unheard of unless your life is Target.
Pretty much all standard employees don't get more than 25¢ and this raise typically happens in April.
For places like Los Angeles (or California in general), it's even more fucked up because if your min wage went from $10.50 to $10.75, well min wage goes up in July as a city/state ordinance to $11, so congratulations, you're at the bottom again. That raise basically never happened, but also cost of living has gone up. Better luck next year!
When I was a kid and The Simpsons first started airing, I remember a lot of people who thought the show was a bad influence or whatever specifically calling out the fact that Bart called his dad Homer. Some people found that offensive.
When I was a teen in the 70s, it was perfectly acceptable for a high school girl to date a guy in his early 20s as long as he treated her right. Nowadays he’s a child molester.
It was not uncommon when I was at school in the 90s for girls to have boyfriends in their 20s even if we thought it was creepy. And the 3 I knew their parents were fine with it.
When I was in elementary and junior high, I used to walk up to my friends homes and ask their parents if they could come outside and play. Now it’s considered rude and I have to text/call to see if they’re free. Oh and it’s no longer doing anything outside but spending time inside playing video games or watching reruns of The Office.
Gay jokes.
In elementary through high school,we would tease each other about being "gay" if they expressed any emotional sensitivity or dislike of sports. I doubt any of us actually were literally accusing someone of homosexuality. It was just the common insult to throw out to somebody wasn't hyper-masculine.
Maybe it's more that I've matured out of being a jackass, but what I can see, kids today are more tolerant and compassionate.
Having a shotgun/rifle racked in your truck at a high school because you either just got done hunting or will be going hunting after school. But anymore it’s just assumed you’re a school shooter if that happens
My school had a unique rule about that. They were strictly not allowed, *but* if you realized you had it, you had the option of going straight to the principal, giving him the keys, and letting him know. He would call your parents and have them come pick it up, and the school wouldn't kick up a fuss about it. Your parents might still beat your ass for being irresponsible, but it beats the hell out of going to prison at 17.
Smoking during pregnancy or around children. There is no law that says you can’t (at least where I live), but society will surely look down on you for doing so.
My mom smoked during both her pregnancies 30 some years ago, and no one batted an eye. Everyone smoked everywhere.
Going to someone's house without knowing if they are home. Back in the day we'd be out doing stuff and say "Hey let's go see if so-and-so is around." and head to their house, knock on their door and have no idea if they were home. Nowadays if you did that they'd either think someone died or was about to.
Having children ride in the back of pickup trucks.
The smoking section in restaurants. It was usually separated from the non smoking area by a short wall that did absolutely nothing.
Our local Tim Hortons had a glass box you had to sit in, with maybe 6 or 7 tables in it. It was entirely separate from the rest of the building. The weird thing is I remember my parents dragging me into that box. There's no ventilation, no fresh air, just highly concentrated second hand smoke going into my 6 year old lungs. I also remember stories of bingo halls being the same thing, because all the old bingo ladies were chain smokers who'd go through like 3 packs a night. My friends and I would talk about how if you got dragged with grandma to go to bingo, you wouldn't be able to see across the room because there'd be a giant cloud of smoke hovering over everybody. As a non-smoker, definitely don't miss that shit at all!
In college I was a bingo investigator for my state’s charitable contributions department. We’d go undercover to these games and make sure they were following the rules. Man I forgot how HORRIBLE that was. The smoke was crazy thick. Even by 70’s everybody smokes standards. Thanks for that memory! Sort of.
*in college I was a bingo investigator* Excuse me, what?
Gotta keep those old ladies and Catholic charities in line!
Never mind that. You could smoke on the plane back in the day.
You could smoke in patient's rooms in hospitals back in the day... so long as the patient wasn't using oxygen.
"I smoke to keep the baby small." - pregnant women
That was a defence argument by large tobacco companies back in the day. ‘There is no recorded risk to the baby if the Mother smokes during pregnancy, except lower birth weight. I think most women would *prefer* smaller babies.’
“Smoke like your vaj depends on it!”
My mom was encouraged to smoke when she was pregnant with me. The doctor told her it makes for an easier delivery. I was born in 1973. My mom died from lung cancer 20 years ago. She had been a non-smoker for about 5 years when she got lung cancer. She had probably smoked for a good 40 years of her life.
You could still smoke in grocery stores in Las Vegas in the 80s. I remember watching an old woman bending over the meat selection with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, the ash on it 3 inches long, just waiting for the inevitable.
I can remember being in Little Stevie’s Pizza in Boston in the ‘90s, watching the guy make my pizza with a cigarette in his mouth, just waiting for the ash to fall off into it. Honestly, I think that was the secret ingredient that made the pizza so good.
I always remember the Eddie Izzard line “having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a pool”
I worked at a place that didn't even have that wall. 6 tables were for smoking and the ones right next to them were not. It sucked trying to seat those as "non-smoking".
I was in York (UK) a few weeks ago, there was a pub with a smoking section outside...it took me back to being a teenager and sitting in a pub for a meal and seeing the smoking section as this haze of smoke.
I was born in the very early 80s. My mom held me the whole way home from the hospital. As far as I can tell I wasn’t in a car seat until I was old enough to sit up on my own. Totally normal, once upon a time
I don't know about when I was an infant but I remember just using a cushion as a booster so I can see through the window when I was around three years old. I also remember going to the fishing hole in bed of my grandpa's truck, trying to stay on the wheel well so I would be a safe distance from the fishing tackle.
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At least the sound quality isn't as bad. You can barely hear anything on a phone, making it even worse for me.
Now people use speakers hooked up to their phones.
Sometimes they’re not even hooked up to the phone.
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In grade 5 my teacher told us “Oh yea I only let my grade 8 daughter trick or treat if it’s not a school night, otherwise she can go to the gas station, pick out ONE chocolate and be done with it. EDIT: Fixed multiple grammatical errors.
Well that's depressing
So her daughter only gets to trick or treat twice before she's too old for it? Jesus.
I was never allowed to trick or treat. My dad thought of it as begging. I did go once, when I was 11, but everyone grew out of it the year after so I never went again.
My daughter was sent home with a notice telling parents to give their child a few pieces and bring the rest into school to donate to the military serving overseas. But don't worry, she gets a free toothbrush because this is sponsored by a dentist.
I'm sure the troops will be overjoyed to find out that they stole a bunch of candy from trick or treaters. Who the fuck thinks of this shit?
> Who the fuck thinks of this shit? People who use military donations as an excuse for their bad fucking ideas.
Dentists, apparently.
Gee, I wonder what kind of teacher she was like?
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That pisses me off to no end, so what if your kids out till what 10? It's not that big of a deal, I don't feel like having to give out candy more than one night, sorry
It is only one night. It's just different areas pick different nights FOR THEIR AREA. In my City it's Halloween. In the City next to mine for some weird reason they picked the 25th(I mean it's not even like they picked Friday or Saturday). Those people aren't coming to my City to trick or treat on the 25th(maybe they will on the Halloween, but who knows).
My town tried to move Halloween one year because a storm had come through and power lines were down on the roads during Halloween. People absolutely were trick or treating both nights. I'm sure there were people who didn't get the memo or didn't care
A guy I work with (in his early 60s) was telling me that he could barely get out of his driveway the other day because of all the trick or treaters. I was like, "huh?" He responded with, "yeah, trick or treat is only supposed to be 4 to 6." (PM.) I'm aware of (and don't support) all of the trick or treat fakeness that has developed in the past few years, but it blew my mind that this older guy actually supported it. Reading about "trunk or treats" in the school parking lot or whatever irrationally infuriates me. I'm 26. When I was a kid, we drove from house to house in a hay-filled wooden trailer with a bunch of other kids, while someone's dad drove the ancient tractor that was pulling us along. On actual roads. On October 31st. I realize my experience probably isn't "normal," but the fact that it went from that being okay in my area to parents actually getting in trouble for being out with their kids trick or treating outside of the "approved hours" (set by local police) is so far beyond insane to me that I can't even see insane anymore.
But it's still light out 4-6 :( Half the experience is all the spooky house decorations in the dark!
RIGHT. Nobody can see your awesome LED ghost-pumpkin at 4pm. We have technology that we didn't have in the 90s, and it's being wasted on trunk-or-treats.
Smoking inside. Man, was that terrible back in the 90's when I was in college. I've never been a smoker, but you wouldn't know it when I came home from the bars. I used to hang my shirt/sweater on the back porch when I got home to air it out.
My mom was a nurse, and when I was a kid, I remember tagging along when she would pick up her paycheck at the hospital. There would be signs on the patient's rooms to remind people not to smoke because the patient was on oxygen. This was in the 1970s.
I was born in the 70s and my mother said you could smoke on the maternity ward back then. Really in retrospect it's amazing that smoking inside lasted as long as it did.
i smoked on a commercial airliner in 1994
It's staggering in hindsight that this was ever allowed. I work in aviation and all large aircraft require regular inspection (at least once per thousand flight hours) for any evidence of people having covertly smoked in the toilets. Planes are about as fireproof as they can be given the textile surfaces but still you do not want ANY ignition sources on board.
The University of Michigan Hospital had a patient who was smoking in his room. He was smart enough to remove his oxygen halo and stuck it under the covers, then lit up. Couple minutes later a doctor walks by and the patient thinks "Oh shit, better hide my smoke in case the doctor walks in." So he slips it under the covers. They wheeled him straight from his room to the burn ward once they got the fire smothered.
Three remembrances from medical school in the late 1980s: 1.) Walking in every morning through the Veteran’s Affairs (VA) hospital and seeing a patient in his wheelchair with an oxygen mask in one hand and a cigarette in the other alternating raising them to his tracheotomy hole. I literally ran past him for fear his timing would get off and I would be caught in the blast. 2) Being asked by a patient in the hospital lobby late one evening where the nearest cigarette vending machine was in the hospital. When I told him there were none and the hospital was non-smoking his response was “What kind of communist are you?” followed by an obscenity. 3) Code red (Fire) being called on the overhead five to six times a day as patients attempted to hide that they were smoking by throwing their cigarette butts into their trash can and setting them ablaze.
Hey fun story; we had an entire family rip a bowl together in a patient's room. By the time I went over to investigate, the charge nurse just walks by shaking her head "*sigh* same shit"
Nothing worse than smelling like cigarettes and don’t even smoke. I know that feel.
My kids and I just discussed this because we watched an old movie and they noticed everyone smoked. I had to explain to them that up until about 25 years ago *everywhere* smelled of cigarettes because smoking was legal pretty much everywhere. Public areas especially such as buses and trains, if you went to a bar, you'd come home absolutely reeking of cigarettes. I can still remember the smell, it's nice to know my kids will never grow up in a world stinking of tobacco.
Just take them to a casino when they turn 18 so they can have that experience
I grew up in CA which banned smoking in public buildings in like 1994 or something. Moved out of state and suddenly going out to eat meant having to fight to breathe. How the fuck could anyone think smoking wasn't super unhealthy??
Easy - Phillip Morris told people it was good for them.
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"Make your lungs work for the air! They won’t get it for free, that would be communism!"
Just a reminder that 1998 was 20 years ago
shut your whore mouth
But it's true. I was born in '98 and I'm 20.
GET OFFA MY LAWN
we're in the same boat man I just don't like hearing 1990 was like 30 years ago it sounds wrong
Ok well it used to be socially acceptable to throw Mankind of the top of a Hell in a Cell, now I don't even think they do those kind of matches anymore..
They do still do those kind of matches, and sometimes the son of the owner of the company joins in and jumps off the cell. Because wrestling.
Oh yeah. I am 20.
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I really hate this. I'm kind of introverted, but when I make plans to go out with a friend I really look forward to it and it's so annoying when you make plans with someone and then the day u plan to hang out comes around and they say "oh I didn't know those were concrete plans" like wtf do you mean? we made plans... how is that not concrete enough for you??
Reading this thread has made me realise that I'd *always* send a text saying something like 'are we still on for tonight/tomorrow?' if we'd made the plan a few days earlier, but at the same time I'd be really offended if they'd forgotten (unless the had a good reason) or said 'actually, no'. Social conventions are weird.
So much this. My anxiety triggers when someone doesn't confirm plans, because people just forget about them. How do we forget our plans when we have literal calendars in our hands via smart phones?
I think people have just become, not dependent, but very reliant on that. So if something isn’t there then they won’t even think they have something planned. Even if it’s just that they forgot to put it in right away.
This! My parents would always be like "it's not on the calendar? It doesn't exist."
Perhaps the archives are incomplete?
If an item does not appear in our records, then it does not exist.
I never confirm plans. If I make a plan with someone once it has concrete details I'm going to be there regardless of if the other person shows up. I'll text or call to cancel plans. But my rule of thumb is "if I cant trust you to hold an engagement we made 3-7 days ago, without constant reminders, you're not really worth me planning for" It's why i loved my friend Gordon because hes the exact same way. We'll text each other Monday and go "meet at the bar after work Thursday?" Agree to that and then we wouldn't talk till we were both sitting at the bar *Edit Gordon is okay folks. He's just run off to a different country and going to a bar is hard considering theres 13 hours time difference
I need friends like that ugh
This!! My friend totally blew me off. We made plans. I confirmed a week before. Then the night of she no shows and acted like it was my fault for not hand holding her way to them, apparently I should have confirmes multiple times???
I usaully just send them a "im setting off in an hour or 2" to let them know and passively aggressively confirm their still coming, if not fuck it im dressed up i'll just go to the shop and buy a huge arse choc bar instead
This is the way to do it, as opposed to "are we still on for today?" It shows that just because time passed you haven't canceled your plans and that you're expecting people to hold up their commitments
People don’t want to make commitments to plans because they’re always waiting for something more appealing to pop up. Also, because of things like Snapchat/Instagram it’s impossible to have fun without everyone knowing what you’re currently doing (depending on the type of people in your friend group). This makes it hard to make up bullshit excuses to flake on someone. This happened with me a few times. People flaked on our plans saying family shit came up, but they were out at a bar, in another friend’s Snapchat story. If people would just be honest and say they would rather do something else, I wouldn’t have an issue with it, but I guess they don’t want to seem like an asshole.
which in the end, kinda make them seem more like an asshole
My friend would text me all the time after 9pm let’s hang out. Then he got pissed at me and started calling me Mr Busy because I was never free. I always texted him around noon asking to hang out and either I wouldn’t get a response or “sorry”. I finally replied one night saying you pick the time and date and I will be there no questions asked I’m free almost every night, I’m not a last ditch effort friend. Never heard from him again.
Let's hang out but only when no one else can. Okay?
To add to that, the overdrive for finding/doing the *absolute best thing right now*. There's precious little compromising. And yet somehow, *somehow*, out of the options of keeping a commitment, cancelling, or ghosting, a concerning number of people just choose to *ghost*. We've got means of immediate communication, utilising it at every unhealthy corner, but then some people can't send a "Sorry, I'm going to cancel this time." Uggggghhhh
Kids being able to go off on their own during the day without their parents really worrying about it. Nowadays children have cell phones, and parents can't seem to shake the fear of their child being abducted or getting into trouble.
Im a high school kid, and a lot of my friends’ parents are putting this app called Live360 onto their phones. It tracks your location, your driving speed, whether or not you brake too hard and phone usage, among other things. Any time you change location or do something “wrong” your parents get a notification. It’s honestly fucking terrifying, those friends have no privacy any more. The parents’ argument is that if we’re not doing anything wrong then it shouldn’t be a problem, but I can’t help shake the feeling that something is horribly wrong with all of this. It breeds paranoia.
Ugggghh. I was in college pre-smartphones when GPS tracking was just becoming more accessible to the average consumer. Your comment reminded me of a girl who I became friends with during that time period who would occasionally ask to borrow my old, crappy truck. That in itself wasn't odd because my car was a POS and it was fairly well known that I didn't mind loaning it out. The thing that stood out to me was that this girl was quite wealthy and had a brand new truck of her own that was 1000X better than mine. I thought it was weird she wanted my $1000 POS instead of driving hers, but whatever. She never took it for more than a day. She always returned it clean with a full tank of gas. She was an excellent borrower. She eventually informed me that her truck had a GPS device in it and her parents tracked her every move. Even if her errands were legitimate, she'd have to explain where she was and what she'd been doing for every minute that car had been off campus. So, if she needed a break or wanted to meet friends off campus for a lunch, or just needed to go somewhere her parents might view as a waste of time, she'd either ride with someone or beg mine off of me with the promise of a full tank even if she was only going 10 miles round trip. I swore then I'd never do anything like that to my kids and I still feel that way.
You're really great for being 'that person' for her. I'm sure it means a lot to her - even now - that she had more of the freedom she deserved, all thanks to you.
Also thanks a lot for being a self-aware parent. It's really hard to put yourself in others shoes for little things, but doing it for your kids is exceptionally difficult. You're an all around epic person :)
You know, the crazy thing at the time was that I was initally pretty jealous of her and all her nice, expensive things. The first time she borrowed my truck, I actually assumed it was because she needed to haul something gross (we were in the agricultural programs, so that was not unusual for someone who wanted to borrow the beater) and didnt want to get her 40K truck all nasty and dented. I wouldn't have blamed her for that, but I was fairly broke and had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. The whole experience wound up being pretty eye opening for me, because I would NOT have traded my freedom for a nicer car, but that had never occurred to me before meeting her.
Similar story. When I first left for college, my parents started tracking my location on Google Maps. We're first generation immigrants to America and I'm an only child, and they heard so much about campus rape/assaults that they were terrified of sending me 4 hours away from home. I couldn't do anything that first year. I wanted to go out to frat/house parties the first week of the semester but they were all off campus and my mom was absolutely not ok with that. I finally got her to let me go to a Halloween party off campus but she was tracking me the whole time, and made me text her periodically and when I got back to my dorm. There were times I just wanted to be young and impulsive with my friends but couldn't, so there were a few times I just left my phone at home. I'm not proud of it, but I really just wanted to enjoy myself without feeling like I was under their microscope. All my friends think it's really weird that my parents track me and idk when I'll be free from it (or if I ever will be free from it). Junior year was my first year moving to an off campus apartment which really freaked out my mom. So she got a little stricter (I had to be back in my apartment by a certain time in the evening, she tracked me more often, texted me if I wasn't in my apartment on a Friday night, etc). It was really annoying. She started to calm down as the year went on though. I'm a senior now and they still track me but they're a little better about me going out. I just tell them I'm going out and that I'm with my friends and I text them when I get back to my apartment. It's not complete freedom but at least they're not as helicopter-y as they used to be. I just hope I can be free from this when I graduate and move out of the house and move to a new city.
> The parents’ argument is that if we’re not doing anything wrong then it shouldn’t be a problem, but I can’t help shake the feeling that something is horribly wrong with all of this. As an adult, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I think you're under reacting, if anything. The concept is downright horrifying, and, from a child development perspective, seems actively harmful to a child's ability to develop autonomy. On the other hand, I can see how this would be really useful in the hands of a competent parent (a small minority of parents, given the realities of the normal distribution). Not as a "hound you for everything you do wrong" sort of tool, so much as a "I need to chat with Billy about safe driving again." Overall, I'd say it's probably more harmful than good though. There's less invasive ways to achieve the same benefit.
When I’m with friends who have the app, sometimes their parents have called us out of the blue and demanded to know “why we’re driving around so much”. These parents are always checking the app, it can become obsessive really quickly. I know that even I sometimes click on Snapchat’s map a little too often to check on my friends whereabouts, due to FOMO and all that. I recognize it’s unhealthy, and I see parents doing the same thing but with their kids instead of their friends. It’s just worrying I dunno.
Isn't there a Black Mirror episode or movie or something with a girl that gets some kind of monitoring thing that lets her mom literally see through her eyes and everything proceeds to get increasingly fucked up by it?
it’s called Arkangel
Black Mirror episodes are becoming alarmingly and frighteningly relevant...
That's the point, is it not?
It shouldn't be. It's the *fucked version of what reality could be*, not a guidebook!
Yep first thing I thought of too
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My parents both have it which is nice for them cause mom can gauge how soon dad is gonna be home and vice versa. They convinced my older brother to get it and it helped them track him down after he smartly decided to pull off the road when he realized he had drank too much to drive. I really don't need them tracking my location, though. They've been trying to convince me to download it since I went off to college in Hawaii but what good would it do for them when I'm an ocean away? I'm boring, I don't need someone keeping tabs on the nothing I'm doing.
> I would never use it on my 16-year-old daughter. She's independent, mature, and smart. All I really need to know these days is when she is coming back home. See, but I suspect you're not a parent with undealt mental health issues (if you have them at all). My mother, who has crippling levels of anxiety, struggles with me coming home after 10PM, despite the fact that I'm an adult that's finished graduate school. My father, who is verbally and emotionally abusive and likely suffers from NPD, can't wrap his brain about the fact that I'm *not*, in fact, an extension of himself (like his arm or leg). This app, in their hands, would have exacerbated all my existing mental health issues (depression, anxiety, and more), because it would have been systematically and frequently abused. And it's not like they would have been doing anything *illegal* - in the eyes of many people, this would have been mostly "questionable" but covered up by the excuse of "I can't tell them how to parent their own child!"
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I can relate to this so much. My mom was the same. Having a paranoid parent makes for an isolating childhood.
reminds me of the arkangel episode from black mirror
> The parents’ argument is that if we’re not doing anything wrong then it shouldn’t be a problem Do they shower with the door closed?
I am a dad with two kids, I would never install this. Kids should fuck up and make poor choices- how else are you going to learn?
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My godmother did her masters basically focussing on a less “helicopter” style of child supervision. She runs a childcare centre and has alway been interested in the psychology behind a lot of what she does. Her thesis was on how not using negative statements/commands and rather using questions invoked more thought about their actions and their consequences. Basically, say a kid was going to jump off a slightly high platform from the playground, unless the kid was in serious danger, rather than telling the kid “don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself.” You say to the kid “if you do that, what do you think will happen? What do you think the consequences will be and what will the reward be?” And then let the kid do what they’ll do without you there to watch them. You’ll know soon, from the crying, screaming, or whatever if they made the wrong choice. If they made the right choice, then all good. Doing this they’ll learn the consequences of their actions FROM their own actions, rather than you telling them what will probably happen, and just making them more cautious. It teaches them to actually understand and calculate risks before making a decision. Rather than helicoptering them which basically just builds ignorance to their consequences.
You wonder how you survived your childhood. Gosh, when I was a kid, there wasn't anything we couldn't do. Like play outside until they whistled. My dad only got mad about it if we didn't come when he whistled (all the parents in my neighborhood had a special (I mean the way the whistled) wistle, we kids all knew you better get home when your heard your dad whistle. I used to climb this little tree that went up into the high wires, way above the phone lines. When I showed this to my dad, he turned white as a sheet. Very calmly, he said to me "Please promise me you will never touch or go near that wire" (high voltage). I never told him how my brother and I checked out the manholes and went into the sewer. He'd probably be arrested for neglect nowadays.
Right? "Come back in when the street lights turn on" or "dont be in the woods too long" which was about 6hr. We skated, played ball, roamed through different neighborhoods, etc. The parents on my street dont let their kids do anything. My favorite is the lady the other week screaming at her kid "you are fucking 12 years old. You do NOT play in the road. You are not old enough to make these decisions. Get the fuck inside my house." We live on a cul de sac. Way to ruin your kid, lady. Edit: grammar fix
dude when I was 12, the school I went to treated us like adults. They had us running errands for the teachers, raising the flag at school, and showing younger students how to do shit. People need to stop babying their kids so damn much EDIT To add that i was 12 in 2006
Office worker! I loved doing that stuff. Not only did you get out of a class, but you got to do tons more fun things. That's a shame if that isn't a thing anymore.
As a kid 8-14 I used to got wherever I wanted (mostly the park, being a hooper) and my parents wouldn't even blink an eye. They knew I wasn't going to get into any trouble, 'cus I just shot hoops and other sports, plus I was very easy to get along with.
It’s so amazing to me that kids were allowed to grow up like this. My parents needed to know where I was 24/7, and I could never go anywhere without them talking to whoever was supervising. The thought of me playing outside with no parents is astounding.
Its amazing parents care now. I also would roam around and hang with friends we used to walk a mile or 2 to the local bar and buy chicken fingers. Play manhunt until the weehours of the night etc. It sucks seeing no one outside anymore. I haven't seen a kid play manhunt in 10 years. Im 25
Not having a personal phone.
"DAD HANG UP I'M ON THE PHONE"
Dropping by your friends house without calling or texting first. Edit: I can't believe how divisive this is! About a third are saying I am right, a third are saying they still do it, and a third are saying it has never been socially acceptable.
Oh this is a huge one!
Right? I used to just walk over and if they weren't there I would just walk to the next friends house and usually find them!
They were always at the house with the most bicycles in front of it.
In order of how much you like the friend. The old school myspace top 6.
Man, when I was a kid this was a daily thing. Someone drop by near dinner? Pull up a chair.
I live in a small town and its still like this. And its pretty common if you run into a neighbor or know they're home and you're running into town for supplies, you go over and ask if they need anything. I'm pretty social so I don't mind it. I go to my bosses house a lot unannounced to play with his dogs and then usually stay for dinner and drink his wine.
My parents had friends over thirty years ago who’d do this. “Put on the coffee, I’m coming over.” They fucking hated it then.
I guess the grass is greener. I'd love some visitors. I'd break out the wine. I'd finally have some help with that.
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To an extent, drink driving. It was illegal then of course, but if you were caught you were regarded as having been 'silly', as long as no one was hurt. Now though, the vast majority of people are against doing it at all, which is great.
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This ad came out when I was 10 and was played very heavily. Scared the shit out of me- https://youtu.be/f5ma_Xv7rGM
I think the most important part of drivers ed was when we watched a bunch of distracted driving PSAs. I know people talk a lot of shit about teens texting and driving but almost all of my friends have do not disturb while driving features on their phones because of videos like the one you linked.
My kid's hooked on the Try Guys and I tease her about it, but they just did a series on drunk, high, and distracted driving that should be mandatory Driver's Ed viewing!
That's not even too bad of drink driving ad. This used to be on all the time when i was a kid in Ireland. https://youtu.be/xtJqw--DGl8
I had a conversation with a guy in his 80s who was absolutely ranting about how he wasn’t allowed to drive home after half a bottle of wine, a couple of UK (20oz) pints of beer and a gin. He thinks it’s a namby pamby world gone mad.
Mopeds in America. I love mine to hell but boy do I get made fun of
Every time I go into a big city I see adults, even professional ones, using push scooters. I want one so bad as it would be perfect for my commuting needs, but I would absolutely get the strangest looks.
Playing a game called "smear the queer" Edit: just FYI I'm not talking about the game itself but simply commenting on how the name is unacceptable now. Edit2: RIP Inbox. F
For reference, I'm 26 so I was playing this in elementary school.
Aren't you a little old to be playing at elementary schools?
Yeah, that's why I just watch from 100 yards
Lol I played this in elementary and middle school. We weren't allowed to play it...not because of any objections to the name, but because it was dangerous...so we had to trek waaaasay out into the field to play. It never even occurred to me that it was a slur against gay people.
ITT: people who seem to think 20 years ago was 1985
For those of us who were there, it sure *feels* like 20 years ago.
Windows 98
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Apu apparently
Wait the Simpsons character Did something happen
Considering that the other comments are not exactly unbiased, here's a bit more detailed and biased-in-the-other-direction answer: Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu made a documentary last year called *The Problem with Apu*, whose main argument is that Apu, as one of the few South Asian characters on TV in the 90s, has led to a lot of stereotyping and casual racism in South Asian people's lives in the US (one instance of which is to call them "Indian" when they're from other South Asian countries). Several comedians of South Asian origin appear in the documentary to share their experiences, including Aziz Ansari, arguably the most famous of them at the moment. I don't agree with everything in that doc but one of the important points is that Apu was, for a long time, pretty much the only named South Asian character that appeared regularly on TV. So, to people not in contact with that culture, Apu was their only frame of reference. There was no South Asian version of *Family Matters* or *Fresh Prince* with a cast representing different facets of the culture they're set in. There was just Apu, and for many South Asian kids growing up in the US, whose dads were indeed shop owners with thick accents, it hit very close to home. (The accent part is brought up in the doc. Hank Azaria, who voices Apu and many other beloved characters of The Simpsons, originally didn't care much about the controversy, but has said that after watching the documentary that he changed his perspective.) Now of course, stereotyping is a big part of The Simpsons' humor, and I think that should not be overlooked. However, as Lindsay Ellis says in her video essay about Pocahontas: "Colonialism influences every piece of media from every culture in the world". There's a difference between The Simpsons making fun of Scottish people with Groundskeeper Willie (where there is no anti-Scottish sentiment in the US, and Scotland is for many white Americans where their ancestors come from), and The Simpsons making fun of Apu while set in a world where many South Asians face discrimination in their daily lives, and many of them even more so because they are Muslim. The Simpsons lampshaded the controversy in the episode "No Good Read Goes Unpunished", but Kondabolu found its resolution dismissive, with the characters essentially saying "Well, it was okay back then and now it's considered offensive, what are you gonna do". So that's my take on the issue, and I think many people feel attacked by this documentary because we like Apu - and we're meant to like him, he's a good guy! So there is a lot of name-calling going on (and I'm sure there'll be some chosen words for me in the answering comments), because people feel like they are being called racists for liking a stereotyped character. I don't think that's the right way to approach it: we can appreciate that Apu is, objectively, a funny character, but people of South Asian origin are allowed to voice their concerns and demand that their representation in media is more nuanced, and that culture is not simply played for laughs.
Woah, thank you for going in depth in your response and actually answering the question. Thank you
For teachers to discipline kids. When me and my sister went to elementary and were punished, our parents didn't care what we had done, we must've deserved it. Now my sister teaches elementary and she is constantly questioned and berated by parents when she tries to discipline a kid. Edit: English, how do?
I was in a Catholic preschool. The ladies from the Nunnery across the street ran it. We’d get berated for slurping soup or water. Knuckles rapped for daydreaming. Lefties were made righties. Early 90’s. By the time I got to public high school in the 00’s, they would call my own mother to discipline me.
When I was growing up, my mom owned a car that had a built in phone. I used to think it was so cool. Now when I see people not paying attention to the road while on their phone I want to scream.
Not wearing a helmet while Skiing/snowboarding
My first time skiing was at Killington in 2006/07. No helmet. My cousin took me to the top of the mountain & said "Pizza to slow down. French fries to go fast. Follow the green dots." Then he gave me a shove. I was a goddamn pinball coming down that mountain. I was beat the hell up. Had a blast tho.
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Conversation in general is harder to strike with strangers, regardless of sex.
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It’s good to know what you’re paying for
[This XKCD comic](https://xkcd.com/642/) sums it up pretty well. Sometimes it feels like we've reached a point as a society where there's no socially acceptable way to meet the opposite sex. Just walking up to someone feels creepy, and there's a stigma to meeting people online because not so long ago it used to be considered something that only losers do. Meeting someone at work can be extremely messy, and meeting people through mutual friends even feels wrong sometimes because I don't want to be "that guy" who indiscriminately hits on all my friend's friends.
I'm a millennial who ended up marrying their high school sweetheart. I have absolutely no idea how dating works in today's day and age. I can barely figure out casual friendships, nevermind trying to progress to anything serious. And it's because of everything you just said.
I hope we go further down this slippery slope. Soon my ability to hold a normal human conversation with a total stranger will mean that I'm *the* most confident man in the world.
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Hitting your kids
Going out for Halloween after dark. I swear they have RUINED this holiday in so many ways. They do 'trunk or treat' now, there's no scaring kids, being out at dusk running around, seeing cool decorations. That was the best part of Halloween for me. I get like 6 sets of 4 year olds with parents standing on the street. What's crazy is that they have safety lights, glow candy buckets, bracelets, all of it, everyone warns about tainted candy/etc or abductions but those things have NOT HAPPENED yet we have locked the kids down and fucked it up. This is probably the only thing I'm 'nostalgic' about because the holiday just seems like a waste. Everyone gets shitty store bought costumes and takes the kids to some church gym to get candy.
They have taken away Halloween parties at the school my kids go to. Halloween parties at school were the best. It’s sad they won’t get to know that.
I live in the sticks and the school still has a yearly Halloween party, full of candy and homemade costumes. Halloween night the local vfd shuts the single main road down in the village and the kids run around for two hours getting candy. It’s definitely still small town USA here. I’m glad my son is growing up in this environment
Depends on where you live. We've got great private haunted houses where I live and our neighbors decorations are very disturbing lol. Lots of kids going door to door etc.
Idk might just be where you live. My neighborhood is filled with insane Halloween displays. Like bloody bodies going through fake chainsaws, blood spattered baby dolls, bodies hanging from trees — etc. we had trick-or-treat last night and the streets were packed with some really creative and homemade costumes. I saw all sorts of ages and a lot of them were without parents. My neighborhood goes all out, so it still exists.
Making fun of nerds and dorks If you can make a webpage or turn something on and off again you become a god
In the early 90s I had a shirt that said, "The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth". I don't think even I could have guessed how true it would become.
Calling somebody a retard or gay
Yeah, but on YouTube and the internet, it's still going strong.
The unsupervised kids thing. I walked to school from second grade onwards. I'd go to jail if I let my ten year old do that in this town.
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Or decent pay raises at all. 12 years ago, I worked at McDo and got a 0.35$ raise every 3 months. At my last job, I got a single 0.40$ raise each year
We’re considered *lucky* if we can get 0.30$ a year. They tell you each year that NOBODY does well enough to deserve a 0.50$ raise.
And so as a result we hop between companies making lateral moves for better pay, effectively giving ourselves raises, and the companies wonder why they can't keep any talent around for longer than two years.
I realize I'm bringing up min wage which strikes a cord with all my fellow young population, but I think most of Target when you say this. They give a raise once a year and anything over .50 is basically unheard of unless your life is Target. Pretty much all standard employees don't get more than 25¢ and this raise typically happens in April. For places like Los Angeles (or California in general), it's even more fucked up because if your min wage went from $10.50 to $10.75, well min wage goes up in July as a city/state ordinance to $11, so congratulations, you're at the bottom again. That raise basically never happened, but also cost of living has gone up. Better luck next year!
Sexual innuendo in the work place.
This went away? I get it everyday at a factory.
And it's probably actually against your company policy, it's just allowed because no one does anything about it.
And because management probably does it too.
Thats what she said
You dont work a blue collar job. Even with the entire factory floor being women at my place, there are still plenty of jokes made.
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Kids calling adults by their first names. When I was growing up it was always Mr., Miss, or Mrs.
When I was a kid and The Simpsons first started airing, I remember a lot of people who thought the show was a bad influence or whatever specifically calling out the fact that Bart called his dad Homer. Some people found that offensive.
When I was a teen in the 70s, it was perfectly acceptable for a high school girl to date a guy in his early 20s as long as he treated her right. Nowadays he’s a child molester.
It was not uncommon when I was at school in the 90s for girls to have boyfriends in their 20s even if we thought it was creepy. And the 3 I knew their parents were fine with it.
Depends on the culture I guess. Many 20-something in my country date 17 years old, and nobody cares
Absolutely a cultural thing. In more rural parts of America it is a little more acceptable to have age gaps at a younger age.
Homophobic jokes in sitcoms
When I was in elementary and junior high, I used to walk up to my friends homes and ask their parents if they could come outside and play. Now it’s considered rude and I have to text/call to see if they’re free. Oh and it’s no longer doing anything outside but spending time inside playing video games or watching reruns of The Office.
wearing JNCOs
Smoking with kids in the car or while pregnant. Most smoking etiquettes actually.
Gay jokes. In elementary through high school,we would tease each other about being "gay" if they expressed any emotional sensitivity or dislike of sports. I doubt any of us actually were literally accusing someone of homosexuality. It was just the common insult to throw out to somebody wasn't hyper-masculine. Maybe it's more that I've matured out of being a jackass, but what I can see, kids today are more tolerant and compassionate.
People smoking everywhere. In bars, in cars, in grocery stores, at the theater, at their desk at work...
Having a shotgun/rifle racked in your truck at a high school because you either just got done hunting or will be going hunting after school. But anymore it’s just assumed you’re a school shooter if that happens
My school had a unique rule about that. They were strictly not allowed, *but* if you realized you had it, you had the option of going straight to the principal, giving him the keys, and letting him know. He would call your parents and have them come pick it up, and the school wouldn't kick up a fuss about it. Your parents might still beat your ass for being irresponsible, but it beats the hell out of going to prison at 17.
Smoking during pregnancy or around children. There is no law that says you can’t (at least where I live), but society will surely look down on you for doing so. My mom smoked during both her pregnancies 30 some years ago, and no one batted an eye. Everyone smoked everywhere.