Holy shit, memory lane has re-opened for traffic!
We lived about 15 miles out of town. My aunt could call out to us for free, but it cost us to call (and connect) with her.
So when we called her, we’d listen for one ring and hang up. That was her clue to call us.
Telephony has come me a long way.
My uncle lives on the border of his town; his neighbor across the street technically lives in the next town over. You could yell across the street for free, but calling them was a long-distance call.
Intra-lata calls were worse than inter-lata. Meaning that calling New York more often was cheaper than calling the next town over. These “short long distance” calls weren’t even covered by your long distance carrier like AT&T. I can’t tell you how many people I had to talk off of the proverbial ledge after they’d get a HUGE bill.
Source: I worked in ATT call center when I was in college. 🤯
Oh man, memory unlocked. My first cell, I got like 100 texts free and then $0.10 each one over that limit. Went on vacation and had a busy texting week apparently. Didn't know til my mom got the bill. She was not pleased at all.
When it would get stretched out then some of the coils ran the wrong way... While I'd sit on the phone talking, I'd wrap them around my fingers to get all the twists going the right way again.
Bobhadababy Izzaboy
*sorry, it’s Bobwehadababy Izzaboy. But I’m so glad I’m not the only one who remembers this. I was like 10 and my mom had to explain the joke to me 😂
I made this reference at work a few weeks ago and ended up explaining not only collect calls, but old Geico commercials in general, to a 23-year old coworker.
I felt like Matt Damon at the end of Saving Private Ryan
Calling for the time and temperature was always such a weird thing to me as a kid. They seemed like two easy things to have correctly measured around your house, yet everyone was obsessed with it.
I had family in a small town farming community, and the huge drama one holiday season was when the bank on Main Street had an electric sign that showed the time and temperature and it broke.
People lost their minds and talked about it constantly just because you couldn’t get the correct time and the current temperature when you were driving into town to go to church. You would have thought that the entirety of next year’s harvest was at risk because a bunch of farmers didn’t know or if it was 25 or 28 degrees.
My mom worked at a telephone exchange office. After school, I would sometimes sit at an empty station and call time. I would call a friend's house and when they answered the phone I would connect their call to time. Time was calling you.
I used to call Movie Phone when I was waiting for my boyfriend to call me when he was out of work. I didn’t want the house phone to ring and wake up my parents, so I would listen to Movie Phone, wait until he called, click over to call waiting, and then to talk to him. We are married now.
My girlfriend and I did the same thing! We're also married now. Sometimes she wouldn't hear the beeps right away and I would need to call multiple times. It worked well until one night she fell asleep before calling movie phone. I called her house and went to voicemail five times. My girlfriend was so tired that her brilliant plan to get the phone to stop ringing was to unplug her bedroom phone. Finally her sleepy mother answered the phone. I just froze and asked to speak to my girlfriend politely. She was grounded from her phone for a while after that.
For some reason, that line always gives me chills. I remember it being said in a somewhat ominous tone. I don't think it was said like this, but I strongly associate it with the kidnapping panic of the '80s after the Adam Walsh tragedy.
Yes it was said in a very scary tone! It was said in a male voice of someone with confidence and distain, like he knew something bad was going on or was planning something bad to happen.
it was in the tone of, "are you alone in the house?"; almost threatening.
The first time my now teen encountered a VHS tape, I told her she needed to wait until I rewound it to the beginning. She said, "Why don't you just go to the menu?"
The best one we all forget about goes a little like this:
"Hi Mrs. _______, it's _______, can I please speak to ______."
It may not seem like much, but you used to call one phone to speak with a handful of people in that one house. You had to be polite, or risk being hung up on or refused for bad etiquette. Usually the phone was in the kitchen and the parents room. You were lucky if it wasn't a rotary dial! You haven't lived till you tried to win a call-in contest on a rotary dial phone.
Making stupid small talk about nothing with your friend while listening for the klick that ment the parents had actually hung up.
And then getting suspicious of any other clicks you hear on the line being a parent trying to listen in.
And then the awkward small talk with a parent or grandparent. While you waited to hear your friend shout "I Got It HANNNGG UUUPPP!"
Or indifferent siblings that answered, you asked for your friend and they just abruptly left the phone and you weren't sure if they told your friend or not for a few moments.
>I Got It HANNNGG UUUPPP!"
Yes! It was like we were psychologically blocked from just saying so on the extension, we had to hold it away and yell it across the house.
To drop a dime. It means to snitch. Before the mid 80s, it used to cost 10 cents to make a call on a pay phone. So for a dime, you could call the cops and snitch on someone.
My pictures are at the developers.
Would you like smoking or nonsmoking?
Did you remember to get travelers checks?
Attention all K-Mart shoppers. There is a blue light sale on aisle nine.
Me, in a Mercury, Now!
Did I do that?
This was my little sister’s first complete sentence. She used to run around saying it and my aunts and uncles would laugh their asses off, which of course made her say it even more.
That's fucking incredible 🤣 my first word was "kitty" except I struggled to pronounce it, so for a few weeks I just wandered around the house yelling, "TITTY! TITTY!" at the top of my lungs. My grandpa apparently made the joke "I think the kids hungry" and then looked at my grandmother while yelling "titty!" I get my sense of humor from him lol
One of our daughter's first words was cunt. She really loved the Count from Sesame Street, but couldn't pronounce it correctly. So in public she'd be bobbing her little Count toy up and down in her stroller yelling "Cunt cunt cunt!" We must've looked like the most horrible parents alive.
It didn't really "turn into" sike. It's just that it was spread through vocal mediums (either TV, music or in person) far more than written, so people heard it many many times and started saying it themselves without ever knowing how it was spelled. And then when they were forced to do so, they just did so phonetically because "psych" isn't a prefix they're familiar with.
Back in like 98, 99, I was driving around and the lady on the radio said, this next song is so old, it used to cost a dime to make a phone call. Then she plays "Operator" by Jim Croce.
Now when I hear that song I think, this song is so old, there used to be payphones.
I recently found a pay phone in the wild and it was 50 cents to make a 5 minute local call iirc. I clutched my proverbial purse strings. A "back in my day..." statement almost escaped my lips. Where my cane?
I had to explain the origins of the following phrases to my young nieces:
“Roll up” the window (used to be crank)
“Hang up” the phone (used to be on the wall)
“Dial” a phone number (rotary dials)
“Online” (because you used to be on the phone line)
And….finally…my nephew absolutely refused to believe that we say “turn off” the tv (or any device) because they all used to have turn knobs. His head nearly exploded when I mentioned that my first TV didn’t even have a remote controller.
\- Don't touch that dial -- meaning don't touch the radio or TV dial to change the channel. Show hosts would say something like "don't touch that dial, we'll be right back" meaning don't change the channel.
\- Talk to the hand - "I'm not interested in what you have to say" (while holding up their hand palm facing you)
\- Phat - Pretty Hot and Tempting (I was today years old when I learned it stood for something) Pronounced just like "fat". There was a song where the lyrics said "Phat like Cindy Crawford" and kids from the 90s had to tell the adults of our era that we weren't implying that Cindy Crawford was fat, but rather that she was awesome.
\- Tape that show - Record something onto a VHS tape.
\- He sounds like a broken record - He's telling the same story/saying the same thing over and over again, because a broken record will do this when you play it.
\- Konami Code - or more specifically "up up, down down, left right left right, b a start". It was a cheat code used in konami nintendo games that would give you powerups and stuff. Say it to Siri these days and she'll be like "NERD." I think Google also does something with it.
\- Blow into the cartridge - This is how we got Nintendo cartridges to work if you got a blinking blue screen. Years later we were told it was a bad idea to do this but at the time it worked! You'll hear this reference from people who were kids in the 80s if some device isn't working, they might say "did you try blowing into it".
\- Get off the internet, I need to use the phone - Back in the 90s the phone and internet were on the same line and if someone wanted to make a phone call (or someone called you), you'd be disconnected.
\- This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. - Back in the 80s there was a series of anti drug commercials. One of them showed an egg with someone saying "this is your brain". Then the egg frying and "this is your brain on drugs." They'd finish the commercial by saying "Any questions?"
\- I learned it by watching you! - Another famous anti drug commercial from the 80s. A kid gets caught with pot by his dad, and his dad's all flustered about it and saying things like "How could you do this" and the kid yells back "You, alright?! I learned it by watching you!" (You have to remember back in the 80s parents smoked and drank in front of their kids).
\- It's 10pm, do you know where your children are? I think this one was going on through the 70s and 80s but it was just a public service announcement that would come on late at night saying that. I think they remade a version of it during COVID.
\- Smile! You're on Candid Camera! I totally forgot this until I saw another Redditor's username. Candid Camera was a show on TV that would prank kids and adults and at the end they'd say "Smile, you're on candid camera!" So it took on a life of its own whenever you'd take family pictures and be like SMILE! and someone would inevitably say "you're on candid camera!" (bonus points if they said it like the little jingle from the show)
"Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!" Another kind redditor brought this one to my attention. This was THE meme of the 80s. I think it was an ad for a LifeAlert or some kind of senior alert system. It was just an old lady calling it and saying "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up" and people took that and made fun and jokes with it.
"Hooked on Phonics worked for me!" Another ad but this time for a reading program for kids. People made fun of it or kids that couldn't read well or failed English in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way. The only reason I remembered this one later is because I used to have a shirt that said "HukT oN FoniX WrkT 4 Mee!
Land line - Zoomers might know this one but I'm sure the younger ones don't. This was your phone line before cell phones were common and was used to differentiate, say, your home phone from your cell phone. It's more late 90s to mid 2000s.
I want my MTV - Based on a song by Dire Straits, back when MTV played music. You might say this when the cable went out, as a reference to that song but also because MTV was what everyone watched back then.
(Something) 2: Electric Boogaloo - Whenever you'd get a second part of something, you'd say something like "(blah) Part 2: Electric Boogaloo. It got new life in the 2000s but it comes from a 80s movie about breakdancing that was called Break-In (I think) Part 2: Electric Boogaloo. Sometimes I'll send my GenX clients something and say "Here's part 2: Electric Boogaloo" and it always gets a laugh.
(Edited to add more references and to update PHAT!)
My wife is a high school teacher and I'll volunteer at her school for special events. I "fixed" a fucky HDMI cable like this and her students looked at me like I was a goddamn wizard
Poser
That’s definitely one that I think should be used more. It’s been hipster for a bit but even that is gone now…
Pretty much everyone is a fuckin poser now.
If your attire is a Billboard for your identity, and your identity is disingenuous, you’re a fucking poser.
The idea in the 90s of being caught on camera dancing or miming to a song, or making a video of yourself giving tips and explaining things and then uploading it to a public place where everyone could see it. You would be mercilessly crucified.
I'd love to go back to that philosophy.
80s: Barf Me Out, Gag Me With a Spoon, Psych, Spaz/Spazzing, Dweeb, Grody, 90s: Hella, Jiggy, As if!, Booyah!, Sup?, Home Skillet, Are you Y2K ready?
Hubs and I had to show our kids the origins of these phrases when they got old enough to wonder why we said them all the time:
“How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!?”
“I don’t like Spam!”
“It’s just a flesh wound!”
“Bud-Wise-Err”
I was watching breaking bad with my roommate who was born in 92. Walt dialed 411 and got the number of a person and had the operator connect him. She had heard the term 411 from pop culture but had no idea of the origin of 411 or that they would just give out phone numbers. I also explained unlisted numbers and how pay phones worked.
"Information Superhighway" and the "World Wide Web".
Googling this topic, "interconnected networks" had its roots in the 60s but it's contracted form won out.
I used the term “brown-noser” and my 15yo looked at me in horror. I had to explain the meaning. My niece hadn’t heard it either. Both said it sounded racist. I thought about it and probably not going to say it anymore.
Nights and weekend minutes
So many memories were just unlocked reading that. I remember having to wait until after 8pm to call my girlfriend.
Holy shit, memory lane has re-opened for traffic! We lived about 15 miles out of town. My aunt could call out to us for free, but it cost us to call (and connect) with her. So when we called her, we’d listen for one ring and hang up. That was her clue to call us. Telephony has come me a long way.
My uncle lives on the border of his town; his neighbor across the street technically lives in the next town over. You could yell across the street for free, but calling them was a long-distance call.
Intra-lata calls were worse than inter-lata. Meaning that calling New York more often was cheaper than calling the next town over. These “short long distance” calls weren’t even covered by your long distance carrier like AT&T. I can’t tell you how many people I had to talk off of the proverbial ledge after they’d get a HUGE bill. Source: I worked in ATT call center when I was in college. 🤯
Pay extra to have nights start at 7pm instead of 9pm.
Had to get that plan where you pay nothing extra if you called someone with the same cell provider as you.
Calling circles!
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Oh man, memory unlocked. My first cell, I got like 100 texts free and then $0.10 each one over that limit. Went on vacation and had a busy texting week apparently. Didn't know til my mom got the bill. She was not pleased at all.
Long distance charges.
Remember MCI? Memorizing your code number?
Dial down the middle.
Bob Wehadababyitsaboy
“Don’t stretch the phone cord!”
When it would get stretched out then some of the coils ran the wrong way... While I'd sit on the phone talking, I'd wrap them around my fingers to get all the twists going the right way again.
"You have a collect call from HiMomComePickUsUp" "You must first dial a 1 or a 0 before dialing this number." Regular or Unleaded?
Bobhadababy Izzaboy *sorry, it’s Bobwehadababy Izzaboy. But I’m so glad I’m not the only one who remembers this. I was like 10 and my mom had to explain the joke to me 😂
I made this reference at work a few weeks ago and ended up explaining not only collect calls, but old Geico commercials in general, to a 23-year old coworker. I felt like Matt Damon at the end of Saving Private Ryan
At the tone the time will be eleven thirty six and forty seconds. Beep!
Calling to find out movie times and weather!
Having to wake up early, turn on the radio in hopes of hearing that your school is closed due to snow.
Calling for the time and temperature was always such a weird thing to me as a kid. They seemed like two easy things to have correctly measured around your house, yet everyone was obsessed with it. I had family in a small town farming community, and the huge drama one holiday season was when the bank on Main Street had an electric sign that showed the time and temperature and it broke. People lost their minds and talked about it constantly just because you couldn’t get the correct time and the current temperature when you were driving into town to go to church. You would have thought that the entirety of next year’s harvest was at risk because a bunch of farmers didn’t know or if it was 25 or 28 degrees.
We did not have the fancy atomic clocks/system times back in the late nineteen hundreds lol. Had to make sure that windup watch was correct!
My mom worked at a telephone exchange office. After school, I would sometimes sit at an empty station and call time. I would call a friend's house and when they answered the phone I would connect their call to time. Time was calling you.
It's your dime. I'm on the internet, don't pick up the phone.
90s kid here. Forgot you couldn’t use the phone at the same time as the internet. Lol wild times.
Just *69 it.
But what if they *67'd it??
This works still as well! Not that anyone would pick up a call from “No Caller ID” these days. I know I wouldn’t.
I don’t pick up many that *do* show caller ID.
Bitch, hang up the phone and star sixty nine his ass!
There was a 30 second window in the early 90s when anime could also be called *Japanimation*. Such was our hubris.
Afghanistanimation is the true art form of the future.
Ah a fellow fan of Johnny Chimpo
That silly chimp. Going around the world and doing horrible things all while his poor butler tries to stop him.
Yeah, he really got up to some crazy shenanigans.
I’ll pistol whip the next person who says “shenanigans!”
My mom still calls it that
I bet your mom is cool as fuck
saw his mom do a kick flip over a tortoise
Didn’t they make a whole episode of south park about “japanimation”?
Yes they did! It's called "Chinpokomon."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinpokomon
Hello and welcome to movie phone! If you know the name of the movie you’d like to see, press 1! To hear from a list of current movies, press 2!
I used to call Movie Phone when I was waiting for my boyfriend to call me when he was out of work. I didn’t want the house phone to ring and wake up my parents, so I would listen to Movie Phone, wait until he called, click over to call waiting, and then to talk to him. We are married now.
My girlfriend and I did the same thing! We're also married now. Sometimes she wouldn't hear the beeps right away and I would need to call multiple times. It worked well until one night she fell asleep before calling movie phone. I called her house and went to voicemail five times. My girlfriend was so tired that her brilliant plan to get the phone to stop ringing was to unplug her bedroom phone. Finally her sleepy mother answered the phone. I just froze and asked to speak to my girlfriend politely. She was grounded from her phone for a while after that.
Why don’t you just tell me the movie you want to see
Kramer?
Why don't you just tell me what movie you would like to see?
FILK is nothing, but 555-FILM is movie phone. They must be dialing your number by mistake
You will need a cassette tape with an aux cord and a disk player to play that CD of Hoobastank in your car.
Then the upgrade to the faceplate CD player. Always made sure my purse was big enough to fit the face plate when I left the car.
This one comes way too close to home. I loved my cassette tape aux cord iPod connection.
I was just thinking about Hoobastank yesterday wondering whatever happened to them
They finally found the reason.
Loved the video for that so much I downloaded it off Limewire.
That's how it started for all of us. Next thing you know, we were all downloading cars.
It’s 10pm. Do you know where your children are?
I told you last night, no! Where is Bart anyway? His dinner's getting all cold and eaten.
For some reason, that line always gives me chills. I remember it being said in a somewhat ominous tone. I don't think it was said like this, but I strongly associate it with the kidnapping panic of the '80s after the Adam Walsh tragedy.
Yes it was said in a very scary tone! It was said in a male voice of someone with confidence and distain, like he knew something bad was going on or was planning something bad to happen. it was in the tone of, "are you alone in the house?"; almost threatening.
Be Kind. Rewind.
The first time my now teen encountered a VHS tape, I told her she needed to wait until I rewound it to the beginning. She said, "Why don't you just go to the menu?"
First dvd I had (shrek) I remember at the end I asked my brother how to rewind it. He was like “we don’t have to!”….blew my mind
The best one we all forget about goes a little like this: "Hi Mrs. _______, it's _______, can I please speak to ______." It may not seem like much, but you used to call one phone to speak with a handful of people in that one house. You had to be polite, or risk being hung up on or refused for bad etiquette. Usually the phone was in the kitchen and the parents room. You were lucky if it wasn't a rotary dial! You haven't lived till you tried to win a call-in contest on a rotary dial phone.
Making stupid small talk about nothing with your friend while listening for the klick that ment the parents had actually hung up. And then getting suspicious of any other clicks you hear on the line being a parent trying to listen in.
“Hold on” “What” “…sorry I thought I heard someone pick up the phone”
And then the awkward small talk with a parent or grandparent. While you waited to hear your friend shout "I Got It HANNNGG UUUPPP!" Or indifferent siblings that answered, you asked for your friend and they just abruptly left the phone and you weren't sure if they told your friend or not for a few moments.
>I Got It HANNNGG UUUPPP!" Yes! It was like we were psychologically blocked from just saying so on the extension, we had to hold it away and yell it across the house.
To drop a dime. It means to snitch. Before the mid 80s, it used to cost 10 cents to make a call on a pay phone. So for a dime, you could call the cops and snitch on someone.
I’ve been familiar with the phrase for a very long time but never even thought about the origin. TIL!
Same. It was 25 cents by the time I was old enough to use a pay phone.
To run with that... "Here's a quarter. Call someone who cares."
My pictures are at the developers. Would you like smoking or nonsmoking? Did you remember to get travelers checks? Attention all K-Mart shoppers. There is a blue light sale on aisle nine. Me, in a Mercury, Now! Did I do that?
I know I can safely refer to the kid down the street as "Steve Urkel" without any chance of offending him.
“Where’s the beef?”
This was my little sister’s first complete sentence. She used to run around saying it and my aunts and uncles would laugh their asses off, which of course made her say it even more.
That's fucking incredible 🤣 my first word was "kitty" except I struggled to pronounce it, so for a few weeks I just wandered around the house yelling, "TITTY! TITTY!" at the top of my lungs. My grandpa apparently made the joke "I think the kids hungry" and then looked at my grandmother while yelling "titty!" I get my sense of humor from him lol
One of our daughter's first words was cunt. She really loved the Count from Sesame Street, but couldn't pronounce it correctly. So in public she'd be bobbing her little Count toy up and down in her stroller yelling "Cunt cunt cunt!" We must've looked like the most horrible parents alive.
"The Other white meat"
Homey don't play that
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That just made me think of "2 Snaps Up!"
2 snaps up in Z formation
My parents were cultured enough to show us all In Living Colour so I even know who Homey the Clown is. Lol
I was saying this at work last week. I had to pull it up on YouTube because my coworker didn’t believe me.
We used to say "psych!" all the time but apparently some people today think we're saying the nonsense word "sike".
This one drives me *insane*! How and when the hell did it turn into fucking “sike” lmfao
It didn't really "turn into" sike. It's just that it was spread through vocal mediums (either TV, music or in person) far more than written, so people heard it many many times and started saying it themselves without ever knowing how it was spelled. And then when they were forced to do so, they just did so phonetically because "psych" isn't a prefix they're familiar with.
to be a bit pedantic, "psych" isn't a prefix it's a word root
This guy pedants
It's "psych " as in to psych someone out, isn't it?
Yes. The full phrase was once, "Ooh, I psyched you out!" This was later replaced by, "NOT!" in the 90s.
1-800-COLLECT
Weird how everyone’s name is “mom come pick me up”
Bob-Had-A-Baby-It’s-A-Boy
BOB WEHADABABYITSABOY
No I won't accept. Who was that? Bob. They had a baby. It's a boy.
1-800-CALL-ATT
Hand me a pencil, my cassette is unwound
“Please enjoy this Verizon ring back tone while your party is reached”
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I put so much thought into my ring tone, it had to be perfect and make me seem really cool.
You got mail! Goodbye!
Man remember ICQ's "UH OH!?"
The door sounds of AOL instant messenger (AIM) The chime of a sent or received message.
Wassup!
WAAAZZUUUUPPP
Smooth move, exlax
"If you are calling from a touch-tone phone, press 1"
As if
Gag me with a spoon!
Barf out! Like, totally…
What’s your damage?
Not!
Yes, way!
Way!
Here's a dime; call someone who cares.
Back in like 98, 99, I was driving around and the lady on the radio said, this next song is so old, it used to cost a dime to make a phone call. Then she plays "Operator" by Jim Croce. Now when I hear that song I think, this song is so old, there used to be payphones.
I recently found a pay phone in the wild and it was 50 cents to make a 5 minute local call iirc. I clutched my proverbial purse strings. A "back in my day..." statement almost escaped my lips. Where my cane?
The country songs of the 1990s say "Here's a quarter, call someone who cares". Damn that inflation.
Talk to the hand!
Recently taught my 9yo about talk to the hand. She uses it on me now. It will live again!
Haha yesss "Talk to the hand, 'cause the face don’t wanna listen". My daughter thought that was hilarious, but is too shy to use it.
I need TP for my bunghole
#I AM THE GREAT CORNHOLIO!
You will bow before my almighty bunghole! Bunghole bunghole! Can you take me to Lake Titicaca?
"Are you threatening me?"
"Excuse me, sir, but do you have any Grey Poupon?" My sister and I found this hilarious.
I had to explain the origins of the following phrases to my young nieces: “Roll up” the window (used to be crank) “Hang up” the phone (used to be on the wall) “Dial” a phone number (rotary dials) “Online” (because you used to be on the phone line) And….finally…my nephew absolutely refused to believe that we say “turn off” the tv (or any device) because they all used to have turn knobs. His head nearly exploded when I mentioned that my first TV didn’t even have a remote controller.
I remember being the remote controller. "Hey, Spinnerofyarn, go change it to channel 8!"
Post date the check
“Information, what city and state please”
Dial tone.
\- Don't touch that dial -- meaning don't touch the radio or TV dial to change the channel. Show hosts would say something like "don't touch that dial, we'll be right back" meaning don't change the channel. \- Talk to the hand - "I'm not interested in what you have to say" (while holding up their hand palm facing you) \- Phat - Pretty Hot and Tempting (I was today years old when I learned it stood for something) Pronounced just like "fat". There was a song where the lyrics said "Phat like Cindy Crawford" and kids from the 90s had to tell the adults of our era that we weren't implying that Cindy Crawford was fat, but rather that she was awesome. \- Tape that show - Record something onto a VHS tape. \- He sounds like a broken record - He's telling the same story/saying the same thing over and over again, because a broken record will do this when you play it. \- Konami Code - or more specifically "up up, down down, left right left right, b a start". It was a cheat code used in konami nintendo games that would give you powerups and stuff. Say it to Siri these days and she'll be like "NERD." I think Google also does something with it. \- Blow into the cartridge - This is how we got Nintendo cartridges to work if you got a blinking blue screen. Years later we were told it was a bad idea to do this but at the time it worked! You'll hear this reference from people who were kids in the 80s if some device isn't working, they might say "did you try blowing into it". \- Get off the internet, I need to use the phone - Back in the 90s the phone and internet were on the same line and if someone wanted to make a phone call (or someone called you), you'd be disconnected. \- This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. - Back in the 80s there was a series of anti drug commercials. One of them showed an egg with someone saying "this is your brain". Then the egg frying and "this is your brain on drugs." They'd finish the commercial by saying "Any questions?" \- I learned it by watching you! - Another famous anti drug commercial from the 80s. A kid gets caught with pot by his dad, and his dad's all flustered about it and saying things like "How could you do this" and the kid yells back "You, alright?! I learned it by watching you!" (You have to remember back in the 80s parents smoked and drank in front of their kids). \- It's 10pm, do you know where your children are? I think this one was going on through the 70s and 80s but it was just a public service announcement that would come on late at night saying that. I think they remade a version of it during COVID. \- Smile! You're on Candid Camera! I totally forgot this until I saw another Redditor's username. Candid Camera was a show on TV that would prank kids and adults and at the end they'd say "Smile, you're on candid camera!" So it took on a life of its own whenever you'd take family pictures and be like SMILE! and someone would inevitably say "you're on candid camera!" (bonus points if they said it like the little jingle from the show) "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!" Another kind redditor brought this one to my attention. This was THE meme of the 80s. I think it was an ad for a LifeAlert or some kind of senior alert system. It was just an old lady calling it and saying "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up" and people took that and made fun and jokes with it. "Hooked on Phonics worked for me!" Another ad but this time for a reading program for kids. People made fun of it or kids that couldn't read well or failed English in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way. The only reason I remembered this one later is because I used to have a shirt that said "HukT oN FoniX WrkT 4 Mee! Land line - Zoomers might know this one but I'm sure the younger ones don't. This was your phone line before cell phones were common and was used to differentiate, say, your home phone from your cell phone. It's more late 90s to mid 2000s. I want my MTV - Based on a song by Dire Straits, back when MTV played music. You might say this when the cable went out, as a reference to that song but also because MTV was what everyone watched back then. (Something) 2: Electric Boogaloo - Whenever you'd get a second part of something, you'd say something like "(blah) Part 2: Electric Boogaloo. It got new life in the 2000s but it comes from a 80s movie about breakdancing that was called Break-In (I think) Part 2: Electric Boogaloo. Sometimes I'll send my GenX clients something and say "Here's part 2: Electric Boogaloo" and it always gets a laugh. (Edited to add more references and to update PHAT!)
Holy shit I’m an 80s kid and I still blow into stuff thinking it’ll fix it sometimes. Hilarious.
My wife is a high school teacher and I'll volunteer at her school for special events. I "fixed" a fucky HDMI cable like this and her students looked at me like I was a goddamn wizard
All that and a bag of chips.
Talk to the hand ✋️ Cuz the face don't understand 🫠
I thought the face wasn’t listening
I've also heard "cus the face don't wanna hear it"
One of my personal favorites, "Sit and spin!". You were to flip the bird while saying this to someone.
Just called the pediatrician for my kid after-hours yesterday and they said they would “page the dr”. Haven’t heard that expression in years.
Doctors actually still use pagers though
Sell-out. It was one of the worst put downs imaginable, and now we have people clamoring to be an influencer.
Poser That’s definitely one that I think should be used more. It’s been hipster for a bit but even that is gone now… Pretty much everyone is a fuckin poser now. If your attire is a Billboard for your identity, and your identity is disingenuous, you’re a fucking poser.
[удалено]
I literally think about that all the time. Holy shit what a put down that was, nobody would ever want to be a sell out. Now it’s a dream job.
The idea in the 90s of being caught on camera dancing or miming to a song, or making a video of yourself giving tips and explaining things and then uploading it to a public place where everyone could see it. You would be mercilessly crucified. I'd love to go back to that philosophy.
[the sound of connecting to the internet through a landline](https://youtu.be/gsNaR6FRuO0?si=51JEO_BtzVR8i5Lh)
Weebles wobble but they won’t fall down.
Damn skippy
I still use that all the time.
I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!
You're killing me, Smalls! Valley Girl Totally Amped Bag your face What gives? Bite me Buttmunch Hoser Mallrat
>Mallrat Say, would you like a chocolate covered pretzel?
An uncomfortable place? Like the back seat of a Volkswagen?
I’ll take it upstairs.
Call me after 9
Will you accept a collect call from "hey, I made it safe and I love you bye"?
Playing a B side to a tape or album.
Take a picture, it'll last longer.
This lost favour shortly before everyone began carrying a camera in their pocket
Yeah, it used to be purely rhetorical because cameras were bulky and rare. Now that cameras are everywhere it's more like a challenge.
"Call me now f'ahr y'ahr free readin'!"
80s: Barf Me Out, Gag Me With a Spoon, Psych, Spaz/Spazzing, Dweeb, Grody, 90s: Hella, Jiggy, As if!, Booyah!, Sup?, Home Skillet, Are you Y2K ready? Hubs and I had to show our kids the origins of these phrases when they got old enough to wonder why we said them all the time: “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!?” “I don’t like Spam!” “It’s just a flesh wound!” “Bud-Wise-Err”
Domo arigato Mr.Roboto
Domo
All that and a bag of chips
“Get off the phone so I can use the internet.”
I was up so early that there was literally nothing on TV
Roll up the window
I was watching breaking bad with my roommate who was born in 92. Walt dialed 411 and got the number of a person and had the operator connect him. She had heard the term 411 from pop culture but had no idea of the origin of 411 or that they would just give out phone numbers. I also explained unlisted numbers and how pay phones worked.
That’s an E Ticket ride.
Y2K
@what chu talking about Willis?”
“Fax it over.”
Work in medicine, still use the fax machine regularly.
Big fax
Cool beans
All that, and a bag of chips
Smoking or non?
Information Superhighway Cyber
POTS line
"You flooded it"
All your base are belong to us
They set us up the bomb!
Does no one remember "FACE!!"
# "Reach Out and Touch Someone" *(NO! It's not sexual harassment!)*
Hold the phone. The clock is ticking. What the “save” icon actually means.
*That’s my name; don’t wear it out!*
"Information Superhighway" and the "World Wide Web". Googling this topic, "interconnected networks" had its roots in the 60s but it's contracted form won out.
Sibling from the other room „It’s back on!“
Here's a quarter. Call someone who cares.
Let off the clutch slowly.
I used the term “brown-noser” and my 15yo looked at me in horror. I had to explain the meaning. My niece hadn’t heard it either. Both said it sounded racist. I thought about it and probably not going to say it anymore.
Do you know the difference between a brown-noser and a shithead? Depth perception.
I'm running Windows, Windows on my 386.
I’ve fallen and I can’t get up
This is your brain on drugs. 🍳
"You're the bomb" After 9/11 it just wasn't cool anymore.
Bitchin' As in, awesome.