Who’s gonna tell these young whippersnappers the truth?
Posted by Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 411 comments
Posted by Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 411 comments
wolvesarewildthings@reddit
It's neither the 1996-1999 nor 2000-2004 cohorts who embody "old school to new school" mix/transition. I agree with all of you that Xennials embody that tech-bridging concept better than Zillennials/Older Z. But even though I agree with that, none of you fist waving grandpas are representing us properly with all this bitching and moaning about how "wrong" we are.
The reason some of us (justifiably or not) feel that way is because we went from bulky Dell desktops sitting in our computer room/dining room to portable Macbooks; and went from cable and VHS to Blockbuster shutting down and witnessing the rise of DVDs and proceedingly Blu-Ray and then Netflix as both a site & physical rental service to later streaming; and also chalkboards to whiteboards to projectors to SmartBoards; and physical essays to virtual turn-ins to possibly ChatGPT writing our prompts in college. Saying we were born with an iPod or iPad in our hand is some exaggerated bullshit. We had CD players before Mp3 players and went on Last FM before Spotify. We coveted our siblings' Gamboy before getting our first DS. We had flip phones before smartphones. We were on Facebook as teens instead of TikTok. We were surfing pre-corporatized YouTube when we first started noticing tablet babies and found the sight novel/interesting because we didn't experience the same parental supervision/curating online nor had technological access as early as 2-6 years old. We're not old school, you're right. I'm fine with that and accept it as the truth. Just stop exaggerating how "new school" we are making it sound like we didn't see any payphones or landlines as kids or have only known Smart TVs when it was a huge fucking deal when we got our first flat screen TVs as teenagers. Stop acting like we were unaware of the Iraq War, President Bush, and '08 Recession. You're all a generation older than us but you are not old enough to be our parents which means you have every right to distinguish yourselves but should stop pretending we suffer from a different world esque age difference 'cause it looks stupid.
WaitUntilTheHighway@reddit
Lol anyone born in 2000 or later got approximately zero "old-school" anything
wolvesarewildthings@reddit
Most people born in 2000 were raised by parents born in the 60s and 70s who brought VCRs, stereos, film recorders, and TVs with antennas into the home during the primary decade we were raised but keep doing whatever you need to to separate yourselves lol. I don't agree with the meme that we were raised with the old school & new school evenly because there had been a computer in my house for as long as I can remember so instead I'd say we grew up in the most rapidly changing/transitional time and due to that a lot of old school tech/aspects of life were included in our pre-adolescence childhood even if it wasn't the most or exceeding Xennials for instance. Whether or not you care to admit it, the vast majority of people born in 2000 experienced landlines in early childhood and pre-digital cameras and pre-streaming from VHS to DVDs and tapes to CDs and several different models of cell phones and computers (with tablets not being popular during their childhood at all) but if you want to characterize them as the exact same as people born in 2010, you do you. We know what we experienced and it's pretty pointless shit to lie about lol.
Weekly-Bill-1354@reddit
I'd like to know what they think is "old-school"
panicinbabylon@reddit
The Juicy Couture track suits are back in style as vintage.
ActiveImportance4196@reddit
They don't know about russle athletics being the good stuff.
Asimovs_5th_Law@reddit
Or the clout that came with a fresh Starter jacket 😎
panicinbabylon@reddit
I often wonder what became of the kids who had the Miami Dolphins jackets.
Where are they now?
ForeignWoodpecker662@reddit
Personally missing my 49ers one and wishing I had kept it. Man, that shit is was too cool. You could put your discman perfectly into that front pocket that was the only one ever that it actually fit in properly; and the cord would just perfectly run out the one side of the Velcro not getting snagged on some dumb zipper while you waited at the bus stop, or walked home to your friends house after school.
panicinbabylon@reddit
No skip for the win
ForeignWoodpecker662@reddit
Anti-skip & digital Bass Boost!
panicinbabylon@reddit
Woah fancy did you you also hide your weed in the double tape deck of your boombox
ForeignWoodpecker662@reddit
Definitely in the side that had the record button
panicinbabylon@reddit
My mom still doesn’t know and she smokes weed.
It’s prolly some kind bud
panicinbabylon@reddit
Barnyard beasters
ForeignWoodpecker662@reddit
The shiggity shwag? Sticks & stems? 😅
panicinbabylon@reddit
I still smoke weed in answering my own comments.
JeffTheAndroid@reddit
Yeah we were all so excited to get them for Christmas... Only to have the junior high principal ban them for gang reasons.
Nowadays parents would throw a fit after spending that kind of money on a coat
panicinbabylon@reddit
Hugs not drubs yo
Slippery-Pete76@reddit
I still have a Starter jacket (and a couple Zubaz hats).
onedrrboy@reddit
I still have my Detroit Lions pullover that my parents gifted for Christmas in either 1993 or 1994. It fits more snuggly than it did in middle school, but I still rock it when sledding with the kids or shoveling the driveway.
rharper38@reddit
I have my Kentucky Wildcats one. Loudest jacket ever, but it kept you warm
ActiveImportance4196@reddit
I am actually wearing Starter sweat pants at this very moment, old habits die hard I guess.
Skylineviewz@reddit
With a sick jansport backpack slung over one shoulder
DoctorFenix@reddit
I still wear it on one shoulder.
ActiveImportance4196@reddit
Hahaha these 2 shoulder pussies nowadays.
SweetJ138@reddit
i loved those trashy ass things on the right body type lol. JUICY over the ass was the best marketing.
OnlyGuestsMusic@reddit
Digital cameras and iPods.
SBSnipes@reddit
The first one yes, the second one is arguing it's CDs and DVDs
citrus_sugar@reddit
Fuuuuucckkkk hahaha. My dad was so proud when he got me a word processor typewriter in the 90s to type out my school papers.
SPacific@reddit
My parents got me an electric typewriter in 1992 for schoolwork. It seemed so cool and modern.
IlikegreenT84@reddit
In the early 90's we had 'the family computer' that we all had to take turns to use.
We had two TVs too, one in the living room and one in my parents room..
I had a tape player, and a Gameboy..
Our cd player was a massive thing that was wired into the receiver for my dad's old sound system with analog cables.
He was proud of it too, it cost $300+ in 1990...
SirClarkus@reddit
You had TWO TVs? Fancy!
J/k, yeah, other than the 2 tvs, that describes my childhood exactly
IlikegreenT84@reddit
One of them was tiny and had two knobs, no remote..
Years later we got a little box that gave it a remote, but it was interesting having to "tune" the TV like a radio.
Kinda like this one, except a little smaller.
compulov@reddit
My parents didn't even want to go that route. I ended up with an old-ass manual Underwood typewriter which I know was older than I am, and maybe even older than my parents... that was until my grandmother got me my first computer.
trucker_dan@reddit
Remember the crazy ball type writers? You could change the balls to change the font. I member.
According-Hat-5393@reddit
IBM Selectric. Fastest typewriter ever made IIRC. I timed my Mom on hers at 93 Words Per Minute (WPM) when she was about 20 years "out of practice." Her hands were two blurs.
Cleveland_Grackle@reddit
I used one out of choice...
...the year after doing everything in PowerPoint and using up all the colored ink! I remember some Geography homework done this way that just got a ✔️ and a sarcastic 'Very Pretty'
citrus_sugar@reddit
My desk was an old Singer sewing machine desk that had to have been over 300 lbs so that was the ultimate anachronism from my younger days.
Cleveland_Grackle@reddit
I discovered an old manual typewriter in the attic and did schoolwork on that just because.. (mid-late 90s, we had a PC by that point)
Scoobert917@reddit
I had a Brother typewriter that had a small digital screen that displayed the last 15 characters before typing onto the page, so I could edit. It was such a useful feature. I loved that thing. It was short lived tho, as better tech was already out there.
TollyVonTheDruth@reddit
Lucky. I had a manual Brother typwriter with the awesome feature of self-return, but that was it.
AppropriateTouching@reddit
Same with my mom. I used that word processor to make second edition dnd player sheets (and maybe some school stuff).
Dark-Empath-@reddit
When I started working, everyone had a computer but everything was then printed out on dot matrix printers. We still used faxes, typewriters, carbon copy paper and tipex (correction fluid).
About 15 years ago the company moved to the concept of “paperless” and clean desks. It was such a culture shock that some of the older staff started giving up and putting in for early retirement, which I thought hilarious. Now in the past year, they have taken away the phone handsets and calls to my phone number now end up going through an app on my laptop. No phone involved. When they broke the news, I caught myself mentally doing the maths on my retirement age….
random9212@reddit
I remember handing in a school paper I wrote on a legit typewriter, and it wasn't considered weird.
AugustWest80@reddit
Commodore 64 Mr doo style
TransportationOk657@reddit
Lol, I remember using my mom's in the late 80s. So much better than writing by hand or using a typewriter.
MagnumPIsMoustache@reddit
My mom had one that let you type one line into an lcd screen and edit it before it printed. Saved so much whiteout
1_art_please@reddit
I work part time at a college and was surprised when I saw a student taking photos with a disposable camera. I asked her about it and she said, ' Everyone is into film again'. They cost $20 ea plus whatever it is for developing 18 shots.
I mentioned sometimes weddings would have one at each reception table for guests to take photos for thr bride and groom and they thought this was ' a fucking amazing idea'.
I'm sure there are instagrams of people's 18 shot rolls from disposable cameras out there.
Spamberguesa@reddit
I have to say, I'm actually kind of irritated people are getting back into film photography, because it's gotten far more expensive. I've had a Minolta SRT-202 since I was a teenager, and for a long time, film and development were dirt-cheap because nobody was using it. Now, a single roll can run you $30+, and developing it is another $20.
Crayola_ROX@reddit
Ps2
crystallmytea@reddit
Mac Miller
BooRadley_ThereHeIs@reddit
Whatever social media platform was popular vs what they use now. Young people don't understand how online they really are.
5l339y71m3@reddit
Live journal was lunched 1999 but if you were a goth you probably used dead journal
iam.bme y2k it says here but I could have sworn my iam bme yearbook said 98 and the site benzine was launched in 94. iam is the social network for bmezine.
Also launched in august y2k was Deviant art
Friendster and MySpace didn’t launch till 2003 and Facebook was 2004 but Ivy League college only in the begining
Alarmed_Horse_3218@reddit
If you were goth you were on rotten.com
5l339y71m3@reddit
If you were a weak pleb
Shownonercy is where it was; rotten didn’t get shut down until recently but shownomercy disappeared before 04 for countless violations reports on its content.
Rotten was child’s play.
Alarmed_Horse_3218@reddit
Lmao what?
apeters89@reddit
icebeancone@reddit
That was until like 2006 for my family though lol
LeadZeppolli@reddit
Probably their mom using a Nextel
Expert_Survey3318@reddit
🤣🤣🤣
macheath77@reddit
I promise you they're talking about meme culture. They grew up on Minecraft and rode Skibidi Toilet into college. Peak civilization.
When it comes to pop culture, it's all clips on Tiktok. Technology has always been touch screens and internet.
adimadoz@reddit
Yeah I'm guessing they're thinking about going from flip phones to smart phones. While Xennials started with landlines and no cell phones.
Cleveland_Grackle@reddit
Landlines? You mean rotary dial job like this - ours was that colour too.
adimadoz@reddit
Our rotary was a tan/beige color
Newgeta@reddit
8 tracks, 45lps, rotary phones, calling the operator for information, dial up modems, monochrome PCs with thermal printers, pre Internet BBS boards and chats
its_raining_scotch@reddit
We’re the last generation to have familiarity with stuff from the early 20th century. A xennial could go back in time to like 1940 and have a working knowledge of pretty much everything. Telegrams, typewriters, pay phones, operators, paper maps, radios, remoteless tv with 10 channels, black and white shows/movies, even milkmen in some cases.
Someone born between 1996 and 2004? No fuckin way. They missed all of that stuff. Our generation’s childhood is basically the same as kids from 90 years ago except we got digital stuff added to it incrementally while still doing the analog stuff.
I’d say that by 1995 if you were born that year you’d have almost no exposure to any of that stuff growing up unless it was in your grandparents attic or something.
Slippery-Pete76@reddit
We also have done research online as well as using encyclopedias and looking up books in the card catalog. We’ve used microfilm and microfiche, we’ve seen newspapers at the library on the long wooden sticks. We’ve gone from filmstrips in class to VHS tapes on the TVs wheeled into the classroom to DVD and Blu-ray and watching stuff online.
pardonmyass@reddit
I remember having to stand in the middle of the road in front of my parents house for my first cell phone to get even a hint of signal.
Allaplgy@reddit
I remember having a payphone at the park we all hung out at that allowed incoming calls. We were way ahead of the game in being able to call out friends when they weren't home. Oh, and of course we could page the weed guy there for a dub.
its_raining_scotch@reddit
We’d prank call the pay phones. In fact there was one in my town that I could still call until last year. I went through my box of teenager stuff that was in my dad’s garage recently and found my list of pay phone numbers and their locations. We used to make the prank call rounds with it and hit the mall, airport, Longs Drug Store, coffee shop, even the phone in our town’s fancy boarding school.
Not one of those payphones still exists :(
karma_made_me_do_eet@reddit
I grew up on Lake Huron and if you used your Motorola flip phone on the beach.. the signal would bounce across the lake to Michigan and connect as an international call.
Even if you were calling someone right next to you.
Those first bills got a lot of our phones taken away.
SleestakSamurai@reddit
Lol, yeah, my family's very first "mobile phone" was a bag phone that my mom's work gave to her (she was an on-call hospice nurse at the time). I remember thinking it was so cool that she had a phone that she could take anywhere. Then, a little while later, they gave her one of those early Motorola cell phones (the big brick with the retractable antenna and flip-down receiver). Felt like we were truly living in the future.
2bad-2care@reddit
To be fair, in 1995, if I had something from 1972, I would've probably referred to it as "old school."
Emotional_Lettuce251@reddit
Came her to say this. A 12 year old in 2012 experience nothing "old school" Hell, iPhones had been out for like 4 years.
Alarmed_Horse_3218@reddit
Right? I was born in '84. I began school with type writer classes and the Dewey decibel system and graduated high school with PCS, the Internet, and our teachers expecting us to source all of our homework through it lmao. Went from Alexander Graham Bell to Microsoft in a k-12 window lmao.
activelyresting@reddit
I just asked my born-2003 kid what she thinks "old school" is, and she said "wide leg low rise jeans and Nirvana, retro is really in right now". 😭
Particular_Cost369@reddit
Probably having to endure a video buffering before it played.
867-53-oh-nein@reddit
Thier first tv was a plasma.
gwizonedam@reddit
Having a “dumb” phone. CD’s. Having “Their Dad” still living with them. The usual stuff…
TransportationOk657@reddit
Flip phones and maybe TVs that weren't plasma or LCD
Because_I_Cannot@reddit
They're old enough to remember Blackberry phones? haha
5l339y71m3@reddit
blackberry phones are still a thing in 2018
Because_I_Cannot@reddit
The article you sent is from 2018, they stopped making phones in 2022. The phones being sold by Walmart are unlocked, refurbished phones that will have absolutely zero support from Blackberry directly. Blackberry continues to be a tech company, specializing in cybersecurity, which is why you can still buy their stock
A link directly to Blackberry's Website
DETRITUS_TROLL@reddit
"Vintage" digital cameras are all the rage with the youths right now. They all want that retro digital photo look.
RaphaelSolo@reddit
Atari and 8-bit gaming in general. Very proud of my gamer son in that respect he has a lot of love and respect for early gaming.
elcheapodeluxe@reddit
First gen iphone?
gooch_norris_@reddit
PlayStation 4
Jets237@reddit
according to r/OldSchoolCool anything before 2000 is welcome...
gross
Wolf_Parade@reddit
Playstation 3.
symonym7@reddit
Anything not in a cloud
thesmellnextdoor@reddit
Right? By the time they were reading and writing everyone already had iPhones.
skankhunt_191@reddit
It’s all relative.
JavaOrlando@reddit
Exactly. Anything before your time is "new" and before is "old."
It's like with driving. Anyone going faster than you is a dangerous maniac, and anyone slower needs to get the hell off the road.
skankhunt_191@reddit
😂 That’s right. Or, I was born in ‘85 and there are people in the sub born in ‘75. We have completely different definitions of old school between us.
senik@reddit
People older than me laugh when I talk about 80’s. But I had older siblings so I was exposed to a lot of pop culture and introduced to a lot of things when I was young, like computers. I don’t think it’s fair to criticize kids born before the smart phone era, since a lot of them probably do remember it, and likely didn’t get fancy phones until they were well older.
Cool_in_a_pool@reddit
Right? If you were born in 2004 you literally grew up with Artificial Intelligence.
DIGDAY@reddit
Big cap. I'm born early 2000s and experienced vhs, cassettes, gameboys, life without Internet and so on
Paramedickhead@reddit
wat? No you didn't... I had broadband cable internet and a DVD player in 2001.
You didn't experience that life any more than i experienced the 8 track and vinyl era because my parents had some old vinyl laying around the house.
wondersparrow@reddit
I used my paper route money to get broadband cable internet in 1997. Booya!
DIGDAY@reddit
Yes I didn't have much growing up. It caused me to go outside more and experience the world. Open my eyes and see whats infront of me and use the library for what isn't.
When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor
Paramedickhead@reddit
I grew up with a single parent of 3 who worked at Walmart through the 90’s…
Dial up was pretty much dead when you were born. Broadcasters were already using digital when you were born. We already had satellite radio when you were born. Cell phones were in common use. Digital 2G cell phones were a thing. You completely missed an entire generation of cell phones when you had to manually change networks in the phone and they would only work in cities.
You didn’t experience old school anything unless you consider flip
w0lfLars0n@reddit
“Sharing data with usb sticks” is old school to you lol. Thank you for proving our point.
DIGDAY@reddit
I'm starting to think Gen X are the new boomers. The similarities are far too similar to deny.
w0lfLars0n@reddit
Well you’re in the wrong sub for gen xers, bub. They’re down the hall.
burf@reddit
If you experienced life without internet being born after 2000 you just grew up poor or with weird parents. Internet access was ubiquitous by 2000. Same goes for VHS and cassettes, unless you’re referring to your parents’ stockpile of media from prior decades.
peritonlogon@reddit
The roads were still made out of asphalt back then.
Big_Dumb_Himbo@reddit
when does old school start? what year
tmac19822003@reddit
Around 2000 ironically. Before then, The Undertaker just called it “walking the ropes”
imthewronggeneration@reddit
Being born mid 90s is definitely a blessing. :)
mmmmpork@reddit
Imagine never having lived in a pre 9/11/01 era. What a crazy fucking life
I have 3 nieces, the oldest was born in 2008. Her life experience is so wildly different from how I grew up. The things she accepts as normal boggles my mind.
Ham_Wallet_Salad@reddit
Any man who must say I am the greatest generation is no true greatest generation.
TurnoverTrick547@reddit
What about 1999 and the late 90s borns?
JackSpadesSI@reddit
By the time they were teenagers it was just about 10 years ago. So old school is one decade??
_1457_@reddit
Old school is just what your folks/grand folks grew up with. It feels weird to be on the other side of it now, but it's rad to see how kids take cultural elements from our time and make it their own.
Cutthechitchata-hole@reddit
My daughter was born in 2000. She shuns technology other than a smart phone which is basic need in this day.
CatchMeIfYouCan09@reddit
🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌
dyllandor@reddit
Even calling things old-school were old-school before they were born
Queen_Of_InnisLear@reddit
Holy shit how wide my eyes opened. Old school in 2000??? If you did t grow up dialing a phone with a cord hold your peace lol
Oh_Another_Thing@reddit
Almost nobody had a computer when I was a kid. Then as a teenager computers and internet became commonplace. Being born in the 80's saw this very unique time. If you were born after 2000, there was never a time you didn't have computers, phones, tablets, and internet. Even if you didn't have them at home, they were still common enough for you.
TPconnoisseur@reddit
Man, Boomers had it so good and then screwed everything up. Imagine getting a pension from a job you only needed a basic education for.
Bleahyy@reddit
Hahaha. Seriously, I started a college degree with an analog version of a technology and finished it on the digital version of that technology. Old school and modern is nothing compared to the jump of analog to digital.
ARCHA1C@reddit
And pre/post-internet is the great divide
ActiveImportance4196@reddit
Yep, they'll never know about burning their hands on a 9000 degree creepy crawler mold while getting high on the fumes just for entertainment.
protossaccount@reddit
Ya, I left mine in too long and burned the shit out of my molds. Powerful little oven they sold us.
jljboucher@reddit
The girly girls would get easybakes they were a lot more dangerous than the ones they sold when my kid got one.
CptCheesesticks81@reddit
Between that thing and Mr. Sketch markers, I’m still surprised we’re alive.
jljboucher@reddit
Elmer’s Paste, anyone?!
Spamberguesa@reddit
I loved those Mr. Sketch markers. I kept them to sniff long after they went dry.
CptCheesesticks81@reddit
Yep, green apple ftw!
Paramedickhead@reddit
Nah, I think it's pre/post Dewey Decimal System.
CptCheesesticks81@reddit
I LOVED the Dewey decimal system. So convenient.
t_bone_stake@reddit
Same. Nothing like going to the card catalog to look up a book and having the chance if it’s available or not
CptCheesesticks81@reddit
Sounds weird but… The card catalog always smelled amazing. The wooden cabinets, the bristol board cars… I miss 1980’s libraries so much.
Spamberguesa@reddit
You know...you just made me think of a thing. So many scents of our childhoods plain don't exist anymore. Remember the scent of mimeograph paper? I swear even the smell of rubber toys was different than it is today. I can still smell Koosh balls, and those big rubber balls we played dodgeball with in P.E.. Maybe I'm nuts, but I never got that from my kids' toys. And of course all the things that were metal for us are plastic now.
CptCheesesticks81@reddit
Oh I hear ya, totally. So many smells just don’t exist or aren’t commonplace anymore. As for the metal toys, that reminds of why GoBots were always inferior to Transformers toys. GoBots were entirely plastic and most Transformers had die-cast bodies. You could knock a mofo out with a Transformer.
Spamberguesa@reddit
I never had any Transformers, but my cousin did, and it made for a pretty effective blunt-force weapon against our other cousin, lol. I had this robin's-egg blue metal car that looked like something from the 50s -- it was far too big to be a Matchbox racer, but much too small to be a Barbie car, though I jammed a Barbie or two in it anyway. I wish I knew what happened to it.
random9212@reddit
I loved it when microfiche was the high-tech method of cataloging books in the library.
Slippery-Pete76@reddit
How about those microfilm rolls? I used to love loading one of those up and just spinning that wheel to see where it stops.
CptCheesesticks81@reddit
Oh hell yeah. It felt like you were James Bond or the 80’s equivalent of those hacker scenes from 90’s movies.
dkonigs@reddit
I more distinctly remember a hybrid. The low-tech school libraries had those physical card catalogs, while the public libraries were all already using computerized systems.
(okay, you accessed this computer via a VT220 terminal, but still...)
Harlockarcadia@reddit
I lucked out to benon the phasing out of the card catalog, but I still had to search the old computer running the libraries Dos program to get the decimals to go find the book in the aisles
NegotiationLow2783@reddit
And slide rules for calculators.
Paramedickhead@reddit
Eh… no, not really…
Solid state electronic calculators were pretty early on to be a dividing point between “old school” and “modern”.
ARCHA1C@reddit
Throw Microfiche in there!
Crafty-Gain-6542@reddit
I had to explain to someone I work with that while it still was not a great idea at the time, it was far safer to use you social security number as a student id number, because the internet was not what it is now. Blew their mind. The part about the SS number, obviously not the internet. I suspect most people are aware that it’s continuously evolving. Although, I can see where it would be shocking that the internet was so primitive that the SS number on a student id wasn’t as big of a deal.
Ooorrrrr… I was living in Florida at the time and all this speculation is meaningless, because Florida.
CptCheesesticks81@reddit
They made us use our SIN number as our employee login at Crappy Tire when I worked there in the late 90’s.
Sharessa84@reddit
They make us do that at my current job. I hate it.
kg51113@reddit
I worked retail and our social security number was how we clocked in and out. Managers typed their numbers into the registers when their approval was needed. Half of the time, they would just tell us their numbers.
Roundcouchcorner@reddit
Can confirm, Florida public school used my SS# as student ID but they added an X at the end. I think the cafeteria workers pioneer identity theft.
stlredbird@reddit
Yep. I started high school using a typewriter for reports. I ended it printing with windows 95.
p90rushb@reddit
My perfect example of xennial: I took typing class on an electric type writer in 1993. The next year's class took typing on 486/80mhz computers using typing software and Microsoft Works. I took drafting in 9th grade using big slanted desks, pencils, and huge papers. In 11th grade I took the next level drafting class and it had all switched to CAD.
Harlockarcadia@reddit
I got to learn to type in third grade on old stripped keyboards because there were two desktop Macs in each of our classrooms, none of this one to one business, I missed the typewriter era, closest older thing I got was them wheeling out the projector and putting the reels on, it was awesome when it came out
JohnLandisHasGotToGo@reddit
Impressive. Nearly as impressive as living through classic Looney Tunes and then graduating to Space Jam. That's the real measuring stick. MJ Space Jam, of course.
WaitUntilTheHighway@reddit
I remember entering a DOS prompt to access the CD Rom drive so I could play a computer game with the computer my dad brought home in the early 90s
BenjTheMaestro@reddit
I am still super grateful I got to start high school and broadcast journalism as the final class to get to use analog. I was kinda bummed when it all got taken out the end of my freshman year in 2003 but super grateful I got to learn and enjoy both.
JellicoAlpha_3_1@reddit
I started college in the late 90's
We used 3.5" floppy disks to backup assignments my first couple of semesters
Then, we got university email addresses (which was a new thing back in the day)
By the time I graduated, we used flash drives to back things up that we were turning in
I still vividly remember spending $35 on a 32MB flash drive when I was in college
media-and-stuff@reddit
I have a Zip drive for some of my college projects. I think that tech only lasted a couple years.
I’ve never seen a Zip driver other than at that school. lol
NoExam2412@reddit
I was a paralegal studies major.
In the first two semesters, I was in the law library manually pulling reporters for my case summaries. The next thing i knew, I was using Westlaw to look them up and... of course... printing them.
JellicoAlpha_3_1@reddit
Yeah it was crazy how much time I spent using the card catalog in high school only to get to college and their entire library was cataloged on computers
And zip drives...remember how they wanted to make zip drives a thing for like 2 semesters in the late 90's/early 00's and then poof...they all disappeared from the computer labs
Indubitalist@reddit
Zip drives were just a bridge between floppies and CDs. Because they were proprietary the drive and the Zip discs were expensive. Once burnable CDs were a thing Zip drives were only useful if you did a lot of back-and-fourth transfers and needed it to happen quickly, which meant their demand collapsed. I never owned one because I never quite needed one, and I was a heavy computer user. I’m hardly alone.
sactownbwoy@reddit
Haha, it wasn't college but the Marine Corps around that time. We had to use zip drives to move stuff around if you needed to use it on a different computer.. Zip drives didn't last long at all, I might still have mine from around that time.
LadyBogangles14@reddit
I remember getting a 4GB hard drive in my college computer thinking it was “definitely going to be big enough”
Also back then hard drive space cost around $700-$1000 per GB
DoctorFenix@reddit
My college laptop had 2gb.
I discovered Napster.
The 2gb was full in 2 weeks.
My first MP3 player had 32mb. I could fit a whole 6 songs on it if they were 96kbps
JellicoAlpha_3_1@reddit
Yeah now you can get a Terrabyte External for 50 bucks lol
LadyBogangles14@reddit
Yep. I got a 5TB external on sale for like $130
often_awkward@reddit
I used 5.25" floppy's until probably high school when the three and a half inch was the new hotness.
nitrot150@reddit
I’m with you exactly on this, it just evolved so fast
dollheads@reddit
I remember how futuristic it seemed when I ordered my computer monitor online, and how worried, but not worried, I was when my zip disk encountered delivery delays
Emotional_Lettuce251@reddit
When I took typing class in high school it was on a typewriter.
cheltsie@reddit
This is the example I always use! I was the last student permitted to submit an analog portfolio of my work, because they changed it to mandatory digital one like a month before it was due. I explain to people that our physical copies of things were more or less snatched out of our hands as we held them. (Computer I bought for college was already out of date before college even started, and having to constantly figure out the floppy disc vs cd issue I then had being another example.)
Khris777@reddit
When I was born the compact disc wasn't even out yet...
pinko1312@reddit
I remember seeing my first CD it was on an episode of the animated show Kid N' Play.
PurpleDraziNotGreen@reddit
We had to resort to squishing our disks by hand! Through 5 miles of snow
flittingly1@reddit
Uphill both ways
Ambitious_Jelly8783@reddit
Without shoes.
PurpleDraziNotGreen@reddit
Kids these days, they won't believe ya
Nikki10021982@reddit
I was born when they became a thing in Japan.
infamousbugg@reddit
My Mamaw got a laser disc player somehow. She had like 3 movies, and us kids were all amazed. This was maybe '90 or so.
dishwasher_mayhem@reddit
We still had 45s and 8track when I was born.
Disastrous_Basis3474@reddit
What’s a compact disc? Is that like a smaller frisbee or something? lol
Hagbard_Celine_1@reddit
Born in 84" here. I feel like we grew up pretty much the same as our parents. From all the 50s nostalgia at the time it didn't seem all that different either. We had video games and malls but other than that we played outside and did the same thing young people had done for generations. Once everyone had high speed Internet and basic cell phones it was a different world imo. That wasn't really common in my area until I was in highschool in the very late 90s to very early 00s.
Winwookiee@reddit
I was one of a few I knew in high school with a cellphone. I didn't use it, it was kept in the glove box of my car for emergencies. I didn't start using a cell until the cheaper flip phone. I can't remember the name of it but I swear everyone had one and it was right before the razer took off.
RoundEarthCentrist@reddit
LG GoPhone? That was my first. And I didn’t use it a ton, just to touch base with the parental units from time to time while I was out.
Winwookiee@reddit
I looked them up, my first was a Nokia 5110, and the flip phone everyone had before they could afford a razr was the Motorola v300
symbologythere@reddit
Cell phones were very basic and far from ubiquitous in early 00’s. Whatever the date of the iPhone release is the hard line in the sand when everything got flipped.
Dismal-Detective-737@reddit
Cable? About the only upgrade in the delivery of media.
Cars got EFI vs Carbs.
Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit (OP)
Same. Although, in the late 90s I had the pager on my hip at all times waiting for the 143 to come through from all the girls I was seeing (shhh, I didn’t have any but my boys didn’t know).
chairman_steel@reddit
Eh, let them have their fun. It doesn’t do us any good to make them feel bad about being born too late for Number Munchers.
RoundEarthCentrist@reddit
Or Oregon Trail on a floppy disk - or Odell Lake!
ThePickledFox@reddit
I was born in 87, and while I was happy with the world around me and my youth. Not a xennial, but still experienced a lot of pre digital. I think I’d be even happier if I was born 5-10 years earlier.
RoundEarthCentrist@reddit
Welcome, honorary Xennial!
Sincerely, a 79er.
EARMUFFS-GAMING@reddit
I say this with love and without judgement, but it's wild how highly Gen Z thinks of themselves sometimes LOL
RoundEarthCentrist@reddit
For reals and serious.
bnjmnzs@reddit
I was 16 in 96 lmao 🤣
RoundEarthCentrist@reddit
Same. Dem whippersnappers.
anOvenofWitches@reddit
Knowing the card catalogue is the defining factor. If you didn’t know how to research a thing before the internet, you’re not Old School at all
Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit (OP)
Oh I can smell the catalog drawers just thinking about it
Trbochckn@reddit
I almost purchased a card catalog cabinet recently.
My ADD impulsive thoughts. This is so friggin cool, memories, all the memories, these are great memories, I must buy this cause I'm enjoying this moment and I don't want it to end.
Then my wife "How are you getting it home and where are we gonna put it?"
tongfatherr@reddit
Damn wife and her logic...
RoundEarthCentrist@reddit
Who needs logic when you can have nostalgia?!
Flux_My_Capacitor@reddit
Well to be fair, they aren’t even teaching how to research anything anymore. It’s just assumed that kids know how to Google. (No, they do not, hence why so many Reddit subs are full of posts with questions that could be answered with a 2 second google search.)
Cozy_Minty@reddit
Did you ever see that PBS show about the dewey decimal system? It was sci fi and it was about good aliens learning about humans and the earth after bad aliens wiped everyone out. There was only one human left alive and it was a librarian. It was called Tomes and Talismans.
One scene I remember was an alien calling back to the mothership to have them look in the card catalogue to find out if watermelons are edible. They found out it is and rejoiced
MayoMouseTurd@reddit
I must know the title
CompromisedToolchain@reddit
Pffft, I’m “volunteered at the library so I could add it to my college application” old.
gvsteve@reddit
You may remember the card catalogue.
But do you remember the 10 years after the card catalogue, when they cut up the cards and let you write your search results from the computer on the card bits?
symbologythere@reddit
The Dewey Decimal System for the win.
ShakespearianShadows@reddit
And looking at Microfiche for old periodicals
KizashiKaze@reddit
Old school and late 90s - early 00s does not equate.
Paramedickhead@reddit
When I started elementary school we had reel to reel projectors to watch educational films on in school. There was a few TV's on a cart with a VCR, but the schools had an extensive library of films that were not on VHS.
When I finished high school we had what passed for broadband internet (at the time)...
If you didn't have a laminated blockbuster membership card in your name you didn't experience anything old school.
PleezaJazz@reddit
I was born in 85 and in K-12 from 1990-2003. In elementary and middle school, I felt like the majority of our educational videos were in reel to reel form or those projector slide shows that had an audiotape, which would give the sound of a beep of when you needed to move to the next slide. We had the TV/VCR on a cart too, but it seemed like it didn't get used as much. This was throughout the 90s, so our school's tech was behind the times. But I definitely understand that schools have budgets and if the old tech still worked and the information in the videos/slideshows weren't outdated, I can understand why they stretched that out as long as they could.
Nodak1979@reddit
"Old school" is relative of course, but I think logically what makes the most sense for a divide would be when computers because a huge part of daily life, along with mobile phones. Those two things are such game changers, and their usage blew up around the same time (computers a bit before the phones), that I think that makes a good dividing point. And that's why I think Xennials pretty much had the perfect balance; we grew up in the 80s and early 90s, when few people had mobile phones and computers were still pretty much in their infancy (I mean, anybody remember Windows 3.1?!?!). However, our early adult years all featured these things since it was the late 90s/early 00s.
StillhasaWiiU@reddit
Like key chains that used 110 film?
PDgenerationX@reddit
Every generation thinks they’re the best, when all generations have their flaws. Maybe we should focus on bigger issues.
Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit (OP)
It’s a lighthearted post meant to give us all a chuckle.
PDgenerationX@reddit
I know. It’s just a never ending thing I’ve heard my entire life
Khajiit_Has_Upvotes@reddit
The correct answer, in the U.S. at least, is the early 1900s. My great grandparents went from the horse and buggy to the automobile to the space shuttle.
jasonmoyer@reddit
Pretty much anyone born after the 80's is going to have little to no memory of an analog, non-connected world.
Synthea1979@reddit
My older 2 kids, born in 95 and 97, remember a time when they didn't use computers. I didn't allow them to use them until they were 8. They don't remember a time without a computer in daily use in the home, though.
My younger 2, born in 04 and 06, don't know a time before computers or cell phones.
A person would really need to be born early 90s to have a chance that a significant part of their childhood was non-digital, and it would have needed to have been a choice by the parents/guardians.
We are the last micro generation where our entire childhood wasn't significantly digital.
DarwinGoneWild@reddit
What old school did post-2000 kids get? We already had digital cameras, smartphones, and a fully-fledged internet before they were even in school.
Educational_Fan4102@reddit
I mean it’s crazy to think about now but back then iPhones only had one camera and they came in exactly ONE color. They also had a headphone jack for wired headphones which is utterly wild to think about. /s
DarwinGoneWild@reddit
😂
turtlenipples@reddit
Hey now, those kids can almost remember when the first smart phone came out. At least, I'm sure their parents were talking about it while changing their diapers and such.
Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit (OP)
Exactly. I’m willing to bet only a very small percentage of these kids knew what it was like to walk or bike themselves to school or their sports programs. I know some people born in 97 that don’t have coherent handwriting because everything was done with a keyboard.
weezmatical@reddit
Tbf, I was born in 84 and my handwriting is atrocious. Not for lack of trying. For some of us, I think it's brain wiring issue.
relationshiptossoutt@reddit
I took a penmanship course at age 43 and practiced my handwriting every day for 2 months. It made a HUGE difference. If you truly care, you can change this.
BooRadley_ThereHeIs@reddit
Us lefties get a lifetime pass for that. Haha
Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit (OP)
Fair enough but I bet it doesn’t look like you just started learning how to write.
BooRadley_ThereHeIs@reddit
Yeah but Tiktok didn't exist yet so it was basically the dark ages.
No_Zombie2021@reddit
They had facebook when they were in elementary school.
InternationalPower16@reddit
Forgive them…they have no clue what they’re talking about lol
Rhomega2@reddit
Who's going to tell you the truth about your childhood?
randomsnowflake@reddit
No way I yearn for the early aughts when the nineties existed.
Towowl@reddit
now listen here you little shit
LoFi_Inspirasi@reddit
Is there a term for feeling like, “Dang, I’m old but I also wouldn’t trade places with the younger generation because I love when I when I was born”?
Ryanlew1980@reddit
Right? lol. We are the ones that didn’t have internet at all then did before turning into adults.
hatenames385@reddit
I was taking typing and computer coding classes!
Overall-Scientist846@reddit
Being born in 1996 means you missed the original Toy Story. Idiots.
CowboyUPNorth@reddit
It’s actually 85-93
randomcalvin@reddit
It should be late 70s to late 80s in my opinion. People born in this time frame go though records, cassettes, CD, mp3, streaming for audio, dial up, dsl, cable, wifi for internet, vhs, dvd, Blu-ray, and streaming for video, and 386 to current gen PC. You will not see this amount of tech change if you’re born in other decades.
Flux_My_Capacitor@reddit
It’s not really up to the late 1980s because tapes were big by then and you have to remember that people don’t really remember the first 3 years of life. So someone born in the late 80s wouldn’t have memories until 91 or 92 so they definitely missed out on records being king.
snooloosey@reddit
I think the truth is that every generation feels as though they experienced a "pre" and a "post" something. For some it was "Pre computers/Post computers" For others it was pre internet post internet. For others it was pre smart phones post smart phones. For others it was pre 9/11 post 9/11. And they'll view it all through that lens.
turtlenipples@reddit
I think that's what sets the xennials apart. We experienced "pre" and "post" everything you just listed.
Flux_My_Capacitor@reddit
My thoughts exactly.
Quietus76@reddit
All of those things happened, or at least became widely accessible within a 10 year span. 1993 was a completely different world from 2003. Our generation transitioned from childhood to adulthood in that same span.
mcmurphy1@reddit
Exactly, every generation thinks they had it the bestor lived in the most interesting period. Every generation lives through some wild changes and views the world as pre or post.
They're not unique in that, and neither are we.
Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit (OP)
You’re probably right but I’m gonna be an old fogey and say our mini generation is the ultimate pre/post of everything
snooloosey@reddit
i agree. We were the last to experience the tech-free twighlight hour of play and then get to troll chatrooms as teens.
Olin85@reddit
75-85
tongfatherr@reddit
This. The true boom of tech for consumers was the 70s-90s and the kids stuck in the middle seen the rapid development. Car phones in the late 80s to Nokia's and Motorola Startacs I'm the late 90s. 8 tracks (before my time), caseetes, walkmans, discmans, MP3 players. If you showed a kid born in 2002 the computer I played DOOM on he'd laugh or just be confused.
JavaOrlando@reddit
1900-1920
twig0sprog@reddit
Feels like that sometimes.
espexporerguy@reddit
Oh COME ON!!
Professional_Rock650@reddit
My job in high school was using microfiche, my job after college was building websites.
Funkopedia@reddit
If anybody qualifies for this description since the industrial revolution, it's us. We saw the no-computer, home computer, and internet age. We went from records, the entire lifespan of (tape, cd, mp3), and into the streaming age for music. We saw the broadcast, the entire lifespan of cable, and streaming for tv. The entire lifespan of videotapes and dvds as well.
East_Ad_3284@reddit
Old-school is pre-internet
Willing_Actuary_4198@reddit
Nobody born in 2000 got anything "oldschool" lol
SlackerDS5@reddit
It’s funny when people are so confidently wrong.
TheJokersWild53@reddit
We grew up with tape decks, pay phones, and cable tv. We got to see the evolution to CDs, then digital music. We saw The Brick or car phones as kids and now have a computer in our pockets. Cable gave way to Blockbuster, then Netflix (both the DVDs by mail and streaming. We went from paper maps to Mapquest to GPS, and finally turn by turn directions on our phones.
BlondieMIA@reddit
… and the rotary land line … to the cool kids with a wireless land line in their house (remember the big antennas?) and the prolific use of pay phones .. the hunt for a quarter…then pagers. The amount of cases I had baffles me. Then the plain cell phones to the semi smart phones to smart phones.
I personally think smart phones are the beginning of the end for humans.
TheJokersWild53@reddit
Pay phones - ‘Collect call from Mom pick me up practice is over’
rebleed@reddit
Pretty amazing, right? I’m curious what other generation felt the same? From horses to cars? From trains to airlines? From telegraph to phones? From radio to tv?
random9212@reddit
From the first plane to landing on the moon
t_bone_stake@reddit
The tape decks love affair is still there but it’s such a small niche market. Any good ones are gonna set one back a small fortune buying one off of eBay then going in and doing any repairs (belts, gears, etc) before enjoying the warmth of a compact cassette
albauer2@reddit
Exactly.
Littlemisskittn@reddit
I’d more say from 1982-1986 got that crossover
xUrNewDadx@reddit
The Internet started in 1996. If you don't remember a time before the Internet you don't have enough information to have an opinion on this topic. Ignorance is bliss.
Caro1275@reddit
I told my students that I was given my first household chore at the age of 6. My job was to turn the knob on our living room tv for dad because we didn’t have a remote. They looked at me like I had 10 heads. Their brains exploded after I told them we didn’t have cable tv. They didn’t know what that meant either.😂
The conversation started with my student telling the class that his parents bought an “old-school cool” wired phone with push buttons from Target.
Nikki10021982@reddit
I remember as a kid in the early 90s that me and my sister would sneak out at night and play ghost in the graveyard in the cemetery after 10/11 pm.
MajorEbb1472@reddit
75-80
FactorUpbeat8540@reddit
If you weren’t about 10 yrs old in the 80s, I don’t know what to tell you.
InsideInsidious@reddit
That generation are a bunch of technical dumbasses who have no idea how anything works
UbermachoGuy@reddit
Anyone without the fear of Y2K burned into them, or the sound of a 14k dial up modem connecting to AOL or Juno Mail will never really know the true struggle.
homersracket@reddit
2400 baud entered the chat…
homersracket@reddit
I’m still bitter that Wikipedia became a think just after a graduated college
themerovingian80@reddit
My daughter was born in 03. Only old school she got was bc of me. We're the originals. Analog childhood, digital adulthood.
prime_time_@reddit
83 !!!
turtlenipples@reddit
Represent!
And then let's get to bed early, I'm tired.
prime_time_@reddit
I feel ya! Up at 5am today.......gotta get my news in before work
treynolds787@reddit
Weird, it's almost like every generation has nostalgia for their own childhood.
Expert-Lavishness802@reddit
Old school before internet access we had to use the lingerie section of the Sears catalogue haha
DimplefromYA@reddit
i have arthritis in my hands
DoctorMario1000@reddit
‘82 mane
Drilling4Oil@reddit
Cash me on ICQ & tell me about that perfect balance. How 'bout that now?
jessupjj@reddit
RIP IRC. my mid90s geek crew was on irc though
snuggy4life@reddit
83 here. Landline phones, “be home by dark” and also AIM and EverQuest. Amazing.
I remember at one point one of us got a CB radio. Used mess with truckers. Best of times.
AppropriateTouching@reddit
LOL if you were born into a digital world with the internet you cant claim this. We grew up with the analog and grew into the digital. No other generation can claim that.
doublediochip@reddit
We talking about music maybe.
trifecta000@reddit
You can't really say you dealt with old-school when you were born with internet access. You would have had to be born before the prevalence of computers.
sychox51@reddit
Isn’t it funny? to them, growing up without internet is like us hearing about people growing up without electricity.
withmyusualflair@reddit
my thoughts exactly
_R_A_@reddit
Did any of them have statues all around the world crumble for them?
I don't think so.
Reno83@reddit
What "old school" technology does GenZ know about? Maybe some Zellenials remember flip phones, but they don't know about having to prioritize minutes during the day and waiting until nights and weekends.
jessupjj@reddit
Sigh... How many of us were still hooking up our 16bit videogames to old black and white tvs in grandma's back room when we went to say the weekend, and had to take with us a VHF transformer to use an rf adapter on a TV with no coax input? Cable and color TV is a fad, sonny
Clean-Witness8407@reddit
82 got a pretty good mix I will say
Coakis@reddit
If you can't visually remember the late 80s and 90s then yeah you missed out on a much better or at least much more optimistic time.
TakeAnotherLilP@reddit
My 2007 born kiddo laughed when they saw the very first iPod that ever came out. Couldn’t believe it!
not_into_that@reddit
Another day another divide.
eyelinerqueen83@reddit
No one was born that late
DrSadisticPizza@reddit
The shit we got away with in the 90s would blow their silly little minds.
MrsAshleyStark@reddit
Our parents can say the same about us lol.
Aaron_________@reddit
More like 93-96. You have to remember 9/11 happening to remember old school. It's also not the greatest generation it's more that we got fucked over the most.
Mr_Perfect22@reddit
Gen x is clearly the blanket answer, but I’d say more like 76-80 is the best stretch. Much earlier and you get too much off the gross 70s in your life, much later you’re getting too much of the internet being a thing in your young life.
Mrrectangle@reddit
I always say being born in 1980 was perfect.
R0botDreamz@reddit
If you were born in 2000 or after, you have almost ZERO nostalgia. Because most of what you experienced never went away. That old TV show you remember when you 5? Oh look, the whole series is on YouTube. Old commercials? Same.
If you were born in the 90s, you did not come of age with the internet. As much as you think you did, you did not. I don't care if you were 8 or 9 and dicking around on AOL in 1998. You needed to be a little older (like us) to get the real wild wild west experience of the internet frontier. If you were a teenager when broadband was widespread, you did not have that eye-opening moment of seeing a file download in 90 seconds as opposed to 4 hours.
sleepyguy007@reddit
I started college in 99... and saw people starting their computer science degrees freshman year, buying their first computers on campus and had never owned a computer before. That felt very... wow world is changing fast. The fact they had just become adults and it was the last year of the century made it feel so much more like a moment.
MonkeyCobraFight@reddit
Anyone born pre 9/11 had a different upbringing. Once the global war on terror started, America changed; and not always for the better.
DeathLikeAHammer@reddit
I'm not telling them shit. Let them think that. Keeps them out of my shit.
turtlenipples@reddit
DeathLikeAHammer: "Keeping shits out of our shit by not telling them shit since 2000."
DeathLikeAHammer@reddit
1994.
jdlyons81@reddit
This is the way
Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit (OP)
Ha ha ha. Get off my lawn!!
zorbacles@reddit
from atari to ps5. we got it all.
Fluffy-Expert6860@reddit
It’s actually 1986-90
JellicoAlpha_3_1@reddit
If you didn't have a full set of Encyclopedias growing up (or regularly used them in school or at the library), you didn't grow up Old School
Having Encarta CD encyclopedias doesn't count
They had to be physical books
Possum968@reddit
When I was 13 my Dad got me a used set of World Book Encyclopedias at his friend's pawn shop. It was missing the letter F and they were laughing about how I wouldn't know jack shit about frogs or fish. Also the encyclopedia was printed in....1955. Still it was a good set I learned a lot about the agricultural output of Ireland in 1953.
StupendousMalice@reddit
If you didn't learn to use a dial up modem, a card catalog, or a microfiche machine I don't think you have a mix of old-school anything.
lawyers_guns_nomoney@reddit
Microfiche was so dope. Forgot about those.
turtlenipples@reddit
As an undergrad, I had to go the top floor archives of the museum on my college campus to do a report on old newspaper stories that could only be found on microfiche.
StupendousMalice@reddit
What's interesting is that it's probably easier to find a newspaper article from the 70s on microfiche than it is to find an article from 2003. The Internet is actually really bad at arriving information.
Drslappybags@reddit
They go so fast.
jdlyons81@reddit
The only bad thing is you have to catch SO MANY of them to make a decent meal.
DoctorFenix@reddit
Ahhhh the good ol' dewey decimal system
norfnorf832@reddit
Nah I dont wanna hear from any generation that doesnt get excited over finding a quarter, like 'ooh Ima need this later'
Yitram@reddit
When I was a kid, a mobile phone was only mobile becuase it was in the car plugged into the cigarette lighter. And god help you if you were roaming. Heck, even when I was driving to college in the early 00s, roaming charges were still a thing.
turtlenipples@reddit
In college, I had to rent a phone for my room ($5 a semester!) so I could call my girlfriend with a calling card. RAs could write you up if you used a non-approved phone in the dorm.
Puzzled-Avocado-4954@reddit
Ever been to a halo 1 lan?
Maanzacorian@reddit
They're the ones that talk about old school like it's playing GTA V compared to San Andreas.
We saw the jump from GTA 2 to 3, which was indescribable at the time.
turtlenipples@reddit
The first GTA was such a fun game. 2 was pretty much the same.
Ok_Researcher_9796@reddit
These kids are cracked out.
DetroitLionsSBChamps@reddit
87 bruh
The technology of the country aged perfectly with me
The fact that I went into middle school without a computer in my house and came out proficient with the internet always strikes me as wild timing
Kids born in 2001 got their first iPhone at age 8, and now at 23 they still have iPhones. They don’t know what it was like
Abrokenexperience@reddit
Actually.. 75 to 85
yashua1992@reddit
if you never did this don't talk 2 me
abernathym@reddit
I have to help both my parents and children with technology. I think we are in the middle.
MaxPower836@reddit
Old school is 2010 according to these guys
QuixoticCacophony@reddit
Neither of those time periods qualify as generations. They're just a stretch of four years.
LasagnahogXRP@reddit
76-84 are the greatest of birth years for modern pop culture.
I also would have liked 44/45 because the late 60s seems like a fever dream I’d wanna ride.
Aeriila@reddit
I remember the world before the internet lol Is always my go to response to weird things like this lol
PumpkinSpice2Nice@reddit
Every generation is going to think this because there is always newer technology. The thing is that no generation is going to quite have the huge difference in tech that we experienced.
spderweb@reddit
The list goes on.
elkniodaphs@reddit
I feel like we were born at the perfect time to experience the best in growth and innovation in the video game industry. A lot of us grew up with an Atari in the house, most of us with a NES. We watched the transition from 2D to 3D in real time. As adults, we get to experience modern titles like Elden Ring and Metroid Dread. We're the only generation that got to see all of that when it was new. Considering that gaming is my favorite hobby, I feel extremely blessed to have taken that all in.Younger people, through no fault of their own, really don't know what they missed. I showed my neice the main character from Adventure and she could not believe it.
penndawg84@reddit
Born into poverty in 84, and my parents started out with old hand-me-downs they got for free when other people upgraded their stuff. I’ve had everything from a 15 inch B&W tube TV (and I don’t mean just the CRT, but actual vacuum tube circuits) to a 75” LED TV less than an inch thick. Manual typewriter to gaming PC. Old encyclopedias from 1942 to Wikipedia in my pocket. Rotary phone to iPhone 14. You get the gist.
In 1999 I got a free 15-year-old computer. It was an NEC 386 processor, 25 MHz, 4MB of RAM, 100mb hard drive, running Windows 95 (first edition). I would have just kept DOS, but I needed Windows and Office for school. (I didn’t buy my own computer until 2003)
I wish I could have kept some of the stuff we had from my childhood that was already old and obsolete when my family got them.
Goodstuff_maynard@reddit
Old school, like Mapquest, and getting the zip code wrong. Then having to bring out the paper map and realize you need to go 2 inches right to get back on track?
TappyMauvendaise@reddit
Try 1982 fellas!
BenjTheMaestro@reddit
I’ll take four years in either direction or 1988 and get the mix of all the good stuff, and life before the internet took over, but pretty cool tech
Smorgas_of_borg@reddit
Anybody who doesn't remember a world without smartphones doesn't know shit about "old school"
PackageNarrow7665@reddit
Born in 96 and I feel that I am the exact last year to experience knocking on friend's doors unannounced and asking their parents if they could come hangout.
imthewronggeneration@reddit
OdinsGhost@reddit
These children probably think that just because their Wii just got the “retro” label that that makes it old school. That’s honestly hilarious.
YungSpyderBoy@reddit
I was born in 96.. don't remember shit from the 90s cause I was too busy sucking titties & shitting myself. Anyone born from 95 to 2005 had a very similar glimpse at the leap in technology.
Quietus76@reddit
Nah. Born in the 70s. Child of the 80s. Teen in the 90s. And tech in your hand in your early 20s. Perfect.
jessewest84@reddit
I had fucking stick as a toy when I was 4. Circa 88.
These kids don't know.
Kabraxal@reddit
I wanna know what is old school to them… once smart phones hit, the “schools” haven’t changed much.
Upstairs-Storm1006@reddit
Right old school to them is a razr flip phone with a bad camera and no internet 🤣😅
Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit (OP)
Ooh a Razr. The ultimate cool
mmmtopochico@reddit
It's wild, I use a flip phone and I've literally had people's jaw drop when I pull it out like it's the craziest thing ever. And yeah, the camera sucks. It does have internet though!
Slamnflwrchild@reddit
Ah Razrs. Those things were practically indestructible. Mine fell out of my pocket, in the road, in the snow, got run over, and was fine.
elcheapodeluxe@reddit
I was certain that evolution would mean I would be totally obsolete by the time I was 30. Instead it is totally true that we ended up being tech support not only for our parents but also the generations after us. Most of these whipper snappers can hardly use a computer.
Morganafrey@reddit
Unless you were never asked to dust off the chalkboard erasers, you don’t know what old school really means.
If you can’t remember a time before the internet and personal computers then you can’t claim to have experienced “old school”
Ftw_55@reddit
They are off by two decades.
ZedPrimus84@reddit
Some folk ain't got whipped for being out past the street lamps and it shows.
sarahstanley@reddit
They're like babies fighting.
RuncibleFoon@reddit
'77 - '83 got the best mix... gen x blended w/ millennial... last feral, tech free, in when the street lights come on, I'll give you something to cry about mixed with tech savvy but not tech ruined but slightly less feral and a few more hugs...
BillCharming1905@reddit
Born in the 80’s , exposed to the glory of both 80’s and 90’s, first to embrace pc’s at home, internet and early adopters of smart phones.
shiftdown@reddit
In the words of my generation "They can't handle the truth!"
Uhh_JustADude@reddit
If one wan't at least a middle school student in a time before the internet one cannot be "old school".
NoonMartini@reddit
I don’t think we got “the best” of anything tbh. Unless being old enough to be absolutely fucked by the dot-com bust, the housing crash, covid, and now what we have going on.
Xennials are the best at —idk— unprecedented times?
lindsaym717@reddit
Awww ‘96-‘99 that’s adorable!! I was born in 1984..I’m just old, but happy to be born then because we really did have a lot of great stuff, but I wish I was around for heroin cough syrup!!
1block@reddit
If your first email address was from your college, you qualify.
1block@reddit
Wtf old school shit did people born in 1996 deal with? Flip phones in Jr. High?
Morons.
Futbalislyfe@reddit
We grew up in a generation that went from typewriters to computers, developing rolls of film to digital cameras, doing research at the library to searching online, playing Atari to playing PlayStation, phones attached to the wall to cell phones. If you want to talk about old school vs modern, pretty sure xennials embody that concept.
albauer2@reddit
It’s kind of the crux of why we are a named micro-generation. No one else bridged this technology arc the way that we did.
Bubbly_Positive_339@reddit
Not even. You’d have to be born in the early 80s to actually fully understand the transition from analog to digital.
albauer2@reddit
For real. I had a rotary phone in my house and no computer. Then we got a normal phone, and a computer in the mid-90s, then dial-up internet. Was an early adopter of a cell phone in like 1999-2000, and then high speed internet blew things open.
UpOrDownItsUpToYou@reddit
It's all bullshit. The characteristics that every generation identifies with were thrust upon them by a temporal accident of birth.
Global-Jury8810@reddit
My dad was born during the silent generation years so it was the generation before his that is considered The Greatest Generation.
Unable_Apartment_613@reddit
Literally thinks the world was at its best when they were around 12 years old. The age where you get a little bit of freedom but still have no responsibilities. We should probably stop fighting them over it, honestly
Moonvine22@reddit
Pretty grateful i was born in '98 then
seansterxmonster@reddit
Mid to late 80’s
Only1Skrybe@reddit
"The perfect mix"
Motownphilly was on the radio at work the other day, and the 23-year old that works with me had no idea what song it was, or who performed it. After I told him it was Boyz II Men, he was like "Ohhhh. Yeah, I think I've heard of them."
Imagine not knowing one of the biggest hits from one of the biggest musical acts from just 10 years before you were born. These kids are ridiculous.
Disastrous_Basis3474@reddit
If you know WHY the “Save” button looks like this without having to ask anyone, your life before (roughly) your 20s was mostly “old school,” aka analog, and home computers were new, expensive, and rare.
Slamnflwrchild@reddit
Ain’t they cute?
Clevergirlphysicist@reddit
I mean, were the generation of analog childhoods (rabbit ears on tvs, records/tapes/vcrs, CRTs, landline phones were the norm in our childhoods) and digital adulthoods (cell phones, dvds, digital media etc). Who are they kidding
YNABDisciple@reddit
I was born in 79 and didn't own a cell phone until into my 20's. When the first wide spread social media hit I could buy booze and meet a rando from Myspace but could party in high school with no cameras and rudimentary internet. When they started to use world processors to print our report cards we just made our own. Peak humanity.
LadyBogangles14@reddit
A good litmus test is do you remember looking things up on Encarta?
Reasonable-Wave8093@reddit
Yes! 98 for me 🍁🌰
batgranny@reddit
The truth is of course that whenever you were growing up, be that 1873 or 2005 was the best time to grow up.
Monstrita@reddit
Xennials: Hold my Zima
Big_Dumb_Himbo@reddit
every generation thinks the same about the period before or after them,
therobotscott@reddit
I think this feeling is common for most people. I'm just curious what th et you consider "old school".
butchcanyon@reddit
Doesn't everyone experience a mix of old school and modern when they're born?
thelanai@reddit
What exactly do these kids think "old school" is? If you weren't around and remember pre internet, your statement is invalid.
hmmqzaz@reddit
Lolll this is like “old-school” iOS and “new-school” iOS
ActiveImportance4196@reddit
Until they have to wait 4 hours to download a pornographic image, just to find out it's not pornographic, they aren't old school.
ses267@reddit
TIL old school means iPhone gen 1.
Lazy_Squash_8423@reddit (OP)
Ha ha. These kids probably don’t even know of the iPod.
Bors713@reddit
Oh, those poor innocent bastards.
Evaderofdoom@reddit
As a late gen-x who was born in 76, and who doesn't believe in xennilas being a thing, I would say late gen-dx had the best mix of old school and modern!
t0msie@reddit
74 here and yeah
NickLoner@reddit
I would say people that graduated between 2000-2004 got more of a perfect mix of old school and modern vs people that were born between those years.
___wiz___@reddit
I saw an old BBC interview with elderly people born in the Victorian era. 1890s babies that lived until age 80 went from horses and carriages to people walking on the moon. Women’s suffrage, automobiles, telephones, planes, radio, television, film, nuclear weapons, computers… in the UK life expectancy rose from about 45 years in 1890 to about 70 years in 1960. (It’s about 80 now)
ThanksALotBud@reddit
They think anything before social media and smart phones is old school
Atomic-Betty@reddit
"old school" infants.
Upstairs-Storm1006@reddit
Born in those years? More like, people who were out of high school by the mid-90's got the perfect mix of old school & modern.
Raised on manual car windows & locks, now driving electric vehicles.
Raised on rotary phones, now addicted to iPhones
Raised on original monochrome Oregon Trail, now buying PS5 version "for their kids"
I could go on all day
RoanAlbatross@reddit
Could not be me y’all. Could NOT be me.
bnutbutter78@reddit
Oh man. It’s the 70’s. Haha
CMFB_333@reddit
If you didn’t learn song lyrics by recording them from the radio to tape, then stop/rewinding your way through the whole song to write them down, then singing the incorrect lyrics for years because you heard them wrong, then I don’t want to hear anything about “old school.”
oh_wll_whtvr_nvrmnd@reddit
Even The Smashing Pumpkins wrote a song about us... I think it's called "1977 to 1983"
Solintari@reddit
Grandpa was saying this about the roaring 20s, where they grew up without gramophones but they didn't have fancy automobiles yet. "old-school" is entirely relative.
strongbob25@reddit
Literally everyone ever born feels this way because everything that existed before you feels "old school" and everything that existed after you feels "modern"
gnrlgumby@reddit
I feel like so much of culture froze in 2010, so I don’t know what they mean.