I loved those nostalgic fact sheets like "What the World Was Like 25 Years Ago"... you know, with young Joe Montana, Miami Vice on TV, Police Academy and Terminator on VHS, Ronald Reagan in the White House - right up until I realized that, damn it, this wasn’t a quarter of a century ago!
Yeah, 25 years ago is 1999. Yes, I understand that many of you, dear readers, were not even born at that time, but for me personally, it was so recently, it seems like, no, not yesterday, but at least like last week. But it turns out that two and a half decades have passed, and people in nostalgic online threads like this one remember all the good things that happened then. Let's remember too...
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Being able to not be reachable and people being ok with it.
Folded paper maps in the glove box. Bonus points for the spiral map books!
AN ABSOLUTELY BONKERS YEAR FOR MOVIES.
The Matrix
Dogma
Fight Club
American Beauty
American Pie
Green Mile
The Mummy
The Sixth Sense
Office Space
Boondock Saints
Varsity Blues
Blair Witch Project
And f*****g more! Not reboots, remakes or sequels. Just fresh f*****g content and original stories.
A few reboots, remakes, and sequels, but still a good year for movies. It also gave us Galaxy Quest and The Iron Giant.
So, year 1999: the last year of Bill Clinton's presidency, in the UK folks are seriously thinking about what life will be like for the country after Queen Elizabeth (naive peeps, ha ha...), Michael Jordan has just retired for the second time, and Steve Jobs has just recently returned to his office at Apple headquarters, and is already hatching grandiose plans.
The music world is captivated by Cher’s triumphant return, and Steven Spielberg recently received his second director's Oscar for Saving Private Ryan. Just recently Windows 98 was released, and millions of users around the world are cautiously opening a new internet search product called Google - through Internet Explorer, of course...
Pluto as the ninth planet.
It's a planet to me and no one will convince me otherwise XD
A "stereo system" in the living room.
Edit: Look man, if yours doesn't have a squeaky-a*s turntable, tape-to-tape deck and a shiny "metal-style" plastic carapace, we're not talking about the same thing.
Get out of here with your Bose, you hipster muso snobs. Shoo! Shoo! 🧹🧹.
Shiny metal style? Newbie. In my times we had fake wood plastic carapace
Do you want more? Okay, Jeff Bezos becomes Time's Person of the Year, Albert Einstein is recognized as the Person of the Century, and the whole world is afraid of the terrible upcoming “Error 2000", which will allegedly render millions of computers around the world unusable. Britney Spears releases her debut album Baby One More Time, and John Elway wins the Super Bowl for the second time in a row, going from greatest loser to two-time champion in just two years.
Sony announces the start of development of the PlayStation 2, with the new Walkman model trying to spread the minidisc format throughout the world. Among the new video games, Silent Hill, Unreal Tournament and Quake III Arena stand out. Humanity sees off the penultimate year of the 20th century with nostalgia and looks forward to the new millennium with optimism...
The ability to drop off/greet people at the boarding gates at the airport.
A whole shelf full of WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIAS.
Concert tickets that you could afford.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if consumers stop utilizing the over priced services they're upset about, things will change. For instance, some entertainers give lip service to the folks who attend their events decrying the fact that Ticketmaster (et al) have a monopoly on event tickets, but they still perform. If people went one season without purchasing the overpriced tickets and let the entertainers (or their fan club) know WHY they aren't purchasing tickets, things would change. The loudest voice you have is your $$$.
“The real question is actually not how good it was 25 years ago compared to now,” says Valery Bolgan, a historian and editor-in-chief of Intent News Agency from Ukraine, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment here. “People in general tend to be nostalgic about the past, and the years that have passed since then only smooth out all the negativity that took place then, leaving only warmest memories. This is the specificity of human memory.”
“Yes, in 1999, and I remember it quite well, there were many wonderful things and phenomena left, but at the same time I am almost sure that when in another quarter of a century you and I remember the year 2024, we will also talk about it with extraordinary warmth and nostalgia: about TikTok, Reddit and Taylor Swift. Simply because this is also part of our life and our memory," Valery summarizes.
The *need* to be home at a certain time on a certain day to watch the next episode of your favorite show.
Unapologetic suntans. (Edit: haven't you guys ever heard of slathering yourself in baby oil before going to lie in the sun? We all did it back then.)
A cassette deck in their new car.
A video rental store.
In this collection you will find both wonderful old-school things, which, however, today have been replaced by much more convenient ones, as well as simple human feelings and people who, alas, have left us. So just feel free to scroll this list to the end, put your likes under the best submissions, and once again either remember 1999 yourself or simply discover the past. After all, as old good Frank Sinatra used to sing, “it was a very good year!”
My dad who passed away on June 18, 1999, at the age of 71, the same age I am now. "Everyone" didn't know him, but I sure as hell did. I held his hand until he let go. **Miss ya big time dad**. Till we meet again.
A Walkman.
Land lines. Mom still has hers, but all the phones are cordless. The days of a handset connected to the receiver with a 25 foot cord are long gone. Scrolling through comments, yup Mom has an Answering machine connected to her landline. Edit #1: Mom is in her middle 70's. Edit #2: Supporting documentation
I miss having my corded phones. They worked during black outs to make emergency calls. Now when your in a black out you have to make sure your cellphone is not dead.
A local newspaper subscription.
This one is so culturally shattering. It is basically impossible to create new networks of people in a community without a shared vehicle of communication. This means that there is a lot of social stagnation even though there is this appearance of rapid progress on an individual technological level.
Cameras with film, posh people had digital ones
Dial up Internet
Discmans
Minidisc players
Floppy discs.
Now, posh people have the latest film cameras because they are being made again. I still have my 80s one
Fear of Y2K.
The problem was real, but it was discovered early enough that it was fixed before it became a disaster.
Smoking section in a bar.
One of those things I'm glad is gone. The smoke never stayed in its own section.
Antennas on the outside of their cellphones.
I knew battery outside the phone. For his job, my father had a big Alcatel phone, heavy as a wallet, working only inside Paris and close surburbs, and highways. One minute call fee was crazy, the phone itself cost the equivalent of 7500€ in FF
Dial up modems.
*beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep*............... DEEE DEEE DEEE DEEE VREEEEEEEEEEE KADOOOONG KADOOOOOONG KRSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (When I was a kid in the 90s, I used to sneak onto AOL/the internet at night when everyone was asleep and I would pile pillows and couch cushions around the PC in the desperate hope of muffling the dial-up sound...)
Multiple disc cd player.
Windows 95 or 98.
They were good, but XP was better. It could run all of the stuff from 95 or 98.
The ability to get on an airplane without spending 20 minutes going through TSA.
The ability to navigate around town without a GPS or phone.
A nintendo 64.
People should still learn to navigate their own towns without GPS.
Wallets with picture holders.
A preferred 800 number for collect calls.
And when you called these numbers, you got to speak to someone who was in the USA and not some foreign country. And you could actually understand what they were saying.
"34 Things That Nearly Everyone Had 25 Years Ago, But Barely Anyone Does Now": #1: our youth 😭😭😭
What will be even more fascinating are things we have today that will no longer be in use 25 years from now.
"34 Things That Nearly Everyone Had 25 Years Ago, But Barely Anyone Does Now": #1: our youth 😭😭😭
What will be even more fascinating are things we have today that will no longer be in use 25 years from now.