Things that make up and shape our daily lives seem a natural part of it. And while these circumstances might seem to be changing faster nowadays, it is enough to hear about such experiences as “sitting by the radio and waiting for one’s new favorite song to come on, so one could record it on a cassette tape” or “being on the home phone when all of a sudden someone in the house picks up another phone and tells you to 'get off'” from people who lived them and one might feel time slowing down, as if one has been transported back in time when certain things were and felt different. These people are sharing exactly these kinds of experiences from the recent past by answering one Redditor’s question: “What was a perfectly normal situation for you in the '80s-'90s that the younger generations just can’t relate to?”

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#1

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Parents kicked you out of the house and telling you to be home when the lamp posts came on. They had no clue where we were or what we were doing. My brother and I would play on the train tracks and under a bridge. I think about my kids doing the same and it stresses me tf out.

Edit to add, Saturday morning cartoons. I'm sad for my kiddos to not have the experience of getting up early to not miss cartoons before getting kicked out of the house for the day.

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#2

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Calling someone’s house and having to speak with their parent before talking with them.

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#3

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations That TV just stopped broadcasting late at night.

My kids still can’t comprehend this one

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#4

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Going with your parents to Blockbuster to rent a movie and hoping a copy (VHS tape) was still available and not completely rented out.

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#5

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Going to a restaurant and being asked “would you like to sit in Smoking or Non-smoking”?

There were smoking sections *on airplanes*.

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#6

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Getting a new "TV Guide" each sunday with the newspaper and obsessing over it for hours highlighting what shows/movies you wanted to watch Calling the movie theater to get showtimes Shopping at Sears 

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#7

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Watching the news to see if your school scrolled across the bottom was cancelled because of inclement weather.

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#8

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Having to stop at a gas station and ask for directions and pay attention to what the clerk is saying.

Bonus: waiting to call long distance after 9pm because it was free. Then getting very excited when they dropped it to 7pm.

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#9

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Being on a phone call with someone using the home phone when all of sudden someone in the house picks up another phone and tells you to get off

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#10

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Writing and receiving letters by post.

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#11

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Not having a camera all the time.

PRIVACY

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#12

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Going out as a kid from dawn til dusk without your parents being able to contact you or know where you are. Then knowing you have to go home when the street lights come on.

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#13

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Dedicating songs on your local radio station.

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#14

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Someone calling the landline and disconnecting the internet

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#15

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Riding your bike around town with no destination, looking for a pile of your friends bikes so you can hang out.

Having your friends’ phone numbers memorized

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#16

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Having to wait or be somewhere you don't want to be like visiting your mom's friend's house or at the bank with NOTHING to distract you but your own mind. My parents never bought me a handheld game nor did she have room in her handbag for my books. So I just had to BE in the moment.

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#17

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Going out into the world with no cell, a map in hand, hoping to find the new address you’ve never been to, and then in addition to that, hoping the people you were going to meet up would get there.

If you got there and your friends weren’t there, the most you could do was ask the business to lend you their phone or walk to a pay phone and call your friends house phones to see if they picked up. If they didn’t, you had no way of knowing if they were late, selling you out, or dead.

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#18

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations This is more 90’s-early 00’s but the ability to just... not be reached sometimes? And that was okay?

It stresses me out that there’s this social pressure to be available at all times, and people get upset with you if you don’t respond to a text fast enough etc. but as a kid we’d call each other on the home phone sometimes and if you didn’t pick up it was just assumed you were busy and nobody was actually UPSET with you over it. Obviously I love being able to keep in contact with friends on a more regular basis, but the constant pressure to be accessible to people 24/7 or you’re some kind of bad friend is too much and it really does a number on my anxiety. I miss being able to call/text/message someone back at my leisure and not have to have a “good enough” explanation ready as to why I was “ignoring” that person.

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#19

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Calling collect and saying your message really quickly instead of your name so the other person doesn’t have to accept the call

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#20

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Having arguments about factual information and having absolutely no way of determining who is correct.

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#21

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Hanging out at the high school after school was out with no supervision. I was floored to learn kids can’t do that now. I spent hours sitting on the floor in some back hallway with friends, not wanting to go home, doing my homework, waiting for my ride to get out of practice.

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#22

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Going through catalogues (remember Lillian Vernon?) to find things you like, then filling out the order form, mailing it with a check, and waiting 6 weeks to get your stuff. And during that 6 weeks you have no idea if they even received your order or not!

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#23

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations I feel like kids today will never know boredom like I experienced when I was a kid. We were poor and didn't have any videogames, there was no Candy Crush on your phone, no Netflix, if your friends were busy you'd just have to make up your own game or watch one of the 5 videos you actually owned for the 347th time, but even that wasn't always possible if your parent/s wanted you out of the house for a while. So you'd just walk around hoping to run into some kids you knew.

I also remember my sister and I would watch MTV, wait for our favourite music video to come on, then record it on VHS. We had two tapes full of music videos. I wish I had those tapes now, there were some bangers on it.

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#24

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Having to spend hours in the library to look up information you needed. I had to write a 10 page paper on the industrial revolution for school, it took days to find what would take moments now.

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#25

Being out and realizing you're going to miss the beginning of whatever tv show you wanted to watch.

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#26

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Convincing your sibling to get up to change the channel

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#27

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations I grew up in a very rural part of Ontario, Canada. Since there were so few households in the area, it was not profitable for the telephone company to give each home a private line. Instead, our community had a "party line". Every household was on the same telephone line and you could pick up the phone receiver and hear Betty from down the road having a conversation with her sister. You would have to ask to have the line and you would have to listen for the "click" to know if Betty left or if she was still listening to your conversation. I remember more than once, asking in the middle of my conversation, "Betty can you please leave?" and having her respond "Oops, sorry" and then hang up her phone. 

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#28

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Calling your bf or gf house and hoping that they pick up instead of their parents.

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#29

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations There being nothing on television.

I watched the weather network for longer than I should when I was younger because it was better than soaps and sometimes nothing was on.

With streaming services and even YouTube / shorter videos like tic tok you can be watching new content 24/7.

Little overwhelming!

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#30

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Standing in line with quarters in hand to play a video game

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#31

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Video games had no dlc and you unlocked everything through mere grinding. Good times.

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#32

Snow days. The school didn't text or email you, no one called.



What did you do? Sat there watching the news with basically a stock ticker going across the bottom and if you missed your school...oh well time to spend another 20 minutes or take the trip and see if the doors are open. This was made worse because some schools (like mine) would wait until the last possible minute meaning you could be at the bus stop waiting because the 'call' was made 5 minutes before the buses start their route. If you were lucky someone's parent would drive by to say there was a delay, other times you basically stood there for 20 minutes (in the snow) before deciding it had to be delayed...but wait the bus could just be slow (which also wasn't unheard of) now 45 minutes late everyone is convinced it must be a delay.



so you go home and yes school has a 2 hour delay...and the process may repeat because they wouldn't cancel until the last minute so it is entirely possible that you had to spend 2 hours in the snow waiting just for the good news

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#33

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Wondering who invented the hot dog and being unable to find out

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#34

Raves. Real ones. Calling an info line which gave you the location of a map point where a guy in a car gave you the location of the party. Then driving around in the worst parts of Detroit with the windows down listening for the bass thump until you found the party.

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#35

Long-distance phone calls.

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#36

37 Things That Were Totally Normal In The ’80s And ’90s That Seem Totally Alien To New Generations Not mine but my sister

"You have a collect call from *momi'matthemoviespickmeupat5please*, would you like to accept the charges?"

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#37

Meeting at the arcade

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