Since I wrote the post, '46 Things The Kids Of Tomorrow May Never Experience,' a few more things have randomly been popping up that I've slowly been adding to a list, so I thought I'd ask some of my friends and see if we could collectively come up with 46 more. As you may be able to tell by the name of this post it's good news... we did it. Thanks friends. I fear this post may turn far too 'it was so hard back in my day,' but in 50 years or so when I'm sat talking to my grandkids, I'll save valuable time by just showing them this blog post, probably via a hologram or something... if that does actually happen, hi-right, I'm rambling, let's do this~
Remember when there was only 4 or 5 channels? If there was nothing good on you'd try and find a good video to watch, or, dare I say it - go outside. There were always a ridiculous number of 'channels' on the television, but go any higher than 5 and you were met with a static screen. When music channels came into play, they actually just played music - and you were able to phone in and request the song you want to play. That was pretty much the only time you could watch the video, and the absence really did make the heart grow fonder.
Reality TV and talent shows were very rare, celebrities were celebrities for a reason, and they could still maintain relatively-private private lives. We didn't know what they were doing every minute of every day, and everything just wasn't so... instant. When you saw the people you knew at school, or used to worked with, you didn't know nearly everything about their lives because of Facebook, you could catch up properly, and maybe choose a place to meet that wasn't decided on whether it had free Wi-fi or not. You had no idea who was calling you when the phone rang, you had to try and remember the important people's numbers in case you got lost somewhere, and when you did speak to someone you'd spend most of the time fiddling with the cable... and then end up getting it twisted... you weren't allowed to use your phone in the cinema, and most people had a really bad karaoke version of their favourite song as their ringtone - thanks to those dodgy ringtone services that charged you £4.50 a month.
Sidenote, did anyone really know what '#' was before hashtags?
If you didn't have the album booklet, or buy music magazines, you had no way of knowing the lyrics of a song, without working them out yourself - you may not even know the song because you missed the guy on the radio introducing it, and you could change the station to see if it was being played elsewhere but would be met by the crossover static, and it was just a bitch to try and find a perfect reception again. An album would come out when it was supposed to - there was never a threat of it leaking online, and it was always a risky game hoping that your Walkman wouldn't skip, or having a scratch on your CD. If you were going travelling, and wanted to take some music, you'd have to transfer everything into those 200 slot CD cases. Also, Nelly had a plaster on his face...
It wasn't cool to be labelled a geek or a nerd, and even the nerdiest of students were happy to see the industrial sized TV being wheeled into the classroom. It was always compulsory to practice your handwriting, but most things are typed nowadays so that's fine - also, remember when everyone used to draw that weird S thing on literally everything? When floppy discs were the norm, there was no greater satisfaction than playing with the silver bit on top, and when you opened Microsoft Word, you were met with the most loyal of friends, which came in the form of a paper clip. It was pretty easy getting an email address, user name or domain name that was... your name, or even what you wanted and instead of just 'asking' to search for something, you had to ask Jeeves, and yes you actually had to ask a question. Any kind of website that had bright clashing colours, website-generated glittery text and Comic Sans was a great website, and that's what everyone aimed to create on Piczo. Google also didn't own, like, everything.
Knowledge wasn't just a click away, and there was a sense of achievement when you'd researched something successfully, there was also a feel of creativity and imagination for kids who were naive to the world. Penny sweets were actually a penny, mobile phones were actually just mobile phones and crocs were.. not here. When you went to pick someone up or meet them, you'd actually knock on their door, and maybe even speak to their parents. Parents were allowed to smoke indoors in public places, and your parents had to actually go to the bank to even take money out. 3D glasses were red and blue, the Yellow Pages were a staple of life, and Beyblades were cool. 12A didn't exist, and finally, you couldn't get away with about 90% of the shit you kids get away with today, I'm not bitter at all...
This really did turn into a 'you've all got it easy' post haha, I am 20 I promise, but even the things that were annoying are things that helped develop us into the people we are today, it's weird to think how different life would be if we had more things available to us instantly...
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