Things you DON'T miss

I do this far more often during covid than I did before

The mediocre network television of the late '80s and 1990s.

r2, I do miss Homicide: Life on the Street, I'll Fly Away, and A Year in the Life.

What do you mean, OP?

Dial-up internet speed

Poor internet video quality

Boring, Ottoman conformist fashion i.e. Hollister, Aeropostale, American Eagle

Peasant skirts

Neo-hippies

scenesterXcore and the era of MySpace

Bama bangs

Post-grunge

Hipsters

The Occupy Movement

Zendiks

Malls- it blows my mind that people piss and whine about the death of malls. Good riddance!

The inexplicable popularity of trashy daytime talk shows.

Painfully slow dial up internet.

DOS and BASIC prompts.

VHS tapes and betamax cassettes.

music tapes/cassetes, reel to reel recordings, and 8 tracks.

What about androgynous sensitive emo kids R5?

What are zendiks? What is scenester Xcore?

Shapeless, baggy clothes on guys.

I do miss calling people on landlines. I loathe hearing someone answer on a cell phone.

R8, scenesterXcore was scene kids, which ARE the sensitive, androgynous emo kids you're referring to.

Their music was awful, the absolute worst, in fact.

R10 Ewww. I had a secret BF in high school and his mother would always pick up. She was such a cunt

Early 00s rock. What crap.

Goth BO.

Landlines were better than mobile phones infecting every public place with queers toggling between whore apps and ignoring table mates, karens endlessly checking on the kids, loudmouths arguing with customer service in the middle of a restaurant, etc.

The idea of "I talk to you when I'm home and ready" is immensely more satisfying than any alternative.

The eyesore that was Trinity Broadcasting Network along The 405 in Costa Mesa. Buh-bye bitch!

R15 without the distractions of phones, extroverts were even louder and more annoyingly boisterous back then, carrying on with their insipid chitchat everywhere

Waiting for hours for my favorite music videos to play on MTV. I also don't miss the lack of internet shopping.

[quote] The mediocre network television of the late '80s and 1990s.

Which was replaced by the absolutely awful network television of the last 25 years.

VHS.

But reel to reel has the most phenomenal sound provided you have the money and time to implement it. I don't but I went to an audiophile's house and it was a knock out. The best reproduced sound in a person's house I've heard.

[quote]Hipsters

r5, you should visit an MFA creative writing program if you think hipsters are a thing of the past

R19, that's why I haven't watched network TV since 2000. Cable and streaming services provide much better content these days.

My cellphone d died the other day, OP. Thankfully I have a landline.

Fax machines

Condoms

Condoms

I don't miss my teaching career.

I don't miss having to walk half a mile to a call box down a creepy highway in the middle of the night if you were unlucky enough to have a car breakdown in the middle of nowhere. Worse was if a stranger stopped and asked if you needed help. You could never be sure if they were a good Samaritan or a serial killer sizing you up.

8-track tapes.

Having to plan out every drive to a place you’ve never been by looking at road maps or asking for detailed directions. You always wind up lost anyway. GPS is amazing.

Mullets

r17 must live somewhere I haven't been before—some other planet, perhaps. Assholescence has never been so extreme or as omnipresent as it has become since the smartphone takeover, at least not where I live.

R32 Hell was listening to loud fraus and asses carry on loud conversations everywhere on the bus and in lines, as if whatever they were talking about was even remotely interesting. That was way more common before the distraction of cellphones

Hipsters have not disappeared by a long shot, but many are being called out on their lazy self-indulgent, privileged shit by younger people who are more politically engaged and more motivated to address racial and class divides.

To simplify: some millennials/GenXers are getting owned by the even-youngers.

If it comes down to artisanal beer and Etsy vs "woke," give me "woke" every time, thanks.

Going to the bank to deposit checks/cash, get cash, etc. Paying bills by mailing checks to companies/utilities.

Isn't that something, r33. Except for the clicking of gum and other mouth noise, I hardly noticed the voicings of other people in public before smartphones. There's something about digital noise that makes me wish I could make people disappear (to put it nicely). And those digital beeping things they give their sproggen to annoy people with? It should not be a crime to put a bullet through any of their heads.

Telemarketers.

R36 You must have grown up in the 1950s I guess when people had all of these manners.

Prank phone calls!

Sally Struthers' Christian Children's Fund commercials.

TV commercials

Standing in a bar looking for men to take home

Public transportation (in the U.S.) - I don't mind using in any European country

Olivia de Havilland (too soon?)

Thomas Guides.

Reagan

Having to hide your VHS porn collection (two very worn out tapes)

Pagers and flip phones

Film cameras

Blockbuster Video

Smoking and ashtrays everywhere

Phone books

r12, Let it go, child. Let it go.

Library card catalogs.

Jesse Helms

I still have a landline. Cell phone service is shitty and unreliable where I live, so I still keep a landline.

Condoms

[quote]scenesterXcore was scene kids, which ARE the sensitive, androgynous emo kids you're referring to.

With floppy hair

Camcorders

Cars with low gas mileage

No farmers markets in suburbs

Malls

Mens hair and fashion styles from the 90s

Paula Abdul's face.

R42, I sort of miss Thomas Guides. They're still handy in no-reception zones.

Having to buy the whole damn CD when you only kinda sorta like one song.

Rainier Grimaldi

Woody Allen appearing on screen in one of his movies.

Boil-in-bag meals.

R7 has never seen Attitudes and should be doxxed by ISIS.

R59 Hopefully its overrated, obnoxious little sister Sous vide is on the way out.

AOL Chat Rooms

My Space

Junk Mail

Bad coffee pre-1990s (and pre-Starbucks)

Wonder Bread. It was shit.

Having to buy or steal porn.

The slew of bad gay movies that appeared in the 90s

smartphone, TV, car, coffee machine

bulletin boards and UNIX commands

Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Zoom, LinkedIn, SnapChat, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok

Fortran77

[quote] The slew of bad gay movies that appeared in the 90s

Even the bad ones were not and are not worse than the tr-ns propaganda we are subjected to now.

Having to tape record shows

I still have a landline. Seldom gets any use. I was awakened last night at 11:45 by an elderly woman, who was appropriately apologetic when she realized she had called the wrong number. Afterwards, I thought I should’ve said that I hoped this was an emergency, since what kind of old person just happens to call someone at that late hour?!

[quote] Having to tape record shows

I am glad I did because some of the ones I taped are still not on DVD or streaming.

Unpopular opinion, and I'm only chiming in because someone mentioned AOL chat rooms; but I dearly miss early '00s-era AOL internet. Their radio stations were similar to Pandora but MUCH better. I absolutely loved their classic punk and grunge radio even though I'm an electronica, r&b and rap/hip-hop fan.

AOL chats were legit too, but full of complete dickhead elitists. I met some absolutely great people in those chats nevertheless and there were a lot of diverse alternative lifestyle chat rooms available through AOL's platform. AOL Instant Messenger was also a staple of my childhood, teenage years and very early adulthood.

I genuinely miss that era. The internet is heartless and soulless now, even though it's much bigger since back then (1998-2005).

Thanks R11, I remember the fashion as I saw how lots of teens and then young adult men and women dressed that way and I never listened to any of the music. At first I thought they were goths or something but then someone said how they were emo/indie kids.

I sort of miss IRC #s but I would go onto ones about phish and other bands.

I do not miss having to go to adult bookstores to buy porn on VHS, in magazines, later DVDs, and to buy sex toys there.

True R21 the art schools and MFA programs are full of them.

Physical music media, like CDs or Cassettes. For one, it’s less clutter, and 2, mixing and shuffling songs and playlists is a breeze.

I don’t miss prank callers, but I DO miss prank calling!

Having to make an effort, get dressed, and physically go to the gay bar just to get laid.

R76 I miss prank calling as well.

I don't miss smoking in all public places, in pubs, most people's homes, etc.

Aggressive tanning.

Aggressive flat ironing of hair.

long johns and flannel

Avril Lavigne

The Reagans.

AIDS

Having to buy porn on VHS or in magazines just to see naked men, women, couples, or people having sex.

R78 it’s weird, as much as I hated it at the time, I do miss people casually lighting up at home and in bars.

Getting home from a night at the bars and clubs and smelling like an ashtray.

Spending serious MONEY on pornography, even (especially!) in the early days of the internet.

Remember AdultPass and crap like that? Just for some nudies.

Landline telephones were the best. The usually had excellent sound, they obliged a person to sit or stand and talk and not treat the whole fucking world like her own personal telephone booth to shout in, and came in wonderful Princess pink or Trimline orange.

I don't miss smoking and smokers.

Five television networks and that was all you had to choose from.

(Though, now I feel like there's too much to choose from and I feel overwhelmed by all the options.)

Dial up internet that'd cut you offline if someone in your house picked up the phone

Having to drive to another video store across town to find a particular movie. Now, you can just hop onto Amazon or eBay and find pretty much any movie ever made.

Wondering what would happen if you broke down and couldn't find a payphone or didn't have any money for one.

I miss video rental store but not the late fees if you didn’t get it back on a certain day.

I don’t miss ipods, CD players, giant laptops, dialup internet, cars without power locks and windows you had to manually roll up, phone books, vhs, nokia phones and buying minutes.

Otherwise attractive guys/men with long hair -- blech

Going to an airline ticket office to book a flight. Exchanging foreign currency after a trip abroad. AMEX Traveler's Checks. Filthy phone booths. Digital rectal exams. Cigarettes (although I miss cigars and pipes).

There are quite.a few lazy people in here. Listen to what you’re complaining about. Walking, using a map, getting dressed up to go out, going to a real farmers market downtown. I’m sure it’s the same people who can’t be bothered to answer the phone. And when you ask them what it is that they are doing that is so important? Crickets.

In fact, I would think the landline would be perfect for these always on the go, busy, busy people. Why should they be bothered with the rude distraction of these people on the cell phone interrupting them while the are out there being active, rock climbing and riding bicycles with their herpes infections?

In the end, your just a generation of lazy fucks who don’t answer the phone because you are terrified of communicating in a way that you can’t craft your bullshit before you spout it. And yes, I know some Of the phone haters are old as dirt. But they legitimately don’t give a fuck. They don’t just say it and then demand attention and validation from everyone else.

D&D 3.5

R94 You sound insufferable.

[quote] In the end, your just a generation of lazy fucks

And you're a stupid fuck.

Victrolas, sock garters, automobile hand cranks, chaperoned dates, Prohibition, typhoid

Highway callboxes.

[quote] Eldergay, still haunted by the huge pause and "clunk" in Wings over America

Who can forget the fade out and clunk right smack in the middle of the solo guitar for "Money" by Pink Floyd.

What’s the difference between calling someone on a landline ir calling them on a cell / mobile phone?

How cool people with beepers thought they were

You're an idiot R94. There's nothing lazy about being grateful for having access to decent produce in my town instead of having to drive 30 mins in traffic and heat and paying parking fees to get to one downtown. EVERY town in America should have farmers markets you elitist prick

R94 It's incredible how upset some of the Olds like you get when anybody criticizes anything from their era

CRT monitors

Dot matrix printers and mimeographs

Buffering

Malls

Landlines & pre-caller ID phones

Physical media music

Cash and, even less, checks

Mailing things, buying stamps

Having to juggle pesky questions of fact in my head until I meet the right expert or am in the right reference library

Spending years looking for some odd thing that can now be found and ordered in seconds

Nostalgia of almost any sort

Living in the U.S.

the closet

Barbara Stanwyck

Tuneless dorky boy bands

JNCOs, though I miss old school raves

The rise of reality tv. I wish it would die and fry in hell for all eternity.

Sweats and PF Flyers.

VIVIAN VANCE!!!

That goddamn fuckin' bitch!

R67 is bitter isn’t she?

[quote]Spending serious MONEY on pornography, even (especially!) in the early days of the internet.

[quote]Remember AdultPass and crap like that? Just for some nudies.

I remember ManCheck for gay sites. Also, websites and Usenet groups with bootleg ManCheck IDs. I finally got an AEBN account around 2000.

I don't miss the mountains of AOL discs that came as junk mail.

I miss the sheer notion that a CD could give us the internet.

Cool Water Cologne by Davidoff.

My wee-wee.

Pink, blue, yellow toilet paper. Gave so many anal cancer.

Telephone answering machines

R2 I LOVE "I'll Fly Away" & "Homicide: Life On The Street"! I haven't seen either in years. Now I'll have to find them streaming or online somewhere.

Leona Helmsley, & Anita Bryant! Cunts, both of them!

I know Bryant is still alive, but at 80, it won't be long.

[quote]I hardly noticed the voicings of other people in public before smartphones.

Voicings?

[quote]There's something about digital noise that makes me wish I could make people disappear (to put it nicely). And those digital beeping things they give their sproggen to annoy people with? It should not be a crime to put a bullet through any of their heads.

I get that there are a lot of unhappy, broken people on Datalounge who think talking like this makes them sound like an internet badass, but let's be clear: if you really are going around fantasizing about shooting young children in the head or murdering adults who use an app with a start-up sound, you need professional help. I'm not joking. This is not normal behavior.

Ha R115 I don’t miss it either. The gay boys were splashing it everywhere! I still have that scent in my mouth...

The 80s and the 00s.

Being on hold for eternity. Most places by now they can call you back, and it’s usually a pretty close to exact estimate of what time, so you can just have your phone ready.

Exchanging paper cards for every holiday. Of course some people still like them - nothing wrong with a handwritten Christmas card or thank you note, but I hated giving and receiving them most of the time. Just pointless clutter and waste.

Bring forced to watch network or cable TV.

Not having control of the entertainment I want to consume and being controlled by film studios and tv production/network schedules. Now we consume what we want and when we want to.

Waiting weeks to watch a music video if I was lucky and it was played when I was watching.

Having to go to malls to buy clothes and other things. Online shopping rocks.

Going into banks. Online banking also rocks.

Not being able to get gay porn anywhere. Now I download whatever I want.

Not knowing something and having to spend a long time locating information/speaking to someone. Now we Google.

But there are also a lot of things I do miss.

r123 Good call. I do miss the 90s though.

r122 How did it get in your mouth, girl? 🤭

Speaking of the Dewey decimal system and card catalogs......

I’m sure we have a few Party Girl fans on here. The movie with Parker posey. IIRC they did a little side story about doing research in a library at that time because of her job. It briefly mentioned how the internet existed before the World Wide Web. Finger, Gopher, Archie and the like.

I actually miss the days when you had to put a little effort into digging up information and doing research. You would eventually find yourself going through various books and periodicals, pulling microfiche, maybe coming across audio and photo archives.

Two different people could be doing the research and end up with different data sets. Today, if you research online, you end up with one or two homogenized conclusions. The difference is that the person who worked to pull their own data would have a more intimate knowledge of the subject matter and was capable of drawing their own conclusions.

The internet had such promise when everyone was freely sharing their expertise just because they could. Once the tech bro capitalist mentality took over and profitability became king, that promise was trampled. Lost with it was the diversity of thought and the marketplace of ideas.

And of course the by-product of all this is the dumbing down of information that lets the extremes on both sides of the spectrum use online data from their source of choice to bolster their positions.

Tony fucking Danza and Kirk fucking Cameron stinking up Tuesday nights.

In that same vein, a rapist having the #1 show on TV while shows that have aged better were marginalized and/or ignored at the time they were aired.

Curly Perms

Chicken pox.

Bravo, r129. I agree wholeheartedly.