What are you not nostalgic for?
I don't miss dial-up internet, I just don't. I don't even like the sound because it's just digital screeches and it's a sound that makes me cringe a little upon hearing it. Because I remember the times when I'd be listening to music with headphones with volume high and then that fucking digital screech just blares into my ears.
I don't miss waiting 30 minutes to load a page. I don't miss a bit of it.
People smoking everywhere
The children of today have no idea what it was like to go into a McDonald’s and see used ashtrays on the tables. And good for them. But holy shit, how did anyone ever have an appetite?
Ugh, and the restaurants with the low half wall to separate the smoking and non smoking sections?
You are lucky if you get a half wall!
I miss that. You would go to someone's indoor wedding, and one half of the room just would not be visible.
It gave the disco lights way more flair when passing through a high smoke cloud. Yes, we have fog machines now, but they're typically more to your knees, it's a different effect.
Plus you could tell which tables were discussing the heavy politics based on the thickness of the smoke above the table. The weakass smoke-free tables was where the dull-minded sat, saying nothing of consequence.
I don't miss only having 3 channels to watch and having to be home at a particular time to watch something.
It was a shared experience, and! and! the quality was better! Don't believe me? Find any freesat channel right now and compare it to any streaming service.
Streaming services have to serve millions of different customers different content on-demand, and as a result the signal is compressed and dithered to the point of unviewabaility (says me, my family are apparently unaffected by the fuzzy black dots...) even on 4K streams.
Broadcast content? Its just chucked out there over the waves for anyone to catch, and the bitrate and quality are fantastic in comparison.
Also the 'cultural exchange' you'd get if you lived in border regions!
Getting paid by check instead of direct deposit.
I'm still getting paid by check.
France, public administration.
I moan absolutely every time, and then hold on to it as much as I can to fuck up their accounting because unclaimed checks whacks their balances. When they phone to complain I call them palaeolithic morons & ask them to fucking wire the money already. I think my record is three months (I don't work exclusively for them). Nice people and fun job otherwise but gosh, why the checks, seriously.
The school bullying.
In my opinion, the bullying is still as alive as it ever was. Kids are just better at masking it. There is definitely more acceptance for LGBT, neurodivergent, and kids that would be considered outside the "norm" nowadays. But, teenagers have a strange capacity for cruelty to one another, it is just a different type of cruelty than past generations.
I'd also argue as someone thats experienced schooling more recently than many other Lemmy users, the methodology of bullying has changed. My parents always told stories of being physically assaulted by other kids as a form of bullying. My experience was being falsely reported for all sorts of crimes, funnily enough only to the school and never to actual authorities who could properly prove my innocence. Being accused of having and sharing drugs as well as death threats over anonymous messaging platforms is still most definitely bullying, though the style of violence and persuasion have changed.
Traded it in for work bullying
Stop putting the nerds from accounting into lockers
Smoking.
Do you know why all the wall paint and curtains of the 70s and 80s never included pristine white? Yes, that’s why. I’m convinced the choices of golds, oranges, and browns were just giving in to the inescapable film of nicotine tinge on everything, everywhere.
To this day, when I see “cream”, “ecru”, “chiffon” or any other creative name for not-quite-white, I think of nicotine stains.
Restaurant smoking was the worst.
I’ve never, and this is likely why. Growing up in that acrid awfulness was a great deterrent.
When I was doing some interior work and searching paints, Ralph Loren paints had a Nicotene stain to apply over colours or wallpaper to give it that smoke era feel. LOL
It’s a film of goo. If you’re in a kitchen of a smokers house and a tea kettle or boiling pot goes for a bit, rusty drips will form on the ceiling and down the walls. There’s a filmy goo to it if you get it on your hands. It’s a piece of what needs to be cleaned then painted over, sometimes multiple times, to lock it away.
I guess if there’s no context for it, then it’s a mere sepia tone or some such.
I could not find a listing for this paint of yours.
I do not feel nostalgia for the information isolation and bottleneck prior to the late 90's, like needing the newspaper classified ads to find a job, music discovery was primarily limited to local FM radio (although I'm totally disenfranchised from streaming ads with a little bit of music added into the gaps), and cable TV as the only form of home entertainment. I am nostalgic for the age of ownership and citizenship. I hate neo feudalism and the corruption of the tech bro oligarchy, but I digress.
The fact that I can have New Pipe content filled with people holding masters and doctorate degrees while communicating in a layperson format is awesome. I can't imagine how terrible physical disability would have been if I couldn't take a break from a project, like right now, and feel like I'm in a casual conversation with a real group of people despite being in bed hurting. It lacks the same psychological depth as in person interchange, and people often fail to understand the depth or specificity of what am talking about here, but it is better than nothing by a long shot. The negativity of the average anon seems to get better with time in the present age. We are still not at a point where we can be wrong in a truly civil way and see value in people. We do not seem to process that we are all evolving and a growing mess of change at various levels, but we are getting there slowly and we are a long way away from the negativity of the early internet. So yeah, if this is the information age, I do not feel nostalgic about the previous information bottleneck.
Access to infinite knowledge from the internet, sitting right in everyones pocket. Sometimes, I will find myself talking to someone a few generations older than me. And they will say something along the lines of "I wonder how many..." and then just let the idea rest. Because they still act like they would have to go to a library to look up the fact. It amazes me! We don't have to wonder. I can look it up right now! It'll take me a few seconds.
Alternatively, I cannot stand when I am talking to someone and make a statement to which they respond: "I don't know..." or "I'm not sure if that's true". This is often a tactic I see older men use (often talking politics) to cast doubt on a younger or female person. And unfortunately, back in the day that was good enough to derail a conversation. Nowadays though... Don't believe me? Let's look it up. We don't have to take your word for it. People forget they can be fact checked in real time.
I often find looking up facts defeats the point of the conversation, specifically in the context of your first para
Leaded gas
VHS tapes, and having to rewind them.
Although the ability to record almost anything on a cheap VHS tape was nice, now everything has copy protection.
VHS could copy the subtitles and teletex info too, even if it wasn't displayed, which is nuts
Please be kind, rewind.
I don't miss having to have a separate device for digital photography. I remember having to pay 4 or 500 for a decent digital camera that fits in your pocket. When I got my first smart phone about 15 years ago, I took a picture with it and compared it to a decent Canon and a decent Fuji camera, that were one the best ones you could get in Best buy at the time for that budget. I compared the images and they sucked compared to my phone. Smh. Now my phone is around 4 or 500 and way better than basic digital cameras you can fit in your pocket, with way more functionality.
School. I don't miss any of it.
You see movies and TV shows romanticising middle/high school a lot, as though it's all about parties, friends, hanging out, and getting into relationships. It's not that. Just an endless barrage of busywork with the occasional holiday.
I share this sentiment. School was such a drag and I miss nothing about it.
Meh, this one depends on where you lived. We had parties, lots of time with friends and hanging out, plus relationships...it wasn't until Grade 13 (which was a pre Uni course year) where we had so much homework, especially 3 uni level math course...just doing calculus for hours after school.
Cable television.
Every time I visit my mom she has it on and I can't believe I spent an entire childhood putting up with that shit. I can't even watch it while I'm there. Too frustrating.
Whenever I have a chance to watch cable tv occaionally, I am astonished how many commercials there are and that, before the inception of the internet, everyone put up with commercials that lasted for about 10 minutes. And seemingly still do.
Today, when using the internet exclusively, one gets annoyed by maximum when there is one single ad that slipped through the ad blocker.
As trivial as it sounds, pornography.
Imagine having to pull out the trench from the winter drawer and drive to another town's smutt shop, so they don't recognize you, every time you feel like wanking
For a long time, I thought porno mags in bushes at parks was a ruse invented by the previous generation to confound the current
Oh man. Finding porno mags in bushes as a kid was like finding buried treasure. Especially if the pages weren't sticky.
I actually miss that all the things take a wile to start or function. Im not happy with this fast life were all its instantly. That only give me anxiety.
Changing CDs just to listen to a few songs from a different album. Also carrying around CDs.
I’m conflicted. I enjoy being able to listen to anything anywhere but it makes me not listen to full albums anymore, possibly missing out on good music.
Same, I tend to reserve full album listens for working and long car/plane/train rides. With the current standard of streaming services over mobile, I find myself mostly listening to previously downloaded stuff because of inconsistent US mobile data service in my area occasionally. I've also gone the route of upgrading my old iPod with more storage (160GB -> 1TB) and battery life and just carry all of my music with me.
Vaporwave... It was cool for like 2 minutes in 2015 but it got old very quick. Just get any 80s song and slow it down on some free audio software. In a lot of ways it could be seen as a precursor to other trash like nightcore or breakcore.
I wish it stayed cool longer only because I didn’t care for it at first but then really got into it around 2020, but by then the genre was already dead.
My childhood. I don't understand people who do. Mine was mostly loneliness, confusion, trauma, emotional neglect, guilt, shame, some abandonment, some physical abuse, etc. Every day has been a step towards better than the previous. I don't want to or miss anything going backwards.
Cassette tapes. Sure, they where handy and cheap, but the sound quality wasn't great and got worse the more you use it.
And don’t forget about track skipping!
Fast Forward…wait…Stop. Play. Fast Forward a little more…wait. Stop. Play. Rewind a little. Stop. Play. “Ehh, close enough.”
I have an old cassatte player (mid-90s) that is capable of recognizing the tracks, if there is a gap of at least 2 seconds between them. When going fast forward it stops at the beginning of the following track. Also it is equipped with an auto-reverse feature: when reaching the end of side A it automatically switches to side B, without having to eject, flip and insert the cassette manually.
Reagan being president. No, not even now.
If by "no, not even now", you're referring to how the incPliny US administration is basically Ronald 2.0, I'm right there with you.
Gay jokes on TV. You know the kind. "it's funny because it's gay", very prevalent on series like Friends. Friends is a great show even today, but I do not miss the gay jokes.
I watched ace Ventura the other day and I cringed so hard at the transphobia and I remember laughing at it in the theaters too when it was new.
My internalised homophobia definitely thought homophobia was comedy gold back in the day...
I love monty python's flying circus, but they had multiple sketches across several different episodes where the punchline was a gay person getting murdered. Kinda hard to watch some of them now.
Cars that would vapor lock when driving in the mountains.
As flatlander: I need some clarification. Why was this, why is it no longer something?
Vapor locking is an interplay between a mechanical vacuum based fuel pump and carburetors that causes the engine to get starved of gas and stall out. It’s made worse at high altitude and particularly when ascending rapidly like driving up a high altitude pass such as Wolf Creek. If you’ve even needed to pop your ears several times while driving you’ve been in a situation where it could have happened.
Back in the day, the fix when it happened was to stop the engine and wait for air pressure to equalize through the system, which generally took about 30 minutes. Of course, this was on the side of a narrow twisty mountain road and people would sometimes get impatient or not know what was going on and flood their engine in a panic.
It’s pretty rare now due to electric fuels pumps and fuel injection.
I’ve never heard of this but I didn’t grow up near mountains. I did however grow up in the Midwest and couldn’t stand anti-lock brakes — one time I hit a car because instead of allowing me to control the sliding the car refused and just went straight into the car ahead of me.
These days I live nowhere near snow (unless I choose to drive into the mountains) so I’m not sure what the situation is with modern cars. I did go up into the mountains last years when the temperature dropped to 39°F overnight and my car freaked about tire pressure — that wasn’t a fun lesson to learn.
oh wow. I just completely forgot that was a thing
Smokers.
Having to do yard work or setting up holiday decorations outside. Ever since moving from a house to an apartment, I've had zero yard work outside of picking up dog shit when walking my brother's dogs and the closest I've come to holiday decorating is setting up a fake indoor Christmas tree and decorating it.
Used to have to do a lot of leaf picking up and weed pulling growing up. Never liked it and still don't because of how long it'd take and how I don't like getting dirt dirty. Also, I was never a massive fan of decorating outside, specifically just Halloween and Christmas, because my family used to have a ton of decorations and my mom always wanted them a certain way, even if that meant taking a few down and moving them. Lots of work over a weekend. Looked good afterwards, but I can't say I've missed putting stuff up. I'll leave that to other people like the people near me who for some reason still have Halloween decorations up.
Lemmy.ml leading up to the election.
collecting wood for heating.
Not that gasoline cars are gone (unfortunately) but I personally won’t ever go back to it. Electric cars are just so much better in any way except range and charge time. But those are honestly overblown topics that you won’t think much about in your daily life once you got used to it.
I don’t miss dial-up internet,
Nobody "misses" 56kbit/s.
I don’t even like the sound because it’s just digital screeches
When I hear that sound now I am very briefly returned to the excitement I felt in the 90s. It was an age of wide-open possibilities, free from commercial influence. Full of patience and anticipation.
Oh well.
Netbooks. Jfc that performance of a mid-tier smartphone whereby they'd become unusable in a few years for anything heavier than lxqt or some tiling wm, a simple music player like audacious, vim and static websites (accessed only using something lightweight like Netsurf, Badwolf or Palemoon as well). I don't remember what happened to mine but I'm pretty sure that even mpv with no scripts would drop frames like crazy on FHD x265 matroska videos. I'm so glad that ultrabooks started to become more affordable and nowadays I'd be able to buy an i7 t440s for the price of my acer aspire one back in 2011.
I don't miss them either, but they were necessary in moving our portable devices forward. Everyone and their best friend was making bigger and faster laptops. No one was making power efficient and light ones. Netbooks filled that need. And cost less than a macbook air by a large margin.
I used an Acer one with an atom as a mobile terminal for six years before the battery gave up on me. I was getting a day's work out of a device I could fit in my (oversized) back pockets. And since it was just an SSH device, the speed didn't matter.
Also, synthetic cannabinoids. So glad that kids these days are not exposed to this shit, but I wouldn't say I'm happy either with all the fent out there.
And larping as pagan.
CRT displays. The day I replaced my old CRT with a LCD I thought I hope I never use one of these again.
Polio
Non-shitty affordable gaming. No Internet required, no updates, no game breaking bugs if you bought it on day one. Just bring your Game Boy Colour in the back seat of the car on vacation, bring a shitload of AA's and finish Pokémon Blue 3 times in a few weeks.
It sounds like you are nostalgic for that
Oh I misread the question.
Get a Steam Deck, load it with emulators and indie games.
I don't miss being in my 20s. I was broke, miserable, sometimes homeless and kind of a shit. I had a lot of fun and good memories but my living situation was miserable.
Anonimity, privacy, and the dream that the world was full of intelligent kind people.
are you not nostalgic for it?
Very much so, the fully connected world is much more dystopian than I could ever imagine. I just misread OP.
You like being exposed and surrounded by idiots? Because the post asked what you weren't nostalgic for.
Big family gatherings. I did not particularly enjoyed them growing up (I come from big extended families) but when I became a parent they were unbereable so I just stopped attending. I couldn't fathom to subject my child to all that nonsense. Best decision ever! While cousins fight over who brings what side dish for Christmas I will be relaxing in a hammock by the beach, thank you very much.
H0w ppl usd 2 r8 in da 2000s
And the extremely crass culture that came with it.
I very much enjoy online shopping and am not nostalgic for driving all over town to find a part or thing only to settle for something that's a partial match for what I want and much more than I wanted to spend. If a local retailer happens to have what I am looking for, I'm more than happy to purchase it in store, but almost always know exactly where it is in the store and how many are in stock.
Like others here, childhood. I am not at all nostalgic for childhood. It wasn't awful but being an adult is much better.
Music I am not nostalgic about - is this a gender difference? Both my ex and my husband listen to the music of their youth, I like plenty of old stuff but also like so much newer music, it just keeps coming, so much good music. It's just delightful to know there is so much talent and creativity in the world.
Not nostalgic in general, actually. There are plenty of current problems, but people who think the past was better are either old white men, or crazy.
People thinking violence is wrong