Does anybody remember the vibe of the late 90s/early 2000s?
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r/nosurfu/9krisn (1160)

The world was different. All year I've been thinking about this....our planet had a different "vibe". It sort of, disappeared around 05-07. There was this vibe, it's hard to explain, but think of it almost like a universal shift. Like a glitch in our matrix. Something you don't notice until it's gone. The lighting, the atmosphere and smells of the local arcades and movie theaters...the sun just hit the earth in a different way.. It was easier to enjoy the small things. The world wasn't perfect but it definitely felt more utopian than today.

Something about society today feels "off." I don't wanna blame it all on technology but things just don't sit well with me. Instant updates, instant camera, instant flashlight, instant movies, instant chatting, instant this, instant that.. a false sense of reality.. We were not made to live like this

Put down your phone even for 24 hours, go out in public and you'll see what I'm talking about here..you feel like the only human in a sea of zombie biological androids.

Anyways like I said life wasn't perfect back then but our universe felt more "chill"...more of a relaxed nature...not as much information overload.

Idk..maybe I just dwell on the past too much man...Like I said it's hard to explain but there was definitely this vibe or feeling in that time period that no longer exists

Comments (220)

I think everything being instant today is why it feels "off". The journey to do something is pretty much non-existent anymore. Before, if you want to rent movies, it's a journey. Buy new music? It's a journey. Want a date? It's a long-ass journey. Everything was physical before, you can say it's more alive. In those journeys, you are experiencing random life.

Today, it feels like our physical reality is just passing by on the side while we stare at our phones in this new digital reality. Going to "destinations" just clicking a bunch of buttons with no experience of journey.

Stellar way of thinking about it. Random interactions don't seem to happen nearly as much.

Yeah, I met a girl on holiday at a cafe when I was cycling, got chatting about poetry and organised an impromptu date. And it felt kinda spontaneously magical in a way that it never could have over an app.

Before, if you want to rent movies, it's a journey. Buy new music? It's a journey.

Even pirating movies or music were more fun compared to today.

I remember discovering an IRC server where users would share a folder on their local computer just packed with movies. I watched a work print copy of one of the Hostel movies I found on there, and a cam copy of the Dawn of the Dead remake.

I don’t remember how involved I was with the community, but it was definitely different to the more modern /r/softwarr

Before this — Napster and subsequently Kazaa, Limewire, Bearshare, etc. — what a world! Very, very different from throwing on an algorithm (and marketing) driven streaming radio station.

Man, Limewire and eMule were the good times. I remember coming back home from Karate practice just to find out the movies I left in download were porn lmao.

I had a better relationship with the internet, it was 2006ish. Although I believe I was building my addiction.

At 1 point I thought Limewhire & eMule was the greatest things ever invented. But then they are full of porn.

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Sound great! Do you print the cover too?

I've been trying to actually use my local library recently. It was wild. I requested a hold like a month ago for a movie and got an email like 2 weeks ago that it was ready.. I had nearly forgotten that I requested it. Nice little surprise actually.

Living in a city that has a good library system is the best.

Somewhat off topic, but I think this is partially why I prefer Sims 2 (life simulator of early 2000's) to Sims 3 (late 2000's-early 2010's) and Sims 4 (2010's). Sims 2 simulates those journeys you talk about in the post, as well as the randomness of life. By contrast, Sims 4 lacks substance, is predictable and boring, and the only improvement is in its aesthetics

You can become an influencer in the Sims 4. It’s exactly as mind numbing as it sounds.

Hell yes. Sims 2 FEELS like the era it's from and I like it much better. Sims 4 feels plastic and fake and shallow.

ooh maybe that's why some people like thrifting so much! that's still a "journey."

All the remaining journeys are being consumed and commodified by instagram et al, and we keep having to find other journeys. Constant recuperation by the digital world. Couple years ago it was houseplants, and while that remains popular, as of late thrifting and outdoors (especially deserts outside Los Angeles) are the latest target. It'll be something else in a year and a half. It's almost exactly how urban sprawl is driven by people trying to escape urban sprawl.

This is an amazing thought, thanks for sharing. I completely agree that those random 'events' are a huge part of what makes me feel alive, on the internet, in your house, there is no chance of that happening.

This is a great description

long ass-journey

^(Bleep-bloop, I'm a bot. This comment was inspired by )^xkcd#37

Good bot.

Great username. Good track

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Isn't Tinder specifically for one-night stands?

A YouTube comment for the song "Steal My Sunshine" said: It was like one long perfect summer with no end.

I was in college in the 90s and agree with this.

I don't think it's *just* the idyllic nostalgia everyone feels in their youth; I think 9/11 was the catalyst for a new age of fear, surveillance, and repression. After about 2008, the internet started to become more consolidated and commercialized. Pre-2008 or so, it was this wonderful place to discover people and information. The blogging ecosystem was amazing; in-depth discussions that would range over loosely-joined groups of blogs. You got a real sense of intellectual depth.

And now, just about every aspect of public life, from storytelling to music to politics to the flow of material goods, is subordinated to algorithms.

Yeah 2009 was the year you could really feel the internet start to change. Facebook launched Pages that fall, Twitter was mainstreaming itself, and those blog ecosystems started to turn into viable publishing enterprises thanks to CMS and ad tech development. 2015 is another year I think the internet changed, as facebook started to recalibrate its algorithms and the way people started to consume content was a little more spread out on platforms by their own algorithms. Also, cheaper hardware to devices like Roku / development of Netflix original content started to skyrocket and mainstream.

Also, cheaper hardware to devices like Roku / development of Netflix

Yeah, right? Remember when you had to buy DVD/VHS just for watching one movie? Or you needed a desktop computer as a media center?

Or you needed a desktop computer as a media center?

Still the best solution until streaming services stop censoring old movies and allow you to create playlists.

I'm still using my computer plugged on my TV in the living room. I love it

Along similar lines I use mp3s because I won't cede control of my music to streaming services.

Yep. I still buy CDs and rip them to FLAC files. Keep the discs on the shelf in case the files themselves ever degrade. Sync up to last.fm for recommendations.

Do you have a program to sync with LastFM? What's your setup?

In addition to what you said about post 9/11, in 2007-08 was a major financial crisis...corporations got bailed out and became more corporatized, while a lot of citizens lost money, jobs, homes. It's tough to have good vibes under those circumstances.

I completely agree with what you said about algorithms vs. organic cultivation of culture. That was definitely THE major tonal shift on the internet and elsewhere, I believe.

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I’d journey to say her “savings” ala retirement was in the market

I read somewhere, people were happier under ww2 then they are today.. mindboggling

This. I'd like to add that internet and computer in general were much slower. This lag gave you the ability to focus on just one thing at a time.

Personally, I think fax machines and answering machines in the 70’s/80’s started the decline. Suddenly everything demanded immediate attention. Imagine a world where you checked your phone calls only when you came home, and clients had to mail or hand deliver stuff to you and wait to get a response. Imagine a world where it was common for a family to take the phone off the hook during dinner, or wait 2 hours to talk to someone because their sister is on the phone. It used to be that people just showed up at your door and wanted to hang out. You could spend the day at the mall, and no one could get hold of you. That is what true freedom looked like.

Yeah, roaming around town like I did as a kid, would probably get my parents arrested or something nowadays

You could spend the day at the mall, and no one could get hold of you.

This. I hate the expectation that I should be available via text at every waking moment. I treat my texts like email, and have lost at least one friendship due to the fact that I took >24 hours to respond to a (non-urgent, purely conversational) text.

Me too. I will immediately respond to my mom/dad/sister, and to my boyfriend. No one else. Everyone else can wait until I'm good and ready.

I can't even create new relationships because of this😭

And not have 87 tabs open at once.

Yeah, internet explorer didn't have tabs on Windows 98.

I think I was happiest when my only access to the Internet was via dial-up at the library. Every trip meant new discoveries. I would bring stacks of floppy disks to bring home shareware I downloaded. It's also the first time I discovered an actual 3D Zelda was in the works via low resolution screenshots on Nintendo's website. I printed those to show them to classmates.

Back then to get my fix required me to jump on my bike and pedal the mile and a half to get there. In one instance I discovered a program that would let me make my own games without programming. I ran home to get floppies, but I was so excited that on the way back I managed to crash and tore my elbow up down to the bone. There's still a scar there from that crash, and my elbow "clicks" when I do pushups.

Today the Internet is pervasive. The barrier for entry is gone. The amount of effort I need to expend to get my "fix" is to roll to my side to pick my phone up while I'm still in bed. If I'm not careful and always mindful of it, I'll lay there, phone in hand until I'm late for work. It's a problem.

If I'm not careful and always mindful of it, I'll lay there, phone in hand until I'm late for work. It's a problem.

How much can I relate! I used to spend all the mornings after breakfast in bed for at least 30min just for checking new memes and news on my smartphone. Sometimes I even went to work late because of this behavior. I decided to kick out the smartphone on my bedroom and magic, I am now reading books over my ereader each morning. Books are not that much addictive compared smartphone usage, you can stop any time you want and never be late for work!

"the barrier for entry is gone" - this right there sums it up perfectly. Everything is instant gratification which takes out the growth in character that only comes in delayed gratification.

My most productive and enthusiastic point of life also lines up pretty well with the time when I didn't have Internet at home and had to walk to the library (in my case, three and a half miles down--and then back up--a mountain) to use it. I'm strongly considering disconnecting my desktop from the home wifi, since I don't really connect to the Internet through any other devices anyway. The main things stopping me are:

One - A Facebook chat is the primary means through which my family coordinates their day.

Two - I do a lot with Google Drive spreadsheets and metadata for my media collecting hobbies.

Yeah... do we really need 2, 3, or more giant monitors AND a TV in the same room? Seems like it just splits our attention so we can't fully focus on anything.

Anyone remember Xanga?

Every little thing imaginable commodified via ad revenue.

I'm a little bit younger than you, but I agree completely. I feel lucky to have experienced the world without all of this 24/7 tech, but at the same time, super sad that it will never be like that again. We are only at the beginning, especially once stuff like virtual reality starts ramping up.

Len is fucking garbage. Fuck your shitty oakley-sunglasses orange spraytanned noise.

I didn't know who sung the song OP was talking about, and I thought you were just randomly going off about a character from the Loud House x.x;

born in 1980. i was a teenager during the 90s and a student since 1998.

- i remember we had a radio in the kitchen. my mom, would wake up early and make us breakfast. i would pack my backpack, took my walkman and ran to school. everyone there would discuss during recess about what film or show we watched during the weekend and made plans to take the bikes (BMX ex-rider here) and go to ride bikes.

-newspapers and tv/radio were the only sources of news. internet was just a thing..i think they called them BBS. every morning i would go to the kiosk and buy a newspaper for my folks to read. i would take some comics and stay at my room listening to music.

- after school we would go to a record store to buy a CD or vinyl of our favourite bands.

- i was reading a lot. mainly sci-fi.

- in weekends i would grab my bike and go to the "spot". i knew i would find someone there to hang out.

late 90s i remember the euphoria of the new millenium. i was preparing very hard for my university admission exams. i remember that my only companion and vent when i was stressing out was my walkman and listening to savatage, rainbow etc. yeah, i was a big metalhead back then.

then, 9/11 came and people became very scared. i remember the only place to go to access the internet was internet cafes. we would go with friends and play counterstrike or age of empires etc. for 2-3 hours and then go out have a drink.

i remember travelling a lot when i was a student. i bought a cheap car and would often sleep in there. didn't have any photos of that period. i have my memories.

so..yes..i remember the times before internet. internet became so commercialised that it cringes a lot. click bait titles, fake news, stupid BS all the way. so i isolated internet to the home computer. i do most of my stuff online like internet banking, buying airline tickets and switch it off. occasionaly i come to reddit where i write long ass stories :P

i think they called them BBS

Haha, yeah. The BBS was kind of an early form of social media, more like message boards. It was slowly replaced by message boards as we understand them, the InvisionFree and Proboards type, in the mid-90s through early-00s. By the early nineties, there were proper websites, but they were all run by enthusiasts doing it for fun, mainly to show off that they had built something. Now it's all run by conglomerates. Sterile and hostile.

"I'm at fort b"... "Okay, on my way"

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I think it's an American-centric viewpoint that the positivism of the 90s ended with 9/11

Not even in America is that true. 9/11 was a dark spot, for sure, but most people's day-to-day kept on almost like it never happened. It really wasn't until the financial crisis (or the advent of smartphones) that things started to nosedive.

I think the 'vibe' is that people were optimistic about the future then still. Imagining future tech utopias. That shifted. Now we are essentially living in a dystopia compared to the 90's. And we are imagining worse dystopian futures instead of better, largely due to climate crises and political messes.

I was born in '87, so the 90's were my childhood years. I agree with the commenter that said it was like one long perfect summer with no end. During the summers we played outside for hours with the neighborhood kids, bouncing between the neighbor houses, the park, it didn't matter as long as we were home before dark. We played kickball, tag, running bases, capture the flag, ghost in the graveyard. We went to the pool a few days a week and just hung out for hours.

My parents took us on long road trips across the U.S.. I read books constantly without having the concentration problems I have now. I watched Disney movies on repeat. Over breakfast, I was always reading and rereading the backs of cereal boxes because I wasn't addicted to a screen yet.

So much time away from screens, actually living. We had electronics but they were novelties you would play with for a short amount of time, like "bop it" or tamagotchis. The computer still was away in the 'computer room'. When I was 10 or 11, I got an email address and had AIM but that was it.

I think a lot of the vibe for me was just kinda childhood innocence and being ignorant about what was happening in the world on a larger scale. I wasn't reading the news back then. It didn't affect me as it was all far away.

I absolutely have rose-colored glasses of the time, but looking over pictures seems to confirm: it really was a better time.

I'm really curious what you did in the winter back in the day. Right now it seems like everybody is fine with couping up and using technology all day long, seemed like people genuinely wanted to go out and do stuff this year in the summer, the winter not so much.

Watch TV, go to parties, read books.

Ice skating, Winter Carnival. Skiing, sledding.

Honestly, you were just bored sometimes. People have a really hard time with being bored for even a short amount of time these days. Or, just suck it up and go outside and play anyways.

I'd play outside in snowstorms, FYM m8😂

Sledding, ice skating, skiing, snowball fights, building snow forts, drinking hot chocolate, doing art projects, reading, making a fire in the fireplace, hanging out with friends & family, occasional vacation to somewhere warm, I could go on.

Over breakfast, I was always reading and rereading the backs of cereal boxes because I wasn't addicted to a screen yet.

So relatable!

So much time away from screens, actually living.

This is the crux of the issue, how to get back to that while living in a world that is filled to the brim with screens.

I’m this close to throwing away my iPhone, using a flip phone and looking like a loser.

Pretty damn close here too but I'm not ready to give up Spotify just yet.

You'll actually look like a drug trafficker. Lol

My phone doesn't even have service. At this point, I just use it as an MP3 player while I'm cooking.

I had no service for over a year and I only have it now because my family is "helping" me, even though it's really just a waste of a lot of money. If I ever needed my phone to be on, I would go buy a prepaid card for a month of service

I was thinking about what it was like to wait for my mom. Wait for her at the doctor, wait for her in the car while running errands. All I had to entertain me was the radio or magazines at the doctor’s office.

I miss being a kid and staying home sick and lying on my Grandma’s scratchy couch watching game shows and soap operas because that was all that was on. More choice isn’t always a good thing, especially for kids whose minds are still developing.

I miss when things weren’t so automatic. I was born in ‘83; so I have combined missing simpler times with missing my childhood in general. I know everyone thinks theirs was the best time to grow up, but it’s cool to remember a time before technology took over our lives but also be young enough to learn and adapt.

And now I’m the old aunt telling kids how much different things used to be. I feel bad for the kids going to Zoom school, having to sort through all kinds of content too mature for their little minds to grasp online.

I loved to read as a kid and would get book series mailed to me and was so excited for the next installment. Now I can barely watch a show bc I can’t stay off my stupid phone. I think that’s why I formed an addiction to YouTube; the short, simple videos work better when your attention is in several directions. I worry we are giving kids ADHD who wouldn’t have had it had they grown up before technology took over our lives.

heavy sigh

More choice isn’t always a good thing

Yep. Been feeling this, myself. Spent a lifetime collecting games, comics, books, movies, TV seasons, and haven't done even 10% of it. When I think I want to, I get paralyzed by indecision.

I started building playlists for myself, to sort of simulate having limited channels. What my programs feed me is what I watch. What's next on my video game list is what I'm going to play (though, I do have it split up by genre, so that I can pick a flavor at the very least). The book I have right now is the book I'm going to read. So on and so forth.

It's also helped to build little "random selectors" for myself. If I feel "blah" I hit the random button, loaded up with non-commitment entertainment, like board games or old Super Nintendo games that I can just pop on for half an hour and feel good about. It's nice to return to Mega Man X and King of Dragons every so often.

Right now I think what I most need to wean off is YouTube. There's a lot of neat takes on there, but I feel like maybe it's more stifling than even kids cartoons. I guess there's just some magic in fiction, for me.

I remember reading articles while waiting at the orthodontist's office and being excited to tell people what I read. Now people just share it on Facebook and talk to the people that interact with it.

It used to be one of the worst insults you'd hear when someone was at their breaking point was "fuck you"

Now we're like "kill yourself. Literally go home, crawl inside a garbage bag at the end of your driveway, and kill yourself, degenerate trash"

It used to feel like humanity would all unite if we faced a common threat... now it's very clear we're just fight over who gets to be lord of the ashes

This is dark... but true. People have become tolerant to the lack of humanity online.

Wow, I've never taken time to notice this but your so right. Some of the things you read can leave you feeling pretty strange

Yes, it had a totally different vibe. Your post is totally correct from my perspective.

Its hard to believe us as humans are typically so bad at admitting that we changed/allowed our world to change for the worse. We are all just lost in the technology... and it seems there is no going back. Like even if we tried... I don’t know if we could make it like it was back then. Which is so sad cause yeah, it felt so different and it was amazing. Today, even when I do things, I feel nothing. Everything is advertising loudly at me, every experience involves some sort of screen or people around me being distracted, everything has to be totally planned or you’re liable to not even see your friends at all.

Your post really hit home with me. Even your timeline... 05-07. Seems dead on. I think the tech plus the income inequality which had been building for a while and the ensuing recession made it that much worse.

It just sucks cause I was growing up during this time as a young teen and it smacked me in the face. It felt so sudden even if it wasn’t. And usually in the past it felt like “OK there is a recession or a bad event, we will just move past this eventually”. But this feels more permanent. And its just heartbreaking.

It's really bad for me. I was born in 2002 and I grew up expecting the world to be the same when I was older. I was looking forward to it and I could see myself prospering in the world of back then personality-wise. Now we're in the dystopian future and I'm 19 and I feel lost.

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Agreed, I think the 90s was short, sweet spot in history. Cold War ended in 91 and the war on terror was still s decade away. The internet was in its infancy. The economy was good. We knew about climate change, but it didn't feel like an existential threat as it does now.

I was close to graduation around the 2008 financial crisis, I can assure you we definitely weren’t optimistic about the future! And many of my friends were enlisting to go fight in the same endless middle eastern war that their older siblings (and some of their parents if you include the gulf war) were in. The younger generation that I’m hiring/training now is even more pessimistic than we were, it’s awful.

We’re fed a 24 hour cycle of bad news. If you constantly tell folks how dangerous the world is, how cruel it is, how the planet is dying and blaming every issue on mankind, it has to have a huge toll on people’s mental health.

We’re fed a 24 hour cycle of bad news

Because good news don't make money.

2008 really was a clear turning point in the general attitude of our culture. I'd say some of that optimism and vitality managed to hang on until 2010 at least, but it was definitely evaporated by 2011.

Me too. I think the 70s or 80s would also have been pretty good decades to be a teen. I think it's a combo of the age & the era, but if I had to choose I'd rather be in my 30s in the 90s vs being a teen today, so maybe it is the era more.

I was a child during the 90s, and I feel so bad for today's kids. Being a kid in the 90s was awesome. In retrospect, everyday felt like it could be an exciting day where you might miss a major event if you're not outside. I used to meet up with my best friend and his little brother and we'd just do anything we could outside. Could be a game of tag, could just be walking around chatting. I will always remember this one day when my friends and I tied plastic bags to action figures, swung the action figures by the bag, and launched them into the sky and would be excited when the bag would open up and act like a parachute. I had a blast that day and all I needed was an action figure and a plastic bag.

​

A lot of today's kids are tied to tablets, some even raised by a tablet instead of their parent(s) because their parents give them the tablets and don't engage with them in activities at all. It makes me sad because my little cousin is under 10 years old and she just comes over to our house and plays Roblox on her tablet every time she's here. We've tried getting her to do other things but all she wants to do is play Roblox. Not all kids are like this, but a lot are because there hasn't been any real studies done on the effect giving kids tablets at a young age has on them developing

I know I would've been hooked on tablets if they were around when I was growing up, so I'm very thankful that they weren't.

I know I would've been too. I was hooked on my Game Boy Color playing Pokemon Blue all day everyday. My parents got me rechargeable batteries and I would spend all of my free time playing that game. I could only imagine what would have happened if I had a bright crisp tablet with access to 1000s of games and the internet

There's a pretty spot-on youtube analysis of movies from 1999:

https://youtu.be/RuZKG77vANU

Basically the biggest fear people had in 1999 was of a mundane life spent in a cubicle, and weren't we so lucky THAT was our BIGGEST fear.

This entire post is a lot of gold. Amazing perspectives.

yeah i noticed this too. looking at older videos from the 90's, like stuff about what life was like then, it does have a different vibe. it feels calmer, less connected, longer attention spans.

everytime i over use the internet i feel the opposite of this vibe, i feel more emotional and easily annoyed and anxious. sometimes i wish i was born earlier in the 90's just to know what the calmer vibe was like.

People seemed to stick together longer back then too. Now, you can “cancel” someone or delete/block them for a mere difference of opinion. There’s no attempt to solve differences. Just delete them while everyone cheers you on.

We were a bit tougher, and also a bit more forgiving, back then, because your neighborhood was all that you had, so you learned to make the most of it. Even if you didn't stay friends and you retreated to AIM or message boards, there was still that impetus to be neighborly. It's all eroded, now.

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One thing I know for sure, at least in relation to movies and video games: the lower resolution on home televisions, and in the case of video games, the weaker processing units, forced creators to develop a style which hinted at the characteristics of an environment without inundating their viewers with millions of irrelevant bits of visual information. These days I can hardly tell what objects in a game I'm supposed to interact with and what are just filler. Sometimes I can't even tell the "main path" or the enemies apart from all the particles and the rest of the environment. It's not my vision--it's the amount of unnecessary tiny junk all over the screen. Same thing with movies. Sony Pictures in particular is really fond of "more is more."

90s kid here. That "vibe" coincidentally disappeared exactly with the rise of smartphone. FB at the time of desktop was a fun tool because it helped me reconnect with old friends. Everyday I had a chance to meet some one from kindergarten times. Doesnt that sound great? Smartphone makes things more instrusive. Selfie, constant flow of content to consume. People care more about how their life look than an actual relationship. MTV goes shit. The best source for music became a pool of crap reality TV show. I dont know if the channel still show any music at all because I unsubscribed it long time ago. Nobody watched MTV now.

I agree, it wasn't the internet alone that caused the massive societal change, but the rise of the smartphone. It's gonna get even worse in the future when humans & tech start legit merging together.

I think another part of that missing vibe is the random interactions you would have with people who were craftsman or semiexperts in their field. What I mean by this is that on any given day (as an adult) you would interact with, say, a baker to pick up a loaf. Now, we pick up bread from the grocery store or have it delivered to the trunk of our car, and there’s no discussion about the quality of the bread, or why this particular type of loaf would be better than a different one, and you especially have no real human connection to the person who baked it.

Now, I can certainly learn how to bake fantastic bread from YouTube, but I don’t have a personal connection to the baker who is teaching me.

I can think of many other examples of small human interactions with people who knew more than me about any given subject, making the world feel as if every person had something to teach me. Now, the world feels more isolated to be sure (even before the pandemic), but also less interesting.

Now, we pick up bread from the grocery store or have it delivered to the trunk of our car, and there’s no discussion about the quality of the bread, or why this particular type of loaf would be better than a different one, and you especially have no real human connection to the person who baked it.

I've routinely been mocked by people younger than me when I try to explain to them how and why they should inspect packages of meat at the store to choose the best one, or fruit. They just grab the one on top and move on.

Finally!

I have been asking people this for years.

What was it like before the internet?

And EVERYONE says

"It was better"

I really feel like this page, nay the younger generations need a compendium of information on this subject. Because they, even myself born in 97 don't really have reference for it. I was born on the cusp. Had a outdoors technology free childhood and mid teens that changed.

I have messaged Redditors who complain about how bad things are today.. I have asked them to make a post.. an uplifting post, about how it WAS.

Those of you who have lived before us...

Show us the way.

There was more tactile engagement with the world.

Imagine you're a first-grader. Would you rather work with: a) printed worksheets that you can draw on with pencils and crayons b) touching icons on a computer screen.

Imagine you're in 3rd grade. Would you rather: a) have a set of encyclopedias in your living room, complete with exciting color photos. Laying on your stomach on the living room floor, turning pages, reading about everything from dance to dinosaurs b) look things up on Wikipedia

Would you rather: a) go to a movie theater and see the latest hand-drawn animated movie, or maybe a practical-effects movie with puppets like Neverending Story or the Muppet Movie with no advertisements before the film,* or b) watch the same algorithmically-generated computer-animated half-hour shows on Netflix over and over?

Would you rather: a) be surprised by a visit from Grandma, or b) have an appointment to chat with her over FaceTime?

In college, would you rather a) see a cheap live concert at the bar with your friends or b) listen alone on headphones to whatever's specifically tailored to your musical tastes?

Imagine news and politics. Is it better to have a) 3 networks and 2 local newspapers, so that everyone's getting the same information and can have a rational discussion about it, even if there is a corporate bias or b) zillions of YouTube channels so that everyone is lost in their own private reality and we can't even have a rational discussion because we can't agree on premises.

Radio: would you rather have a) local stations curated by a human DJ with room for surprise, or b) an algorithmically-programmed nationwide station that only plays songs you're guaranteed to already know?

I just think there's a richness to life that's been lost, and with it, a tragic loss in the richness of people's inner lives and inner resilience. I could be wrong.

*this has got me thinking about the constant attempts to colonize our mindspace. Used to be when you went to a movie in the theater, there was silence or soft music before the film, and a dark blank screen. Then the trailers would play, and then the film. Now, there are audio ads as soon as you enter the theater, followed by commercials, followed by trailers and then, finally, the movie.

Also, there were more birds, butterflies, and wild spaces when I was a kid.

We've lost so much biodiversity since the 70s, and it's an ache that I think we all feel. We're all grieving so much, even if we don't consciously know it.

In elementary school, we'd get friends together and ride our bikes out to "the woods." Those woods are mostly all suburbs, now.

Take a look at places that have been built since the 80s, 90s, 00s. Those used to be scrubby liminal spaces where insects, plants, and animals lived.

[deleted]

Same. Sad to think about

If you want more of “the woods” experience, with some pretty decent career paths nearby, you should come check out —

Just kidding. Y’all can go keep Austin weird or something; I’ll keep this place to myself :P

In all seriousness, there are some pretty okay places in the US that don’t require that you give up your modern life in the process. Things are still very different from how they used to be, though, and I’m the first to admit that I’ve been leaning into a tech-centric lifestyle for quite some time. I’d like to learn my way around with a soldering iron to step away from a screen and get a bit more hands-on, but I know that isn’t the same thing as meeting up with a group of friends at “the spot” or something similar.

What's even sicker than woods being developed is a couple slivers of the open space being preserved, usually because they are forced to because of endangered species, but the areas are fenced off so people can't access them. When will impacts to unstructured outdoor time be considered as important an impact as endangered species? They are both important.

The beginning of your last paragraph really hit it home for me.... colonizing our mindspaces. That’s a good way to phrase that.

I’ve been getting so pissed off lately about political ads on all media I consume (I live in GA, so they’re for the runoff) and even if it’s only 20-30 seconds sometimes I just mute it and close my eyes (to try and break from defaulting to my phone) - like I don’t even want to give it the space in my mind or acknowledge it. But that term you used sums it up perfectly as to why it pisses me off so bad.

constant attempts to colonize our mindspace

\^ this right here

Used to be when you went to a movie in the theater, there was silence or soft music before the film, and a dark blank screen

Ours used to play movie trivia, with soft music and low lights. These were good times.

Brilliant comment.

If you want to know what it was like watch a little Seinfeld and Friends. It was almost impossible to maintain a large circle of friends because you couldn’t text or hit them up on social media. So you had your close group of friends, who you would call, go out with, or spend the day with. Online shopping wasn’t a thing so malls were super popular, and when you went you’d make a day of it! Walking one end of the mall to the other! It was the only way to check out the newest tech and trends.

Even better, if your mall was relatively close to a movie theater.

Have watched all of Seinfeld. Enjoyed it and a lot of the little 90's things in there.

Is there like a genre of book for day life in different periods. I want it focused on the mundane so I can emulate more enriching activities I couldn't identify by myself

Hmm... You might be interested in reading journals, maybe some blogs and other personal websites from the era, rather than fiction. Maybe memoirs and the like.

Am reading "Walden" at the moment. It's pretty good. You should check it out

Couldn’t agree more — granted I was a kid during that era too. But it definitely felt like people were better at living in the present moment.

I think the worst part about being tethered to a smart device is that it’s constantly pulling you out of a mindful headspace. As someone with awful ADHD, it’s that much more apparent.

But as a kid, my attention span was somehow much better. And I didn’t start developing any kind of anxiety or noticing many ill effects of my ADHD until I started carrying around the demon glass in my pocket.

And I didn’t start developing any kind of anxiety or noticing many ill effects of my ADHD until I started carrying around the demon glass in my pocket.

Can I ask: where on your timeline does "joining Reddit" fit?

Because I certainly feel like my ADHD is much worse than it was when I hung out on small proboards sites as a teenager.

Joining Reddit comes in partway through, and at first Reddit was desktop only for me. But it certainly didn’t make it better!

I should’ve known back when I was on automotive forums around ~16 and shit got a little addicting without me noticing

Omg I feel the same. I really miss the time. It always felt like everything was going to be ok. Even if it wasn't. The world seemed safer somehow. No Instagram or Facebook you had real friends who you hung out with everyday and no selfies /no crap It felt more real than these times we live in

"more real" I like that phrase to describe life

Welcome to post 911, the free world is dying a slow death

The Covid pandemic is feeling very similar. Despite what one’s opinion is of what the right way to handle it is, it’s going to have a lasting impact on controlling people and instilling more fear in the general public. I’m tired of the constant fear mongering of the last 20 years.

What pains me the most is how close this era feels to me in linear terms, yet how how far away it is in reality regarding every facet. For better or worse, life is change.

Basically iPhones came and its been downhill since

The late 90's was the beginning of the end.

The post-Cobain age was the timeframe where pop culture became centered on uncanny, orange spraytanned hedonistic 'y2k futurist' excess and McMansionDom extending itself even further than it did during the 80's reagan epoch - all that credit card maxxing and reality TV re-enacting is what led to the eventual economic crash of '07/'08.

Once said crash occurred; indie/bohemian life started to get normalized while everyone got on their knees and came to the epiphany on how full of shit western consoomerism is. Then; as the 2010's sporadically went on - the spirit of indie eroded and was commodified/bastardized by big data and the system. And within the past 4 years - we've digressed into everything at fault about the late 90's-early 00's cranked to 100. Everything and everyone is a caricature. Look at this late stage neoliberal capitalist dystopia. Onlyfans, the incel epidemic, 'meme culture' - hypernormalization of everything beyond the aforementioned that is terrible that the world has to offer to the point of absolute desensitization.

My friend did send me a video that touches upon a conspiracy that overtime; china is quite possibly astroturfing social media in order to create planted opposition and disorder - and to 'toy' with society as well. I know; I'm at risk of sounding like a total tinfoil loon - that being said, I haven't watched it yet - and I don't fully believe it. I'm taking all of this information with a grain of salt at this very moment. But hey; I'd encourage you all to check it out. I have to watch it myself as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jLbq9VwOK8

I suppose that visiting a country like Belarus where the internet is limited but society functions nonehteless could serve as a good time capsule to be able to experience what life felt like beforehand...

Don’t know where you went man, but this comment is so spot on I could probably cry lol. not the part about china (maybe they are up to some stuff) but like yeah it’s 100% the reason why our society is a dystopia now is because everything is corporate now and everything changed after the recession.

I didn't wake up every day impulsively checking the phone for... something. That's for sure.

I have a unique vantage point because I saw it happen in MMORPG games too. The same thing happened. Those games used to be, 'slower' back then, no instant dungeon queues for example, no free riding horse given shortly after you start playing. You had to rough it on foot and you had to talk to people to form dungeon groups, and you had to live with downtime of the idle moment. Then World of Warcraft happened, the iPhone of MMOs. Quality of life 'enhancements' have since been added so things are way more convenient and take less time. But something human was lost in the process.

I feel loke the removal of downtime paradoxially makes you more impatient.

Remember, in 20, even 10, years we will be looking back on today in a similar way, even further from the way humans were meant to interact. I hope we change course before we self-destruct as a society.

A question, how to we create these vibes today when we leave our phones at home, and go out in public only to find everyone else buried in their phones?

The way humans have learned throughout history. Has to get bad enough for people to want change. Maybe 95% of people need to be overweight, debt-ridden, on anti depressants, anxiety ridden and single for us to know we cant keep this up.

It's true. I highly recommend reading Mark Fisher regarding what he called the "privatization of stress"

This post and the comments got me depressed. I miss the simpler times

Seems like we all treat each other worse now days too.

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And we remember it more because there was not much else to distract us.

Yes and no. The discourse is much more geared toward kindness and more accepting of diversity IMO.

The discourse is much more geared toward kindness and more accepting of diversity IMO.

Except it's all lip service. What does "mental health awareness" mean from the same punks who would beat me up and call me a retard? What does "gay rights" mean from the same people who'll scream "shut up, faggot" if they don't like your face?

The discourse is much more geared to "if you aren't one of us, stay home!" with a carefully selected list of vocabulary words guaranteed to win spectator favor. It's disgusting.

No, the discourse is profoundly fucked-up right now. There's obviously a lot of hatred coming from the political right, but there's a huge amount of it among the "woke" as well. You can feel the hatred and condescension if you ever read through some Twitter pile-ons where they virtually crucify people who did or said something that's totally inoffensive to any rational person. They love to disguise their hatred as a form of anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc., and claim that any dissent from their own personal dogma is "literal violence," which makes them feel justified when they go after their victims.

Everyone treated everyone else better back in the day - if they were straight, male, white, neurotypical, able-bodied, monogamous, and Christian.

Everyone treated everyone else better back in the day - if they were straight, male, white, neurotypical, able-bodied, monogamous, and Christian.

I'm less than half of those things and even I think that people have a tendency to be more mean these days.

The technical age is said to have started around 2006. Then Invention if iPhone and Facebook etc . Check out the social dilemma on Netflix

I do kinda agree with you. But I also think you’re just experiencing the natural decline in dopamine and serotonin your body produces as you get older. I think every generation wishes for the “good old days”.

Could you elaborate on that on refer some review articles on that topic? I've long suspected that this feeling of being more excited when I was younger compared to now is not just the fault of hyperstimulating technology. I've thought it might have been related to just knowing stuff more, being able to deduct results or having better experience or expectations. This is the first time I hear the concept that we might have this feeling affected by biochemical reactions in brain because of aging

I feel the same way. Nothing's that fun or exciting anymore, and I've felt that way for years now.

Anyway, I tried looking for studies on this subject and found this review of the scientific literature, which says:

Dopamine levels decline by around 10% per decade from early adulthood and have been associated with declines in cognitive and motor performance.20,27 It may be that the dopaminergic pathways between the frontal cortex and the striatum decline with increasing age, or that levels of dopamine itself decline, synapses/receptors are reduced or binding to receptors is reduced.20 Serotonin and brain derived neurotrophic factor levels also fall with increasing age and may be implicated in the regulation of synaptic plasticity and neurogenesis in the adult brain28

How is that even possible? I'm younger than then, never remember the earlys 00s but still feel nostalgy vibes when i see them.

Dude every friend or anyone I meet has their face stuck to their phones

Dude every friend or

Anyone I meet has their

Face stuck to their phones

- Ays_500

^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^Learn more about me.

^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")

Honestly, I think it's easy to see things through rose coloured glasses. Like any time period, different people had different experiences which could be heaven, hell or anywhere in-between. But I think nostalgia is a powerful emotion, and when it combines with the limitations of memory, things can seem better than they were.

That being said, yeah, digital technology and by extension it's abuse has become more widespread. But there's certain things I don't miss too much either. Having to lug around folders stacked full of paper, and being screwed if one went missing. Ofc this can happen digitally, but I feel like I'm less likely to lose a pdf than a sheet of paper.

There are certain things I miss too though. I really liked going to arcades, dvd/vcr rental stores and not being constantly plugged in. I think people are being shaped in big ways by the technology they use. For example I find people generally have shorter attention spans, don't read as much and are less capable of sitting down somewhere and just observing their surroundings. It's a bit of a chicken or the egg scenario of our unsettled nature and the technology offering a reprieve from that boredom/unsettled nature

This is super interesting. I think I know what you mean. Like, life was more slow, more real. Everything took time, nothing was smooth and fast. I was born later than some people here but I remember going with my parents to the local video store to rent movies! You drove there, looked around at the movies. If it was already rented, too bad, you would have to try again another day. We knew the employees there. You would have late fees if you didn’t return on time. Fast forward to now? Now there’s almost no effort to find something to watch. As others in this thread have pointed out, there’s no journey.

I feel like before everything became so smooth and online it was like you were experiencing things more blindly, in a positive way. For example, if you wanted to travel to, say, Italy, you could read some books and watch a few movies and talk to maybe a couple people who had been there, but other than that, you would arrive in Italy with a fresh perspective. Everything was new to you. Now with the heavy Internet culture, you have access to seemingly endless numbers of blogs, vlogs, articles, pictures and online posts about OTHER people’s trips to Italy. So you’re not arriving like a new person.

I feel like the Internet has damaged the feeling of novelty. “What’s the point go doing this? I’ve seen 20 videos of other people doing it and doing it better than I could.”

I know I did a bad thing, but I went home for christmas. I only see some of these people once or twice a year anyway. We all have social distanced and took care of ourselves and the person that I was visiting in particular doesn't even leave her home. We were the first people she'd seen in September so I hope that that was good enough. Over the years I've noted that even when we're all together as family, everybody's on their phone. I'm on the phone or on my computer all the time. It's what I do most of the time. so when I am actually with family or at a gathering night I put the phone down and hang out with people. But increasingly, these people who are not on the phones or computers has often as I, turn to the phone or such when we are hanging out. This year my, for lack of better word, mother-in-law, joined facebook. I'm sitting around excited to watch a Christmas movie or play a board game which I never get to do because I live alone and I'm alone 99% of time, and it was all we could do this time just to play 20 minutes of a game.

Everybody is addicted. I think almost everybody is and those of us on this thread have been addicted longer or more severely and see it more obviously. Maybe someday more people will wake up.

Of course I know Covid is dangerous but you don't have to explain yourself for spending time with family. Some degree of socialization is important for mental health, and zoom doesn't cut it.

Maybe for the next holiday, propose a basket at the door where everybody must leave their phones. I know some people who do that whenever people come over or even when they get home from work so they spend more quality time just talking.

Of course I know Covid is dangerous but you don't have to explain yourself for spending time with family.

Especially when it wasn't really the point. Just drawing attention to something which will bring out more criticism.

I think a lot more families and friend-groups should be taking advantage of the "phone basket." Check it if it rings, but otherwise it stays in the basket, by the front door, for as long as the hang out lasts. Supposed to be hanging out with each other, not splitting your attention with Facebook and texting other people that you should hang out with them soon.

Agreed. Especially when someone (in this scenario, myself) chooses to be a good friend and go hang out with "Group A" (the friends considered "close") even though I had planned on trying a new group for the first time (Group B) before Group A even invited me. Only to basically be ignored most of the time, eventually say "fuck it" and get on my phone towards the end of the hangout so I can try to explain to Group B that I still want to chill another time and let them know why I bailed. But while I'm trying to mend Group B, Group A's social media shit finally dies down and they start being loud and doing a bunch of distracting things that are so obnoxious you cant help but not focus on what you're trying to do. So it's basically just a whole lot of frustration for the individuals not stuck on their smartphone at the beginning. Sorry, this just happened yesterday actually so i guess I'm venting too. Lol

Everybody is addicted. I think almost everybody is and those of us on this thread have been addicted longer or more severely and see it more obviously. Maybe someday more people will wake up.

I sometimes wonder if at some point there will be groups of people who purposefully build internet free communities, kind of like how in the 60s a lot of people were 'back to the land'.

The vibe was silence. No residue of the pop-culture/internet-culture lingering on everyone's minds, no degenerate "attention economy" selling out our children.

I know today's vibe is rampant in the city, but out in nature, with humane architecture, and friendly people, activities besides phones, the vibe is still there.

Good solutions include:

Quality, humane, wholesome, sophisticated content

Blocking out all feeds

Staying in touch with the physical world

------ ------ ------

No matter your issue, physically stowing the laptop or mouse far away & out of sight, for half the day, will teach your body new habits in the physical world.

& use your phone exclusively for phone, text, music, maps. Delete the apps, put the rest in a folder, and use grayscale)

Introduce new physical habits: changing clothes, working out, nature walks, housekeeping, spa time, tea & music time, guitar, painting and framing, rearranging decor, trying different lamps and return them as you learn what looks good, try new blankets, pillow cases. Be present and busy in the physical world; your mind will connect the dots.

It's partly nostalgia but something else too. I was worse off financially still I feel you're right.

I was worse off financially still I feel you're right.

One thing I've noticed is that... the number keeps going up, but I feel like it spends about the same. I guess that's just inflation, but it can play some weird tricks on a person.

Two words. Rampant consumerism

Before Facebook and touchscreen phones (with constant contact through apps like WhatsApp) the world was a better place. No doubt about it.

I went to high school and college in the 1990s and I didn't know how fortunate I was at the time.

it feels like quarantine is the end-game of this. literally living your entire life through a glass rectangle. eventually things will go back to "normal" but i feel like wfh/zoom is a preview of the dystopian whats-to-come. a lot of people have told me they prefer quarantine to normal life, sitting inside all day looking at screen.

I think it was the 08/09 financial crisis that put everyone in a "defense mode" and we as a collective needed to escape reality with a new and unprecedented alternative, and we didn't got back.

I was a teen almost young adult, and I've never felt insecure about my future until then. A virtual presence stopped being a hobby/aspiration and became a necessity.

Wow! I'm so glad there are other people who feel this way 🤗 I totally agree and we're all part of the problem. We need to get back to nature and stop worrying about "science"!!!!!

As the ruling class acquires a larger and larger piece of the pie, they up the fear propaganda to control the masses. That is what you are feeling. There is less and less unity and more fighting every year, this is by design. Also everything is becoming more and more commercialized. The internet used to be a fun, light, hearted place. Now it is controlled by corporations. You can still feel that relaxed mindset though. The difference is that a few decades ago you could just walk around and feel happy and relaxed. Now things are more tense so you need to cultivate that mindset from within. Cut out news and overuse of the internet and start enjoying the simple things. Meditate. Find friends who think like this or encourage your friends to cultivate this kind of mindset.

I feel this. It’s tough bc I feel like I keep relating to less and less people because I feel this way.

Yes. Think about this fairly often. Suspect it has something to do with the foreverwar and consequences of climate change starting to draw near. Everything changed with 9/11. Before that hope and faith were winning. Ever since we've seen the unbridled acceleration of fear and hate, corrupting everything they touch.

This exactly. In 2000, I was concerned about pollution and climate change but not deeply worried all the time. Politically, things seemed to be getting more tolerant. Religious fundamentalism seemed like it was waning. Then 9/11 happened, and a lot of extreme weather started, and it just seemed like things started to accelerate.

amazing post op

I know I'm late to the conversation, but yes I agree. My similar take on it is since the early 2000s we haven't had a unique decade full of character like decades prior. We know the images and lifestyle of each the 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, and so on. Each decade was unique. Now, besides the music, the memes, and the technology, what has really changed since like 2001?

I was a teenager in the 90’s and it was dystopian af. I grew up in philly, we still had a crack epidemic, aids was still a big deal, heroin, prostitution. It wasn’t sweet back then, we were clueless. We didn’t have consent culture, me too movements, we couldn’t google shit. We just learned by watching other people fuck up and normalized it.

I do think too much screen time is weird and it does disconnect us and the addictiveness is detrimental. As much as I would love to go off I to the woods and disconnect. I think there has been great benefits from the information shared and the connectivity to the world.

Thank you. The late 80s to early 90s had some of the highest violent crime rates in recorded history. My best friend's 16 year old brother was shot and killed over a small amount of drugs in 1995. And we lived in a sleepy suburban town where that would never happen today. Let alone places like NYC and Philly.

There was no "vibe". You just didnt constantly get bad news from all over the world, or you didnt get to see what everyone was doing all the time, like nowadays with social media.

Just imagine how the world gonna change post covid . 20 years from now we’ll talk about the late 2020s vibes.

20 years from now we’ll talk about the late 2020s vibes.

I hope so. I'm sick of the 2010s vibes.

I hate to be so pessimistic (Its really a quality I hate) but its looking more and more like the 2010s will be fondly remembered post covid.

Reality bites, slackers!

It was my High School/College transition.. Possibly the best time Of my life at this point.. and you’re totally right.. there was this vibe.. something was in the air, in the environment maybe like a preparation for what was about to come? The calm before the storm we are? I think everything was transitioning and there was some sort of limbo from being independent from technology to become the humans we are today

“Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization, because as soon as we started thinking for you, it really became our civilization, which is of course what this is all about. Evolution, Morpheus, evolution. Like the dinosaur. Look out that window. You've had your time. The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time.”

I think a lot of this is just nostalgia because of the age you were around that time.

I was a teenager in the late 90s, I have lovely memories of long summers and a much more care-free world. But then I started maturing, lost some family (including a parent), became an uncle, started working and taking on more responsibility in general. All that changes the way you see the world.

The internet and 9/11 definitely fucked with the world in an irreversible way, but a lot of this is just nostalgia and rose tinted glasses.

I agree with this. Every generation claims that they have a front-row seat to the apocalypse, to the times when things went to shit. None of them are right.

Best start believing in apocalypses, /u/FrontierBrainJace

YOU’RE IN ONE

It is unfolding in slow-motion before our eyes.

This really, really isn't the apocalypse. It's not a fun period to be alive by any stretch, but it is not the end of the world.

Obsession with doom might well be a defining feature of humanity.

Couldn’t have said it any better...every generation says kids of the day are worse off than their time, it was safer back in the day, etc, etc...truth is every generation declares the time of their youthful peak as the best time for everybody else to be alive. Kids of today will say it in 20/30yrs time and the cycle will repeat.

I remember a vibe shift that started with the columbine shooting and completed with 9/11. That was the end of innocence

For the world?...both of those incidents happened in the same country.

Yeah. I live in Canada and we still felt it. The consequences of those events really did reverberate though much of the world

I feel it’s difficult to evaluate how things are or are not different because two things have changed: both the world has aged and I have aged. It’s a bit hard to tell which thing is different.

Measurably, Old millennial kids / young people and generations above them were less supervised and spent less time in formal organized activities than young millennials and zoomers. Zoomers and young millennials also have less sex, higher rates of mental health concerns, and less frequent contact with in person / offline friends than old millennials + older generations.

This such an important question to me and I glad you asked it. Part of my journey has been discovering how to get back to that place or rather realizing that I never left it. It's a paradox. I recommend checking out r/streamentry. I think meditation and nosurf are like peanut butter and chocolate in a way.

[deleted]

Live your life.

Yeah, once the internet and cell phones became more wide spread that feeling faded away. Nothing like the 90’s.

Well said, this is the exact reason why I have chosen to step back from as much of it as I feel i need too. (no social media , no smartphone.It has been extremely liberating and I'm a lot happier person for it!)

That's nostalgia, and it happens to most of the people. It's funny to see how people many centuries ago already said things like this

I bet you were an adolescent in the late 90s/early 00s? I think even if the whole digital revolution hadn't occurred, you would still feel like that time period was special because most everybody looks back on that period around their teens as special. It's just how the brain works. It creates highly impressioned memories and feelings during that age.

The biggest change that makes me really sad is how everyone is on their phones in public. I know it sounds like no big deal, but I think it transformed how society interacts on a street level. Even if I never use my phone in public, it doesn't matter because I still walk around in a world where everyone else is continually distracted.

The second thing that bugs me is taking that same behavior & bringing it into more intimate social settings. I hate if you're hanging out with friends or family & everyone is taking their phone out constantly. I know it's just common behavior nowadays, but it truly grinds my gears.

What makes both of these examples especially depressing to me is knowing that there's no going back from this point. If anything, the distractions are only going to get worse. I wish interacting with people was like it was before smartphones came into being. Don't get me wrong, I really love features like maps & the camera, but everything else has forever changed society, and not in a positive way imo.

Even though I was not alive at that time yet, I get exactly what you mean. Based on TV and Songs from that time and from times before; it just has a different vibe than today.
Sometimes I have anemoia for like the 70s America (18 yo. German btw.).
But I still think that I still got to experience a little of that vibe in real life when I was young.

Man, you literally described pre 9/11. A vibe that is long gone today. That vibe was something.

I get what you mean it was a vibe that went off after 9/11?

Yes, it feels like i have lived them but also like the 90s i dont lived and i got told

9/11 killed that vibe...nah smart phones probably killed that vibe. And the explosion of the internet.

it's hard to explain, but think of it almost like a universal shift. Like a glitch in our matrix. Something you don't notice until it's gone. The lighting, the atmosphere and smells of the local arcades and movie theaters...the sun just hit the earth in a different way

In my life, changes in these sorts of things seem to indicate changes in my own emotional state.

That can relate to vibes involving others when my emotions sync up with others. But I'm quite isolated and generally what I'm feeling is my own vibe reflected in my perception.

I don't really because I was a sad fat kid

Now it sucks and I'm a sad fat man

Google bought everything. blame contemporary capitalism. web 3.0 is gunna become web 4.0 by the end of the pandemic. the internet is a draining hole of despair these days. just use it sparingly and for utility only

Not to be controversial here, but I think alot of people here are just reminiscing on childhood nostalgia and blaming technology for its disappearance. While technology has definitely changed the world, I don't think its really lessened the "realness" of life as much as people are saying.

Edit: I was thinking about it further and I think that there is a tangible cultural shift in society but its not because the 90s/00s were better, its because we could live in ignorance. When something horrible happens in the world, we know right away. The age of information comes with an element of overexposure I suppose and people are reminiscent of times where life was a little bit slower. Getting letters by mail, seeing a friendly face after a few weeks instead of every day on instagram, a stronger sense of community since we had to connect with people immediately near us. I don't think the 00's were at all a brighter better world, I just think we are becoming more aware of injustice and actually trying to solve it and we don't get to live in that slow world again. We have to force ourselves to detach and slow down which is why this sub exists.

Ignorance is bliss.

1984.

[deleted]

How old were you then?

I have to disagree. I was a child in the 90s and I was fuckin’ miserable, and the music sucked too

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I like Reddit... So it's not all bad.

Popular art styles in advertising definitely changed.

Also, though, this sounds like exactly the sort of thinking that happens when people get nostalgic for an earlier stage in their life. I’m sure you could find people for whom 05-07 was the beginning of when many things got better (I, at the very least, don’t think of these years as a significant turning point either way). I think it would be useful to ask yourself what changed in your personal life around this time? Or what changed about your perspective on life?

Maybe it has nothing to do with that, obviously. Just a thought.

.

In Islamic tradition, one of the thing stood out for me was when Allah is punishing a nation for discarding, disobeying and not recognizing his blessings, He instill fear and hunger among the people. Which is basically the condition of whole world right now. Neighbors are scared of neighbors, countries are scared of each other. Poverty is widespread, and that hunger is symbolic to hunger of many other things aswell.

Maybe because many of us were kids? It's just different when you are new to here./

Capitalism and fascism are rampant.... maybe it's more the lack of social freedom and livable conditions than the "vibes", you know ?

Sorry. Love relying on screens less and having more productive hobbies, but that's nostalgia talking.

Could it be we all just kinda got older?

I mean, if you want to ignore all of the other incredible societal shifts which have occurred, sure.

totally know what you mean and agree!!

A little late to conversation but... I know right?? I always get this really strong feeling that I missed out whenever I watch early 2000's movies. It has this particular vibe to it that I just- I want to live that way. I feel like I missed out since I was born in the 2000's. I wish I was born in the late 90's. The only problem about time is that it keeps going forward. I want to live in that era, where everything was just... More positive. I totally get what you mean with the more "utopian" feel. With the start of a new millennium, everyone was enthusiastic, the movies and shows focused on a progressive approach, we wanted to evolve as a society now that the dust had finally begun to settle down. But just 20 years later and this is how it's going. The interest in genres has shifted almost completely from utopian fantasies to dystopian survival and war. I admit that if I went back in time my favourite animes or shows wouldn't exist yet, but I miss the tranquility. The simpleness of life. Maybe I feel that way because I was younger, but I feel like if I went back in time most of my family problems rn would've still been in the stage to be completely resolved. Dad would've been able to divorce my mom without falling into a debt. She would be away from us now, not involved in our lives. She wouldn't have killed herself either. The more we're progressing the more needlessly complicated the world around us becomes and now we're in the middle of a recession. There is no doubt that humanity needs to take a step back and revise the basics again. I really can't stand this feeling when I watch films from the 2000's such as mean girls, lady bird or diary of a wimpy kid; I feel like I missed out SOO MUCHHH!!

So glad I found people who agree with me...

yo this is crazy. i was literally just thinking about this when I woke up today

I'm 2 years late, but this post feels like you are me, or I am you. It makes me feel less alone.

Sometimes everybody is just zooming by caught up in everything, and you stop for a second, and you see how ridiculous this all is and you feel trapped and want to escape.

My days were brighter and warmer and I had a reason to wake up everyday. Could be because I was younger but I'm pretty sure that the calmness of not having to worry about an avalanche of information at the palm of my hand had an important part in it too. We did have internet back then, but we had it in smaller amounts. Now we have so much access and tools that we get overwhelmed by them, it's kinda insane...