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[โ€“] 145 points 2 years ago (12 children)

The internet in it's heyday, when it was a genuinely thrilling place to find information, and quite a lot of weirdness, and before it was swamped by corporate interests.

I remember starting out with gopher and a paper print out of 'The big dummies guide to the internet' which was a directory of almost every gopher and ftp site (pre web) along with a description of what you'd find there. Then the web came along and things got really good for a while. Once big corporations got involved it all went down hill.

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    [โ€“] 99 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Not having all the silly teenager / young adult bits of their lives documented in videos for all to see.

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  • [โ€“] 32 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    I said/did/wrote (in my personal journal) so much cringe shit as a teen. I am GLAD it's not out there on permanent record. I got my Facebook account when I was like 17. Well after all the other kids my age did (I'm 31 now). I stopped using it by 23. I usually just made witty quips about life in general on Facebook, never aired my dirty laundry or spilled my guts or called a girl a bitch for not wanting to go out with me. I did go through a tough breakup during this time in my life, but the most I ever did was quote Cee-Lo's "Fuck You."

    Facebook being problematic for kids is nothing new, but now many adults are intimately aware of how bad it is because we were those kids.

    I really feel for kids these days.

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  • [โ€“] 97 points 2 years ago (11 children)

    Setting up your computer before you go to bed to download a demo for a game that's... 20 MB large! Waking up in the morning to inevitably discover the download failed part way through.

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  • [โ€“] 46 points 2 years ago (3 children)
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    [โ€“] 88 points 2 years ago (19 children)

    Bugs hitting the front windshield in extraordinary numbers.

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    [โ€“] 85 points 2 years ago (1 child)
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    [โ€“] 82 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The internet being a "place" you would go to and then leave.

    That's almost impossible to do now because everything is so linked to being online.

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  • [โ€“] 77 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Doing stuff with friends, undocumented.

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  • [โ€“] 73 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    Not all, but most don't seem to have adventures. When I was a kid I'd go off into the woods and build a den or climb a tree, we once spent a whole week trying to dam a stream, god knows why. None of my friends kids go anywhere by themselves, a lot of them do 'forest school' where they'll be taken by adults to a sanitised woodland and taught how to build a teepee with pre cut wood, and it's just not the same thing.

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  • [โ€“] 57 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    A lot of folks blame this on kids simply not wanting to go outside anymore. But I believe a significant dimension to it also lies in the fact that the world is a lot more hyper vigilant about punishing things like trespassing, loitering, hooliganism, and the like.

    The woods? Whose woods? Someone owns that land. Are they gonna call the cops on you if they notice you're in there? Do they not want you damming up their creek? Is that going to be considered vandalism? Do they not want to be liable if you injure yourself on their property? All questions that probably aren't in a kid's head, but I imagine would be on a modern parent's. The safety risks are high. Always were, that's not new. But the legal risks are new.

    And yeah, it's not like getting in trouble for these sorts of things didn't happen back in, say, my dad's childhood. But I'd wager my dad would have gotten picked up by cops in his youth and sent off with stern tut-tut by the local sheriff for being just another incident of rowdy boys being boys, while my kid (if I had one) would be far more likely to make it out with a criminal record if they're old enough, or trigger a lawsuit against me for my negligence if they aren't.

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    [+] 65 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)
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    [โ€“] 62 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Getting static shocked by the TV screen.

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    [โ€“] 57 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The App Store not being filled with predatory trash

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  • [โ€“] 56 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    We used to leave on our bikes for the day (no phones, so basically unreachable). The only rule was you had be back by dinner.

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    [โ€“] 55 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Cleaning out a ball mouse.

    My 14 year old son recently picked one up out of this big pile of old computer treasure I was given by a client and said "What's up with this mouse?"

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    [โ€“] 53 points 2 years ago (1 child)
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    [โ€“] 53 points 2 years ago (1 child)
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    [โ€“] 51 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Accompanying their loved ones to the departure gate at the airport.

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    [โ€“] 42 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Regular police officers not wearing full body armor and tactical gear.

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    [+] 40 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
    [โ€“] 40 points 2 years ago (9 children)
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    [โ€“] 40 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Waking up early to catch your cartoons. Or as an adult, having to be at the tv at 7 to watch the new episode. Everything will be streamed, thats fine i guess you wont have to worry about missing it. But it takes away the urgency to keep up.

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    [โ€“] 38 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    The nightmare PS2 dirty disc screen, and mainstream multiplayer games without anticheat rootkits

    Edit: mainstream

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    [โ€“] 36 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Burning themselves on a light bulb!

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    [โ€“] 35 points 2 years ago (3 children)
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    [โ€“] 35 points 2 years ago

    Using the internet without everyone and their grandmother spying on them and blocking access to stuff the busybodies don't personally like.

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  • [โ€“] 34 points 2 years ago (2 children)
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    [โ€“] 33 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    the feeling of not being spied on 24-7

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    [โ€“] 33 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I cannot reply to a previous comment, due to it not federating here, but the children of 2020s will literally be online from day one!

    There are countless parents that are posting pictures of their newborns on social media, on Instagram or Facebook, straight to a server in California, so imagine that every single person whose parents are like oh, I don't care about privacy, I got nothing to hide bro will have at least one photo there.

    And it's not only that. They'll just never get to experience how life goes with no computer in sight, with no smartphones, not even cellphones at all. No computer, and more importantly, no internet, just cartoons on TV such as Life with Louie or Courage the Cowardly Dog or the Looney Tunes series. And even more importantly, no social media. None at all. Nothing to distract you from actually living.

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    [โ€“] 30 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Finding a nudie mag in the woods

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    [โ€“] 30 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Carrying over heaps of computer equipment (including the mega CRTs before their demise) to your friends house for an all night LAN party that you guys had been prepping for. Then having a blast while parents look at you funny for being into computers.

    Oh, and seeing a new BBS at a bus stop that you'd need to go dial into and check out.

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    [โ€“] 29 points 2 years ago

    Not contacting a person until you meet them again at a location you planned the day before.

    Not knowing where you are, locating using literal maps.

    It boggles my mind how much safety we have today.

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  • [โ€“] 27 points 2 years ago
    [โ€“] 27 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    The good side of an album.

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    [โ€“] 26 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    And the classic.

    Why it's called "Roll down the window".

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    [โ€“] 25 points 2 years ago

    Being able to chalk off the often embarrassing or cruel lessons of childhood as something personal, rather than something someone saved in video, to hound you with for the rest of your life.

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  • [โ€“] 25 points 2 years ago

    Having your Internet connection drop because someone picked up the phone.

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  • [โ€“] 24 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    "Smoking" chewing gum cigarettes.

    Exploring the internet by going through a physical "100 coolest websites for kids" book.

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