Life before Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Etc.

[sdmichael]

One of the most bizarre pre-social media phenomena to me is how every personal website had a guestbook. Who thought those were a good idea?

My site had one from early 1996 to about 2000.

[Revive 755]

You busted your ass and went to the library to find things out.  Now, you sit on your ass and wait for someone to bust their ass and go to the library and find things out, then add it to Wikipedia.

Unfortunately there are not enough other people out there going to libraries to help us learn about all the canceled freeways out there.

In the pre-internet days, you had to do a lot more browsing to find what was out there in libraries and stores.  Now I can quickly find which stores have an item I want, if I don't just order it off internet.

[briantroutman]

You busted your ass and went to the library to find things out.  Now, you sit on your ass and wait for someone to bust their ass and go to the library and find things out, then add it to Wikipedia.

Unfortunately there are not enough other people out there going to libraries to help us learn about all the canceled freeways out there.

In the pre-internet days, you had to do a lot more browsing to find what was out there in libraries and stores.  Now I can quickly find which stores have an item I want, if I don't just order it off internet.

I remember that our local public library had a neglected leftover from the '70s–something like "The Environmental Impacts of our Interstates" . It couldn't have been checked out more than a dozen times since 1980–most of which were me looking at the same button copy-era freeway photos.

That and Divided Highways by Tom Lewis.

[6a]

that meant you got 20 Capitals road games a year on independent station WDCA-20

Yeah, but you also got Petey Greene on WDCA, which was worth every other thing missed.

The cable system here had a pay-per-view setup where you had to have a "key" to plug into the back of the remote. The remote was connected by a cord, by the way*, but the PPV system could be bypassed if you jammed a paper clip in just the right spot. The cool kids could jam the PPV and watch porn late at night without their parents being billed.

* the cool households ran that cable under the floor so the remote sat on a table next to the couch or something. We just let it fly and had a 20 foot cord running across the living room floor.

As for keeping up with things? Magazines! There was a magazine for anything from Tiffany's hairstyle to Nintendo strategy.

[renegade]

I've been meaning to break out my Macintosh Performa and its freestanding eight-inch monitor and plug 'em in and see if they still work, but I don't know if I can find the keyboard and mouse.

[bing101]

How about when you had to go to the arcade and put 1 or 2 quarters in a pinball machine or a stand alone video game? I still remember them but now they are all on an app.

[jeffandnicole]

That's because back then none of cable TV sucked 

There's still a lot of good stuff on TV now, but speaking for Nickolodeon & Disney Channel for the past few years, crap came flyin right out of the toilet and splattered on the TV screen.

Actually you're just gotten older. People tend to love what they watched as kids and hate what's on the kids channels later.

One of Bruce Springsteen's relatively new song's: 57 Channels and Nothing On.  So Cable did suck them too...people just tend to associate better times with the past, regardless of what the past brought them.

Communicate internationally?  How about communicating domestically 10-15 years ago?  Buying those stupid usurious calling cards, hunting out payphones, calling some landline voicemail system...

I think the last two times I tried using a pay phone, it took my money and didn't allow me to make a call. Also, the last few times I tried using a rotary phone, I mis-dialed the phone numbers.

BTW, if you're under 30, let us know if we need to explain what a rotary phone is...

[jeffandnicole]

How about when you had to go to the arcade and put 1 or 2 quarters in a pinball machine or a stand alone video game? I still remember them but now they are all on an app.

Vegas has a pinball museum that has one of the first pinball machines made (no flippers) to today's modern games. I easily spent a few hours there.

[Laura]

Communicate internationally?  How about communicating domestically 10-15 years ago?  Buying those stupid usurious calling cards, hunting out payphones, calling some landline voicemail system...

Haha, anyone else remember collect calling? Whenever we needed to call long distance to my mom to have her pick us up from school or certain friends' houses, we'd say "get me" as the name, and then she would reject the call. (Yeah, because of the way the phone number codes were for local/long distance, areas 45 minutes from me were "local" and areas 15 minutes away were "long distance".)

I created my own website which was mostly my personal 'favorites' which I could access anywhere at any time.  After I transferred it from my dialup host (jersey.net) to Comcast, some of the formatting changed and I never did update it.  But, I still use it to this day.  It was easily accessible from the web (yahoo, alta vista) by typing in my name.  Last time I tried finding it on Google, I couldn't locate it after searching the first several pages.

Yes! Pre social media, everyone had a home page, which for most people was like a Facebook profile today. Here's descriptions on things I like, here are pictures of my pets, etc. I had one on hometown aol and another on tripod (later yahoo geocities). I had a Sailor Moon page on Angelfire (that was basically profiles of each character plus some art that I right click saved from other sites...lol oops...not that it made an impact, I probably only ever got like 5 hits on my counter that weren't me and my friends).


iPhone

[GCrites]

Yeah, but you also got Petey Greene on WDCA, which was worth every other thing missed.

The cable system here had a pay-per-view setup where you had to have a "key" to plug into the back of the remote. The remote was connected by a cord, by the way*, but the PPV system could be bypassed if you jammed a paper clip in just the right spot. The cool kids could jam the PPV and watch porn late at night without their parents being billed.

Did other towns have this or just us? I know Columbus was the first to get Pinwheel (AKA Nickelodeon) with Dayton and Cincinnati soon after.

As for keeping up with things? Magazines! There was a magazine for anything from Tiffany's hairstyle to Nintendo strategy.

The magazine racks are the same size they used to be. They're just 75% gun books now.

[Pete from Boston]

How about when you had to go to the arcade and put 1 or 2 quarters in a pinball machine or a stand alone video game? I still remember them but now they are all on an app.

There are still arcades, still taking quarters.  What seems to have come to a dead stop are those Megatouch machines in bars.  New ones were coming out every year until people got smartphones to keep busy while drinking alone.  However, smartphones are no substitute for drunkenly finding the differences in badly-photoshopped pictures of naked women with your friends.

How about when you had to go to the arcade and put 1 or 2 quarters in a pinball machine or a stand alone video game? I still remember them but now they are all on an app.

Vegas has a pinball museum that has one of the first pinball machines made (no flippers) to today's modern games. I easily spent a few hours there.

On this coast there's Funspot at Weirs Beach, New Hampshire.  All the video games you remember, along with lots everyone quickly forgot. 

[vdeane]

The reason cable was better was because there were only 70 channels instead of 7000.  This also meant that a TV's built-in tuner was cable of reaching all of them, so cable boxes were not required if you had a newer TV - you could just plug it in directly like an antenna.  Now everyone has a cable box because the cable companies used the digital transition to drop all "standard" plans in favor of digital and locals-only.

BTW, if you're under 30, let us know if we need to explain what a rotary phone is...

Nope, my parents had one stashed in the living room (there really wasn't much of a reason to have a phone there after the family room was built, especially since it had the answering machine, but they had the phone and there was a phone jack, so they just let it be).

Haha, anyone else remember collect calling?

Only the commercials.

I had a Sailor Moon page

I remember watching Sailor Moon every day when it aired on Cartoon Network (and recording 13 episodes of S on VHS just because) and waiting for the dub of Stars to finally come out (little did I know I'd be waiting another 15 years for that to happen).

I also remember when there were only 151 Pokemon and when that anime still made sense.

[english si]

Haha, anyone else remember collect calling? Whenever we needed to call long distance to my mom to have her pick us up from school or certain friends' houses, we'd say "get me" as the name, and then she would reject the call. (Yeah, because of the way the phone number codes were for local/long distance, areas 45 minutes from me were "local" and areas 15 minutes away were "long distance".)

Our pay phones allowed you to dial the number, but then you had to pay to talk. I'd ring home, let the phone ring three times at their end, then hang up, as a "get me" thing.

[J Route Z]

Really wish I grew up during the 70s and 80s. The 90s was a great decade. My friend says he grew up in the 80s, even though he was born in 1989, like myself. It's crazy all these TV/film actors have a Twitter. I'll bet Burt Reynolds has a Tumblr.

What's with Facebook Messenger? I heard it has a bug and will crash your phone or something.

[Truvelo]

Haha, anyone else remember collect calling? Whenever we needed to call long distance to my mom to have her pick us up from school or certain friends' houses, we'd say "get me" as the name, and then she would reject the call. (Yeah, because of the way the phone number codes were for local/long distance, areas 45 minutes from me were "local" and areas 15 minutes away were "long distance".)

Our pay phones allowed you to dial the number, but then you had to pay to talk. I'd ring home, let the phone ring three times at their end, then hang up, as a "get me" thing.

Back in the 80s our pay phones used to connect for about a second before the coin dropped allowing you to shout a word or two so the other person knew who you were. I used to do it to let my folks know when I was ready. Of course, I made sure to keep hold of the coin.

[NE2]

What's with Facebook Messenger? I heard it has a bug and will crash your phone or something.

It's cursed. If you use it while looking in the mirror your reflection may have sweet red hair.

[mtantillo]

And weird hobbies were just weird, because instant personal validation didn't exist.   

Every road enthusiast thought they were the only one until the internet. This is a mega positive change.

I did, for a good 7 years. Then I discovered Steve Anderson's site (which was erols.com/~ande264....way before nycroads.com), and through that MTR, and my whole world changed.