Tell me about your pre-2005 experiences

[FalseReality]

Born in 2000.
First memory is being in my dad's room and then crying when he came in because I thought he shouted at me so he beat me. Don't remember the beating but next I remember saying he promised not to hit me and making him promise not to again. My guess is it's 2002/3 because I recall it as my first memory.
I remember my mum leaving the house when my sister was about to be born in 2003. I didn't know at the time that was what was happening.
I met a kid in Reception (first year of primary school) with my name in 2003/4. I recall having jokes about having the same name but I don't remember ever talking to them again and I know for sure they weren't there the next year. Never met anyone my age with my name again (I think 2 other ages though).
I rememberf in this guy kept turning around in assembly and telling me to be quiet, I wasn't talking so I decided to tap my two fists horizontally, thinking of building I think. Then when we were back in class the teacher brought it up saying that I didn't stop talking and instead did the fist thing. Then she gave the whole class but me a sticker. I thought it was wrong but I didn't say anything. For some reason I thought it was possible I had been speaking and I didn't know. Guess I've always been a doubtful avoidant.

 

[AMC_Squared]

I had to come back to this thread because I had a recollection of life in the mid 2000's again. Back in 2004, I recollect myself coming back from Blockbuster to watch Polar Express with my family and we went to an Oxxo to get some snacks for the movie. I remember that my parents bought this Powerpuff Girls Cereal that I can still remember how it tasted to this day. The only other sweets I am able to remember the taste of but have not been able to find that taste again would be Hubba Bubba Ouch! Gum that we got from that convenience store. Everything tasted better in the 2000's, but then again they used excessive amount of sugar on sweets too.

 

[Tintin]

I was also born in 2001 but I still remember stuff we used to do in my old preschool. I vaguely remember them teaching us how to use Microsoft 3D Movie Maker on the boxy desktop computers and I remember that I had an autistic friend named Oscar that I used to hang out with in that class.

Boxy desktop computers. I have great memories of these...

 

[Tintin]

Dude, i can't, i was 3 years old in 2005, can you be more flexible and give me the opportunity to talk about the pre 2010's at least

Tell me!!!
I love the whole space of time between 2000-2010

 

[Tintin]

I had to come back to this thread because I had a recollection of life in the mid 2000's again. Back in 2004, I recollect myself coming back from Blockbuster to watch Polar Express with my family and we went to an Oxxo to get some snacks for the movie. I remember that my parents bought this Powerpuff Girls Cereal that I can still remember how it tasted to this day. The only other sweets I am able to remember the taste of but have not been able to find that taste again would be Hubba Bubba Ouch! Gum that we got from that convenience store. Everything tasted better in the 2000's, but then again they used excessive amount of sugar on sweets too.

That's nice, I see you have really vivid memories of that time.

 

[Tintin]

Born in 2000.
First memory is being in my dad's room and then crying when he came in because I thought he shouted at me so he beat me. Don't remember the beating but next I remember saying he promised not to hit me and making him promise not to again. My guess is it's 2002/3 because I recall it as my first memory.
I remember my mum leaving the house when my sister was about to be born in 2003. I didn't know at the time that was what was happening.
I met a kid in Reception (first year of primary school) with my name in 2003/4. I recall having jokes about having the same name but I don't remember ever talking to them again and I know for sure they weren't there the next year. Never met anyone my age with my name again (I think 2 other ages though).
I rememberf in this guy kept turning around in assembly and telling me to be quiet, I wasn't talking so I decided to tap my two fists horizontally, thinking of building I think. Then when we were back in class the teacher brought it up saying that I didn't stop talking and instead did the fist thing. Then she gave the whole class but me a sticker. I thought it was wrong but I didn't say anything. For some reason I thought it was possible I had been speaking and I didn't know. Guess I've always been a doubtful avoidant.

Where I studied there was only one other kid with my name. And the only other guy with around the same age as me with the same name aswell. We lived in the same neighbourhood so we would always play football together with ther friends.
Those first years in school, I made a nice friend, we are still best friends to this day

 

[Tintin]

It's not something that can be put into words, really. People were pretty normal. Lived normal lives, ate normal food. Media was passive

the air was different even. The sun felt different, shit was more innocent. Morals existed

idk, if you weren't there, you won't get it

I have the same feeling when I think about 2007-2012. This last 10 years were full of confusing things, media and people.
It seems as if everything was much more simple back then when I was a kid. Also the moral values my parents luckily got me to learn are apparently dead by now. World changed so much with the digital evolution and social media, I guess.

 

[Tintin]

I was born in 1984. I turned 21 in 2005. I think this story about when I was in high school best relates the difference between pre-2005 and now. I remember going to my friend's house and his mom answered the door. She said he had gone to walk to the store, a good 20-30 minute walk from where I was living. So I went to catch up to him, I saw him maybe half a kilometre ahead of me. I sang out, but he couldn't hear me. We were almost to the store by the time I caught up with him. That whole type of situation was typical and is practically impossible nowadays. Don't get me wrong, I miss situations like I'm describing here where you just have to find people and catch up to them or whatever. Just imagine life today if you weren't in constant contact with all your friends and family. No sending a quick text. You could only talk to someone if your were with them or if you were both at home and could answer the phone or talk on something like MSN or email.

Another good one: I remember leaving school to get lunch at a gas station, and we had no idea the September 11th attacks happened until we got back to school nearly an hour later. Our lunch time started at I think 11:15 or 11:30, and the first attack did not happen until after 10:00 local time, so we had no idea what was going on until almost two hours after the first tower was hit. Just the speed of information in general was a lot slower, so it took maybe a half hour or more for word of what happened to get to our local news stations, and then when it did reach the local media and the little local TV station started playing the now infamous footage on an endless loop, we were out on a walking trail eating gas station hotdogs with no way to communicate with anyone who wasn't in the immediate vicinity. If that were today, I bet we would have know a plane flew into the World Trade Centre within 10 minutes.

Wow that communication difference is really something when we stop to think about it, right?
Because I remember that in 2010, for example, I was 9 years old and there was still this lack of communication, things weren't that fast as they are now with the cellphones. I think this ultra fast era makes us miss the important part of the connections: that they can cease. and we have to enjoy them.

Things got really fast these last years, it gets me overwhelmed at times...

 

[Tintin]

The year is 1999. My dad brings home a big ass, clunky yellowish box with a screen in it. He plugs a different shaped yellowish box with no screen into it. He hits a button. A black screen with 'Windows 95' was displayed for a bit before a blue background with grey boxes all over it popped into place. Another button and and there's a large whirring and the grinding of gears as a slot on the screenless box opens. My dad drops a CD into it. Button. Whirring and gears. He clicks some stuff with a wired contraption. Then he plugs in what looks to be an arcade joystick with buttons on it. Next thing I know, I'm using that stick to fly an F-16 fighter jet and blow other fighter jets out of the sky. I blow up. I'm dead. The dude from Alien goes "GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER" in terrible audio quality.

1 year later...
I get on the computer. My dad walks over to a device and plugs it into the computer. He clicks some stuff. LOUD BEEPING. BEEPING OF ALL KINDS. IT FEELS LIKE IT GOES ON FOREVER. MY 6 YEAR OLD EARS HURT. Then my dad tells me, "This is the internet." He then proceeds to show me how to use email through a service called 'Yahoo!'.

THAT MUST HAVE BEEN AWESOME
I love the idea that your generation saw everything happening right in front of your eyes. There is a big difference between seeing THIS happening and seeing snapchat and facebook. Something in the ''old'' innovations is so charming, we lost touch of it nowadays where everything is so fast and connected.

 

[Tintin]

I remember not having access to a computer until 2002, but I remember the years 1998-2001. I hung out a lot with my sister and some neighborhood kids. I used my imagination a lot as a kid and did a lot of fun things with my sister. We liked to do random projects just for the fun of it. We would collect things, anything from Pokemon cards to rocks. We would do random dumb things, like create a "pillow factory" out of different fabrics we found for sale at the craft store. I was really obsessed with the Lion King and I remember being fascinated by the idea of the Internet, sites like Fox Kids and Neopets. I don't think it's any better than today except for I think adults did talk to each other more without a huge suspicion. I was a very shy kid so I don't know if I would have liked being much older. I think that people are a lot less judgmental in a few different ways now, grass is always greener, and in general I think that you can have deeper relationships with people now if you work on it.

Interesting, all older people I know tell me that solid relations are gone for now.
In a way, I believe that our technological development reflects on the way we deal with people and ourselves, which makes us kinda distant from other people. But I don't know how that was before, so...

I just find it interesting how things had to be developed before in a slower way, from relations to connections to things in general. And how creative you guys were and how this contact of having fun with other kids etc. still existed.

Grass is always greener, as you said haha

 

[Tintin]

I was born December 1980, so the parts of the 80s I *think* I remember are pretty late in the decade and sorta blend in with the early 90s. We were in the Midwest and didn't have a ton of money either, so I think we were kind of priced out of actually living in the 80s; it was more like living in a more run-down version of the 70s with different music on the radio (also the same music from before. And, thanks to syndication, the same tv too. I think the rapidly expanding landfill media space + being lower class in the era make up the genetics of of h-pop). IMO people in my age cohort who have these vital, unique 80s memories- the kind the Ready Player One guy can't stop stroking it over- were middle class or higher.

By the mid 90s my mom had started making real money and I was entering adolescence so that's where my nostalgia really starts. It felt like the world was opening up and that End of History neolib human project was actually working. The future felt really limitless, and the present seemed like a safe mystery- like we were all in this big, fun line for a Disney ride called The Future and were having a good time distracting ourselves checking out cable tv, weird crap on this new internet thing, music, and spectacle-based Hollywood events. At the same time everyone was really horny for conspiracy theory media and millennialism, so obviously we were also subconsciously worried about what we were going to experience when were got to the head of the line.

Then Bush won and everything felt kind of shitty all at once. Bill Clinton definitely represented the previous era and its optimism, earned or not, and removing him without selecting Gore to replace just made everyone feel like something was over. Then 9/11 finished what Bush's appointment started, shattering the West's sense of security and thereby faith in the world-colonizing human project, and sowed the seeds for where we're at today, since they're still trying to do it, but no one trusts it anymore and have broken off into increasingly closed-off tribes. Media really started shitting the bed too and felt tacky and lame. 1999's The Matrix vs 2003 Matrix Revolutions is a great contrast; the first movie was a big, bombastic experience that oozed style and craft and had this tight, effective story that propelled the viewer through a terrific experience and the sequel felt like a couple hours of really jittery, expensive video game cutscenes. The real world and the virtual media world felt like a complete mess, and the fungal growth we call the present has grown out of the center of it.

This perspective from the United States is really good to read. How things started to fall down in the imaginary of people after the attacks and reality started to kick in with its new technological ways of living. Still have some memories of watching Matrix with my dad when I was 7 (2008) for the first time, he as telling me about how the movie was a blast and everyone talked about it.
My mom used to tell me about the conspiracy theories of the new century, over here where I live people used to think that the world was going to end in 2000.

We also lived a really optimistic era in the 2000s in my country, that's probably the main reason why I think that those days were the best, the country was flying, people were happier and we could buy thinks at the market...
''Good old days'' come even for a 20year old kiddo like me.

 

[Tintin]

I was 17 when 9/11 happened so I have a pretty good grasp on what the world was like before then. Columbine was really what set off the push for mass surveillance under the premise of safety and the development of different technologies in order to facilitate that, 9/11 was what officially sealed the deal everywhere. We spent a lot more time outdoors riding our bikes and exploring our neighborhoods, going to see local bands play at seedy little venues without parents and not being IDed to buy alcohol if the right bartenders were working, we smoked cigarettes underage and indoors, we also liked going to the mall to hang out and shop(lift). Most of us didn't have a phone strapped to us 24/7 so stopping by a friend or family member's house unexpectedly was much more common. Really the biggest difference between then and now was the freedom of knowing you could do something completely stupid, maybe even incredibly dangerous, and it likely wouldn't end up on the internet somewhere.

Most of the answers here come from americans. Being in South America, I believe that the most iconic thing is how all of you guys point the 9/11 as the biggest event that settled the world and the ocident as it is now in terms of security and political views.
As of my childhood days, I spent most of the time inside playing videogames, but also went out with some cousins and friends to play football. Smartphones weren't really a thing so that's what we used to do to have fun back then, riding our bikes, playing football, running after each other, hide and seek... simple things.

I think the ''simple'' lost itself now, politically considering the 9/11 as a turning point as you mentioned, and socially when we talk about the development of technology.