What were you ACTUALLY born in the wrong generation for?

[stonehead]

When discussing nostalgic material, the phrase "I was born in the wrong generation" has become a commonly mocked cliche. Partly this is just because of its overuse. There was a time when you couldn't watch a music video who's comments weren't flooded with teenagers spamming the quote verbatim. I think another reason it was so mocked is because it was often just not true. You weren't born too late to listen to Jimmy Hendricks, the proof is that you're commenting on a song of his that you just listened to.

Some things however, legitimately can't be experienced anymore. Classic 8-bit games can still be played, more conveniently than in their own time even. All of the rides at Action Park, however have been taken down. Most of Aristotle's writings have been lost to time. Online games like Club Penguin have been taken down, and many others have been updated to the point that they no longer resemble their original version.

The question I have for the forum is this: What things you have you done/wanted to do that truly cannot be done any more?

As an example of what I am, and what I'm not looking for, I really like DDR. I wasn't born in the wrong generation to play it, because I play all the time on my pad at home. I was born in the wrong generation to go to arcades though. The last arcade near my home closed down several years ago.

 

[Aral]

I remember a site on which my brother was when I was little. It was fruit-themed with games and chatting and a forum I believe. I wanted to play with him but I was like, 5. And the site closed more than a decade ago, so I never got to experience it.

On the more "wrong generation" things, I want to learn how to use a telegraph. It's fallen out of use long ago but there's just something I love about this. In my most recent life, I believe, I was likely a radio/telegraph operator of some sort, translator maybe, and I'm pretty sure I must've used such a device.

 

[ignika98]

I generally feel like this kind of glorification of the past is exactly that: glorification. When I imagine something cool that doesn't exist/isn't that prevalent anymore, I'm reminded of at least 3 cool things that exist today but I wouldn't have back then.
So instead, I'm gonna put a spin on this and say space tourism. There's a good chance that it'll be something we see in our lifetimes, but I can't help but feel I was born a hair too late to experience the full extent of what the future holds in terms of space travel.

It is on my bucket list though. I don't care if I'm 80 years old by the time it becomes commercially viable I WILL see space before I die.

 

[stonehead]

I generally feel like this kind of glorification of the past is exactly that: glorification. When I imagine something cool that doesn't exist/isn't that prevalent anymore, I'm reminded of at least 3 cool things that exist today but I wouldn't have back then.

I actually agree. All things considered, life is so much easier now than almost any generation in the past. It was less a "How was the past better" question, and more of a "What are some of the things that have been lost" question.

I just get this weird, kinda sad feeling thinking about things that are gone forever with no backup or archive, and I was curious about other examples.

 

[Some_porcupine]

no way how to say it, but the times before things in web became cash-cow, before all XaaS craze and before youtube was googlefied, or when adobe made
their SW not as subs, but in +100$ CD disk you should buy, one-time puchase. but again, longing for ive never had. but also, it is the theme of post. to say -
also in times of "back in my day, only people who knew you are stupid was your family, friends and neighbours".

edit: being pinged, i found this profound comment under Bubblegum crisis video:

"When Cyberpunk was still a cool dystopian vision and not a depressing dystopian reality"

 

[ignika98]

I actually agree. All things considered, life is so much easier now than almost any generation in the past. It was less a "How was the past better" question, and more of a "What are some of the things that have been lost" question.

I just get this weird, kinda sad feeling thinking about things that are gone forever with no backup or archive, and I was curious about other examples.

Even that is a hard question to answer. The digital age has allowed for the archival and preservation of basically any form of media as long as someone is bothered to back it up. Online games that had their servers shut down have private severs now that are free and managed with more care than the official ones. And for every theme park, mall, event space that has been taken down another five have popped up in their place.

I guess if I had to name something, it would be living in a time where you couldn't just look anything up online. Now it's not like the modern web was around my entire life, but by the time I became and adult and truly started to live on my own, it had long become commonplace. I feel like nowadays everyone kind of expects you to know things since everything is so easy to look up online. I've found it can sometimes lead to impersonable or even cold interactions with businesses when I would go in and ask someone for help with something. It's also had the effect of giving people the false impression that they know everything just cause they can look it up online. Too many people these days don't follow the age old adage: don't believe everything you see online.

But even then, if the modern web wasn't a thing, getting to where I am today would have been a lot harder. When I was moving from Cyprus to Florida, literally two oceans away, the internet was an indispensable resource in finding out good areas, cost of living estimates, and generally what it's like to live there. I remember when my father told me about the time he traveled to the states from Cyprus for university, he mentioned that literally all he knew about the place he was going to live for the next few years was what was in the university's brochure. That sounds like an interesting experience for sure, but not something I feel too bad about missing out on.

 

[☯змія☯]

When discussing nostalgic material, the phrase "I was born in the wrong generation" has become a commonly mocked cliche. Partly this is just because of its overuse. There was a time when you couldn't watch a music video who's comments weren't flooded with teenagers spamming the quote verbatim. I think another reason it was so mocked is because it was often just not true. You weren't born too late to listen to Jimmy Hendricks, the proof is that you're commenting on a song of his that you just listened to.

Some things however, legitimately can't be experienced anymore. Classic 8-bit games can still be played, more conveniently than in their own time even. All of the rides at Action Park, however have been taken down. Most of Aristotle's writings have been lost to time. Online games like Club Penguin have been taken down, and many others have been updated to the point that they no longer resemble their original version.

The question I have for the forum is this: What things you have you done/wanted to do that truly cannot be done any more?

As an example of what I am, and what I'm not looking for, I really like DDR. I wasn't born in the wrong generation to play it, because I play all the time on my pad at home. I was born in the wrong generation to go to arcades though. The last arcade near my home closed down several years ago.

Tbh i was born in the right generation, the thing is, i was wrong in the wrong place fella.

 

[☯змія☯]

I want to learn how to use a telegraph

I know how to use one, my country and by extention my hometown is sooo poor and backwards, that at the time i was a kid, some folks still used a telegraph to communicate eachother, my dad taught me how to use it, in fact that's how we used to comunicate to an uncle that was really old, i learned morse code because of that, truly the wonders of living in a country that went off a civil war just 6 years ago.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

Hard to say how true any of the retellings are, but both the Norman Rockwell-era style of elaborate dating/courting and old school hippie style free love sound infinitely more enjoyable to me than modern dating. It feels like today, dating is the worst of both: the extremely stilted and performative displays of courting, and the lack of fidelity or companionship intrinsic of free love.

The stories I hear from my friends who are still in the dating pool (both men and women) make it sound terrible. I'm very glad I'm committed and don't have to deal with any of that.

 

[ETierhuman]

If i was born in the early 2000's my rizz would be absolutely crazy.

 

[remember_summer_days]

Wrong generation to be a midieval monk
Wrong generation to be a cowboy
Wrong generation to be an 80s japanese urbanite going into a trip to Okinawa with my gf while listening to citypop
Wrong generation to be a cyberpunk waifu-gf admirer existentialist

I just know that God had me born in this generation and country for a reason

 

[☯змія☯]

Wrong generation to be a cowboy
Wrong generation to be an 80s japanese urbanite going into a trip to Okinawa with my gf while listening to citypop
Wrong generation to be a cyberpunk waifu-gf admirer existentialist

Ok these three hit harder than i might expect, goddang it, wouldn't it be nice to be a samurai war refugee who migrated to the american wild west in 1873? Or a transhumanist living weapon that has to deal with the average day of a citizen in a 2087 dystopia?

 

[wot]

If you had asked me this 10 years ago, I'd have said I was born too late to be a teenager during the 80s home computer boom, coding away on my C64/Apple II/Amiga, making little games, and eventually landing a place in the early PC gaming industry. But now I know it's not just a matter of being born in the right time period, but also in the right type of family (i.e. middle class and usually with someone who's already familiar with computers). If I had the same type of family that I grew up with, I'd have been lucky just to have an NES.

 

[stonehead]

If you had asked me this 10 years ago, I'd have said I was born too late to be a teenager during the 80s home computer boom, coding away on my C64/Apple II/Amiga, making little games, and eventually landing a place in the early PC gaming industry. But now I know it's not just a matter of being born in the right time period, but also in the right type of family (i.e. middle class and usually with someone who's already familiar with computers). If I had the same type of family that I grew up with, I'd have been lucky just to have an NES.

Oh man, I feel that. I was also making dumb little games on the family PC 10 years ago, but it never went anywhere. I think I lack some fundamental drive most creative people have to share their work. I'll put a lot of effort into something, then chicken out once it's finished and leave it sitting on my hard drive. It's like I spend time practicing with no end goal, just because I don't know what else to do.

It seems like when people daydream about days long gone, they imagine they'd be far luckier then than they are now. We fantasize "Oh, how great it would have been if I was a renaissance artist painting for my patron or a 1920's mobster living with his gang." Statistically though, we would probably be broke peasants farming in the mud, or poor workers, living in the factory where we work.

 

[wearyinternettraveler]

It feels like today, dating is the worst of both: the extremely stilted and performative displays of courting, and the lack of fidelity or companionship intrinsic of free love.

Yeah it's pretty terrible. A lot of guys I know (all of which I would consider "high value": good job, nice personality, interesting hobbies etc.) have more or less given up. A lot of people blame tinder for effectively gamifying courtship. I have a schizo take that it was more driven by corporations realizing they can't grow 2% every quarter if half of the population doesn't feel embarrassed to not work outside of the home but that's kind of off topic. It's probably just tinder.

 

[Andy Kaufman]

Going into the past, I actually don't feel like I was born in the wrong generation.
I experienced enough analog tech (late 90s rural Germany in a poor household) like rewinding VHS tapes, no internet at all and later dial up modems, gameboys with batteries and no backlight, no cellphones (memorizing your friends land line numbers in your head).
Except for less beaurocracy of 50s/60s west Germany and its economic boom I don't really long for a past I missed out on.


The future however... I'm very afraid of dying and missing out of what's to come. AGI, widespread space travel, the future of VR, transhumanism, the cure for cancer, genetically reconstructed extinct species, Solarpunk utopia - all potential developments the future might hold. In a sense, I still have the 60s/70s optimism for the future so maybe that's why I was born in the wrong generation because others my age are insufferable doomers moaning about climate change and cyberpunk dystopias all day.

 

[LostintheCycle]

• Born too late to own land since that situation is probably just gonna get worse.
• Born too late for dad to show me how to shoot a firearm, which were banned in the 90s in Australia.
• Born too late to attend a university that isn't malformed by 20th century anti-academic attitudes.

I'm not too fussed though, like a lot of people here I'm glad to live in this era, especially because of the computers we have, and the Internet which still has freedom at the moment.

 

[bnuungus]

Wrong generation to be a midieval monk

You can still be a cloistered monk

Wrong generation to be a cowboy

You can still move to Wyoming and get some really cheap land and raise cattle

Wrong generation to be an 80s japanese urbanite going into a trip to Okinawa with my gf while listening to citypop

you can...
probably still make this happen?

Wrong generation to be a cyberpunk waifu-gf admirer existentialist

y-
yeah. you got me on that one

 

[Sketch Relics]

Even that is a hard question to answer. The digital age has allowed for the archival and preservation of basically any form of media as long as someone is bothered to back it up. Online games that had their servers shut down have private severs now that are free and managed with more care than the official ones.

You would be surprised, I actually have quite a few songs on my computer that I don't believe are available anymore, so the only time to experience them would have been between online posting and deletion. I imagine this is the case for quite a bit of content actually, as anything posted that doesn't find an audience may be deleted without a back-up or another person saving it. This would mostly extend to small experiences like an individual's art page on any number of websites, or old style RP forums, but it's still something.

For MMO's the current experience is much different than it would have been in the late 2000's, due to the overall lack of social media, many of the games partially functioned as social media with a good number of players logging on just to chat with rando's online. Which gave the communities a much different feel overall since the focus wasn't entirely on the game itself.

As for me, I find that I was born at the right time for my interest and don't think I would really gain much from being able to experience a set time period due to a somewhat reclusive nature and interest primarily focused on recently available hobbies.

 

[☯змія☯]

• Born too late to own land since that situation is probably just gonna get worse.
• Born too late for dad to show me how to shoot a firearm, which were banned in the 90s in Australia.
• Born too late to attend a university that isn't malformed by 20th century anti-academic attitudes.

This is actually me except the last part, even tho i hate college i don't see the anti-academic attitudes, education sucks anyways everything that has been important for me, has been taught by myself, even basic stuff like reading, i already knew how to read before even joining school, english, cooking communication, graphic design, how to make taxes, laboral experience etc, the only thing i learned in school was maths, and even to this day i still fucking hate math.

Regarding the first two, heh is literally how i was raised, we literally own land and a ranch, i learned how to shoot guns, not by my dad (my dad opposed fire arms, he instead always says that his bible is his weapon) but by my cousins, we used to shoot stuff in the ranch actually, my cousin had a badass M14 the jackass modified to have an AR module ironsight, it was a literal M14 with an M16 ironsight, i was still a kid at the time, but i prove them wrong by being able to shoot a revolver, it was a .38 anyways, but i felt proud i could shoot that thing at those times hahaha.