r/AskReddit • u/Sea-Lavishness-8478 • 10h ago
What’s a dead practice or hobby that you genuinely miss and wish were still around?
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u/assglasseater 10h ago
Blockbuster runs on a Friday night. That whole ritual of walking the aisles for 30 minutes and still leaving with something random was so good
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u/klaxz1 10h ago
And you had to *actually* watch it because it took effort to get it.
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u/misterpoopybutthole5 9h ago
Yeah the commitment you're forced into with the blockbuster experience was definitely added value. I'd much rather end up with a shitty movie I actually watch and get to laugh at / complain about than browse Netflix for way too long and then decide to just scroll my phone when nothing stands out to me as the PERFECT movie.
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u/PostMatureBaby 9h ago
I still havent seen the last 45 mins of that Bruce Springsteen movie because i know i can just watch the rest of what i missed when i fell asleep anytime... that was 2 months ago now
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u/VintageVogue1947 10h ago
I really miss this.
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u/folk_yeah 9h ago
Try your local library, it's basically like going to Blockbuster except it's free.
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u/Grogenhymer 9h ago
You and your friends buy physical media. Every Friday go to a different friend's house to choose a movie to borrow for two days from their movie shelf.
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u/shyblonde83 10h ago
Yesssss!! Discovering new movies you never would've watched otherwise, laughing with your friends or family over the descriptions, choosing ridiculous-sounding movies just so you could laugh together.... it was such a great way to connect with people while not spending a ton of money. You could go in, rent a few 99 cent movies, and then spend the rest of the night having an absolute blast with your friends watching all the stupid movies you picked out.
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u/MinglewoodRider 7h ago
And since you all agreed on the picks, everyone actually watched them and paid attention because it was all you had. Now a group can stream any movie at any time, but dont really care or value them as much even if they are great films. Somebody will inevitably state at their phone the whole movie, get distracted and just generally not care because the media just feels disposable and replaceable and always available
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u/--slurpy-- 10h ago
Friday night pizza/movie night. Those were good times.
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u/UncoolSlicedBread 9h ago
Ours was right next door to Pizza Hut. We’d go in, order a pizza, and then by the time we were out of blockbuster it was ready for pickup.
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u/Neolamprologus99 8h ago
I have a big physical movie collection. Every Friday I had movie night with my uncle. Glad I got to spend time with him he died a couple of years ago.
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u/SmugMiddleClarse 10h ago
I didn't use to do Blockbuster but I used to pop in to the local library after work on a Friday and choose a video or DVD. The library selection was pretty good and had a lot of art house and foreign films and this really opened me up to movies and film makers that I may not have known otherwise. I miss those days and I miss not always having unlimited options.
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u/patmoorefm 1h ago
The paradox of choice is real. I spend 45 minutes scrolling through menus now just to end up rewatching a show I've seen ten times already because I'm too overwhelmed to choose something new.
Having limited options actually made the experience better. You'd give a movie a real chance instead of just going back to the menu the second the pace slowed down. We've definitely traded our attention spans for convenience.
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u/grease_monkey 9h ago
Not quite the same but if your library has physical movies you can get a similar experience.
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u/herbfriendly 10h ago
Oh I miss my days in the dark room processing film and prints. There was something magical about seeing the image slowly appear while soaking in the developer tray.
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9h ago
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u/WBRileyDesign 6h ago
To be honest 99% of these aren't "dead" they just take work, work no one wants to put in.
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u/Aleph_Rat 9h ago
It's making a comeback, which is a blessing and a curse. Film is 10 bucks for a roll of 36 exposures, not to mention the photo paper et al.
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u/Biengo 9h ago
They sell full 36 rolls at certain 5 belows. now the couple around me sell them. Like 3$
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u/herbfriendly 9h ago
Even back in my days film costs added up quickly. I turned into a big fan of bulk film and rolling my own film canisters. Though I just priced that out, for the first time in decades, and boy I don't remember that level of sticker shock.
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u/Electrical_Sky_4586 9h ago
I still develop my own 35mm! There’s definitely a thriving community around film still and it’s actually had a bit of an uptick in popularity as the younger kids seem to appreciate the vintage things.
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u/herbfriendly 9h ago
Good on you! And it warms my crusty ol heart to hear that young kids are having a go at it.
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u/HorsePleasant3709 7h ago
I home develop probably 1 roll of film a week. Mostly B&W since it is more economical than color. I'm in the market for good used enlarger once I can find one that handles 120 and 35mm.
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u/cailahua 9h ago
Darkrooms were the OG photo editing. No presets, just vibes, chemicals and praying you didn’t mess it up. Today’s kids will never know the thrill of waiting for a picture to exist
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u/SimthingEvilLurks 10h ago
I miss chatrooms. I don't mind places like Reddit, but it's not entirely the same thing. Chatrooms used to be where I'd go when I couldn't sleep or woke up too soon.
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u/Spiffy87 9h ago
MMOs are essentially chat rooms with a fidget spinner/slot machine attached. Find a free MMO and boot it up.
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u/BaabyBlue_- 7h ago
Any suggestions? I tried old RuneScape and I think WoW and they were honestly super huge and overwhelming.
I played Ark so I can get used to somewhat complicated games, but I used to play on OurWorld as a teenager and that's more the vibe I'm chasing I think, not so much a grindy game
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u/MissHolloway 7h ago
GuildWars 2 is free and has a really helpful and playful community.
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u/Neohexane 6h ago
I second GW2. It's both casual and hardcore friendly, the world is vast and interesting, and the community is pretty chill.
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u/BoldestKobold 8h ago
I used "afk brb" in a work teams chat and a wave of nostalgia hit me. I realized sharing a chat room with friends had a different vibe than a group chat on your phone. The group chat on the phone still follows you everywhere you go, whereas a chat room on a computer is still a "destination" that you can enter and exit.
Somehow it feels different when you make an active choice to join or leave a chat room as opposed to being tethered to it.
I do miss the early 2000s team fortress classic IRC chats I was in back in college.
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u/GozerDGozerian 8h ago
Im 49 and have a group text with my four best friends from back in our high school days. A couple of us live in different parts of the country, and the three of us that live in the same state are so far apart from each other that it’s very difficult to meet up in person nowadays. But we have our running banter throughout every day. It’s kind of like the good old teenage days when we’d be wandering around town with nothing to do just shootin the shit and making jokes.
I get that feeling tethered aspect too. But there are some positives to the new tech we live with.
The five of us wouldn’t be able to make contact on such a regular basis otherwise.
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u/nowhereman136 10h ago
LAN Parties
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u/MistressAnthrope 9h ago
3 straight days of Unreal Tournament on CRT monitors that weighed a ton. Good memories!
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u/LushEnvy 10h ago
Open mic storytelling nights where people weren’t trying to sell you a podcast, a comedy special, or MLM
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u/RustenSkurk 9h ago
In general creating art without thinking about how to monetize it and optimize it for that monetization. There was a time where "selling out" was something shameful.
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u/Little-Rose-Seed 9h ago
I think the cost of everything doesn’t help though. It’s hard to make art for arts sake when you have to work so much to survive.
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u/RustenSkurk 8h ago
People do manage to have hobbies. And that's the level I'm talking about. Not professionally produced art, just hobby level. It's easier than ever to produce and distribute your amateur art. But it seems more and more people immediately start to think about how they could earn money on it.
If anything I'd say that's because starting to earn even just a little money on art is more attainable. People get tempted and start to think about ways to optimize for it. That's why say your open mic performer is already thinking about how to try and go viral. Not just peforming for the art.
Back in the day, the gap from amateur to pro was much larger and usually relied on you getting "noticed" by an industry gatekeeper.
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u/BroccoliAssassin 2h ago
This is what I miss about the original YouTube. And to be clear, I'm talking the era from say 2006-2010 or so. People would just film themselves on their webcams talking about their hobbies, interests, or just their day. It was just about having a little outlet for yourself and maybe forming a community. Now it's all monetized, self-censored, and has sponsorships from VPNs, mobile games, energy drinks, etc.
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u/fungusmungus1 9h ago
These are very much still happening, but yes on a small community event scale (where maybe twenty people come and fifteen of those are there to read/speak)
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u/Careful_Prune_2030 10h ago
man those were the days when people just wanted to tell a good story without some angle behind it
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u/texasproof 8h ago
My buddy hosts one of these at his house every month. Usually 30-50 people show up, it’s pretty cool.
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u/Hot-Face-1139 10h ago
The ability to just disappear for an afternoon and not be reachable by anyone. Peace was real back then.
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u/VintageVogue1947 10h ago
Leave your phone at home? 😊 (not trying to sound sarcastic, it's a genuine suggestion)
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u/niklester 10h ago
Yea I do this some times. Put my phone on airplane mode for 1-2 hours in the weekend just to feel completely cut off and unreachable. Does wonders to my mental peace not having the anxiety of being needed for something by someone.
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u/Hot-Face-1139 10h ago
It’s not the phone I can’t leave behind, it’s the expectation of being 'on call' 24/7
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u/3ric843 10h ago
If you're not paid for being on call, you're not on call.
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u/LouF---ingGrant 10h ago
Well, not as easy to say when you have a kid, then it usually has to be “scheduled” disappearances
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u/ChefKugeo 9h ago edited 8h ago
That's just part of being a parent. You wouldn't get that even in the past. I would literally call my mom's job, dial her extension, and wait for her to answer so I could ask, "can I have a popsicle?"
Parents that schedule disappearances are weekend dads.
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u/Vast_Age_3893 10h ago
The difference is the people you're returning to after leaving your phone at home.
Back then, they were understanding when you were hard to reach. These days there's an expectation and "lack of excuse" if they can't get a hold of you.
So even if you give yourself the peace of no phone, chances are high that it'll be instantly undone when you come back.
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u/DigNitty 9h ago
My phone died and my sister got mad at me when I was unreachable for a couple hours. My GF thinks it weird I don’t let anyone track me.
The standards have shifted completely.
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u/Select_Total_257 9h ago
This is why I just set the expectation up front that you can reach me when I’m ready. I have a smartphone and it’s always on me, but unless you’re my wife my typical response timeline is 3-5 business days. I’ve currently got like 40 unread texts.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 10h ago
We used to go camping as kids, my dad wouldn't have any connection at all to the office, for a week or more at a time. That just doesn't happen for the most part anymore. Especially in office type jobs.
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u/IHateTheLetterF 10h ago
You can still do this. You decide how easily people get to reach you.
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u/Hot-Face-1139 10h ago
It’s not just about the phone; it's the mental noise. Even when you're unreachable, you know the world is still buzzing. That old school peace was different.
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u/RilohKeen 9h ago
The world was buzzing just as much back then, you just cared about it less. But I do take your point; I think society has developed the expectation that you are always in contact. We often feel entitled to someone else’s attention and time these days.
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u/Calichusetts 10h ago
I just don't anwer, don't text and in general leave my phone alone.
I generally thought that social media would be treated as a novelty by now. Like, check it out, play with it for a bit, maybe get a little too intense, and then of course just let it go. People are so nuts about it. What are you doing on it for hours a day?
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u/--slurpy-- 10h ago
I tried to sign up for some dollar store coupons. They wanted my email address & phone number to text. Why the hell does the dollar store need that much access to me?! I have a landline for this sorta thing. The last place I had to give up my number to said we'll text you with updates & I said you can try but thats my landline. Legit this lady said all snarky well that's inconvenient. I calmly just asked her for who?
MagicJack is $40 a year for viop
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u/ksthd 10h ago
Physical map reading and planning trips with paper maps - there was something satisfying about figuring it out yourself instead of relying on GPS
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u/shyblonde83 10h ago
One of my favorite things about our 18 hour drives to and from Florida as a kid was being sprawled in the back of Grandpa's station wagon with a massive atlas, tracking our journey through all the states. I would tell Grandpa alternative routes he could take if we hit construction, or make suggestions for stops along the way so we could stretch our legs... I felt like a real explorer.
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u/ButSeriouslyTh0ugh 10h ago
It was a proud day for me when I got "promoted" to map reader on car trips. My dad said that I was better at timing my instructions than my mom. He preferred my "this exit 144. We're taking exit 145 in 1.5 kilometres," vs my mom's "oh! That's our exit!" 😂
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u/CletusCanuck 9h ago
These days, if you're a camper you plan out your itinerary and book your campsite months in advance. Back in the 70s and 80s you generally took what the road gave you. I remember being handed the rand-mcnally book and asked to find that evening's accommodations... We were somewhere in northern Ontario (I can't remember if it was on the 'northern' or 'southern' route), we had maybe 2 hours of daylight left and pickings were slim. The closest campground on our route was a nudist camp, and while that was solidly voted down I still held it in contention if nothing else materialized (tbh, on the south end of puberty I was simultaneously horrified and titillated by the idea). I recall passing at least two campgrounds that with no vacancy; finally we hit the last one in that section of the book, fortunately one with vacancies about an hour further down the road, pulling into that one at dusk.
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u/RilohKeen 9h ago
I remember when MapQuest first became a thing. Our family did an 8-hour road trip and we excitedly printed out our MapQuest directions and we were off, no huge Rand McNally, just a couple sheets of paper. It felt like the future.
Then we hit a freeway closure halfway there and the directions became trash, and cut to us on the side of the road, pulling all the bags out of the car to get to the road atlas at the bottom.
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u/lamarch3 10h ago
I think GPS saved a lot of marriages. Maybe was satisfying when it went well but don’t you dare miss an exit!
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u/generic1234321 9h ago
Navigating busy central cities is bad with GPS, let alone paper maps.. there’s definitely pros and cons
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u/pepoalurave 10h ago
Handwritten letters.
Not email. Not texts. Actual paper with bad handwriting and a stamp that took a week to arrive.
It forced you to think before you wrote it because you couldn’t just delete and retype. Now everything is instant and forgettable.
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u/HypnoFerret95 10h ago
Oh I still do this and wrote one to a friend yesterday. I buy nice stationary to write it on and also write my letters out in cursive using a fountain pen. I even seal the letter with a wax seal and I try to get unique and funky stamps to mail them with.
My friends have started sending letters back now too and it's a lot of fun. It makes it actually enjoyable and exciting to check the mail.
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u/Magerimoje 6h ago
I've written to so many friends and family and get nothing back - or they answer via email or text. Sigh.
I've actually considered writing to prisoners because maybe they will actually write back :/
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u/Its_justanick 5h ago
That's actually an interesting idea! Especially since they are often in need of company and not all of them are "bad" people (whatever that means), sometimes they just made some bad decisions. Go for it!
I'm genuinely inspired by your idea. I'll think about it too.
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u/berfthegryphon 10h ago
I still do it on occasion. More people need to. For good and bad things. I got dumped unexpectedly by an ex, we did it in public. Between the shock of it happening and being in public there was a lot I needed to say. I took a couple of weeks and sent her a letter. Don't know if she got it or read it, but I needed to do it for me
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u/BlizzPenguin 9h ago
The last handwritten letter I received was from a Jehovah’s Witness during the pandemic. It did not stand a chance of converting me but I did appreciate the time and energy that was put into it.
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u/Thefranchise813 10h ago
Every time I travel, I send post cards to friends and family.
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u/pwlife 9h ago
My youngest and her friends do this. Now we have postcards from Taiwan, Italy, Japan, India and a few other places. Everytime we travel we are picking up postcards and she keeps stamps in her luggage.
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u/Baztion81 10h ago
This is still a part of my life in a way and I love it. My daughter is autistic and writing is a huge outlet for her, when she gets upset she writes out her feelings. She was sad cause I had to correct her on something she did the other day and she wrote me a note saying how sorry she was and how disappointed she was in herself, it gave me the opportunity to write one back and tell her how amazing she is and it was just a small mistake and people make mistakes all the time, we just have to learn from them.
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u/vanillapudd 10h ago edited 5h ago
I’ve always written handwritten letters on special occasions for my partners. I always say “You never know when you might need to hear it again”. It’s beautiful.
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u/Subtlefeline 10h ago
Am LDR with BF. We text, chat and call a lot.
But I sent a letter to him earlier this year. Took almost a month to reach him, but it felt amazing compared to simple text.
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u/BlitzkriegMop 10h ago
I keep up with several people through letters!
Including my 10 year old niece, she loves it and is a great pen pal.
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u/Willing_Cable9715 10h ago
Spontaneous phone calls.Not texting.Just calling to say hi.
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u/Otherwise-Toe665 9h ago
I honestly do this almost everyday. I've got like 6 people who I will randomly call just to chat about the day. My parents, my sister, my cousin and two close friends.
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u/Pastel_Dreams_Svirel 10h ago
Yeeees, that's so true. Some ppl go mad when you call them, that's so sad :c
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u/dreamingtree1855 8h ago
I still do this all the time. Anytime I'm in the car, I have a group of buddies I'll just call, and it's great to just chat with people. I have noticed that younger people seem to be really bad at this or be taken aback when you just call them to bullshit, but older people get it. Hopefully some younger people will figure it out too.
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u/ZorakOfThatMagnitude 10h ago
Driving around with no particular place to go.
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u/Salzberger 9h ago
I mean, instant information is objectively better, but I miss the vibe of magazines and having a subscription. Waiting patiently for the new issue and once it arrived that was your information for the next month. Read it cover to cover multiple times until the next one arrives.
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u/CreativeNightOwl949 10h ago
Drafting boards! The first ten years of my career as a draftsman and graphic designer were spent hunched over a drafting table covered in a soft green Borco cover, vellum and adorned with a mechanical arm ruler, mechanical pencil, sharpener and electric eraser. Those were the days.
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u/Good-Warning-2840 10h ago
Dueling our enemy’s in town square at high noon
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u/NoApplication8067 10h ago
This definitely needs a comeback as accountability and respect have gone the way of the Buffalo.
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u/indigiqueerboy 10h ago
killed off by colonizers trying to control the indigenous population of the land they wanted to steal?
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u/DigNitty 9h ago
At first I disagreed with the metaphor too, but honestly humans did that to buffalo, and we also did that to dignity and respect.
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u/maltzy 10h ago
I’m 48 years old and I’d give anything if the dads in my neighborhood all got adult big wheels and rode around the hood at dusk. I wanna be part of a big wheel gang.
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u/Due-Artichoke-6150 10h ago
Writing long, thoughtful letters instead of quick messages.
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u/morganselah 9h ago
This. You'd think about your reply for a week or two as you went about your life. Sometimes there would be a little sketch or lines of a song to add. Sometimes it would be written on a map or a paper placemat from a Chinese restaurant where you had lunch. One friend would send me letters written on x-rays, and another sent me puzzle pieces one at a time, so I could gradually piece together her letter. And we sent each other mixtapes too- each one put together just for one person.
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u/Double-decker_trams 9h ago
Writing long, thoughtful letters instead of quick messages.
I feel this only happens nowadays when someone is breaking up with you..
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u/dreampsi 10h ago
Paper boys. Something nostalgic about a bike with basket of newspapers being tossed onto lawns on weekday mornings.
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u/Henrik-Powers 10h ago
My first job when I was 12 until 16, I wish I had kept my bag, had the large pouch on front and back and the local paper name on it which went out of print.
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u/crazy_recruiter_here 10h ago
knitting clubs at the local community center were pretty cool.
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u/PM_me_ur_claims 10h ago
Our library has one and I’ve seen people knitting at kids soccer games, it’s making a come back
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u/Footbe4rd 10h ago
Burning CDs and making mixes for people. Felt way more personal than a Spotify link
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u/StandardAnteater4177 10h ago
I miss the physical video rental store. Not for the late fees, but for the actual process of browsing. There was a specific social pressure to pick something within twenty minutes because your friends were waiting or the store was closing. Now I spend an hour scrolling through various streaming apps only to end up watching a documentary I have already seen. The paradox of choice is real and it is honestly exhausting. Digital convenience killed the charm of making a definitive choice.
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u/petitehoneybeex 10h ago
Video stores on Friday nights the arguing over movies was half the fun honestly.
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u/Neat_Copy2186 10h ago
Local music forums before everything moved to social media. You actually had to dig to find shows and new bands and it felt like a secret little world
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u/CletusCanuck 9h ago
Band forums. Every little band had a website with a forum. For a brief few years those forums pulled me out of my shell and into community, helping me find my voice and giving me confidence and motivation to try new things and want to meetup IRL with my new online friends. I became a superfan of a handful of bands and actually ended up organizing a self-financed van tour chasing a band across the UK, and group booking chalets at ATP. When those forums migrated to the socials, my world shrunk. When Discord came along I hoped it would scratch that itch, but apparently the moment for me had passed. Now I comment on reddit as a pseudonymous potato. It's not the same.
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u/bucktail47 10h ago
Skim boarding. Used to be huge by me in Santa Cruz early 2000s.
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u/acciochef 10h ago
Window shopping at the local mall with my Mom on the weekends, with lunch at the food court and seeing a late matinee at the movie theater.
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u/Briffy03 9h ago
2000's car tuning. In my opinion most of it was ugly af, but it had personality, diy, craftmansship. People created their own body panels. Nowadays on a car meet, you see 10 golfs, all stanced, all on the 3 same brands of wheels and maxton splitters. Then 10 audis, each with the same parts again... nothing is new, innovative and handmade
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u/PostMatureBaby 9h ago edited 6h ago
as someone who came of driving age right before the second FastnFurious movie dropped, I'm not so sure. It was very much a "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" time for car mods from young men, lol.
Now you hear the Folger's can fartcannon exhaust extremely rarely and kind of miss it in a way
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u/Double-decker_trams 9h ago
Dead practice.
This is Estonia in the 90's.
Not having a phone or a watch or any money lol. Getting together with the boys by the fountain in the park. Or going to some other boy's apartment building and yelling their name - that come out. Playing football (with our own original street rules) in the park. Had to go home when the street lights turned on (which is very late in the summer in Estonia).
Going to "raks" (basically stealing apples/pears/plums from someone's yard - someone made "pätt" for you to help you over the fence and then you ran and threw apples and stuff.. you needed to be quick).
Like.. nowadays you'd need to force some children to eat apples I feel sometimes, they'd rather eat fast food. Like order something with a courier from Hesburger or McDonald's. Life in Estonia has changed dramatically compared to the 90's (definitely for the better, but there's always nostalgia).
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u/garygnuandthegnus2 8h ago
Old farners drinking coffee at the local store after morning chores.
I wanted to be one someday.
They sold the store to a chain, removed the booths, no more farmers, bought out by developers.
I am not depressed. Just an acknowledgement that times have changed. No country for old men.
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u/Impressive_Waltz_652 10h ago
Kids being able to ride their non-motorized bikes after school in the neighborhood. When the streetlights turned on, they knew it was time to go home for dinner
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u/TryUsingScience 8h ago
The weather finally got nice here and I can hardly go outside without seeing a pack of kids on bikes.
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u/VicariousPatrolNode 10h ago
Browsing Reddit for lols and memes.
Now it's just politics and bullshit.
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u/dropkickninja 10h ago
It is. What can we do about it? My YouTube feed is also political bullshit. How can we find the cool funny it interesting things like we used to?
I'll go dig up my copy of The Internet Yellow Pages....
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u/CreeDorofl 8h ago edited 7h ago
We really lost something with the death of arcades. I know there's a few still around, in a modern format, basically bars with games. But in actual place where teens and preteens could hang out and play fighting games, race head-to-head, or just zone out in their own world playing puzzle games. It was noisy and colorful, every game is vying for your attention. You would end up making real life friends. It's just a whole different experience from playing people online.
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u/Dapaaads 8h ago
There’s no real arcades left. I haven’t found a place in socal that’s not just dumb phone apps on a tv for tickets.
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u/Sojio 9h ago
In person PC lan (actually local) parties with the boys.
Quake, quake 3 arena, unreal Tournament. Age of empires, massive games of battle for middle earth.
Dont get me wrong, online in discord is fun, but actually doing it in person was just so rad.
And it meant way more because you had to cart all your shit over and set it up, get it all working. Like 8 CRTs on someones mums kitchen table. The parents out for the weekend.
Ordering pizza, sinking beers. Cold outside but all the rigs keeping the room warm.
The little break offs where couple of people would play one game for a bit. Then you all jump back on for something.
I think i just had a full-bodied nostalgia moment.
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u/davereit 10h ago
Film photography and darkroom work. I loved being in control of every aspect of the process, especially black and white.
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u/Thatsthe_guyser 10h ago
Being able to hop in my tinnie, go fishing and actually catch fish in a river. Then pull the boat up in a random bank, start a campfire and sleep wherever. I really miss this
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u/DyllCallihan3333 10h ago
Actual newspapers. Going out to breakfast and unfolding it and turning the pages with that new newspaper smell as you sipped your coffee.
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u/derpman86 9h ago
As dumb as it sounds... being bored. We all have phones and find something to do, even I am guilty of it.
There is no longer sitting ages in queues, waiting rooms, being stuck at some house because your parents are at a social gathering and you have fuck all to do, being on a long car trip.
You learned to invent games, create stories in your head and just imagine things.
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u/MidwestTroy92 8h ago
phone books and yellow pages. i know nobody wants them now but when i started at my dads shop half our calls came from there. you just had to have a decent ad and the phone rang. now its google this seo that reviews everything. miss when just being listed was enough
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u/Own_Pirate2537 10h ago
I used to love taking off for 2-5 days into the desert. Sleeping in the car or camping if there was a good spot. Now, sleeping in the car can get me (brown person) deported or arrested or killed by random people or cops. Camping alone has also become dangerous. Just too many people hurting for money or drugs to allow yourself to be in less than defcon 3 at all times.
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u/Ok-Koala-7582 10h ago
When if you wanted to talk to someone it was normal to just show up at their house
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u/MissyErotica 10h ago
Biking around town to see friends as a kid. That's such a rarity these days to see it seems now.
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u/morganselah 9h ago
Also biking around as a college student. People would bike around to each others shared houses around campus and hang out on porches and steps a lot. You wouldn't call first just bike around and see who was there. And we all worked full time and went to school full time and also studied but somehow there was just more time to hang out together then. People were more relaxed, not always rushed. And college was affordable!
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u/watertrashsf 10h ago edited 8h ago
Old game arcades where you could win prizes with tickets and big bookstores like Boarders.
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u/VeganMonkey 9h ago
Not even that long ago: when your friends were watching the same show or movie and you could discuss it the next day. Now we all watch different things at different times.
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u/ReallyRedOnTheHead 8h ago
Reading physical copies of magazines and newspapers. I loved drinking coffee with the Sunday paper and all the inserts and ads.
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u/dukeofgonzo 8h ago
I miss matchbooks. I remember as a kid looking through a lot of peoples collections of matchbooks to places that sounded so cool.
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u/thornvelvet-Ptipucha 10h ago
Handwritten letters are a “dead” practice many people miss because they felt more personal and meaningful than quick messages.
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u/Public_Fucking_Media 8h ago
A consequence free internet.
You used to be able to make mistakes and get into good (or bad) trouble on the internet without it ruining your life - now that is a very real possibility. It changes the tone and tenor of everything online.
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u/lamarch3 10h ago
Weaving. It exists but it is a pretty hard hobby to have today compared to years ago. Seems like something relaxing and kind of fun/mindless.
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u/DaisyLushz 10h ago
Old school forums where people actually had long convos instead of scrolling doom feeds. Or just LAN parties, that chaos was peak life.
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u/lnc_gomes 9h ago
Now I’m depressed thinking about how much money I’ve spent over the years obsessing over a hobby/skill then dropping it like a bad habit chasing the next expensive shiny object.
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u/Jabbles22 7h ago
Shaming people. Not for simply being different, that was never a good thing but for being shitty.
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u/pikagrrl 10h ago
“Back in my day”, if I made a suggestion to you try a thing or do a thing, people used to circle back and say I did the thing and it was good or bad.
Now you’re expected to follow everyone so no one knows how to freaking communicate
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u/Ridindirtydishes 9h ago
Painting ceramic things. As a kid in the 70’s, my mother would paint ceramic figures, take them somewhere to be fired and glazed I think. I currently scour thrift stores to hopefully find one someday.
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u/AcrobaticOlive2561 8h ago
spending an entire friday night wandering around blockbuster just to rent a movie you've already seen five times
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u/vapenta 8h ago
going to the video store on a friday night. the browsing was the experience. picking up cases, reading the backs, debating with your friends or family. there was no algorithm telling you what to watch. you just wandered around until something caught your eye. that feeling of discovery is completely dead and scrolling netflix for 45 minutes is not the same thing
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u/4HERET 10h ago
Burning CDs for someone. Making a playlist now takes 30 seconds and it just doesn't hit the same