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Gen Xers and Millennials share childhood memories that would 'destroy' today's kids

The '70s, '80s, and '90s were a different time.

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Nobody wants to relive this.

When adults compare themselves to “kids today,” two somewhat opposing views tend to happen at once. There's both rose-colored nostalgia (“the '90s were a simpler time!” “let’s go back to before we had screens!”) and a sense of superiority when it comes to facing challenges (“kids today are soft!” “I had to walk to school uphill in the snow both ways!").

Regarding the latter, perhaps a lot of that can be attributed to a cultural shift that’s more child-centered. This has led to a quantifiable increase in the number of “sheltered” kids, according to a new Harris Poll. Kids who never walked along in a grocery aisle, talked with a neighbor without their parents, walked/biked somewhere (without a chaperone…certainly nothing like the childhood many of us '70s/'80s/'90s kids grew up in.

This sparked a conversation among Gen Xers and Millennials on TikTok when someone asked, “What’s something we survived as kids that would absolutely emotionally destroy today’s kids?” Woo boy, did folks deliver. Dodgeballs flying at their face, handwriting words in cursive for hours on end, waiting weeks to get back terrible pictures…no one today could handle that. And those are just some of the examples. Keep reading for more.

1. "Going all day at school without a water bottle. We might get a small drink of water from the water fountain at recess, that’s it. Take away a younger person’s water bottle today for five minutes, and they act like they’ve been in the desert for three days without a drop of water and will die of dehydration."

Summer Water Spongebob Squarepants GIFfrom Summer Water GIFs

2. "Having to talk to people to get your questions answered. For everything." — meanwhile, I've seen today's kids have full-blown panic attacks simply about having to ask a waiter, "May I please get a cheeseburger?"

3. "No binge mode. If you wanted to watch The X-Files, you had to be in the house every Friday night while everyone partied. For four years."

"If you missed your episode, you might never see it."

3. "Having to encounter everything 'by chance.' Favorite song on the radio, favorite movie on TV… made it so much more rewarding, but we’ll never experience that emotion again. Like running into a friend out in the wild."

4. "Munching on snacks at 1 am watching Faces of Death."

For those unfamiliar, Faces of Death is a 1978 American horror film that shows scenes of gruesome deaths from around the world, both real and re-enacted. Fun, right?

gen x, millennials, gen z, gen alpha, boomers generational humor, tiktok, generational differences This movie earned 45% on Rotten Tomatoes. Amazon.com

5. "Dodgeball. I just played gaga ball with a bunch of Generation Alphas and omg, these kids are not gonna be okay."

What is gaga ball, you ask? A variation that's gentler, faster-paced, and more accessible. It’s Dodgeball Lite, essentially. And honestly, it's a legitimate improvement from the needlessly savage original.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

6. "Having to write everything in cursive from third grade on in pen. Writing by hand the rough draft, then the 2nd rough draft, then the final draft."

Man, lots of thoughts about handwriting, actually…

"Having to write a research paper while properly citing sources in the required format using only books, newspapers or microfiche from the library. And having to find all that by using the Dewey Decimal System. Also, no spell or grammar check to find our mistakes for us."

"Having to write a rough draft, having a classmate mark it up with errors, re-write it for the teacher to review with more mark-ups, and then having to write the final draft in pen, sometimes in cursive lol."

"That bump on the side of your middle finger from handwriting everything."

7. "Being bored. Kids today don’t know what real boredom is."

More specifically…

8. "Driving with your parent with NO FORM of entertainment. Just look out the window."

Even worse…

9. "Being trapped in the car with your smoker parents… with windows up. And of course, zero functioning seat belts."

10. "Babysitting infants and other small children when you yourself were only 12."

11. "Not being able to see the photographs before they get developed when using disposable cameras/rolls of film in the little black tubes."

12. "Dial-up internet and how it disconnected when someone else made a phone call."

Internet Internet Down GIFfrom Internet GIFs

13. "Driving without using GPS."

"Or when MapQuest was a thing and we had to print out directions to follow! I drove cross country with twenty pages of directions hahahaha."

14. "Trying to follow makeup tutorials that were just blocks of text in Cosmo magazine. No visuals. 🤣"

15. "Forgetting your key and having to wait from 3:45 pm until 6:00 pm when your mom finally gets home. No snacks, no water."

16. "Eating whatever is served, regardless of whether you like it or hate it. There was no asking what we wanted to eat for dinner or what sounded good to us. Nasty pot pie with peas? Eat it. Liver and onions that smell like absolute death? Eat it. And you ain't getting down from the table until your plate is clean — and they meant it. It could be all the way until bedtime. You not getting down. Period. My sister fell asleep face-first into her plate once."

17. "Having to find a library book through the card catalog to know its location."

18. "Calling your friend’s house and talking to their parents first when they pick up the phone. Small talk and communication skills in general have taken a huge hit."

19. "Pooping without a phone."

20. "The TV used to cut to nothing at night. literally the TV would just show the flag 'til the next day… Good night, America."

21. "You only got three lives in a video game, and when you died, you had to start from the very beginning!!"

22. "Blowing and smacking Nintendo games to make them work or not glitch."

23. "Having homework from all classes due the next day! 😂"

24. "Having to rewind a cassette tape with a pencil after being unraveled inside the cassette player, hoping it doesn’t twist while rewinding."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

25. “Those metal pedals on our bikes, hitting your shin cause you missed the pedal or riding with no shoes on."

26. "Having to cover all textbooks with paper bags from the local grocery store. The paper bags had outlines on how to cover your textbooks. Hated this for years. It eventually stopped in high school, possibly 11th grade."

27. "Actually going to a potential employer to ask if they’re hiring and for an application."

28. "The loud ticking of the massive analog clock on the wall during a test. The whole room silent. But the ticking of clock as loud as a rock concert. Every second click click click. I can still hear it in my nightmares. You know y’all younginz can’t tell time unless it’s digital."

29. "When I was in elementary school, lunch was still paid for with cash UNLESS you were a poor kid with free lunch. Then, they gave you a bright yellow laminated card and everyone in your class knew you were poor. 😏"

30. "Blackouts. They will NEVER survive blackouts the way we did back then."

31. "Chickenpox!"

32. "Not knowing if The Blair Witch Project was real or not."

Abell46s GIFfrom Abell46s GIFs

33. "Roman candle fights."

Ah yes, pointing fireworks at each other. What could possibly go wrong?

- YouTube www.youtube.com

34. “Climbing and falling off six-foot monkey bars onto plain concrete."

35. "The merry-go-round...pure steel in the summer."

36. "The threat of pulling 20 to life for my LimeWire bootlegs. The media had me feeling like young Capone."

37. "Thinking the world will end when Y2K comes."

38. "Computer crashing while just putting the finishing touches on your school report and you didn’t hit save."

39. "Having to manually change the channel on the TV and if the knob broke looking frantically for pliers!!! Don’t get me started on the aluminum foil on the TV antennas!"

40. "I was home alone in the morning and got myself fed, dressed and walked myself to afternoon Kindergarten."

41. "Non-stop bullying was normal. 😩"

Respeto GIFfrom Bully GIFs


42. "Riding in the back of a pickup truck down the highway."

43. "A dentist that doesn’t numb your gums before jabbing you with a needle."

44. "Having that ONE copy of the video you and your friends made, greatest memories ever, and then your dad tapes over it for a 90-second Tyson fight."

…and lastly…

45. "The Challenger Explosion, and no trauma counseling after. We were expected to just move on to the next class and go about our day."

That said, we can probably all agree that in reality, kids today endure plenty—we didn't exactly have to contend with active shooter drills, cyberbullying, etc.—and are incredibly resilient in their own way. This was more lighthearted than anything else. Or, at the very least, a fun and traumatic romp down memory lane for us olds.

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Gen Xers and Boomers share outrageous behaviors that used to be considered 'normal'

"All my parents' friends used to give me a spanking for each year on my birthday."

Photo by lil artsy/Pexels

Older people are sharing memories of wild behaviors and norms that would be considered "boundary crossing" today

How many times have you looked back to things you thought were "normal" from your childhood and thought "Huh, that was actually kinda weird in hindsight"? Times change, and what's considered "normal and acceptable" change with them. That's not automatically good or bad, necessarily, but hopefully humanity is evolving such that we learn from our mistakes and recognize room for improvement.

Culture, social progress, and technology all play a role in how our behaviors evolve. We hope our behavior changes for the better, and sometimes it does, but some folks might disagree and think things were better back in simpler times.

In that vein, someone asked Gen Xers and Boomers on Reddit, "What are some things that would be considered rude or boundary crossing today but were perfectly normal and acceptable when you were growing up?" and the answers reveal how much has shifted in the past handful of decades.

If you're over 40, enjoy this slightly disturbing trip down memory lane. If you're under 40, yes, all of these things really happened on a regular basis.

Scolding other people's kids (even strangers)

Raising a child was seen as more of a community effort than it is today, which resulted in perfect strangers doling out discipline.

"Scolding someone else's child. I remember getting corrected by strangers."

gen x, boomers, millennials, gen alpha, gen z, generations, generational differences, culture, etiquette Reprimanding other people's kids in public. Giphy

"Those were the lessons that stuck the most too for me. When a family friend or stranger corrected me I knew without doubt I done f'd up. I didn't like the trend during the late 80's into 90's of everyone telling each other to mind their own business and not correct a child that wasn't theirs ~ horrible logic that I feel totally contributed to where we are at today with nobody considering other peoples opinions on things."

"OMG yes! in my neighborhood, whoever's house you were at, if you acted up, their mom was expected to let you know, and even send you home! it's just how things were."

"Kids were basically community property."

People are split on whether this development is ultimately good or bad.

Showing up or dropping by unannounced

Before cell phones, people didn't always call or text before going to someone's house. Company could just show up at any time. People had snacks on hand specifically for unexpected guests. It was a thing.

"Possibly stopping in at a friend’s house unannounced. That used to be fairly common when everyone didn’t have a phone in his or her pocket."

"You never knew who, or how many, would show up at our house on a Friday night for a game of penny ante poker or Yahtzee in the 60's and 70's."

gen x, boomers, millennials, gen alpha, gen z, generations, generational differences, culture, etiquette Showing up to someone's house unannounced. Giphy

"I do miss that. We always had extra snacks for guests available because we never knew when someone might just show up."

"We always had a Pepperidge Farms Coconut cake in the freezer. My mother would take it out to thaw as soon as company showed up."

"A corollary of this was that you were also expected to have your clothes on and be somewhat presentable while you were at home, since you never know who would be dropping by."

"Hell, me and my friends would just walk into each other's house like we lived there. None of the parents seemed to mind either. I often ended up eating meals at their homes and them at mine."

People still show up out of nowhere in movies and TV shows, though. Probably because texting isn't quite as cinematic!

Birthday spankings

Okay, yeah, this one is weird. It was a tradition to get a spanking for every year of your life on your birthday, and it wasn't even just parents who did this. Teachers, your parents' friends, etc.

"All my parents' friends used to give me a spanking for each year on my birthday. Does anyone else remember this? Birthday spankings? So weird."

"And a pinch to grow an inch."

"My 4th grade teacher did this to all of us in front of the whole class. She ended it with a "pinch to grow on" and literally pinched our butts. This was around 2001 in Indianapolis. I don't recall anyone ever having an issue with it at the time, but looking back it was definitely odd. She was a great teacher and I have nothing bad to say about her at all. It was just a different time."

gen x, boomers, millennials, gen alpha, gen z, generations, generational differences, culture, etiquette Birthday spankings and punches. Giphy

"Yessssss! I'm in MD and was in elementary school in the 80's. If it was our birthday we would pick another kid to spank us in front of the whole grade, so if turning 9 you would get 9 smacks on your butt and all the kids would shout "ONE! TWO!..." 😂😂😂😂 I can't imagine that happening now!"

"Oh god! In a school club we would all line up and the birthday girl to crawl between all our legs as we spanked her on birthdays. What a crazy tradition!"

"The spanking machine! Kids would line up in a row, legs open, and you would crawl through, while kids slapped your butt. Sometimes singing 'today is spankin’ day!'"

Later, the birthday spankings evolved in birthday arm punches — again, one for every year. It's really hard to imagine anyone getting away with this in 2025.

Actual spankings. With a paddle. At school.

School principals, vice principals and sometimes teachers kept a paddle at their desk, which would be used to whack kids who misbehaved. Corporal punishment was the gold standard for behavior modification. Hacking, whacking, paddling—so many names for this woefully outdated practice.

"The big paddle that one of the teachers would possess that would be used on your hind quarters at their whim. No parent permission needed."

"The (completely backward) school I attended in 7th grade in 1999-2000 still spanked kids. My math teacher spanked a kid in class at least once a week. This was the deep south and very different from other schools I went to, it was quite the culture shock."

"I would get the paddle or else my desk kicked over while I was in it, my head would hit that floor HARD! I don’t know which was worse."

gen x, boomers, millennials, gen alpha, gen z, generations, generational differences, culture, etiquette Corporal punishment in schools. Giphy

"In 1987 my mom walked me into the school office and told everyone including the principle that under NO circumstances is anyone to paddle or spank me for discipline and if I misbehaved they were to simply call her about it. Their jaws dropped. That would not have happened anyways because I was a very well behaved and respectful child."

"I definitely got the big paddle in the vice principal's office."

Shockingly, "corporal punishment" as it's called is still legal in many states and regularly practiced in some private schools.

Smoking indoors everywhere

It's impossible to explain to young people today how ubiquitous smoking used to be. Like, it was considered rude not to have ashtrays in your home. High schools had smoking areas. Restaurants, airplanes, waiting rooms—people smoked everywhere.

"I can recall the nurses at the triage in the hospital in my home town, smoking away while working. The 80s man, crazy time."

"I was born in 82, there’s a picture of my mother holding me shortly after I was born, laying in a hospital bed, and on her bedside table is a pack of reds and an ashtray."

"And on airplanes and trains. I remember riding the L in Chicago with people smoking on the cars."

"Smoking in class at college."

gen x, boomers, millennials, gen alpha, gen z, generations, generational differences, culture, etiquette Smoking indoors. Giphy

"Smoking in grocery stores and putting out butts on the floor.

Teachers with ash trays on their desks smoking during class."

"My parents didn't smoke, but they (1970s) kept a guest ashtray in the house in case a visitor wanted to light up. Complained endlessly about the smoke smell once the person was gone, but it would have been rude to tell them to take it outside or wait."

The first question a restaurant hostess used to ask you was "Smoking or non-smoking?" if you can believe it.

Sexual harassment

Not that this was ever normal or acceptable, but it was tolerated to a disturbing level.

"Until Anita Hill, I had never even heard the term Sexual Harassment. I literally had no idea it was a thing. You were female, you were employed, men could make insistent advances with zero repercussions. One of my co-workers finally slept with the boss just to try to get him to leave her alone. This was NORMAL. We expected it to happen and accepted that it would, we just had to deal with it."

gen x, boomers, millennials, gen alpha, gen z, generations, generational differences, culture, etiquette Rampant sexual harassment. Giphy

"I was told to lighten up because it was a compliment."

" I got my first job in 1973 when I was 15. I worked in the restaurant business and waited tables all through college. It was pervasive and customers (men) would say many unwanted things as well. My first adult job was selling pharmaceuticals in 1984 and the first thing my regional manager told me during orientation was if a doctor did or said anything inappropriate handle it anyway you saw fit and then call and tell me about. He made it clear we didn’t have to put up with any BS and were free to slap anyone if we needed to. By the nineties sexual harassment wasn’t gone but was getting called out in a big way. Until there was a name for sexual harassment we knew we were uncomfortable but didn’t really have a way to express it in a meaningful and united manner."

"My friends and I were grabbed constantly in middle school by boys in early 90s. It never occurred to us to tell anyone and I honestly don’t think they would have cared. We just shared our shame amongst ourselves."

"Men would randomly grab and touch women all the time when I was growing up. Boomers were the worst about it, but I’m GenX and even we had it somewhat normalized. We’d gotten a clue that it wasn’t great, but we hadn’t yet realized it was actually sexual assault when someone would fondle your butt or breasts unbidden. Or when someone would grab you and kiss you. If you complained you were told to lighten up."

Watching old films and TV shows can be a bit cringeworthy for this exact reason. Inappropriate comments and contact at work was often seen as a joke and "just good fun."

The drastic policing of what women wore under their clothes

Imagine having all the girls line up in gym class while the teacher runs his finger down each girl's back to make sure she was wearing a bra. Imagine it being unheard of to not wear pantyhose and show bare skin on your legs while wearing a skirt. We still police what women and girls wear in some places, but it's not as bad as it used to be.

"I’ve been told that women were expected to wear 'foundation garments' at work, and if they didn’t, then they might get reprimanded. I’m talking about longline bras and girdles."

gen x, boomers, millennials, gen alpha, gen z, generations, generational differences, culture, etiquette Policing of women's underwear. Giphy

"In the 80s, one of my friends got sent to the office for not wearing a bra to high school."

"Until 1999, I was required to wear pantyhose at work. Nuts! And they dictated 'suntan' color!"

"Not sure what I spent more $ on - pantyhose or clear nail polish to stop the runs."

"I remember being a kid in the 90s my mom going from store to store looking for slips to put under my dresses, she had a whole section of her closet devoted to them. I hated them and didn't understand their purpose. Still don't. I'm so glad those are in the past."

People shared other things as well, such as how common it was to touch total strangers or to cut through people's yards to get to where you were going, and it's a wild ride through shifting social norms. Some things are definitely best left in the past, but some lend themselves to a stronger sense of community and might be worth revisiting. It does make you wonder what things from today will show up on a list like this decades from now.

You can see more on the r/AskOldPeople thread here.

This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.

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Pizza Hut's quiet retro redesigns tap straight into Gen X and Millennial nostalgia

Take a trip right back into the '90s.

Image via\u00a0Ed! at English Wikipedia
Original Pizza Hut in Athens, Ohio.

Pizza Hut is a staple in American dining culture. Founded in 1958 by brothers Frank and Dan Carney in Wichita, Kansas, Pizza Hut holds a nostalgic place in the hearts (and stomachs) of Millennials and Gen Xers who grew up going there on Friday nights or after school in the 1990s.

In the Reddit forum r/Millennials, member kkkan2020 shared something amazing and nostalgic with their peers: "There's a Pizza Hut in North Carolina that is untouched by time; red cups for beverages, light fixtures, jukebox, table cloths, and even has the salad bar."

The post led to a flood of Millennials sharing their memories of Pizza Hut growing up, and the revelation that Pizza Hut has quietly been reintroducing its retro designs into restaurants across America since 2019. "It's a Pizza Hut Classic. It's a marketing move to get people to come back to Pizza Hut," one commented, referencing journalist Roland Pujol's list of Pizza Hut Classic locations that have opened across the country.



Many Millennials shared the same sentiment about modern Pizza Huts compared to the ones they grew up going to in the '90s. "I was literally just thinking about this over the weekend as I drove past the grey eyesore that sadly replaced our classic Pizza Hut. I want them to go back to what they were," one wrote. "The arcade is needed. The salad bar is needed. Booths are needed. It’s part of the experience. There’s no experience anymore, and that goes for all of the fast food restaurants. Now we just have cheap, plastic food. These new places are just stale."

Nostalgia about Pizza Hut is still strong and filled with sensory memories. "Absolutely miss the old school vibe with the stained glass lamps, the nubbly red plastic cups, the table cloths, and the salad bar and pizza buffet. I know I'm old, but the pizza just tasted better back then. It wasn't fancy dining, but it was always a treat to go there," someone shared. Another commented, "Thinking the same thing. Still remember the excitement as a kid of learning we were going to Pizza Hut for pizza! Those red glasses, the smell of pizza in the air, the faint arcade sounds from the corner, the red glasses filled with soda. Heaven, I tell you."

pizza hut, old pizza hut, vintage pizza hut, retro pizza hut, pizza hut gif Ringo Starr Advertising GIF Giphy

Pizza Hut's food and atmosphere back in the day offered an unmatched ambiance. "I used to go to Pizza Hut during off-peak hours by myself and would just eat from the buffet and read a magazine (no cell phones at the time) and just relax. For some reason, it felt peaceful there," noted one comment. Another shared, "Came here for this but also those lamps. In my Pizza Hut, there were different colors, and my brothers picked where to sit based on the Ninja Turtles' color."

Others appreciated the food itself. "All you can eat Lunch buffet," one wrote. Another reminisced, "The pizza WAS better back then, when they made fresh dough daily and their sauce wasn't loaded with sugar." Another nostalgia chaser added, "I keep thinking to myself, was it just my taste buds as a kid that made every pizza taste amazing, or did they really have a different recipe that was switched out sometime in the '90s? Especially the dine-ins.. I can remember a distinctly different taste which was amazing."

Pizza Hut, pizza hut classic, pizza hut retro, old pizza hut, vintage pizza hut Pizza Hut Classic.Image via Reddit/Otacon73

Many Xennials reminisced specifically about Pizza Hut's "Book It!" program, where they earned a free personal pan pizza for achieving reading goals. "Yasssss that just brought some pleasant scent memories too (pan pizza & the smell of library books)," one commented. Another shared, "It literally started me on the path to become a life-long reader." One other Xennial added, "Book It! still exists. And I just noticed they have a summer parent program so kids can still set and reach goals and get that free pizza!"

pizza, pizza hut, pizza hut book, sausage pizza, '90s pizza hut, book it, Pizza Hut's 'Book It' reading program.Image via Reddit/Remytron83

With Pizza Hut Classic restaurants bringing back the retro aesthetic, the memories keep coming. "I grew up working class in the '80s, my family only went to restaurants for kids' birthdays or other special occasions. We only ate out about 3-4 times a year. I always chose Pizza Hut when it was my turn, and it was an incredible treat. I can smell this photo, and it's pure nostalgic heaven," one commented.

"Personal pan pizza, the dessert pizzas, those red drinking glasses, a smoking section (lol for authenticity's sake), and that damn unique smell at the tables. Good times, good times," said another fan. Good times indeed.

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Boomers and Gen Xers share 30 things they don't miss from the 80s and 90s

"Using those Noxzema pads to burn and dry out my pimply face. It had a smell, too."

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Boomers and Gen Xers discuss the things they don't miss from the 1980s and 1990s.

Nostalgia is all about remembering how things were in the "gold old days." But sometimes, upon further reflection, some things really sucked in the past despite how rosy our colored glasses made them look. Boomers and Gen Xers are reminiscing on the things they really don't miss from the 1980s and 1990s.

Over on Reddit, member pizzagamer35 posed the question to Boomers and Gen Xers: "What is something you do NOT miss from the 80s-90s?"

Boomers and Gen Xers had plenty of throwback experiences and products they are happy to never come across again. These are 30 of the most nostalgic responses from Boomers and Gen Xers about things they don't miss about the 80s and 90s.

landline, landline phone, 90s phone, phone call, retro phone Saved By The Bell Laughing GIF Giphy

"Long distance phone bill." —gohdnuorg

"Having to wait until after 7pm or whatever so you could call your long distance friends because it was free after that." —raz0rbl4d3

"Answering the landline and having no idea who's calling. Just raw, unfiltered anxiety." —Fit-Interview-3886

"Not having GPS." —recrysis

"Smoking or non smoking and still be in the smoking section." —Less-Lengthiness4863

smoking, smoke, cigarettes, smoking section, smoking 90s mothers day smoking GIF Giphy

"Using those Noxzema pads to burn and dry out my pimply face. It had a smell, too." —poizon_elff

"Waiting for JPGs to load one line at a time." —timmayd

"Those hair ties with the two giant plastic beads on them that EVERY mom used to tie up their daughter's hair in pigtails. God forbid she lose her grip on one while she was already ripping your soul out through your scalp." —Honey-Badger-90

"Third degree burns from metallic seat belt fasteners." —JLMTIK88

"Not being able to use the internet if someone needed the phone line to be free." —Joshawott27

internet, internet 90s, dial up internet, old internet, slow internet Girl 90S GIF Giphy

"Satanic panic." —Historical_Spot_4051

"Buying a CD and realizing all the songs suck, except for one, maybe two." —11B-E5

"Batteries and flashlight bulbs. Holy crap they were crap. I still remember seeing the little LED light on our shitty car radio and asking dad what kind of light that tiny dot was. He told me it was a diode and diodes kinda 'last forever'. I immediately wondered why the hell we weren't developing that tech." —snoozieboi

"Shoulder pads." —Thin_Apartment_8076

shoulder pads, shoulder pad, 80s shoulder pads, 90s shoulder pads, vintage style Mc Hammer Dancing GIF by Jukebox Saints Giphy

"Ordering pizza by calling the restaurant and yelling your order to a guy in a noisy kitchen. Missing an episode of your favorite TV show (or forgetting to tape it if you had a VCR) and not being able to see it until summer reruns, or maybe never." —Imaginary-List-4945

"Terrible contact lenses." —MandatoryMatchmaker

"To contribute something small: manual computer defragmentation. It took several hours and you couldn't do anything else." —rena-vee

"Pay Phones that gave you limited talk time." —Aggravating-Iron9804

pay phone, payphone, payphones, payphone, 90s phone Season 3 Marge GIF by The Simpsons Giphy

"Gym class. Boys were expected to know how to play sports. My dad taught me how to fix tractors and cut firewood, but he didn't teach me sports because no one ever taught him. The gym teacher didn't teach us sh*t. When we f*cked up or didn't know what to do, the jocks would laugh and the teacher would join in the fun." —Fluffy-Cupcake9943

"The 'heroin chic' body type." —Heartbreak_Star

"Panty hose." —Kitty-haha

"Aqua net=hair that absolutely did not move! And you could see little hairspray bubbles 😔🫠😂😂." — IAmTheBlackStar1979

"Having to rewind VHS tapes like it was a part-time job." -—Repulsive_Corgi_6187

vhs, vhs tape, vhs rewind, rewinding vhs, vhs rewinding Animated GIF Giphy

"Waiting by the radio for your song to play so you can record it on tape." —mycrml

"Serial killers. They just can't exist at the same level anymore. Plus we got all the lead out of stuff. So now people are 100% normal. 100%." —PrimeNumbersby2

"Manual roll up/down windows in cars." —Human-Average-2222

"Carpeted bathrooms. someone shared a bunch of pictures of them on some nostalgia account and i could smell the pictures through my phone 🤢." —GoblinHeart1334

"Busy signal on the phone." —crjconsulting

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