People Are Sharing Things And Habits That Look Strange Now, But Weren’t 20 Years Ago
Who is to say what’s normal? People are very different, and things that some people consider normal are strange to others.
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That’s conditioned by our upbringing, surroundings, ethnicity…. So many factors are involved. But there are some things that everyone finds strange – the things we used to do years ago. The definition of normal seems to change for everyone with time.
People on the r/AskReddit thread called “What was normal in 2000, but strange in 2020?” tried to answer this question, and the answers are interesting and nostalgic.
At first glance, most of these answers are technology-related. But if you look more closely, technology progress also changed our habits and lives.
1.
2000 was also a golden age for cell phones and marked the rise of the famous Nokia 3310. Everyone was playing Snake on their cell phone or Solitaire on their pc.
We were used to making phone calls and sending SMS, and not knowing who is calling us on the landline.
2000 was also the year when Big Brother started airing. It totally changed the television and introduced reality shows.
2. Paper maps
"I used paper maps to deliver pizza in 2001. I paid like $30 for a map book of my city so I can deliver fast and efficient plus not get lost."
3. Movie nights
"Going to Blockbuster on Friday nights"
4. Dusting
"Blowing into video games to fix them"
5. Rewind
"Rewinding movies when you’re done watching them"
6. Emails
"Getting excited about receiving an email."
7. No caller ID
"Not freaking out when someone calls you out of nowhere"
8.
2000 was one hell of a year. The millennium bug was supposed to mess up all computers in the world, which would cause complete chaos, satellites falling, missiles firing, bank accounts reducing to zero…. You name it.
Well, none of that happened; we are still here.
9. Push the button
"Switching to channel 3 to play video games"
10. Memory
"Memorizing a phone number."
11. Name the place
"Having a school project to do and busting out the Encarta disk."
12.
13. Both? Wow
"Being pleased your new car had a CD player AND a tape deck."
14. Teen magazines
"Teen magazines (Tiger Beat, M, Mad…) that you could take posters out of and hang in your room"
15. Times change
"Pretending the internet was not gonna be much. Saying "Oh yeah, when the internet runs the world?" Or something dismissive like that.
At one point if it was on social media, people said "But it's on social media, so it doesn't really matter."
People in 2020 lose careers over their posts on social media."
16. Print it out
"Printing out your route from Mapquest before leaving the house"
17. Smoking
"Smoking or non-smoking” was the first question you were asked when entering a sit-down restaurant."
18. Mix
Recording songs off the radio to make a personal mix tape. Always got annoyed at the DJ for talking over the end of the song
19. T9
"T9 texting"
20.
"Saying that technology is useless. Or that you won’t always have a calculator in your pocket"
21.
"Frosted tips."
22. Smoking
"Smoking in bars. Hell, even going to bars"
23. Less regulations
"I remember 25 years ago getting on a plane and realized I forgot some important paperwork in the car. The flight attendant let me get off the plane and I ran through the terminal and out to the parking lot to my car to retrieve it. Then quickly ran back in, zipped past the security screener, out onto the tarmac and climbed up the stairs to the plane. It was a rather small airport so it took less than 5 minutes. But I doubt I’d be allowed to do that today."
24. Old format
"Television in 4:3"
25. Pen and paper
"Writing down an address or telephone number to store the information for later."
26. Pay phones
Pay phones. If you see one now it’s like spotting a leprechaun, genie or unicorn and you ask it if it grants wishes
27. Cool thing.com
"Saying dot com at the end of everything because it was cool to do."
28. The truth is out there....
"2000: Your parents telling you not to believe everything you read on the internet.
2020: Your parents believing every post they see on Facebook."
29. Same time
"Watching a show weekly at the same time to catch new episodes"
30.
"Waiting for the internet to connect. Yelling at someone in the house for being on the phone when you can’t connect.
I kept a folder of music lyrics that I ripped out of Dolly/Girlfriend magazines. Also loved reading the booklet inside the CD of all the lyrics.
Recording songs off the radio to make a personal mix tape. Always got annoyed at the DJ for talking over the end of the song."
31. Call back
"Telling people to call you back after 9pm bc that's when minutes are free"
32. CDs
"Buying a stack of blank Cd’s so you can make your own custom mixes"
33. MTV
"MTV music videos actually had videos"