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Best old school perk is doing all your stupid kid shit at a time where cameras weren’t ubiquitous.
Or at least not permanent.
I grew up in the early 2000s and while starting somewhere around 2005 cameras and the first social sites became a thing, nothing of that exists today. Myspace and SchülerVZ (German Facebook clone) were super popular, but don’t exist anymore. Camera phones didn’t have an easy way to export photos and most hard drives from back then just died at some point. There’s hardly anything left. And that’s a good thing.
I do feel bad about the younger generations of today. It seems like every part of their life is recorded or streamed now. I’m not sure how comfortable I would have been with that, when I was their age.
This is one thing I will always appreciate of growing up Gen-X. Our moms would kick us out of the house after breakfast and expected us to be gone until the street lights started to buzz. A pack of us on BMX bikes, adventuring, exploring abandoned buildings, jumping off cliffs and into rivers or the ocean, etc. It genuinely ruled ams and I fully appreciate that it did.
I’m on the cusp (xennial) and it’s kinda crazy in hindsight. I had the exact same experience you described, but when it got dark, I’d go home and play with the Commodore 64 or Atari.
Same for me, but I guess I’m a little younger since my console was NES and, later, a Gateway 2000 computer.
I’m so glad that I had those experiences and so sad that my son won’t. I hope that I can give him enough of a similar experience that he can at least identify with Calvin and Hobbes.
Atari! Yars’ Revenge, Asteroids, Frogger and Space Invaders were my jam.
I was born in the mid-90’s and I was also more or less raised that way (until a certain age). I remember being able to get home in time for dinner after a whole day of playing outside just because it “felt” like it was almost dinner time. We would go to the nearby “forest” where we built huts, climbed into trees, made wooden swords out of sticks, and sometimes had “battles” with rivaling groups about certain areas in the forest. We’d be there for hours even in the pouring rain. There was a whole economy around these wooden swords and other services like building a hut. It was better than any video game ever could be
The bikes are non negotiable. Also there’s some sort of bully involved.
Bully becomes a friend at the end though
That’s absolute bullshit. I’ve never met anyone who turned their bully into a friend while they were still in school together.
It’s more realistic to realize a friend is actually a bully.
You’ve obviously not lived inside an American high school movie
I turned an eighth grade (Catholic elementary school) bully into a ninth grade (public jr high) “we’re pretty cool now,” likely because he was scared as fuck to be in this rough public middle school, and I’d been getting bullied my whole life so it was nothing different for me.
I did. Bully - > rival - > friend. Pipeline is common.
Nostalgia is bittersweet & I love it as much as anyone but the bigger picture is this: capitalism grows like a weed or a vampire & every generation had freedom without cameras like that until gen-Xers, who were the last, which is why it feels like such magic now even tho then it was just life & being outside
I have repeatedly felt like taking some emery cloth to my neighbors ring door bell camera, which records me when ever I am in my front yard. There is an expense to replacing cameras and they seem like easy targets, if you go about it right.
When you’re sold a version of nostalgia for something you never experienced.
anemoia
You’ll never be a middle-aged accountant in the 80s either, just fyi.
My grandfather was, but it does seem rather unlikely he’ll be able to do it again now that you mention it.
No… But I’ve been a 13 year old boy in the 1990’s and had the same experience.
Just play Kids On Bikes, bout the closest you’ll get.
Tales From The Loop too.
It was fun and I feel sorry for anyone who didn’t get to have that kind of childhood. But we almost died so many times. I still have flashbacks to times I was trapping in mud or climbing a huge cliff. I was so lucky I made it past 20
I don’t get it
Stand by Me was set in the 1950s though
Good point. Well, it is an 80’s movie
Get out of my headcanon.
Take your facts with you!
