What was life like before the internet and social media?

What was life like before the internet and social media?

Better

Find out for yourself.

More boring but more human.

underage b&

>twitter addicts complaining about females spamming text messages

Seriously I can't remember.

Livable.

Boring, honestly.

It was beautiful.
>WE HAVE TO GO BACK

women were still whores.
I spent my time building world war II figurines.

>I spent my time building world war II figurines.
Told you guys; it was the shit back then. And this is just one fine example.

born in 92, i remember seeing my first video game when i was 5, used the internet when i was 7, and joined facebook when i was 14... i don't remember much of the world before it, but we were being set up to get used to it from the very start

you could randomly show up at someones house and it was ok
kids would bike outside and go swimming and play hide and seek and play with waterballoons and super soakers all day.
you could hang out with 4-5 other people and play videogames or watch a movie
sometimes you would just walk around random places with friends
seeing a dog was really cool
talking about cartoons and comics with friends was fun
going to amusement parks or fun restaurants with arcades was a big deal
day dreaming was fun while watching trees blow in the wind through sunlight
videogame magazines were the shit
going to the movies was a big deal
getting chinese food was considered fun
going to a toy or electronics store was amazing
going to a book store was amazing
ordering pizza was a big deal

fpbp

First post, best post.

Im 36 years old so my teen age years wear internet free in a way. It was great i got drunk smoke some weed hung out with a small group of friends and went to high school.

You'd have to be about 50 to judge this objectively, ie: having experienced adult life before the late 90s.

how young are you

hugely underrated is that you could just be "out", basically alone, anonymous, with or without friends doing your thing and no one thought you were dead. now in addition to the professional and personal worlds going absolutely ape shit if you turn off your phone for a couple of days, if you go out youll inevitably end up in someones photo on social media. cell phones arent just accountability, its the fucking panopticon

was good until facebook really caught on. Could be that a lot of my friends had kids around then and I broke up with my long term girl friend. I just liked that you could make plans with people and they kept them. Now it seems like everyone will cancel if something better comes up

The internet was a fantastic place until "normal people" started using computers. This started to happen around -06. 07 is when the internet completely died.

>spend a good chunk of your day on Sup Forums or other websites
>"dude life was SO much better before the internet became huge"

I'll never understand this.

It was a bunch of faggots going around thinking they were cool because they used AOL chat rooms after school.

Was about to post this exact same thing. I don't go outside anymore due to this.

in the 90s you could stop a girl and ask her smth without appearing as a complete weirdo

And this too, people could still socialize like normal human beings.

People used to socialize in public

They want to be highly productive, but consider the internet to be the one thing that stops them.

Of course, if they internet did disappear, they'd just watch TV instead.

Women werent narcissists, with their face glued to their phone looking at a photo of themselves and how many up votes it got.

...

Nailed it.

I'd add going to video rental places was pretty sick too. Coolest job I ever had desu.

Pretty shit. We had to go with the leftist MSM narrative.

Back in the 80s the MSM was right wing, part of the satanic panic.

Are you comparing newspapers (when newspapers weren't shit) to the trash people use smart phones for?

I know you are, I just want you to defend why you think they're the same.

You're delusional or retarded if you believe that. Women were just as narcissistic and cunty before Instashit and whatever, it just wasn't as readily visible and nobody believed you when you told them how cunty your gf was

We talked to each other face to face, people only stayed home if they basically had no choice (sick, horrible blizzard ect) and we went around in groups visiting each others houses for various reasons.

Most of you mincing little fruits would not be curled up whining about how all women are evil, because you'd eventually end up with a few and see that it's no big deal.

I don't think there's anybody from any of my schools or any of my circle of friends who did not end up with somebody eventually.

Also this thing that kids do online where they think that acting like a cunt is funny in and of itself was not really a thing that happened often, because you could just reach over and hit somebody if they were being too retarded.

So the people who were known for being funny were usually actually pretty funny.

It was generally interesting to hang out with other people.

TV was the "internet" of its time. we sat glued to the TV.

Anyone that genuinely remembers doesn't take social media seriously.

Cunty doesnt = narcissism dummy.

today they are absolutely obsessed with their own website pages dedicated to themselves and how they look on a constant basis.

the worst it got before the internet was spending an hour in front of the mirror putting on their face.

This. Life largely revolved around the programming schedule for me. There would be things you'd watch every evening pretty much from the moment you got in from school until you went to bed.

Normies. Never did any of this.

made a mental note yesterday to research civilized 2nd world, or remote areas of 1st world countries where life exists without techno addiction. may try to get some property or at least visit periodically, lay down some roots

I literally rode my bike everywhere just going to friend's houses and the whole goddamn neighborhood. You'd have to borrow vidya and shit. If girls liked you they had to fucking call the house and it'd be like "son there's a whore that wants to talk to you on the phone". My old pictures were literally brown version of me because I was in the sun all day. By nighttime curfew you would go home when the sun went down. I grew up in the pokemon era so it was more ridiculous with toys, cards, and trading pokemon in the vidya.

It seems to me now that people are living their lives for others and absolutely every aspect of society is image based.

We are especially fuck'd, Ante. We didn't get to live in the glorious years of Capitalism. We just suddenly woke up, few rich Jews showed up on our doors with bags full of promises for a brighter tomorrow.... and then we got THIS.
But seriously, I have no idea how to speak with the younger generation. They don't do any eye-contact. I am actually afraid to approach them, because it feels as if I am impudent.... They also seem to hold a great dislike of elder people and avoid them like plague.

>you could randomly show up at people's houses and it was ok
This. This is forever lost

about the same, but just more isolated.

You could experience all of this in 2006.

We listened to old people tell stories. It was nice.

Doesn't exist unless you get a house in the woods and stay on your property.

We had AIM and Yahoo! IM.

Before that, we had corded phones in the kitchen that we used to call our friend's houses and see if they could play. If no one answered, we got on our bikes and rode our happy asses over there, because back then it was rare to be kidnapped or randomly sucker-punched by niggers.

i had a chance to be a normie with a good gf but then i got Battlefield 2 and everything went to shit, fucking hate DICE now

>We just suddenly woke up, few rich Jews showed up on our doors with bags full of promises for a brighter tomorrow.... and then we got THIS.
I can one up you on that, we fought in a bloody war for it.

Goddamn idiots.

people spent more time playing with their genitalia

Shit now that I think about, BF1942 started me down the wrong path.

my hope is that one day when I build my woodland cabin refuge is that everyone else is inside on their computers and not shitting up my forest

ah also, memes existed, but in bizarre ways, like a popular reference from bob hope 30 years prior trickled through your parents sense of humor, and got repeated enough to make it a functional device for interacting with contemporary culture. i think whoever coined the term and acknowledged the phenomena did it in this post vietnam information/entertainment explosion. meme is a information gene basically, at some point untraceable to its source, but identfiable and familiar.

This is true. And comic books and video games. Shit got boring when nothing was on and you didnt have anything new to read.
If you didnt know the answer to something or couldnt remember who the guy who played that guy in that movie was, you were out of luck.

I'd happily not visit 4chins if it meant other people weren't phone zombies.

facebook, twitter and smart phones ruined the internet.

>This was wise use of commuting time.
the ancient ones didn't walk around (or attempt to drive) with media plastered inf front of their face.
the ancient ones didn't live and die by the vacuous retardation of some Corporation (monetizing) their every bit of teenage gossip.

i spend waaaay more time playing with my genitals now than before i was online, never stopped to think and wonder why though, guess its a mystery. that said, before the internet porn, JO theatres, and sex in general had a deliciously taboo element thats at least in my world completely evaporated.

In addition knowing random facts about a topic used to be a cool and marketable skill. Now everyone carries the combined history of the world in their pockets.

It's considered bad form to even call somebody, you have to send half a dozen texts, even though they spend their lives with their phones in their hands.

you memorized your friend's phone numbers and had to ask to speak to them when you called their house

silver lining, perhaps

Parents used to shout at us from the balconies to get home for supper. We played childish games like tag and such. We had flip phones but we used them to film ridiculous videos of us fucking around. Making coke bombs and such. Now all I do Is sleep, work and shitpost. It's fucking hell. I wish I could go outside and play carelessly like a kid again Instead of living through this nightmare.

>all those thotties and not one know how their like-gathering social media tool functions

Lol

same, warcraft fucked me up for the rest of high school, I literally went 24 hours straight. Online was a whole new world and it was too fun.

>people don't talk to each other
That's not the problem with social media. It's just that people's lives are pretty much public which puts more societal pressure on EVERYONE. This makes us more competitive and more distant from one another.

You got your anarchist tendencies out at a younger age and became a better adult.

Less degenerate... Half the shit on the internet would be completely shocking to me in the 90s. Now all sorts of degenerate shit is completely normal and acceptable unless youre a muslim or some other kind of religious fundamentalist.

One aspect I don't think people ever really comment on is that it gave people the capacity to moan and complain and offer their opinion on shit, but also an infrastructure of people to pay them attention. I have nothing against articles, reviews, analysis, essays, etc. no matter the format) but this overtaking of the blog (no matter the format) really gets to me.

And even on Sup Forums I see people partaking in and enforcing this with the YouTube "commentators" who would have never turned a single head if they were just another blog, offering their no-body opinion on events totally outside of their control or understanding.

While this always existed to an extent (BBS, Usenet, forums, etc. were rife with it) it never felt like this was "the point" of it all. On the web it always seemed that people had something more to express beyond "what I think of this thing that happened", whether they were expressing their love for some piece of media or even a researched analysis.

I'm not sure how to put it into few words, but I just think this lack of forethought and instant "content" creation has had a negative effect on discourse, because the one presenting a well-reasoned and research take on somthing will always be too late to the party compared to the guy rambling at a camera or pounding away at the keyboard.

Born in "98 and had internet access for as long as I can remember and honestly a lot of what you guys are describing sounds fairly similar to early internet. Of course I only experienced it from the perspective of a kid but I can imagine it's entirely different for kids now growing up being exposed to social media early on. The most me and my friends used the internet for was flash games and listening to music on youtube and occasionally playing stuff like counter strike. You could go days without using it whereas now everyone has access to social media and instant contact on their person at basically all times an if you don't it's considered pretty weird. Anyone implying the internet has degraded society isn't wrong but it's more specifically the fact that companies realized how big of a marketing tool the internet is and how much money could be made off it that caused the problems, especially now that whoring yourself out to certain websites is considered a societal norm.

Life was boring without the internet. The internet is what i do all day, without it I'd be bored silly

you're obviously baiting, no one here was alive before the internet

How? What is there to do without internet?

>you could show up randomly at someones house and it was ok
That would SUCK

>kids would bike outside and go swimming and play with waterballoons
Bullshit, kids hate eachother

>hang out with 4-5 people
Bullshit, people hate eachother

>places with friends
Bullshit, people hate eachother

>with friends

>friends
>friends
>Friends
Bullshit, people hate eachother

>these are the boomers that ruined millenials and gen z

In terms of academia and required books/work software?

Costly as fuck! Thats where it wins.

>The internet is what i do all day, without it I'd be bored silly

That doesn't sound like a worthy use of your life. All your doing is getting endless dopamine kicks.

if you had a question about something, you had to look through books. even then, you had to be content with the fact you may not find an answer. there was no instantly googling an answer.

>That would SUCK

It's what people did, hung around with friends.

>Bullshit, kids hate eachother
>Bullshit, people hate eachother
>Bullshit, people hate eachother

Not before the internet.

Ignorance was bliss.......sigh

I can't imagine doing that. I pay people to hang around with me from Rent-a-friend but i begged for an honest answer and they're like "yeah we'd never hang out with you if you weren't paying"

Well what else is there to do?

>tfw you beached ships on midway island and clusterfucked the entire match

Why? Now you realize how the world is improving after being given the knowledge.

You go outside and play or play video games inside with a friend on couch coop.

>friend
Bro, this is a literal TV show meme. No one just goes and hangs out with people.

I almost miss when it was just TV. Way more comfy and predictable. I'm moving in the next 6 months and I won't have access to a computer for internet at home for maybe a year or more, I'm actually looking forward to having nothing but TV at home again.
Of course I've had "internet" since 1991 when Prodigy was a thing, so I've had it since I was 10.

>What was life like before the internet and social media?

Gen X here. At first social media seemed interesting, but now I think it's cancer. It spread bad ideas just as quickly as good ideas.

Trust me, if there was no such thing as the internet you'd be fine. You'd just be a TV junkie.

fun as fuck.
children still played outside, went to the park, were less narcissistic, made lots of friends - most of which we still have as friends today and not that "we're 'friends' on faceberg because we know each other but i don't really know you lol"

>I pay people to hang around with me from Rent-a-friend but i begged for an honest answer and they're like "yeah we'd never hang out with you if you weren't paying"

That is what they say to me as well.

>>I almost miss when it was just TV. Way more comfy and predictable
It also provided a common cultural experience, especially when there wasn't 3 billion channels. You could talk to someone and instantly have a topic to discuss by mentioning the evening news yesterday, or the talk show everyone watched, or the soap everyone was following, etc.

Lack of hyperproduction of course also meant higher general quality.

>that whole first statement

holy fuck what am i even reading
you are well and truly the broken product of a sick world

My sides, no MP wargame will ever match the fun of those 64 player clusterfucks.
.

What knowledge? Are you still falling for the punditry about the web being access to all of human creation? It's just an elaborate tracking program where your every move is sold to hundreds of dodgy ad agencies, with two companies (Google and Facebook) being the centre of it all.

You can just go in your friend's house like it was your own home then ogle at her older sister.

>people spent 12 hours a day staring at newspapers
retard

>more boring
found the youngfag
you're full of shit if you thought it was boring

in the 90's i used to go over to my friends house because he had a color monitor and simcity 2000. I didn't have windows yet. I did the same thing with nintendo. It's not a meme it's just an oldfag thing

But i can't talk to people online leading to social isolation. I go on Sup Forums because it's like human contact