Trusting the government
Like many others have said, the old, lost internet was really something special. Every website was crude and janky, poorly formatted for some specific resolution that you weren't using, and both animated clipart and midis were exciting to collect. There were websites dedicated to them. My brother and I used to fill folders on our desktop with sparkling or flaming banners, signs that read "Under Construction" and more. Same with midis. I'll never forget the first time I discovered Sublime's Santaria in midi form. It may have been my first favorite song.
I wish I could properly articulate what that all felt like. It was a similar feeling to collecting Pokémon cards as a kid. Everything was just a neat spectacle on the mid-90s internet. Then over time, as everything modernized and monetized, it lost that weird magic and became what it is today. I can't remember the last time I gave a shit about exploring a website. I no longer come across spooky animated images of a skeleton peering out of murky water and excitedly tuck it away for future viewing pleasure. The entire thing sucks now, but it probably sucked then, too.
Those square pizzas in the school lunchroom.
My first vehicles as an adult in the mid to late 90s. Objectively cheap used jalopies that I bought for a few hundred dollars but were loved because they were mine.
My first car was a 1981 Dodge Aries K-Car. The front bumper got ripped off by a guy running with no headlights while I was delivering pizzas and I literally just threw the bumper on the back seat and continued on with my deliveries, then went to my local pick-a-part and took a replacement off a different one and bolted it on myself. You just couldn't kill it.
I eventually replaced it with an 1984 Sentra that I bought at auction. I called it the "relationship killer" because the passenger door didn't open from the outside so there was no way to "open the door for your date to get in first", and half the time it didn't go into reverse, so since my dates didn't know how to drive standard transmissions, they were the one that had to push us out of parking spaces. It honked when turning left for some reason.
My point being, when things were wrong with them, they were cheap enough that you could just go to the local pick-a-part and get replacement parts. If it wasn't starting for some reason, you could stick a screw driver in the carburetor valve to give it more air. You could "own" and "tinker" on those things in ways that doing so in a new car would terrify us.
Reddit.
Going out with friends between 1991 and 1997. It was a great time looking back, but most night probably were just a lot of (underage) drinking and not much else.
My ex.
Only knowing small TVs. Step by step, displays have inarguably improved massively, and I do love my giant OLED flatscreen. But watching TV was still great fun in the before times, people still watched the hell out of it, so can we say it brings people more joy now? Or is it just technically and visually better?
I think if you're the kinda person watching beautiful premium shows, that's an experience you couldn't really get before. But I like TV that I can have on in the background, while I'm doing the dishes, and now we're expected to pay attention to details on screen. Back when half the audience had tiny, grainy or monochrome displays, shows were written to suit listening as much as watching. And it's not just scripts, shoddy visuals allowed costumes, sets and design that was evocative but cheap, in a way that cannot pass muster today.
And by comparison, it's reduced the justification for going to cinema, and even kinda made the real world look bad. It used to be worth going somewhere in person because it would look infinitely better than seeing it on a screen. But now, it can actually be a disappointment, as the carefully composed filmed version with post production actually looks more impressive than irl. It's the Connoisseurs Paradox, has it really deepend my pleasure, or merely raised my standards so much that I'm actually less satisfied?
My Uncle.
Candy cigarettes.
Bad tasting sugar. Trains you for holding a real one.
But they were at the gas station a mile from home and near a park. Freedom from family and responsibilities. Just spending time with friends, eating candy, enjoying the sun shine. Dreaming of smoking.
E-cards. I got at least some cards for my birthday...
Kid Cuisine
Random things I liked as a kid. I was obsessed with Spy Kids for a bit.
Do I miss physical gaming magazines? Yes, yes I do
Were they awful? Content wise, no, I actually believe transitioning to web magazines turned the whole industry into a shit show
I loved the game posters that came folded into the magazines.
So what was bad about them?
Well they pushed you too collect them.
That amount of paper cannot possibly be good for the environment
I miss my first two cars. The first was a 1989 Dodge Daytona which was probably the worst car ever made and it only lasted 6 months before the head gasket blew. The second was a 1995 Ford Escort LX sedan. This was the car that I taught myself how to drive manual transmission on. It was more reliable than the Daytona, but it still had a ton of quirks like shorts in the wiring harness in the steering column --so much so that I learned which pins to short out to hot wire it lol. I miss both of those cars because of the sense of freedom they provided to get away from an emotionally abusive home life.
Dude limewire was great. Nice logo, good color scheme, had pretty much everything. Other things have just gotten better in some ways, and worse in others. (Torrents are often way better quality, but it was nice being able to search limewire vs. searching the web and wading through sketchy torrent sites).
Windows 98
Windows XP
Dialup
The Old Internet aka when 90% of it was html and shockwave flash
Weird childhood obsessions; some were good, some were bad, some became things that defined me as an adult.
A lot of the edutainment games I played as a child. I actually went back and installed them to see what they were like through the eyes of an adult. There were a few that were still fun, but as you might be able to guess, most were pretty shitty.
That said, there have been a few things that ended up being 100% worth revisiting. CRT monitors, for an example, are unironically still kinda awesome. I just wouldn't replace my main monitors with one.
Phish tours
Old school 4chan
My ex-wife it’s been six years since she left. She cheated on me, got knocked up and took off with the boyfriend.
She was super religious. She treated me like garbage but she prayed all the time.
All this time and sometimes I think of her coming back. I know better but my heart doesn’t.
You should look into soulseeked then.
Original recipe shamrock shakes. They must be awful to my palate now, but I wanna know what the original tasted like
Windows 3.1 and running dual nodes of TAG BBS.
WKD Blue
Ice cream.
Banana Cow
Metz Black
Was the king of alchopops
