Latest news with #AskOldPeople
Buzz Feed
22-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Buzz Feed
Older Adults Share Past Things That Vanished
As we all know, life is constantly evolving, and no one understands that better than older adults. Technology improves, trends fade in and out of popularity, and habits change, rendering things that were once common obsolete. However, that doesn't stop people from missing the familiarity of their younger years... That's why when Redditor u/kaboosed asked the r/AskOldPeople community, "What is something that faded out of normal society that you miss?" Older adults were happy to share the once-common occurrences they miss most. From 24-hour stores to music videos — here are 17 of their most enlightening responses: "Houses that weren't all neutral colors inside. Interior decorating has gotten boring. For instance, no one will put blue carpeting in their home because if they want to sell it someday, the potential buyers might not like blue. People used to decorate houses according to what THEY liked because they expected to live in them forever, so it didn't matter what a future buyer might think." "People dressing nicely for travel." "I miss customer service IN stores. Employees checking on you in dressing rooms and grabbing new clothes for you or clerks bringing shoes and helping you try them on." "Places that were open 24 hours. Where I live, 24-hour grocery stores, drug stores, and diners abounded before 2020." "Sending cards for holidays, birthdays, etc. Getting a card in the mail is much more special than an email or a social media post." "I don't hear whistling nowadays. Whether it was mail carriers, milkmen, or railway workers, they all used to whistle. Not wolf whistling, but in a happy 'whistle while you work' way." "Actually going to a store. Whippersnappers today will never know what it was like to browse in a video or music store and just lose yourself in the moment." "My mother was born in 1925 and said until the early '60s, if you had a problem to solve regarding a company, you could write them a letter, and it would get fixed without endless back-and-forth phone calls or anyone saying 'Our computer is slow today, I'll send you to another department.'" "Sitting and doing nothing." "Music videos on MTV. I was in high school when MTV premiered, and it was awesome. Veejays played and talked about music, and videos would premiere at midnight and be the talk of our school the next day. Then VH1 came out, and Headbangers Ball catered to rockers like me. It was awesome." "I am not technically an 'old person,' but I miss the sound of rotary phones and the joy of knowing you dialed correctly." "In the early '70s, one of my favorite memories was people going door to door Christmas caroling. I'm an atheist, but opening the door with my parents at night and seeing a group singing Christmas songs on the lawn was such a good memory." "A home phone and computer. I miss being unplugged and out of constant contact and simulation. I miss developing relationships and making friends with random people. I miss getting lost during the day because everyone now expects someone to be available 24/7 and feel obligated to be at their beck and call." "Newspapers. I would've laughed in your face if you had told me 20 years ago that there would be no more daily print news." "Cafeteria-style restaurants. I don't know if other people still have them in their area, but they're hard to find where I live." "Just hanging out with friends. No plans, just sitting on the porch, and people swinging by to join you." "I'm old enough to remember when the idea that politics could've been used as a litmus test for friendship or marriage would've been completely absurd." Did any of these once-common occurrences surprise you? Older adults, what are some things you remember from the past that have vanished? Tell us in the comments or answer anonymously using the form below!
Buzz Feed
17-05-2025
- General
- Buzz Feed
People Share What Life Was Like Before 9/11
For those of us who lived through 9/11, it may be hard to believe that next year will mark the 25th anniversary of that tragic day. It also means that there is now a whole generation of young adults who have never known a pre-9/11 world because they were either way too young at the time or weren't even born. Recently, Reddit user Independent_East_135 wanted to know about the pre-9/11 world when they asked this to the AskOldPeople subreddit: "I was born in 2003, so I wasn't around to experience 9/11 or its after effects. But, I'm always hearing people older than me talk about how 9/11 'changed everything' and how things in general were different. Even the vibe of life apparently. Is this true? What was life like before 9/11?" The thread got hundreds of responses, and while a lot of people leaned into how air travel changed, some brought up just the little things about how simple life seemed. Below are the top and most often repeated comments: "Well we didn't have to get to the airport super early to allow extra time for TSA clearance." "You didn't need a boarding pass to go to the gate. You could go to the gate to meet people." "A lot less stressful and hurried. Things seemed a lot easier then, cheaper, less crowded, and people were a lot less angry. People smiled more and trusted each other more." "There was not as much of a 24-hour news cycle and the world felt less fearful prior to 9/11. The little ticker at the bottom of the screen on the news wasn't a thing til 9/11." "There was a bar at John Wayne Airport that was apparently the place to go. People showed up and had drinks there without even having a flight. My older siblings went and told me about it as a place to look forward to when I turned 21. I turned 21 in 2003." "Well, the transition from analog to digital was the biggest thing to happen in my lifetime, and it started happening right around the year 2000. Before that, TVs, movies, etc. — with the exception of CDs for music — were analog and a lot on physical tape. Basically, the TV and computer were a physical place, and thus, media was consumed at a specific physical place; thus, if you left that place, you didn't take your tech with you. Sure, there were portable solutions like CD players and handheld consoles, but they were more or less in their infancy." "One major difference that is tough to even remember, let alone to describe to someone who didn't live through it, was how parochial information was back then. Take any obscure factoid, for example: What happened downtown this afternoon? Where was a certain rock star born? Who was the goaltender on the 1980 Swedish Olympic team? Today, you can call it up in a matter of seconds; back then, you had to either have the knowledge, have someone who did, or have access to people or resources (news, books, libraries, microfilms, etc.) that did. Otherwise, you shrugged and went on with your day. There was no falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes." "I live in NYC. Before 9/11, there was no security before walking into most buildings. I remember walking into the back door of City Hall and not even being asked who I was there to see. Now, many buildings don't allow you to enter unless your name has been provided in advance to the front desk and matches a photo ID. You are then issued a temporary photo ID that opens a turnstile at the elevator." "In 2000, coming back from my first business trip from Panama back to Miami, I was able to bring a machete in my carry-on and was waved through. Yes, it was a different world." "I remember as a kid getting to see the cockpit of planes during flights. You asked the stewardess, and she asked the captain, and most of the time, you were allowed in! I even have a pic of me as a kid midflight in the co-pilot seat with his headset on!!!" "The world was less desensitised to violence and killing than it is now. It wasn't perfect, and there was plenty of conflict, but when it happened, people were shocked by what they saw." "The Twin Towers going down showed that the US was vulnerable to attack from outsiders/terrorists. Until then, any terrorist attacks were either foiled, failed, or were from domestic terrorists (Timothy McVeigh). We had been living in a world where we thought no one from outside could get to us." "I think it was more the combination of the lack of government surveillance/caution and the fact that the Cold War ended that the '90s felt so safe for everybody. I finished college and was traveling overseas in the '90s, and there wasn't really anywhere you couldn't go; I was very comfortable visiting Muslim countries as an American." "Security for all travel was more lax, not just air travel. Literally right before 9/11, my husband and I accidentally got on a train a day early, and nobody noticed b/c the Amtrak people barely glanced at the ticket." "As a teenager, I could park by the airport fence, lie on my hood, and watch planes take off and land for hours." "The period from about 1994 to 2001 was the best. We had the benefits of the internet but not the complexity. Tech boom, stock options, optimism. Ease of life. If I wanted to get away for the weekend, I'd find a last-minute deal for a flight, a hotel, and a car. Like, $200 would cover a weekend in Miami, leaving from Boston. That included a nice hotel, like a Hyatt Regency." "Before 9/11, no one played 'God Bless America' at baseball games. I don't know if any other teams still do it, but in my city, they still play it before the national anthem. It struck me as weird when they started it and even weirder that they haven't stopped." And lastly, "Politics was already changing, but division and partisanship accelerated exponentially afterwards. Surveillance technology was also brought to the masses, and security awareness and paranoia also proliferated. It wasn't that 9/11 changed us, but it was a catalytic inflection point." You can read the original thread on Reddit.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
"That's About $200 Each Today": 13 "Strange" Fashion Trends That Were Once So Popular
Last month, @SpeechCandid1358 posted a question in r/AskOldPeople: "What's a fashion trend that was huge when you were younger but looks strange now?" The responses were a fascinating look at once-popular fashion moments, of which a few have made a bit of a comeback. Here are 13 trends that stood out: 1."Stirrup pants with an oversized button-up shirt and wide belt around the waist. It was my 8th-grade outfit that I thought was so hot. 😂" —Fortheloveofhelp "Remember how they would get knees in them after a while, and you'd feel stupid the rest of the day?" —Hefty-Cicada6771 "I would wear this again in a heartbeat, minus the wide belt lol." —WhoKnew50 "That was basically my uniform until I went punk." —DepecheClashJen 2."The first one that comes to mind is parachute pants." —Penguin_Life_Now "When I was 14, I got a job washing dishes for $1.75 an hour solely to get the money for a $65 pair of parachute pants. My parents rightly refused to buy for me. After a month, I had enough for two pairs. That's about $200 each today." —brizzboog "I wore those long after they weren't cool anymore. I'm sure I looked super dorky, but, boy, were they comfy." —Kumquatelvis 3."The huge bell bottoms. We called them elephant bells." —JoyfulNoise1964 "In our school, if you were standing still and you could see your were not cool. The elephant bells MUST cover all of your feet. This was especially difficult for boys with big feet. (Me.)" —rrrreeeeeeeeee "I had to wear long tube socks because my lower legs were always cold in them." —SiriusGD "Call me wild, but I love bell bottoms." —Satellite5812 4."That thing we used to do with our jeans where you fold over and roll up the bottoms." —Intelligent-Whole277 "We called it pinch rolling. Would sometimes roll them so tight that it would leave an indention. Not proud of this. I'd wear two sets of slouch socks with both colors showing (carefully selected colors to match my outfit) that could be seen below the pinch roll." —BluesToe 5."Remember guys wearing shorts outside their sweatpants while playing basketball and stuff? WTF was up with that??" —StevieInCali "What was up with that? I was confused at the time. Josh Brolin sports that look in Goonies, and it's still stuck in my mind 40 years later." —IfICouldStay 6."Culottes. I quite liked them, but I haven't seen anyone wear them in decades." —Kindly-Discipline-53 "Culottes play a role in the movie Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar! It was a fun (if surreal) movie, and the ladies really loved their culottes." —cranberrystorm "Awww... yeah! I forgot about those. I had a pair of red and white plaid ones. Haha!" —LaGuardia10026 7."I was watching an episode of Golden Girls last night and noticed even their nightgowns had shoulder pads." —TrudyWiegelsCats "I remember being a child in the '90s, looking through my mom's clothes, and just being so confused why women's shoulders needed padding. 😅" —jaydock 8."Giant bows in big hair. I used my Grandma's scarves for a lot of those bows!" —Mollz911 "I actually still have a couple of those big bows from the late-'80s in a drawer. I'm too old, and my hair is short now. But I just can't seem to part with them lol." —hoosiergirl1962 9."Huge bigger the better. Three cans of hairspray per week minimum." —Ti_Bone "In the South, the saying was 'The higher the hair, the closer to Heaven.'" —WeirdcoolWilson "I loved my Aqua Net in the turquoise can." —mothraegg "I can still smell it." —standupfiredancer "I think I single-handedly created the hole in the ozone layer with my use of Aqua Net. Originally a Jersey girl and proud of it." —ChristiKRN 10."Platform shoes. I now have bunions thanks to platform shoes in the '70s and pointy-toed stilettos in the '80s." —Interesting-Scar-998 "My roommate 'fell off his shoes' and sprained his ankle in 1973." —01d_n_p33v3d 11."Mullets: I actually like a modern mullet. Much cooler than the '80s chopped look." —bettesue 12."Moon boots: they are back. Maybe not the same foam insulation boots from back in the '80s. "My youngest and I talked about this yesterday. She thought moon boots were something her generation came up with." —BobUker71 & nborders "Moon boots were awesome. They were mostly comfortable and did their job perfectly to keep your feet warm and dry in the cold, wet, and snowy weather." —liquilife "What about fitness wear from the '80s? I was an instructor then. Shimmery tights and a thong leotard. Leg warmers, of course. White Princess Reeboks." —twisted_ears "Leg warmers with headbands." —Therealladyboneyard "Leg warmers over Levi 501 jeans with checkerboard Vans." —BeepBopARebop "Leg warmers over jeans was ridiculous." —mothraegg "I wore my leg warmers over bubblegum jeans and with karate shoes. 😂" —pukekolegs "I wore them over tights with shorts, and I even have a photo somewhere. Looks funny now." —ChangeAdventurous812 Did you rock another trend back in the day that you don't see much of now? Let us know in the comments below!
Buzz Feed
08-04-2025
- Lifestyle
- Buzz Feed
"That's About $200 Each Today": 13 "Strange" Fashion Trends That Were Once So Popular
Last month, @SpeechCandid1358 posted a question in r/AskOldPeople: "What's a fashion trend that was huge when you were younger but looks strange now?" The responses were a fascinating look at once-popular fashion moments, of which a few have made a bit of a comeback. Here are 13 trends that stood out: 1. "Stirrup pants with an oversized button-up shirt and wide belt around the waist. It was my 8th-grade outfit that I thought was so hot. 😂" — Fortheloveofhelp "Remember how they would get knees in them after a while, and you'd feel stupid the rest of the day?" — Hefty-Cicada6771 "I would wear this again in a heartbeat, minus the wide belt lol." — WhoKnew50 "That was basically my uniform until I went punk." — DepecheClashJen 2. "The first one that comes to mind is parachute pants." — Penguin_Life_Now "When I was 14, I got a job washing dishes for $1.75 an hour solely to get the money for a $65 pair of parachute pants. My parents rightly refused to buy for me. After a month, I had enough for two pairs. That's about $200 each today." — brizzboog "I wore those long after they weren't cool anymore. I'm sure I looked super dorky, but, boy, were they comfy." — Kumquatelvis 3. "The huge bell bottoms. We called them elephant bells." — JoyfulNoise1964 "In our school, if you were standing still and you could see your were not cool. The elephant bells MUST cover all of your feet. This was especially difficult for boys with big feet. (Me.)" — rrrreeeeeeeeee "I had to wear long tube socks because my lower legs were always cold in them." — SiriusGD "Call me wild, but I love bell bottoms." — Satellite5812 4. "That thing we used to do with our jeans where you fold over and roll up the bottoms." Your Average Gent / Via — Intelligent-Whole277 "We called it pinch rolling. Would sometimes roll them so tight that it would leave an indention. Not proud of this. I'd wear two sets of slouch socks with both colors showing (carefully selected colors to match my outfit) that could be seen below the pinch roll." — BluesToe 5. "Remember guys wearing shorts outside their sweatpants while playing basketball and stuff? WTF was up with that??" Warner Bros. / Via 6. "Culottes. I quite liked them, but I haven't seen anyone wear them in decades." — Kindly-Discipline-53 "Culottes play a role in the movie Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar! It was a fun (if surreal) movie, and the ladies really loved their culottes." — cranberrystorm "Awww... yeah! I forgot about those. I had a pair of red and white plaid ones. Haha!" — LaGuardia10026 7. "I was watching an episode of Golden Girls last night and noticed even their nightgowns had shoulder pads." NBC — TrudyWiegelsCats "I remember being a child in the '90s, looking through my mom's clothes, and just being so confused why women's shoulders needed padding. 😅" — jaydock 8. "Giant bows in big hair. I used my Grandma's scarves for a lot of those bows!" 9. "Huge bigger the better. Three cans of hairspray per week minimum." — Ti_Bone "In the South, the saying was 'The higher the hair, the closer to Heaven.'" — WeirdcoolWilson "I loved my Aqua Net in the turquoise can." — mothraegg "I can still smell it." — standupfiredancer "I think I single-handedly created the hole in the ozone layer with my use of Aqua Net. Originally a Jersey girl and proud of it." — ChristiKRN 10. "Platform shoes. I now have bunions thanks to platform shoes in the '70s and pointy-toed stilettos in the '80s." 11. "Mullets: I actually like a modern mullet. Much cooler than the '80s chopped look." 12. "Moon boots: they are back. Maybe not the same foam insulation boots from back in the '80s. "My youngest and I talked about this yesterday. She thought moon boots were something her generation came up with." — BobUker71 & nborders "Moon boots were awesome. They were mostly comfortable and did their job perfectly to keep your feet warm and dry in the cold, wet, and snowy weather." — liquilife 13. Finally, "What about fitness wear from the '80s? I was an instructor then. Shimmery tights and a thong leotard. Leg warmers, of course. White Princess Reeboks."
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
"They Basically Disappeared In The Late '90s": 24 Menu Items That Were "All The Rage" Way Back When, But Are Nonexistent Today
Nothing makes me more nostalgic than recalling the days of "fancy" dinners at the local chop house in my town, fully equipped with a smoking section and salad bar. So, I was very intrigued when redditor u/igotplans2 asked folks of the r/AskOldPeople community to share the dishes that were once popular in restaurants but then disappeared. Here are some of the "trendy" menu items that older generations recalled from way back when. 1."Nobody serves beef stroganoff anymore." —u/mynameisranger1 2."Blackened everything. It seemed like chefs were working overtime to figure out what they could make in a Cajun blackened version." —u/igotplans2 "I credit the original Cajun gourmet, Justin Wilson, for this. In the late '80s/early '90s, when more and more people were getting cable TV, he had a few different shows that reached coast to coast. He was maybe not iconic, but he was pretty popular and inspired people to have a taste of the culture and cuisine he fondly promoted." —u/Ok_Athlete_1092 3."Potato skins were pretty big in the '80s." —u/bg370 "I would order loaded potato skins as my meal until they basically disappeared in the late '90s." —u/Nagarkot1 4."I can't think of a specific dish, but there was a period in the '90s when pesto was EVERYWHERE, and so were roasted red peppers." —u/Professor-genXer "Sun-dried tomatoes were freaking EVERYWHERE for a while there." —u/GraceStrangerThanYou 5."Quiche in the late '70s and the '80s. Every fern bar restaurant like TGI Fridays featured quiches, and people were cooking quiches. The popularity of quiche even inspired the title of the book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche. That book inspired the humorous meme of 'Real Men Don't (fill in the blank).'" —u/MarshmallowSoul 6."Steak Diane. Particularly, made the correct old-school way: flambéed tableside." —u/MooPig48 "I used to flambé table side in the late '70s/early '80s. Steak Diane was my favorite. Then it just sorta dropped off menus everywhere." —u/MetalPlaygrounds 7."Salad bars. In the '80s, every restaurant had one, even some fast-food burger places like Wendy's." —u/MarshmallowSoul "Ah, the Wendy's solarium. The epitome of fine dining in the '80s." —u/80sWereAMagicalTime 8."Beef Wellington, at pricier restaurants. It's hard to find now, but not too hard to make at home for the right occasion." —u/newleaf9110 9."Fondue." —u/sretep66 "There was a whole-ass fondue restaurant in downtown Royal Oak, Michigan, in the '90s. Cheese for the appetizer, then meat and/or shrimp in oil for the main, and chocolate for the dessert. Tasty, but it took hours." —u/TeacherPatti 10."Orange Roughy. It turned out that the fish were incredibly old — up to 200 years old — and they were almost fished to extinction." —u/Gl3g 11."Bananas Foster and the whole tableside performance flambé craze from the '70s. Maybe some places still offer that? I haven't seen it on a menu in forever." —u/Careless_Ocelot_4485 12."Pineapple upside down cake." —u/Ohm1962 "I made them all the time as a kid in the '70s and a young adult in the '80s. I haven't had one in years!" —u/groomer7759 13."German chocolate cake used to be everywhere, and I haven't seen it in decades." —u/LBFilmFan 14."Crêpes as an entree was popular in the '70s, filled with chicken or crabmeat in a sauce." —u/Uvabird "The first restaurant I remember going to as a kid with exotic-looking houseplants everywhere was a '70s creperie. I didn't see another place that did crepes primarily for over 40 years." —u/Quaranj 15."Trout amandine. I miss it. I'm a terrible cook, so I can't make it myself." —u/sillyconfused "I grew up in Louisiana, and we had this everywhere! I always order it now when I see it on a menu." —u/poissonerie 16."Baked Alaska." —u/SirWarm6963 17."The Monte Cristo: a turkey, cheese, and raspberry jam sandwich fried up like French toast with powdered sugar on top — '80s food deliciousness." —u/Fizzywaterjones "I remember these as a kid in the '70s. I think it was Denny's or Howard Johnson's that had them. They were so popular at the time. We ate them without a care in the world about how unhealthy they were." —u/Granny_knows_best 18."French onion soup with a big piece of toast and melted cheese on top in the '70s." —u/mbw70 19."I will submit Swedish meatballs, which I actually just got done making for dinner. I don't know if it died out, but I never see it on the menu anywhere." —u/dimestoredavinci "Only at Ikea." —u/beaujolais98 20."Please travel back in time with me to the '60s, and let's talk about baked potato 'fixings' being brought to your table in that thing with a connected metal bowl. Sour cream? Coming up! And it was spun around that bowl so the server could spoon it into your potato. Cheese, bacon bits, and salad dressings were served the same way, including the rarely-seen (but then popular) Thousand Island and Roquefort dressings." —u/ronmimid 21."Chocolate mousse in a stem goblet. It was my favorite thing about eating out as a kid in the '80s. Then at some point, it was all crappy frozen chocolate cake." —u/Organic_Bookkeeper32 22."Around 1980, it seemed like every restaurant had fried zucchini and fried mozzarella sticks as appetizers." —u/Intelligent-Rip-2270 23."Liver and onions." —u/300-02_F41-1 "I was a cook in the late '70s, and Thursday had liver and onion specials. Man, I still remember having to cook that nasty stuff. The only people who ordered it were old people." —u/nbfs-chili 24."'A diet plate that had a hamburger patty, a lump of cottage cheese, and canned peaches." —u/splattermatters "This, but with a pineapple ring instead of the peaches, is like a nostalgic meal that reminds me of my grandmother. It was years before I realized she was always on a diet." —u/Valuable-Ordinary-54 Is there a menu item you recall being wildly popular that basically vanished? Let us know in the comments, or fill out this anonymous form. Note: Some responses may have been edited for length and/or clarity.
