22-05-2025
19 Great Things That Younger Generations May Never Experience
Recently, u/Just_a_Ginger_Fella asked r/AskReddit, "People over 35, what's something you genuinely miss that younger generations will probably never experience?" And we thought we'd share the best responses.
"Toy stores. Nothing beats the aisles and aisles of stuff at Toys 'R' Us."
"Finding a magazine with something you love on it, a band or an actor or whatever. Now if you love something you can immediately consume every piece of media on that thing, which is also cool, but I'll always miss turning the corner at the grocery store and seeing that Spin is doing an all-punk issue, or the Rolling Stone issue after Hunter Thompson died, and being like 'FUCK YES'. And the smell! The ink plus the paper and the perfume samples, incredible."
"Slamming the phone down to end a phone call."
"Life without social media."
"Life without tech in everything – whole summers with just you and the backyard, alternating sometimes with friends and bicycles."
"Internet before the corporate world got hold of it. It was truly a wild west era."
"That feeling of not being watched/recorded."
"The excitement of your new favourite song playing on the radio or MTV."
"When everyone watched a TV show at the same time in their individual households and then came together to talk about it the next day. Pre streaming services days. Commercials still sucked but there was something magical about it."
"The joy of getting off a plane and having someone right there at the gate waiting for you."
"Creating my own ringtone on Nokia composer."
"We didn't have to pay an exorbitant amount of money for concert tickets."
"Living my coyote ugly dream – dancing on bars thinking I'm hot shit but likely being an absolute embarrassment to myself and there being no video evidence of it."
"Being able to be unreachable. It's hard to really get alone time or time to relax when you have a phone on you all the time and you can always be reached."
"Things built to last."
"The arcade. Putting two quarters on the glass indicating you've got next. Watching this one dude beat Mortal Kombat 2 on just two quarters."
"Blockbuster."
"Walking down the street collecting your mates along the way to go hang out."
"Listening to whole albums, not just singles on an app."
H/T to u/Just_a_Ginger_Fella and r/AskReddit for having the discussion!
Any more to add? Let us know in the comments below!
