Latest news with #nostalgia
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
38 Things People Over 30 Used To Do That Would Be Seen As Wiiiiiiiild Today
@talantorriero asked people on TikTok, "What's one thing millennials did back in the day that today's generation would think was crazy?!" @talantorriero/ As a millennial (I know, shocking,) here are the ones I found especially relatable in the replies: 1."Getting asked and asking A/S/L." 2."Calling the radio station to request a song in order to hear it." 3."Asking a gas station worker directions somewhere." 4."Literally calling 411 to 'look up' stuff." 5."Used to check out cinema listings in the newspaper." 6."Using Photobucket to store photos." 7."Use a phone on our kitchen wall with no privacy." 8."Recording a TV show with our VCR!" 9."Take MacBook photo booth pics with the filters and the rollercoaster backgrounds etc. before going out for the night." 10."Hang out at a mall." 11."Wait 3 hours to download one song on limewire just to find out it's a clip of crazy frog." 12."Waiting for your fav song to come on the radio to record it on your boom box." 13."Slamming a phone when hanging up." 14."'Burning' CDs." 15."Jean skirts and uggs lol." 16."Calling our parents jobs when we needed them, and asking another coworker if they were there." 17."Pay for ring back tones." 18."Rushing home to watch TRL." 19."Hitting a number key on a flip phone 3 times to get the letter you wanted to type in a text." 20."Tanning as a teenager literally every day after school, with a lil stick[er] on your hip to show the progress." 21."Call[ing] people after nine and talk on the phone the whole night." 22."TV guide channel and spacing out, forgetting to look at a certain channel, and having to rewatch it." 23."Carrying a digital camera around our wrist to the bar." 24."Having to wait for a certain day and time to watch your favorite show and its one episode per week. No binge-watching or anything." 25."Accidentally opening the browser on your cell phone." 26."Going to blockbuster and renting a movie/video game." 27."Wearing business casual to the club." 28."Leave the house without a phone." 29."We had to just sit and wait for our parents to pick us up, and hope they didn't forget us." 30."Memorize your friends' phone numbers .... their HOUSE phone." 31."Having to call a friend's house and talk to their parents first. It was awful." 32."Print off mapquest to know where to drive." 40 pictures to Facebook from a single night out." 34."Waiting for your school to scroll across the bottom of the TV to see if you had a snow day or not." 35."Spend hours coding and creating the perfect MySpace profile." 36."Recording 20 seconds of a song for your voicemail." 37."Ranking our friends publicly LOL aka MySpace top 8." lastly, "Made our own ankle socks by rolling over crew socks." Now that's a look.
The Guardian
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Why am I filled with nostalgia for a pre-internet age I never knew?
A video went viral on X a few months ago that I can't stop watching. It's 2003: the band that later becomes MGMT are performing their song Kids to their peers, years before they become a pop sensation, in a dusty quad at Wesleyan University, Connecticut. Social media doesn't exist yet. There is something about the way people look and behave and inhabit the space that tugs at my heartstrings and fills me with nostalgia. No one is dressed that well; the camera zooms unsteadily to capture the crowd's awkwardness, slumped shoulders and arrhythmic bopping. Beyond the footage we're watching, no one seems to be filming. I was only four when the video was filmed, so why does watching it make me feel as if I've lost a whole world? A recent survey suggests I'm not alone – that almost half of young people would prefer a world without the internet. If anything, I expected a higher percentage. This doesn't mean my generation really would like to reverse everything that's happened in the last few decades, but there's clearly something we feel we're missing out on that older people have had, and we attribute it to the internet – or at least to its current form, dominated as it is by social media. What exactly do we think we're missing? Personally, I assume that before the social internet people behaved in more authentic and idiosyncratic ways. Social media has sped up trend cycles, resulting in an eerie uniformity across styles and personalities: we buy the same products, wear the same clothes, act in the same way, reference the same memes – even quirkiness itself or more 'unique' behaviour can be ascribed to trends. I also imagine that if we weren't on display all the time, our friendships and interactions could be less commodified. Now, spending time with friends is material to be documented and then demonstrated to a faceless audience. I'm sure these are rose-tinted assumptions, and I'm conscious too of the things I take for granted about an age of connectivity. Having to trawl through a few measly books and encyclopedias to find anything useful, or growing up in a remote area with little connection to the wider world, surely must have felt both inhibiting and claustrophobic. But it may be that these 'negative' aspects are what young people yearning for disconnectivity actually want – we have a sense that there was a value, now largely lost, in the practical effort required for social interaction, for finding good music, or joining a subculture. Life now in comparison seems streamlined, efficient, more yassified, in a phenomenon that writer Michael Harris calls a 'loss of lack'. Recently, my office manager showed me the technology he and his friends used to 'watch' the football on: Ceefax. The football score would load on a television screen via the changing of a single digit. They would spend the afternoon just sitting on the sofa, waiting for the digit to change (or not). I felt envious of this. Why? If anything, this is clearly a case where an experience has improved exponentially. And yet I'm captivated by the sense of mystery: if they weren't watching the game or reading the updates, what were they doing? What were they occupying their thoughts with? The reality might be that they were bored, another scarce experience in a connected age. At least, if bored, they would have entertained themselves with internal rather than external resources. It doesn't even matter if that was really the case - it is precisely because this experience is unknowable that it is compelling to me. I am haunted by the feeling that spending so much time on our phones has stolen something human and vital from our lives. It is of course true that each era experiences a crisis about the new wave of tech destroying people's souls – when it wasn't the internet, it was TV, or the radio, or the printing press, even papyrus scrolls, and nostalgia is common across every generation. But I don't think any previous generations were ever so down on their own era, in such large numbers, to the point they'd erase its major salient feature. We feel nostalgic for a world that can't be brought back. As Donald Trump said, now 'everything is computer'. Ironically, my nostalgia for a pre-internet age is being fed by the internet itself: the machine constantly feeding me clips of the past, footage of young people operating decades ago where everything seems refreshingly unobserved and carefree. So the very engine of this nostalgia is the thing half of us wish to do away with, despite the fact that it's an incredible resource, that has allowed unparalleled access to older music, knowledge, ways of living – and is also by nature democratic, questioning traditional media outlets on global affairs and challenging convention. If this survey is a canary in the mine, what should we do? Enjoyable as it is, I don't think being misty-eyed about the past is the solution; neither is fetishising a perceived authenticity of the past. 'Authenticity', I think, looks like the power to opt in or out, perform or not, when you want to – in other words: freedom. So when it comes to the internet, if switching off entirely isn't possible any more, then surely the words of MGMT can be useful: control yourself, take only what you need from it. Isabel Brooks is a freelance writer
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Town to host first throwback festival
Big name music stars, including Tinchy Stryder, So Solid Crew, and Artful Dodger will perform at the first Wiltshire Throwback Festival this year. The 18+ festival will take place at Oakfield stadium, Melksham, from 20 -21 June. An application for the two-day festival was approved by Wiltshire Council's licensing sub committee on Wednesday, after other organisations withdrew their objections. Nico Menghini, co director of festival organisers Jarboom told the Local Democracy Reporting Service "We're ecstatic, especially considering the amount of work we've put in to satisfy the authorities." More news stories for Wiltshire Listen to the latest news for Wiltshire Wiltshire Highways and Wiltshire Police had expressed concern about congestion and parking. The police also said the organiser's security plans were insufficient and there was no drugs or alcohol management plan. Melksham Town Council had also said that they were worried about the noise it would create. In response, the festival directors submitted plans drawn up by professional consultants, including medical assessment, fire risks, noise management, drugs and alcohol, waste management and security. Mr Menghini said they were "very close" to selling out the 3,000 tickets allocated for each day and "we're already in the early planning stages for year two". "We went with the throwback theme because everyone loves a bit of nostalgia and being reminded of happier times," he said. Friday's line-up includes Liz Mitchell - one of the original singers Boney M - along with ska band Bad Manners, glam rockers Doctor and the Medics, and 80s kids TV star Timmy Mallet. On Saturday, the line-up includes 80s and 90s chart-toppers from the hip-hop, R&B and UK garage scenes, including So Solid Crew, Tinchy Stryder, Artful Dodger, and Blazin' Squad. Boyband 911 are also on the bill, while early 2000s TV presenters Dick & Dom will be DJing. "Dick & Dom especially were a no-brainer for me – I knew I had to have them at the first festival," Mr Menghini said. Follow BBC Wiltshire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. Thousands party at Shindig festival's new venue What's on at the new-look Shindig Festival? Sports clubs hope to host festivals at stadium Wiltshire Throwback Festival Local Democracy Reporting Service
BBC News
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Wiltshire Throwback Festival to go ahead after securing license
Big name music stars, including Tinchy Stryder, So Solid Crew, and Artful Dodger will perform at the first Wiltshire Throwback Festival this 18+ festival will take place at Oakfield stadium, Melksham, from 20 -21 June. An application for the two-day festival was approved by Wiltshire Council's licensing sub committee on Wednesday, after other organisations withdrew their Menghini, co director of festival organisers Jarboom told the Local Democracy Reporting Service "We're ecstatic, especially considering the amount of work we've put in to satisfy the authorities." Wiltshire Highways and Wiltshire Police had expressed concern about congestion and parking. The police also said the organiser's security plans were insufficient and there was no drugs or alcohol management plan. Melksham Town Council had also said that they were worried about the noise it would response, the festival directors submitted plans drawn up by professional consultants, including medical assessment, fire risks, noise management, drugs and alcohol, waste management and Menghini said they were "very close" to selling out the 3,000 tickets allocated for each day and "we're already in the early planning stages for year two"."We went with the throwback theme because everyone loves a bit of nostalgia and being reminded of happier times," he said. Friday's line-up includes Liz Mitchell - one of the original singers Boney M - along with ska band Bad Manners, glam rockers Doctor and the Medics, and 80s kids TV star Timmy Saturday, the line-up includes 80s and 90s chart-toppers from the hip-hop, R&B and UK garage scenes, including So Solid Crew, Tinchy Stryder, Artful Dodger, and Blazin' Squad. Boyband 911 are also on the bill, while early 2000s TV presenters Dick & Dom will be DJing."Dick & Dom especially were a no-brainer for me – I knew I had to have them at the first festival," Mr Menghini said.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Power of Parker, season 2 review: come for the broad humour, stay for the killer 1990s soundtrack
If you're aged 65 or over, our survey says, you are watching more television than any other age group in the country. Extrapolating further from this (admittedly fictional) survey, it's a fair bet that nostalgia for past times will bullseye those remote controls. Which makes The Power of Parker (BBC One) a canny bit of demographic-baiting comedy. Sian Gibson and Paul Coleman's tale of Stockport sisters eventually doing it for themselves should really be called I Heart the (Early) '90s, it's so awash with loving period detail. Walkmans, answerphones, curly fries and more play key supporting roles as dithering heroines Kath and Diane stumble their way to a self-awareness that amounts to realising Martin Parker, the man to whom they have mystifyingly devoted their lives is, to put it politely, a… waste of space. We've moved on 'two years or so' from the first series, which climaxed with Parker's electrical store going up in an inferno, taking Martin along with it. Except, of course, he survived and, thanks to some hula-hooping exposition involving insurance fraud and a Chinese takeaway, we pick up the threads with long-suffering Diane (Rosie Cavaliero) running the rebuilt store but now under the thumb of Sandy Cooper, another sexist dinosaur (Steve Pemberton) because that's how all men were in the '90s. The comedy is still broad, slapped on in the old school style, which substitutes endless asides and one-liners for actual conversation, and does at times feel contrived. Yet somewhere around the middle of this run I began to be won over. The mood switches from a Phoenix Nights pastiche to a curious spin on Shallow Grave, Danny Boyle's hit 1994 debut movie in which… well, let's just say things take a dark turn, we are in spoiler land. The mood-switch opens the door to a very funny sequence in which Sian Gibson's perky Kath, opening up to a cop chum, floats the idea of Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis and Pat Butcher (aka EastEnders legend Pam St Clement) starring in the same movie thriller. How did that never get made? But it wasn't the increasingly black comedy which made my critical claws retract: it was the killer soundtrack. I now have a self-made Spotify Power of Parker playlist stuffed full of brilliant 1990s classics – shout out to Julian Cope's World Shut Your Mouth and Crucified by Army of Lovers – that add a subtlety to the story it quite possibly doesn't merit. The weak link is Conleth Hill's off-kilter portrayal of oily Martin Parker. Hill feels miscast. While he's adept at giving us a dose of Martin's toxic masculinity, he's much less convincing when laying on the silver fox charm that supposedly has women falling under his spell. So much so that – 11 episodes in, counting series one – when the two sisters finally have a lightbulb moment and chorus, 'How the hell did we both fall for that?' I'll admit it prompted a celebratory exclamation of, 'Finally!' from yours truly. Which surprised me. I didn't know I cared.
