When you’re sold a version of nostalgia for something you never experienced.
Nostalgia is bittersweet & I love it as much as anyone but the bigger picture is this: capitalism grows like a weed or a vampire & every generation had freedom without cameras like that until gen-Xers, who were the last, which is why it feels like such magic now even tho then it was just life & being outside
I agree for the most part, but as an early millennial, we had that freedom too. Society didn’t truly go crazy until some time after 2000 in my opinion. I turned 16 that year.
I’m a millennial. I remember a time without cameras everywhere. I also grew up in the poorest part of WV and I’ve seen my own childhood home in like 10 documentaries on poverty so…
Why is the chubby McDonald’s window worker telling me this?
Suspected incel detected. What is it about this image that makes you think she’s poor and overweight?
I’m guessing they meant it as a joke and not about the person in the picture. Kind of like the “sir this is a Wendys” joke. But an overweight person working fast food looking down on people for being born in a different time and living a different life.
Just my best guess.
Edit: Or they are just a troll?
No… But I’ve been a 13 year old boy in the 1990’s and had the same experience.
This is one thing I will always appreciate of growing up Gen-X. Our moms would kick us out of the house after breakfast and expected us to be gone until the street lights started to buzz. A pack of us on BMX bikes, adventuring, exploring abandoned buildings, jumping off cliffs and into rivers or the ocean, etc. It genuinely ruled ams and I fully appreciate that it did.
I was born in the mid-90’s and I was also more or less raised that way (until a certain age). I remember being able to get home in time for dinner after a whole day of playing outside just because it “felt” like it was almost dinner time. We would go to the nearby “forest” where we built huts, climbed into trees, made wooden swords out of sticks, and sometimes had “battles” with rivaling groups about certain areas in the forest. We’d be there for hours even in the pouring rain. There was a whole economy around these wooden swords and other services like building a hut. It was better than any video game ever could be
I’m on the cusp (xennial) and it’s kinda crazy in hindsight. I had the exact same experience you described, but when it got dark, I’d go home and play with the Commodore 64 or Atari.
Same for me, but I guess I’m a little younger since my console was NES and, later, a Gateway 2000 computer.
I’m so glad that I had those experiences and so sad that my son won’t. I hope that I can give him enough of a similar experience that he can at least identify with Calvin and Hobbes.
Us xennials are a special mini generation. Analog childhood, digital adulthood. The average xennial is quite proficient with computers and other tech, compared to those who were born before AND after. You see we had the childhood curiosity when the internet was starting to catch on. We learned how to navigate in DOS or early Windows. We had to figure shit out because these things were not easy to use.
I thought, when I was a teen, I can’t imagine how good with this stuff the kids being born today will be. But I was very wrong.
