Originally it was going to be “over the last twenty years” but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, “no one talks to each other in person, they’re on their phones always” and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
It is now no longer social suicide to not drink.
Sometimes I forget that smoking is a thing, and then (after sometimes a whole year) I see someone doing it, and I’m like, “woah, people still smoke.” It was everywhere when I was a kid—even inside restaurants.
“Nonsmoking section” that wasn’t even a separate room, just a half wall divider 🫠
It always surprises me that pot smoking is now worse. Don’t get me wrong: go ahead with your vice. But the world used to smell like an ash tray and now it smells like skunk. Realistically the world doesn’t stink as much, which is excellent, but that means pot smokers really stand out as annoying stink
And it’s not that hard either. I’m out with a new group of people and just ask “do you drink?” If I get a “no” we know not to push it and just continue on like normal. They still join in with all the conversation, we keep discussions around favorite drinks, alcohol, etc light to none and no one is offended or bothered.
From an American perspective, flying on an airplane sucks. 9/11/01 resulted in a whole bunch of security theatre at the airport and airlines have slowly whittled away whatever comfort or convience remained.
Remember being able to walk people to their gate, hug them goodbye, and watch the plane leave? Now you can only do this if you’re taking an unaccompanied minor to their gate.
Actually, it depends on the airport. A lot of them you only need to show ID now, not a ticket.
i got fed up enough that i decided i’m never flying again. if i can’t get there in time by driving, so sorry, i won’t be able to attend
Domestic flights should basically not be a thing. Trains should be the default option if you don’t have to cross an ocean.
Completely agree. The state of the US passenger train system is absolutely pitiful, and useless for any of the trips I needed to take.
Ahh yes, trade 6 hours for a 3 day, $400 train ride to NYC.
Lmfao what a shit suggestion
Uhh, I’m gonna disagree with this. My family is 1700 miles away, without high speed rail I’m not doing that trip if there aren’t flights. It’s still a long ass trip by high speed rail. I might be willing to do that trip on regular rail if corporations didn’t fuck it up for passengers and if it was direct, very few stops, and activities were available on board. That’s a long ass time to be travelling on the ground.
For the Europeans out there, that’s like going from Paris to Kyiv, and I’m not even crossing the whole country.
I do agree that there should be rail between large cities, distances under 400 miles should be able to be done by rail.
I’m close. I only fly to see family and drive everywhere else. If I can’t complete the vacation without driving I’m just not doing it.
It’s weird because flights are cheaper but then I don’t have a vehicle where I land and most of the places I want to go I need a vehicle. I’m not much of a city boy.
Why specify the year? Everyone knows what 9/11 is, it’s not going to get confused with another 9/11.
Because over time people will forget the year. Like many hear July 4th and couldn’t tell you it is for 1776. People get lazy, and knowing the year gives a nice reference for time and how it has gone by.
Man sometimes I forget just how utterly brain dead some people are. Forgetting 1776.
When I was in high school, gay was the generic negative word. If Wendys gave you a medium fry when you ordered a large - gay. If your homie cancelled plans last minute - gay. If you slipped on the stairs and busted your ass - gay. It’s bizarre in hindsight.
Same. “Gay Humor” was a thing when I was in middle-school/highschool, probably still a thing. If you act feminine as a guy, its “gay”. If you act too emotional over a girl, it’s “gay”. If you answer a question wrong, your a [R-Slur]. Everyone who you had a slight beef with is being a “bitch”, even the guys. Sometime the occational gay word equivalent that starts with “f”.
Oh this is a blue city (in the US) btw. Circa 2015-2020
The way retard has changed over the years is wild to me. Cause around me there are large communities of people with mental and physical disabilities who aggressively try to tell people that they are infact retarded. It’s the word they grew up with and are fighting tooth and nail to keep it from turning into a slur. Even tho it’s been used as one against those very people for years.
It’s such a weird thing to watch from the side line. Makes me wonder if this is what it was like during the rise of rap and the n word.
Tho it’s also getting to the point there’s so many letter-slurs that it’s getting stupid. At some point feels like we are going to have to either just stop caring and accept that intentions matter more then the words them self. Else we are goanna run out of letters to describe slurs.
Makes it very hard to have meaningful discourse around the topic. To be fair the fear of bans, and punishment for even saying some words regardless of context or topic also just makes it very iffy to talk about this topic in many places.
Hell iv seen people banned on etymology fourms and subs because someone said a “letter” slur with in the context of explaining the origin of the word. It’s crazy what the internet has become recently.
I grew up in the farm-y outskirts of a big-ish city. I got to catch lizards and tadpoles and toads in the creek nearby, and we’d collect reeds from cattails and weave them into little mats for fun. we’d walk/bike to our friends house without parents, just yell that your going to so and so’s and off you trot. We knew the farmer who grew the sweet corn we ate all summer, and the farmers who had the peach orchard and tomato fields we’d harvest from at the end of summer to can cheap produce for the winter.
The foothills behind our neighborhood were covered with grass and shrub, spattered with bike trails and caves right up to the tree line. There were foxes and racoons that you’d need to protect your chickens from. Deer would chill in our yard in fall eating the fallen Apples from around our trees. Flocks of starlings covered our huge cottonwood trees making a huge racket and pooping everywhere. I’d take a metal baseball bat to our big metal clothesline post to make a big gong noise to scare them off cuz they were so loud.
Then a fence went up, blocking us from using the hills, and they started construction on a bunch of high end mc mansions. They filled in the caves, killed the foxes and racoons, and paved over the creek to make a walking trail. More and more deer ended up as roadkill till they stopped coming to eat the apples altogether. Developers bought out the farmers to build more houses, first the tomato fields, then the corn, and finally the peaches were ripped out and paved over. The dairy became a giant strip mall for a Staples, and a Kohl’s, a donut shop and a sandwich shop. The road I walked alongside, barefoot, to play in the creek became too busy to be safe for kids to walk next to.
In summer we’d play outside and drink from the hose till we were too hot, then we’d run inside and stand under the swamp cooler to cool down. Year after year it got hotter and hotter till the heat was too much and we couldn’t play outside for too long because the swamp cooler wasn’t enough to cool us down anymore. In winter we used to make snow men and build igloos with buckets full of snow as bricks, and we’d trample paths into the snow drifts that came up to our hips. But year after year the snow banks got shorter and shorter and the snow came later and later until… I remember the first year we had no snow till after Christmas. The decorations looked so sad and stupid sitting on brown grass instead of coated with bright snow. That’s the last year I bothered to put them up. The more people moved to the area, the thicker the smog got in the winter. All the stagnant stinky car exhaust and fumes from the refinery got caught in the bowl of the valley all winter, till the hazy air was so dense you couldn’t see the mountains that surrounded us.
The world got hotter and more full of cars and houses all while the people got more stranded inside. Yes by the lure of Internet, but also to try to escape the heat and dust and smog. New neighbors in the big houses would snap at us to get off their lawn then smile like they gave a fuck the next Sunday at church.
Neighborhoods full of community became individuals in houses.
I’m only 34.
Neighborhoods full of community became individuals in houses.
I’m about 12 years older than you and what you have written pretty much sums up my life on the outskirts of the South Shore of Montreal. All those Creeks are gone. The train tracks that used to support 20 kids playing everyday have been fenced off. The BMX track is now a golf course. And the forests are all reduced to a line of single trees dividing subdivisions.
But the quoted bit is the part that hurts my heart the most. I grew up in a community. When I had my kids I created a community for other kids and their families to feel part of.
We would do small cookouts, babysit for each other, play music together. Once in awhile someone would pop out a projector and bring it outside and we’d have a community movie night.
My kids’ kids don’t see this. They live in basically the same place but the community left and only the individuals remain behind.
Hey, I just wanted to say this was a pretty great read, even if it was depressing as hell. You’ve got a knack for painting a picture with words.
We used to take for granted that everybody agreed Nazis and Russians were bad.
Nothing against Russians suffering under Putin’s boot. We have a whole new sympathy for you now.
