As generation X, my youth was mostly during 80s and 90s of 20th century. Growing up during 80s and 90s was vastly different than growing up during 2000s or 2010s or now. Here are some nice perks of growing up before 21st centiry:
We didn't know too much
This may sound silly, but hear me out. Sure, to get some information you need it took time, books, magazines, asking around.. you couldn't just google "how to fix blender" or "Javascript tutorial" or whatever, you needed to work for it. A lot. Even for minor things, like how to saw something, or how to clean stain or how to prepare pasta. It took effort. If you skipped classes you had to put effort to go to public librabry, get books you need and do hours and hours of research not just google the freaking thing! But that made if feel important, accomplishment! And you didn't have many people with whom you could compare yourself, mostly people around you, not the whole freaking world. We were neer made to know or see so many people, it's too much!
But that wasn't all. You didn't know a lot of horrible things happening in the world, which may sound like something everyone should be aware of, but to be honest, most of those horrible things we can not change or even influence one bit. All that it does is create anxiety, fear, pain and depression. We can't do much about many bad things, and that's a fact. Something are better left unknown. For example, there are whole sub-reddit sections full of people who googled their symptoms and found horrible diseases in results, and whole changes they have that are almost zero, anxiety is real. And people are way too much obsessed with things they can not change. You can be aware there are diseases, especially those you can catch and treat in time. But some that you can't, maybe it's better you have no idea they exists. We are also too obsessed with politics and illusion we can really change something. Maybe, on local areas, but honestly, it would be tough. Yes, I do sound as defeatist, but life taught me that a lot of battles are just not meant to be won.
Sometimes, too much knowledge is not a good thing.
You could not be found easily
This might also seem like a downside, as sometimes this made things difficult. Like, if you have to meet someone, and the person is late, you can just call them and check if they are late or you are on the wrong place. All you can do is wait, and it could take a long time untl you realize, you've been stood up. Parents couldn't track us teens most of the time. Sometimes, we could just go to the party or in another town and there were no ways for them to trace us or call us. Was it good or bad? Depends. Just different. It was easy to ghost someone, but I don't think people were doing that as much as today. Or maybe they did, I have no idea, but there was no known concept of "ghosting" back then, we didn't use the term. But if you break up with someone, you can't like stalk them on social media or see how they are doing without you. Maybe it was better that way.
You could have easily disappear. Really easily. Good or bad? You decide.
You had only few people to idolize
While today it's so easy to browse a bit and find hundreds or thousands of people who are like 21, have huge mansion, looks that would save mythological Narcissus from his own destiny by making him feel ulgy, millions of dollars, happy relationship and amazing career... All that while still looking like a high-school child. It's easy to find and see hundreds of faces in day or hour, too many people, compare yourself, think you are failure, while you 100% are not. That's the magic of social media for you. We were never meant to see so many people in our one life. We are never meant to see so many lives up close, and who knows how many of them are fully staged. It's just not natural. Back in 90s or before, we had few people we could idolize but those people had really, really tough work behind them, they weren't picked by producers to be made into product public will love... well, some maybe were, but they still worked their asses off to get there. We would idolize them but we were aware those people worked tough on all that. Not just in showbiz, but everywhere. People had to work, there was no easy marketing online, you had to sacrifice a lot to get into spotlight. You could not just bark into your own camera, or sing off tune some catchy melody and just get famous. It didn't happen. You could not present some fake reality or lifestyle and put it on media, which was mostly television and promote it as "I am an idol, my life is perfect", it never happened.
Success was never easy. You got to idolize few people who made it, whatever field it was, but you knew, that it took them a lot to get there. It was respect, not envy.
Relationships were easier
You had to meet people in person. You could spot someone you like and you had to make a move. There was no other way. You had to get to know a person, talk to them, go out, get close, you had to invest from the start. It required courage, self-confidence, work, investment... You couldn't just sit on a toilet and scroll photos of strangers dragging some of them left or right. You didn't sit across your date and secretly check your phone thinking "I can do better". You didn't see people as a string of meat puppets who just wait for you to chose them or them to finally chose you. You were OUTSIDE! You were in action, all the time. Why do I say it was "easier"? Because it was achievement to be with someone. It wasn't plain "I will message this chick and see if this goes". It wasn't "I will just send support to this unknown person and ask for photo to see if it's worth it". It wasn't sending lusty messages to complete strangers online just because you like their photos. It wasn't lists of "what I want from man/woman" plastered on some dating site. At that time, at least in my country, we were equal. There was no gender wars, at least not as loud and hateful as now. There was no "all men/women are the same". We all looked natural, plain, and still, bloody gorgeous! What's wrong with that?
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