One day, you tune into social media and notice a trend that is seemingly everywhere. You enjoy it for a couple of days, and then you observe that trend "going out of style" and there's nothing you can do. No matter how much you love it, it's done.
The only thing left for you in such a situation is to reminisce about it by enjoying the old content, without getting anything new. So, today let's take a look at what kind of trends like that disappeared that people would love to get back. And maybe we can manifest some of them back into the spotlight.
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Imma gonna probably get downvoted to hell on this one, but I really miss getting tons of Christmas cards in the mail and hanging them up for the season.
It was such a nice little thing wishing you well and it felt good to celebrate relations that way.
I love cards, but even more I miss Letters! It was so much more personal and thought through to receive a letter in the post from a far away friend then whatsapp or messenger that are just rushed these days
We are sure we don’t have to explain to you what a trend is – if you opened this article, it’s likely that you are online enough to know what it is.
Back in the day, whole decades were possible to be described by certain dominating trends. For example, the 1980s can be defined by big hairstyles, shoulder pads, leg warmers, and all things like that. You probably already have an image in mind. And that's just the fashion.
‘Social media has made people too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it’ - Mike Tyson.
He was always comfortable with disrespecting people and punching them in the face/biting their ear/rãping them.
Manners was a good trend - I would like to see them return.
Racists being embarrassed to air their venom.
This and other nasty behaviour markedly went up in 2016 and again this year. F*****g enablers.
Then, the 2010s reek of street style, subcultures, inclusivity, and consumerism in fashion. Like you can get a pretty firm image in mind when asked about the decade's trends.
Yet, when it comes to the 2020s, this task becomes a tad more difficult – there are so many trends everywhere that it’s hard to pin down which ones are the most influential. Granted, the decade is far from over, and maybe in the next couple of years this question will be solved, but as it is right now, it’s a plethora of microtrends.
I'd love for them to bring back TV shows that were 20 episodes in one season, take the summer off. And start a new season right away in the fall.
Those were the days.
not 6 episodes and you have to wait a year and half for the next season.
When companies weren't afraid to make electronics FUN.
Everything was translucent and came in, like, seven different colors. Atomic Purple Game Boys, kiwi green iMacs, the see-through landline phones...
Now my options for a $1,000 phone are black, slightly-less-black, and sad beige.
I miss when our tech had personality.
And CARS that came in colors other than black, white, gray, Gray, GRAY, gRay, grAy, or graY.
Why’s that, you might wonder? What’s so different about the current decade that it seemingly cannot hold down any trends for a longer time? Well, it has to do with the fact that the lifespan of trends decreased significantly.
There are a few trends from time to time that take months to completely fade out, but others, more commonly, last only about 3-5 days, especially if they’re most popular on fast-paced platforms like TikTok.
Politics aside, after Obama was elected there was a nationwide trend to improve your public speaking and articulation skills and people made a concerted effort to appear more educated.
We’ve now backslid into anti-intellectualism and poorly articulated thought processes again.
Social media has people abbreviating every other word. Lazy-speak, I call it. Sure, this was necessary back when texts were limited to 127 characters, but come on. Many these days can't spell or use correct grammar. Not to mention punctuation.
Empathy being considered a positive. So many people now just can’t understand another’s suffering, don’t want to, and hate you for asking them to.
Not only understanding, but calling people "too sensitive" or telling people to "mind your own business", or even "Calm down" when showing any kind of empathy and willingness to help someone. Just something I've noticed. It's like people get really angry or upset that someone acknowledges another person's need for help.
Kids being able to safely play outside and instead of calling the police, neighbors would keep an eye on everyone. My brother and I grew up outside and rode our bikes around the neighborhood. Neighbors would always ask us if we needed anything and told us to be careful. Once a neighbor was outside washing his car and pointed out an unfamiliar truck that had driven around the block a few times. He walked us home. Another neighbor was an older lady who brought us bottles of water when she saw us out and we chased down her dog for her a few times.
Now, everyone freaks out when they see unsupervised children even if they’re doing nothing wrong.
I’m 64. When I was what they now call a “free range” child back in the day, if I did something I wasn’t supposed to do, like cross that one busy street I wasn’t told not to cross, my parents knew about it before I even got home, because one of the extended neighbors saw me cross it and immediately called my house to let my parents know. On the other hand, once when I was walking home from school, a guy in a small white car pulls over near me, opens the passenger side door and says, “Hurry up! There’s an emergency at your house!” I said I didn’t know him and I’m not coming with him. He keeps driving next to me as I try to speed up and get away, and as I passed a neighbor’s house, the lady who lived there—-who knew my parents and I-—came rushing out her front door with her German Shepherd on a leash, yelling at the man to stop bothering little girls. He sped off with his passenger side door still open, and the lady ushered me to her kitchen and gave me milk and cookies. Then she and the dog walked me home because she wanted to be sure he didn’t come back, told my parents what happened and how I was doing all the right things, but the guy was being persistent about trying to get me in his car. The neighborhood grapevine went out with a description of the car and the guy, telling parents to be on the lookout and be sure their kids don’t fall for his lie. I never saw him around where I lived ever again. That’s how neighbors used to look out for us kids. No calling the police on our parents, just making sure we could play and walk or ride our bikes around the neighborhood with no one bothering us or threatening us. Like stand-in parents when our real parents aren’t there or aren’t available.
Like 15 years ago or so, when a viral thing would happen on the internet, it was likely that the authors would end up on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, a checkmark that would only increase their popularity to the point that they might be discussed for years to come. Now, when things of a similar kind happen online, people talk about it for a couple of days and then forget about it.
One of the reasons behind these short-lived trends is that current media offers so much content that it’s natural for some of it to drown and not even reach its peak as others do. If it manages to go viral, pretty soon something new and more exciting will take away people’s attention, because with such a broad choice of content, there’s no way that something else won’t come up.
A company answering their phone.
yes! actually get to speak to a person instead of going through 45 different options and then to be told go to our website, goodbye......or even worse the chat bot help line....
Kids getting hooked on reading, like when Harry potter became famous.
I got hooked on many books long before Harry Potter. The library next town was a great place.
US presidents debating issues instead of having the equivalent of a rambling diss track with each other.
At this point I just want presidential debates to be cage matches! 🤣 That would be AWESOME 🤣
Of course, the current average attention span is shorter than it's ever been (only 8 seconds!). That suggests that people simply cannot focus on one thing to keep it relevant for a longer time; they crave something new more and more often.
This leads to a “landfill” of dead trends. The worst part about it – some of them were actually pretty good, worthy of more attention than they were given. That’s what we’re delving into with today’s list – dead trends people online would like to see back.
So, check it out, upvote if you agree with the provided takes, and suggest your options in the comments!
Leaving the house and not being reachable. A good "hey I’m going out, talk to you when I'm back." No Life360, read receipts, and constant texting. Just pure freedom and vibes...
Until one gets lost, has a breakdown, thinks one is being followed, falls over...I don't follow social media on my phone, but it's very handy to have these days. One doesn't have to respond to the communications of others.
Citizen love of and interest in science.
Just trust in our public institutions in general. Some mistrust may be warranted, but when you automatically jump to "experts can't be trusted," society really breaks down.
Housing affordability.
I know there's been a lot of videos and posts of people breaking down the comparisons of owning a home in the 20th century and owning a home in the 21st century. However, they use one example, of one region and usually still includes a 2 person income. What may have been affordable in one area, may not have been affordable in different area. The era matters, too. It's too easy to say "People were just buying homes in a single, meager income, working in retail or something low-skilled." No, people were struggling back then, too, but we didn't hear about it so much and so publicly, as there was no social media to hear about others struggling.
They also didn't have credit scores that determined every single thing in their lives. Because of COVID, or credit took a hit. We can't buy a house that would have a $1200 mortgage, so we pay $2200 a month in rent. It's ridiculous.
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7am and 6pm news and nothing more.
Edit: I know there was other times slots but you get it.
I wish I could get my local channels on Roku. I know I can set up an antenna, but the weather around here would make the reception be s**t. I’m in a rural area near a small farm town, and the nearest TV stations are 35 miles away in the only slightly larger small town that’s the county seat. I would love to watch the news at 6pm and know what the hell is going on in my area, but we cut the cord years ago, and our local stations evidently don’t have the money or viewership or whatever it takes to be live streamed.
Turn signals when changing lanes.
You can get pulled over and cited for not signaling a lane change in many states in the US.
Spatial awareness. Most kids don’t seem to acknowledge other people/carts in grocery stores and their parents are mostly to blame. I used to go out of my way to avoid but now it’s frogger-time.
I find the bigger problem is adults. Here in the USA, we drive on the right. Should be the same for shopping carts.
Democracy.
Social media before advertisements when it was just actual friends that you knew in real life and their albums of drunk photos from the weekend.
yep instead of them listening to you and showing adds that they think are helpful. I had 4 miscarriages a few years back and Facebook thought it would be a good idea to bombard me with IVF adds while I was still bleeding..
People being present and attentive while driving.
Much of this is due to screens which I believe should be stopped by the manufacturers.
Politicians being able to vote for legislation across the isle without fear of being labeled a RHINO or DHINO cuz it made sense for the American people.
Tar and feathering politicians.
Pre-Reagan trend of access to free/affordable with a part time summer job public university education and government job training programs.
Beach clean ups.
They still do this, it's just that the rude people by far outnumber the ones who clean up. Which goes back to manners -- cleaning up after oneself.
Conspiracy theorists uses to be seen as nut jobs, now every person has at least once conspiracy theory that they believe to be truth.
A litmus test for the probability of a conspiracy theory having any truth: (1) If it involves a LOT of people keeping a secret, it's probably BS. (2) If no one is making money from the theory, it's probably BS.
Being earnest in comedy. I love my fair share of ironic humor but I'm so tired of "the joke is funny because it's not funny" being absolutely everywhere.
Dance dance revolution.
I miss flash mobs that performed intricate dances or lovely music.
Always wanted to see one of those in the wild. Alas, I never did.
Load More Replies...Roller Rinks need to make a comeback. We still have one in my city, but it's gotten some bad reviews due to poor management. The rink is a shell of what they were like. We had 3 in the city, each ranging in rink size and soft/hard flooring. One rink had a lot glow paint for the blacklights. We would make sure to wear clothes that would glow. The DJ set up games for everyone. Limbo was a highlight. Then you had the speedskating session, where only those daring enough to rip around the rink as fast as you could were allowed on the rink for 1 or 2 songs. Always started with AC/DC "Thunder". It was smart, so the speed demons could get it all out of their system. But when you wiped out, you ate the floor. Loved it. There was the canteen that sold nachos, hot dogs, pizza and other snacks. Arcades. You could request songs. Absolute blast. That one rink was demolished after being iconic for decades.
My oldest dropped my youngest daughter off at her friend's house, maybe a 10 minute drive away. She had the address in her text. The next day when she had to pick her up, her phone had lost service, so she had the address but no GPS. She ended up coming back home. I'm like, what did we do before we had access to information every second?
Hi, we had the UBD (Universal Business Directory) in Australia. It was a generic term for street directories in many cities. Locals also called it a Refidex. You can still buy them.😊
Load More Replies...I miss flash mobs that performed intricate dances or lovely music.
Always wanted to see one of those in the wild. Alas, I never did.
Load More Replies...Roller Rinks need to make a comeback. We still have one in my city, but it's gotten some bad reviews due to poor management. The rink is a shell of what they were like. We had 3 in the city, each ranging in rink size and soft/hard flooring. One rink had a lot glow paint for the blacklights. We would make sure to wear clothes that would glow. The DJ set up games for everyone. Limbo was a highlight. Then you had the speedskating session, where only those daring enough to rip around the rink as fast as you could were allowed on the rink for 1 or 2 songs. Always started with AC/DC "Thunder". It was smart, so the speed demons could get it all out of their system. But when you wiped out, you ate the floor. Loved it. There was the canteen that sold nachos, hot dogs, pizza and other snacks. Arcades. You could request songs. Absolute blast. That one rink was demolished after being iconic for decades.
My oldest dropped my youngest daughter off at her friend's house, maybe a 10 minute drive away. She had the address in her text. The next day when she had to pick her up, her phone had lost service, so she had the address but no GPS. She ended up coming back home. I'm like, what did we do before we had access to information every second?
Hi, we had the UBD (Universal Business Directory) in Australia. It was a generic term for street directories in many cities. Locals also called it a Refidex. You can still buy them.😊
Load More Replies...
