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36 Things Folks Born Before 2000 Still Know How To Do By Heart Even Though They’re Useless Now
Time definitely doesn't stand still, and what was considered a novelty or an absolute must-have just a couple of years or even decades ago is quite possibly a true museum exhibit today, gradually covered with the dust of oblivion on the outskirts of human history. Time flies quickly, and it is absolutely merciless.
But still, no matter how merciless time is, as in the wonderful cartoon 'Coco,' as long as there are people whose brains or hands remember certain things from the past, as long as we recall these habits and outdated skills with nostalgia and sweet irony - they remain with us, remain alive. For example, in this selection of stories, made for you by Bored Panda.
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#2
My penmanship is trash, but my ability to read cursive handwriting appears to be a superpower to my younger coworkers.
#3
Remember when we had to have a typing speed of atleast 60wpm to be considered for an office job, lol.
In a recent thread in the AskReddit community, the user u/Aryan_Anushiravan decided to ask: "People born before 2000, what trivial skill do you possess that others don't use anymore?" Apparently, the question touched a nerve with netizens, and in just a couple of days, the thread gained around 11K upvotes with over 17K comments, which, by today's standards, can well be considered a viral status.
Of course, there were many humorous comments in the thread, but overall, it gives an incredibly large-scale picture - how, in just a quarter of a century, an absolutely huge number of skills, habits, and ways were mercilessly sent to the dustbin of history.
#5
Installing software via 10+ floppy disks. Anyone else install Windows 95 from a stack of floppies? .
#6
I can tell the time using an analog clock.
Rick Murray 5 months ago
Knowing how to read a clock is a totally different thing with analogue vs digital. A digital clock will give you a (hopefully) precise number that is essentially meaningless. A traditional clock is less precise (you need to pay attention to work out what the time *really* is) but it can not only give you a rough time with just a glance (it's about quarter to ten) it also makes it very easy to visualise the passage of time, something that's nearly impossible with digital. That's why the four clocks in the living room, the two in the kitchen, and the two in my bedroom are *all* proper real clocks (and one in each room is radio controlled so is always accurate).
No, in the past, humanity also got rid of outdated skills from time to time - for example, in the 20th century, the profession of a chimney sweep practically lost the importance that it had a century before. The demand for stokers, having reached its peak about a hundred years ago, gradually faded away as well, and there are actually more such examples. But never before has progress moved so rapidly.
#7
The Dewey Decimal System, m***********s. .
#8
I know the secret to recording over VHS tapes that weren’t meant for it.
Matt Blakeley 5 months ago
Tape. Though as I remember, the quality when you did that was usually terrible.
#9
The "double space after a period" muscle memory.
I spent my teen years in the nineties, and I still have the muscle memory of rewinding an audio cassette with a pencil (in my prime, I had a collection of almost a thousand cassettes)...
I can do math in my head (a skill honed, in particular, by the need to calculate file sizes limited by the capacity of a floppy disk), and I still have pretty good handwriting, although I increasingly catch myself thinking that these skills are completely out of demand today.
Well, simply judge for yourself - who needs audio cassettes when even the iPod, which until recently ruled the music market, is becoming a half-forgotten device nowadays? When modern kids and teenagers use voice input to their fullest, and handwriting has become something archaic, like chiseling out clay tablets of Babylon?
#10
I can both write a check and I can address an envelope to mail it to you.
#11
The ability to be alone with my thoughts for a few moments without losing my d**n mind.
#12
I can drive a manual. Still a thing these days, but theyre very rare and most people can't.
On the other hand, aren't modern people losing something important by not using the skills that older generations considered absolutely necessary? After all, almost all new things and phenomena are ultimately aimed at making people's lives easier, making them think less, and making fewer decisions themselves.
As a result, today's school teachers are literally sounding the alarm, telling incredible stories about high schoolers who cannot count, read, and write, or have very poor knowledge of these basic skills. So before laughing at the outdated habits and skills of millennials and X-Gens, let's first think—don't these habits give our brains much-needed training?
#13
Counting change correctly. That's $3.64, out of $20? 36 cents makes four... (*grab $1*) five, (*grab $5*) ten, and (*grab $10*) ten makes twenty.
Rick Murray 5 months ago
It's depressing how many checkout operators get flummoxed when they tell you how much they want and you hand them something different. Some hand back the extra, others count it and tap it in and then have a lightbulb moment when the till says the change is exactly a single coin. Like, excuse me, I'm the one with dyscalculia so what the hell is YOUR excuse?! 🤦🏻♀️
#14
I can unwind spiral telephone cords when they get a kink!
Robert Beveridge 5 months ago
I was always jealous of the fact that our phone cords were way kinkier than I was.
#15
How to use an actual printed dictionary.
In any case, it seems that this collection of facts and tales will be really interesting to representatives of any generation—from baby boomers to Gen Alpha (for the former, it will be pretty much nostalgic, for the latter, probably just funny).
By the way, if you, like me, were born before 2000, then perhaps you could also write here about a skill you possess that is unique to today and completely commonplace in the past. After all, why not?
#16
Rewind a cassette tape.
#18
I know lots of people will comment that they can write in cursive. This is painful but I can also write in shorthand. Well, to be more honest, I used to be able to write perfectly in shorthand but it still shows up in my regular writing sometimes.
#19
Memorize phone numbers .
Robert Beveridge 5 months ago
I used to have a rolodex in my head. Now I can't even remember my OWN number half the time...
#20
I used to be a projectionist at a movie theatre. Most theaters are all digital now.
#21
I used to operate a keypunch card machine ... back in caveman days of the early 1970s.
Bill Swallow 5 months ago
IBM 029! I still remember how to configure the control card for the drum to set up automatic dupe / skip fields, etc!
#22
Burning a CD.
Lukas (he/him, it/its) 5 months ago
I burned a CD for my dad once on my old laptop (God I miss that thing, it was from my uncle, it had a CD drive!! It was great!!!) and I accidentally downloaded a version of the song "Hot for Teacher" that started with a lot of moaning. That was real fun when it came on in the car, my dad was confused, I was (14 at the time and) mortified, my little sister was in the car... it was not fun. Also- I'm only 18, so kids these days still do this! I also have an MP3 player, I love that thing
#24
I know how to program a VCR.
A VCR is the machine we put tapes into to watch movies or record TV. It's what we used to use to watch movies & TV shows we recorded on before dvd's. Dvd's are what we used to watched movies on before Blu-ray. Blu-ray is what we used to watch movies on before streaming.
Laserdics were in there somewhere too. F**k, I'm old.
#25
I can honestly say things like:
“I managed a video store,”
“I learned basic coding from making my MySpace page cool,”
And the ever popular
“I learned how to play the trumpet, French horn, and trombone in order to play in a ska band.”.
#26
I can text like crazy fast on a t9 keypad lol.
Lady Lava 5 months ago
This was such an improvement after the previous system, where you had to push the buttons a certain times for getting the right letter. I was a T9 pro! And then smartphones came, and it took time getting used to a new way of typing. It shows my age when you see me typing with one finger, I never mastered the typing with both thumbs hat most younger people do.
#27
I used to dial my friend's phone number by tapping the hang up buttons which simulated a rotary dial phone.
Igor914624 5 months ago
I used a pocket tape recorder to record the sounds made when quarters went into a pay phone. Then I would play them back into the phone to get free calls from pay phones.
#28
I can use "Save As".
Robert Beveridge 5 months ago
Is this not common? I use it dozens of times a week, albeit for specialist purposes.
#29
Keeping a Tamagotchi alive for more than 3 days.
Annik Perrot 5 months ago
That's where the "mom" skills come into play. I had custody of the little b@stards while my kids were in school, and I can proudly say that not a single Tamagotchi died on my watch.
#30
Long division.
#31
Im pretty good at navigating DOS commands.
#32
How to operate a blackberry.
Wild Cream 5 months ago
I miss my BlackBerry! I liked changing the little LED light to flash different colours for different people. So if my best friend texted me it was yellow and pink, if my bf texted me it was blue and red, etc. so fun :)
#33
Cleaning out Super Nintendo cartridges.
#34
Using a paperclip to fix bent pins on a CPU or IDE drive.
Rick Murray 5 months ago
CPU drive? And no, you don't fix bent pins on stuff like that using anything metallic unless you're wearing an ESD bracelet.
#35
HTML.
Russell Bowman 5 months ago
But, can you use "view source" on an online quiz to find the correct answers ?
#36
I can beat Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! Like, a quarter of the time.
Boris Long-Johnson 5 months ago
As long as you don’t start following some of his less admirable traits such as r4ping women.
What do you think ?
Rick Murray 5 months ago (edited)
Morse Code. Churning butter. Using a scythe. Weaving baskets. Getting a Tilley lamp going. Using an SLR, and knowing the right sorts of film to use (bonus points for developing it yourself). Knitting/crochet. Sewing stuff when things needed fixing. Using an OHP. Finding stuff in filing cabinets. Fax machines.
Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 5 months ago
Oh, the tilley lamp!! 1970's Night fishing on Dungeness beach in winter with a freezing wind blowing and trying to get the mantle going without it burning up. Also, those hand warmers you lit a stick of something and put it in a small hand sized container that would last for hours.
Load More Replies... 
Lauren Caswell 5 months ago
Cleaning VCRs. Setting up tv (with parent permission) at friends houses so channel one is button one etc. Basic html(thanks neopets), and saving corrupted word files. My time as a tech skilled person has gone now
zovjraar me 5 months ago
unless the world ends tomorrow, there's a lot of "skills" that most of us will never need. and even back in the day, no one knew how to do everything. the butcher didn't know how to make clothes, the cobbler didn't know how to make a clay jug. and nowadays, knowing how to navigate and trouble shoot technology is almost necessary to get though life. so yeah, i know how to read an analog clock and remember phone numbers, but i also know how to have multiple 7 Days to Die folders for each of my mod packs and how to switch between them without having to uninstall and reinstall the game. whoo hoo.
Beak Hookage 5 months ago
I can actually untangle a slinky. Of course, once the local kids found out about that...
Rick Murray 5 months ago (edited)
Morse Code. Churning butter. Using a scythe. Weaving baskets. Getting a Tilley lamp going. Using an SLR, and knowing the right sorts of film to use (bonus points for developing it yourself). Knitting/crochet. Sewing stuff when things needed fixing. Using an OHP. Finding stuff in filing cabinets. Fax machines.
Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 5 months ago
Oh, the tilley lamp!! 1970's Night fishing on Dungeness beach in winter with a freezing wind blowing and trying to get the mantle going without it burning up. Also, those hand warmers you lit a stick of something and put it in a small hand sized container that would last for hours.
Load More Replies... Lauren Caswell 5 months ago
Cleaning VCRs. Setting up tv (with parent permission) at friends houses so channel one is button one etc. Basic html(thanks neopets), and saving corrupted word files. My time as a tech skilled person has gone now
zovjraar me 5 months ago
unless the world ends tomorrow, there's a lot of "skills" that most of us will never need. and even back in the day, no one knew how to do everything. the butcher didn't know how to make clothes, the cobbler didn't know how to make a clay jug. and nowadays, knowing how to navigate and trouble shoot technology is almost necessary to get though life. so yeah, i know how to read an analog clock and remember phone numbers, but i also know how to have multiple 7 Days to Die folders for each of my mod packs and how to switch between them without having to uninstall and reinstall the game. whoo hoo.
Beak Hookage 5 months ago
I can actually untangle a slinky. Of course, once the local kids found out about that...
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