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21 Weird Things That Were Widely Acceptable 20 Years Ago, As Shared By People Online
Years go by, and things constantly change. Something that was acceptable decades ago is no longer considered normal, which means that the things we are doing now will probably be uncanny to our kids and grandchildren. Who knows what the future will be like – maybe we'll go back to the no technology times, or maybe those flying cars will finally show up and bless our ordinary lives. In this article, we'll be looking at Reddit users who were asked to share their opinions on weird things that were normal and widely acceptable 20 years ago.
The thread received almost 40K upvotes and 17.7K comments, alongside an engaging discussion where people occasionally reminded each other that 20 years ago is 2001 and not somewhere in the '80s.
Let us know in the comment section if there's something on your mind that you would like to add regarding the theme's question. And besides, what things that we're doing nowadays do you think will be viewed as strange by the future folks?
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Being at home at your TV at a certain time to catch a show, and expecting everyone to leave you alone so you could watch it with no interruptions.
You could be out with friends and you'd look and say "oh it's 7:30 I got to get home to catch my show!" And nobody looked at you like a strange social outcast.
Leaving your young kids unsupervised most of the time.
I remember at 5 years old sitting in the parking lot of the bowling alley in my dads car for 3 hours while he was inside bowling. Also, most of the time, my parents had zero clue as to where I was. I would leave the house in the morning on my bicycle and be home for dinner. Suited them just fine.
I kinda feel bad for kids nowadays. My sister and I use to go into the woods with our neighborhood friends and just run around and play, ride our bikes around the neighborhood or to the corner store. Our pitbull would accompany us unleashed and everyone would just stop and pet him as they passed by.
Going on road trips without a phone.
Yup, had to use paper maps, too, no GPS....I remember stopping at gas stations so many times to get help with directions. And hoping they weren't sending me on a wild goose chase.
Dial Up internet.
Being able to take a look in the cockpit of a plane.
The stewardesses would activly ask some kids on the flight if they wanted to take a look in the cockpit. I remember when I stepped in the cockpit of a Boeing 747 I decided I wanted to become a pilot someday.
When I was a kid, I used to have a little book that the pilot would sign on each flight and would usually get invited up to the cockpit to get it signed. You could only stand back behind the pilots seats, and not touch anything, but if you were lucky the pilot would show you some of the controls and instruments. Used to love it. Real shame that kids these days will never expeience that.
Paying $1.29, so 9 seconds of a song played when your phone rang.
People would go to carnivals and shove their face in the same water barrel to grab an apple with their mouth. Completely bonkers in 2021.
That every computer on the planet was going to go nuts on New Year’s Day.
Ok, that was bit cryptic for most folks, sorry. Has to do with the way we represent time in computer's internal clocks. Currently we use a 32-bit number to store the number of seconds since the 1st January 1970, and this will "wrap" on that date. The solution is to use 64-bit numbers instead. The problem is that some of these are embedded in hardware clocks... See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
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I had to do firmware updates for 500 or so computers at a credit union in 1998 to be Y2K compliant. There were serious concerns on the banking end. Just because it was handled well doesn't mean it wasn't a concern. There was a massive global push to get everything ready, especially on globally referenced timekeeping platforms.
Yeah, for bigger businesses it was a problem because when large databases are involved they frequently have the same machines in service for ages. I remember working at a large manufacturer in Sydney prior to 2000, just as a storeman, and they'd upgraded their database while I was there. We had to help move the old one out. With forklifts. It was like 30 years old or something, and it was a monster. And the only reason they hadn't upgraded was the risk of downtime while transitioning. So business panicked, and naturally large media organisations would get caught up in that whilrwind, but the notion that "every computer" would be affected was never a reality and a notion that only people who didn't understand computers - most people, then and now - and/or who had a predisposition for melodrama could have entertained. Many of use who did understand computers gamed on through the night on Dec 31 1999. I mean, even if you had any doubts it was as simple a matter as setting your clock forward to see what happens... So, there was never any reason to fear a digipocalypse, even though people in the know understood that some businesses would need to spend money to avoid themselves having big problems. People are always talking about things they know nothing about as though they are stating facts. As for finance and so forth, it was a valid consideration, but the general fear was instilled, not because of something understood. I remember there being at the same time a kind of held breath of hope for a change of direction. A lot of people had their fingers crossed, but then 2000 came and then anticlimax. Thanks a f*****g lot.
Load More Replies... The big problem was the date formatting. Only 6 digits were allowed, 2 each for day, month and year. Forward thinking and financially capable companies started trying to correct the future problem in the '70s and '80s but too many companies didn't even think about it until the new century was only a year or 2 away. Any organization that needed birthdays, banking dates or contract dates was faced with a major problem. 1998 and 1999 were a major panic. By the last quarter of 1999 programmers were living on caffine and sleeping on the floor of their cubicles. It was hell. The entire data processing world held its collective breath at midnight Dec. 31, 1999. Mostly, the world survived.
As a programmer for a utility in the 70's, I realized this was going to be a problem with the 6-digit date format (in ALL the programs because every character counted, to save space on the 80-character punch cards used for everything). I asked him if we shouldn't be doing something about it and he just said, oh all those programs will be obsolete way before then. NOPE we spent lots of effort fixing those programs and had to get a different mainframe.
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My mom talked to me about that! She said that in 1999 there was this huge thing where the internet might go down, and some of her parent's friends were sooo worried... sounds insane now, but idk
Who downvoted this? It's absolutely true. I worked for the federal government in DC and it was a very real fear.
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Ohhh I had a friend who bought an assault rifle in preparation for the Y2K crisis.
There was a guy commenting on bored panda recently who worked on the computers day and night to fix it 😂 the story was amusing but also showed / highlighted the misunderstanding of the general public’s fears as well.
I went into labour December 31, 1999 wondering if the hospital was even going to work when I delivered. All was well and I had my second son January 01, 2000.
Lucky kid. I was also born on a year with a round number, and so I almost always know how old I am during any particular year.
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Prevention paradox at work. A problem was anticipated, it was prevented and because it didn't occur, people thought it was never a problem in the first place.
It was mostly really old computer systems and databases that would've had an issue. Here in the US, that was a lot of government databases, old COBOL code, etc. A lot of engineering departments worked really hard before that fixing those systems to make sure nothing happened. Pretty much every tech company had a Y2K board that audited their systems ahead of time to make sure there'd be no problem. I knew a couple of engineers who had done COBOL back in the day and they had steady consulting work for a few years fixing all that old stuff prior to 2000. Yes. We started fixing this years before it was going to be an issue. Now people think it was some sort of hysteria since very little went wrong. Nope. It was just a bunch of engineers pulling off really successful projects.
Hahahahaha this is so funny to think about. I was like 12 I think that year and I played it cool but I was terrified lol
Fun fact: They *were* going to go nuts on New Years Day, except that an entire industry spent 10 years making sure they didn't. Kinda the opposite of what happened in 2020 when everyone said "It's not a big deal".
I actually was on call at an IT Helpdesk at Y2K, this was the only time ever the Helpdesk was open after 23.00. Had to work that night from 00.00 tull 07.00. Spoilt my New Year's Eve. NOTHING happened.
Not sp much "nuts", but I remember thinking the power might go out while everything rebooted or malfunctioned and hoping it wouldn't take too long to fix.
OMG, I had a friend who moved herself and her kids into some sort of compound where they would be safe in 2020 when everything failed. She sold her house in Alaska, gathered all health and school info together and cut up her drivers licence and social security card, bought guns and moved to the compound in Arizona.
Businesses and hospitals actually made plans and programs incase it happened. It almost felt like a let down when New Years happened. That's all that happened.
🤣🤣🤣 Y2K is when my husband proposed. He said if the world was going to end, he wanted to spend eternity with me. (🤔🤣 Yeah...I know.) We were such kids! Still going strong though.
My husband had to stay at the hospital where he worked just in case. Since they knew they were all right, they went up on the roof and watched the fireworks. It was a pretty fun evening, he tells me!
Usually it's understood that when someone says "20 years ago" it doesn't necessarily mean exactly 20 years to the day.
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In the business we knew damn well that nothing of import was going to happen on Y2K. I remember proving it to some of my colleagues by advancing my computer clock to 2001. Some older systems might have had a few issues, but everyone was so freaked out that they fixed them before anything could happen. Linux system, BTW, really did not care about Y2K since their clock counts seconds from when linux was coded, or something like that.
Neither of the computers shown here had that problem. One's an apple iBook running probably Mac OS 10.1-10.3, my guess, and the other is an SGI indy, running IRIX. Both are unixes (it's a unix system!) and neither had that problem. This was JUST a MS-dos-based machine problem.
I worked in computing and I knew that would not happen as I always used 4 digit dates.
First the time changed, to the new year, 2000, in the vast pacific. By the time the changes hit London we knew nothing was going to happen. However did make a lot of money.
Yes, thanks to the Y2K paranoia people were frightened of planes falling out of the sky onto cities, but it took religious nutcases to achieve that the following year.
My highschool had an area where we were allowed to smoke. A designated smoking area for kids under 18.
You could smoke EVERYWHERE back in the day - malls, planes, hospitals, offices. What was weird then was being told you COULDN'T smoke somewhere.
Not having airport security.
Also : smoking both on the airport and the plane! It was 1997, a flight to Dakar
People riding in cars without seatbelts plus four or five kids seated in the back.
People spending thousands of dollars on Beanie Babies.
Boots with the fur.
Shutting down Napster.
Was discussing this with my husband today: trampolines with NO safety net, no buried in a pit so it’s ground level, no spring guards - nothing. Just an incredibly bouncy platform high off the ground that 12 kids between the ages of 1 and 27 would all go on at once.
The neighbor kid and I would jump off his roof onto the trampoline. That's how I lost 3 of my baby teeth.
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Getting the wrong number and then ending up having a delightful conversation with someone, or politely letting them go with a laugh.
Back in the day, they sold sim cards on newspaper stands. No one asked for an ID. You would go to the provider outlet only if you wanted a paid subscription. All went downhill when phone scams sckyrocketed and old people were getting scammed out of their savings. *EDIT* Also cigarettes and alcohol were sold to anyone, at any age. My dad would send me off to buy him cigarettes and beer at the age of 5. I couldn't even count yet. Also no receipts were given after a purchase. Anywhere. You would eat, and a breakdown hand written on a paper tab would be given to you. People would just compare if the prices matched the ones in the menu. Also no one flew. Only businessmen. A regular airplane ticket cost well over your average monthly wage, sometimes two. At least the above was true in the early 90s back in Bulgaria.
My Mom gave us a note to take to to gas station to pick up cigs 🙄
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Having a cell phone you could smash with a brick and it still worked.
Having a designated meeting spot and HAVING to be there on time because if you were too late the other person would just leave.
Remembered another one: there used to be a number you could dial on your (stationary, rotary ) phone, and you could listen to fairy tales. Used to crank up the phone bill a lot for my folks, but I loved listening to Little Red Riding Hood, the 7 little goats etc.
Where can't you wear a scarf to school? That's a staple of winter wear in Canada.
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Thought of another one. In Canada growing up, as example: our house phone numbers were 7 digits on full. Like 519-1382. BUT we only had to dial "9-1382" to connect. 12 digit phone numbers (plus 1 at the front) were only for long distance. Which tbh was anywhere 15 minutes outside our city.
No one is mentioning taking PEANUT BUTTER(and Jam) to school. Or anywhere really. My mom couldn't have been able to pay for both us kids to take meat to school. Oh wait.. I guess many are vegans now lol
Plus, a lot fewer people even choose to take sandwiches (in Australia anyway) for lunch anymore. You see many more taking sushi, salad, soup/other things in thermos, fried rice etc. I think it began with more immigrants who had these things traditionally in their country, plus people wanting to be more healthy, and now more people caught up with the trend.
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Making fun of Asians for wearing masks when they were sick. I had so much to learn.
These are great memories, but go waaay further back than 2001, sorry.
In general almost none of these applied 20 years ago. 20 years ago was post-911. 25 years ago maybe.
Was discussing this with my husband today: trampolines with NO safety net, no buried in a pit so it’s ground level, no spring guards - nothing. Just an incredibly bouncy platform high off the ground that 12 kids between the ages of 1 and 27 would all go on at once.
The neighbor kid and I would jump off his roof onto the trampoline. That's how I lost 3 of my baby teeth.
Load More Replies... Getting the wrong number and then ending up having a delightful conversation with someone, or politely letting them go with a laugh.
Back in the day, they sold sim cards on newspaper stands. No one asked for an ID. You would go to the provider outlet only if you wanted a paid subscription. All went downhill when phone scams sckyrocketed and old people were getting scammed out of their savings. *EDIT* Also cigarettes and alcohol were sold to anyone, at any age. My dad would send me off to buy him cigarettes and beer at the age of 5. I couldn't even count yet. Also no receipts were given after a purchase. Anywhere. You would eat, and a breakdown hand written on a paper tab would be given to you. People would just compare if the prices matched the ones in the menu. Also no one flew. Only businessmen. A regular airplane ticket cost well over your average monthly wage, sometimes two. At least the above was true in the early 90s back in Bulgaria.
My Mom gave us a note to take to to gas station to pick up cigs 🙄
Load More Replies... Having a cell phone you could smash with a brick and it still worked.
Having a designated meeting spot and HAVING to be there on time because if you were too late the other person would just leave.
Remembered another one: there used to be a number you could dial on your (stationary, rotary ) phone, and you could listen to fairy tales. Used to crank up the phone bill a lot for my folks, but I loved listening to Little Red Riding Hood, the 7 little goats etc.
Where can't you wear a scarf to school? That's a staple of winter wear in Canada.
Load More Replies... Thought of another one. In Canada growing up, as example: our house phone numbers were 7 digits on full. Like 519-1382. BUT we only had to dial "9-1382" to connect. 12 digit phone numbers (plus 1 at the front) were only for long distance. Which tbh was anywhere 15 minutes outside our city.
No one is mentioning taking PEANUT BUTTER(and Jam) to school. Or anywhere really. My mom couldn't have been able to pay for both us kids to take meat to school. Oh wait.. I guess many are vegans now lol
Plus, a lot fewer people even choose to take sandwiches (in Australia anyway) for lunch anymore. You see many more taking sushi, salad, soup/other things in thermos, fried rice etc. I think it began with more immigrants who had these things traditionally in their country, plus people wanting to be more healthy, and now more people caught up with the trend.
Load More Replies... Making fun of Asians for wearing masks when they were sick. I had so much to learn.
These are great memories, but go waaay further back than 2001, sorry.
In general almost none of these applied 20 years ago. 20 years ago was post-911. 25 years ago maybe.
