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Someone Asks Online “People Born Before 1990, What Trivial Skill Do You Possess That No One Uses Anymore?”, Receives 30 Replies
There are things that I can do perfectly. For example, I can rewind a tape by spinning it on a pencil. I was born in 1981 and this skill was incredibly important during my childhood and teen years. It's been almost a quarter of a century since I last listened to music on a tape, but I'm sure if I need to, I'll rewind it nearly perfectly.
Another thing is that it is unlikely that a tape will fall into my hands, so the skill that I possess almost flawlessly has long and confidently been moved into the category of useless and obsolete. As well as several dozen other similar habits and skills that netizens listed in this viral Reddit thread.
More info: Reddit
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Remembering phone numbers
This should still be important. What you or your kids become separated and they have no battery power on their phone, so they have to find another phone, or their phone gets lost/stolen?
Indeed, almost each generation in recent history has a certain set of habits and skills that they have honed over the years, often associated with everyday things and devices natural for their time. And as soon as this or that object goes down in history, then the skills of using it become unclaimed, moving into the category of "weird habits".
To rewind a tape by spinning on a pencil <3
I write in cursive; does that count?
For example, do you know that at one time, about twenty years ago, there were even competitions in speed texting on push-button phones? Winners were determined, hefty prize money was paid, world records were set... and the competitions continue to be held, but now on the virtual keyboards of smartphones. And if you could blindly type a message while holding your phone in your pocket - and this was possible, back when just knowing the order of keystrokes is enough - then today this is nothing more than a funny fad. For example, to amuse your kids, if, while sorting through old things, you somehow find an old Nokia 3310...
I'm a straight burley man and I sew. It's just something that for whatever reason relaxes me and no one knows how to do it anymore. Hemming and tapering pants, altering dresses, jackets...etc..I oddly enjoy it.
I can win at trivial pursuit (the game) every time. I’m a wealth of useless information.
"The issue is the mechanism of learning and adaptation, which for most people still remains very high, no matter what anyone says," explains Vladimir Nemertsalov, a school principal and teacher from Ukraine, to whom Bored Panda reached out for a comment here. "Any skill, like the object associated with it, has its own life cycle. First, a certain device appears, then people try to adapt existing skills to it. Sometimes this goes well enough, but most often not."
"And then the culture of using a new device begins to acquire new habits. Someone comes up with hacks to improve it all, make it faster and more convenient to use. This is how skills are formed. And then, when the device 'walks off into the sunset', the ability to use it goes the same way. It's another matter that in the modern world it happens much faster. For example, the skill of riding was incredibly relevant for several millennia, but the ability to use a rotary phone has come to naught in about half a century. But such is the contemporary world, and such is progress," Vladimir says.
Using the Dewey decimal at library
The local libraries still use them here, but the database is on the computers.
Crash start a manual car by rolling down a hill in second gear with the ignition on, then popping the clutch - cars were not so reliable back in the day!
Edit: Push starting, also known as bump starting, roll starting, clutch starting, popping the clutch or crash starting, according to Wikipedia - we called it crash starting where I'm from, but lots of different names for it!
Very bad idea in modern cars, as you can poison the catalytic convertor. I had to bump start my first car in the basement of the apartment building I lived in - had to get a neighbour to help who dumped the clutch whilst I pushed. I was very trusting of her, as she had to put the clutch straight back in again before we hit the wall at the far end!
Sometimes outdated skills develop into a kind of hobby or even a subculture - as happened, for example, with film photography or vinyl records. Regarding the latter, the level of sales, after three decades of oblivion, began to grow again around 2010, and has now returned to almost 1988 levels. Perhaps this will happen with tapes - and then I will again appear in all my splendor with the skill of rewinding one with a pencil. In the meantime, please feel free to scroll this selection to the very end and maybe add some more obsolete and weird-looking skills from the past... and I'll go practice. Where is my pencil, anyway?
Record to tape from the radio. Trying to make sure to not get the DJ/presenter talking s**t or an ad
I had a 3-in-1 that could record to audio cassette from TV. I still have the Dallas episode of Who Shot JR?
I can develop and process photographic film and enlarge prints in a darkroom.
I can write boobs on a calculator
Two that I didn't see listed already:
Can read a map without using GPS
Can build out a coaxial network for LAN parties
Using your shoulder to hold a telephone up to your ear while doing multiple other things at once. Now, the phones are so damned small I drop them.
Still have a landline and I find it useful. I have it for my apartment buzzer and in case of emergencies where we can't find our phone or the battery is dead. I have both a cordless and corded one.
A few:
* How to drive a manual transmission.
* How to remember phone numbers in my head.
* How to untangle, manually wind and repair cassette tape.
* How to plan a cross country trip using nothing more than a Rand McNally Road Atlas and a highlighter.
* How to program in Basic.
* How many dimes to place on a record needle to prevent skipping.
* How to change my own oil, tire, belts, alternator, starter or transmission.
* On a Cathode Ray Tube TV how to: set vertical and horizontal controls, fine-tune the channel using the ring around the channel k**b and how to fashion a wire coat hanger into a VHF antenna.
Texting with 10 key. I still have it all memorized and could pick up a flip phone and send paragraphs if needed.
Driving a stick shift!
Still the most common type of car in the UK (approx 70%). Much better to learn on that and then get an automatic than the other way round.
I can be bored without watching a screen to cope
I remember being so terribly bored back when I was a teen it made me lightheaded. There was nothing I wanted to do. The feeling was like an extreme cringed out feeling. Haven't felt it since I've been an adult. I don't think I get bored at all. There's always something to do.
Burning CDs
Ripping the sides off printer paper without ruining it.
I can fold the edges into little paper stars... I may still have a box of them hiding in the back of a.closet somewhere, which I intended to string into Christmas tree garland. I suppose that has been a work-in-progress for 25-30 years now.
Born 1988, turn the channel to 3 if you want your Nintendo to work
I dusted off my grey box Nintendo for my daughter when she was young. She thought I had magic powers, because I could get a cartridge to work by blowing in it and fidgeting with how it was seated.
I haven’t used this in decades but I used to be able to dial people on a rotary phone by tapping the hang up switch.
Extensive knowledge of DOS commands
Anybody else remember having to manually assign blocks of memory to get MS-DOS games working? Fun times... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIMEM.SYS
Stop the TV picture rolling by twiddling the knob on the back
I outright destroyed Super Mario Brothers in almost no time flat very recently on Nintendo Switch after not having played it for probably 30 years. I did it totally from memory on the just the second run through. I even hit the multiple 1-up glitch on world 3-1. My kids thought I was a god (for just a few minutes).
Me too ... I was able to get my kids over a difficult level. That is the only time I felt like a Cool Mom!
Note: this post originally had 44 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
I trained in glassblowing as part of my Chemistry PhD. It was very useful to be able to fix broken ground-glass joints or make a custom reaction vessel. The class was dropped by the time I graduated as it was cheaper just to buy more glassware than operate a glassblowing workshop
I was buying an ironing board recently, and the person in line behind me was like, "Whoa. Does anybody still use those?" So, I guess I can claim knowing how to iron as my trivial skill.
Excellent skill. There's an art to it to keep already ironed parts from wrinkling as you progress.
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I trained in glassblowing as part of my Chemistry PhD. It was very useful to be able to fix broken ground-glass joints or make a custom reaction vessel. The class was dropped by the time I graduated as it was cheaper just to buy more glassware than operate a glassblowing workshop
I was buying an ironing board recently, and the person in line behind me was like, "Whoa. Does anybody still use those?" So, I guess I can claim knowing how to iron as my trivial skill.
Excellent skill. There's an art to it to keep already ironed parts from wrinkling as you progress.
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