Note: This is from one of those fun email forwards…
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning… uphill BOTH ways yadda, yadda, yadda. And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!
But now that I’m over the ripe old age of thirty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today.
You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don’t know how good you’ve got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!
There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter. With a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
There were no MP3’s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around al l day to tape it off the radio and the DJ’d usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!
We didn’t have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that’s it! There were no cell phones. You had to share the kitchen phone with the super long cord with everyone else in the entire family. And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, a collections agent, you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn’t have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! You had to go to an arcade to play games. Games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘asteroids’. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!
And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!
And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!
When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn’t see, you were just screwed!
In the early days, there wasn’t even cable television! Back then you had only 5 channels. Eventually cable came out, but it was only around 15 channels, and there was no on screen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!
And we didn’t have microwaves eitehr. If we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire … imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid air popper machine – or if you were “rich” you got the Jiffy Pop thing and you shook it over the stove forever like an idiot.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled. You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1978!
Regards,
The over 30 Crowd
UPDATE:
OMG, this is great!
Hmm… I’m only 24 but I remember half that stuff… I remember card catelogs… I remember recording off the radio onto a tape that would end up getting caught in my tape player eventually… long ass cord on the phone only to end up tangling it every step.
I think maybe it should be aimed towards the under 24 crowd… =D
Sucks for you.. had to build a fire to cook left overs.. haha! I’d surive.. who needs all this junk anyways. Waste of plastic.
I’m going to answer your rant with a question.
If we have it so good then why are we the first generation that is living below the means of our past generations?
Just because we have the ability to do things better than before doesn’t mean we take it for granted, it means that you took your childhood for granted. You complain about having to look information up in an encyclopedia and are calling us spoiled because we never had to do it. Was it so bad that you had to spend an extra 5 minutes. To conclude i ask you this, are you not living anymore. You have the same access to the things the “under 30 crowd” have today, so does that make you spoiled. Maybe you should think about the fact that just because we aren’t 30 yet rotting in some dead end job pissed off at the rest of the world when you really you don’t realize how spoiled you are. I don’t know why this comment provoked so much response from me, I’m guessing because i get the impression that you think you have the right to all of these fascinating new technologies because of your age.
Okay, the first thing you have to understand, youth, is that this isn’t a rant. It is a JOKE. It’s not really angry, it’s HUMOR.
It’s funny because we had parents and grandparents who said virtually the same things to us, and now we look at the world around us and see why they were yelling. And we look at the generation below us – you guys – and understand where you are coming from, too. It’s funny because we’re standing on a bridge between young and old and we can see the answers, and we want to laugh about it before we get old and forget.
It’s also funny because we do remember the days when there were no remote controls and we got up to change the television channel – mainly because our parents were sitting around on the couch and they made us do it for them so they didn’t have to get up.
You also said this: “If we have it so good then why are we the first generation that is living below the means of our past generations?”
You guys have far more advantages to get you started than any generation before you. You don’t seem to be grabbing those advantages, though. You guys have the technology – you can rebuild him (80’s reference). You can change the way elections occur so that people with fat loads of cash can’t buy they people they want into power. You have the technology to keep an eye on Wall Street and stop them from doing unethical things. You have the power to band together and get a good guy – or lots of good guys – into office to give you better opportunities. (Thanks for coming out for Obama; we’ve been dying for the youth vote for a couple decades!)
It’s certainly true that you’re going to have more challenges than any generation since the Great Depression. Believe me, I wish I could change that for you. This bullshit economy – most of us got blindsided by that. We were told throughout our school days that the Great Depression couldn’t ever happen again, because they had laws in place to keep banks and corporations from doing all the greedy and unethical things that they’ve been doing. When they quietly dismantled those laws, we didn’t know it was happening.
You say this “I’m guessing because i get the impression that you think you have the right to all of these fascinating new technologies because of your age.”
Dude, we invented these new technologies. So, they’re ours, because we created them for you. You can thank us, any time. I’m serious, here – I’ve been working on the internet since 1994 – I had a role in making this brave new world. Not as big a role as others, but a role, nonetheless.
It’s kinda sad though, for you, that instead of using this cool new toys to shoot for the stars, many of you are busy using them to snap pictures of girls under the table without their knowledge, and text your friends about how you’re picking your butt. That’s they thing about all these fascinating new technologies – we can see exactly how you guys are using them. Like morons, most of you.
I guess what I’m trying to say is – please stop texting pictures of girls panties around, and use this technology to end hunger, bring peace, and give everyone opportunities to grow up healthy, happy and prosperous.
That’s what we invented them for. Okay, we actually made them so we wouldn’t have to get off the couch, but that’s what they can be USED for.
spoiled..?
I’m paying for your retirement plan and medicare. I would take your place anyday!
Jokes are supposed to be funny…this is not.
Sorry kiddo, but you need to learn math. More 20 and 30 somethings live at home with their parents – US – than ever before: as many as 33% – 1 in three. And more retirement-aged folks live at home supported by their 40 and 50-something kids than ever before. My generation is supporting the generation before us AND the generation after us.
Not only is my generation — the 40 and 50 somethings — paying their own way on both retirement and medicare, we’re paying into these for the staggeringly large population above us; the baby boomers, who outnumber us by 3 to 1. And you spoiled under 30s outnumber us by 2:1, so you’ll only be paying for half.
But we can support 3 generations at once, because unlike you kids, we’re not whiny cry-babies.
I’m reading this book called “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans”–It hits on a lot of what we a discussing here. I agree that in general, my age group is immature, but how did we get that way? Your generation taught us to be this way. You can’t be mad at my generation for following a path that your generation cut out for us. I’m a 21-year-old senior at a very well-known ,private, liberal arts college. I have been supporting myself for three years now. Everything I own is paid for. My credit score is higher than a lot of the adults I know. I have my apartment paid for for the next six months. I work full time as a graphic designer. I didn’t throw my life away during high school– I worked my butt off to get where I am today.
I pay taxes just like you do, which means I am also paying for the same generation that you are paying for–except you have a better chance of seeing some of that money than I do. Yeah, I might be a little bitter about that one. Your generation has a HUGE hand in the current economic crisis, and guess who gets to fix it? My generation, and the ones to follow.
My generation has problems, for sure, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, mommy.
I’m sure you will disagree with what I have said, and maybe I would too if I were your age. But I think I should at least get a little credit for being where I am today.
” When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, a collections agent, you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister! ”
That is so classic.. I remember them days
im 18 and i dont have call id on my cell phone cause it costs extra. its really not a big deal haha. every generation will have better technology than the last until some appocolapse happens. i do find the humour in this though. but if you wonder why people get pissed off about this read your own post:
” When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning… uphill BOTH ways yadda, yadda, yadda… there was no way in hell i was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!”
no teenager or young person wants to hear how easy theyve got it because everyone has shitty problems. and half the time we feel like we got screwed over by your generation for global warming, cancer causing toxins, and the economy. the only problem i had with this was saying that we should use all this great technology to change the world and we aren’t. well newsflash teenagers dont run the world. ill get right on saving the economy after im dont school. your generation is the one that holds most of the power so maybe you guys should use all the great technology you created to solve our problems.
Hey, it’s not like we knew anything about global warming or cancer-causing toxins, so we could hardly guard against them for you. Or for us either – because we’re obviously bearing the brunt of those as well. I have a friend dying of cancer right now, so your generation hardly has a beef with us about that.
And as far as the economy goes – talk to Wall Street. We lost $80,000 in a day in September of 2008. Whatever might happen for you economically down the road, I guarantee it won’t be as bad as that.
Reading this made my day…and I’m 23. You young whiners really should get a life. Does anyone know what a joke is anymore? It’s funny. Laugh, and move on. Jeez!!!
I’m 17 and I find this little joke funny as hell! But you really can’t blame us for using products your generation created. For us. Call us spoiled. Ya I admit I am. But I’m not a brat. And I take advantage of this technology. There’s a big difference. Not out fault we were born when we were!