Back in the day before everything was readily available online, you had to take a chance on your favorite artists new album based on one song. The single that was played on the radio is what determined whether or not you would buy the whole thing, and if you committed to it, and it was bad, you were out of luck.

With the popularity of the cell phone, the landline has become almost obsolete. Kids today will never know the satisfaction of slamming the telephone onto the receiver because nowadays, we hang up with the swipe of a finger.

When we come across a lag in our internet in 2020, the longest we wait is a couple seconds. In the 90’s when internet was new, it was typical to wait hours when downloading certain things. Seconds or hours, the little amount of patience we have for waiting has not changed from the 90’s to the 2000’s.

There was nothing like going to the movie store, like Blockbuster or Family Video, to get the newest release out on VHS. There was also nothing like the pain you felt when there were no good ones left in stock.

Before everyone had their own phones, families shared one phone, the home phone. And if you wanted to talk to any of your friends, you had to call their family’s home phone, and ask their parents if they could talk.

It was always exciting when your little 8 year old self got to play graphic designer for a minute when you had a project or presentation. The word art gallery of Microsoft word was the most important part of any project, and deciding on a title style was the hardest part.

Let’s be honest, no one really knew how to play minesweeper, so are today’s kids really missing out on this one. The pre-installed game on nearly every computer proved impossibly hard, and no one really knew how to win or what to click.

Before Spotify, before Limewire, before CD’s, there were cassette tapes and boy were they fragile. The tape inside them that allowed you to listen to your favorite songs would catch any little thing it came in contact with, including your speaker. After that, the tape was either ruined or you had to painstakingly wind it back in.

One thing that alway’s ruined movie night, was if the last person forgot to rewind the VHS. That meant that the first 5 minutes of your night was spent next to the VCR rewinding your movie back to the beginning. In the world of Netflix and digital copies of movies, this is something that we will never have to worry about again

Before unlimited cell phone plans, there were very, very limited plans. You were charged for every outgoing and sometimes incoming message. And sending two in a row was unheard of not to mention expensive, and that’s how shorthand was created.

Before the entirety of the musical world could fit onto one device that fit’s in the palm of your hand, music players couldn’t even fit in your pocket. Not to mention they played one CD. You carried the player, over the ear headphones (ear buds didn’t exist), and if you wanted more than one artist you carried a couple CDs.

Blockbuster, the most exciting place to be on a Friday night as a kid. Getting to pick out movies from the endless shelves was an experience. Nowadays even more movies exist on online streaming services, and you never have to worry about your favorites getting rented or getting out of your pajamas.

Remember when a computer mouse had a little ball on the bottom that allowed it to move around? With a click pad built into laptops and the mouse becoming wireless, kids will never know whatit was like to deal wth one of these.

A lot of high schools are moving to online texts, eliminating the use for text books. Nothing was more fun than comparing names in yours to your friend’s. There were older siblings, popular kids and even famous alum that appeared on these pages if the book was ol enough. Something you could never get online.

Only the cool kids had these pencils. Novelty pencils that never needed to be sharpened, you just pulled one tip out to reveal another perfectly sharpened, that is until you lost one making the whole pencil completely useless…

There are high schools out there that issue all their students personal laptops for homework and school work. Before that was affordable, there was one room in the school dedicated to the computers and it was a treat if you got to go there.

There were a lot of restrictions on phone plans back in the day. Limited characters, set texting minutes, and set calling minutes, but after 9 pm, that all went away. There was no freer feeling than being able to text for free for as long as your bed time permitted.

Before unlimited music and building playlists, you burned CDs. But there was a set amount of storage and you could only fit about 12 songs on one disk, making it very hard for you to tell your crush how you feel in such a short amount of time.

In 2020 all of our libraries exist online. Whether its music, movies or even books, vast libraries exist online. But before the internet, there was always a drawer or two, or possible a closet dedicated to all your VHS tapes. Let’s just hope someone rewound them before putting them away.

Netflix is one of the most popular streaming websites out there today, but today’s kids would never know that before it was an app, you had to order DVDs in the mail.

One of the best parts about old school McDonalds was Ronald McDonald’s crew. There was Ronald, Grimace, Birdie, and of course the Hamburglar. Not only were they McDonald’s mascots, they had their own show and a couple movies.

There were so many versions of the iPod before the iPhone became universal. On of the firsts was the shuffle, a small square with 5 buttons and no screen. So good luck finding your favorite song.

One thing older generations always boast about is being able to talk to people over the phone no matter what, and this was again thank to the land line. It took some courage for a 10 year old to pick up the home phone, dial their friend’s number, and then immediately ask their parents if they could talk.

Coasters? No, these are floppy disks, an early form of electronic storage, and something everyone one forgot about as technology evolved. Theres no way a high school student would know what to do with one of these if you handed it to them.

Imagine having to hop on the computer, log onto mapquest.com, and print out the map and turn by turn directions every time you went somewhere new. Kids these days wouldn’t know how to get anywhere without the apps downloaded on their phones.

Ah yes, Limewire. You were so desperate to have all your favorite music saved on your computer, but it was too expensive to buy it all, so you would rather risk giving your computer every type of virus than pay a cent. Thanks to Limewire you could download anything, but it came with a price to your tech.

It’s common knowledge that weapons aren’t allowed in schools, but this was definitely considered one that got overlooked. It looks harmless, a tightly folded piece of paper pulled back into a rubber band, it’s victims never saw it coming, and the welts they left lasted the rest of the day.

Nintendo 64 is one of the most popular gaming consoles in history. Despite it’s popularity it had one little flaw, the games got dusty easily and often didn’t work on the first try. The ritual went blowing as hard as you could into the cartridge and hoping for the best.

There are all sorts of games and apps you can download on phones, but nothing compares to the GameBoy. This little guy has been around for decades and just kept evolving as time kept passing. Collecting the different versions became a hobby just as much as collecting game cartridges was. And nothing was sweeter than bragging to all your friends about what games you had.

Before it caused too much of a build up in the aisles, kids were able to test out the lates game consoles and games in Walmart. But the catch was that the TV was 6 feet off the ground and you had to crane your neck just to see what you were doing. Kids today will never have the opportunity to wait for their moms in the game aisle while they got all the groceries for that week.

Similar to the GameBoy, the Nintendo DS was the next big thing in hand held gaming. This game though, had a feature that allowed you talk to others that had their DS on nearby. Nothing was better than hopping on the bus after school and logging on to see your crush logged on a few seats over.

When we got older, we graduated from the Nintendo DS to Instant messenger. There was nothing like running home from school to turn on your computer and talk to the exact same people online that you did all day at school.

These day’s you see Champion sweatshirts and merchandise everywhere. Only a select few remember that this brand hasn’t always been this popular. It used to be sold at Walmart, cheap, and a lot of high schoolers were embarrassed to be seen in it.

AOL messaging came out around 22 years ago and changed the communication game forever. Looking at the pictures in these tweets, you can just hear the familiar sounds of notifications and messages.

These were the worst kind of socks, but for some reason they were the only socks. For some reason it seemed like every middle schoolers mother got together just to buy their kids these socks.

Before they all became run down thanks to the growth in online shopping, malls used to be the coolest place to be. Meeting up with your friends to spend your allowance. Eating at multiple restaurants in the food court. Catching random performances in the middle of the escalators. Everything happened at the mall.

When DVDs first came out, it was a big deal because not everyone had them yet. Inviting all your friends over for a movie night, on your new DVD player made you the popular kid in school.

‘I love boobies’, the perfect tag line for a company that raises money for breast cancer. Also the perfect tag line for middle schoolers who want to make themselves look cool and let everyone know that they like girls now.

Here’s a song I bet you forgot about. The onehit wonder Lustra released the song in 2006 and somehow every middle schooler managed to get it on their phone (if you were cool enough to have one) and it spread like wildfire. Most of them barely understood what they were singing about, but it was hip to sing along to.

One of these holographic cards, no matter what sport, was a treat to find in your pack of cards. Then naturally, you had to go to school the next day and be sure to show it off for all your friends to see.

Today’s kids get lost in the mall, they can call, text, iMessage, snapchat, and more to get an immediate response to find their friends. Back in the day if you lost track of someone, you walked up to the cashier and had to ask them to make announcement. An embarrassing moment for everyone involved.

The release of this song was kind of a big deal, I man, tthere was a countdown to her lockdown. Lil Kim was going to jail and she put out a whole album that drove fans crazy. You won’t find today’s pop stars doing tht.

Back in the day, everyones favorite outside activity was whiffle ball. Plastic ball, plastic bat- it was like a safer game of baseball. Today’s kids will never know what it was like to smash one of those balls over the roof and have to end the game because the gutter claimed the ball.

Theres something about social media that has made flirting just downright weird. Instead of talking to your crush in person, you go on their facebook page or instagram and like a post from weeks ago, and start the conversation there before you exchange numbers.

Nineties and early 2000’s toys were the best. From being a kid finger knitting on the rainbow loom to graduating to a Razr cellphone and downloading Angry birds on your iPod touch. It was a simpler time.

It seemed like every history teacher had a banged up collection of VHS tapes on the Civil war. Now teachers can just pulldown a projector screen, plug in their computer, and stream any History Channel special they want.

Before the phone era, most people kept a physical list of the groceries they needed to get. Nowadays you don’t even have to go into the store. You can simply put everything you need in an online cart, and drive up to the parking lot and have your groceries delivered to your car, that simple.

Before it was filled with vloggers and beauty bloggers, YouTube became a big place to find and download music. It was a struggle of course, converting everything to an mp3 format. Now you don’t have to download anything, just your favorite app, whether its Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, or Amazon- they have it all.

Forget the landline and home phone, try giving today’s kids a rotary phone and see if they know how to use it. This is a perfect example to compare how much phones and technology has changed over the decades.

There was nothing better than walking into your next class and seeing this in the front of the room. It could only mean one thing- movie day. Thank goodness times have changed, its easier to see a projector screen from the back row than a 25 inch television.

We aren’t really sure why we would pay $12 for a single pair of Nike socks, but it was status symbol. All we knew was that the socks were a trend, and you had to get socks to match your nike basketball shorts.

Once upon a time, McDonalds only served breakfast at, well, breakfast time, and if you didn’t get there by the time they switched the menu over, you were out of luck.

Back in the day, television sets used to be just that, a whole set. Before there were 50 plus inch screens and HD this or that, a TV was a giant box at the center of the living room, and took up a lot of space, thanks to the enormous back end of it.

Before MTV was bogged down with trashy reality shows and staged dramas, it exclusively showed music videos. There was nothing better than just turning on MTV and letting the music play while you did chores around the house or got ready for the day.

Disney was once home to some amazing shows and are responsible for turning out some major pop stars like Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez. There are still celebs on the shows today, but there isn’t anything on quite like the originals and Disney Games, a special that put all the stars of all the shows on teams to compete in athletic events. It was like a Disney Olympics.

The beauty of the computer is that it has made things faster, easier and more efficient. With this tech in classrooms, students learn how to type faster than they can write which allows their hands to not cramp up taking notes as fast as humanly possible in their notebooks.

This net had it’s pros and cons. On one hand it kept you from having to chase any of your balls around as you hit or threw them into the net. On the other hand, this contraptions was nearly impossible to put away, and never folded the same way twice.

With all the buzz of her new clothing line and the popularity of her makeup line, Rihanna has distanced herself from music the past few years making her more well known for her beauty products than her music among youngsters. Now the only time we hear her is on a throwback playlist from the 2000’s.

Only a few will ever remember what the phrase T9 word meant. It took a long time for cellphones to have full keyboards on them, and even longer to becoming a swiping touch screen. Before keyboards, texts had to be sent using the number pad, which as you can imagine, did not go quickly.