It is the third of July in the year 2064 in the Silicon Magnolias retirement home where our author resides. Most of the old farts here are gathered around the television to catch the episode of Digimon streaming today in their holographic rocking chairs with a bowl of ramen while cozily wrapped in their blankets. The box Box wears on his head is wrinkled beyond belief and is probably a bit mouldy around the moist corners. Today would be a good day, as O’Rocks senior taps away on his ancient computing slab, working on who knows what under the noise of an awful Saturday morning dub and that unholy slurping.
It feels weird being in this generation. A lot of people around my age are complaining about how someone just as old as them or a bit younger never used a piece of technology, watched a show, or heard of something that used to be common in some bygone years. When I mean “bygone years”, I mean the 1990s and even the early 2000s.
People in my generation either know what it was like to sign onto AOL to get on the Internet and got cursed out because your parents were expecting a call or they didn’t. People either played 3D video games from the get-go or they got excited seeing the latest newfangled development in the third dimension. They either turned a wheel on their disposable cameras and left them to get developed or they always snapped a picture digitally. Funny to see how much spanned these few years. Either the 2000s is a more sophisticated 1990s or the 1990s was a more primitive 2000s. That feeling gets weirder watching sitcoms from that era. I think we’re actually a transitional generation. From the old ways of the 20th century on the way to the new ways of the 21st century. Us late millenials have a bit of both.
And yet this past seems to still be living culturally in some ways. Contrary to popular belief, people know what vinyl records and cassettes are because they’re back in fashion (but CDs are dying for some reason 🤔).1 The last time I even saw a Pokémon trading card was 1999 in elementary school, and lo an behold, there’s a bunch of kids playing that card game first step in a new local gaming shop in 2020.
Either way, steel yourself for time’s passage. It’ll come back to haunt you endlessly.
Day 4 of 100 of the 100 Days to Offload.
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Just something I’ve noticed on Bandcamp for some of the music I buy. I usually grab them in CD form but for some reason those are becoming less common in favor of a download, a record, or a cassette. Shame. I like CDs. ↩