Ah, the good old days of the 80s and 90s, when our biggest dilemma was whether to wear our Esprit windbreakers with scrunchies or stick to our acid-washed jeans and ratty Nirvana T-shirts. Back then, we didn't have to swipe right on potential mates; we simply met them on the battlefield of high school lunchroom drama, armed with nothing but our Walkman and a couple of cheesy mixtapes. Honestly, if you weren't trying to write a love letter on the back of a Trapper Keeper while listening to "Smells Like Teen Spirit," were you really even living?
Back then, our life skills revolved around dialing a rotary phone, navigating through a game of Oregon Trail, and knowing how to avoid the dreaded “You’ve got mail!” sound from AOL. The internet, if you can believe it, was not just a series of cat memes and conspiracy videos, but a magical place where we could argue about whether Jason Bateman was the best character in "Family Ties." (Spoiler alert: He was! Sorry, Alex P. Keaton, but I’m a staunch Team Mallory member.) Nowadays, if you misspell "Y2K," a swarm of internet trolls descends, ready to make you relive your most embarrassing moments like they just hopped off the set of "Saved by the Bell."
What’s more ridiculous is that we survived without a GPS. That's right! We had the audacity to use these ancient artifacts called paper maps. Remember when you had to print out directions from MapQuest? Then you’d miss your turn and instantly realize you were now “lost” in the Bermuda Triangle of the suburban sprawl. It was basically a rite of passage to argue with your friend, “Yes, we turn left after the second Starbucks!” (Oh, the power of nostalgia! Just now, I can almost taste that burnt coffee and cinnamon roll of regret.)
Of course, we also played video games that involved blowing into cartridges to get them to work because, you know, technology was helping us live our best lives—except when it wasn’t. My first console was a Nintendo Entertainment System, which made me feel like a modern-day magician every time I pressed "Start." I had to blow into the cartridge like it owed me money, but darn it, that 8-bit music will forever be etched in my brain, right next to the sounds of my parents yelling at me to take out the trash while I was trying to save Princess Peach.
So here we are, standing on the precipice of adulthood, scrolling through social media feeds filled with filtered versions of our friends' lives (who all still look 18, for some reason). Meanwhile, we're over here trying to find the emotional stability to navigate a world that didn't have TikTok or constant FOMO. Can't we just go back to the simpler times when a cool skateboard trick was all it took to impress someone? Ah, sweet, sweet nostalgia—please don't ghost me like my last relationship did!