Ah, the 90s—a time when our biggest worry was whether our parents would cancel the family trip to Disney for the third year in a row because they insisted we could have just as much fun at home, watching reruns of “Full House.” Remember when the only thing “buffering” meant was the time it took for us to finish our Pop-Tarts before sprinting to the couch for Saturday morning cartoons? Those were the days, when technology was a boombox and if you wanted to listen to music, you actually had to purchase a physical cassette or risk being judged for your questionable taste at the local record store.
Fast forward a few decades, and here we are, living in a world where the slightest hint of Wi-Fi interruption sends us into full-blown panic mode. I can almost hear the collective gasp of my fellow Gen-Xers as we remember the last time the internet went down. It was like a scene from “The Walking Dead,” except instead of zombies wandering the streets, it was a horde of adults, bereft of their scrolling, clutching their smartphones like they were life preservers thrown into shark-infested waters. For five horrific hours—an eternity in millennial time—we found ourselves stranded, communing with family members we were pretty sure had become strangers who lived in our house.
What did we do in our dark ages, you ask? Some of us resorted to the brutal practice of “talking” to one another, recalling the art of face-to-face conversation that seemingly went out of style faster than Hammer Pants. Others dusted off the old board games, a nostalgic throwback to when Monopoly disputes left families divided and friendships in shambles. And let’s not even get started on the sheer horror of watching TV without streaming services—what was this twisted reality? Was I supposed to endure cable channels? With all those commercials? The horror!
When the Wi-Fi miracle finally returned, there were cheers like a scene from a John Hughes movie—a collective expression of relief mixed with gratitude, because we could finally dive back into the endless scrolling vortex of TikTok dances, unsolicited political rants, and cat videos that somehow always manage to make everything better. So as we navigate this brave new world of Wi-Fi outages that threaten to unravel our very existence, let’s remember to take a moment to appreciate our past. Back when our biggest online dilemma was trying to connect to AOL without interrupting the family phone line. Now THAT was living.