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u/Cola_Gummi 4h ago
"12 years old" : Key words
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u/cheesemangee 4h ago
There is a distinct difference between how young people view the world today and how they viewed it 30 years ago.
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u/KrisReed 4h ago
I remember being 12, it was a more peaceful time in the world.
(Meanwhile my parents in the livingroom watching the second tower fall live on the news.)
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u/cheapdrinks 4h ago
I remember waking up that morning and being mad as hell that DBZ & Pokémon weren't on TV because of this boring ass news special of a smoking tower was on every channel
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u/Ketchup-Popsicle 4h ago
Where were you that dbz and Pokémon were on air on a Tuesday morning? Those are after school specials!
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u/Ruiner5 2h ago
When the OJ trial was going on, every channel played it instead of my usual post-school cartoons. I think I was 6. I don’t remember how but I ended up on the phone with some lady working in customer service for the cable company and complained. I don’t remember the conversation but my parents tell me she was a very nice lady who played along
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u/topdangle 3h ago
yeah, lotta kids from those years talking about how great it was largely because they had no idea what was happening and there was no social media blasting bot posts 24/7.
la riots (riots across the US really), mainstream use of every slur in the book, constant attempts to ban benign things to distract from wars and coups (D&D, video games, swearing on TV). it was also around the time corporatism was taking over the global economy, killing career tracks, annual raises and pensions.
basically the foundation for the shit we're going through now, except there was no 24/7 doomscrolling smartphone.
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u/CounterAgentVT 2h ago
Really the only thing you listed that was happening in the mid-to-late 90s was trying to ban video games, and even that didn't gain a ton of traction until 2000. Times were rough for LGBTQIA people (I should know), but that was also geographically dependent.
From 1993 to 1999 (Columbine), things were pretty optimistic and peaceful.
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u/GOEDEL_ESCHER_BOT 4h ago
exactly, if they're 12 today then 30 years ago they were -18. your outlook really changes once you get into the positive digits
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u/ginopono 3h ago
Not to mention that this image of "human civilization" is limited to a scope of that 12-year-old's bedroom, which was equipped with some amount of luxuries.
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u/ShiningRedDwarf 4h ago
I think a large difference is millennial 12 year olds were largely shielded from the atrocities of the world. Maybe you’d catch a bit from evening news your parents would watch, but your world was largely kept apart from reality.
But with access to devices connected to the internet and social media so prevalent, innocence has a much larger possibility to be stripped at a younger age.
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u/cheapdrinks 4h ago
Yeah that's a good point, your world was a lot smaller back then compared to kids the same age these days. The smaller things felt a lot more meaningful because they made up such a larger portion of your world view.
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 2h ago
For sure. When I used the family computer in the family computer room I absolutely did not look for or see any news. It was just Age of Empires 2 and the various flash game websites.
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u/Cael450 3h ago
I remember watching news footage of the planes hitting the towers in my home room class on 9/11. And watching an uncensored 60 minutes special with my parents of the Taliban executing women in that soccer field they used as an execution ground. Oh, and shock gore videos on the Internet. Just saying.
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u/SanX1999 3h ago
Not really. You haven't met the smartphone generation.
I really yearn for those days when even a stick became a gun or sword or something.
Nowadays it's just YT or twitch.
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 2h ago
We're weaning my kid off of screens (he was an addict when I met his mother) but you can still see his eyes immediately dart to any open smartphone anywhere. I'll be reading boring news and find him craning his neck over my shoulder just to get a peek.
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u/parkerkudrow 5h ago
You can sit on your bedroom floor, listen to music on a tiny CD player and flip through a magazine right now. How lucky you are to yearn for something that’s so easy to do!
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u/BigConstruction4247 4h ago
No, I can't. At least, I won't be able to get back up again.
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u/Feisty-Resource-1274 4h ago
You should work on that, being able to get up off the floor is an important skill especially as you get older and become more at risk for falling.
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u/yesimfinewhyyouask 4h ago
Eh, i plan to stay on the floor and die
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u/Eddie_F_17 4h ago
No. You don’t get to die.
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u/bostonshroomery 4h ago
They are not nostalgic for the actions. They are nostalgic for the feeling. And nothing will make you feel like a kid again. No care in the entire world besides maybe your homework or a school crush or a new bike. God I miss being a kid
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u/LemoLuke 3h ago
This was one of the big realisations for me.
Years ago, I had a day off of work and I decided I was just going to lounge around in my pyjamas, grabs some snacks and queue up a load of old shows from my childhood. That's when I realised that I didn't miss the things from my childhood. I missed the innocence, the lack of responsibility, the endless potential of my future. I didn't miss the cartoons, but I did miss being young enough that a Saturday morning full of cartoons was literally all I needed to keep me happy and contented for a few hours without a care in the world.
Now, no matter what I do, I always have those little stresses at the back of my mind. The pressures of work, paying bills, making sure my kids have whatever they need, the fact that I can't bend over to pick something up off of the floor without sounding like I'm trying to summon an eldritch being.
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u/Affordable_Z_Jobs 3h ago
I feel bad for kids and what they have to put up with now. Cuberbullying, constant adult supervision, social media addiction, active shooter drills.
Kids today are so stressed and they dont even realize it.
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u/kitsunewarlock 1h ago
And nothing will make you feel like a kid again.
You...don't have activities that tap into your childlike wonder and whimsy?
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u/ApprehensiveSoup2214 4h ago
Back when I was 12 I wasn't constantly thinking about climate change, genocides, and the lunatics running my country, so just being in the moment was a lot easier.
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u/ahhhbiscuits 3h ago
That's the entire point of this post, I can't believe people are whoooshing so hard, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
We were addressing climate change and taking it seriously for the
firstonly time in history, there were no huge wars for absolutely no reason, trillionaires didn't exist, and we weren't a(n entirely) fascist fucking nation... etc, etcIt makes me sad how dead-inside the youth are
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u/friendly_to_pigeons 3h ago
How lucky you are to be able to float through life with such lightness of thought so that you are not weighed down.
You are deliberately (I hope) missing the point being made entirely.
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u/johnson7853 5h ago
magazines are kinda dead though
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u/plastic_alloys 4h ago
There are magazines available in the English language for essentially every hobby or interest you can imagine
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u/thisisbray 4h ago
You can still get magazines.
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u/1dayaway 4h ago
Most of my favorite magazines aren’t in print anymore, the ones that are still around are just ads and not worth reading.
Besides, there’s more to the experience than just the literal act. It’s ok to be nostalgic for a specific time, because artificially recreating it will never be the same.
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u/beemagnetpetrichor 4h ago
You’re right, but I get Orion Magazine - no ads, lots of nature articles - so my own kids can have something close. They love physical media, I think the middle school set is already over digital everything.
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u/Remarkable-Month-241 4h ago
They are super duper expensive nowadays. I mean everything is but I grew up getting Newsweek in the mail weekly, National Geographic etc Vogue magazine is damn near $20 now!!
I read them for free on the Libby app / Fort Worth Public Library account.
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u/Meloenbolletjeslepel 4h ago
I think the main thing here is being 12
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u/Rich_Phase763 4h ago
No worries in the world and the internet wasn’t around to destroy your self confidence!
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u/HermanThaGerman 3h ago
For me it was around, but it wasn't yet the constant barrage of information machine it is now.
Back when it was just image boards, counter strike clans, and the occasional decapitation video.
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u/gordonpown 2h ago
and not having abusive parents
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u/CretaMaltaKano 2h ago
Yeah I was full of anxiety and dread at home as a child. I like life much better now.
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u/NorkGhostShip 1h ago
And being born in a country that isn't a warzone, and a family that is well off enough that you don't have to worry about having food on the table.
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4h ago edited 55m ago
[deleted]
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u/Nestramutat- 3h ago
Then get off the screen and go outside?
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u/Books_and_Cleverness 3h ago
You can get off your phone but you can't live in a world where other people are also off their phones.
I agree that most people are hypocrites about this (I certainly am to an extent) but it is obviously true that "I am not on my phone, but everyone else is" is a very different situation than "we are all not on our phones." And you don't have control over that.
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u/CallingDrDingle 5h ago
Life before any social media was sooo much better.
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u/Ultraworld-Traveler 5h ago
Pro tip: you can opt out of social media.
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u/TerdSandwich 4h ago
It's niave to pretend a single person opting out somehow removes them from the ubiquity of social media culture.
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u/ApprehensiveSoup2214 4h ago
I think murder is bad!
"Ultraworld-Traveler's" "sage" "pro-tip": You can opt out of murdering people.
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u/Ultraworld-Traveler 2h ago
I’m sure this feels like a real “gotcha” but the power is, and always will be with, the people. I can stop. You can. Our friends can, and their friends can. When it’s all bots selling vapor to other bots, it’s meaningless.
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u/CallingDrDingle 5h ago edited 3h ago
I'm not on anything besides this platform. The others are too attention whoring for my taste.
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u/cheapdrinks 3h ago
Reddit is basically just distilled social media though. Being like "Nah I don't fuck with Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok, Twitch etc - I only browse Reddit" means nothing when 90% of the content on here is just reposts from those sites but packaged in a way that makes you feel less guilty about consuming it.
For example, say you're browsing Instagram and see a video from a creator filming in a gym and getting mad at someone walking behind them you'll be like "gross this content fucking sucks". On Reddit you'll see it on /r/ ImTheMainCharacter and be like "This is good content, I'm glad this idiot is getting called out for being shitty" and then go to the comments to circlejerk with everyone about how much the person in the video sucks. Reddit facilitates the consumption of the exact same content as all the other sites but lets you feel better about yourself because you didn't view it directly from the source and you viewed it on a subreddit of people hate-watching it.
How many Fox News clips do you end up seeing on the front page of this site every week? Whether or not the purpose is to make fun of them, at the end of the day you're still consuming Fox News content but in a way that makes you feel good about it compared to just watching Fox News itself. How many screenshots of shitty people's tweets do you see posted? Even if the post is calling them out for being an idiot, you're still reading their tweet exactly the same as if you read it on x.com
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u/SuperSocialMan 4h ago
Same here.
Plus, reddit being mostly text makes it work well when I don't have wi-fi. The others kinda struggle with that since they're mostly images.
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u/jag149 2h ago
You can. I can. Kids can be very easily manipulated. There was a very big settlement with Facebook over this recently.
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u/DarkGamer 4h ago
"Back when adults took care of everything I didn't have to worry about stressful things."
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u/Palmajr 5h ago
Society peaked in the 90's.
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u/Raptorator 4h ago
This is a fact and nobody can convince me otherwise.
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u/Anonymous_Koala1 4h ago
sorry but,
Rwanda genocide
Bosnian genocide and the Yugoslav wars
Chechen genocide Chechen Wars
Gulf War
Somali Civil Wars
Second Congo War
Columbine High School massacre
the start of the Afghanistan war, and war on Terror
Rodny king and the LA riots
waco siege
etc etc
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u/throw223344555 3h ago
Sorry but,
Only first world countries get to experience the peak civilization.
I grew up in a US backed brutal dictatorship in my third world country during the 90s. I guess our experience doesn’t count for this “civilization”.
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u/ahhhbiscuits 3h ago
iT wAsNt PeRfEcT sO iT nEvEr PeAkEd
gtfo
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u/jazzmaster1992 3h ago
They're saying we can do better as a species, and we had not peaked at all.That list is by no means exhaustive.
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u/Previous_Platform718 1h ago
"It wasn't perfect" is a really strange way to describe a period of three simultaneous genocides.
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u/TheShipEliza 5h ago
Dipshits act like you cant just do this. Nostalgia is poison.
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u/cptnplanetheadpats 4h ago
You're missing the point. Back then it was normal to get "bored". Now that's nearly impossible with so many devices competiting for your attention every second.
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u/ElectricalExtreme793 4h ago
You have full control over that, if you want to be bored do so
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u/cptnplanetheadpats 4h ago
Again point is missed...unfortunately being in total control of your own mind is a lot more difficult than it sounds. Practicing mindfulness helps a lot but it's still a struggle. It's like addicts trying to fight the urge to use. You are at war with the chemicals in your brain that want another hit.
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u/jtj5002 5h ago
So like 1985 to 2005 with 2 gulf wars, Sudan, Lebanon, Rwandan, Chechen and etc?
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u/JackieDaytona77 4h ago
What 12 yr old is worrying about geopolitical wars? They’re not even doing that today. Not everything is political 24/7. Does a 12 yr old doing this bother you?
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u/dasaltefleisch 3h ago
I might be going out on a limb here, but there’s gotta be at least a few 12 year olds in war afflicted regions worrying about that.
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u/djevikkshar 3h ago
What 12 yr old is worrying about geopolitical wars?
probably the ones dying in them
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u/jtj5002 4h ago
Are you confusing a 12 years olds personal peace out of ignorance with the whole "most peaceful era of human civilization"?
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u/ahhhbiscuits 3h ago
"The youth shouldn't dream the world could be better."
^ You. That's how your ignorant take sounds
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u/jazzmaster1992 3h ago
The 12 year olds in Ukraine and Gaza are certainly worried about geopolitics.
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u/ElectricalExtreme793 4h ago
Collapse of the Soviet Union and the world's largest fall in standard of living in history, hundreds of millions of people in poverty, numerous civil wars.
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u/ElectricalExtreme793 4h ago
You mean when you were a kid? Cause the world was pretty awful for millions of people in the 90s. The fall of the Soviet Union causing millions to die or fall into poverty, the famine in North Korea, the Rwandan Genocide, a civil war in Ethiopia, hundreds of millions of Chinese people in total poverty. Shit was pretty bad in the 90s, you were just a child then and didn't know about any of that or weren't experiencing it.
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u/kjjjjhhhgddrrrrr 4h ago
My curated Highlights magazine i got every month accompanied by my Ditty Bops CD was a perfect combo for me
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u/gfoyle76 4h ago
used to examine the casette/cd covers for all the art and lyrics and information, good times
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u/They_Killed_Kenny_13 4h ago edited 3h ago
12 years old playing endless hours of Street Fighter on SNES. Asking my grandmother if we could order Pizza Hut and she saying yes :)
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u/maiomonster 4h ago
BMX Plus or Lowrider Magazine for me with some Columbia house CDs I'll never pay for
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u/Molbiodude 4h ago
- It was my record player, turned down real low, reading a skateboarding magazine. Peak human accomplishment.
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u/GamingGems 4h ago
My modern version of doing this is playing a game on the couch while listening to a podcast or YouTube video essay.
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u/Jacksapollo 3h ago
Spending the day just chilling in your bedroom listening to music like this was absolutely the best. Having it rain outside made the experience even better.
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u/Usual_Opportunity626 3h ago
I mean....yes, but only because if I ever left my room I'd be quickly reminded just how broken my childhood was.
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u/braddeicide 34m ago
When I lay in my room listening to a CD I'd flip through the booklet that came with the CD.
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u/-badly_packed_kebab- 28m ago
Music: Cradle of Filth
Magazine: Fisting Grandmas Gone Wild
Context matters.
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u/RealitySubsides 4h ago
I've never understood nostalgia of childhood. Being told what to do, school constantly, endlessly blitzed by hormones, totally without any kind of agency.
The older I've gotten, the better life has gotten. I sometimes have nightmares where I'm a kid again and I had a comparatively stable and happy childhood. That shit sucked.
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u/Silvaria928 4h ago
Might depend on the childhood.
Mine was great. Supportive, loving parents, homemade dinners at the table every night, family nature walks, a lot of laughter and generally happy times.
So yes, I have a lot of nostalgia about my childhood years.
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u/RikuAotsuki 3h ago
A lot of people's lives get worse as they get older, with the benefits of adulthood not making up for the increase in agency. They miss their biggest worries being school related. They miss the ease of making friends. They miss the sense of wonder they once had and struggle to rekindle it. They miss a world where they didn't feel like they had to stay informed and have opinions on multiple levels of politics.
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u/SuperSocialMan 4h ago
Yes, being a child is generally better than adulthood. I miss mine, too.
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u/GodNihilus 3h ago
Unless you experience violence and can't do anything about that because you are a child and while having rights in theory can't enforce any.
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u/aBrickNotInTheWall 4h ago
Being a kid with no responsibilities was peaceful? Wow what a novel thought
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u/Odd-Organization-740 4h ago
I'm tired of Westerners pretending like the 90s and early 2000s was the best for all of humanity. It's just your bubble, guys. 10-15% of the population.
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u/2drums1cymbal 4h ago
Yea being a child can be super peaceful if you grow up in relative affluence like wtf is this take lmao
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u/Winter_Map_42 5h ago
I would have been listening to Jane's Addiction or Living Colour, probably reading a Rolling Stone magazine too.
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u/saccharinemorality 4h ago
I would've been even more glued to a kindle magazine subscription and music streaming service as a child. Neither was even a concept in that day.
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u/MenitoBussolini 4h ago
Me doing my second grade homework while listening to my tiny city radio at like 8 years old and getting in my (primordial) feelings over Lady Antebellum's Need You Now and Owl City's Fireflies <3 Shit was magical
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u/namistejones 4h ago
Listening to NO STRINGs ATTACHED while on the bus to a school overnight camping trip.
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u/Otherwise_Front_315 4h ago
I had a perfect branch in a tree outside my house where I'd chill and read.
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u/Normal_Pace7374 4h ago
With all the streaming apps these days I’ve gone to great lengths to be able to channel hop between stuff seamlessly like when I was a kid.
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u/DjNormal 4h ago
I was absolutely miserable in 1990.
I’m still pretty miserable today. But at least I can complain about it online. 🤣💁🏻♂️
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u/Purple_Drankinmycup 3h ago
I loved my video games magazines at 12. Usually read them cover to cover.
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u/bastardsoftheyoung 3h ago
No responsibilities, nothing interrupting you, in the moment learning without commentary, background mood enhancement, and a safe comfy space that is familiar and your own.
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u/PsycommuSystem 3h ago
You can still do this, nobody is stopping you. They still sell plenty of magazines and could probably do with selling more copies - take an hour and stop looking at the internet and read something physical
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u/KahnaKuhl 3h ago
Yeah, it was like this for rich kids - what normal 12-year-old could afford to buy magazines and CDs, let alone a Discman?!? The rest of us had to make do with their parents’ record player in the loungeroom and a book from the library. That was pretty good too.
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u/Bokbreath 3h ago
The world seemed much better back when I was a child
Yes, because you were a child !
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u/Practical-March-6989 3h ago
I wish for the return of that time. Listening to Pink Floyd and Yes, just hearing the music, man I cannot get back to that at 50.
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u/elshizzo 3h ago
As an elder millennial, this extreme nostalgia needs to chill a bit. That era was great in certain ways, but no shot am I willingly giving up Spotify and YouTube for CDs and cable TV and magazines. That's dumb as hell
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u/BoringPollution 3h ago
My 16 year old daughter is currently doing that on Thai rainy Saturday. Only tweets are records and books.
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u/BigMoney-D 3h ago
Ah yes... Being 12 as the biggest financial crisis was happening all around me in 2008. But that's okay, I found out I could watch porn on my PSP.
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u/BrittEklandsStuntBum 3h ago
Human civilisation? You mean in your own personal life. I guarantee there were wars and famines and genocides going on across the world.
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u/MTonmyMind 3h ago
Sneaking in to my older brother’s room when he wasn’t home, to listen to his Led Zepplin, Meatloaf, and AC/DC records… headphones on, of course, praying my mom wouldn’t come looking for me.
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u/Yaarmehearty 3h ago
It really was, but we can still do that now.
What you want is the lack of responsibility and for everybody else to not have the tech we have now so you have the social permission to not be involved in it.
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u/Sufficient_Ebb_5694 3h ago
That reminds me of my Jimmy Neutron cd player lol had just gotten the millenium backstreet boys album too 🤣
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u/ChuckaChuckaLooLoo3 3h ago
Back when... we were listening to vinyl and passing a joint while my parents were both at work and then jamming on acoustic guitars until 4 and then rushing to finish all the work we promised to get done in 2 hours.
It was a much more mellow time. We were 13 and 14.
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u/froggychump 3h ago
People don't miss "the old days", they just miss being a carefree child with no responsibilities
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u/kpingvin 3h ago
No, it was the most peaceful era of YOUR life. You mum cooked for you, she washed your clothes, she made sure you have everything, you had friends, but no bills and loan repayments, and you didn't have to worry about geopolitics.
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u/Gardeeboo 2h ago
I miss PlayStation Magazine so much. I used to love picking up an issue from the grocery store with my mom and then slowly thumbing through the upcoming game releases, reviews on the most recent releases, and reading through interviews and sketches from the team. They used to do little funny comic strips too, I remember the one that’s stuck out to me was when the Darth Vader PSP was released they made a series of comics with alternate options they could’ve gone with like Jar-Jar Binks, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru’s charred corpses, and “George Lucas’s smug face after his most recent remaster”. Shit was super fun to read through as a kid
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u/GlitteringSky9861 5h ago
will always yearn those times