"Pre-'90s Skills" That Are Basically Obsolete . . . Like Unknotting Curly Telephone Wire
Everyday skills change over time . . . mostly due to new technologies. Like these days, kids don't need to know the best angle and air pressure to blow into a video game cartridge to make it work.
People online are talking about the "pre-'90s" everyday skills that they have . . . but are basically obsolete now. Here are the best ones:
1. Wrapping textbook covers with a brown paper bag. Textbooks are mostly online now . . . and there's no need to wrap a Chromebook in a paper bag.
2. Unknotting curly telephone wires to get all the curls facing the right way. Landline phones are gone . . . but untangling cords is still useful. For now.
3. Giving the TV a "karate chop" to fix the reception.
4. Remembering phone numbers.
5. The ability to make and count out change for a purchase. That's even an expiring skill for CASHIERS. One person joked, "The total was $9.91. I gave the cashier $10.01. And you'd think I handed them a live grenade."
6. Setting up a VCR to record a TV show in advance.
7. Writing in cursive. And reading it.
8. Using the Dewey Decimal System at the library.
9. Re-folding a map correctly. And maybe even USING one.
10. Developing and processing photographic film, and enlarging prints in a darkroom. (Yes, as an "everyday skill" . . . but as an artistic, analog creative thing, it probably won't ever be fully obsolete.)
(Buzzfeed.com has the full list.)
(Of course, we also GAIN new "skills.")
(30 years ago, it would've been a LOT harder for you to arrange for a stranger to pick you up in their Subaru, and give you a ride home from the bar. Now, most people can do that within a few minutes, without even talking to anyone.)
Originally posted on June 20th, 2023