Recently, Reddit user optima0179 took to the popular Ask Reddit page to ask, “What has gradually disappeared over the last 20 years without people really noticing?” and the answers ranged from fascinating to kind of sobering. I personally couldn’t stop reading, so I decided to share some of the most thought-provoking answers!
1.“Privacy.”
“I was having a conversation with my 10th-grade students about universal human rights, and they said there is no right to privacy. Because they’ve only lived in an extremely online world. As a millennial, I tried to get them to consider the viewpoint that even if we don’t have privacy, should we have a right to privacy? But they struggled to even imagine that possibility.”
—u/lyricalcharm
2.“Physical media.”
“This is why I’m collecting Blu-rays. I just can’t be arsed with streaming services anymore, which in some cases require you to pay for a film in addition to your membership. I’d rather buy pre-owned Blu-rays for £1 or £2 each and have them forever instead of paying £4.99 to rent the same film for 48 hours.”
—u/Klossomfawn
3.“Middle-class optimism. There used to be a strong, quiet belief that if you worked hard, played by the rules, and maybe got a degree or two, you’d be okay.”
“Own a home, save up, build a life with some breathing room.
Now everyone’s anxious, overworked, renting forever, and calculating which groceries to leave behind at checkout.”
—u/reddominion_
4.“Bugs.”
—u/Shaper_
“I grew up in a relatively rural area. The city is surrounded by fields. You used to get bugs all over your windshield making the drive out of the city. Now when I return to visit there are none.”
—u/ClinkyDink
“Yup. Our front yard used to have so many fireflies. We could go out and catch them in a jar when we were kids. Now I see just one or two outside at a time.”
—u/__M-E-O-W__
5.“Attention spans.”
ABC
—u/Hiyouuuu
“I’m 48, and the difference in my attention span now vs. what it was in my 20s is insane. I used to read constantly; at least a book per week. Now, I can barely take in a movie in one sitting. Social media and screens obliterated my attention span.”
“Teacher here. Not to be an old man shouting at a cloud, but you can definitely see it in younger generations. They’re good kids, but getting them, particularly the boys, to do any reading or writing is like pulling teeth.”
—u/Moist_Matt
6.“Cool colored cars.”
“Color-everything. Who knew that the future would be so beige? I absolutely hate the new interior design aesthetic.”
7.“Literacy.”
8.“Boredom. No one knows how to be bored anymore. The moment we’re not ‘busy,’ we pull out phones or listen to music or SOMETHING.”
—u/SheBitch
“Not even bored, but just being. I think many find it hard to just watch the world while waiting in line or waiting for someone. It has become a reflex to whip out one’s phone. Remember when it used to be a faux pas to leave your cell phone on the table while at a restaurant?”
—u/-tofunny-
9.Newspaper stands/dispensers.”
“To add on to that: the loss of local newspapers and local news in general.”
10.“Reasonably sized trucks.”
“My first vehicle was a black 1998 Ford Ranger (short bed, flareside, 4.0L V6) that I drove until 2011. Granted, it had more torque than I needed, but holy sweet crap it was just the right size.
I’m 6’4″, and there was legroom for days. I hauled mulch and gravel for my folks for ages, and it never had a single issue. That truck was a goddamn beast.
Today’s Rangers are as big as a 1990s F150, and yeah, I’m biased, but that’s kinda fucked.”
—u/stray1ight
“The beds of these newer, massive trucks look so high up that it would make loading and unloading anything more difficult. They seem less practical than older, smaller models.”
—u/dorjelhakpa
“It’s probably because, like, 90% of people who buy those trucks never actually put anything in the beds. They just buy them for the aesthetic, lol.”
11.“Respect for expertise. The internet has democratized information but blurred the line between knowledge and opinion.”
“Thank you for articulating it so well.”
—u/gss0212
12.“Rotating KFC buckets outside the restaurants.”
“I found it ironic that they were stopped because they were a distraction to drivers and now we have digital billboards that change every 30 seconds.”
—u/KIcko7
13.“Butterflies. They used to be everywhere, all summer long. Now the world uses so many pesticides that I hardly ever see them.”
14.“Civil discourse. It used to be we talked more about what we have in common, and what to do to enjoy our days. All we talk about now is our differences and how we can bicker over them.”
15.“Pay phones.”
16.“Manners.”
RKO Pictures, Walt Disney Studios / Via giphy.com
“It’s wild how, poof! They’re gone these days. I have to remind someone at least once a week at work that it’s against the house rules to tell a dealer to fuck off. They’re always shocked-Pikachu-face when they get kicked out of the casino. Even when I start by just checking the foul language, they always respond with, ‘What is this, a church?’ No, it’s a place of business, and employees aren’t paid to listen to that crap.”
—u/equlalaine
17.“Glaciers. You should all be very alarmed how much has melted.”
18.“Cigarette butts floating in restroom toilets.”
—u/jkaoz
19.“How many people here don’t know the difference between your and you’re, there/their/they’re, etc. It’s really alarming.”
20.“Concert tickets, movie stubs, passport stamps. I really look forward to keeping these items as memorabilia, but now everything is in your digital wallet.”
“The first time I left the country was a few days after my 22nd birthday. I had just gotten my passport and was just as excited to fill it with stamps to commemorate (I’m not huge on pictures, so it was something to have).
I entered five countries that summer, a total of nine times. One stamp.
Ultimately, it isn’t something I look at, so it isn’t the end of the world, but I was a tad disappointed.”
—u/jameusmooney
21.“Back in the early 2000s there was a push for magazines to ease on heavily photoshopped images, and people were advocating for more real-to-life images. Then Snapchat came along with all the filters and blew that out of the water. AI made sure it’ll never return.”
22.“Photo albums!”
23.“Roadside emergency telephone call boxes that dotted freeways have pretty much disappeared, except maybe in certain areas with little or no cellphone reception.”
—u/macross1984
24.“Diversity of information and expression on the internet. Everything is centralizing over few platforms, and most Google search results are companies and social media websites.”
—u/Medytuje
25.“Places where people can just be together hanging out, like Tower Records or Borders.”
—u/dittidot
What do you think? Change might be inevitable, but are there some changes we should be wary of? If anything came to mind to you that’s quietly disappeared in the last 20 years, feel free to share in the comments! I’d love to read all about it.
Or, if you have something to say but prefer to stay anonymous, you can check out this Google form. Who knows — your answer could be included in a future BuzzFeed article!
Note: some comments have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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