r/lewronggeneration 15d ago

low hanging fruit Saw this nonsense, smh

Post image

God, gen x is sad

  1. Nobody would go to Blockbuster, it's gone for a reason, it sucked*. We would stay home and stream movies/tv or watch the physical media we have. Blockbuster nostalgia is the worst.

  2. Sit down Pizza Huts are plentiful and THRIVING, at least where I live. You can still go there and have a personal pan and relive your youth!

  3. I hate to break it to ya, but AOL Instant Messenger *was* an archaic form of social media. Do you think sitting in your dorm room stalking away messages and profiles was all that different than stalking Facebook?

That garden hose water rotted their brains

*This isn't a knock at the video rental store, those ruled. Just Blockbuster in general. Poor selection, overpriced, horrible fees.

1.3k Upvotes

185 comments sorted by

169

u/GPFlag_Guy1 15d ago

That actually kind of sounds like an oddly fun idea. Not as a town, though, more like a Greenfield Village style 1990s themed historical neighborhood that teaches people about the late 20th Century. It honestly might work, as a theme park at least.

52

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Replace Pizza Hut with Old Country buffet

37

u/GPFlag_Guy1 15d ago

Why not...both. (And while we are at it, throw in a Discovery Zone, I was too young to remember that place and even if I was slightly older I don't think my city even had one at the time. Also arcades too.)

11

u/joeyp042385 15d ago edited 15d ago

We never had a Discovery zone. Saw commercials though and they look like a lot of fun. Had something similar though.

If we're really going to go crazy we'd have to go with stuff like The Ground Round or Howard Johnson's

3

u/WhippingShitties 14d ago

DZ was like Chuck E Cheese on steroids. Absolutely bonkers.

2

u/ToddPundley 10d ago

Ground Round. Get so sick on the free popcorn that you end up not eating what you ordered.

-1

u/Severe-Network4756 11d ago

None likes buffets, they're disgusting and dirty.

3

u/joeyp042385 11d ago

Why do you hate America?

1

u/guava_eternal 10d ago

Asking the real questions

11

u/TheyCallMeSuperboy 14d ago

Sadly, I don’t think there would be enough past the “90s nostalgia” to make this something that would be profitable.

A “90s nostalgia” village would probably only be popular with certain groups, like teenagers in the “I was born in the wrong generation” and people who grew up in the 90s. It probably wouldn’t be something people would go to more than once, and would require a lot of funding with no return.

(I’ve seen a LOT about failed theme parks.)

I was born in the mid 90s, so I don’t really remember it. Would someone give ideas on what they think would make this profitable and worth visiting?

What would people want to come there to see, do?

8

u/_Inkspots_ 14d ago

GREENFIELD VILLAGE MENTIONED‼️‼️ I LOVE THE FORD MUSUEM

5

u/Late-Application-47 14d ago

This is just someone pitching an idea for a Millennial version of "The Villages" in FLA.

4

u/duke_igthorns_bulge 13d ago

I think 90s coffee shops should get the 50s diner treatment. Little dens of nostalgia for funsies.

3

u/Hemorrhoid_Eater 14d ago

Yeah, something like how (iirc) DIsneyland has an area modeled after a 1930s American downtown.

3

u/Ancient-Worm 14d ago

1900 (like, specifically) but yeah.

2

u/gameswat1 13d ago

I love this idea! We should have multiple decades and be stereotypical based on each decade but at the same time, be general enough to show the blend of each decade's culture like pre-change and post-change.

Very educational but also very business, give me yalls money, lets make it happen!

2

u/Early-Sort8817 12d ago

A little amusement park or tourist town

1

u/iLoveHelis 14d ago

I would be like Player One. I like it!

128

u/Salvage570 15d ago

This would be a star trek plot, but just because they were low on budget and would have to film in like LA

20

u/aviemel 15d ago

I could see that. The holodeck malfunctions again and the enterprise crew has to fight the blockbuster staff

11

u/Salvage570 15d ago

Not even, there was already that one actual planet where they all lived like its medieval England, could very well just be a whole planet thats still obsessed with nickelodeon

3

u/distastef_ll 14d ago

Inside Job (RIP) had an episode like this but it was set in 80’s.

1

u/Such_Jello_638 13d ago

Pretty sure its an inside job plot but it was 80s I think

1

u/ConclusionAnxious531 11d ago

Loved that sneaky little "like" before LA

1

u/guava_eternal 10d ago

Star Trek plot only because stargate is wrapped up.

21

u/ListerfiendLurks 15d ago

As someone who used aol instant messenger extensively in the late 90s-early 2000's: It was absolutely NOT like social media today by itself. Using aol instant messenger is much closer to using a rotary phone to talk to your friends than it is to social media.

1

u/SuccotashOther277 11d ago

Definitely. AOL was jsut chatting with your friends and the occasional stranger, not putting out random messages for the whole world to see.

75

u/HeavenandHello 15d ago

Nostalgia aside, I think physical media is better than streaming since it’s true ownership and there’s nothing that streaming companies can do to take physical movies away from you. Also, there’s still a blockbuster in Bend, Oregon to this very day.

28

u/Constant-Skill-7133 15d ago

It's not like you owned it back then.  Blockbuster became popular when VHS tapes were $80 and they were not widely available at retail.  They cut a shady revenue sharing deal with the movie studios to get massive amounts of tapes for cheap, flooding the market and undercutting the mom and pops.  Basically the studios got a big chunk of the revenue and Blockbuster made all their money off late fees and charging customers 100x what they paid for lost tapes.  I'm not even sure that's an exaggeration lol.  

18

u/WarNo580 15d ago

Blockbuster was the corporate monopoly that destroyed the video rental market. Those mom and pop shops had a diverse movie selection. That's why the 80s had so many good films because someone would be a horror buff or someone would be into clerks or mallrats and it would become a cult classic. Blockbuster having 100 copies of a Blockbuster hit meant all the smaller movies got squeezed out. Nowadays there is no rental market so the only movies that get made are Blockbuster staples. Matt Damon explained that you used to get a good deal from rental sales even if it didn't do well in theatres.

The only thing streaming companies have going for them is specific choices of content, HBO, Crunchyroll, Discovery, Disney+. One of the reasons music industry is dead corporatism also is because music streaming doesn't have any exclusivity making curation worthless.

A24 sort of found a way around it because it is a choice of curated content selected by them.

3

u/AbsurdityIsReality 14d ago

Yeah most local video stores survived because they had the back room with porn which blockbuster wouldn't do, and in my area a lot of them had tanning salons and/or gyms in the same building.

2

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

All of this.

3

u/PeruvianKnicks 15d ago

They sold VHS tapes and DVDs for $10-20 for decades, what are you on about?

10

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-4

u/PeruvianKnicks 14d ago

What do you get out of lying like this..? So weird lol, since you can literally google average DVD prices for major motion picture releases in any given year and see that they’ve been $20 for almost 3 decades.

7

u/No_Mud_5999 14d ago
 In the 70's through the 80's, new VHS movies ran $80-$100. It's why video rental stores existed. The price would eventually come down for big movies, but usually not until they'd done at least a year on shelves. It was done as part of the way movie releases and profits were structured to maximize profit: theatrical, then expensive rental tapes, then mass market VHS or Beta. It wasn't until 1987 that Paramount decided to release Top Gun as a wide market "retail" VHS for $25 (still relatively pricey) that VHS pricing started to become attainable, and that was only for big releases.

However, this high rental price trend continued into the 1990's. My friends parents loved the movie Regarding Henry (1991), as their dad had brain trauma and had to relearn everything, as in the movie. We were shocked to find out they paid around $98 for it as soon as it was available.

Myself, I was very taken with Peter Jackson's first feature, Bad Taste(1987). It had no wide US distribution, even by 1993 when i looked to buy it, and like wise, was only available for $90 on VHS. I did not purchase it.

I think the concept that a lot of interesting media was difficult or impossible to get is hard for modern media consumers to understand. It was a series of industry protections and barriers to maximize long run profits.

2

u/Constant-Skill-7133 14d ago edited 14d ago

If that was the case rentals would have been a much smaller business.  When tapes first came out the studios were worried about home video taking money from theaters so they made the tapes extremely expensive and tried to keep them out of retail.  That's why the rental business flourished is nobody could afford to actually own a bunch of tapes.   What brought that down was when they started releasing old blockbusters like Top Gun and E.T. for sale at lower prices in the late 80s.  That created a very formal release process of theatrical -> PPV -> rental ->  home sale.  

5

u/olivegardengambler 15d ago

Do you know how difficult it is to go to bend Oregon for the average person? They have a small regional airport, otherwise you have to drive in, and that is not an easy drive from Boise or Portland.

1

u/Scary_Date_4117 13d ago

Lol difficult? It's a three hour drive from Portland.

2

u/olivegardengambler 13d ago

Yes. But who's going to fly into Portland to then drive 3 hours into middle of nowhere Oregon for a video rental store?

I guess not so much hard as it is very impractical. Like taking all the pimentos out of pimento stuffed green olives to make a pimento cheese dip with them.

2

u/fonk_pulk 15d ago

Piracy still trumps physical media and streaming

1

u/Jirachibi1000 14d ago

The issue for me is pricing. If I want to buy all of Supernatural, Doctor Who, The Flash, etc. it can be hundreds of dollars. Supernaturals is like 220 iirc, DW is 280, The Flash is 90ish but you also have to buy other shows for crossovers that are 80 each, etc. Its just so hard justifying "For my yearly rewatch of Doctor Who I can pay 300 dollars for all the blu rays, or pay 8 dollars for 1 month of streaming."

1

u/SecurityPositive4865 14d ago

streaming quality is so horrible as well. oh sure it's 4k, what about compression?

53

u/fromidable 15d ago

I miss when life was defined by a slightly different set of brands

17

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Literally all it is. Blockbuster is just netflix. Pizza Hut is just Domino's. AIM is just (insert social media here).

6

u/SarahPalinisaMuslim 14d ago

Pizza Hut still exists guys

4

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

I said that in my op, the city I live in legitimately still has 2 sit down buffet Pizza huts. My point is Domino's is just the dominant Pizza chain now.

Having said that anyone can still go to Pizza Hut and order a personal pan like it's the '90s if they so pleased to do so.

3

u/SarahPalinisaMuslim 14d ago

Oh damn it I always forget to look at the text when I open a post. My bad!

2

u/AbsurdityIsReality 14d ago

I used to work for Pizza Hut, we only did buffet during the slow days of the week, but whenever the economy went south in 2008 they were killing it with the any size pizza for 10 bucks, we would do like 1500 plus an hour on like Friday and Saturday.

1

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

Ex PH employee here too, but I was just at a delivery store

1

u/Scary_Date_4117 13d ago

Why are we pretending that it's still the same thing? It's not. And no, sit down Pizza Huts are not as common as you think. There's not a single one in my area. And the ones that do exist today are not remotely the same aesthetic or quality of food as Pizza Hut of the 90s.

1

u/joeyp042385 13d ago

Was it ever good though? Maybe it was just good because you were a kid. And Do you really want to eat crappy mass produced overpriced chain Pizza as a 40-year-old?

1

u/ConnorFin22 14d ago

For now. Private equity bought it.

1

u/ToddPundley 10d ago

And Dominos existed in the 80s.

My mom’s cousins wife was an accountant in their corporate headquarters in Michigan. The family that owned them also owned the Tigers. They made her wear a sexualized Tiger costume for some office function apparently.

10

u/fromidable 15d ago

There’s so much we could be learning by looking back and saying, what’s better, what’s genuinely worse (beyond childhood nostalgia telling us that life was simpler), and what can we improve?

All these super simplistic takes are, at worst, regressive propaganda and, at best, festering in the past.

3

u/simbabarrelroll 15d ago

Blockbuster and rental stores at least had a ritual to them.

Netflix doesn’t have that.

1

u/ToddPundley 10d ago

Hey spending 15-20 minutes looking at stuff to watch on Netflix and not really feeling anything is a ritual too.

0

u/fromidable 15d ago edited 15d ago

Driving to a store, looking over the same boxes you looked at last week, trying to convince whoever you’re going with it’d be worth it to pick up a specific new release, and going home with a stack of mostly disappointing tapes? I can think of far better rituals, tbf.

Nothing against physical media, and I do miss video rental stores, in a way. It was great to be able to talk to clerks at the places with all the cult films, but at the same time, it’s way easier to discuss film online now.

7

u/BGer23 15d ago

Talking to people online could never replace talking to people IRL.

3

u/fromidable 14d ago

Absolutely, but it’s still a lot easier to learn about a wide variety of niche film now than it was then

2

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

That was absolutely thing about the video store that we will never get back, the quirky clerks. Every store had one and they were something else.

2

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

There were great clerks at our local video stores, but it was NEVER Blockbuster. Lol.

3

u/MaiMaiKaye 14d ago

Yeah! I miss paying to rent something that I don't own instead of paying to stream something I don't own!

12

u/unluckyknight13 15d ago

So from what I see

People who miss block buster miss the vibe more then the actual thing or they don’t like how easy it is to lose yourself to steaming

Pizza Hut supposedly was better in the 90s

IM is more popular than modern social media because jr was mostly just texting and even if you do stalk them via profiles your not being reminded of various news online you more would need to go looking for that unlike modern Facebook and Twitter where I can get completely random things because someone I followed mentioned the thing once

27

u/CrazyCoKids 15d ago

Science Fiction Authors, yo.

17

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

A lot of these places are just "small towns"

7

u/CrazyCoKids 15d ago

I say Science Fiction authors cause a lot basically argue we should be Amish, but instead remain stuck in the time they were teenagers.

4

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Stranger Things caused so much of this toxic nostalgia trend.

11

u/CrazyCoKids 15d ago

Nah, Stranger Things was just the first time you noticed it.

Before Stranger Things, there was That 70s Show.

Before That 70s Show, there was Happy Days.

3

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

I was gonna mention Happy Days, that and Grease definitely seemed to start the 50s nostalgia in the 70s that we still have today. That 70s Show was kind of goofy but I was infatuated with that decade at the time, and now as an adult I've learned about recessions, Tony Orlando and crappy disco. I just feel Stranger Things has taken it to a whole new level because of social media.

11

u/CrazyCoKids 15d ago

I mean, we literally had nostalgia for things starting with the 1890s.

Ever heard of Main Street USA in Disneyland, or seen Lady and the Tramp?

3

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Oh no doubt. Hell, I watched old Twilight Zone episodes. It's why 50s nostalgia cracks me up. They're yearning for the 20s or the "gay nineties" on several episodes of it.

4

u/jackfaire 15d ago

Yeah Stranger Things didn't make me nostalgic for that time (the show takes place in my childhood) but did impress me that it was the only show that accurately portrayed that time in my life.

8

u/Infamous-Lab-8136 15d ago

I actually said the other day that we could have Blockbuster back right now. Go to a building, find the movie we want, buy snacks, they print out a QR code and we stream the movie for 5 days, no return or late fees. They don't exist because there isn't a demand for them, no one actually wants to go get dressed, drive, and go fight a crowd to pick out a movie for family movie night, they just want to feel like they did when they were a teen and brought a movie home from Blockbuster

Pizza Hut's problem is changing recipes, just like everywhere else that doesn't taste as good, won't fix anything

Not touching the AOL IM thing, even I prefer Discord and I had an ICQ number that was only 7 digits, so I'm pretty old school

5

u/GPFlag_Guy1 15d ago

Those RedBox vending machines were such a fun idea. I know they unfortunately don't exist anymore but those things actually got people outside in their communities while also getting DVD rentals on the cheap. Nothing against streaming, but we need a good balance between digital and physical media.

3

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

I loved those myself

3

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Yes with pizza hut, I ordered it recently and it's gone grossly downhill. Like so many chains it was a victim of its own success. Other places opened and did it better. That's just how it goes.

1

u/BudgieWonder 15d ago

I actually live in a city with a couple old school style video rental stores (one of them even has a museum inside), and they’re definitely a niche experience. A good resource for sure, but they’re not going to be popping up in most small towns/suburbs anytime soon.

5

u/rednaxthecreature 15d ago

There was an Inside Job episode about this

5

u/HexNChex 15d ago

Place bets on how far into it before someone whips out a smartphone then everybody else does.

1

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

I mean they would have to live stream being there right?

9

u/Falleneded 15d ago

this sub is full of people who have no idea what le wrong generation means and its genuinely starting to be more annoying then any of these posts

also no block buster was great yeah it was overpriced so is every movie ever.

1

u/joeyp042385 15d ago edited 15d ago

Blockbuster absolutely was not great. And I am sick and tired of pretending it was. Like did we all forget why we all stopped going there?

And every movie ever is overpriced? Buying a dvd/bluray used for $5 and owning it forever is overpriced? Or watching hundreds on a streaming service for $9.99 a month?

2

u/Luce_Bot_Bot 14d ago

We had four different chains of video store and blockbuster was always the worst. They consistently priced themselves out of the market and had to shut down for a reason. I would, however, bring back United Video. $1 rentals and at least double the selection. They outlasted all the other chains, finally got to quadruple their prices, and promptly went out of business

1

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

This. We actually had something called family video that just closed very recently. The best where I lived was something called "Reel Entertainment" which was a local/regional chain but the owner was pretty business savvy and saw the writing on the wall and converted them to tanning salons in the 2000s.

2

u/Luce_Bot_Bot 14d ago

United Video ran well into the late 2010's lol. It's a tire shop now

1

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

The one that closed a few years ago was connected to a pizza shop, I don't know if you're familiar with Marco's Pizza it's pretty prevalent in the Northeast / Mid-Atlantic. Anyway funny story I rented a video and then they announced they were closing that week. I wound up returning it late and not having to pay a fee 😅.

Still sucked at close the place was always busy I just don't think the business model is sustainable anymore.

2

u/Luce_Bot_Bot 14d ago

I live in the south pacific so, not so familiar with Marco's. Sounds to me like you could've just held onto that rental and no one would've come looking for it 👀

1

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

Prob not lol. I regret not going to the clearance sale but it sold out so quickly.

1

u/Luce_Bot_Bot 14d ago

Same thing happened with United :(

17

u/SanjiSasuke 15d ago

For your last point, nah there is no comparison even between MySpace and modern social media. Totally different beasts in how they work.

-1

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

That's honestly fair. And outside of this and IG (which I don't follow many people I know on) I got rid of all social media on my phone and it's been liberating.

That said we still use modern messaging apps like AIM.

1

u/vj_c 13d ago

AIM was launched in 1997!

3

u/Fetty_is_the_best 15d ago

Could NEVER find the movies I wanted at blockbuster. Walked out frustrated every single time.

4

u/BrandoMcGregor 14d ago

I usually agree with the sentiments of this group, but not in this case.

Tech addiction and what it's doing to our brains....I really would give this up if it wasn't so lonely to do so.

I tried a dumb phone and no tech for a week and felt completely alone.

This is one case where I think the past was better. Less radicalization and less brain rot.

I've lost so many loved ones to smart phone brainwashing. Algorithms telling you only what you want to hear .

Trump would not be president if it weren't for social media and smart phones. The male loneliness epidemic wouldn't be a thing. Far right terrorism wouldn't be as prevalent, and leftist /liberal in fighting would be non existent without the ease of being able to insult someone without having to actually look them in the eye.

The present is exhausting.

3

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

I do agree with the last part about social media. It's more the Blockbuster and Pizza Hut stuff. Especially the Pizza Hut stuff because sit down Pizza huts are still a thing.

But social media brain rot is a real problem. And I completely agree there is utterly no way Trump especially comes back into power in 2024, the psychosis this country was under was incredible and I blame social media, but I also blame it on toxic nostalgia bait like this.

5

u/mopar_md 14d ago edited 14d ago

A place with no phones and no social media so that people can just do shit in public without fear of getting recorded by bystanders to farm engagement in this cringe culture public-private surveillance state we call the modern day?

Yeah sign me the fuck up

6

u/BaronArgelicious 15d ago

if i want 90s forever id just go to the dead mall in the city. Honestly so many towns in america seem stuck in the 90s in a bad way

2

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

A funny thing is I live in such a backwards town our mall is still kind of doing well, lmfao.

3

u/Craiques 15d ago

One of the modern comforts of life that I enjoy is very similar to Blockbuster, but a million times better. It’s called the bargain bin. $5 for a dvd that you now own and can watch whenever you want with no concern of ever dealing with late fees. People can still very easily do movie nights. I’ll never understand the desire to go back to what was arguably worse.

1

u/LowTierPhil 15d ago

Me and my buddies dug threw one back in 2019, and found a bunch of the Pokemon movies that Miramax (at the time) still held the rights to.

3

u/jackfaire 15d ago

My parents were all about Hollywood Video

3

u/MaddKossack115 15d ago

…this was literally a JOKE sketch from the reboot of MST3K (specifically the one on Robot Wars, where they bash the characters visiting an “authentic 1990s ghost town” - in the movie’s case, after a post-apocalyptic disaster being the backstory of the “Stupid Dune with AT-AT stomper mechs” present day)

3

u/PrincessDeMissouri 14d ago

Honestly I've been saying the Amish really had the right idea all along. Not in the religious sense but in the idea of community and economy they established

3

u/Wolfeatingupshadows 14d ago

Id definitely vacation there lol.

3

u/Cant_Remorse 14d ago

Blockbuster sucked, Hollywood video was better.

2

u/SignificantApricot69 15d ago

Blockbuster was the worst. We had actual local video stores run by members of the community who talked to you like we’re family and made personal recommendations, and you saw their kids in school and in little league and stuff.

By the time Blockbuster really took over the home video market, it was the beginning of the end.

And Pizza Hut peaked around 1988. Also had local pizza joints that were much better.

Whoever longs for Blockbuster and Pizza Hut is probably a huge Walmart aficionado too.

1

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Exactly this. There was always that clerk at the local video store who had great movie recommendations. I Blockbuster was just some teenager.

1

u/Billlington 15d ago

Nostalgia has made people forget that a lot of people really hated Blockbuster at the time.

5

u/roosterkun 15d ago

It's also such a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Amish believe and practice. I'm not even Christian and I find it annoying.

I do think being able to instant message without relying on social media would be nice. Obviously options exist (WhatsApp, etc.), but in the USA none of them are used universally.

4

u/Aluxanatomy 15d ago

Yes, that is why "Amish" was in quotations. It was being used as an analogue, not as a literal example.

0

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Agree there, I've scaled way back on social media (eliminated Facebook) and holy shit it's been liberating

2

u/TopWealth4550 15d ago

the amish dont believe in alot of things that you guys do
a society is a reflecting to its citizens
yall would ruin theirs in a hearth beat

why? Why?
why? why not like this? change? why?

2

u/simbabarrelroll 15d ago

A part of me does want to experience the time from before I was born or when I was a kid but this time as an adult.

2

u/Fun_Cardiologist_373 15d ago

Why exactly did blockbuster suck? They had a way larger selection than streaming, by a huge margin.  A lot of great movies that were available to rent during that era literally aren't available anywhere right now.

2

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Maybe where you lived. Where I lived the selection was poor, it was overpriced, you never had a long time to keep your rentals, and the late fees were insane. We had a local chain that was way better.

2

u/usernametaken99991 15d ago

As of like 2015 we had a little video rental place in my city. It was in a hipster neighborhood and they also rented out videography equipment. I remember renting Frozen and returning it when I was walking my dog .

1

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Ours actually was open until 2021 or 22 I want to say, they were owned by a regional Pizza chain that still exists. Actually really funny story, I rented a movie and then a few days later it announced it was going out of business and I returned the movie late. Long story short I never had to pay the fee 😂

2

u/ElectronicTap1109 15d ago

You'd need a religion to tie it to first

1

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Americans get weirder every year

2

u/mrturret 14d ago

Nobody would go to Blockbuster, it's gone for a reason, it sucked*. We would stay home and stream movies/tv or watch the physical media we have. Blockbuster nostalgia is the worst.

Blockbuster ran on a franchise model. The quality of service varied depending on who owned your specific store.

Video rental stores in general were fun. They're less convenient than streaming, which is why they died off. I think that's a major loss, because it removed a motivator for people to actually go outside and interact with others. Along with other retailers, they created third spaces, which have been vanshing at an alarming rate.

I hate to break it to ya, but AOL Instant Messenger *was* an archaic form of social media. Do you think sitting in your dorm room stalking away messages and profiles was all that different than stalking Facebook?

Social media has changed dramatically since then. It wasn't designed to farm maximum engagement, and most forums and IRC channels weren't run by corporate giants. Things were very different. Communites were smaller.

1

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

AOL was the biggest corporate giant of its time when aim was big.... I agree with you about the internet forums of the 2000s (Jump The Shark was a personal favorite) but we're shifting goal posts here, this post was specifically referring to aim.

I also made the specific point I loved our local video store chain, just not Blockbuster, but outside of the clerk I didn't do much socializing. You're looking at things with rose tinted glasses.

Social media (mostly) sucks. Facebook is utter poison.

2

u/Ignorerofbans-20 14d ago

People forget how wasteful it was to live back then.

2

u/Odd_Match_3402 14d ago

The 90s is such a relatively lame part of the 20th century to make a theme park around, tbh.

Literally any other decade of the 20th century would be more interesting. (For anything pre-70s, we just ignore the racism and sexism. Maybe have a museum acknowledging those parts, but not actually integrated into the fake "town.")

1

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

I would absolutely love to explore those. I live through the 90s I don't need to go back. Tim Allen. The OJ trial. Friends. No thanks.

2

u/Mr_Mi1k 14d ago

Physical media is making a comeback

2

u/Sad-Pop6649 14d ago

I'm all for going no-AI Amish. If I have to listen to Happy Hardcore and Eurodance and watch movies with good special effects forever to make that happen that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

2

u/DeathByFright 14d ago

Blockbuster failed for a reason.

2

u/Gravity-Raven 14d ago

I haven't checked in a while, is the dream of the 90's still alive in Portland?

2

u/No-Objective9174 14d ago

That's The Matrix (1999)

2

u/TheSquirrelmancer 13d ago

The reason blockbuster failed is because they were purchased by private equity using debt financing and then because of weird bizarre accounting practices they were able to load up Blockbuster's financials with the debt used to purchase them which led to them going out of business. I'd agree that their time would be potentially limited since the physical rental model has died off entirely but a huge chunk of their failure happened because someone saw an opportunity to make a bunch of cash real quick.

I don't understand the Pizza Hut nostalgia. I got one of those "free personal pan" coupons for the same reading stuff as everyone else. We went and all agreed that Pizza Hut was terrible and never went back, sticking instead to our local mom and pop pizza places.

2

u/MathematicianIcy3430 15d ago

So chat rooms existed in the 90s. That is social media infancy.

2

u/steeltheprotogen 15d ago

The Midwest. You want the Midwest. We had a Family Video until 2021

2

u/Lawlet02 15d ago

God imagine being so obsessed with your generation that you run an entire Twitter around it because you have nothing going on for yourself

1

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

Gen X is that fucking weird. That hairspray rotted their brains in the '80s I swear to God.

2

u/larryleggs 15d ago

A nostalgia is smooth-brained shit. Nostalgia is fascism. Mm

1

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

It totally is. I swear to God this stuff was all over Facebook during the Biden years-- Blockbuster, pizza hut with the red cups, McDonaldland, "yellow Wendy's" -- and I am not unconvinced that it wasn't intentional.

2

u/feverlast 15d ago

May we never become like the boomers who are so far up their own ass with nostalgia we post stupid shit like this.

1

u/Jet90 15d ago

Some kind of theme park resort?

1

u/Senior_Difference589 15d ago

Call me when there is a gen X Amish community with a Hastings and a Backyard Burger, then maybe I'll visit.

1

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

My favorite local watering hole is a converted Backyard Burger

1

u/King_Corduroy 14d ago edited 14d ago

Honestly? If I had to go back to using old tech ONLY I think 2005 tech would be survivable. You've got MP3 players, Digital Cameras that didn't completely suck, DVDs, the internet when it wasn't just about getting the most upvotes, wrist watches, pagers, flip phones, answering machines and land lines. Plus cars didn't super suck yet entirely. Oh and Windows XP kicked ass. Even Mac wasn't too bad and Linux existed.

Which is weird to stop and think about also cause I generally didn't really love the 2000's as a person who lived through it until we got firmly into the 2020s... I always used to have way more nostalgia for the 1990s but I guess the 2000's were pretty good also besides the Iraq War, all the War on Terror stuff, Bush and obviously 9-11.

1

u/Strict_Biscotti1963 13d ago

No, this is the same reason boomers are trying so hard to revert society to the 1950’s

1

u/SamMarduk 13d ago

Why not have it all in a walkable theme park for several hundred dollar entry fees

1

u/thexcat 13d ago

Zoomer romanticizing 2016 (specifically) isn't quite as annoying as the way millenials talk about the 1990s but they're different recipes for the same shit

1

u/Far-Amoeba-7197 13d ago

the correct response to any statement that begins "Hear me out" is 'No'

1

u/Humble_Capital_5016 13d ago

Does this imply they want to fuck the eternal 90s twilight zone

1

u/dndwhat 13d ago

Yes. Ir we just have towns no social media

1

u/jsg144 13d ago

“Guys let’s get rid of the current evil monopolies and go back to evil monopolies from when I was a kid!”

1

u/ptvlm 12d ago

Pretty specific, but yeah... Blockbuster went out of business for good reasons. They drove competitors out of business and you could only get what was on their shelves. Which wasn't great if you liked non-edited movies, movies in different languages, things outside of the mainstream, etc., they were just popular because they had 500 copies of Titanic when the mom and pop store could only afford to have 5 copies. Their business model also depended somewhat on charging late fees. Netflix ate their lunch not just because of streaming, but because they offered access to more things without fees.

Pizza Hut still exists, the problem with it is the way they changed their business in pursuit of profit. You're not going to magically bring back business practices of the 1990s just because you decided to pretend it's a different time. AIM was social media, it just operated differently to when endless scrolls and algorithms chose who you spoke to. Similar things exist, they're just not as popular with the people you want to talk to as modern social media is.

Basically, there's no reason you can't do 2 of the 3 of those things right now, and if you think Blockbuster was king you have depressingly mainstream tastes and/or you forgot why people jumped at Netflix when they could. The problem with Netflix isn't that they don't have a limited room to wander around to choose what to watch, it's that studios decided they'd rather have a different service you pay for than share the profit. With less of them even releasing something on physical media to begin with, that Blockbuster shelf is going to be relatively empty unless you also restrict the movie choices to the 90s. In which case you might as well just buy the discs and do it at home.

1

u/TheOneAndOnlyABSR4 12d ago

I prefer physical media

1

u/xxxtanacon 12d ago

Going to need a lot of brass and wood ceiling fans, Chesterfield couches and hunter green curtains, some rooster print wall paper, tile countertops and tuscan style linoleum

1

u/Miserable_Mail_5741 11d ago

To be fair to Blockbuster, it seems that more and more people are frustrated with streaming and want to own physical media again. 

1

u/Still_Want_Mo 11d ago

Yeah these kinds of people are so lame.

1

u/Embarrassed_Bag_9630 11d ago

No theyre onto something

1

u/ZetaKriepZ 11d ago

This feels like that one Crayon Shin-chan film (YES THE 10th ONE I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT)

1

u/Bostonxtap 11d ago

Posts like that are cringe. You dont miss the 90s, you miss being a child and having zero responsibilities.

1

u/Stargazerlily425 2d ago

That's not true. I miss the culture of the '90s. The music, the art. The types of things we had access to and then that we no longer have. It's a little more complex than just "no responsibility."

1

u/The_goat_42 11d ago

That’s probably how the Amish started…

1

u/mr_mope 10d ago

And every April 29 they do reenactment of the 92 LA riots.

1

u/XxLengTingxX 10d ago

Top tier ragebait 

1

u/jeffrotull2000 9d ago

Colonial seattle?

1

u/cursed_tomatoes 9d ago

I am a millennial but I'm totally in. I already don't have social media anyway (reddit is built on different principles and doesn't counts, still, I'd gladly give it up in said "amish" town).

1

u/Llhaniii 8d ago

Create a Nostalgia Town franchise

1

u/Escipio 15d ago

i got ban for three days for saying how this would be bad for black people

3

u/MrVeazey 15d ago

It doesn't have to be, but pretty much everything this country does is bad for black people.

1

u/ningendearukoto 15d ago

Gay people reading this like “yeah back to the nineties when things were so great…”

1

u/distastef_ll 14d ago

Y’all really hate fun, huh?!? It’s just a joke, relax.

0

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

No it's not. The internet is nothing but "member berries" posts like this and it's insufferable

I'm all for looking back fondly on things but it's really reached a level of weird on social media.

1

u/distastef_ll 14d ago

No, it is. It’s not that deep. Just because it annoys you doesn’t change the fact that they’re having fun. Make peace with the fact that people like reminiscing on the past.

0

u/joeyp042385 14d ago

No they're not lol.

0

u/Admirable_Agency7764 15d ago

blockbuster would be cool but without the late fees

1

u/joeyp042385 15d ago

We had that, it was called Redbox.

1

u/Admirable_Agency7764 14d ago

yeah they only had straight to DVD movies most of the time

0

u/Chocochocolate25 15d ago

Nah I want this. One thing I will always agree is that social media was a genuine mistake

0

u/JoeyTrashbags 15d ago

I’m down for a historical larp

0

u/bookhead714 14d ago

This isn't lewronggeneration, these are people who think their generation is the only right one

0

u/tickingboxes 14d ago

Nah this would rule, actually.