Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

People Explain Which Things Are Normal Today That Weren't 50 Years Ago

People Explain Which Things Are Normal Today That Weren't 50 Years Ago
person typing on silver MacBook
Photo by Burst on Unsplash

The world is an ever changing place.

In addition to continuing advancements in technology, human behavior also continues to evolve.

As a result, what might have seemed "normal" 50 years ago might seem far-fetched today, while things which we today consider "normal" might never have even crossed the mind of anyone back then.

Making everything we consider "normal" among the many things in this world that continues to evolve at a rapid pace.

Redditor Primary_Berry_3560 was curious to hear what "normal" everyday things were anything but normal fifty years ago, leading them to ask:

"What is normal now but wasn’t normal 50 years ago (1972)?"


We could just leave whenever we wanted to!

"Knowing where your kids are 100% of the time."- bradland

We're all wired up today!

"No one had a computer in their house in 1972."- tcharp01

Buckle up!

"Car seats for children."

"And most of the time we sat in the back seat with no seat belts available."- Rosemoorstreet

"Wearing seatbelts."

"There were no sensors- seatbelt were just shoved out of the way."

"Carding for cigarettes."

"Machines were everywhere for anyone to use."- factchecker8515

buckle up crash test dummies GIF by ADWEEKGiphy

In the old days, we had one chance!

"Watching an entire TV series at a time that's convenient for you."

"VCR's weren't even a thing 50 years ago, so if your favorite show was on Wednesday at 8PM, you were either at home to watch it or you missed out on it forever."- DeathSpiral321

Music on demand!

"Listening to the song you want to where you want to, rather than whatever is playing wherever you are."- jfincher42

Giphy

Being beholden to a landline!

"I am amazed to think about how disconnected we were."

"I could wake up on a Saturday morning and start calling friends."

"It was possible that not a single one picked up the phone and that was that."

"I would be on my own unless I waited a few hours and tried again."

"Also, in my area, the adults in the house almost always answered the phone so you had to get through them to your friends."

“'Hello, is Johnny home?'”

"'Hi this is his mother, what do you want?'”

“'I was wooooondering if he could come out to play'.”

“'Well he’s doing homework right now but I’ll tell him you called'.”

"As a kid, our times were divided between when we were 100% under adult control, which was when we were physically in their presence, and when we were free which was all other time."- Mrmidhoratio

"Asking 'Where are you?' when someone answers their phone."- brontosproximo

Shocked Phone Call GIFGiphy

No wonder they were all so tan...

"Regularly wearing sunscreen."- dixius99

It's amazing to see how much the world has changed in such a relatively short amount of time.

Leaving us to wonder what things will be "normal" 50 years from now, which today the very thought of would make us burst out laughing.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Elmo; New York Knicks
Paul Zimmerman/WireImage; Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Elmo Hit With Hilarious Backlash From New Yorkers After Tweeting Well-Wishes To Both The Knicks And The Spurs

Sesame Street may be set on a fictional street in a Manhattan neighborhood, but only a select few characters have that New York attitude.

Lovable, cuddly little Elmo is definitely not one of them, and it recently got him in a bit of trouble with fans of the New York Knicks.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump
Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Trump Plans To Attend The NBA Finals In New York—And Knicks Fans Are Having None Of It

The New York Knicks lead the NBA finals best of seven series against the San Antonio Spurs 2-0 going into game three at Madison Square Garden (MSG) in New York City on Monday night.

It will be the first finals game played at the historic venue in 27 years. Should the Knicks prevail in the series, it will be the team's first championship since 1973.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of Hillary Clinton in 2016; Donald Trump
C-SPAN; Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Hillary Clinton's 2016 Speech Predicting How Trump Would Behave As President Just Resurfaced—And Wow

People can't help but nod their heads after one of former Secretary of State and then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's speeches from 2016 warning about how Donald Trump would act if elected president resurfaced and proved more relevant than ever.

The footage resurfaced as public sentiment has soured on the economy; recent surveys show that roughly two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump's economic stewardship, while a majority say their personal financial situation is deteriorating.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of James Talarico; Donald Trump; Ken Paxton
@jamestalarico/X; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

James Talarico Epically Blasts Trump And Senate Opponent Over What It Means To Be A 'Real Man'

Texas Senate candidate James Talarico criticized his opponent in November's election, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as President Donald Trump in a speech about what it means to be a "real man" after facing regular attacks on his masculinity.

Trump has described Talarico as “a weird—a weird—candidate,” a line that was quickly incorporated into an advertisement from Paxton, who argued that that Talarico is unfit to represent Texans partly because of his supposed veganism. Members of the right-wing have followed suit and described Talarico as an “effeminate, estrogenetic, catty, and totally embarrassing” candidate.

Keep ReadingShow less
Jennifer Aniston (right) and Lisa Kudrow (left) discuss a potential Friends spinoff.
Variety/YouTub

Jennifer Aniston And Lisa Kudrow's Idea For A 'Friends' Spinoff Is Going Viral For All The Wrong Reasons

For decades, critics have argued that Friends benefited from a television landscape that often overlooked Black-led sitcoms telling similar stories. So when Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow recently floated the idea of a Friends spinoff called Girlfriends, many viewers saw it as yet another example of Black television history being left out of the conversation.

During Variety's Actors on Actors, Aniston and Kudrow discussed what a potential Friends revival could look like more than 20 years after the sitcom ended its original run.

Keep ReadingShow less