These 20-Year Old Fads Will Have You Feeling Nostalgic…or Old

The print media is not dead, but it's getting there. Some of us still like to read a good newspaper now and then, but it's becoming a lot less common.

This still exists, but it's become a lot more interactive. In 1997, if you wanted to see what was on TV, you could turn to the TV listings channel, but if you missed the channel you were looking for, you had to wait for it to scroll allll the way back through, which took 2 minutes or so but felt like an hour. Now, you can scroll through it manually, "on demand" as they say, and see what's on any channel at any time. However, if you're really feeling nostalgic, the old-fashioned listings guide channel is still around, too.

Call me crazy, but when I turn on a channel dedicated exclusively to weather, that's all I want. Now they've become documentary-focused--albeit mostly weather-related ones, and even show news headlines. Just give me the forecast on a continuous loop like the old days, and I'm good, thanks. I guess that's what the internet is for--which by the way, wasn't quite the big deal 20 years ago it is now, either.

Well, it might have, but if so, it was just in its beginning stages. Everytime you answered the phone, you risked having to talk to someone you didn't know--or didn't want to talk to.

There was Columbia House and BMG, of course, where you could order "12 CDs for a penny" but remember those Time-Life collections of five, six or ten or more CDs of the definitive best soft rock, "swingin' hits of the 60s", classic country legends, or 80s hits that would take you hours upon hours to find all the songs in that one set, and cost "hundreds of dollars" if you bought them in stores---if you could even find them in stores? Again, they're still around (and I have a few of those sets) but of course, everyone downloads now so at the very least, the above sales pitch is outdated.