Ever miss the analog world?

[Chipper35]

Dead serious.....no sarcasm. Was driving home the other night and thinking to myself: Sometimes, geez I miss the analog world. I miss when a 9600 baud modem was special. I miss knowing bad weather was coming in, so you'd go to Blockbuster and rent 3 VHS movies and get some candy......because your entertainment for the next 3 days was that, your t.v. and your stereo....and maybe a few books....that was it. You'd box up your SNES and three months later you missed it and unbox it. You had 4 games.....that was it. 

You didn't have 9700 movies at the click of a button.......your choices were limited, so that made what you had good. I dunno.........we have MILLIONS of 'titles' at our disposal now, but we are still filled with such a malaise sometimes. It seems (at times, at least) that having so much I can choose from makes me feel....I dunno.......tired, I guess.

 

Anyone else feel this way.......ever?

[Major Arlene]

The only thing I miss is people not being so openly stupid and hateful to each other online. I'm happy to be spoiled for choice for entertainment.

[Mr. Freeze]

no

[Astronomical]

1 hour ago, Chipper35 said:

Anyone else feel this way.......ever?

No, I think there is a misconception that things are worse in regards to media, and I disagree.  Sure you made what you had count, and therefore more accepting of flaws.  But it's only hard to find what you wan't if you don't know what you are looking for.

[Chopkinsca]

For me, all that just feels like nostalgia. I can't say the world used to be simpler back then. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. I'm just going to try to enjoy existing in the current time. Some day in the future, the present will be the "I miss those times".

[DuckReconMajor]

Quite the opposite, the thought of growing up back then almost terrifies me.

Sometimes I have this thought about music or just digital data in general.

These days I can have the digital data on a hard drive or beamed in in an instant.

 

But back then your music was a fancy scratch on a slab of vinyl that made speakers wiggle to give the approximation of being in a room with music. Like a child's toy. Nothing is real and it's just an approximation of what we have today.

 

Yes I know that's totally arbitrary and backwards, and that digital music files are literally the same, telling a computer to make those same air wiggles, but, something just feels off to me about not having a digital representation of something.

[Redneckerz]

The analogue world is just one book away. I read heavy lecture to keep myself grounded from the digitalism that is around me, both in Doom, in work and elsewhere.

 

What i think OP you feel is the constant attention to digital/social media thing. In that, i can say it feels overwhelming, yes.

 

But nothing a good book can't solve or a trip to nature. Those places far outweigh any digital realm.*

 

*Except playing Doom ofcourse.

[kwc]

I do sometimes miss the rituals and perspectives begat from those limitations, but I don't think I miss the limitations themselves.

[SOSU]

In a few years people will be missing the early days if tiktok (i think people already miss vine?) 

It's not that it was better back in the day, you just think it was better.

[smeghammer]

It's quite hard to separate nostalgia from objectivity here. Nostalgia tells me that my old, scratched and dog-eared vinyl collection is 'better' than my 100GB of 320kbps MP3. But objectivity says that with decent kit and decent bit rate, the sound is much better.

 

I think I miss the feeling of collecting something, rather than the analogue vs digital thing, and my collection of rock and metal vinyl was something that was very important to me when I was young (and the cover pictures/picture disks are definitely better when large). So, for just listening to music - digital is definitely better, but the whole collecting thing is part of my past that I look back on with nostalgia.

 

So do I miss it? Probably not, but one always looks back on one's formative years with fondness and - yes - nostalgia.

[holaareola]

I do. I think there are many virtues to a slower, less connected life. Talking in the decadent Anglosphere, the deluge of convenience, choice and distraction has not done much for human happiness and the increasing virtualisation of human connection has brought with it an increase of atomisation in meatspace. I kind of think, even if it more widely distributes a certain form of luxury, if that luxury doesn't improve the average person's happiness, a society's happiness, what the hell is it for? It's there in the social survey data, although tbf these trends run alongside a 50 year-ish real-term wage stagnation and a strain of ultra-individualism that predates the technological forces of where we are.

 

For all that, don't know if I'd go back, and virtualisation has done a huge amount of good for people in societies that had much more serious challenges than a finite amount of entertainment.

 

But yeah, if you want never to be bored this is the best time ever.

Edited January 11, 2022 by holaareola

[Soulless]

2 minutes ago, smeghammer said:

I think I miss the feeling of collecting something, rather than the analogue vs digital thing, and my collection of rock and metal vinyl was something that was very important to me when I was young

 

I still try to find old gems on CD format but yeah, thing is kinda obsolete.

Last time I visited a multimedia mall where I used to buy music the stand wasnt there anymore,

just some Vinyl almost used as decoration. I do miss the analog side when it comes to music.

At the same time I think is true that listening to music in the digital world is better for many reasons,

even though can get a bit overwhelming compared to the old days where the choices were small and

things felt more unique and rare to find. Mixed feelings with this subject.

 

[BlueThunder]

I would say I at times miss the idea of going to say blockbuster to rent a movie and then going out to get food,  Now you have it all at you finger tips with any streaming service and door dash,  Its too easy and less involved I feel but also can be overwhelming especially to older generations!

[smeghammer]

4 minutes ago, Soulless said:

I still try to find old gems on CD format but yeah, thing is kinda obsolete.

:-)

Yes, I have quite a few rare and hard-to-find Iron Maiden bootlegs - all the songs and versions are on other more formal releases, or its actually a really shit live recording, so yeah, it's not about the actual content, it's the thing itself.

 

On the flip-side the whole digital/internet thing has allowed the resurrection of plenty of old stuff that otherwise would have been lost to history. For example, when I was growing up, there was a local band called Zeb Dragon that I saw many times, and I bought their cassette recording. Over the years it got lost. I absolutely loved it (kind of prog metal stuff) and occasionally looked on YT. Amazingly a few years back a couple of tracks appeared and then that old cassette recording was released on CD. 'Fuckin' A!' I thought... So if it wasn't for the digital age, that would never have happened.

 

 

 

[magicsofa]

There are pros and cons... I do miss renting movies from a store though. Thankfully music stores have not disappeared, at least in my area. However I love Spotify for giving me the ability to just play stuff at random and discover things that would never have shown up in my local shop in a million years. It's also cool to have things like soundcloud, where nobody is counting up sales, meaning you can listen to raw and obscure creations by completely random people.

I still buy hard copies of PS4 games from time to time. But again, the ease of online distribution means I can access indie games that otherwise might not have had the production needed for hard copy distribution across large distances.

 

In terms of film, I do get overwhelmed when browsing for something to watch on Netflix, but I remember having the same problem going to the video store. I like having one show to watch at a time, and I'll only spend about 2 hours maximum on a given night, usually less, and I won't put it on every night either. So I can spend an entire year watching the same Star Trek series and thus the overwhelming sea of choices is of no concern. My wife and I already have a list of things to watch next so we try to focus on those instead of wading into the abyss blind.

For videogames, I only play Doom. Okay just kidding, but I also tend to stick to one game at a time, maybe two (currently Rocket League by myself and Divinity 2 with the partner)

Anyway, to reiterate what a few others have said: your own choices can have a big effect on this feeling. Give yourself time to breathe - maybe make a determination to have a non-digital night once a week. Read a book, work on a physical project, play a board game, go outside.

[Mr. Freeze]

Yeah Youtube has been an outright blessing. As a huge fan of old school death metal it helped me discover classic stuff by tons of bands. 

 

[Chipper35]

1 hour ago, SOSU said:

In a few years people will be missing the early days if tiktok (i think people already miss vine?) 

It's not that it was better back in the day, you just think it was better.

Extremely true.......sometimes, I think it is evolutionary how we romanticize the past. If I had that awful disease that we've gotten MUCH BETTER at treating (today) back then.......it wouldn't have been the 'Good old days' in my mind, I can assure you. We don't have "fun" commercials about how alcoholism was a horrible thing that was hardly spoken about or how you would've never used the word "depression" in fear of being kicked out of your social groups......that's for certain. Maybe I just miss the delusions I'd pumped into my own brain back then about the 'future'. 

[Murdoch]

Sometimes. Everything has it's positives and negatives. Take CDs, Tapes, DVDs, and physical copies of games. They look cool on a shelf and I miss that. But I do not miss the space they take up especially since while I love my home, especially it's position with an epic sea view, it is on the small side. I kind of miss the "event" of going to a video hire place and browsing the selections. They added variety and interest to towns as well. But I like immediate-ness of streaming too. Same thing with physical music shops - miss the event, like the immediate result of streaming. Streaming has also helped me to discover many wonderful artists I would never possibly have found otherwise.

 

I also think that the overload of streaming platforms and content has somewhat de-valued TV shows to me. I struggle to find interest. There's too much choice, and it is hard to get interested in a new series on say Netflix when it's got a high probability of getting axed. They seem to be taking a "Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach which doesn't really help.

 

1 hour ago, SOSU said:

It's not that it was better back in the day, you just think it was better.

 

Indeed. Nostalgia can be a double edged sword. I love a bit of Nostalgia - hell I have an in progress arcade cabinet behind me as we speak - but it can overwhelm and taint your perceptions to a negative degree and cause you to miss out on new things. So many people here in New Zealand think, for example, all music released today sucks and there's no musical talent any more blah blah and it's because all they see and here is the crap shoveled out by the radio and TV. All the while genuinely great artists, some of whom can play circles around the legends of old, cry out for listeners. In particular, the rock and metal scene in Europe leaves similar scenes in New Zealand and America (where NZ gets most of it's entertainment from) for dead in terms of quantity and quality. These people look back and think of all the great music of their youth, forgetting that for every Beatles or Stones classic there was God knows how much more tat like that annoying "Sugar Sugar, Oh Honey Honey" song or whatever it was that got consigned to history and expunged from their brains cause it sucked. Even the kids who found classic rock via their Dad's collection of Beatles, Queen, Zepplin etc have a skewed view of this because for obvious reasons their parents didn't buy the crappy stuff. 

Edited January 11, 2022 by Murdoch

[Azuris]

I think somewhere between 1998 and 2008 we had really nice sweet spot between the analogue and the digital world.

 

 

[ApprihensivSoul]

CRT monitors, PS/2 response times, and Co-Ax audio are my jam. Probably selectively so, but aside from simplifying the production line, I find the digital era has brought me nothing I prefer. I have actively done searches on HD CRT screens, which are rare but exist, and hope to own several someday.

[NoOne]

49 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Yeah Youtube has been an outright blessing. As a huge fan of old school death metal it helped me discover classic stuff by tons of bands. 

 

Yep, I had one Forbidden album back when I was into metal (Twisted Into Form). Now, I've heard 'em all thanks to YT. Gr8 albums.

[Maggle]

All that stuff took up too much space and was too fragile. Nah, not really.

 

I get having nostalgia for the days when you go with friends or family members to Blockbuster or Hollywood video and rent a few VHS tapes, because that's time spent with people you care about. Despite it being a rather mundane ritual, it can create memories that can stick with you for a while, especially if you don't see those people much nowadays. (Or at all.) Actually missing VHS tapes themselves? God no. Those things were a pain in the ass. When DVDs finally dropped, that was like a light from the heavens because having to deal with a jammed tape would ruin your whole day.

[Doomkid]

If we're talking purely from a technological perspective: there's only a small handful of things where I think a solid argument could be made for the "old way" or the old version or whatever we want to call it.

 

One is broadcasted TV signals. Digital travels further and has a higher image quality, but at the same time the slightest interruption causes whatever you're watching to turn into a glitched-out YouTube Poop for about 30 seconds straight. Any time there's rain or wind, the signal becomes unusable ass gravy. Conversely, analog TV signals would get a bit snowy during wind and rain, and the audio would get a bit fuzzier, but it didn't become an incomprehensible mass of nothingness unless the signal was really bad.

 

That's one of the few I can think of where the argument is pretty legitimate. Watching movies, accessing video games, and all that kind of stuff is just way easier and a lot less bullshit to deal with on the whole. Even piracy was a lot harder back then, it was at it's easiest point in the mid 2000s but it's still far more accessible than it was in the 90s and before, for people who don't have a gazillion dollars to spend on 78 streaming services just to watch a handful of shows they like. Even then, streaming services are way less bullshit to deal with than VHS/video game cartridge rental was back in the day!

 

As for the psychological effects of over abundance?... I won't state anything definitely on the subject, though I'm receptive to the idea that it's probably not great and certainly doesn't seem to jive with our biological tendencies at a glance. Still though, we're now at a point where medical technology is better than ever before, and I do think society is progressing in kinda-sorta-mostly the right direction (we've always had varying amounts of strife, it's nothing new).. so I think that since we're better off now than we were before on the whole, it can't be all bad.

 

For every Facebook oldie getting brainwashed into gobbledygook and case of severe depression caused by "Instagram syndrome", there's people getting help they truly need who wouldn't have had access to it before modern technology, and there's people forging new connections and relationships where there otherwise never would have been one. I think there's beauty in that.

[roadworx]

while i personally grew up at the tail end of that era (the 2000s), i do miss it a bit, yeah. i've always liked crt monitors, and picking out a vhs tape from my parents' vhs collection was always really nice. the wonder of the early-ish internet was also something that can never be recaptured - looking at all the cool custom breeds for petz 5 on someone's amateurish website is something that i don't think i'll ever get to experience again - though i will say that stumbling across ebaum's world and the shithole known as the "roblox forums" probably wasn't very good for my psyche growing up.

 

the thing is tho...that's all nostalgia, and i realize that. while i can't recapture the feeling of the earlier days of the internet, i can still surround myself with the technology that i grew up with. my room looks like it's right out of 2003 with the old computer and shitty crt tv set, as well as the vhs collection...and that satisfies me, tbh. it's not like i actually want to live back in that era, because i realize that while i may look back at that time period with rose-tinted glasses, i wouldn't be as well off as i currently am. sure, the present is complete ass because the country i live in is falling apart and the future is pretty terrifying, but even then i still wouldn't wanna live back in that time. i know for a fact that myself and many others are significantly better off now than i would be back then, cuz at least now i can be who i wanna be and get the help that i need when i need it. society is, while currently a bit unstable where i am, better to live in now than it was 20 or so years ago.

 

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Still though, we're still at a point where medical technology is better than ever before too though, and I do think society is progressing in kinda-sorta-mostly the right direction (we've always had varying amounts of strife, it's nothing new).. so I think that since we're better off now than we were before on the whole, it can't be all bad.

 

For every Facebook oldie getting brainwashed into gobbledygook and case of severe depression caused by "Instagram syndrome", there's people getting help they truly need, who wouldn't have had access to before modern technology, and there's people forging new connections and relationships where there otherwise never would have been one. I think there's beauty in that. 

this pretty much sums it up for me; nostalgia can be fun and all, but just know that the past really isn't all that you want it to be.

[Biz!]

I wasn't alive during the Analog world though I do have a Stylophone "analog pocket synth"

[BaileyTW]

Maybe it was the feeling of physically having stuff. Didn't simply have DvDs, it was a DvD collection cause you had the cases and all, same with games. Of course this is just speaking of this in terms of consumer goods, and I am too poor to care about that really. Give me the cheap and immaterial

[Martin Howe]

14 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Yeah Youtube has been an outright blessing. As a huge fan of old school death metal it helped me discover classic stuff by tons of bands. 

This, turned up to 11 :) At age 57 I should have heard much of it when it came out, but was not into death or hard thrash metal at the time, and for various reasons missed out on much of the rest. In 2015 I searched on YT for something I heard in the 80s on The Friday Rock Show (UK BBC radio show) and found a recording from the cassette tape demo; this has opened up a rabbit hole of thrash metal from which I will likely never need to resurface. Thank Google for YouTube :P

Edited January 12, 2022 by Martin Howe

[7Mahonin]

I don’t miss it much besides the feeling of talking to a woman you’re seeing on an actual phone, before texting was a thing and before cell phones were used by everyone. It was just… different. Dating was different. Now you can meet someone online who wants exactly the same things as you. Is that a good thing? In my experience it has not been as good as when dating took quite a bit more effort, but that’s just me. 
 

Asides from that I don’t miss the past too much. Everything besides tech and the way we use it to create, send, receive, and enjoy content has stayed mostly the same. Same drugs. Mostly the same movie and video game franchises, genres, and tropes. Oh, okay, maybe fashion but I’ve noticed trends reappearing that people today think are new but are just riffs of old and shitty trends from yesteryear, and social media has seemed to help ensure further division between political and economical classes in societies all over the world, but that’s always been there, social media just helps to magnify the situation to the uninitiated.  

[ScreechingBoner]

Sometimes I do miss the feel of analog stuff like CDs and tapes, just wish they could still be a somewhat viable side option but unfortunately the technology is starting to get completely phased out and the remaining units are degrading and breaking down. Digital media has massive perks for sure, but there's just some je ne sais quoi about the older stuff, and I know I'm not the only one who feels that way because there has been a noticeable uptick in content with analog aesthetics online, the faux-VHS fuzz proving especially popular.

 

[DSC]

Why do...... Just, so, so many dumb posts...... Insist on being written like this...... Its so annoying......