I just want to return to a time before the technocracy, and the metricization of everything, before we started caring about clicks and views and the algorithm, for the sake of squeezing every last bit of monetization and efficiency out of everything and everyone.
People listened to records, cassette tapes and CDs
Recording formats often get mentioned, but they are not the important music thing of which kids today are often unaware. The important thing is that we used to have record collections (which were mostly composed of CDs by the time I was old enough to have a modest one.)
I now have a more extensive one and enjoy it greatly, only now it's in mp3 form.
I might even suggest that having an mp3 or other file-based record collection is still in the same vein.
The big departure, imo, is people who don't own their music collections. They rely only on Spotify or Apple or Amazon or whatever and just stream.
One day, when their contracts with the labels or whatever expire, or the service is discontinued, or you move to another country... your collection evaporates. It's happened before.
As a relatively elder millennial (1987), I'd concede the title of last true pre-internet generation to Gen X. My family got AOL dial-up when I was in 6th grade, which was a little behind the curve compared to my peers, but not much. So I certainly lived through a seminal transition period as the internet developed and became...what it is today.
But the hallmark experiences of the pre-internet times, payphones, paper maps, coordinating with others, I only did so in my limited capacity as a child. I had a cell phone by...10th grade, I could at least print out MapQuest directions, etc.
I remember a lot, but didn't truly interact with most of it.
I often look at it as when kids were unlikely to encounter any analogue things regularly. Did you have analogue clocks and phones for any period? The only problem with my definition is schools kept analogue clocks around for long after you would not see them anywhere else.
I can see what you mean for phones, but are analogue clocks supposed to be a thing of the past now? I have like 3 in my home and know many other people, including young people, who still have them.
Yeah there were comics or some 180 pages catalogue, or even a "porny mag" (no sex, some titties or the one big flash) in the bunch of stuff.
People were all alone at almost all times so people did a bit of anything whenever they felt like it.
It was a crazy time compared to now in that manner, like you'd walk home and no one would worry if you weren't like one or two hours late. Meeting up? Other is 1h late? Yeah there were probably some problem (it happened to all of us), or they decided to not come...
So I had my café where I went, you met those who made it :-)
Ha ha went off the rails there, cheers & good night from the EU!