Something Special in the Afternoon

Growing up Gen X meant taking a backseat to no one

Two doors were MORE than enough for motorists back in the 1970s

I recently saw one of those clickbaity Facebook posts directed at my fellow Gen Xers asking, “How many of these have you done?” accompanied by a string of outdated activities like “listened to a record,” “used a rotary phone” and “rented a video from Blockbuster.” Predictably enough, the post had a slew of nostalgic comments praising the “good old days” when “kids had to make their own fun” and “it never occurred to anyone to take a photo of their food.”

Of course, part of the reason we kids of the ’70s and ‘80s reflect so fondly on our bygone boomboxes, Sony Walkmen and Atari 2600 game systems is because we knew how to use them, whereas we so frequently flail in the face of today’s befuddling technology. Believe me, we Gen Xers would tick plenty of boxes on a more contemporary Facebook quiz asking questions like, “Have you ever…”

… been locked out of an account because you couldn’t remember your own password?

… asked someone half your age for help with a non-functioning device only to be informed that the item was not plugged in?

… placed an outraged call to your bank about a fraudulent purchase on your credit card before realizing, mid-rant, that, oh yeah, you HAD, in fact, bought the sweater / rice cooker / catheter-of-the-month club membership in question?

The Times Are A-Changin’ Awfully Fast

Another aspect of the intergenerational disconnect over technology is just how fast change happens. Obsolescence these days occurs in a matter of months, not years. Remember how hip and edgy those Apple iPod ads seemed, the ones featuring multicultural young people listening to music and dancing in front of electric pastel colors? Yet if you mentioned these iPod commercials to a kid today, they’d look at you funny and ask, “What’s an iPod? Or a TV commercial?”

I’ve written before about the videos posted by parents showing their teenage kids puzzling over rotary phones, Rolodexes, floppy disks and other obsolete items with the same confusion as the chimpanzees who discover the black monolith at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I enjoy watching these videos as much as anyone my age, frequently shaking my head and commenting, “Dumb kids,” just before my phone slips out of my hand and drops into the toilet.

Gone… And Also Forgotten

But it recently occurred to me that while there’s a general cultural recognition of the passing into obscurity of record players, rotary phones and Blockbuster Video, many other everyday experiences of my childhood have disappeared with virtually zero notice. In response I’ve come up with the following short list, not that anyone asked:

• Busy Signals

Remember the busy signal? That repeated discordant blare sounding like something out of a Family Feud-themed nightmare where you can’t think of a response and the judges just keep pushing the “wrong answer” button over and over again, all as punishment for committing the unforgivable offense of trying to call someone while they were already talking to someone else?

Busy signals emerged during an era when a range of new and unnecessarily irritating sounds were all the rage. Younger people have probably never even heard the term “elevator music,” but older folks recall the time when it was determined that people in elevators shouldn’t stand there awkwardly in silence, but instead should stand there awkwardly while being forced to listen to an “easy listening” version of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.”

• Two-Door Cars

I bet even most of my peers have forgotten that up until the 1990s, four-door cars were a rarity. Or maybe they’ve just blocked out the memory. From the tiniest VW Bug to an 18 foot long Cadillac, two doors was the standard. To get in and out of the backseat you’d pull on a lever conveniently located out of sight and nearly out of reach at the base of the side of the front seat. This action would cause the top of the seat to pivot forward, making it a simple matter to climb in or out of the back seat, assuming you were a trained Cirque du Soleil contortionist.

This was before reliable, economically-priced Japanese cars were widely available, so when consumers asked U.S. car manufacturers why they didn’t produce more four-door cars — or customer-friendly vehicles in general — US automakers could thoughtfully respond, “Because f*ck you, that’s why.”

• Afterschool Specials

Television networks used to be legally required to air educational programming, and one way they satisfied this obligation was with “Afterschool Specials” that educated young people about how poorly television network executives understood teenagers. These shows were supposed to provide a generation of “latch-key” kids with important life instruction that we weren’t getting from our neglectful, absentee parents. And while some of the topics covered were relatable to kids (bullying, obesity, parental divorce, etc.), many of the episodes came across as either treacly or excessively alarmist.

I recall one episode called “Desperate Lives” that warned viewers of the very real dangers of students turning suburban high school science classrooms into PCP labs. In a particularly chilling scene, future Best Actress Oscar winner Helen Hunt takes angel dust and leaps out of the school’s second-story window, survives the fall and then threatens her classmates with a shard of window glass. At the time the whole thing seemed ridiculous but, in retrospect, I don’t recall a single one of the many PCP-addled students at my high school ever jumping out of a second-story window, much less threatening anyone with broken glass afterwards, so maybe these Afterschool Specials DID make a difference.

There are countless other examples of these lost vestiges of my youth, many of which are mere blips, but they still give me pause. Like, does anyone ever breathe on an apple and then rub it on their chest before taking the first bite anymore? Do we still identify the “life of the party” as a guy who puts a lampshade on his head? If someone has gone broke, do we still depict them as wearing nothing but a barrel held up by two shoulder straps? And for that matter, why don’t we make our network stars “battle” anymore?

The list goes on. You could no doubt think of plenty more examples if, like me, you have a nostalgic streak and an alarming excess of time to waste. If so, please let me know what you come up with because I plan to shoot a series of sure-to-go-viral Instagram videos of my kids listening to busy signals, climbing in and out of two-door vehicles and wearing lampshades while dancing on tables.

Or at least I plan to if they ever agree to help me recover my Instagram password.