# Things That Disappeared Without You Noticing



## Sperghetti (Jun 22, 2020)

Ever need a product you haven't purchased in ages, only to find out that it seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet? Or suddenly see an object that used to be common and suddenly realize that this is the first one you've seen in years?

When I was a kid, there used to be a ton of different novelty flavors of bubblegum, like cotton candy, strawberry banana, or Dr. Pepper. I went to buy gum the other day and now it's like eight different brands of breath-freshening mint. No Bubbilicious. Bubble Yum and Bubble Tape only in the standard pink variety. What's up with that crap?

Also, I saw a cigarette vending machine for sale in an antique store a few years back. Some little kid asked his mom what it was, and I suddenly realized I probably hadn't seen one in the wild since the 90's.

Anyway, what vanished into the ether when _you _weren't looking?


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## Pissmaster (Jun 22, 2020)

I saw a cigarette vending machine in the wild in the 2010s, at a casino. 

I didn't realize Frutopia was long gone until last year


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## thegooddoctor (Jun 22, 2020)

My Virginity


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## Meat Pickle (Jun 22, 2020)

I remember snacking on Yogos as a kid, now they are pretty much gone as far as I know.  Another that somehow disappeared are those Hubba Bubba candy tapes.


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## MAPK phosphatase (Jun 22, 2020)

My will to live.


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## Irrelevant (Jun 22, 2020)

The gum thing is because it all went sugar free. You can still get the random flavours if you want sugar but they're hard to find.

In the UK you can now basically only find mints, juicy fruit, and strawberry. If you order any other flavours from Amazon you can tell from the packaging that it came from the US and they always give me the shits. From what I understand all sugar free gums can give you the shits but the sweeter they are the worse the effect. Apparently Americans don't mind shitting themselves for some sweets.


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## SiccDicc (Jun 22, 2020)

I can't remember. Which makes me think that when I forget something it just disappears from reality.


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## Wheezy Asthmatic (Jun 22, 2020)

Butterfinger BB's. They disappeared for the same reason @Pickelhaube's Yogo's did - choking hazard.
Which is bullshit.
I don't even want my BB's back though since Nestle sold off Butterfingers to Ferrera who promptly ruined the god damn recipe to make it " healthier ". Not even going to stew on the fact that the New Butterfingers has more salt and sugar in it than the old recipe.


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## Sperghetti (Jun 22, 2020)

Pickelhaube said:


> I remember snacking on Yogos as a kid, now they are pretty much gone as far as I know.  Another that somehow disappeared are those Hubba Bubba candy tapes.



In terms of Yogos, these are kind of similar, but probably a poor imitation.


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## Some JERK (Jun 22, 2020)

It's usually stores for me. Circuit city, Radio Shack, Thrifty (although they still make ice cream) and I have no idea when Alpha-Beta bit the dust but it had to have been a long long time ago. (I think it became Ralph's) They all just sort of slipped away in the night like an elderly person dying in their sleep.


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## teriyakiburns (Jun 22, 2020)

Irrelevant said:


> The gum thing is because it all went sugar free. You can still get the random flavours if you want sugar but they're hard to find.
> 
> In the UK you can basically only find mints, juicy fruit, and strawberry. If your order any other flavours from Amazon you can tell from the packaging that it came from the US and they always give me the shits. From what I understand all sugar free gums can give you the shits but the sweeter they are the worse the effect. Apparently Americans don't mind shitting themselves for some sweets.



I used to crave a gun called Pink Buggly. It's called _anglo bubbly_ now, which is weird. Comes in individually wrapped pieces. When I was a kid I used to go to a sweet shop down the road from my parents' church, where an old bid had trays filled with sweets, and all those glass jars on the shelves. It was a literal fucking stereotype. I'd buy the bubbly, flying saucers, real sherbert dips with the old cardboard tube and the proper liquorice straw instead of the plasticy shit they sell it with now, home made cinder toffee, and Roses seconds that she always bought in bulk from Cadbury.

She's been dead thirty years. Fuck.


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## BobsSpergers (Jun 22, 2020)

Mailboxes. The big blue ones. They used to be on every corner and just a few years ago I realized it was a lot harder to find them. Maybe it's still a thing in large cities, I don't know, but everywhere I've lived they just up and disappeared.


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## Richard Harrow (Jun 22, 2020)

Public payphones.  Lived in 3 states over the past year and still haven't seen them.  I can see the discoloration on the wall where they used to be, or sometimes the enclosed privacy box is there but no phone.


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## Wheezy Asthmatic (Jun 22, 2020)

Richard Harrow said:


> Public payphones.  Lived in 3 states over the past year and still haven't seen them.  I can see the discoloration on the wall where they used to be, or sometimes the enclosed privacy box is there but no phone.


In NYC, they're being converted into wifi hotspots IIRC


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## User names must be unique (Jun 22, 2020)

White dogshit.


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## Distant Stare (Jun 22, 2020)

Bitcoin ATMs soon enough


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## RA-5C Vigilante (Jun 22, 2020)

Those Tiny-Size Chiclets, which really sucks because they're a hundred times better than normal Chiclets.


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## that jerk over there (Jun 22, 2020)

Common decency. Remember the not so distant past when a drag queen reading to kids in a public library would have been the start of a joke instead of a real event?
I feel so old.


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## Jamila (Jun 22, 2020)

I still remember the feeling of heartbreak when my mom couldn't find these at the store anymore.


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## Francis York Morgan (Jun 22, 2020)

BBQ-flavored Ruffles. They were the best and I don't think I've seen a bag in over 15 years.


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## Too Many Catgirls (Jun 22, 2020)

Pissmaster said:


> I saw a cigarette vending machine in the wild in the 2010s, at a casino.
> 
> I didn't realize Frutopia was long gone until last year


Cigarette vending machines are the sort of thing you tell young people about and they simply don't believe you. Also I can still get Fruitopia at the soda fountain at the local McDonald's restaurant and at Rusty Venture's house. It is the nectar of the gods.

I miss Pogs and candy cigarettes that actually blew "smoke" out of the end.


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## Dwight Frye (Jun 22, 2020)

Venom energy drinks. 

People keep telling me they're still around, yet I haven't seen them in almost a decade. I'm not big on energy drinks to begin with, but I used to love those. Would like to have a Black Mamba again for old times sake. 

Speaking of old times sake, I miss being able to channel my inner goth with Djarum Black clove cigarettes. They still sell the Djarum cigarillos, but they're not the same. Used to buy a carton of Djarums and a few cases of Horde/Alliance game fuel and pass them out like a neckbeard Santa before each Saturday night D&D session.


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## Cheese Dust (Jun 22, 2020)

Irrelevant said:


> Apparently Americans don't mind shitting themselves for some sweets.


Ever heard of those Haribo sugar-free gummy bears? Lethal.

Also never realized Hubba Bubba tape wasnt around anymore until it was pointed out here.


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## Pissmaster (Jun 22, 2020)

Autumnal Equinox said:


> Venom energy drinks.
> 
> People keep telling me they're still around, yet I haven't seen them in almost a decade. I'm not big on energy drinks to begin with, but I used to love those. Would like to have a Black Mamba again for old times sake.
> 
> Speaking of old times sake, I miss being able to channel my inner goth with Djarum Black clove cigarettes. They still sell the Djarum cigarillos, but they're not the same. Used to buy a carton of Djarums and a few cases of Horde/Alliance game fuel and pass them out like a neckbeard Santa before each Saturday night D&D session.



IIRC Venom went from those really nice sturdy bottles to regular 16oz cans at some point, and only started showing up at stores like Big Lots & Dollar Tree.  But I don't think I've seen one in a long time now.


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## Curt Sibling (Jun 22, 2020)

Western Culture.


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## Wheezy Asthmatic (Jun 22, 2020)

Francis York Morgan said:


> BBQ-flavored Ruffles. They were the best and I don't think I've seen a bag in over 15 years.


Wait... what the fuck?


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## Robert James (Jun 22, 2020)

Christmas lights and the season in general. At major retail stores when I was a kid Kroger, Meijer, and Big K had some lights put up for christmas now it's just dark and the lights are shoved in the back corner. People always had a minimum of a string of lights around there house now adays 1/3 houses have lights if that. It's just depressing, during the darkest part of the year we came together and lit up our homes to warm the world a little bit more. Now we put up a pre decorated tree and spend our time shopping for deals and ditching the holiday for pure commercialism.


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## CivilianOfTheFandomWars (Jun 22, 2020)

In a broader sense, just normal LEGOs that aren’t based on some game or show or whatever seem to be gone, at least from what I’ve seen. Kind of like they moved from creatively toy to model building. I still miss Bionicle, those things were the best. Hero Factory never hit the same.
But locally, I haven’t seen saltwater taffy in years. Don’t know why, those things were that good shit.


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## Too Many Catgirls (Jun 22, 2020)

Cheese Dust said:


> Ever heard of those Haribo sugar-free gummy bears? Lethal.
> 
> Also never realized Hubba Bubba tape wasnt around anymore until it was pointed out here.


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## Barbarella (Jun 22, 2020)

Bugles-a delicious salty cone shaped snack.
Weak weed. The kind that used to give you a giggly high but left you able to function. Now it all slams you into a chair.
Internet cafes. Didn’t last long but it was better than hanging out with crazies at the library.


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## Irrelevant (Jun 22, 2020)

CivilianOfTheFandomWars said:


> In a broader sense, just normal LEGOs that aren’t based on some game or show or whatever seem to be gone, at least from what I’ve seen. Kind of like they moved from creatively toy to model building. I still miss Bionicle, those things were the best. Hero Factory never hit the same.
> But locally, I haven’t seen saltwater taffy in years. Don’t know why, those things were that good shit.


From what I heard Lego very nearly went bust and was saved by the Star Wars and Harry Potter tie ins so they've been repeating that for the last 20 years.



			https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lego#Decline_(1992%E2%80%932004)


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## Sparkletor 2.0 (Jun 22, 2020)

Catch Your Breath said:


> Butterfinger BB's. They disappeared for the same reason @Pickelhaube's Yogo's did - choking hazard.
> Which is bullshit.
> I don't even want my BB's back though since Nestle sold off Butterfingers to Ferrera who promptly ruined the god damn recipe to make it " healthier ". Not even going to stew on the fact that the New Butterfingers has more salt and sugar in it than the old recipe.


I was going to say Butterfingers that didn't taste like shit.

New better Butterfingers


Barbarella said:


> Bugles-a delicious salty cone shaped snack.
> Weak weed. The kind that used to give you a giggly high but left you able to function. Now it all slams you into a chair.
> Internet cafes. Didn’t last long but it was better than hanging out with crazies at the library.


They still make Bugles


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## Karl der Grosse (Jun 22, 2020)

CivilianOfTheFandomWars said:


> But locally, I haven’t seen saltwater taffy in years. Don’t know why, those things were that good shit.



In New Orleans, there's a family that's been selling saltwater taffy out of a horse-drawn cart for over a century.  They used to park the wagon outside my high school most afternoons.  They're still around and I guess you can even order some online.  I haven't had any in 20 years, it hurts my teeth.  When I was a kid, though...


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## whatever I feel like (Jun 22, 2020)

Dr. Snapple in glass bottles. Fuckers, it was the bottle that made the drink, (also they have as much sugar as coke, do noy boy.) Sobe is another one that in theory still exists but fuck if I ever see it around these days.

I miss Pathmark as a grocer, they pulled out of my area 25 years ago. Hills was a good K-Mart clone, now K-Mart themselves are probably gonna be dead in a year or two.

You can throw another one in for cigarette vending machines. Along with restaurant smoking sections and ash trays. Not going to say I miss them but I certainly do remember them gradually going away.

You can throw AOL registration disks, 56k limits, bad/non-existant cell service and "blue dial 1-800 number screens" in infomercials on the list of things I remember but am glad to be rid of.


As to cultural things... establishing shots of NYC with the twin towers, driving over the Hoover Dam, touring nuclear power plants, seeing East Germany and the Soviet Union in our old-ass school books and people proclaiming the relevance of international organizations on the list of things I have happy nostalgia for.


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## CivilianOfTheFandomWars (Jun 22, 2020)

Karl_der_Grosse said:


> In New Orleans, there's a family that's been selling saltwater taffy out of a horse-drawn cart for over a century.  They used to park the wagon outside my high school most afternoons.  They're still around and I guess you can even order some online.  I haven't had any in 20 years, it hurts my teeth.  When I was a kid, though...


That sounds like the realest candy you could possibly find. New Orleans knows how to _eat_.


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## Never Scored (Jun 22, 2020)

Quizno's Subs. It felt like one day there were four in my area and the next day there were none.


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## Orion Balls (Jun 22, 2020)

SoBe. Altogether. They were so hot, I wonder what happened to them? Pure Leaf seems to have taken over the "odd teas" game.


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## Orion Balls (Jun 22, 2020)

Autumnal Equinox said:


> Venom energy drinks.
> 
> People keep telling me they're still around, yet I haven't seen them in almost a decade. I'm not big on energy drinks to begin with, but I used to love those. Would like to have a Black Mamba again for old times sake.
> 
> Speaking of old times sake, I miss being able to channel my inner goth with Djarum Black clove cigarettes.


You ever want Venom or half packs of Blacks, I've got your hookup. My region of the US is a decade behind the trends. There's a Black Mamba with kiwi, now.
E- Sorry for doublepost.


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## sasazuka (Jun 22, 2020)

Canned wonton soup. I used to be able to buy it at Metro/Food Basics but now they don't even seem to sell it at Asian supermarkets (specifically T&T). I like the frozen shrimp wonton soup from CP Food Products Inc. which you can buy at most supermarkets, but those are ~$5 Canadian which is generally a few dollars more than I like to pay for a microwavable lunch product.

While on the topic of Asian food at regular supermarkets, boxes of 10 egg rolls also seem to be disappearing.


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## Desu Mountain (Jun 22, 2020)

The videos in my YouTube Favorites.


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## stupidpieceofshit (Jun 22, 2020)

Too Many Catgirls said:


> Also I can still get Fruitopia at the soda fountain at the local McDonald's restaurant and at Rusty Venture's house. It is the nectar of the gods.


I miss it, the McDonalds by me replaced Fruitopia with a Sprite flavor that isn't that good and a local ginger ale soda.


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## Maskull (Jun 22, 2020)

Growing up there was cigarette litter everywhere you went in the city. Even on sleepy streets gutters would be lined with them in varying states of decay. It’s something that I am almost nostalgic for as well seeing posters nailed or stapled to near every utility pole. In places where I live there are still poles with thousands of decades old staples which whenever I see leaves me wistful for a time not long lost.


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## sasazuka (Jun 22, 2020)

We still have Fruitopia in Canada the same way we still have more than two Toys R' Us stores open in the entire country.



Maskull said:


> In places where I live there are still poles with thousands of decades old staples which whenever I see leaves me wistful for a time not long lost.





Picture is from November 2017, I think this telephone pole has since been removed as part of the Elgin Street redevelopment project.


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## dookerbewitt (Jun 22, 2020)

Those chintzy plastic dishes you could get from McD's and the like, usually Disney branded. Sure we've got loud advertising everywhere now but I remember bonding with my mom over collecting every exclusive Hercules plate we could find. It was useful and cute, you know? Even if you probably shouldn't eat off of that cheap plastic design. My Lion King cups were some of my prized possessions. I can't recall the last time I've seen something like that you could get at a fast food joint.


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## Doctor Placebo (Jun 22, 2020)

American history.


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## Francis York Morgan (Jun 22, 2020)

Catch Your Breath said:


> Wait... what the fuck?








Seriously. I can't tell you the last time I saw a bag. It's the weirdest thing.


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## Baguette Child (Jun 22, 2020)

Francis York Morgan said:


>


Had no idea these were gone. Got fond college memories of a drunken fistfight I had with a roommate over who ate whose bag of BBQ Ruffles.


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## JoyQ (Jun 22, 2020)

whatever I feel like said:


> Dr. Snapple in glass bottles. Fuckers, it was the bottle that made the drink, (also they have as much sugar as coke, do noy boy.) Sobe is another one that in theory still exists but fuck if I ever see it around these days.


I used to love the fruit punch Snapple’s in glass bottles. They’re were so good. Nothing has ever had that bizarre tang to it that Snapple’s did.

I still see SoBes in plastic bottles at stores but they are mostly opaque liquids and look really odd rather than the normal see through liquids I saw as a kid.


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## Sperghetti (Jun 22, 2020)

Some JERK said:


> It's usually stores for me. Circuit city, Radio Shack, Thrifty (although they still make ice cream) and I have no idea when Alpha-Beta bit the dust but it had to have been a long long time ago. (I think it became Ralph's) They all just sort of slipped away in the night like an elderly person dying in their sleep.



Now that you mention it, I actually have no idea if my local Radio Shack is still there or not.



dookerbewitt said:


> Those chintzy plastic dishes you could get from McD's and the like, usually Disney branded. Sure we've got loud advertising everywhere now but I remember bonding with my mom over collecting every exclusive Hercules plate we could find. It was useful and cute, you know? Even if you probably shouldn't eat off of that cheap plastic design. My Lion King cups were some of my prized possessions. I can't recall the last time I've seen something like that you could get at a fast food joint.



Holy crap, that’s a good one. I haven’t seen promotional dishes or glassware in ages, and those things used to be so common. I think the last one I remember seeing anywhere was the big Coca-Cola ice cream float glasses at McDonald's, and even that was several years ago.

On a related note: Those Welch's jelly jars with cartoon characters printed on them that were meant to be re-used as juice glasses. When did they stop doing that?


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## NerdShamer (Jun 22, 2020)

BobsSpergers said:


> Mailboxes. The big blue ones. They used to be on every corner and just a few years ago I realized it was a lot harder to find them. Maybe it's still a thing in large cities, I don't know, but everywhere I've lived they just up and disappeared.


Saw one out of sight in Fredericksburg, Texas a few months ago. But they're usually within eyesight of a post office, probably because some hooligan was breaking into to them.


Richard Harrow said:


> Public payphones.  Lived in 3 states over the past year and still haven't seen them.  I can see the discoloration on the wall where they used to be, or sometimes the enclosed privacy box is there but no phone.


For this, I blame a lack of revenue from cell phones replacing them.


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## Massa's Little Buckie (Jun 22, 2020)

My dad.


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## Syaoran Li (Jun 22, 2020)

Autumnal Equinox said:


> Venom energy drinks.
> 
> People keep telling me they're still around, yet I haven't seen them in almost a decade. I'm not big on energy drinks to begin with, but I used to love those. Would like to have a Black Mamba again for old times sake.
> 
> Speaking of old times sake, I miss being able to channel my inner goth with Djarum Black clove cigarettes. They still sell the Djarum cigarillos, but they're not the same. Used to buy a carton of Djarums and a few cases of Horde/Alliance game fuel and pass them out like a neckbeard Santa before each Saturday night D&D session.



Venom Energy Drink is still around but it's very much a regional brand and it's only in the cans instead of the old metal bottles. You can find it in the coalfields of Appalachia in Southwestern Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, and Southern West Virginia. I've also seen it in Northeast Tennessee and the High Country of North Carolina as well too. Every time I visit my relatives, I make sure to buy a can of Venom since it's only 99 cents a pop

Love the Killer Taipan flavor, used to drink that all the time when I was 12-13. 

For me, nothing says "Summer and Fall of 2005" like Venom Energy Drink, Mountain Dew Code Red, playing PS2, and watching InuYasha, Ghost in the Shell, and Fullmetal Alchemist on Adult Swim.

Another thing I miss are video arcades. I missed the late 80's/early 90's heyday where you had a stand-alone arcade on every street corner, but I do remember that even in the late 90's and early 2000's, most malls had an arcade and arcades were all over the more tourist trap towns like Branson, Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, or Myrtle Beach.


Another thing that I noticed was missing all of a sudden was nudity in R-rated movies, especially horror movies. I wouldn't say I miss it per se, but its sudden absence was jarring. Used to be that nudity was a staple of 70's, 80's, and 90's horror movies and of 2000's premium cable.

I'd say a lot of these changes had to do with the "culture war" BS of the 2010's but there seems to have been a wider backlash against nudity and sex in movies and premium cable TV in general.

The last major mainstream movies and shows to have a lot of pointless nudity that I remember are Game of Thrones, Shameless, and The Wolf of Wall Street.


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## stupidpieceofshit (Jun 22, 2020)

Bawls and Jolt, back in the 2000s LAN days Bawls and Jolt where everywhere. Although I think Bawls is making a come back, after the fall I could only find it at Microcenter now my local liquor store and Kroger carries a small amount.


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## Doctor Placebo (Jun 22, 2020)

Daddy's Little Kitten said:


> My dad.


This explains a lot about your username and description.


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## Maskull (Jun 22, 2020)

sasazuka said:


> We still have Fruitopia in Canada the same way we still have more than two Toys R' Us stores open in the entire country.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The French have a way of expressing how I feel towards these things and that’s _jolie_ _laide_.


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## Bogs (Jun 22, 2020)

My group of friends


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## XYZpdq (Jun 22, 2020)

Barbarella said:


> Weak weed


seriously I loved getting a shitton of dirt weed and smoking literally all day


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## Not a local (Jun 23, 2020)

When I was younger I looked forward to going to blockbuster to watch some new movies with my family. While not particularly special as a place, I have a fond memory of it.


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## Never Scored (Jun 23, 2020)

Not a local said:


> When I was younger I looked forward to going to blockbuster to watch some new movies with my family. While not particularly special as a place, I have a fond memory of it.




Same here. In highschool me and two or three of my best buddies would go to Blockbuster on a Friday night and load up on DVDs and junk food. Definite nostalgia there, even though at the time they were absolute shit to deal with.


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## Syaoran Li (Jun 23, 2020)

Not a local said:


> When I was younger I looked forward to going to blockbuster to watch some new movies with my family. While not particularly special as a place, I have a fond memory of it.



Video stores in general were awesome.

Oddly enough, I never went to a Blockbuster Video in my entire life.

For me, it was mainly Movie Starz, Hollywood Video, and local mom and pop video stores.


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## Wheezy Asthmatic (Jun 23, 2020)

XYZpdq said:


> seriously I loved getting a shitton of dirt weed and smoking literally all day


I don't smoke but from what my friends have told me, my area has plenty of dirt slingers. Only problem is they think they're hot shit and try to charge a lot unless you call them out on their bs.


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## NyQuilninja (Jun 23, 2020)

I miss having Personal rights and freedoms
Like the right to privacy and free speech
And great bluedini kool-aid


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## BOLDYSPICY! (Jun 23, 2020)




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## Never Scored (Jun 23, 2020)

This low end department store used to sell these cheese flavoured tortilla chips with Garfield on the bag wearing a sombrero in the 1990s. They came in these giant fucking bags and had the texture of cardboard, but I used to eat them and play Sega/Nintendo and watch rasslin' and I'm a bit nostalgic for them. The store closed sometime in the early 2000s and I never found them after. No one knows what the fuck I'm talking about. It's like they never existed. It drives me insane. These grainy pictures from flyers are the only references I've ever been able to find of them anywhere:


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## Synthetic Smug (Jun 23, 2020)

Maskull said:


> The French have a way of expressing how I feel towards these things and that’s _jolie_ _laide_.


Wabi-sabi also seems applicable.


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## Shield Breaker (Jun 23, 2020)

Habanero doritos.


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## Baguette Child (Jun 23, 2020)

Sperghetti said:


> On a related note: Those Welch's jelly jars with cartoon characters printed on them that were meant to be re-used as juice glasses. When did they stop doing that?



I still have the full set of Welch's Pokemon jelly jars from '99. We ate so much of that crap that year just so mom would get us more and we could have the whole set.


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## Bogs (Jun 23, 2020)

real shit, Monster Rehab supplies have been dwindling this year. They better not be discontinuing their best flavor.


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## LazloChalos (Jun 23, 2020)




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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Jun 23, 2020)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbitz_(drink)


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## Midlife Sperglord (Jun 23, 2020)

One of my local grocery store chains used to sell a store brand Tiramisu ice cream.  That disappeared with no fanfare about a decade ago. I probably am better off without it, but that was some great ice cream.


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## Hugbox Kommissar (Jun 23, 2020)

Never Scored said:


> Quizno's Subs. It felt like one day there were four in my area and the next day there were none.


I stopped at a Quiznos on my lunch break one day, then drove past it a few days later and it wasn't just closed down, they had already emptied and gutted the store space. I don't know what happened but I was probably one of the last customers at that store.


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## Witthel (Jun 23, 2020)

A bowling alley located close to where I live. It had a mini arcade that included a really awesome rail shooter that I used play all the time as a kid, I went to it now and it got converted into a church.



Autumnal Equinox said:


> Venom energy drinks.
> 
> People keep telling me they're still around, yet I haven't seen them in almost a decade. I'm not big on energy drinks to begin with, but I used to love those. Would like to have a Black Mamba again for old times sake.


I used to live in NC and they had those at every single gas station I went to.


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## Stardust (Jun 23, 2020)

Francis York Morgan said:


> BBQ-flavored Ruffles. They were the best and I don't think I've seen a bag in over 15 years.



No idea where you live, but I see those quite often.  BBQ-flavored anything is really popular in my state, and with the 4th of July nearing, potato chips are on sale like crazy.

As for me, Zebra Stripe gum.


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## UnKillShredDur (Jun 23, 2020)

America.


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## Banditotron (Jun 24, 2020)

UnKillFill said:


> America.


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## Sam Losco (Jun 24, 2020)

Hugbox Kommissar said:


> I stopped at a Quiznos on my lunch break one day, then drove past it a few days later and it wasn't just closed down, they had already emptied and gutted the store space. I don't know what happened but I was probably one of the last customers at that store.


Ditto for one near my house. Went to stop at it and it was gone. Cleared out and the next door jewelry store had expanded into the space.

Quiznos started in Denver. Look at Google Maps for Denver now and you get only 4 for the whole metro area. Five if you count the one in the airport. It sucks that they are going under and yet Subway is fucking everywhere still.


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## Tootsie Bear (Jun 24, 2020)

Robert James said:


> Christmas lights and the season in general. At major retail stores when I was a kid Kroger, Meijer, and Big K had some lights put up for christmas now it's just dark and the lights are shoved in the back corner. People always had a minimum of a string of lights around there house now adays 1/3 houses have lights if that. It's just depressing, during the darkest part of the year we came together and lit up our homes to warm the world a little bit more. Now we put up a pre decorated tree and spend our time shopping for deals and ditching the holiday for pure commercialism.


That's one thing I noticed growing up that's it's eccentric adults, like Mick Foley, or eccentric families who are the only ones who decelerate their homes for holidays and events like Halloween and Christmas today. 

Last year my mom purchased multiple bags of candy to fill a big bucket for the trick or treaters but none came Halloween night. Which was strange because the year before we had a few, and there are multiple kids in my neighborhood as well. Turns out, a day later, I was reading a Reddit post where a father explained he only takes his kids to homes that are decorated because those are the houses that have candy. Makes sense, but it's different from when I was a kid where you only found out no one gave out candy had a note on their door telling families they didn't celebrate Halloween.


----------



## Stardust (Jun 24, 2020)

Tootsie Bear said:


> That's one thing I noticed growing up that's it's eccentric adults, like Mick Foley, or eccentric families who are the only ones who decelerate their homes for holidays and events like Halloween and Christmas today.
> 
> Last year my mom purchased multiple bags of candy to fill a big bucket for the trick or treaters but none came Halloween night. Which was strange because the year before we had a few, and there are multiple kids in my neighborhood as well. Turns out, a day later, I was reading a Reddit post where a father explained he only takes his kids to homes that are decorated because those are the houses that have candy. Makes sense, but it's different from when I was a kid where you only found out no one gave out candy had a note on their door telling families they didn't celebrate Halloween.



Not sure for your area, but my area the reason trick-or-treating is dead is two reasons:

1) Parents here work soul-crushing jobs, and they would rather destress at home.  Going out to do traditional trick-or-treating takes a few hours, and they still have work in the morning.  Which leads into...

2) One-stop locations.  Churches here give out lots of candy.  Quick and easy.

People are too indifferent or too stressed for the traditional house to house journey.  As for decorations, well, no trick-or-treaters discourages some from decorating.  Here, at least.

Now, Christmas.  This town is a rainbow circus of lights.


----------



## Pee Wee Herman (Jun 24, 2020)

Catch Your Breath said:


> Butterfinger BB's. They disappeared for the same reason @Pickelhaube's Yogo's did - choking hazard.
> Which is bullshit.
> I don't even want my BB's back though since Nestle sold off Butterfingers to Ferrera who promptly ruined the god damn recipe to make it " healthier ". Not even going to stew on the fact that the New Butterfingers has more salt and sugar in it than the old recipe.


Butterfinger used to be my favorite candy bar. The new recipe is a butchering of the original flavor.


----------



## Tor Lugosi (Jun 24, 2020)

Josta pop, from back in the '90s. I remember my friends and I thought it made us run faster because it had a jaguar on the label... which it probably did due to all the caffeine and sugar it had. I *think* they tried to revive it some years ago and sell it by force of nostalgia but I don't think it did too well.


----------



## Local Fed (Jun 24, 2020)

I miss the 'French Silk Pie' Blizzard's at Dairy Queen. They were my favourite and then one day I think around 5-6 years ago I went to order one and they said they no longer had them. I still miss them. Also I always really liked their chicken quesadillas but they seemed to get rid of them around the same time.


----------



## Stardust (Jun 24, 2020)

NyQuilninja said:


> I miss having Personal rights and freedoms
> Like the right to privacy and free speech
> And great bluedini kool-aid
> View attachment 1400119



I miss Rock-A-Dile Red, myself.







Hell, I miss old Kool-Aid package art in general.


----------



## Cat tit bingo (Jun 24, 2020)

both of my favorite drinks are just gone now. jolts mainly known for jolt cola which has come back (as a dollar general exclusive for some dumb fuck reason) but jolt blue was my all time favorite drinks.as a teen i would walk to the local rite-aid(which is also torn down now) to buy one. eventually i found a Kroger store brand blue raspberry soda that tasted  a lot like it but now that's gone to.
minute maid's pomegranate lemon-aid was just the shit. i haven't tasted  any drink like and i can't make it myself cause minute maid, being cheap bastards, added  a butch of filler juices cause pomegranates expensive


----------



## Karl der Grosse (Jun 24, 2020)

LazloChalos said:


> View attachment 1401519



Every grocery store used to have a section in the candy aisle with a bunch of candy dispensers and paper bags and you could fill the bag with individual candies from one of the dispensers and buy it by weight.  I'm guessing those went away for both liability and food safety reasons.  The way I recall them it wouldn't have been too difficult to fuck with the candy.  Most of the candy wasn't even individually wrapped.  I don't think I've seen one since the mid-80s.


----------



## Puff (Jun 24, 2020)

Conversations that weren't political.


----------



## Tour of Italy (Jun 24, 2020)

I bought band-aids at an actual pharmacy and noticed that the selection of designs for children's band-aids was rock bottom compared to when I was a kid. It was basically just Frozen and Mickey (all Disney of course). That's it. I saw the same thing at Target last time I was there.

It's not a big deal, just interesting. Apparently you can't get a kid excited about a character-themed band-aid anymore.


----------



## Duncan Hills Coffee (Jun 24, 2020)

I ate a lot of SweeTarts Shockers in high school. They were way too sour for their own good, but dammit I loved them for it. Then at some point after high school they just _vanished_. Couldn't find them anywhere anymore. Apparently they've been rebranded as SweeTarts Chewy Sours, but I've never come across those either.


----------



## waffle (Jun 24, 2020)

My state has bugles, cigarette machines, venom, gum with sugar/flavors, and sobe. Midwest is truly God's country.


----------



## Furina (Jun 24, 2020)

The Sims Exchange  I spent hours on there as a kid reading the stories that people had put together, then one day they had a massive server crash and the entire exchange was lost. Even the wayback machine couldn't save them.


----------



## Bogs (Jun 24, 2020)

UnKillFill said:


> America.


----------



## UnKillShredDur (Jun 24, 2020)

Bogs said:


>


----------



## Megaroad 2012 (Jun 24, 2020)

my merkins


----------



## The Un-Clit (Jun 24, 2020)

Pissmaster said:


> I saw a cigarette vending machine in the wild in the 2010s, at a casino.
> 
> I didn't realize Frutopia was long gone until last year



Frutopia gone?  Not in Vancouver it isn't. Different flavours in every grocery store, McDonalds has 2 flavors of it on tap.


----------



## Picklechu (Jun 26, 2020)

It still exists, but the stores that actually order it are completely random, and it's a regional product on top of that, so I can never find Buffalo Rock ginger ale. It's basically an old-school, spicy ginger ale; Canada Dry recently came out with a "bold ginger ale" that I saw at Walmart and was optimistic about, but it was nothing in comparison. 

I may have written several emails to Buffalo Rock over the past several years begging them to allow people to order online.



Richard Harrow said:


> Public payphones.  Lived in 3 states over the past year and still haven't seen them.  I can see the discoloration on the wall where they used to be, or sometimes the enclosed privacy box is there but no phone.


I have seen a single working one in the past decade, and it was outside of a locally-owned 24/7 grocery store. It closed last year though, so I assume it's been torn down along with the building.



Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbitz_(drink)


No one ever has any idea what I'm talking about when I mention this.


----------



## Smaug's Smokey Hole (Jun 27, 2020)

Karl_der_Grosse said:


> Every grocery store used to have a section in the candy aisle with a bunch of candy dispensers and paper bags and you could fill the bag with individual candies from one of the dispensers and buy it by weight.  I'm guessing those went away for both liability and food safety reasons.  The way I recall them it wouldn't have been too difficult to fuck with the candy.  Most of the candy wasn't even individually wrapped.  I don't think I've seen one since the mid-80s.



We have them in every supermarket, even kids behave around them and use the scoops.


Something that isn't everywhere anymore is pinball machines and arcade games. Gone are the days of going to a random corner store or gas station to buy something and spotting an Operation: Wolf machine in the back next to the Elvira pinball table. Arcade games used to be everywhere.


----------



## Wheezy Asthmatic (Jun 27, 2020)

Tour of Italy said:


> I bought band-aids at an actual pharmacy and noticed that the selection of designs for children's band-aids was rock bottom compared to when I was a kid. It was basically just Frozen and Mickey (all Disney of course). That's it. I saw the same thing at Target last time I was there.
> 
> It's not a big deal, just interesting. Apparently you can't get a kid excited about a character-themed band-aid anymore.


Honestly, I always thought these were stupid as a kid. It just seemed really pointless to go through the hassle of printing a face on something you were just going to throw away in >2 days. I remember the kids at my school getting really excited because the nurse got Land Before Time (I think?) bandaids so there were actually a group of dumb fucks intentionally getting themselves hurt just to get one.


----------



## Tour of Italy (Jun 27, 2020)

Smaug's Smokey Hole said:


> We have them in every supermarket, even kids behave around them and use the scoops.
> View attachment 1410434
> 
> Something that isn't everywhere anymore is pinball machines and arcade games. Gone are the days of going to a random corner store or gas station to buy something and spotting an Operation: Wolf machine in the back next to the Elvira pinball table. Arcade games used to be everywhere.


When I was in my late teens I got really into retro Arcade and fighting games, so it was like the holy grail when I found a Darkstalkers cabinet in a random roadside diner and a Street Fighter 3 cabinet in a Marriot of all things.

Not even Third Strike, but first edition SF3.


----------



## Bogs (Jun 27, 2020)

Around the turn of the millennium Pepsi Twist came out and disappeared within a year. I forgot about it for years and randomly came across it in a Eastern European market. That shit is delicious. Unfortunately, as soon as I had rediscovered it, it disappeared once again. Now every time I drink Pepsi I have to squeeze lemon into it.


----------



## A Grey Cat (Jun 28, 2020)

Does anyone remember this kablam ripoff kids wb did for a while in the late 90s/2000s? No seriously I'm sure it was a Kablam ripoff because it was an animated boy and girl either hosting the kids wb block or anotholgy shorts. I can't remember which. 

The most telltale details I remember about it was the boy was voiced by the same VA as Billy from Billy and Mandy,  zim and most recently moxie from helluva boss and the girls name no joke was Karen.


----------



## Mr. Bung (Jun 28, 2020)

Quiznos was THE SHIT and 100 times better than Subway, then they started disappearing and disappearing...Chevy's Fresh Mex was also a great restaurant and to this day probably has the best salsa I've had but they're also much fewer and farther between these days.


----------



## Jeff Boomhauer (Jun 28, 2020)

Entertainment stores like Sam Goody, FYE, Hasting's, etc. Those were the shit as a kid. Even if you couldn't buy anything, you could still spend hours browsing.

Now it's pretty much just Best Buy.


----------



## Syaoran Li (Jun 28, 2020)

Smaug's Smokey Hole said:


> Something that isn't everywhere anymore is pinball machines and arcade games. Gone are the days of going to a random corner store or gas station to buy something and spotting an Operation: Wolf machine in the back next to the Elvira pinball table. Arcade games used to be everywhere.



This.

Hell, I remember that even the big box chain stores like Wal-Mart and Big Lots would have arcade machines near the front entrance.

Big Lots had Lethal Enforcers II and I think one of the Street Fighter games, while Wal-Mart had one of those racing arcade games, plus the Jurassic Park light gun game, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and one of those deer-hunting lightgun games. 

They still have the claw machines though, but I think that's because Claw Machines are like the one type of arcade game that has never really gone away to begin with.

Other things I miss are Kmart and Magic Mart. 

Magic Mart was basically a weird mix between a Wal-Mart and a Big Lots, and for some reason the one where I used to live also had an area near the sporting goods section that sold katanas, medieval swords, fancy knives, and all sorts of mall ninja shit for really cheap.

Best part was that the clerk usually never checked for ID, so I was able to buy a $10 wakizashi sword when I was 13.


----------



## Never Scored (Jun 28, 2020)

My mom used to always get her groceries at a tiny mall that had a disproportionately huge arcade. She used to give me a $2 bill and I'd go blow 8 quarters on Wrestle Fest and the Simpsons.


----------



## Jeff Boomhauer (Jun 28, 2020)

A lot of Walmarts still have a game center, though they're more than likely inoperable due to COVID-19.

Most of them are filled with games of chance to win toys, though one of my local Walmarts has a Batman game where you drive the Batmobile and shoot at villains. 

They unfortunately don't have classic arcade games anymore. The last Street Fighter cabinet I saw in a place that wasn't an arcade was Street Fighter Alpha at a roller rink, that's also no longer around.


----------



## Horus (Jun 29, 2020)

Floppy disks.  Mountains and mountains of floppy disks....cant say I miss them though.


----------



## Crankenstein (Aug 13, 2020)

Socks, mostly.


----------



## Local Fed (Aug 13, 2020)

Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm no longer able to find dill pickle chips (like what you'd have on a burger) in stores. It's been about a decade since I stopped seeing them. I can find bread and butter chips with ease, dill pickle slices or whole pickles, etc. without a problem but I can't find dill chips. It doesn't matter if I go to a grocery store or into Walmart or whatever, they haven't had them in a long time. It's weird. I don't know if it's just some odd Canada thing or what the deal is.


----------



## stupidpieceofshit (Aug 13, 2020)

Local Fed said:


> Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm no longer able to find dill pickle chips (like what you'd have on a burger) in stores. It's been about a decade since I stopped seeing them. I can find bread and butter chips with ease, dill pickle slices or whole pickles, etc. without a problem but I can't find dill chips. It doesn't matter if I go to a grocery store or into Walmart or whatever, they haven't had them in a long time. It's weird. I don't know if it's just some odd Canada thing or what the deal is.


Might be some weird Canadia thing, my state boarders Canada and gets a fair amount of Canadian shoppers, and we still have them.


----------



## Gaius Caesar (Aug 13, 2020)

Karl_der_Grosse said:


> Every grocery store used to have a section in the candy aisle with a bunch of candy dispensers and paper bags and you could fill the bag with individual candies from one of the dispensers and buy it by weight.  I'm guessing those went away for both liability and food safety reasons.  The way I recall them it wouldn't have been too difficult to fuck with the candy.  Most of the candy wasn't even individually wrapped.  I don't think I've seen one since the mid-80s.



I remember them at least into the mid-90s where I grew up, that was the only place I could ever get those root beer barrel candies.


----------



## saralovesjuicyfruit (Aug 13, 2020)

Bogs said:


> Around the turn of the millennium Pepsi Twist came out and disappeared within a year. I forgot about it for years and randomly came across it in a Eastern European market. That shit is delicious. Unfortunately, as soon as I had rediscovered it, it disappeared once again. Now every time I drink Pepsi I have to squeeze lemon into it.



I remember the way they advertised that using The Osmonds and The Osbournes


----------



## Azafran90 (Aug 14, 2020)

I can think of a few Mexican things...

A candy named "vikingos" that wasn't sweet at all, but I loved to binge on them.

And toy aisles in shops, I remember a local chain having another store worth of toys inside.

Mutilated corpses on the streets and gunfight between narco cartels, I don't get to hear about those in my area anymore...


----------



## Dom Cruise (Aug 14, 2020)

Amazon Basics headphone extension cords were not available last time I checked.

A few different manga series I never finished sudden;y went out print and volumes became incredibly expensive, which sucks (but at least there's scans of course)

Does anyone remember a candy called Muddy Bears? They were chocolate covered gummy bears and I haven't seen any in years.


----------



## Agent Abe Caprine (Aug 14, 2020)

Fiery Habanero Doritos. I had started eating healthier, so my chip consumption became infrequent. Damn you, healthy eating. Stop distracting me from my fiery beloved.


----------



## Coffee Druid (Aug 14, 2020)

On the topic of arcades, I remember when my local Taco Bell had a legit game room. With the colorful carpeting, tickets and a glass display of prizes. Was that common with Taco Bells or just that one? They phased it out long ago.



Dom Cruise said:


> Amazon Basics headphone extension cords were not available last time I checked.
> 
> A few different manga series I never finished sudden;y went out print and volumes became incredibly expensive, which sucks (but at least there's scans of course)
> 
> Does anyone remember a candy called Muddy Bears? They were chocolate covered gummy bears and I haven't seen any in years.


I used to enjoy a manga series that wasn’t fully published in English years ago (still isn’t done), so I read it from a scanlator. Over 100 chapters. I went back to try reading it again and it’s nowhere. Scrubbed off the Internet. I feel like English scanlation sites to read manga were more prolific back in the day.


----------



## Alexander Thaut (Aug 14, 2020)

Coffee Druid said:


> On the topic of arcades, I remember when my local Taco Bell had a legit game room. With the colorful carpeting, tickets and a glass display of prizes. Was that common with Taco Bells or just that one? They phased it out long ago.
> 
> 
> I used to enjoy a manga series that wasn’t fully published in English years ago (still isn’t done), so I read it from a scanlator. Over 100 chapters. I went back to try reading it again and it’s nowhere. Scrubbed off the Internet. I feel like English scanlation sites to read manga were more prolific back in the day.


there's a lot of aggregate sites and whatnot. Gimme the name.


----------



## DelicateMageflower (Aug 14, 2020)

Jell-o Pudding Pops. Those fuckers were amazing.


----------



## Coffee Druid (Aug 14, 2020)

Czargon the Red said:


> there's a lot of aggregate sites and whatnot. Gimme the name.


Kaze Hikaru.


----------



## Alexander Thaut (Aug 14, 2020)

Coffee Druid said:


> Kaze Hikaru.











						Read  Kaze Hikaru Vol.1 Chapter 4  Online Free | KissManga
					

KissManga, you can read  Kaze Hikaru Vol.1 Chapter 4  Manga online free and more Manga online Free in high quality, without downloading. READ NOW!!!




					kissmanga.org
				






			https://shiningwindscans.tumblr.com/
		


bada bing bada boom.


----------



## Coffee Druid (Aug 14, 2020)

Czargon the Red said:


> Read  Kaze Hikaru Vol.1 Chapter 4  Online Free | KissManga
> 
> 
> KissManga, you can read  Kaze Hikaru Vol.1 Chapter 4  Manga online free and more Manga online Free in high quality, without downloading. READ NOW!!!
> ...


Hey, man/lady. I would die for you. Time to go have some nostalgia.


----------



## stupidpieceofshit (Aug 14, 2020)

Bogs said:


> Around the turn of the millennium Pepsi Twist came out and disappeared within a year. I forgot about it for years and randomly came across it in a Eastern European market. That shit is delicious. Unfortunately, as soon as I had rediscovered it, it disappeared once again. Now every time I drink Pepsi I have to squeeze lemon into it.


I miss Pepsi Twist so much, the only thing I can get to it now, is the Coke machines where you can choose different fruit flavors, when I worked next to a wendy's and my coworker would go and order for both of us, he'd look at me crazy when I said lemon coke, not as good as twist from what I remember but its all I have now.


Mr. Bung said:


> Quiznos was THE SHIT and 100 times better than Subway, then they started disappearing and disappearing...Chevy's Fresh Mex was also a great restaurant and to this day probably has the best salsa I've had but they're also much fewer and farther between these days.


I miss quiznos, the bourbon beef was my favorite, when I went to university there was one on campus (this was after Quiznos disappeared), only issue was I often didn't have the cash for it, damn you fate.


South American Tapir said:


> Entertainment stores like Sam Goody, FYE, Hasting's, etc. Those were the shit as a kid. Even if you couldn't buy anything, you could still spend hours browsing.
> 
> Now it's pretty much just Best Buy.


There was a chain called Media  Play, it had toys, books, movies, video games, and music, it was so fun to walk around as a kid. I also miss Sun Coast (same parent company as Media Play)


Syaoran Li said:


> This.
> 
> Hell, I remember that even the big box chain stores like Wal-Mart and Big Lots would have arcade machines near the front entrance.
> 
> ...


Kmart back in the day was good, but every Kmart I was in post early 00s was always dimly light, and nothing seemed to have changed since the late 90s. Hell even their registers were the old IBM ones with a small monochrome CRT and beige from age. It was just depressing to be in.
like this one:






Gaius Caesar said:


> I remember them at least into the mid-90s where I grew up, that was the only place I could ever get those root beer barrel candies.



I remember that too, when Kroger opened a new store by me in 2017 they had a bulk candy section still, no idea if it still is there as they rearranged the store since.


----------



## Red Hood (Aug 14, 2020)

Rock music.


----------



## RTX Mario (Aug 14, 2020)

I miss Yogos.

I used to love these snacks when I was little.


----------



## saralovesjuicyfruit (Sep 14, 2020)

The spiral-y lightbulbs that were everywhere about 10 years ago. You used to hardly be able to find normal incandescent bulbs. Now when I go to the store all I see are the normal ones.


----------



## sasazuka (Sep 14, 2020)

@saralovesjuicyfruit CFLs have been replaced but it's mostly by LED bulbs, not incandescent, or at least that's the case in Canada. I can't say if it's the same where you are.

I still buy incandescent bulbs for chandeliers, bathroom vanity lights, and desk lamps but I only buy LEDs for regular light fixtures. I find the light from LEDs far preferable to CFLs, which were constant migraine headache-inducers.


----------



## Kiyoshi's Wristbrace (Sep 14, 2020)

Can girls count?

It's funny how many 'so-called' friends I make online regularly, and when it comes to the female variety, 9/10 times they either up and vanish for months at at a time out of nowhere, no reason, and some forever after that.

It's like "Is it me, or is it them?"

All I know is, the male ones never do that.


----------



## Max Doof (Sep 14, 2020)

Going back to your old youtube playlist to find almost 20% of the videos are gone.


----------



## JEB! (Sep 15, 2020)

Pavarotti

Never knew he was gone until I checked his wiki page like 5 years ago


----------



## Dysnomia (Sep 15, 2020)

sasazuka said:


> @saralovesjuicyfruit CFLs have been replaced but it's mostly by LED bulbs, not incandescent, or at least that's the case in Canada. I can't say if it's the same where you are.
> 
> I still buy incandescent bulbs for chandeliers, bathroom vanity lights, and desk lamps but I only buy LEDs for regular light fixtures. I find the light from LEDs far preferable to CFLs, which were constant migraine headache-inducers.



The bulb in here is CFL and it hurts my eyes so damn much. We have LED's but it's a an overhead fixture on high ceiling and I hate ladders. But I guess I'd rather climb a ladder than get a migraine.


----------



## AssRock (Sep 18, 2020)

Discovery Zone, that place was the shit when I was a kid.


----------



## Krystal (Sep 18, 2020)

The Almighty Loaf said:


> I miss Yogos.
> View attachment 1520973
> I used to love these snacks when I was little.


I totally remember those. I remember my friends named one baby yogo because it was tiny.

But for me, it has to be Hobby Town. I think I was there like once or twice and then it relocated and I think it closed sometime afterwards.


----------



## The Gifted Kid (Feb 27, 2022)

Landlines and kitchen phones with long cords. I always remember women like my mom or sister would have the cord stretched all the way into the living room where they would talk with their friends for literal hours.


----------



## Some JERK (Feb 27, 2022)

The Gifted Kid said:


> Landlines and kitchen phones with long cords. I always remember women like my mom or sister would have the cord stretched all the way into the living room where they would talk with their friends for literally hours.


Do you also remember your mom yelling at your sister to get off the fucking phone already, and your sister constantly begging for her own phone line?


----------



## The Gifted Kid (Feb 27, 2022)

Some JERK said:


> Do you also remember your mom yelling at your sister to get off the fucking phone already, and your sister constantly begging for her own phone line?


Yes it was a constant struggle between those two which was only magnified when my dad would want to connect to the internet. Speaking of which I remember the old dial up sound and how internet pages could take minutes to load. Current internet speed is something we all just take for granted now.


----------



## PFM (Feb 27, 2022)

The Gifted Kid said:


> Landlines and kitchen phones with long cords. I always remember women like my mom or sister would have the cord stretched all the way into the living room where they would talk with their friends for literal hours.


I had this exact conversation with someone yesterday. Also remember those long cords would get tangled to hell and you'd have no choice but to buy a new one. 

Something else that came to mind were cordless phones that allowed you to listen to your neighbor's conversations.


----------



## Never Scored (Feb 27, 2022)

PFM said:


> I had this exact conversation with someone yesterday. Also remember those long cords would get tangled to hell and you'd have no choice but to buy a new one.
> 
> Something else that came to mind were cordless phones that allowed you to listen to your neighbor's conversations.


My parents first cordless phone would work up to like 100-200 metres from the house. It was crazy.


----------



## Kiwi Lime Pie (Feb 27, 2022)

Robert James said:


> Christmas lights and the season in general.


I think a lot of people have lost the Christmas spirit because stores have commercialized the holiday and radio stations play Christmas music  as soon as Halloween is over. By the time the Christmas/New Year's holiday week arrives, everyone is all Christmas-ed out.

It's a far cry from when I was growing up when people would put their lights up on Thanksgiving and Christmas music gradually began in December and continued to play, albeit less frequently, through January 1.



Never Scored said:


> Quizno's Subs. It felt like one day there were four in my area and the next day there were none.


I had one within walking distance in my downtown. When I went to go there again, they were gone and replaced by a different, more expensive restaurant. I want to say the franchise overextended itself too fast for its own good, but I can't remember now.



Jeff Boomhauer said:


> Entertainment stores like Sam Goody, FYE, Hasting's, etc. Those were the shit as a kid. Even if you couldn't buy anything, you could still spend hours browsing.


A block over from one of my workplaces was a local-branded entertainment store that was amazing with its offerings. It eventually got bought out and acquired by FYE before FYE went belly up. Amazingly enough, the shop space is *still* vacant despite business space being in demand up and down that particular corridor.



stupidpieceofshit said:


> I remember that too, when Kroger opened a new store by me in 2017 they had a bulk candy section still, no idea if it still is there as they rearranged the store since.


I think the Kroger by me has this, but it also tends to rearrange the store at intervals that coincide with when customers learn to navigate the previously-changed layout.



PFM said:


> Something else that came to mind were cordless phones that allowed you to listen to your neighbor's conversations.


When TV stopped broadcasting on channels on the high end (channels 70-83 or whatever the highest channel range was) and those frequencies were reallocated to mobile phone carriers, it used to be possible for those with knob-tuned analog TV sets to set the channel between those channels - say between channel 75 and 76 - and successfully listen to one or more random cellular phone conversations in the early days of cellular service. Depending on the signal strength, some of the conversations came in crystal clear.
---
During one of my summer jobs, a 1920's speakeasy-themed burger joint/bar abruptly closed and reopened as a Mediterranean food place without any sort of announcement or fanfare regarding the change.

Before COVID messed up the supply chain, the grocery store I go to abruptly stopped carrying the citrus tea I had come to enjoy. What people I asked had no explanation for its disappearance.


----------



## The Un-Clit (Feb 28, 2022)

Kiwi Lime Pie said:


> During one of my summer jobs, a 1920's speakeasy-themed burger joint/bar abruptly closed and reopened as a Mediterranean food place without any sort of announcement or fanfare regarding the change.
> 
> Before COVID messed up the supply chain, the grocery store I go to abruptly stopped carrying the citrus tea I had come to enjoy. What people I asked had no explanation for its disappearance.


There are SO GODDAMN MANY favourite food items I used to count on being able to get at grocery stores and some restaurants. Funny Quizno's was mentioned. While there are still a few around, they are rare nowadays. Subway crushed them. They used to have around 2006 a GODLY 'thin sub' on a long thin baguette that I can't rememeber the name of but it was a combo of bacon, tangy onion sauce and a couple other things that just taste exploded in my mouth....then it was gone.  no explanation, never came back.


----------



## PFM (Feb 28, 2022)

Kiwi Lime Pie said:


> When TV stopped broadcasting on channels on the high end (channels 70-83 or whatever the highest channel range was) and those frequencies were reallocated to mobile phone carriers,


I was referring specifically to "cordless phones". They used a limited number of channels in the iirc 600mhz range so if your neighbor was talking sometimes you could pick up their signal and hear them.


----------



## Pissmaster (Feb 28, 2022)

Never Scored said:


> This low end department store used to sell these cheese flavoured tortilla chips with Garfield on the bag wearing a sombrero in the 1990s. They came in these giant fucking bags and had the texture of cardboard, but I used to eat them and play Sega/Nintendo and watch rasslin' and I'm a bit nostalgic for them. The store closed sometime in the early 2000s and I never found them after. No one knows what the fuck I'm talking about. It's like they never existed. It drives me insane. These grainy pictures from flyers are the only references I've ever been able to find of them anywhere:
> 
> View attachment 1400135
> 
> View attachment 1400139


That looks like the exact sort of thing Big Lots would stock out of the blue for a few months, only to disappear forever.  

Maybe you just lived in a test market area for them?


----------



## Airbrushed Van Art (Feb 28, 2022)

Syaoran Li said:


> Video stores in general were awesome.
> 
> Oddly enough, I never went to a Blockbuster Video in my entire life.
> 
> For me, it was mainly Movie Starz, Hollywood Video, and local mom and pop video stores.


Jumbo Video, with its free popcorn, dedicated horror section and porn room with western doors. Ah memories…


----------



## TurdFondler (Feb 28, 2022)

Beaters, jalopies, whatever you call shit cars. Growing up I remember seeing all kinds of clapped out junkers but nowadays I hardly even see mismatched body panels.


----------



## Sperghetti (Feb 28, 2022)

Kiwi Lime Pie said:


> I think a lot of people have lost the Christmas spirit because stores have commercialized the holiday and radio stations play Christmas music  as soon as Halloween is over. By the time the Christmas/New Year's holiday week arrives, everyone is all Christmas-ed out.
> 
> It's a far cry from when I was growing up when people would put their lights up on Thanksgiving and Christmas music gradually began in December and continued to play, albeit less frequently, through January 1.


Oh I'd agree with this. It's hard to get into the spirit of _any_ holiday or season when your first reaction to festive stuff is to roll your eyes and think _"_Already?_"_ Then, of course, by the time the holiday season actually rolls around and you could possibly enjoy it, everything's all picked over and the shelves are filling up with the junk for the next holiday.



PFM said:


> Something else that came to mind were cordless phones that allowed you to listen to your neighbor's conversations.


Okay, _that_ just dredged up a long-buried memory.


----------



## timewave0 (Feb 28, 2022)

Kiyoshi's Wristbrace said:


> Can girls count?
> 
> It's funny how many 'so-called' friends I make online regularly, and when it comes to the female variety, 9/10 times they either up and vanish for months at at a time out of nowhere, no reason, and some forever after that.
> 
> ...


Honestly, I do that too. I feel bad about it and it’s never personal, it just kind of happens. Then once enough time has passed I feel really bad for not responding, so I forget about it on purpose instead of just responding. I acknowledge that this is pathological behavior


----------



## Juan But Not Forgotten (Feb 28, 2022)

My will to live.


----------



## Mansell's Moustache (Feb 28, 2022)

TurdFondler said:


> Beaters, jalopies, whatever you call shit cars. Growing up I remember seeing all kinds of clapped out junkers but nowadays I hardly even see mismatched body panels.


You can thank Cash for Clunkers for that.


----------



## eDove (Feb 28, 2022)

Katy Perry.


----------



## lady stoneheart (Mar 1, 2022)

bugs. when i was a kid, when we would go for a long drive the windshield would get covered in splattered bugs. i noticed like two years ago that that doesn’t happen any more, i can go for an hour long drive in high summer and arrive at my destination with a pristine windshield. it made me sad. i hope the bats and birds are getting enough to eat


----------



## serious n00b (Mar 1, 2022)

lady stoneheart said:


> bugs. when i was a kid, when we would go for a long drive the windshield would get covered in splattered bugs. i noticed like two years ago that that doesn’t happen any more, i can go for an hour long drive in high summer and arrive at my destination with a pristine windshield. it made me sad. i hope the bats and birds are getting enough to eat


Bug population has been getting decimated in the past 20 years


----------



## Local Fed (Mar 1, 2022)

serious n00b said:


> Bug population has been getting decimated in the past 20 years


They're still around, they've just migrated over to Reddit.


----------



## TurdFondler (Mar 1, 2022)

lady stoneheart said:


> bugs. when i was a kid, when we would go for a long drive the windshield would get covered in splattered bugs. i noticed like two years ago that that doesn’t happen any more, i can go for an hour long drive in high summer and arrive at my destination with a pristine windshield. it made me sad. i hope the bats and birds are getting enough to eat


There's like 80% less bugs, don't quote me. I remember moths and earthworms the most. Sidewalks would be full of worms after a rain, and digging even a little bit would net you handfuls. Now I don't see either. 

I haven't seen a caterpillar or cocoon in years, same with daddy long legs and all the smaller butterflies. Dragonflies are a rare sighting.

Now almost any time I see a bug I take a picture, it's such a rare occurence. 

Last year was the first year I noticed birds of prey out during the day. Usually they keep away from humans and daylight. It's gotta be dire if a hawk is hunting at high noon mid summer.


----------



## The Gifted Kid (Mar 1, 2022)

Do they still give out toys with kid meals at fast food restaurants? I know for a fact Ronald McDonald and all those characters were purged from the earth like 15 years ago. Hindsight it's probably a good thing you don't see fast food advertised directly at kids anymore. I remember growing up there were kids at school who'd have McDonalds every couple days and the advertisements made the restaurants seem like a fun fantasy land for kids. I was always so pissed at my mom for never taking me but now I can appreciate her intentions.


----------



## TurdFondler (Mar 1, 2022)

Of course you still get toys with your happy meal.

Ronny was purged in the 2000s at the moment McCafe was introduced along with mumblerap playlists and free wifi. Maccas tried to pivot away from a burger joint to a place you can hang out in. 

Bring back the 90s


----------



## SITHRAK! (Mar 1, 2022)

Picklechu said:


> Canada Dry recently came out with a "bold ginger ale" that I saw at Walmart and was optimistic about, but it was nothing in comparison


I don’t know where you are but there’s a brand called ‘Bundaberg’ that uses cane sugar, real ginger, and is brewed instead of just mixed and carbonated. It’s pretty good. You should look into it.


----------



## alright fine (Mar 1, 2022)

Record stores.  Not used record stores or hipster shops, but actual records stores like Tower, NRM, Peaches, etc.  It actually didn't hit me that they were completely gone in the US until I visited the UK and got all jazzed about a shopping spree at HMV and stopped and thought "wait oh shit".  Took my kid to one on a family trip to London and he actually said " is this how people used to buy music", like a starving orphan stumbling into a Vegas buffet.  Streaming is ass and must die.

Didn't realize how much I missed copious amounts of Christmas decoration until moving from a bugman urban hole to the Free State of Florida right before the holidays -- like going from black and white to blinding technicolor, it was awesome.  Actually, Florida in general seems to be stubbornly and defiantly hanging onto a lot of 90s/00s shit that everyone else has trashed, like work ethics, friendly neighbors, physical cash, and restaurants with actual fucking menus (though even this is spotty, and I want to rub my bare balls on the counter of every restaurant that expects me to use a QR code for their menu with everyone hovering over a tattered soda-stained sticker like an angry locust, then squinting to read a small ass menu on your fucking phone -- or worse, have to install yet another bloatware app just to decide on what size wings you want with your microwaved burger).


----------



## Gender: Xenomorph (Mar 1, 2022)

lady stoneheart said:


> bugs. when i was a kid, when we would go for a long drive the windshield would get covered in splattered bugs. i noticed like two years ago that that doesn’t happen any more, i can go for an hour long drive in high summer and arrive at my destination with a pristine windshield. it made me sad. i hope the bats and birds are getting enough to eat


Legit highways are an ecological genocide on flying insects. 

This isn't a issue in forests and lands where there are no highways, but I noticed insects, specifically flying landborne kind, have decreased in numbers in a large radius against cities and civilization.  I'm not sure whether it's a combination of dust, sound and light pollution, but something is causing insect numbers to go down fast.


----------



## Pimpleking55 (Mar 1, 2022)

The cash in my wallet...


----------



## SITHRAK! (Mar 1, 2022)

Gender: Xenomorph said:


> something is causing insect numbers to go down fast.


Address all complaints to the Monsanto corporation.

But seriously, I believe there’s too much genetic fuckery and too many pesticides, insects are finding it harder to get food that doesn’t kill them or make them sterile. And of course that has flow-on effects for the entire food chain.

China is learning that excess zeal in non-diverse aggressive agriculture isn’t a good idea. Their seas are stripped of edible life, their wheat crops failing due to wireworms, their pig and chicken herds regularly suffering spectacular outbreaks of lethal viruses. I just pray the Western world learns from their stupidity.


----------



## TurdFondler (Mar 1, 2022)

The only difference between DDT and Roundup is marketing. Pesticide companies only learned how to mitigate public outrage instead of trying to fix food chain collapse.


----------



## comfysocks (Mar 1, 2022)

I had a zombie garden gnome. I think I ran over him, I found his hand the other day.


----------



## lady stoneheart (Mar 1, 2022)

TurdFondler said:


> There's like 80% less bugs, don't quote me. I remember moths and earthworms the most. Sidewalks would be full of worms after a rain, and digging even a little bit would net you handfuls. Now I don't see either.
> 
> I haven't seen a caterpillar or cocoon in years, same with daddy long legs and all the smaller butterflies. Dragonflies are a rare sighting.
> 
> ...


you’re right about the worms too, they used to mob the sidewalk after a rainstorm, now you might have to jump over a handful at most while on a walk. 

i live in an area that gets Monarch butterflies, or used to. last summer i counted and i only saw three all year even tho i purposefully plant milkweed and other butterfly-attracting plants. 

this is the kind of shit that makes me feel hopeless and doompilled tbh. people will always be stupid and treat each other like shit and that i’ve come to terms with. but the pure ecological devastation we’ve inflicted on most other forms of life makes me want to fedpost irl or an hero


----------



## TurdFondler (Mar 1, 2022)

lady stoneheart said:


> this is the kind of shit that makes me feel hopeless and doompilled tbh.


100% agree 

I don't care what the cause is but you can't tell me all the bugs dying is normal


----------



## Sperghetti (Mar 1, 2022)

alright fine said:


> Record stores.  Not used record stores or hipster shops, but actual records stores like Tower, NRM, Peaches, etc.  It actually didn't hit me that they were completely gone in the US until I visited the UK and got all jazzed about a shopping spree at HMV and stopped and thought "wait oh shit".  Took my kid to one on a family trip to London and he actually said " is this how people used to buy music", like a starving orphan stumbling into a Vegas buffet.  Streaming is ass and must die.


This is one of the things people always seem to overlook when they talk about the decline of malls in the US. It's not that people would rather shop online, it's that half the stores that populated them even up through the early 00's no longer _exist_. You'd be hard-pressed to find a mall in the 90's that didn't have a record store.


----------



## ToroidalBoat (Mar 1, 2022)

Sperghetti said:


> You'd be hard-pressed to find a mall in the 90's that didn't have a record store.


A local mall used to have this place where one could buy music, movies, and vidya. This was before 9/11.

Now it's a clothing store. I joked that clothing stores are like the remains of more interesting stores.


----------



## Anus Lemonade (Mar 1, 2022)

I haven't seen these since I was a young kid.


----------



## alright fine (Mar 1, 2022)

Sperghetti said:


> This is one of the things people always seem to overlook when they talk about the decline of malls in the US. It's not that people would rather shop online, it's that half the stores that populated them even up through the early 00's no longer _exist_. You'd be hard-pressed to find a mall in the 90's that didn't have a record store.


I was so sick of ordering online that now that I've moved to Florida, I barely use Amazon, like, at all.  It's such a relief going to a store.  And being near several really good record stores and bookstores is a pleasure.  I used to live in the Greatest City in the World and can find more cool shit on store shelves now than before I moved.  That shouldn't be the case.  Something is broken.

A record store I used to frequent before moving out of bugman hell proved this to me -- the guy who owned the place was a little younger than me, but we're both Gen X, and he obviously was doing it as a labor of love (seemed to have money already and a stable family in a very nice neighborhood, so this was likely a stress reliever for having busted his ass at a high-stakes job for decades).  He and I talked about how surprised and pleased he was at how well the store was doing -- and how nearly all the clientele were 18-30 year olds who were desperate for physical media and a chance to actually browse racks and handle records and share music they dug.  I remember hanging out one day and helping a zoomer-aged girl who was just getting into metal, rattling off names of classic metal bands for her to check out (and I'm not even much of a metalhead), and then not long after telling the guy who owned the place about some great new music I was getting into, like the New Weird music from London and vaporwave, etc.  People NEED stores and restaurants and the like -- there is no instance of any decent-sized civilization not having shops, restaurants, markets, book stalls, vendors, etc.  Terminally online living is a fucking pestilence and an aberration, and even zoomers and millennials know it and almost always respond with relief and joy when they can actually spend time in real places buying (or at least browsing) real things with real people.  What the techbros and WEF elite have done to humanity over the past decade (especially the past two years) is an unforgivable war crime, and is inorganic, and I really, truly believe a tide is turning.  People need other people and need contact and need real things.  Physical media FTW.


----------



## NoReturn (Mar 1, 2022)

lady stoneheart said:


> bugs. when i was a kid, when we would go for a long drive the windshield would get covered in splattered bugs. i noticed like two years ago that that doesn’t happen any more, i can go for an hour long drive in high summer and arrive at my destination with a pristine windshield. it made me sad. i hope the bats and birds are getting enough to eat





TurdFondler said:


> There's like 80% less bugs, don't quote me. I remember moths and earthworms the most. Sidewalks would be full of worms after a rain, and digging even a little bit would net you handfuls. Now I don't see either.
> 
> I haven't seen a caterpillar or cocoon in years, same with daddy long legs and all the smaller butterflies. Dragonflies are a rare sighting.
> 
> ...





lady stoneheart said:


> you’re right about the worms too, they used to mob the sidewalk after a rainstorm, now you might have to jump over a handful at most while on a walk.
> 
> i live in an area that gets Monarch butterflies, or used to. last summer i counted and i only saw three all year even tho i purposefully plant milkweed and other butterfly-attracting plants.
> 
> this is the kind of shit that makes me feel hopeless and doompilled tbh. people will always be stupid and treat each other like shit and that i’ve come to terms with. but the pure ecological devastation we’ve inflicted on most other forms of life makes me want to fedpost irl or an hero


I had a zoomer not believe me about the number of butterflies and bees I saw growing up and it made me actually sick to my stomach. 
That's the kind of difference you'd expect to see between grandparents and their grandkids, not something this fast.


----------



## ToroidalBoat (Mar 1, 2022)

lady stoneheart said:


> this is the kind of shit that makes me feel hopeless and doompilled tbh


It really does feel like "real life is getting cancelled" these days.

As if someday all that may be left is a (heavily regulated) internet.


----------



## whatever I feel like (Mar 1, 2022)

Anus Lemonade said:


> View attachment 3032629
> I haven't seen these since I was a young kid.


They still exist. Try independent gas stations in rural areas.


----------



## SITHRAK! (Mar 1, 2022)

alright fine said:


> we're both Gen X


We X'ers never had it easy, but at least we had music that had a diversity of styles and formats. I still remember going to my local music place to buy the album 'Scamboogery' by Scatterbrain and having it offered on vinyl, cassette and CD.

And while we're on diversity in music, when did 'diversity' stop meaning a Top 40 with grunge, metal, indie, pop, hip-hop, bubblegum, electronica, industrial and dance? Now 'diversity' solely refers to the artist's skin color and 85% of musical pieces are slight variations on a theme.


----------



## Padam (Mar 1, 2022)

People born between 1900 and 1940. A whole generation is gone and I feel like people didn't care. I am glad to have known my great-grandmother (1911-2011).


----------



## TurdFondler (Mar 1, 2022)

I remember early 2000s you could go to RadioShack and buy PNP or NPN transistors, LEDs and resistors. It was already bullshit compared to the RadioShack catalog of the 80s and 90s where you could buy every electronic component on the market, but it was something. The mall is worthless now.


----------



## sasazuka (Mar 1, 2022)

Airbrushed Van Art said:


> Jumbo Video, with its free popcorn, dedicated horror section and porn room with western doors. Ah memories…



Do you mean the Canadian Jumbo Video? I never rented from there but my local Jumbo Video included a Microplay store that had a far better selection of older games compared to EB Games (now Gamestop Canada) and the Microplay sadly also closed when the Jumbo Video closed.


----------



## Mister Mint (Mar 1, 2022)

Anus Lemonade said:


> View attachment 3032629
> I haven't seen these since I was a young kid.


They are still made, just very few places dare to carry them. Usually mom & pop candy shops.


----------



## Mister Mint (Mar 1, 2022)

Padam said:


> People born between 1900 and 1940. A whole generation is gone and I feel like people didn't care. I am glad to have known my great-grandmother (1911-2011).


I knew my great grandmother too. She was kind of a retard, wore a bathrobe that was more cigarette holes than fabric and would try to get me to buy her cigarettes to which I would have to constantly explain "I can't purchase cigarettes for you because I am eleven."
No big loss.


----------



## The Gifted Kid (Mar 1, 2022)

Plasma TVs. I remember people debating whether Plasma or LCD was better. Now I doubt most people even know the difference let alone even remember Plasma was a thing.  

Also remember Avatar by James Cameron. That shit was one of the biggest blockbusters at the time which everyone saw yet I don't remember a single thing about it other than the blue people.


----------



## Pissmaster (Mar 2, 2022)

TurdFondler said:


> There's like 80% less bugs, don't quote me. I remember moths and earthworms the most. Sidewalks would be full of worms after a rain, and digging even a little bit would net you handfuls. Now I don't see either.
> 
> I haven't seen a caterpillar or cocoon in years, same with daddy long legs and all the smaller butterflies. Dragonflies are a rare sighting.
> 
> ...


I noticed that too.  Daddy long legs used to be everywhere when I was a kid, and I don't think I've seen a single one in over a decade.  

But these horrible things are super common now:

and I swear I didn't start seeing them until around like 2012ish


----------



## ToroidalBoat (Mar 2, 2022)

The Gifted Kid said:


> Plasma TVs.


Also that whole 3D craze* just evaporated.

*(like 3D TV and 3DS)


----------



## TV's Adam West (Mar 2, 2022)

Can I pay you in trident layers?


----------



## Gender: Xenomorph (Mar 2, 2022)

lady stoneheart said:


> you’re right about the worms too, they used to mob the sidewalk after a rainstorm, now you might have to jump over a handful at most while on a walk.
> 
> i live in an area that gets Monarch butterflies, or used to. last summer i counted and i only saw three all year even tho i purposefully plant milkweed and other butterfly-attracting plants.
> 
> this is the kind of shit that makes me feel hopeless and doompilled tbh. people will always be stupid and treat each other like shit and that i’ve come to terms with. but the pure ecological devastation we’ve inflicted on most other forms of life makes me want to fedpost irl or an hero


It's just habitat destruction/they lost their habitat. We replaced soft loamy soil with hard concrete and gentle air breezes with dusty air and fast moving cars that squat them.

In natural parks and reserves insects flourish. I've been on countryside recently and I swear there's 10 flying insects per cubic meter.

But of course there's tourists that squat them because they find them annoying.


----------



## BelUwUga (Mar 2, 2022)

The Un-Clit said:


> Funny Quizno's was mentioned. While there are still a few around, they are rare nowadays. Subway crushed them.


Subway didn't kill Quizno's. Quizno's owners killed it. Not only were they a franchise model but they had some of the highest fees. There was no geographic protection. The big kicker was all kitchen equipment (leased from corporate and maintained by them) and ingredients went through corporate middlemen to basically cancel out any profit the franchisees could have made. IIRC there was some kind of court action that basically undid a lot of the onerous requirements but the lion's share of stores had long since closed.


----------



## I am the Muffin Maker (Mar 2, 2022)

Pissmaster said:


> I noticed that too.  Daddy long legs used to be everywhere when I was a kid, and I don't think I've seen a single one in over a decade.
> 
> But these horrible things are super common now:View attachment 3033560
> 
> and I swear I didn't start seeing them until around like 2012ish


They're invasive (brown marmorated stink bug, thought to be introduced from China and first seen in Pennsylvania), and not particularly harmless because they hurt fruit crops, they have caused billions in damage.


----------



## theshitposter (Mar 2, 2022)

Max Doof said:


> Going back to your old youtube playlist to find almost 20% of the videos are gone.


Copy the links and search them in double quotes on google. You'll at least get the titles back


----------



## Kiwi & Cow (Mar 2, 2022)

Payphones. They're kinda redundant with mobile phones nowadays, but you know.


----------



## Useless Mont-d'Or (Mar 2, 2022)

Wonka brand of candies. I realized I haven't seen the little Wonka logo on Nerds, Laffy Taffy, Gobstoppers, etc. in a long time. According to the web, it was rebranded as "Nestlé Candy Shop" then eventually sold to Ferrara like every other candy it seems.


----------



## The Cunting Death (Mar 2, 2022)

Richard Harrow said:


> Public payphones.  Lived in 3 states over the past year and still haven't seen them.  I can see the discoloration on the wall where they used to be, or sometimes the enclosed privacy box is there but no phone.


I've seen one growing up and it wasn't taken down until around 2010


BelUwUga said:


> Subway didn't kill Quizno's. Quizno's owners killed it. Not only were they a franchise model but they had some of the highest fees. There was no geographic protection. The big kicker was all kitchen equipment (leased from corporate and maintained by them) and ingredients went through corporate middlemen to basically cancel out any profit the franchisees could have made. IIRC there was some kind of court action that basically undid a lot of the onerous requirements but the lion's share of stores had long since closed.


fucking hell I'm going to have to take a Harold and Kumar-esque trip if I want to get Quiznos ever again arent I


----------



## BelUwUga (Mar 2, 2022)

Frank D'arbo said:


> I've seen one growing up and it wasn't taken down until around 2010
> 
> fucking hell I'm going to have to take a Harold and Kumar-esque trip if I want to get Quiznos ever again arent I


I'm down for quiznos adventure! You driving or me?


----------



## The Cunting Death (Mar 2, 2022)

BelUwUga said:


> I'm down for quiznos adventure! You driving or me?


I'll drive if you cover gas.


----------



## BelUwUga (Mar 2, 2022)

Frank D'arbo said:


> I'll drive if you cover gas.


Eurobeat, vocaloid, and nightcore on the playlist please and I'll bring enough ganja to make Willie Nelson jelly


----------



## The Cunting Death (Mar 2, 2022)

BelUwUga said:


> Eurobeat, vocaloid, and nightcore on the playlist please and I'll bring enough ganja to make Willie Nelson jelly


Sure thing fam


----------



## lady stoneheart (Mar 2, 2022)

Pissmaster said:


> But these horrible things are super common now:View attachment 3033560
> 
> and I swear I didn't start seeing them until around like 2012ish


these fuckers are all over my house. i never saw one until like a year or two ago and now i sometimes catch one every day. they’re stink bugs too so i’m afraid of squishing them and have to catch them super gently- so they don’t make my house smell- before transporting and murdering them outside. i hate them so much they seem almost impossible to get rid of


----------



## Pissmaster (Mar 2, 2022)

lady stoneheart said:


> these fuckers are all over my house. i never saw one until like a year or two ago and now i sometimes catch one every day. they’re stink bugs too so i’m afraid of squishing them and have to catch them super gently- so they don’t make my house smell- before transporting and murdering them outside. i hate them so much they seem almost impossible to get rid of


Catch them in toilet paper and flush them as fast as you can


----------



## Flavius Claudius Julianus (Mar 2, 2022)

Kiwi & Cow said:


> Payphones. They're kinda redundant with mobile phones nowadays, but you know.


Here in the UK they've been largely converted to resuscitation stations (at least in the countryside - niggers in the city would just destroy/abuse them.)


----------



## The Un-Clit (Mar 2, 2022)

Kiwi & Cow said:


> Payphones. They're kinda redundant with mobile phones nowadays, but you know.


They're still around but more in areas where people have a chance of being somewhere without a mobile but NEED to call someone like airports and bus or train terminals. You can still find 'courtesy cab' phones in some malls and major grocery chains too.

BelUwUga said:


> Subway didn't kill Quizno's. Quizno's owners killed it. Not only were they a franchise model but they had some of the highest fees. There was no geographic protection. The big kicker was all kitchen equipment (leased from corporate and maintained by them) and ingredients went through corporate middlemen to basically cancel out any profit the franchisees could have made. IIRC there was some kind of court action that basically undid a lot of the onerous requirements but the lion's share of stores had long since closed.



Thanks, Fam! I had no idea about this. Every former Quizno's seemed to die as soon as a Subway went up near it, or else were replaced by one after going tits up so it seemed the logical deduction.

There is still a Quizno's within walking distance of my house. I think I should appreciate it more and buy dinner there more often.


----------



## NyQuilninja (Mar 2, 2022)

NoReturn said:


> I had a zoomer not believe me about the number of butterflies and bees I saw growing up and it made me actually sick to my stomach.
> That's the kind of difference you'd expect to see between grandparents and their grandkids, not something this fast.


Woollybear Caterpillar​Use to see them in near endless fields. Now I almost never see them


----------



## HEXbox Carousel (Mar 2, 2022)

where'd the fucking headphone jack go on all the phones? i hate bluetooth shit because it's one more device i need to remember to charge.


----------



## L50LasPak (Mar 2, 2022)

Robert James said:


> Christmas lights and the season in general. At major retail stores when I was a kid Kroger, Meijer, and Big K had some lights put up for christmas now it's just dark and the lights are shoved in the back corner. People always had a minimum of a string of lights around there house now adays 1/3 houses have lights if that. It's just depressing, during the darkest part of the year we came together and lit up our homes to warm the world a little bit more. Now we put up a pre decorated tree and spend our time shopping for deals and ditching the holiday for pure commercialism.


Replying to a quote from two years ago, but I just noticed this one this year. I have never bought Christmas lights or decorations since I always go home for the holidays and thus have no reason to have my own, but this year my mom put tree ornaments on her wishlist. Guys, I _could not fucking find ornaments_ in stores. Sure there were some of those cardboard ones for children to paint at the craft store, and those variety packs of regular baubles you get in a plastic tub, cheap garland, etc. But they were all the same. Nothing was unique, nothing looked prettier than the other stuff. They didn't even have the expensive ones at Homegoods, the $10 ones I thought were highway robbery, even those were missing. 

I normally do all of my Christmas shopping online, but buying ornaments off a website and not being able to see or examine them in person felt like heresy.


----------



## Shidoen (Mar 2, 2022)

Skylander figurines.


----------



## Windows Error 98 (Mar 2, 2022)

Liveleak. Didn’t check for two months and bam, gone


----------



## Cranky Old Broad (Mar 2, 2022)

Regular Doritos. Just plain, ol’ Doritos, not the ass-tasting shit they sell now.

Speaking of chips, I miss how Lay’s used to taste. I’m convinced that when everyone started screaming about how bad cooking oil was, they changed things up and now the chips just taste meh. 

I also miss when people would be able to put full sentences together and generally use proper grammar. Now, so many have no clue how to write a formal letter, or they have the ghetto-sounding nonsense such as “be like.” So many people sound like idiots now and simply don’t care.


Disclaimer-any grammatical errors in the above post are purely coincidental.


----------



## iloveallah (Mar 2, 2022)

Lobster tanks at the grocery store. I'm pretty sure they were already gone before the 2008 recession but I definitely haven't seen one since.


----------



## The Un-Clit (Mar 2, 2022)

You bug-lovers can fucking speak for yourselves. There's still FAR too goddamn many around here in Canada.


iloveallah said:


> Lobster tanks at the grocery store. I'm pretty sure they were already gone before the 2008 recession but I definitely haven't seen one since.


Go to an Asian grocery store. You will still see the traditional live seafood tanks, and and all the horrible stank that goes with them.


----------



## Crystal Coomer (Mar 2, 2022)

Playgrounds in restaurants like McDonalds and Burger King.







Wendys "Old Fashioned Hamburgers"




Wendys Kids Meal





HEXbox Carousel said:


> where'd the fucking headphone jack go on all the phones? i hate bluetooth shit because it's one more device i need to remember to charge.


Sony phones. They have micro sd slots and headphone jacks alongside the lastest hardware. They can also connect directly to DSLR cameras. Sony has even optimized the Playstation 4 and 5 controllers for use with Android. 

Samsung's only remaining competition in the Android space is Sony, really. Unfortunately, Sony phones are incredibly expensive and don't partner with any celldata providers to my knowledge. They market their phones to professionals and enthusiasts rather than the average person. If you want a headphone jack on an affordable phone, you have to subject yourself to the lessers; Samsung Galaxy A series and Motorolas.


----------



## Tootsie Bear (Mar 2, 2022)

Crystal Coomer said:


> Playgrounds in restaurants like McDonalds and Burger King.
> 
> View attachment 3035662
> View attachment 3035669
> ...


Growing up there were two McDonald's that had playgrounds and both took them down around the same time. I miss the time when I was a kid playing in the slides and pits. Good times the 90's were.


----------



## The Bovinian Derivative (Mar 2, 2022)

Pissmaster said:


> I noticed that too.  Daddy long legs used to be everywhere when I was a kid, and I don't think I've seen a single one in over a decade.
> 
> But these horrible things are super common now:View attachment 3033560
> 
> and I swear I didn't start seeing them until around like 2012ish


These assholes have been a plague in the last couple of years around here. I remember going out to the kitchen one night to close the window and there were THIRTEEN, yes I counted them, of these buggers just chilling on the window frame. That was the moment we decided to get bug-screen windows. And I agree, these guys just showed up in force one day and never left.


----------



## serious n00b (Mar 2, 2022)

Shidoen said:


> Skylander figurines.


That was the only good attempt at Toys to Life.


----------



## Muu (Mar 3, 2022)

My youth


----------



## Cats (Mar 3, 2022)




----------



## Krystal (Mar 5, 2022)

Old character shipping videos/edits. The ones where it was just fanart of characters as a couple with really cheesy romance pop songs. While cringey, they seemed to be a guilty pleasure for me.


----------



## Generic Retard (Mar 5, 2022)

xbox 360 controllers
I only got one wireless controller and now they are no longer produced and sold out.
If I want a second one for some local 2 player action, I have to buy some greasy ruined ass controller from some kid that likely fucked my mother

(Hate the D-Pad btw, but hate it even more to have yet another Li-Po battery that goes to shit over the next 5 years)


----------



## The Jumping Dwarf (Mar 6, 2022)

Comic books at kiosks/newsagent's shops. At least in my country, it's common to find these little mom-and-pop shops where you can buy newspapers, mags, sweets, and the occasional crappy plastic toy or general cheap trinket. For the longest time these were _the_ places to get kids' comics, especially of a particular, extremely old and long-running series from my neck of the woods which I used to avidly read as a wee Dwarf. I eventually stopped grabbing them, but new issues are still being made and sold, and I'll occasionally get nostalgic and try to pick one up.

Recently I learned that newsagent's just no longer stock them. I went to like five different shops and didn't find a single one. If I wanna get them I've got to go to a book store and find them buried deep inside the shop, at the comics aisle, surrounded by "artsy"/foreign comics no one has ever heard about.

It kinda bummed me out, I ain't gonna lie.


----------



## Pissmaster (Mar 8, 2022)

Coupon dispensers at grocery stores:




Take a coupon, and a little motor would push out another one.  Look at the coupon, and then put it back in the little tray up top.


----------



## TiggerNits (Mar 8, 2022)

waffle said:


> My state has bugles, cigarette machines, venom, gum with sugar/flavors, and sobe. Midwest is truly God's country.


Arizona is much the same. Though I think the only cigarette vending machines are in Indian casinos and duty-free stores on the Mexican border.


PFM said:


> I was referring specifically to "cordless phones". They used a limited number of channels in the iirc 600mhz range so if your neighbor was talking sometimes you could pick up their signal and hear them.


My dad was a SIGINT guy in the Army and then a three-letter guy after. He taught me and a friend one night how to use an old CB radio to listen in on and triangulate any signal from 580mHz to 900 and how to transmit to them. My buddy and I went driving around our town talking shit to people on their own cordless phones, but the other person on the call who wasn't local couldn't hear us. We probably made a handful of people's friends and family think they were schizoids


SITHRAK! said:


> We X'ers never had it easy, but at least we had music that had a diversity of styles and formats. I still remember going to my local music place to buy the album 'Scamboogery' by Scatterbrain and having it offered on vinyl, cassette and CD.
> 
> And while we're on diversity in music, when did 'diversity' stop meaning a Top 40 with grunge, metal, indie, pop, hip-hop, bubblegum, electronica, industrial and dance? Now 'diversity' solely refers to the artist's skin color and 85% of musical pieces are slight variations on a theme.


Truth. I've noticed that anything popular now will be turned in to a mildly different genre and rereleased by a band and get the "Ft. Band-name" added to it and then put on the air for a different format. Like if a hip hop song gets big, there will be a radio playable "rock" and country song of it within the next 6 months, Music has become the most incestuous industry imaginable.


Windows Error 98 said:


> Liveleak. Didn’t check for two months and bam, gone



I didn't realize they were dead until I went to check it the other day for Ukraine footage, which I thought would be amazing coming out of there. I was shocked

As for me, comic books

I remember when every grocery store, K-Mart and drug store atleast had 3 or 4 of those small spinning racks loaded with them. Now you have to go to a specialty store that really just exists to sell Pokemon and Magic Cards and host War Hammer tournaments. Which is all the same, the comics industry went to shit after it got progressive in the mid 2000s


----------



## TurdFondler (Mar 8, 2022)

NyQuilninja said:


> Woollybear Caterpillar​Use to see them in near endless fields. Now I almost never see them


Now I'm sad. Haven't seen one of these in god damn years and as a kid there would hardly be a day in summer where I wouldn't. 

Anyone remember those dispensers for temporary tattoos and really garish shiny stickers? They'd always have shit like cherries, skull n crossbones, rat fink and other boomer counterculture stuff in em. Almost every diner used to have them by the doors.


----------



## Pissmaster (Mar 8, 2022)

TurdFondler said:


> Now I'm sad. Haven't seen one of these in god damn years and as a kid there would hardly be a day in summer where I wouldn't.
> 
> Anyone remember those dispensers for temporary tattoos and really garish shiny stickers? They'd always have shit like cherries, skull n crossbones, rat fink and other boomer counterculture stuff in em. Almost every diner used to have them by the doors.


Random Mexican restaurants still have them.  I saw one vending Rick & Morty stickers a few years ago.


----------



## serious n00b (Mar 8, 2022)

NyQuilninja said:


> Woollybear Caterpillar​Use to see them in near endless fields. Now I almost never see them


Those used to freak me the fuck out


----------



## ToroidalBoat (Mar 8, 2022)

HEXbox Carousel said:


> where'd the fucking headphone jack go on all the phones?


Apple thought it was a good idea to do away with them on the iPhone*, and Apple can be seen as a trend-setter?

*(likely in favor of some Apple-exclusive tech)


----------



## Manul Otocolobus (Mar 8, 2022)

Human decency, Common coutesy, Tolerance for ideas/opinions that are different than the woke majority, What respect there was for natal women



The Gifted Kid said:


> Plasma TVs. I remember people debating whether Plasma or LCD was better. Now I doubt most people even know the difference let alone even remember Plasma was a thing.



The new one is going to be direct-view μLED (Mu-LED/Micro-LED) vs. QD-LED/QD-EL (Quantum Dot-LED/Quantum Dot-Electroluminescent). The QD is not the same QD we are seeing today. The current QD technology is miniLED/MicroLED backlight with QD as the color layer, so it's a passive element. In QD-LED the QD itself is the source of the light, known as emissive, or active QD, which is electroluminescent in nature.

QD-LED is going to be consumer available, at a relatively reasonable price, by 2026-2027. Without an unforeseen breakthrough, MicroLED will be here by 2030. Overall, MicroLED is a superior technology. It's brighter, has no potential for burn-in, and it has a very long life (100's of thousands of hours). QD-LED is almost as good, also very bright, very pure colors, no potential for burning, and it should have a long life (but that is the current problem with it, the organic parts of it don't live very  long, same problem as OLED).



Padam said:


> People born between 1900 and 1940. A whole generation is gone and I feel like people didn't care. I am glad to have known my great-grandmother (1911-2011).


Um, people born in 1940 are not all dead. My great aunt is a good example of that. She was born in 1938 and still kicking ass.



I am the Muffin Maker said:


> They're invasive (brown marmorated stink bug, thought to be introduced from China and first seen in Pennsylvania), and not particularly harmless because they hurt fruit crops, they have caused billions in damage.



Hate these things. They are a recent invasive species that came from where else, China. They can bite and trigger nasty reactions in both humans and pets.



Pissmaster said:


> Catch them in toilet paper and flush them as fast as you can



This is the best way to handle them. Crush them, it will actually attract more.


----------



## TiggerNits (Mar 9, 2022)

TurdFondler said:


> Now I'm sad. Haven't seen one of these in god damn years and as a kid there would hardly be a day in summer where I wouldn't.
> 
> Anyone remember those dispensers for temporary tattoos and really garish shiny stickers? They'd always have shit like cherries, skull n crossbones, rat fink and other boomer counterculture stuff in em. Almost every diner used to have them by the doors.


Don't fret too much, I see shit tons of them every summer when my wife plants tomatoes and caribes in the front yard. They swarm those plants like nobody's fucking business. Also doesn't help that I have two neighbors with bee farms and another with a half dozen horses. I'm at 5k feet and still dealing with bugs like I'm still in the goddamed swamp


----------



## Phalanges Mycologist (Mar 9, 2022)

Crystal Coomer said:


> Playgrounds in restaurants like McDonalds and Burger King.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Tootsie Bear said:


> Growing up there were two McDonald's that had playgrounds and both took them down around the same time. I miss the time when I was a kid playing in the slides and pits. Good times the 90's were.



I can answer this one - Insurance and Accidents, Kids play areas are disappearing in places that are more food orientated because it add's a huge cost per establishment and accidents relating to poorly maintained or inspected equipment cost a lot more than youd imagine so they are side stepping the issue as a whole by getting rid of them all together.

It's one of the downsides of living in a overly litigious society like the US and increasingly the UK.



TiggerNits said:


> Arizona is much the same. Though I think the only cigarette vending machines are in Indian casinos and duty-free stores on the Mexican border.



God this takes me back, the UK got rid of them in 2006 all the Pubs had them and then got rid of them or changed them to something else back in the late 90's I used to get my fags from a machine in a pub where it was right next to the door and out of sight of the Bar (it was a iffy pub) they banned smoking in pubs and clubs not long after but it was a god send if you smoked as a kid.


----------



## Sperghetti (Mar 9, 2022)

TurdFondler said:


> Anyone remember those dispensers for temporary tattoos and really garish shiny stickers? They'd always have shit like cherries, skull n crossbones, rat fink and other boomer counterculture stuff in em. Almost every diner used to have them by the doors.


I'd add gumball machines in general to this one. Not just the ones that sold gumballs, but the ones that sold little plastic junk toys like sticky hands, superballs, or those plastic puzzles. You used to be able to find an array of those along with the sticker dispensers in the entrance of just about every grocery store, drugstore, and WalMart/KMart/whatever, and now all that's left in their place is a couple of claw machines and a Redbox that nobody uses.



Phalanges Mycologist said:


> I can answer this one - Insurance and Accidents, Kids play areas are disappearing in places that are more food orientated because it add's a huge cost per establishment and accidents relating to poorly maintained or inspected equipment cost a lot more than youd imagine so they are side stepping the issue as a whole by getting rid of them all together.
> 
> It's one of the downsides of living in a overly litigious society like the US and increasingly the UK.


I swear, lawsuits and people who screech about marketing unhealthy food to children are the two biggest killers of childhood fun.


----------



## serious n00b (Mar 10, 2022)

Sperghetti said:


> I'd add gumball machines in general to this one. Not just the ones that sold gumballs, but the ones that sold little plastic junk toys like sticky hands, superballs, or those plastic puzzles. You used to be able to find an array of those along with the sticker dispensers in the entrance of just about every grocery store, drugstore, and WalMart/KMart/whatever, and now all that's left in their place is a couple of claw machines and a Redbox that nobody uses.


The rings you could get from those toy junk machines were actually kind of cool for what they were.


----------



## TurdFondler (Mar 13, 2022)

Those CD of the month club deals. Every few weeks in the 90s we'd get a catalog of shit tier CDs where they'd offer like 10 CDs for a dollar.


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## Mesh Gear Fox (Mar 13, 2022)

TurdFondler said:


> Those CD of the month club deals. Every few weeks in the 90s we'd get a catalog of shit tier CDs where they'd offer like 10 CDs for a dollar.


And then charge you $125 for shipping and handling.  One of my friends got caught up in one of those.  He never paid because you can't really enforce a contract with someone who is a minor.  They sent a bunch of notices to him, but it never went further than that.


----------



## The Un-Clit (Mar 14, 2022)

Mesh Gear Fox said:


> And then charge you $125 for shipping and handling.  One of my friends got caught up in one of those.  He never paid because you can't really enforce a contract with someone who is a minor.  They sent a bunch of notices to him, but it never went further than that.


Hah, I did the same thing with Columbia House as a teenager, except I went for cassette tapes. CDs were still recent and expensive enough that a player was out of my budget. Besides, Walkman!   They fucked up fully half the tapes I ordered, sending me the completely wrong artist and album, but they also introduced me to 2 of my favourite artists to this day with said fucking up so I couldn't hold it too much against them.

I still never paid, though.  Threaten my credit rating all you like, I'm 15 I don't have one. :p


----------



## tehpope (Mar 14, 2022)

wired behind the neck headphones. Wanted to get a spare pair before I moved. The sony ones I have used to be like $15 and now scalpers are selling them for like $100+. Bluetooth ones are those one that hang at the bottom on your neck and have in-ear buds.


----------



## Krystal (Mar 14, 2022)

Sillybandz. I remember everyone having them in 1st grade.


----------



## A Rastafarian Skeleton (Mar 14, 2022)

The gosh dang TV remote is always going missing.


----------



## Mortin Shart (Mar 14, 2022)

TurdFondler said:


> Ronny was purged in the 2000s


----------



## From The Uncanny Valley (Mar 14, 2022)

Mp3 players


----------



## The Un-Clit (Mar 14, 2022)

From The Uncanny Valley said:


> Mp3 players


And mine, fully loaded with some of my favourite tracks and the only copies I had of some LITERALLY disappeared without me noticing. 

It only had like 512Mb of storage, it was from the mid-2000s when there was a glut of cheap Chinese players you could get at the Night Market from $20-$100, but that bad boy held up for me for over a decade and the battery still charged up for well over a couple hours full usage. And then I loaded my phone up instead, and now I can't find the goddamn thing and belive it was left behind the last time I moved, along with a pouch of old-school AD&D hard-edged jewel-dice.


----------



## Smaug's Smokey Hole (Mar 14, 2022)

PFM said:


> I had this exact conversation with someone yesterday. Also remember those long cords would get tangled to hell and you'd have no choice but to buy a new one.
> 
> Something else that came to mind were cordless phones that allowed you to listen to your neighbor's conversations.


I used to have a chinese made plastic pistol(came in a bag not a box) that took a battery and made zapping sounds through a speaker on the side. If the trigger was held in about half-way then it picked up and played police radio instead. As a kid that was amazing.


TurdFondler said:


> There's like 80% less bugs, don't quote me. I remember moths and earthworms the most. Sidewalks would be full of worms after a rain, and digging even a little bit would net you handfuls. Now I don't see either.
> 
> I haven't seen a caterpillar or cocoon in years, same with daddy long legs and all the smaller butterflies. Dragonflies are a rare sighting.
> 
> ...


Now that you mention it, it is weird. As a small child the world was like Skyrim. That's a lizard, it goes into my pocket. That's a  frog. It goes into my pocket. Daddy longlegs can always be found under windowsills so let me just run around swiping my hands under windowsills to scare them out...

There's still a lot of snails though.

But I can't remember the insect splattering on the windshield like in the past. Like when the ants grew wings and migrated, that was always splatterfest.


----------



## Kiwi Lime Pie (Mar 19, 2022)

Pissmaster said:


> Coupon dispensers at grocery stores:


With the push towards digital coupons,  this doesn't surprise me. Although I swear I saw some of these dispensers at the grocery store last week, it's still apparent there aren't as many of them as before and the selection is limited because companies want people to go to their web site or use their proprietary (if not shitty) phone apps so that they don't have to pay for print advertising and paper coupons.



Smaug's Smokey Hole said:


> But I can't remember the insect splattering on the windshield like in the past. Like when the ants grew wings and migrated, that was always splatterfest.


The flying ant migration still happens on occasion in my neighborhood but it either happens less frequently or takes less time now that there are fewer insects in general being seen as compared to years past. It even seems like there are less crickets chirping during the summer nights.


----------



## Stop (Mar 19, 2022)

Zagnut bars. Tried it once because of Beetlejuice. Delicious stuff. Kinda like a Butterfinger but with toasted coconut instead of chocolate.


----------



## Poppavalyim Andropoff (Mar 19, 2022)

Embossed tape label makers.


----------



## IDanceonTrannyGraves (Mar 19, 2022)

From The Uncanny Valley said:


> Mp3 players


Funny, I bought mine a couple of years ago. Sony Walkman MP3 player. 8gbs, great interface, amazing battery life. 
I love it, use it every day.
What retard wants to eat up their phone battery with playing music all day?


----------



## ThinkThankThunk (Mar 19, 2022)

Since the thread is kind of on the topic of environmental collapse: trees. I was walking a friends dog since he fucked up his back and ran into some kids, and while they were petting him and talking I realized that they've never actually seen a forest. They shared their anecdotes about their time outdoors and it boiled down to variations of "we were in this shitty padded playground and saw a big dandelion once". The best reference they have for nature is a few klicks of government-subsidized, foreign-owned canola fields between here and the other towns.

They were genuinely mesmerized by the idea of there being enough trees in one area to cover the ground and create litter, or that a canopy could be dense enough to make light dance and flitter around the shadows, or that trees could get so dense you couldn't walk through them. I didn't even get into wildlife with them, just the mere thought of trees being able to grow larger than the handful of stunted imports that exist in the tiny condominium yards here had them excited. I was sad after that, thinking they were being deprived, then I realized that outside of driving past protected land I haven't seen anything like that around here myself in years. This entire region was aspen and cottonwood forest barely three decades ago, now I'd have to drive an hour or two to get to a park to see what it looked like. It makes me miserable.


----------



## Caesare (Mar 19, 2022)

The Un-Clit said:


> Thanks, Fam! I had no idea about this. Every former Quizno's seemed to die as soon as a Subway went up near it, or else were replaced by one after going tits up so it seemed the logical deduction.
> 
> There is still a Quizno's within walking distance of my house. I think I should appreciate it more and buy dinner there more often.


Their sandwiches stunk too.



Sperghetti said:


> This is one of the things people always seem to overlook when they talk about the decline of malls in the US. It's not that people would rather shop online, it's that half the stores that populated them even up through the early 00's no longer _exist_. You'd be hard-pressed to find a mall in the 90's that didn't have a record store.


The mall we went to had three, I remember. 3 CD stores that all sold the same shit. Who possibly thought that was a good idea?


----------



## Sperghetti (Mar 19, 2022)

Poppavalyim Andropoff said:


> Embossed tape label makers.


I actually had this experience a few years back. Went to pretty much every local big box, office supply, and craft store in town looking for one… nope. Most low-end thing any of them had was an electronic label maker for $30.

I ended up ordering one online for about $12 and feeling like there’s no simple analogue device that will not be eventually replaced by an electronic version that costs twice as much.


----------



## General Disarray (Mar 19, 2022)

Saturday morning cartoon shows. On all OTA networks, for hours on end. One day they were all replaced with "kids' shows" with live actors or educational programming like animal or zoo shows. And with their disappearance I've noticed that there are FAR fewer cereal commercials as well (with the exception of Cheerios and less frequently, Frosted Flakes).


----------



## NoReturn (Mar 21, 2022)

Krystal said:


> Old character shipping videos/edits. The ones where it was just fanart of characters as a couple with really cheesy romance pop songs. While cringey, they seemed to be a guilty pleasure for me.


Here. This will not help.


----------



## moocow (Mar 21, 2022)

TurdFondler said:


> I remember early 2000s you could go to RadioShack and buy PNP or NPN transistors, LEDs and resistors. It was already bullshit compared to the RadioShack catalog of the 80s and 90s where you could buy every electronic component on the market, but it was something. The mall is worthless now.


Fry's Electronics was the last bulwark for a good in-store selection of that kind of thing. I could waste hours walking through those big-ass stores.

Too bad they pussed out in the early days of Wu Flu, closed all their stores and went out of business (with no notice to employees or suppliers in true corporate cunt fashion). They had a reputation for making returns and exchanges a real pain in the ass and for making it difficult-to-impossible to redeem rebates too, so maybe it's for the best that they're gone. Still, there's no brick-and-mortars left in the US to my knowledge that sell electronics parts.



The Gifted Kid said:


> Plasma TVs. I remember people debating whether Plasma or LCD was better. Now I doubt most people even know the difference let alone even remember Plasma was a thing.


Plasmas were neat, but I gotta say ... fuck plasma. Those god damn things were heavy as fuck and had some pretty bad burn-in problems.



Mesh Gear Fox said:


> And then charge you $125 for shipping and handling.  One of my friends got caught up in one of those.  He never paid because you can't really enforce a contract with someone who is a minor.  They sent a bunch of notices to him, but it never went further than that.





The Un-Clit said:


> They fucked up fully half the tapes I ordered, sending me the completely wrong artist and album


Ah, good ol' Columbia House. 



Spoiler: Story time: they dun goofed



I did the math once and joined up because they had a pile of CDs I wanted and it worked out (even with their ripoff S&H fees) to be about $5 per disc, which I considered reasonable. It was the usual "buy 12 CDs for $1, then buy 6 at regular price within 3 years" thing, where "regular price" was some insane bullshit like $18-$20 each. So 12 CDs dutifully arrived a couple weeks later (and they didn't even screw up the order).

When the "real" catalog came after the initial purchase (the "join-up" catalog was a small subset of their real catalog), they included an insert announcing a 2-for-1 sale. Buy a disc at regular price, get another free. That made the math even better, so I promptly ordered 12 discs (the six to satisfy "the contract," plus the six freebies). And yes, the S&H was still ridiculous.

Then when the package arrived with my order, it was much bigger and much heavier than you'd expect for 12 CDs. And the reason it was so is that they fucked up hard and shipped me three or four copies of each disc instead. Whoops. Mind you, the packing slip had the correct counts and they only ever charged my card the expected amount. They also included a "congratulations!" letter saying I'd satisfied "the contract" and "the deal" was concluded.

It's a little-known, seldom-mentioned fact that (in the United States at least) if you ship something to somebody unsolicited, even if they sign for it, they're not legally on the hook to pay you for it and if you want it back, you can go fuck yourself. The "unsolicited" part is important -- you can't just order $50k of shit from some electronics vendor on a net-30 account and say "lol I didn't order that, but I'm keeping it!" It has to be legitimately unsolicited. As in "I have no fucking idea why you sent me this."

Originally that law (I forget now what it was called, but it was originally a postal regulation that I think got expanded to cover pretty much all consumer shipping) was put in place to stop a then-common scam -- send some poor schmuck some worthless garbage that costs you next to nothing but you list in some catalog nobody ever buys from for ridiculous prices, then send them a bill demanding thousands of dollars for it. After all, you've got the stuff, so you better pay for it. And usually it was bulky enough that shipping it back was a ripoff and a pain in the ass, and often the scammer wouldn't even offer to accept a return anyway. So a law was passed to knock that shit off.

So in my case, all the paperwork said we'd agreed to one copy of each disc. It's what was on the invoice and the packing slip. It matched what they charged my card. The fuckup in sending a bunch of extra copies was theirs, not mine. So I kept the damned things and never said a word to them.

Amazingly, about a month later they _actually tried to pull that same scam_ by sending a fucking bill for the extra copies of the discs they sent by accident, with a quiet blurb at the bottom that in lieu of payment I could ship the extras back to them (at my expense) and they'd magnanimously "forgive me." Instead, I wrote a polite but firm letter back to them citing the law I mentioned to explain why I wouldn't be paying for the extra discs or sending them back.

Another month passed and a letter arrived from them harshly advising me that I was an awful, horrible human being for taking advantage of a poor, defenseless media conglomerate by hiding behind some gay ass consumer protection law, and it was only owing to their own goodwill and benevolence (and -- they begrudgingly acknowledged -- they couldn't actually do jack fucking shit about it) that they were writing the whole thing off and "considered the matter closed." Of course my "membership" was canceled effective immediately. Oh darn.

That letter was amazing though and I really wish I'd kept it. The seething was real.


Moral of the story: there's actually some consumer protection laws with teeth when it comes to mail-order outfits. They're fun!


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