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A Tribute to the "Kids these days" Forward

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I remember getting this forward a few years back and absolutely loving it. It was so true. I may have been born in 1984, but believe me, most of the things mentioned below rang true for me as well.

Back in the mid-90s, I was so into 80s cartoons and wanted to get some on VHS. Unfortunately for me, two of my favorites, Captain N and Transformers, were impossible to find. If I wanted to find an old toy, it had better be at a flea market, or there was no way I'd ever get it. There was no ebay. Taping things off the radio was a way of life until just a few years ago for me, and my family also had a rotary phone. There were no cartoon channels in Canada until 1998, which was the same year that I got regular internet access. I actually wrote papers out by hand, and went to the library for research. Believe me, I know exactly what this guy is talking about. The internet porn punks of today have no idea how life used to be. I really believe the author when he says they wouldn't last in 1984. Anyway, without further ado, here it is, in all its glory!


When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious lectures about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways through year 'round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

And I remember promising myself that w hen I grew up there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But....

Now that I've reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so f'n easy!

I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a goddamned Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet--we wanted to know something, we had to go to the goddamned library and look it up ourselves!

And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter--with a pen!--and then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the fuckin' mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

And there were no MP3s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the goddamned record store and shoplift it yourself! Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the begining and fuck it all up!

You want to hear about hardship?

You couldn't just download porn! You had to bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! It was either that or jackoff to the lingere section of the JC Penney catalog! Those were your options!

We didn't have fancy shit like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! A nd we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the the phone rang, you had no idea who it was it could be your boss, your mom, a collections agent, your drug dealer, you didn't know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy was a little square! You had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win, the game just kept getting harder and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! A tall guy sat in front of you, you were screwed!

And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning... ...D'ya hear what the fuck I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled little bastards!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy! You're spoiled, I swear to God! You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in 1984!


Man I love that rant! I used to have tall guys sit in fron of me all the time at the theatre!