Ah, but if you ordered the pr0n goodness from that mail-order Beta store, you'd get a lot more mail thanks to address lists being sold and all, with the mail carrier probably snickering too...
What was life like for you before the Internet?
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
- Start date
Ah, but if you ordered the pr0n goodness from that mail-order Beta store, you'd get a lot more mail thanks to address lists being sold and all, with the mail carrier probably snickering too...
Not just p0rn... give money to one charity and suddenly ALL of them are in your mailbox!
Mine was mostly catalogs from something called mail order retail stores (Sears, Wards J.C. Penny, J.C. Whitney). Like getting Amazon, but waiting longer because they had to cash your bank check (cheque for those outside the US).
I remember as a kid going through those thick catalogs at Christmas time, making up my wish list.
I still have one.
I was mostly a JC Whitney shopper. Lots of hard to find auto accessories. Where else could you find a cruise control kit for precomputer (1964 and 1972 Pontiacs) cars for cheap?
That still happens. Only instead of the mailbox, it's your email. I was trying to be nice donating to charity. They are still emailing me for donations 4 years later. It never ends.
It doesn't end even if you die. My father passed in 2016, and my mother in 2009 and the charity mailers come addressed to both of them, as I haven't sold their house yet. My dad never touched a computer so he used my one of my email addresses when he gave to charity over the phone. The spam folder on that account gets filled with at least a dozen a day. He was also into political campaign donations, and they are relentless. There is always an election or primary coming up in even years, and an uptick in mail and emails. I did call some of the charities that had phone numbers with their snail mail, told them no one lived at the address they were sending mail to, if they would ask for my parents new address and I would give tell them the Old Hall Cemetery in Lewisville, TX, and ask if they wanted plot number and address. If there was not a phone number to call but a prepaid envelop, I would print and mail copies of their death certificates and write "deceased" on the donation line, and "no one at this address" and snail mail it back.
I used to read a lot of books in the 80s,90s and early 2000s. Much less so in the last 15 years due to the internet and smartphones.
I strongly believe that the current internet 2.0 is killing creative story telling. When you read books especially sci fi and fantasy, the author does the world building and character development through words and that allows you to imagine how the world or the character is in your mind. You also basically fill in the blank on the details that the authors did not mention in the books.
Like in the Dune books for example, there is very little description of Paul Atreides. That allows you to imagine how he looks like. Whereas in movies and TV shows, the world has already been built and characters are represented by actors that play them. That leaves very little to the imagination.
We need to get back to reading books, where our imagination is simulated instead of watching other people's version of the books and short stories being shown on the big and small screens. The heavy usage of the internet is rotting our own individual creativity.
Don't get me wrong. i like watching music videos and documentaries on youtube. But watching too much of other people's creations, can reduce your initiative to create new stories. There is too much information online for us to process and our social media created short attention span is also not helping matters.
I strongly believe that the current internet 2.0 is killing creative story telling. When you read books especially sci fi and fantasy, the author does the world building and character development through words and that allows you to imagine how the world or the character is in your mind. You also basically fill in the blank on the details that the authors did not mention in the books.
Like in the Dune books for example, there is very little description of Paul Atreides. That allows you to imagine how he looks like. Whereas in movies and TV shows, the world has already been built and characters are represented by actors that play them. That leaves very little to the imagination.
We need to get back to reading books, where our imagination is simulated instead of watching other people's version of the books and short stories being shown on the big and small screens. The heavy usage of the internet is rotting our own individual creativity.
Don't get me wrong. i like watching music videos and documentaries on youtube. But watching too much of other people's creations, can reduce your initiative to create new stories. There is too much information online for us to process and our social media created short attention span is also not helping matters.
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There is so much to like about the internet age, but some things where better before.
Renting a video. It was an occasion, the family sat down together and watched it, it felt special. Of course families will watch movies still but that it's so readily available with more choices, yes its great but it lacks that special feeling.
Live TV, the excitement because the A Team or whatever was on, you made sure your in front of the TV. Now it's just I'll watch it whenever.
Big movie premiers on Tv, I remember the excitement when Jaws got its TV premiere, scouts was cancelled because of it, everyone was talking about it. Kids today wont get that excitement.
We had our 1st video around 1980, I'd have been 9. My mum and dad not knowing what to rent ask the guy in the shop if the film they are clutching was suitable for kids, yes he says. So family sits down to watch Animal House. My 9 year old self certainly enjoyed moments of it
Renting a video. It was an occasion, the family sat down together and watched it, it felt special. Of course families will watch movies still but that it's so readily available with more choices, yes its great but it lacks that special feeling.
Live TV, the excitement because the A Team or whatever was on, you made sure your in front of the TV. Now it's just I'll watch it whenever.
Big movie premiers on Tv, I remember the excitement when Jaws got its TV premiere, scouts was cancelled because of it, everyone was talking about it. Kids today wont get that excitement.
We had our 1st video around 1980, I'd have been 9. My mum and dad not knowing what to rent ask the guy in the shop if the film they are clutching was suitable for kids, yes he says. So family sits down to watch Animal House. My 9 year old self certainly enjoyed moments of it
Before computers, the internet, DVRs, Discs and VCRs everyone had to get in front of the TV when the show they wanted to see was on. If you missed it you had to wait until the summer when they showed re-runs. I watched The Twilight Zone (TZ) during the regular season, and The Outer Limits (OL) in summer reruns. Both were in the same time slot on the same night with TZ on CBS and OL on ABC. If a sporting event was on in the same time slot on NBC, I had to go to another room and watch the spare TV. We had our original black and white TV moved into a bedroom when we got one of the first RCA Victor color TV's in the early 1960s.There is so much to like about the internet age, but some things where better before.
Renting a video. It was an occasion, the family sat down together and watched it, it felt special. Of course families will watch movies still but that it's so readily available with more choices, yes its great but it lacks that special feeling.
Live TV, the excitement because the A Team or whatever was on, you made sure your in front of the TV. Now it's just I'll watch it whenever.
Big movie premiers on Tv, I remember the excitement when Jaws got its TV premiere, scouts was cancelled because of it, everyone was talking about it. Kids today wont get that excitement.
We had our 1st video around 1980, I'd have been 9. My mum and dad not knowing what to rent ask the guy in the shop if the film they are clutching was suitable for kids, yes he says. So family sits down to watch Animal House. My 9 year old self certainly enjoyed moments of it
yeah although I was young I remember how fantastic it was to record tv shows when we got a vcr
before that I'd record audio of tv shows on my tape recorder and listen to them
also remember being jealous because being in the UK we had 3 channels yet it appeared to us those in the US had dozens to choose from
In the 1960's and 1970's unless you had cable, most of those on an antenna were network affilates (ABC, NBC, CBS) in different marketing areas and showing the same thing during prime time network broadcasts. We had an antenna on a 10 meter guyed pole on the roof of the house with an antenna rotator mounted between the pole and antenna. I lived in the Fresno, CA market area as a kid, but mostly watched stations in the Sacramento, CA market area. Sacramento had a PBS station starting in 1959, Fresno didn't get a PBS station until 1977.
When I was stationed in Saratoga Springs, NY in the Navy I had access to cable and only got 12 channels in 1977.
I was very lucky - our "local" PBS station was WQED in Pittsburgh, which was the home of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. I honestly didn't know the show was national until we left PA.
We also had a Pittsburgh independent station that showed a lot of older syndicated shows like The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Superman, and The Beatles cartoon.
We also had a Pittsburgh independent station that showed a lot of older syndicated shows like The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Superman, and The Beatles cartoon.
The Sacramento PBS station had HHG2G, Dr. Who, The Starlost, Are You Being Served and later had Keeping up Appearances and The Red Green Show on weekends. I would come home from High School during the week and watch the congressional hearings live on the Watergate scandal. The rest of the networks weren't paying attention to it in the beginning, not until they found out about the existence of tape recordings made in the oval office.
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As I'm sure hotel managers used to do back in the day.
"Yes, sir, we hope you enjoyed your stay with us, especially your in-room viewing of Return to Planet Nipple."
I still do that. =) However sometimes through internet.
Before internet I think I spent a lot more time outside.
Street hockey as a goalie with friends on the yard.
Collecting ice hockey cards was a big thing for some reason.
Baseball, football, cycling, javelin throw, playing Turtles.... (yes, at 10 or so years old)
There was this thing called NES back then, later SNES.
Good times.
Lots of tv and VHS, and audio plays on audio cassettes.
Antenna tv with 7 channels in West-Berlin: The 3 public channels, one private channel (the one TOS was on), two East German channels (on my parents' old tv set in b/w only, because the east used SECAM instead of PAL), and an American Army channel, Afn, which due to the NTSC format was b/w and without any sound on my parents' tv. Didn't stop me from watching TOS on Afn, although I had no idea what was going on.
Audio plays on cassette were all the rage among West German children in the 80s. They were cheap, and even when you weren't allowed to watch much tv, most kids at least had a cassette recorder. Many labels had their own audio play serieses, some adopted movies and tv shows to audio plays. The first time I ever learned about Star Wars, was when I got an audio play adaption of the first 1977 movie on cassette on a flea market.
Once a week, the "book bus" from the library would come to my elementary school, and you couldn't just rent books, but also audio play cassettes. Which you could then make copies of. Was a great time... today's unlimited content is somewhat disillusioning in contrast, despite all advantages.
Antenna tv with 7 channels in West-Berlin: The 3 public channels, one private channel (the one TOS was on), two East German channels (on my parents' old tv set in b/w only, because the east used SECAM instead of PAL), and an American Army channel, Afn, which due to the NTSC format was b/w and without any sound on my parents' tv. Didn't stop me from watching TOS on Afn, although I had no idea what was going on.
Audio plays on cassette were all the rage among West German children in the 80s. They were cheap, and even when you weren't allowed to watch much tv, most kids at least had a cassette recorder. Many labels had their own audio play serieses, some adopted movies and tv shows to audio plays. The first time I ever learned about Star Wars, was when I got an audio play adaption of the first 1977 movie on cassette on a flea market.
Once a week, the "book bus" from the library would come to my elementary school, and you couldn't just rent books, but also audio play cassettes. Which you could then make copies of. Was a great time... today's unlimited content is somewhat disillusioning in contrast, despite all advantages.
Born in 1962 and not establishing an online presence until January 1, 1996 (via CompuServe), a fraction more than half my life unfolded before the internet. Most of the points I can mention have already been addressed by others in this thread. the most i can do is simply present my personal perspective.
Access to information about media sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc. I managed through subscriptions to genre focused magazines like StarLog and its spin-off publications like Future Life, Cinemagic, Fantastica (before renamed Fangoria and got too visceral for my easily squeamished tummy) and the occasional Famous Monsters of Filmland and selected issues of similar magazines. Biggest downside, the Long lead times meant what I read immediately after retrieving the "rags" from the mailbox was several months old, maybe half a year. Something could have happened during that time to substantially alter a production. On the other hand, the concept of "spoilers" as we know them today were almost nonexistent. It helped that the publications carefully selected what readers' replies were published in the "letters column". This process also minimized "toxic negativity" by printing only a couple of bitter letters. (True, this could be considered a form of censorship, but it did make for a generally more positive environment. I recall when StarLog reprinted Frederick Brown original version of "Arena" upon which both an "Outer Limits" and the famous Trek episode were based. The splash page art (funny enough, the literal centerfold) showcased a painting by famed fantasy artist Boris Vallejo featuring the main characters, a human astronaut/fighter pilot and his alien adversary, a tentacled blob (not a not lizard man as in Trek). Boris was faithful to Brown's descriptions by depicting the human devoid of clothing, but posed in a manner that showed nothing "worse" than the side of his hip. Still, several issues later, the letters column printed a reply from a very irate fan, exclaiming they were cancelling their subscription for turning StarLog into "PlayGirl". A few issues after that, Starlog printed some rebuttals from other fans, pretty much mocking the opinions of the earlier reader. There may have been one more issue with a reader defending the original offended reader's opinions, but after that nothing more was printed. Had it been an online forum, depending upon the policies of the moderators, the discussion would have turned into emotionally charged arguments and finally devolved into "Godwin's Law" raging for 50 pages or more. Point being, the very nature of extreme lead time and limited space for reader replies made that kind of "text based brawling" impossible. Good or bad, those limitations created the illusion of a more positive fandom environment, at least for professional level publications. Limited run fanzines? I suspect that was a very different matter, but as I was not a member of any, I can't make a reasonably informed assessment.
Access to information about media sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc. I managed through subscriptions to genre focused magazines like StarLog and its spin-off publications like Future Life, Cinemagic, Fantastica (before renamed Fangoria and got too visceral for my easily squeamished tummy) and the occasional Famous Monsters of Filmland and selected issues of similar magazines. Biggest downside, the Long lead times meant what I read immediately after retrieving the "rags" from the mailbox was several months old, maybe half a year. Something could have happened during that time to substantially alter a production. On the other hand, the concept of "spoilers" as we know them today were almost nonexistent. It helped that the publications carefully selected what readers' replies were published in the "letters column". This process also minimized "toxic negativity" by printing only a couple of bitter letters. (True, this could be considered a form of censorship, but it did make for a generally more positive environment. I recall when StarLog reprinted Frederick Brown original version of "Arena" upon which both an "Outer Limits" and the famous Trek episode were based. The splash page art (funny enough, the literal centerfold) showcased a painting by famed fantasy artist Boris Vallejo featuring the main characters, a human astronaut/fighter pilot and his alien adversary, a tentacled blob (not a not lizard man as in Trek). Boris was faithful to Brown's descriptions by depicting the human devoid of clothing, but posed in a manner that showed nothing "worse" than the side of his hip. Still, several issues later, the letters column printed a reply from a very irate fan, exclaiming they were cancelling their subscription for turning StarLog into "PlayGirl". A few issues after that, Starlog printed some rebuttals from other fans, pretty much mocking the opinions of the earlier reader. There may have been one more issue with a reader defending the original offended reader's opinions, but after that nothing more was printed. Had it been an online forum, depending upon the policies of the moderators, the discussion would have turned into emotionally charged arguments and finally devolved into "Godwin's Law" raging for 50 pages or more. Point being, the very nature of extreme lead time and limited space for reader replies made that kind of "text based brawling" impossible. Good or bad, those limitations created the illusion of a more positive fandom environment, at least for professional level publications. Limited run fanzines? I suspect that was a very different matter, but as I was not a member of any, I can't make a reasonably informed assessment.
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