Let me ask you something, do you ever feel nostalgic about the stuff you did in your childhood? I sure do. Sometimes it’s fun to reminisce about the good old days, eh?
So when I recently stumbled upon this Reddit thread that asked, “In 50 years, what will people be nostalgic for?” I was really interested to see what other folks have said. Let’s take a look and go down our own memory lane.
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Owning Things Outright
“Owning something you don’t pay a subscription for.”
“I saw an Instagram ad for a pair of earbuds that you have to rent. You don’t have the option of just buying them, even if you’ve paid more than their value in monthly payments. So you could theoretically be forced to pay over a thousand dollars after enough time and still not own them. And if you just stopped paying, they’d deactivate them remotely.”
OMG, what?
Fresh Water
“Easily accessible fresh water.”
“And generally, a livable planet. I’m sure a good amount of people will still be alive and well in 50 years, but people are fully ignorant if they don’t think many millions of people are going to die directly from climate change in the forthcoming 5 decades. Endless heatwaves, ecosystems collapsing, inability to produce crops, and that’s on top of the super unpredictable s*** like massive flash floods in places that are used to 9 cm of rain a year.”
“Unless we come up with massive innovations and advances in technology to reverse climate change, we are guaranteed terrible fallout. It’s not about the carbon we’re producing now but the carbon we already produced for decades. Going carbon neutral tomorrow wouldn’t stop a lot of terrible things from happening.”
Amen to that!
Privacy
“Privacy. Even babies are overexposed today.”
Yes to that. There are so many social media accounts set up just for kids. I don’t know about you but that makes me a little uncomfortable. They didn’t consent to that. Am I right?
Car Maintenance
“Being able to do basic maintenance on your car without needing a shop manual and a year’s salary worth of special tools.”
They don’t make cars like they used to. Now it’s all computerized, and once something breaks, you’re s*** out of luck.
Movies
“Movies made 30 years from now. Nostalgia always runs in 20-year cycles.”
I would even go further than that. Anything that isn’t completely CGI is what I’m going to miss going forward. How about you? There’s something about people just acting like they used to.
Clothes
“Hang on to your clothes, kids, because fashion is cyclical. I have clothes in my closet from 2005 waiting to make a reappearance… At my next yard sale.”
That’s so true. I am still planning to clear my closet and put some stuff I don’t wear anymore for sale.
The Netherlands
“It’ll be spoken of like Atlantis. A utopia of giants, weed, prostitutes, and bicycles.”
OMG, that makes me laugh out loud but having been to Amsterdam, I know what they mean, haha. It definitely is a fun place, that’s for sure.
Online Privacy
“Being able to be anonymous online.”
“Privacy in general. Assume you are being tracked everywhere.”
“Sometimes I wish I lived in the times when Mark Twain talked about having to keep track of who you said you were in every town. Early 2000s internet is probably the closest equivalent I’ll experience until the crash of civilization.”
True dat!
Nature
“The number of wild animals that exist and can be seen. They are already on the decline.”
“I already miss seeing hedgehogs while walking home (this is in England), their numbers have been dwindling for quite some time.”
Aww, this makes me so sad.
Stable weather
“We always had a stable climate though. We shouldn’t be breaking all-time heat records every year.”
“It didn’t use to get to be 40 degrees in summer, and there used to be a lot less rain a lot more frequently.”
I too will miss that.
Snow
“My Mum speaks about how every winter in the 70s, there would always be massive amounts of snow that would stay around for days. I’ve only had 2 times in my life where snow has stuck around for a day. The rest of the snow days would either never stick to the ground or it’ll stick, but it’ll melt away within the hour. It’s rare that we get snow.”
Oh, wow! I’m happy we still get snow here in Canada.
Wilderness
“Wilderness spaces with little or no human settlement.”
“This is my biggest complaint with US National Parks. They get all kinds of praise on here and don’t get me wrong they’re wonderful, but they all have HUGE infrastructure requirements, massive parking lots, hotels, and restaurants. To me, all this is WAAAY too close to the actual nature; heck the Grand Canyon has pavement right up until you actually drop into it. I hope we get something under control so that in 50 years I can still just hike into the middle of the woods 100 miles from the nearest man-made structure and chill with my dog among nature.”
I totally agree with that.
Driving
“Imagine a world where all vehicles are automated. It would be so “retro” to manually drive a car down to the shops.”
No, I actually don’t want to imagine that. And I guess anyone who actually enjoys driving a car would agree with that.
Power. Water. Food.
“The abundance and availability of power, water, and food.”
“Come to South Africa. We already have planned power cuts multiple times a day called ‘loadshedding.’ We are all nostalgic for days where we had 24 hours straight with electricity.”
I don’t like the sound of that.
Retail
“Retail shopping. There will be these cutesy, extremely expensive retro shops selling things you’d find at the convenience store.”
Yup, it looks like everything is going online, and I, for one, don’t like that. I might be an anomaly, but I prefer to touch and feel the fabric of the clothes I buy.
Being Uncontactable
“I’d say people will miss being uncontactable. Like back in the day, you could just go to your bedroom, and block the rest of the world away for a couple of hours. Now we’ve got video calls, phone calls, texts, emails. Urgh.”
I hear you loud and clear.
Affordability
“Being able to afford to live (too high COL, high rent, low pay, inflation).”
“I own my home. I’ve already decided that since I have no heirs, when I die I’m going to give my home to a young family. It’ll set them up for life. Imagine never having to pay rent or save for a home. You could save for retirement instead.”
What a nice gesture, huh?
Everything
“Everything about today’s art, style, decor, culture, movies, shows, music, and news events.
It will seem old-fashioned and from a simpler time, in 50 years.”
Somehow I like the sound of that. I long for a simpler time.
Whoa, that’s a lot of stuff, huh?
What would you miss the most? Hmm, there are so many things I don’t know where to start. I’ll definitely miss just connecting with people without all that technology. You can barely have a conversation with someone without them looking at their phone all the time. That drives me crazy.
Oh, and being surrounded by nature without human interference. For me, those are two big ones.
