i miss old boring history documentaries, i hate how the history channel tries to do this cheesy dramatic re-enactments, im guessing it is to appeal to zoomers or something but im a zoomer and it doesnt appeal to me at all, give me old boring historians talking about history goddamn it
Wait. History channel shows something else other than Pawn Stars and American Pickers now?
3 months ago
Anonymous
not really its like one history documentary and then like 5 episodes of pawn stars followed by 5 episodes of american picker and that show were they bid for trash
I cried like a homosexual when i was 11 caused i missed digimon sat am one morning cause i had to go to the orthodontist.
I was an insane homosexual who didn't know how to relax. Getting better but this moronicness is still partly in me. If i miss a day at the gym i feel physically angry
dude, I used to watch rush limbaugh as a kid
I just found him fascinating
https://i.imgur.com/rJMn2RS.jpg
What was TV like in the "analog" era?
the routine of regularly scheduled programing was underrated. it really was. a routine that you just had to conform to while you lived your life's greater routines.
coming home to new simpsons episodes on thursdays was amazing. hell, a new season of television was actually awesome if the show was any good.
also, limited internet use meant things had a natural peak. there was no binge watching shows to kill time. once you hit a snag and a show stopped living up to its promise, you just stopped watching.
I remember tuning out of the simpsons. You have so many good shows that once you start running into bad seasons, you just stop watching--there are other things you could be doing than watching a show and not laughing.
Expanding on the theme of tv programming schedules. In Australia our programmers were absolute filth. They absolutely deserved to be abandoned to shows being downloaded off the net by the office media nerd and shared around on cheap burnables.
New Season of Big Show X? You'd get two weeks of new eps. Hell they liked you so much, they'd start supplying them in blocks. Then a New Episode + Classic Episode block for a while, then once they had the numbers that showed people had "adopted" the new behavior (because you're the one being programmed, not the show), they'd start running Old Episode + Old Episode blocks. For months. Only breaking out a block of new eps once they saw people were drifting off again.
Simpsons was the worst for this (while House was the big prime-time drama that this was happening to at the time). We were literally 5 seasons behind at least, just because of this gooning process of withheld release. And it benefited them as they didn't have to pay a premium on the show rights for being fresh off US TV.
This eventually lead to binge-watching developing as a habit (or trained in by design, if you suspect that at the time they were TRYING to get everyone onto the internet, to push a "permanent connectivity" mode of thought in prep for iphone zombification and ultimately into UBI-based minute-to-minute control). People would stop bothering catching shows "live" because even the start-times were being screwed with (strange delays that allowed them to skip out new eps altogether and just run the old one), and just get the latest season of Big Show X at their workplace (or the kids at school) and watch it all in one weekend. And as everyone wanted in on the show-chat, these big weekends would start becoming internal culture things in the office or schoolyard.
We were always quick on South Park on our government broadcaster which proved the lie of the commercial channels not being able to get new shows the very next day.
And that's not even touching on the disgusting shit they were doing with advert breaks getting longer and longer as the show neared it's climax.
Marketing people (who are the base stock of television and content programming teams, even to this day) are all literal demons who know exactly what they're doing.
This is very true. Granted I was a kid and was more easily entertained and didn't know any better because that's just how TV was back in the 90s and 2000s, but I feel like I watched a lot of shit I would have probably never watched if there was way more options. My parents make good money and we had a lot of channels when I was a kid but I really only watched a few of them consistently.
Streaming might allow me to watch whatever I want whenever I want and gives me the ability to binge a whole fricking series (which I never did as a kid because I sporadically caught episodes of shows and not usually in order) but I cannot think of a single series I want to watch now. Maybe it's because I'm older and bitter and modern media is absolute trash but there's a strange joy to being forced to watch whatever was on. It makes you experience stuff you'd otherwise miss. Take me fricking back. Frick modernity.
It was comfy. I had a handheld TV with what must have been a two, maaaybe 3 inch screen and I used to watch the simpsons and sports on it. It worked great
analog sports broadcast on a tiny screen coming from an antenna with a single mono headphone. I've experienced comforts you would not believe
A lot of reruns but it was comfy. Stations would have two random episodes of a series back to back for an hour on weeknights. Or they would play through the series over and over. I watched Cosby show all the way through twice growing up because it played in a one hour block every night on nick at night. The TVs were different and had a dull hum to then sometimes. Everything felt way more SOVLful. Everyone watched things at the same time so there was more discussion about current shows. Catching a movie was also fun. It was a different world.
Digital aerial is better in the sense that there are a lot more channels availible in the same amount of bands and broadcast points, and the quality can be very good. But the problem with digital broadcast compared to old analog, is quality drastically drops if signal strength is not ideal. With analog, if a signal is weak, visually you just get a little bit of static snow and maybe some ghosting at the worst, and audio will just get some fuzzy static. This was a drop in quality but it was still viewable and enjoyable.
If digitial TV has even a slightly mediocre signal, it pixelates and visually tears quite often, the the audio is absolutely atrocious because it sporadically cuts out completely. It's essentially not worth viewing at below ideal signal quality.
That's how I always watched the Lynch/DeLaurentis Dune, my dad taped it on VHS and event cut the commercials out, good times.
Soulless, like I said. MM isn't supposed to be card game'esque. It was from the era of Yugiouh and everyone tried to get in on the action. Mega Man, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc. Soulless cashgrabs that didn't stand the test of time
>Jump over that shit then your ass is grass! DEAD!
that's how i watched T2 for the first time. dad cut the commercials out but the tape messed up temporarily right as dyson triggers the bomb. i still get a weird little 'oh shit here it comes' feeling at that moment when rewatching it, like my brain still expects the tape to screw up and cut out the explosion.
>TVs had a dull hum to them
And then you'd turn it off and the image would kind of implode into a little bright light at the center which would then fade
And the screen would sometimes be radiating static electricity, and it would crackle and settle
Nick at nite point is good too, in the analog era you'd end up watching a lot of old programs very incidentally. Nowadays you're looking up those old shows to watch specifically like a gay hipster; back then it was just what was on at 10pm or whatever.
The facts of life, threes company, Brady bunch, cosbys, diffrent strokes. Shit, happy days. Watched all those decades old programs as a kid
>And then you'd turn it off and the image would kind of implode into a little bright light at the center which would then fade >And the screen would sometimes be radiating static electricity, and it would crackle and settle
Imagine the smell
We have to go back
i remember that when there was a tv on, you could feel when someone entered the room because the constatn static noise would change subtly, did anybody else ever noticed that?
the odd thing is that i could hear that same noise outside when i wasnt near a tv, that has long since gonne away when everybody stoped using analog
3 months ago
Anonymous
>the odd thing is that i could hear that same noise outside when i wasnt near a tv, that has long since gonne away when everybody stoped using analog
I hear it sometimes but way less now.
I live in nyc so people might be using something thst has that smilar frequency.
Idk could just be going insane tho.
3 months ago
Anonymous
it was handy though, like i said it would tell you when someone was getting close to you, nowadays i can tell by the sound of footsteps (i am very sensitive to sounds) but back then when i was bullied a lot it was really helpful
3 months ago
Anonymous
I have extremely good high frequency hearing, learned it was real in meps before basic training during a hearing test, then years later confirmed my limits using a frequency generator app on my phone with coworkers
This ended up causing them to frick with me for about a month
I think my limit was about 29kHz
At the very edges it was more like i was imagining it, but I'd know when it stopped.
It fricking sucks though.
Most power tool battery chargers emit a super high freq tone, as do cheap electronics.
High power lines have a humm
Rarely squeaking doors or metal will emit one very strongly
All give instant headaches
Absolutely worst unique trait to have. Maybe someday it'll save my life.
And no, its not tinnitus. When a room/place is perfectly silent its like heaven.
3 months ago
Anonymous
I have this same thing, thought I've never tested it. Like right now I can hear electronics around me making high pitched humming. Whenever there's a blackout or I'm unplugging things before I go on a trip that initial true silence is deafening
3 months ago
Anonymous
I have this shit too, been tested as well but their tests only went up to around 20khz I think.
I got tested because I kept mishearing people, turns out there's a different issue that some people have where it's hard to discern speech well when there's background noise, and that's what my malfunction is. When watching kino I either need to crank the volume or put on subtitles (I go for the deaf ones that have everything) if there's even something like a fan going in the room or I miss half the shit they say.
My actual hearing, in terms of being able to hear sounds across the frequency range normally is apparently well above average. I'd advise you to start listening to birds and it will change your life. Can hear baby birds faint high-frequency chirping in a nest several stories up waiting for their parents to come back. Know when there's a cat or a bird of prey outside without looking by hearing their calls change. Like having a clear window into a whole different part of the natural world that most people don't even notice.
>running your palm across the screen and collecting all the static electricity, then zapping your brother with your finger
it only worked like 1 time in 10 though
Fox lineup was kino
In living color
Martin
Then Mash reruns till 2am
Despite spending years of my childhood watching blacks representing themselves i still ended up hating them
The wayans were way ahead of their time
The fly girls and their gay male dancer they added later were dumb as frick though
>And then you'd turn it off and the image would kind of implode into a little bright light at the center which would then fade >And the screen would sometimes be radiating static electricity, and it would crackle and settle
Imagine the smell
We have to go back
>put your back against a TV that's on >it feels tingly
>Catching a movie was also fun
Catching movies was awesome because you either finished watching something else and the movie played, you got invested in the whole thing or you came in halfway and had to try to piece together what was going on.
HBO and those other movie channels were cool. I remember before i had it, they would do free weekends as a promo. You got access to the channel for the weekend.
There were certain movies that aired all the time and movies would be released. A lot of movies younger zoomers really like, i caught on tv either on a regular channel or HBO. I saw American Psycho on one of those movie channels in the late 2000s. It wasn't a meme yet. It was cool to see that a movie i probably never would have watched otherwise become popular like that. No one my age was talking about it. I just happened to finish a movie and American Psycho came on after. That was a common occurrence. You decide to watch something and then you just watch whatever else comes on after. Once you're hooked you can't change the channel. It's like letting Netflix or Youtube keep playing the next recommended show or video.
kek i'll never forget my buddy and i dropping into Fear and Loathing while channel surfing at 14 years old. it was right after they picked up tobey macguire and we recognized all three actors from pirates of the carribbean, spider-man and sin city so we figured we'd watch it. what a journey that was
used to jerk it, still do, to Jillian Anderson all the time. chick is such a dime and I would give ten years of my life for a night of unbridled love making.
Ours had a cracked pump and would consistently run out of oil. I remember during a Seinfeld season finale I had to hightail it to the store on my bike during a commercial break.
Yeah but it's gay to pause shit to have a conversation. You could do it with vcr's as well but pausing shit to make a comment is tacky while going to make popcorn or finger your wife while a commercial runs is 20000000 times more SOVLfull
It was just different. Stuff would air on TV and you'd just watch it, it didn't matter what it was. It was like radio, they'd play the songs for you and maybe you'd change Station or sort of just listen to songs you didn't care much for because they were good enough for the moment
You'd just cycle through a singular interface for options on TV or radio
It wasn't about "pause". It wasn't self curate home entertainment for the evening; you were tuning in to something already in progress.
I loved getting an ipod and suddenly having immediate control, but early on it became clear that my favorite songs felt somehow less special to hear at the click of a button
Catching a hot program on TV was like catching a stray animal
>I loved getting an ipod and suddenly having immediate control, but early on it became clear that my favorite songs felt somehow less special to hear at the click of a button
This is so true. Not even Shuffle on a playlist is quite the same.
>I loved getting an ipod and suddenly having immediate control, but early on it became clear that my favorite songs felt somehow less special to hear at the click of a button
This is so true. Not even Shuffle on a playlist is quite the same.
yeah i remember that if i would see shows on syndicated channels it was better to know more bout them than today even though you can bring up exactly what you want. like now if i watch a series i just watch it once and usually thats it nd then forget most of it. back in the late 90s thru 2000s you watch episodes over and over again and learn them front and back
Kind of shit and cool at the same time. Endless flipping through channels and missing parts of shows because you can't pause the TV. Movies were always cut with commercial breaks every time you started to enjoy it. The programming was all around much better though. At it's worst it was kind numbing with how bored you could be watching TV. Plus, if you had siblings, it was always a fight for the remote. Imagine missing your kino because your older brother wanted to watch something else and could kick you ass because you're five. These days kids all have separate devices and can watch things whenever. I personally would never go back.
You could flip through the channels a fricklot quicker. Like instantly. Any fraction of a second load time on a modern Cinemaphile still annoys the frick out of me.
You would also run out of things to watch and just watch the Cinemaphile guide channel scroll past. Or play vidya
I miss when shows would have dedicated holiday episodes, especially halloween. As in actually be holiday themed, not just throw up a bunch of decorations in the background. I always looked forward to Home Improvement's and Wishbone's halloween episodes in particular.
It kind of sucked but in different ways than it does now. The conveinance of streaming now is better than having to tune in at a specific time to watch. On the other hand, it made upcoming episodes more of an event. You had to watch it when it was on or catch reruns.
The television themselves have something cozy to them tht modern tvs dont have. Maybe its just nostalgia but its almost as if the analog image gave everything a more dreamy quality. It was leass clear and hid some imperfection leaving more to the imagination to fill in and making it more immersive in a way. I have one i picked up recently to enjoy some things from that era on dvd and old consoles. That said 4k udh on ab oled is amazing and for many movies it is the abosulute west way to enjoy them aside from maybe having a private theatre and film projector.
>It was leass clear and hid some imperfection leaving more to the imagination to fill in and making it more immersive in a way.
Also the screens just being so much smaller. It's not some big thing taking up a quarter of your wall, just a little box in some part of the room. Nowadays you really have rooms centered around big flat screens , back in the day you'd put a tube anywhere. On the floor, in the corner, or on top of a shelf somewhere. You could put it in your closet. Didn't matter
I loved flipping through the channels. Watch a bit flip. Commercial flip. In highschool I had a tv in my room. I'd lay in bed all day sometimes just flipping through the channels.
equally as brain washing as it is today and the modern equivelants. the only difference was you had a very limited selection and it was on a timer. if you missed it live you won't see it for months or maybe years
i remember being so upset whenever i missed that megaman anime at like 7 am, and then being really really upset when they stoped airing it. for years i would wake up at 4 am in hopes that i would catch it but it never happene, i've watched it since then but sometimes when im watching tv at 4 am i still hope to find it, only to remember that i can now watch it whenever i want
>i guess im younger than you huh?
Yep. Makes me feel old. Oh well.
I remember battle network but I wasn't into it too much. I liked that one game cube game tho.
oh yeah that game was fun, not great but it was fun and i liked the music, the battle network games are a lot of fun,
Classic megaman was more based. I could neve get into battle network and I hate that weird y2k or whatever revamp of cartoons. Where I lived Battle Network aired on saturday mornings. I even tried playing one of the games for it and didn't like it. The OG games had more sovl as well
hey battle network is pretty soulful too, but yeah that games is not for everybody, i personally like all of the megaman series, i replay the six nes games almost on a yearly basis
3 months ago
Anonymous
Battle Network seemed like it was more about customizing your character and navigating a somewhat empty world while OG Mega Man was more about characters and more interesting environments. I wanted to like the whole upgrading thing but it just didn't grab me
3 months ago
Anonymous
not really, it was an rpg with its random encounters but the combat system was like a card game, every turn you would get 5 chips (cards) and you use them to fight enemies, you can move around during battles and if you use up your chips you can use your regular mega buster, the cool thing about these games is that getting a new chip isnt completely rng there is some skill involved, basically you have to get an s rank to get the chip from a certain enemy, and the story is basically an alternate time line where instead of going for willy's idea of making robots they went with dr, light's idea of creating the internet and navies and chips etc, and this made wily mad and thats why he is the villian, he is trying to destroy the internet centric society that light created, and you play as dr, light's grandson and his navi megaman who is revealed at the end of the game to be his dead twin brother, his dad used something to digitize his dna or something like that. later in the series the son of dr wily is the new villian
3 months ago
Anonymous
Soulless, like I said. MM isn't supposed to be card game'esque. It was from the era of Yugiouh and everyone tried to get in on the action. Mega Man, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc. Soulless cashgrabs that didn't stand the test of time
3 months ago
Anonymous
well i liked it as much as i liked the original games
3 months ago
Anonymous
its not entirely like a card game, you do play as megaman during the fights and move around and stuff the chips are basically like the boss power ups from the original games, the card game part is that is random which five of them you will be able to pick at the beginning of a fight
3 months ago
Anonymous
>its not entirely like a card game
That's why I said '-esque'
3 months ago
Anonymous
but you should give it a try, just get it out of your head that is a megaman game and judge it as its own thing. or not you can do whatever you want
3 months ago
Anonymous
>but you should give it a try,
Scroll up. I already said I tried the cartoon and the games and they just weren't for me. I gave it the college try. Different strokes for different folks
3 months ago
Anonymous
Cardcaptor Sakura isn't a Yu-Gi-Oh! ripoff. They premiered at right around the same time and in fact the Cardcaptor Sakura manga predates the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga by a few months.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Cardcaptor Sakura
Bro, they don't even play card games in it. And it's far better than any Yugioh.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Cardcaptor Sakura >Yugioh ripoff
3 months ago
Anonymous
Sakura having a friend being super gay for her was weird.
Classic megaman was more based. I could neve get into battle network and I hate that weird y2k or whatever revamp of cartoons. Where I lived Battle Network aired on saturday mornings. I even tried playing one of the games for it and didn't like it. The OG games had more sovl as well
People scheduled their lives around it. There was only one TV and your whole family gathered together to watch simpsons or everybody loves raymond or whatever.
>at lakes >just spent all morning and afternoon doing lakes stuff with brothers >swimming >fishing >exploring >rough housing >building things >get tired >we decide to play some NES before dinner >go inside cabin >Dad fell asleep watching golf again >change tv to channel 3 >"Hey, I was watching that" instant channel changes
Every fricking time
TV watching was more of a family event some nights. Even if it was a meh show you were watching it with people of varying ages and there was always someone to quickly relay something that reminded them of your weird uncle or dumbass cousin or coworker. Even family that didn't live at your house would visit on those nights just to talk shit while certain shows where on with everybody.
Today tv watching is more personal and cerebral. People want to watch a show alone and then maybe go online to read fan theories. When you talk about tv how with family member it's mostly just to give them recommendations based on what you binged last week while you're dropping off some tupperware you borrowed
What were your family shows? For me and mine >Simpsons especially Treehouse of Horror >Seinfeld >Everybody Loves Raymond >Home Improvement >King of the Hill
>for some reason
As an adult you should now understand why. Those final hours before having to go to bed before enduring another dreary work week are to be savored AND WILL DO IT AS A FAMILY GODDAMMIT
>for some reason
It means they loved you. Hell, nightly family dinners and watching TGIF with my siblings and parents feels like a distant fever dream. We lost a lot more in society than our favorite shows.
I just remembered another irreplaceable quality of analog life: catching a movie halfway through. You have no idea what movie it is. You don't want to flip away to the guide channel to check. no bumpers between commercials to let you know
You could just watch it. You'd jump in at a random point, have to pie E it together from there, and then later on maybe you'd figure out what movie it was, or maybe you didn't.
The prime time shows were different every night so there was pretty much something to look forward to every night. If you missed an episode you would have to wait to see it on a rerun or even when/if it went to syndication.
Sunday; Simpsons, Married with Children, In Living Color
Monday: Alf, Fresh Prince
Tuesday: Home Improvement, Quantum Leap
Wednesday: Perfect Strangers, Unsolved Mysteries
Thursday: Cosby Show, Cheers, Seinfeld
Friday:TGIF
> wait for weekly tv guide to be delivered in mailbox > eagerly flip through to see the description of latest episode > wait all week for pure kino hour
Also > tv season ends > forget about shows until next year > tv season starts again > fresh guides in the mailbox > brand new adventures await
Some times shows got cancelled and the way you found out was that it was no where on the schedule. You scanned through every hour of every day of the week looking for it but it just wasn't there anymore.
Also > anticipate new episode all week > come home from school / work > get all your shit done before primetime > the hour rolls around > got the TV on > sitting comfy on the sofa > snacks ready > it's fricking clip show goddam why
This is something I bet zoomies don't even know about
If you wanted to know what was playing on TV ahead of time, you had to check the fricking newspaper
This is something I bet zoomies don't even know about
If you wanted to know what was playing on TV ahead of time, you had to check the fricking newspaper
kinda true. We only got TV guides for a short time and I doubt anyone read it. We probably canceled it because it wasn't worth the money.
We legit just turned on the tv and watched waht was on, and if somethign was advertised, we'd only know about it later.
I remember waiting all week for the newest DBZ movie though.
I have no clue when channel guide channels popped up; I don't think I used those (if they existed) until I was quite a bit older.
Also, I am pretty sure I had internet by that point so it was possibly useless.
>newspaper
Ok, I remember using THAT for TV scheduling for SURE.
Based taste, i would have too.
Gods, I barely recall what I jerked off to. My cousin's ex brought me magazines from Hungary. he was huge jackass but one of the magazine had a page about celebrities and their leaked stuff.
FULLY NUDE Paris Hilton and the Vanessa Hudgekins or whatever her name was post right there, in fully color.
he also offered to teach me Hungarian via playboy but my cousin stopped that.
Heh, interesting.
My true love was Gillian Anderson. Back in 1999 I remember the website areyou.com that specialized in celebrity fakes. They had some great Gilly material.
Comfy because it was the only option and it was better than nothing, but ultimately awful.
Selections for what to watch were limited and available only at certain times. You couldn't choose episodes either, you were subject to whatever was currently airing. Availability was also based marketability and demand, meaning that quality radically dropped outside of peak hours. You couldn't rewind or fastforward, your schedule was firmly tied to theirs. And to save money, they played reruns. Great if you missed an episode when it first aired, but terrible any other time.
And this all came with a constant barrage of advertisements that you couldn't block or skip.
Networks fricking hated the internet for the longest time because the idea that they didn't control what people consumed fricking infuriated them. Took a loooong time and a lot of creativity for them to get past that.
setting the vcr to tape a movie while you weren't able to watch it was a thing. it just required planning, and the parents usually had "their show" they wanted to record and watch after they put your ass to bed. once your family owned 2 VCRs it was a game changer. now the kids had to sort out what gets recorded
>setting the vcr to tape a movie while you weren't able to watch it was a thing. it just required planning, and the parents usually had "their show" they wanted to record and watch after they put your ass to bed.
My family didn't, and they'd have gotten pissed if I asked for something like that.
The only times I remember actively recording shows on the VCR was when someone we knew ended up on the news.
This sounds like a zoomer talking about the before times.
You only had a tiny amount of options if you were dirt poor and just had an antenna. >constant barrage of advertisements
People liked commercials since we weren't overly exposed to marketing since the only screen anyone had was the one TV at their house.
You could record shows to VCR and if you didn't you had at least one person in your social circle who did
If you had a dish then you had access to more channels where they replayed major broadcasts at regular times, so you didn't need to record some things at all
Dish satellite also had its own version of a tv guide and you had the schedule for the next 3 month for hundreds of channels sitting on your coffee table
Savvy anons used a TV tuner to record tv shows to their computer to upload to newsgroups. Newsgroups were offered for free from your ISP
>This sounds like a zoomer talking about the before times.
I'm 32, trying to describe what it was like before.
>You only had a tiny amount of options if you were dirt poor and just had an antenna.
Oh frick off, I remember the hellscape that was midday cable/satelite. Being sick was a special hell.
HEY THERE EVERYBODY, IT'S A LOONYFUL DAY!
>Wait for scheduled time for your favorite scripted programming >Invite neighbors and friends over to watch the new episode together with some food and drinks (or just with the family)
I remember back in like 2000 when new episodes of The Simpsons would air, I would call my best friend who lived on the other side of town and we'd watch the episode on the phone together laughing our asses off.
Comfy times
i still watch home improvement every night on laff. antennas are based since its all reruns of good shows and the only pozzed trash is on the main networks.
Main networks have always been broadcast though by default. But yeah other than that I get your point. Hilarious watching some military reruns from 2000s history channel sometimes though, was watching one at my dad's and they did a bit on the Armata and their expected production timetable and I started busting a gut.
i watch a lot of them on the story channel that i haven't seen in a very long time. its nice seeing nimoy and peter weller among others host shows about rome and stuff
Yeah that's the exact channel I was watching it on. That Nimoy narrated one about the seven wonders was really nice to watch, and it was giving me comfy vibes a decade+ ago playing Civ 4, good times.
syndication was really something. i remember for me it was my local upn channel where i would always watch the simpsons, seinfeld, everybody loves raymond, malcolm in the middle, etc.
i remmeber it would regularly have simpsons marathons on weekends that i would record on vhs and then rewatch a lot. i had seen every episode of seasons 1-10 many times over when i was a teenager and knew most episodes by memory.
there's always infinite amount of content for them one click away. they never have to just make do with what they have in the moment.
I'm 30+ and occasionally have to wake myself up from the infinite contentslop cycle I get trapped in; sometimes this takes more effort than I'd like to admit.
>do they even download things anymore?
yes but only from their premium apps, and even then it can be taken away. they do it to save data, not to preserve it
late zoomers perhaps us early zoomers grew up in the early 2000s when internet still wasnt as accesible as it is today, i expereinced everything that anons are talking about
>there's always infinite amount of content for them one click away. they never have to just make do with what they have in the moment.
And that's why they can't learn or focus on anything. Any mild discomfort and they move on
i thought you guys were joking about that but my nephew does that all the time, my brother just gives lets him watch youtube on the living room tv all day while he plays videogames on his own room, and my nephew will pick a video watch it for like a minute and change it, he does that like 5 times in a row until he finally settles for a video.
I'm noticing a lot of households with young kids are like that now. They all have a dedicated laptop or tv that's just the 'youtube screen'. Kid friendly Youtube videos are playing on it nonstop all day while their kid is playing with their toys. Sometimes it's just some guy opening bags of candy and pouring them out. I guess the parents that do this are the people that spent hours watching ASMR and unpacking videos. It's a weird evolution
I can't help but feel kids wanting ASMR/content creator videos in the background all the time while they live their lives is a cry for help. A replacement for the parents that aren't there because they're either working two jobs or just don't care.
could be, i know i listen to asmt as a substitute for the intimacy i will never experience, its terrible for my mental health but its better than nothing, in the case of my nephew while his dad ignores him most of the time to play videogames at least my parents take care of him
3 months ago
Anonymous
>i know i listen to asmt as a substitute for the intimacy i will never experience
Lolwtf. C'mon man, there are better ways to resolve that. Join a chat group or something. Anything's better than listening to some roastie asian chick chew on live sea creatures just so you can feel connected to humanity
3 months ago
Anonymous
not all asmr is aobut chewing sounds and im dont watch any asians
I see a lot of posts about people saying they didnt know what was airing on TV. Did you not have a TV guide? My family always got a little newsprint book in the mail once a week that listed what program was on at what time. And eventually we got the tv guide channel which would display the next 3 hours of content for each station. Maybe this a perk of the specific cable service?
TV guide was a subscription. so was the local newspaper but it was like $2 a month, and was useful back then. you could check the basic cable listings in your newspaper. TV guide was for people with more premium cable packages and it included interviews and previews and stuff. it was more informative but full of ads
homie what are you talking about? You could buy a tv guide at the checkout counter at any grocery store and it was mostly the tv schedule and not that many ads. Even if you look at their website right now it's basically styled after the original guide and just gets straight to the point
It was an excuse to watch TV because TV was an event. A ritual event. It still is but committing to cable is gay. Spectrum is fricking me for over $200 on two receivers and an internet connection. This is gay as frick.
Appointment TV was the term. You timed snacks, drinks and bathroom breaks around commercial breaks. Near Chicago you could get 6 or 7 channels. If you had a rotor antenna you could swing it north and pick up some Milwaukee stations. You typically waited at least a year for a movie to be released on VHS or the more newer DVD at the time. Going to the rental store was fun, it was always a little exciting to grab the new movie if it was available. Sometimes you struck out and they were out of rentals for the day. You had to know a guy who was 18 already to get you porn if you couldn't stumble upon your Dad's stash. We didn't know shit unless it was on the news or in the newspaper. We were optimistic as hell.
i remember that there used to be a show on public tv in my country that was all about showing weird commercials from around the world, it was kinda cool to watch while faling asleep
sounds kino. There's also youtube channels that show retro commercials. Hours upon hours.
And I know there's a channel that uploads opening credits/end credits for shows in all different languages. Maybe you can find something that is inbetween.
yeah it was, i only remembered it beacause a streamer i watch started making streams a couple of years ago now where he watches old commercials, i dont know what it is about watching old commercials that is so entretaining but i cant stop watching sometimes
Cursing for weeks when you accidentally taped over the shows you haven't watched. Reading the damn paper + TV guide for the episodes to re-run again, after months sometimes years. Paying for blurry 3rd or 5th generation video copies for shows or movies never made for sale/rental.
I paid $15 for Gene Wilder's last TV series from ebay, by a woman who recorded it in SLP mode. It was blurry + unwatchable. She was busy with her kids I had to email many times to get my tape.
>watch tv guide channel until a couple shows/movies pique my interest >watch Kino A until commercial break >switch to Kino B until that goes on break >go back to Kino A >back and forth until the shows end or I get bored
man, I love the weather channel more than you can imagine. In like 2018 I used to have a Sharp 13" CRT and I found out I could run the WeatherSTAR emulator on my PC. I used to have it playing on that TV all the time, good times. Pic related. I moved quickly one day and couldn't keep the TV, it was a shame. And then at some point the weather emulator stopped working on my PC. The new version crashes instantly which sucks. It's called WeatherSTAR 3000 I think, look it up if you're curious.
I also use an online weather channel emulator, it runs in the browser and isn't as good but it works: https://battaglia.ddns.net/twc/
Try watching a show with a couple seasons from the middle. That's what reruns were like. So many shows i started from the middle. They would go around until then end and cycle back to the beginning.
Shows were pre planned on when they'd air, according to viewership and ratings, so you would have to find something that fits your tatse. It was either local news and educational shows, or fear factor and jerry springer.
My parents divorced when I was 8. I was deeply unhappy. The Simpsons were on the local Fox channel twice a night and it was the highlight of my day for at least 2 years
There was always something to watch. I stopped watching TV because I go through the guide and there's literally nothing worth watching. Never thought I'd see the day where I gave up TV.
There was always something comfy and kino just around the corner, whether it was WB kids/Fox kids weekdays and Saturday weekend, TNBC Saturday Weekend, TGIF, the Saturday afternoon movie on WB, late evening shows like Highlander, Hercules , Renegade, Xena Warrior Princess, Viper, etc, or Walker Texas Ranger on CBS Friday and others at night,Weekend movie nights, Baywatch, the list goes on and on. You could get away with saying and doing a lot of shit on television that they would culture cancel a show for now a days.
>The 2000s were the last full decade of tv.
True though I feel it ended it the 8th season of pic related.
I feel bad for kids these days. Growing up and going from nickelodeon to cartoon network naturally was awesome. Watching nick at night with bewitched and bob newhart went a long way to shaping my comedy.
>go to TV Guide channel >sit through the scroll of the TV schedule >see something you wanna watch >it’s not on a channel your parents pay for because they only pay for Basic cable >keep watching the scrolling TV guide while listening to commercials about owning the top 200 timeless jazz hits in one mega collection for 4 payments of 19.99 >KotH and Simpsons were on from 5 to 7 which was cash af
Saturday morning cartoons as both a concept and an american tradition was just as important as shows like sesame st, bill nye, and reading rainbow.
Streamings fun and all but I feel like kids are the ones that are going to suffer from not having their own content and from not having content they can watch with their parents.
Something I miss about it was that there was what felt like more of a sense of shared culture. I just remember it was like everyone was kinda aware of the stuff that was on TV, even just like basic cable. I feel like that's not really the same in the streaming era, everyone can delve deeper into their niche interests- which is great for satisfying their tastes- but TV isnt a communal experience anymore (same with moviegoing!)
Dan Harmon (I know) said something about this once, comparing TV to magazines. When magazines first popped off, there was one and it was literally about "Life". Now we get Cat Fancy and Guns&Ammo. Its great because you can learn more about your interests, but nobody's sharing as much culturally.
>everyone was kinda aware of the stuff that was on TV, even just like basic cable
Leaf here. I remember one time around 2000-2001 one Monday in high school it seemed like every single kid no matter the grade had watched Kids on the Showcase Revue the previous night, or perhaps the Saturday before it.
Entertainment branching off into dozens and dozens of different subgenres has positives and negatives for sure. Like you said on one hand people can delve deeper into something they really like but on the other hand I've found that it's very difficult to find someone that's interested in the things that I like, and the further down the rabbit hole you go the less likely you are to find someone who's equally as knowledgeable and passionate about it. When it does happen it's great and it's an instant connection (hopefully) but in my life I've never found that. I wouldn't say my interests are even that niche or specific. I just wasn't lucky in meeting the right people. On a societal level I think it's bad. People are broken up into so many little groups that they end up feeling isolated and don't form many close connections if any at all. This is the inevitable outcome as more and more media is pumped out and it'll only get worse. In 50 years there will be over 150 years of media between shows, anime, movies, games, comics, manga and music for people to lose themselves in. Granted the most recent stuff will probably have way more exposure and cultural impact on the people of the time but there's going to be so much to look back on it'll be insane. Hell we're already there now considering movies and shit have been around for a hundred years.
Watched a lot of shit I normally would have never watched
Because everything was of a higher quality since it was made by television professionals and not streaming companies
>everything was of a higher quality
bullshit it was
TV was so good that people would watch shows like How it’s made and the most mundane crap like nature shows that didn’t have cgi lizards.
i miss old boring history documentaries, i hate how the history channel tries to do this cheesy dramatic re-enactments, im guessing it is to appeal to zoomers or something but im a zoomer and it doesnt appeal to me at all, give me old boring historians talking about history goddamn it
Wait. History channel shows something else other than Pawn Stars and American Pickers now?
not really its like one history documentary and then like 5 episodes of pawn stars followed by 5 episodes of american picker and that show were they bid for trash
This but mostly because I was waiting for a show I DID want to come on. I endured a bunch of Full House to get to Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Also, when I missed a new episode as a kid, I got way more annoyed.
I cried like a homosexual when i was 11 caused i missed digimon sat am one morning cause i had to go to the orthodontist.
I was an insane homosexual who didn't know how to relax. Getting better but this moronicness is still partly in me. If i miss a day at the gym i feel physically angry
Sailor Moon and Inuyasha while waiting for DBZ and Gundam Wing for me
dude, I used to watch rush limbaugh as a kid
I just found him fascinating
the routine of regularly scheduled programing was underrated. it really was. a routine that you just had to conform to while you lived your life's greater routines.
coming home to new simpsons episodes on thursdays was amazing. hell, a new season of television was actually awesome if the show was any good.
also, limited internet use meant things had a natural peak. there was no binge watching shows to kill time. once you hit a snag and a show stopped living up to its promise, you just stopped watching.
I remember tuning out of the simpsons. You have so many good shows that once you start running into bad seasons, you just stop watching--there are other things you could be doing than watching a show and not laughing.
Expanding on the theme of tv programming schedules. In Australia our programmers were absolute filth. They absolutely deserved to be abandoned to shows being downloaded off the net by the office media nerd and shared around on cheap burnables.
New Season of Big Show X? You'd get two weeks of new eps. Hell they liked you so much, they'd start supplying them in blocks. Then a New Episode + Classic Episode block for a while, then once they had the numbers that showed people had "adopted" the new behavior (because you're the one being programmed, not the show), they'd start running Old Episode + Old Episode blocks. For months. Only breaking out a block of new eps once they saw people were drifting off again.
Simpsons was the worst for this (while House was the big prime-time drama that this was happening to at the time). We were literally 5 seasons behind at least, just because of this gooning process of withheld release. And it benefited them as they didn't have to pay a premium on the show rights for being fresh off US TV.
This eventually lead to binge-watching developing as a habit (or trained in by design, if you suspect that at the time they were TRYING to get everyone onto the internet, to push a "permanent connectivity" mode of thought in prep for iphone zombification and ultimately into UBI-based minute-to-minute control). People would stop bothering catching shows "live" because even the start-times were being screwed with (strange delays that allowed them to skip out new eps altogether and just run the old one), and just get the latest season of Big Show X at their workplace (or the kids at school) and watch it all in one weekend. And as everyone wanted in on the show-chat, these big weekends would start becoming internal culture things in the office or schoolyard.
We were always quick on South Park on our government broadcaster which proved the lie of the commercial channels not being able to get new shows the very next day.
1/2
2/2
And that's not even touching on the disgusting shit they were doing with advert breaks getting longer and longer as the show neared it's climax.
Marketing people (who are the base stock of television and content programming teams, even to this day) are all literal demons who know exactly what they're doing.
This is very true. Granted I was a kid and was more easily entertained and didn't know any better because that's just how TV was back in the 90s and 2000s, but I feel like I watched a lot of shit I would have probably never watched if there was way more options. My parents make good money and we had a lot of channels when I was a kid but I really only watched a few of them consistently.
Streaming might allow me to watch whatever I want whenever I want and gives me the ability to binge a whole fricking series (which I never did as a kid because I sporadically caught episodes of shows and not usually in order) but I cannot think of a single series I want to watch now. Maybe it's because I'm older and bitter and modern media is absolute trash but there's a strange joy to being forced to watch whatever was on. It makes you experience stuff you'd otherwise miss. Take me fricking back. Frick modernity.
People only like VHS/analog stuff because it reminds them of a time when they were happier
No, its because you only had limited shit to watch so you didn't check the tv ever 5 sex like ur phone
It was a happier time.
It was comfy. I had a handheld TV with what must have been a two, maaaybe 3 inch screen and I used to watch the simpsons and sports on it. It worked great
analog sports broadcast on a tiny screen coming from an antenna with a single mono headphone. I've experienced comforts you would not believe
A lot of reruns but it was comfy. Stations would have two random episodes of a series back to back for an hour on weeknights. Or they would play through the series over and over. I watched Cosby show all the way through twice growing up because it played in a one hour block every night on nick at night. The TVs were different and had a dull hum to then sometimes. Everything felt way more SOVLful. Everyone watched things at the same time so there was more discussion about current shows. Catching a movie was also fun. It was a different world.
Forgot to add you could record shows on VHS and keep them
Digital aerial is better in the sense that there are a lot more channels availible in the same amount of bands and broadcast points, and the quality can be very good. But the problem with digital broadcast compared to old analog, is quality drastically drops if signal strength is not ideal. With analog, if a signal is weak, visually you just get a little bit of static snow and maybe some ghosting at the worst, and audio will just get some fuzzy static. This was a drop in quality but it was still viewable and enjoyable.
If digitial TV has even a slightly mediocre signal, it pixelates and visually tears quite often, the the audio is absolutely atrocious because it sporadically cuts out completely. It's essentially not worth viewing at below ideal signal quality.
That's how I always watched the Lynch/DeLaurentis Dune, my dad taped it on VHS and event cut the commercials out, good times.
>Jump over that shit then your ass is grass! DEAD!
that's how i watched T2 for the first time. dad cut the commercials out but the tape messed up temporarily right as dyson triggers the bomb. i still get a weird little 'oh shit here it comes' feeling at that moment when rewatching it, like my brain still expects the tape to screw up and cut out the explosion.
>TVs had a dull hum to them
And then you'd turn it off and the image would kind of implode into a little bright light at the center which would then fade
And the screen would sometimes be radiating static electricity, and it would crackle and settle
Nick at nite point is good too, in the analog era you'd end up watching a lot of old programs very incidentally. Nowadays you're looking up those old shows to watch specifically like a gay hipster; back then it was just what was on at 10pm or whatever.
The facts of life, threes company, Brady bunch, cosbys, diffrent strokes. Shit, happy days. Watched all those decades old programs as a kid
>And then you'd turn it off and the image would kind of implode into a little bright light at the center which would then fade
>And the screen would sometimes be radiating static electricity, and it would crackle and settle
Imagine the smell
We have to go back
>everyone had one of these arcane contraptions and looked at it for 4 hours a night (maybe more)
i remember that when there was a tv on, you could feel when someone entered the room because the constatn static noise would change subtly, did anybody else ever noticed that?
Yes lol. I could tell upstairs one of my siblings was up cause i could hear the ringing or whatever that was
the odd thing is that i could hear that same noise outside when i wasnt near a tv, that has long since gonne away when everybody stoped using analog
>the odd thing is that i could hear that same noise outside when i wasnt near a tv, that has long since gonne away when everybody stoped using analog
I hear it sometimes but way less now.
I live in nyc so people might be using something thst has that smilar frequency.
Idk could just be going insane tho.
it was handy though, like i said it would tell you when someone was getting close to you, nowadays i can tell by the sound of footsteps (i am very sensitive to sounds) but back then when i was bullied a lot it was really helpful
I have extremely good high frequency hearing, learned it was real in meps before basic training during a hearing test, then years later confirmed my limits using a frequency generator app on my phone with coworkers
This ended up causing them to frick with me for about a month
I think my limit was about 29kHz
At the very edges it was more like i was imagining it, but I'd know when it stopped.
It fricking sucks though.
Most power tool battery chargers emit a super high freq tone, as do cheap electronics.
High power lines have a humm
Rarely squeaking doors or metal will emit one very strongly
All give instant headaches
Absolutely worst unique trait to have. Maybe someday it'll save my life.
And no, its not tinnitus. When a room/place is perfectly silent its like heaven.
I have this same thing, thought I've never tested it. Like right now I can hear electronics around me making high pitched humming. Whenever there's a blackout or I'm unplugging things before I go on a trip that initial true silence is deafening
I have this shit too, been tested as well but their tests only went up to around 20khz I think.
I got tested because I kept mishearing people, turns out there's a different issue that some people have where it's hard to discern speech well when there's background noise, and that's what my malfunction is. When watching kino I either need to crank the volume or put on subtitles (I go for the deaf ones that have everything) if there's even something like a fan going in the room or I miss half the shit they say.
My actual hearing, in terms of being able to hear sounds across the frequency range normally is apparently well above average. I'd advise you to start listening to birds and it will change your life. Can hear baby birds faint high-frequency chirping in a nest several stories up waiting for their parents to come back. Know when there's a cat or a bird of prey outside without looking by hearing their calls change. Like having a clear window into a whole different part of the natural world that most people don't even notice.
>ruining the tv in the basement by holding magnets up to the screen in the corner so that part of the screen is permanently green and purple
This was a surprisingly common problem. What were we doing with all these magnets, what the frick lol
>running your palm across the screen and collecting all the static electricity, then zapping your brother with your finger
it only worked like 1 time in 10 though
Fox lineup was kino
In living color
Martin
Then Mash reruns till 2am
Despite spending years of my childhood watching blacks representing themselves i still ended up hating them
The wayans were way ahead of their time
The fly girls and their gay male dancer they added later were dumb as frick though
>put your back against a TV that's on
>it feels tingly
>screen has a subtle, nearly unnoticeable glow until static electricity dissipates
It was the little things that make CRTs so comfy.
For me, it's the Andy Griffith Show. That whistling theme still pops into my head.
>Catching a movie was also fun
Catching movies was awesome because you either finished watching something else and the movie played, you got invested in the whole thing or you came in halfway and had to try to piece together what was going on.
HBO and those other movie channels were cool. I remember before i had it, they would do free weekends as a promo. You got access to the channel for the weekend.
There were certain movies that aired all the time and movies would be released. A lot of movies younger zoomers really like, i caught on tv either on a regular channel or HBO. I saw American Psycho on one of those movie channels in the late 2000s. It wasn't a meme yet. It was cool to see that a movie i probably never would have watched otherwise become popular like that. No one my age was talking about it. I just happened to finish a movie and American Psycho came on after. That was a common occurrence. You decide to watch something and then you just watch whatever else comes on after. Once you're hooked you can't change the channel. It's like letting Netflix or Youtube keep playing the next recommended show or video.
kek i'll never forget my buddy and i dropping into Fear and Loathing while channel surfing at 14 years old. it was right after they picked up tobey macguire and we recognized all three actors from pirates of the carribbean, spider-man and sin city so we figured we'd watch it. what a journey that was
Better because everyone watched the same thing even if it was kinda shit. Always something common to talk about.
Non stop kino
we have to go back
>another life
;_;
what have we done
used to jerk it, still do, to Jillian Anderson all the time. chick is such a dime and I would give ten years of my life for a night of unbridled love making.
I fricking loved fox sunday as a kid
I loved The Simpsons and i watched Fox Kids after school.
halcyon days, bros
It sucked. You would have to be turning the TV gear nearly the whole time, at least if you wanted to watch the full episode.
dude how old was your TV? ours had automated gear and the thing was like 60 years old
Ours had a cracked pump and would consistently run out of oil. I remember during a Seinfeld season finale I had to hightail it to the store on my bike during a commercial break.
>fall asleep with the tv on
>wake up to the weirdest shit you've ever seen at 3am
Absolute 10/10
>>wake up to the weirdest shit you've ever seen at 3am
they played it twice a night for like 12 years, dude
Less airtime to fill so more quality over quantity.
pretty good
id throw on power rangers after school
then whack it to a Too Short video on "The Box"
primetime was kino as well as you already posted
It wasn’t like anything at all. It listened to what its viewers had to say. And that’s what no one did.
>Waste half of your view time on commercials
>have time during breaks to use the bathroom, grab a snack, talk with your family or friends, or post on early web forum about terminator 2
There's a pause button nowadays you fricking morons
Yeahhhhh nah. Hitting pause to start a conversation with my wife mid-movie would be weird and forced.
Yeah but it's gay to pause shit to have a conversation. You could do it with vcr's as well but pausing shit to make a comment is tacky while going to make popcorn or finger your wife while a commercial runs is 20000000 times more SOVLfull
It was just different. Stuff would air on TV and you'd just watch it, it didn't matter what it was. It was like radio, they'd play the songs for you and maybe you'd change Station or sort of just listen to songs you didn't care much for because they were good enough for the moment
You'd just cycle through a singular interface for options on TV or radio
It wasn't about "pause". It wasn't self curate home entertainment for the evening; you were tuning in to something already in progress.
I loved getting an ipod and suddenly having immediate control, but early on it became clear that my favorite songs felt somehow less special to hear at the click of a button
Catching a hot program on TV was like catching a stray animal
>I loved getting an ipod and suddenly having immediate control, but early on it became clear that my favorite songs felt somehow less special to hear at the click of a button
This is so true. Not even Shuffle on a playlist is quite the same.
yeah i remember that if i would see shows on syndicated channels it was better to know more bout them than today even though you can bring up exactly what you want. like now if i watch a series i just watch it once and usually thats it nd then forget most of it. back in the late 90s thru 2000s you watch episodes over and over again and learn them front and back
That’s when you’d talk to your friends and family, get snacks, or see what’s playing on the other stations.
Kind of shit and cool at the same time. Endless flipping through channels and missing parts of shows because you can't pause the TV. Movies were always cut with commercial breaks every time you started to enjoy it. The programming was all around much better though. At it's worst it was kind numbing with how bored you could be watching TV. Plus, if you had siblings, it was always a fight for the remote. Imagine missing your kino because your older brother wanted to watch something else and could kick you ass because you're five. These days kids all have separate devices and can watch things whenever. I personally would never go back.
>I personally would never go back.
Oh we're going back whether you like it or not. And im gonna kick your ass
t. Your big brother
You could flip through the channels a fricklot quicker. Like instantly. Any fraction of a second load time on a modern Cinemaphile still annoys the frick out of me.
You would also run out of things to watch and just watch the Cinemaphile guide channel scroll past. Or play vidya
>You could flip through the channels a fricklot quicker. Like instantly.
Damn that was the best part.
>Damn that was the best part
Yep. This and turning in the tv were way faster.
turning off the tv was kinda cool especially on small tvs
I miss when shows would have dedicated holiday episodes, especially halloween. As in actually be holiday themed, not just throw up a bunch of decorations in the background. I always looked forward to Home Improvement's and Wishbone's halloween episodes in particular.
It kind of sucked but in different ways than it does now. The conveinance of streaming now is better than having to tune in at a specific time to watch. On the other hand, it made upcoming episodes more of an event. You had to watch it when it was on or catch reruns.
The television themselves have something cozy to them tht modern tvs dont have. Maybe its just nostalgia but its almost as if the analog image gave everything a more dreamy quality. It was leass clear and hid some imperfection leaving more to the imagination to fill in and making it more immersive in a way. I have one i picked up recently to enjoy some things from that era on dvd and old consoles. That said 4k udh on ab oled is amazing and for many movies it is the abosulute west way to enjoy them aside from maybe having a private theatre and film projector.
>It was leass clear and hid some imperfection leaving more to the imagination to fill in and making it more immersive in a way.
Also the screens just being so much smaller. It's not some big thing taking up a quarter of your wall, just a little box in some part of the room. Nowadays you really have rooms centered around big flat screens , back in the day you'd put a tube anywhere. On the floor, in the corner, or on top of a shelf somewhere. You could put it in your closet. Didn't matter
OLED for new shit and a CRT for old 4.3 shit is a god tier combo.
Next time i watch Twin Peaks, I'll watch the first 2 seasons on crt.
I loved flipping through the channels. Watch a bit flip. Commercial flip. In highschool I had a tv in my room. I'd lay in bed all day sometimes just flipping through the channels.
If you watch antenna tv now you’ll understand
Probably why antenna tv is so comfy
You could change the channel and an image would appear instantly.
>Watching whatever the frick was on late late night
>The National Anthem starts playing
>FRICK
You would have a shared experience to talk about with casual friends the next day. Now you have spankbang on your phone in the restroom.
>Now you have spankbang on your phone in the restroom.
Lmao.
Sometimes i go to the bathroom at work and go to /gif/ and discretely jerk it to jav
equally as brain washing as it is today and the modern equivelants. the only difference was you had a very limited selection and it was on a timer. if you missed it live you won't see it for months or maybe years
i remember being so upset whenever i missed that megaman anime at like 7 am, and then being really really upset when they stoped airing it. for years i would wake up at 4 am in hopes that i would catch it but it never happene, i've watched it since then but sometimes when im watching tv at 4 am i still hope to find it, only to remember that i can now watch it whenever i want
I loved that cartoon. My mom would tape it for me so i coukd watch it when i got home from school.
>Now I"VE got your power
?si=GmSIN2c_RboHYK_O
no not that one, the one based on the battle network games, i guess im younger than you huh? i never got to watch the classic megaman show
>i guess im younger than you huh?
Yep. Makes me feel old. Oh well.
I remember battle network but I wasn't into it too much. I liked that one game cube game tho.
oh yeah that game was fun, not great but it was fun and i liked the music, the battle network games are a lot of fun,
hey battle network is pretty soulful too, but yeah that games is not for everybody, i personally like all of the megaman series, i replay the six nes games almost on a yearly basis
Battle Network seemed like it was more about customizing your character and navigating a somewhat empty world while OG Mega Man was more about characters and more interesting environments. I wanted to like the whole upgrading thing but it just didn't grab me
not really, it was an rpg with its random encounters but the combat system was like a card game, every turn you would get 5 chips (cards) and you use them to fight enemies, you can move around during battles and if you use up your chips you can use your regular mega buster, the cool thing about these games is that getting a new chip isnt completely rng there is some skill involved, basically you have to get an s rank to get the chip from a certain enemy, and the story is basically an alternate time line where instead of going for willy's idea of making robots they went with dr, light's idea of creating the internet and navies and chips etc, and this made wily mad and thats why he is the villian, he is trying to destroy the internet centric society that light created, and you play as dr, light's grandson and his navi megaman who is revealed at the end of the game to be his dead twin brother, his dad used something to digitize his dna or something like that. later in the series the son of dr wily is the new villian
Soulless, like I said. MM isn't supposed to be card game'esque. It was from the era of Yugiouh and everyone tried to get in on the action. Mega Man, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc. Soulless cashgrabs that didn't stand the test of time
well i liked it as much as i liked the original games
its not entirely like a card game, you do play as megaman during the fights and move around and stuff the chips are basically like the boss power ups from the original games, the card game part is that is random which five of them you will be able to pick at the beginning of a fight
>its not entirely like a card game
That's why I said '-esque'
but you should give it a try, just get it out of your head that is a megaman game and judge it as its own thing. or not you can do whatever you want
>but you should give it a try,
Scroll up. I already said I tried the cartoon and the games and they just weren't for me. I gave it the college try. Different strokes for different folks
Cardcaptor Sakura isn't a Yu-Gi-Oh! ripoff. They premiered at right around the same time and in fact the Cardcaptor Sakura manga predates the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga by a few months.
>Cardcaptor Sakura
Bro, they don't even play card games in it. And it's far better than any Yugioh.
>Cardcaptor Sakura
>Yugioh ripoff
Sakura having a friend being super gay for her was weird.
You meant hot?
Classic megaman was more based. I could neve get into battle network and I hate that weird y2k or whatever revamp of cartoons. Where I lived Battle Network aired on saturday mornings. I even tried playing one of the games for it and didn't like it. The OG games had more sovl as well
If you wanted to watch something you had to watch it when it aired or go out of your way to set up a recording on tape.
People scheduled their lives around it. There was only one TV and your whole family gathered together to watch simpsons or everybody loves raymond or whatever.
it was a pain in the wiener when there was a good movie on saturday but dad wanted to yell at the people playing football on the other channel instead
>at lakes
>just spent all morning and afternoon doing lakes stuff with brothers
>swimming
>fishing
>exploring
>rough housing
>building things
>get tired
>we decide to play some NES before dinner
>go inside cabin
>Dad fell asleep watching golf again
>change tv to channel 3
>"Hey, I was watching that" instant channel changes
Every fricking time
TV watching was more of a family event some nights. Even if it was a meh show you were watching it with people of varying ages and there was always someone to quickly relay something that reminded them of your weird uncle or dumbass cousin or coworker. Even family that didn't live at your house would visit on those nights just to talk shit while certain shows where on with everybody.
Today tv watching is more personal and cerebral. People want to watch a show alone and then maybe go online to read fan theories. When you talk about tv how with family member it's mostly just to give them recommendations based on what you binged last week while you're dropping off some tupperware you borrowed
What were your family shows? For me and mine
>Simpsons especially Treehouse of Horror
>Seinfeld
>Everybody Loves Raymond
>Home Improvement
>King of the Hill
The ones in my picrel. TGIF was our main night. Outside of that was Martin, In Living Color, Homr Improvement
We watched Married with Children, Simpsons, and COPS together.
for some reason my parents made sunday night mandatory family dinner followed by 2 hours of watching fox and eating ice cream or something
>for some reason
As an adult you should now understand why. Those final hours before having to go to bed before enduring another dreary work week are to be savored AND WILL DO IT AS A FAMILY GODDAMMIT
>for some reason
It means they loved you. Hell, nightly family dinners and watching TGIF with my siblings and parents feels like a distant fever dream. We lost a lot more in society than our favorite shows.
cherish that memory you Black person.
i love that picture of homer
I just remembered another irreplaceable quality of analog life: catching a movie halfway through. You have no idea what movie it is. You don't want to flip away to the guide channel to check. no bumpers between commercials to let you know
You could just watch it. You'd jump in at a random point, have to pie E it together from there, and then later on maybe you'd figure out what movie it was, or maybe you didn't.
The prime time shows were different every night so there was pretty much something to look forward to every night. If you missed an episode you would have to wait to see it on a rerun or even when/if it went to syndication.
Sunday; Simpsons, Married with Children, In Living Color
Monday: Alf, Fresh Prince
Tuesday: Home Improvement, Quantum Leap
Wednesday: Perfect Strangers, Unsolved Mysteries
Thursday: Cosby Show, Cheers, Seinfeld
Friday:TGIF
> wait for weekly tv guide to be delivered in mailbox
> eagerly flip through to see the description of latest episode
> wait all week for pure kino hour
Also
> tv season ends
> forget about shows until next year
> tv season starts again
> fresh guides in the mailbox
> brand new adventures await
Some times shows got cancelled and the way you found out was that it was no where on the schedule. You scanned through every hour of every day of the week looking for it but it just wasn't there anymore.
Also
> anticipate new episode all week
> come home from school / work
> get all your shit done before primetime
> the hour rolls around
> got the TV on
> sitting comfy on the sofa
> snacks ready
> it's fricking clip show goddam why
This is something I bet zoomies don't even know about
If you wanted to know what was playing on TV ahead of time, you had to check the fricking newspaper
kinda true. We only got TV guides for a short time and I doubt anyone read it. We probably canceled it because it wasn't worth the money.
We legit just turned on the tv and watched waht was on, and if somethign was advertised, we'd only know about it later.
I remember waiting all week for the newest DBZ movie though.
I have no clue when channel guide channels popped up; I don't think I used those (if they existed) until I was quite a bit older.
Also, I am pretty sure I had internet by that point so it was possibly useless.
>newspaper
Ok, I remember using THAT for TV scheduling for SURE.
I jerked off to this TV Guide issue when I was a lad.
Based taste, i would have too.
Gods, I barely recall what I jerked off to. My cousin's ex brought me magazines from Hungary. he was huge jackass but one of the magazine had a page about celebrities and their leaked stuff.
FULLY NUDE Paris Hilton and the Vanessa Hudgekins or whatever her name was post right there, in fully color.
he also offered to teach me Hungarian via playboy but my cousin stopped that.
Heh, interesting.
My true love was Gillian Anderson. Back in 1999 I remember the website areyou.com that specialized in celebrity fakes. They had some great Gilly material.
I stole a jc penny mag from my mother lmao.
Yea, that's the famous answer. I definitely did that too, to look at the bras page.
Actually, I think it was Macy's?
Comfy because it was the only option and it was better than nothing, but ultimately awful.
Selections for what to watch were limited and available only at certain times. You couldn't choose episodes either, you were subject to whatever was currently airing. Availability was also based marketability and demand, meaning that quality radically dropped outside of peak hours. You couldn't rewind or fastforward, your schedule was firmly tied to theirs. And to save money, they played reruns. Great if you missed an episode when it first aired, but terrible any other time.
And this all came with a constant barrage of advertisements that you couldn't block or skip.
Networks fricking hated the internet for the longest time because the idea that they didn't control what people consumed fricking infuriated them. Took a loooong time and a lot of creativity for them to get past that.
setting the vcr to tape a movie while you weren't able to watch it was a thing. it just required planning, and the parents usually had "their show" they wanted to record and watch after they put your ass to bed. once your family owned 2 VCRs it was a game changer. now the kids had to sort out what gets recorded
>setting the vcr to tape a movie while you weren't able to watch it was a thing. it just required planning, and the parents usually had "their show" they wanted to record and watch after they put your ass to bed.
My family didn't, and they'd have gotten pissed if I asked for something like that.
The only times I remember actively recording shows on the VCR was when someone we knew ended up on the news.
This sounds like a zoomer talking about the before times.
You only had a tiny amount of options if you were dirt poor and just had an antenna.
>constant barrage of advertisements
People liked commercials since we weren't overly exposed to marketing since the only screen anyone had was the one TV at their house.
You could record shows to VCR and if you didn't you had at least one person in your social circle who did
If you had a dish then you had access to more channels where they replayed major broadcasts at regular times, so you didn't need to record some things at all
Dish satellite also had its own version of a tv guide and you had the schedule for the next 3 month for hundreds of channels sitting on your coffee table
Savvy anons used a TV tuner to record tv shows to their computer to upload to newsgroups. Newsgroups were offered for free from your ISP
>Newsgroups were offered for free from your ISP
An internet for nerds by nerds.
>This sounds like a zoomer talking about the before times.
I'm 32, trying to describe what it was like before.
>You only had a tiny amount of options if you were dirt poor and just had an antenna.
Oh frick off, I remember the hellscape that was midday cable/satelite. Being sick was a special hell.
HEY THERE EVERYBODY, IT'S A LOONYFUL DAY!
Maybe you didn't know how to work the satellite or had a cucked subscription plan. Nothing you typed is true unless you're a luddite
>Nothing you typed is true unless you're a luddite
What the frick are you talking about.
Anytime a major pop star did a commercial it was AN EVENT.
>Wait for scheduled time for your favorite scripted programming
>Invite neighbors and friends over to watch the new episode together with some food and drinks (or just with the family)
I remember back in like 2000 when new episodes of The Simpsons would air, I would call my best friend who lived on the other side of town and we'd watch the episode on the phone together laughing our asses off.
Comfy times
i still watch home improvement every night on laff. antennas are based since its all reruns of good shows and the only pozzed trash is on the main networks.
Main networks have always been broadcast though by default. But yeah other than that I get your point. Hilarious watching some military reruns from 2000s history channel sometimes though, was watching one at my dad's and they did a bit on the Armata and their expected production timetable and I started busting a gut.
i watch a lot of them on the story channel that i haven't seen in a very long time. its nice seeing nimoy and peter weller among others host shows about rome and stuff
Yeah that's the exact channel I was watching it on. That Nimoy narrated one about the seven wonders was really nice to watch, and it was giving me comfy vibes a decade+ ago playing Civ 4, good times.
syndication was really something. i remember for me it was my local upn channel where i would always watch the simpsons, seinfeld, everybody loves raymond, malcolm in the middle, etc.
i remmeber it would regularly have simpsons marathons on weekends that i would record on vhs and then rewatch a lot. i had seen every episode of seasons 1-10 many times over when i was a teenager and knew most episodes by memory.
They played the episode "Radio Bart" like every week.
how are zoomers taught to be patient nowadays?
there's always infinite amount of content for them one click away. they never have to just make do with what they have in the moment.
I'm 30+ and occasionally have to wake myself up from the infinite contentslop cycle I get trapped in; sometimes this takes more effort than I'd like to admit.
do they even download things anymore?
>do they even download things anymore?
yes but only from their premium apps, and even then it can be taken away. they do it to save data, not to preserve it
late zoomers perhaps us early zoomers grew up in the early 2000s when internet still wasnt as accesible as it is today, i expereinced everything that anons are talking about
>there's always infinite amount of content for them one click away. they never have to just make do with what they have in the moment.
And that's why they can't learn or focus on anything. Any mild discomfort and they move on
i thought you guys were joking about that but my nephew does that all the time, my brother just gives lets him watch youtube on the living room tv all day while he plays videogames on his own room, and my nephew will pick a video watch it for like a minute and change it, he does that like 5 times in a row until he finally settles for a video.
I'm noticing a lot of households with young kids are like that now. They all have a dedicated laptop or tv that's just the 'youtube screen'. Kid friendly Youtube videos are playing on it nonstop all day while their kid is playing with their toys. Sometimes it's just some guy opening bags of candy and pouring them out. I guess the parents that do this are the people that spent hours watching ASMR and unpacking videos. It's a weird evolution
its fake bad asmr, and my nephew just watches like a zombie all day, it makes me feel really bad for him
I can't help but feel kids wanting ASMR/content creator videos in the background all the time while they live their lives is a cry for help. A replacement for the parents that aren't there because they're either working two jobs or just don't care.
could be, i know i listen to asmt as a substitute for the intimacy i will never experience, its terrible for my mental health but its better than nothing, in the case of my nephew while his dad ignores him most of the time to play videogames at least my parents take care of him
>i know i listen to asmt as a substitute for the intimacy i will never experience
Lolwtf. C'mon man, there are better ways to resolve that. Join a chat group or something. Anything's better than listening to some roastie asian chick chew on live sea creatures just so you can feel connected to humanity
not all asmr is aobut chewing sounds and im dont watch any asians
I see a lot of posts about people saying they didnt know what was airing on TV. Did you not have a TV guide? My family always got a little newsprint book in the mail once a week that listed what program was on at what time. And eventually we got the tv guide channel which would display the next 3 hours of content for each station. Maybe this a perk of the specific cable service?
TV guide was a subscription. so was the local newspaper but it was like $2 a month, and was useful back then. you could check the basic cable listings in your newspaper. TV guide was for people with more premium cable packages and it included interviews and previews and stuff. it was more informative but full of ads
homie what are you talking about? You could buy a tv guide at the checkout counter at any grocery store and it was mostly the tv schedule and not that many ads. Even if you look at their website right now it's basically styled after the original guide and just gets straight to the point
They sold TV Guides at the checkout line at the store. My mom used to always buy one a readers digest.
It was an excuse to watch TV because TV was an event. A ritual event. It still is but committing to cable is gay. Spectrum is fricking me for over $200 on two receivers and an internet connection. This is gay as frick.
>$200/mo for CuckTV
Just use a pirate streaming website
Appointment TV was the term. You timed snacks, drinks and bathroom breaks around commercial breaks. Near Chicago you could get 6 or 7 channels. If you had a rotor antenna you could swing it north and pick up some Milwaukee stations. You typically waited at least a year for a movie to be released on VHS or the more newer DVD at the time. Going to the rental store was fun, it was always a little exciting to grab the new movie if it was available. Sometimes you struck out and they were out of rentals for the day. You had to know a guy who was 18 already to get you porn if you couldn't stumble upon your Dad's stash. We didn't know shit unless it was on the news or in the newspaper. We were optimistic as hell.
If you want, you can go to internet archive and watch commercials and shows there. Pretty close.
i remember that there used to be a show on public tv in my country that was all about showing weird commercials from around the world, it was kinda cool to watch while faling asleep
sounds kino. There's also youtube channels that show retro commercials. Hours upon hours.
And I know there's a channel that uploads opening credits/end credits for shows in all different languages. Maybe you can find something that is inbetween.
yeah it was, i only remembered it beacause a streamer i watch started making streams a couple of years ago now where he watches old commercials, i dont know what it is about watching old commercials that is so entretaining but i cant stop watching sometimes
I do it too. I sit down, put on one of those youtube videos, drink and play rimworld.
yeah sometimes i just feel like playing some grindy game and put one of those videos on the other monitor
Cursing for weeks when you accidentally taped over the shows you haven't watched. Reading the damn paper + TV guide for the episodes to re-run again, after months sometimes years. Paying for blurry 3rd or 5th generation video copies for shows or movies never made for sale/rental.
pure soul
I paid $15 for Gene Wilder's last TV series from ebay, by a woman who recorded it in SLP mode. It was blurry + unwatchable. She was busy with her kids I had to email many times to get my tape.
>It's ten o'clock, do you know where your children are?
>watch tv guide channel until a couple shows/movies pique my interest
>watch Kino A until commercial break
>switch to Kino B until that goes on break
>go back to Kino A
>back and forth until the shows end or I get bored
You'd basically end up memorizing entire shows because of how many reruns you saw
Old time weather channel..
90s weather channel was so fricking comfy. I used to throw it on sometimes just for the music.
OH SHIT, KINO
man, I love the weather channel more than you can imagine. In like 2018 I used to have a Sharp 13" CRT and I found out I could run the WeatherSTAR emulator on my PC. I used to have it playing on that TV all the time, good times. Pic related. I moved quickly one day and couldn't keep the TV, it was a shame. And then at some point the weather emulator stopped working on my PC. The new version crashes instantly which sucks. It's called WeatherSTAR 3000 I think, look it up if you're curious.
I also use an online weather channel emulator, it runs in the browser and isn't as good but it works: https://battaglia.ddns.net/twc/
also I'm getting a new TV in a couple days.
Try watching a show with a couple seasons from the middle. That's what reruns were like. So many shows i started from the middle. They would go around until then end and cycle back to the beginning.
Shows were pre planned on when they'd air, according to viewership and ratings, so you would have to find something that fits your tatse. It was either local news and educational shows, or fear factor and jerry springer.
My parents divorced when I was 8. I was deeply unhappy. The Simpsons were on the local Fox channel twice a night and it was the highlight of my day for at least 2 years
Aww the after school cartoons used to be my babysitters.
There was always something to watch. I stopped watching TV because I go through the guide and there's literally nothing worth watching. Never thought I'd see the day where I gave up TV.
The 2000s were the last full decade of tv.
There was always something comfy and kino just around the corner, whether it was WB kids/Fox kids weekdays and Saturday weekend, TNBC Saturday Weekend, TGIF, the Saturday afternoon movie on WB, late evening shows like Highlander, Hercules , Renegade, Xena Warrior Princess, Viper, etc, or Walker Texas Ranger on CBS Friday and others at night,Weekend movie nights, Baywatch, the list goes on and on. You could get away with saying and doing a lot of shit on television that they would culture cancel a show for now a days.
>The 2000s were the last full decade of tv.
True though I feel it ended it the 8th season of pic related.
I feel bad for kids these days. Growing up and going from nickelodeon to cartoon network naturally was awesome. Watching nick at night with bewitched and bob newhart went a long way to shaping my comedy.
Watching nick at night with bewitched and bob newhart went a long way to shaping my comedy.
Yea that and a general sense of morals and wholesomeness that's lacking heavily in todays society.
>stay home from school sick
>dad ditches work
>watch paladin, bonanza, and gunsmoke
pretty sure all these shows are still on somewhere
I miss when you could tell what time of day it was exactly just by what was on TV
>I miss when you could tell what time of day it was exactly just by what was on TV
Oh Frick me I want to go back.
It was less like being waterboarded by israeli urine.
>go to TV Guide channel
>sit through the scroll of the TV schedule
>see something you wanna watch
>it’s not on a channel your parents pay for because they only pay for Basic cable
>keep watching the scrolling TV guide while listening to commercials about owning the top 200 timeless jazz hits in one mega collection for 4 payments of 19.99
>KotH and Simpsons were on from 5 to 7 which was cash af
I feel like the E! channel late at night was what made up for skinemax, showtime and hbo if you only had basic cable.
When Randy Quaid and Rick Moranis headlined movies. Those were better times.
Saturday morning cartoons as both a concept and an american tradition was just as important as shows like sesame st, bill nye, and reading rainbow.
Streamings fun and all but I feel like kids are the ones that are going to suffer from not having their own content and from not having content they can watch with their parents.
Entertainment wise comfy. Tech wise frustrating.
Something I miss about it was that there was what felt like more of a sense of shared culture. I just remember it was like everyone was kinda aware of the stuff that was on TV, even just like basic cable. I feel like that's not really the same in the streaming era, everyone can delve deeper into their niche interests- which is great for satisfying their tastes- but TV isnt a communal experience anymore (same with moviegoing!)
Dan Harmon (I know) said something about this once, comparing TV to magazines. When magazines first popped off, there was one and it was literally about "Life". Now we get Cat Fancy and Guns&Ammo. Its great because you can learn more about your interests, but nobody's sharing as much culturally.
>everyone was kinda aware of the stuff that was on TV, even just like basic cable
Leaf here. I remember one time around 2000-2001 one Monday in high school it seemed like every single kid no matter the grade had watched Kids on the Showcase Revue the previous night, or perhaps the Saturday before it.
Entertainment branching off into dozens and dozens of different subgenres has positives and negatives for sure. Like you said on one hand people can delve deeper into something they really like but on the other hand I've found that it's very difficult to find someone that's interested in the things that I like, and the further down the rabbit hole you go the less likely you are to find someone who's equally as knowledgeable and passionate about it. When it does happen it's great and it's an instant connection (hopefully) but in my life I've never found that. I wouldn't say my interests are even that niche or specific. I just wasn't lucky in meeting the right people. On a societal level I think it's bad. People are broken up into so many little groups that they end up feeling isolated and don't form many close connections if any at all. This is the inevitable outcome as more and more media is pumped out and it'll only get worse. In 50 years there will be over 150 years of media between shows, anime, movies, games, comics, manga and music for people to lose themselves in. Granted the most recent stuff will probably have way more exposure and cultural impact on the people of the time but there's going to be so much to look back on it'll be insane. Hell we're already there now considering movies and shit have been around for a hundred years.