I was at a party, and I saw a guy with a leather jacket, and I thought, 'That's cool'. Then I saw a guy with a leather vest and I thought, 'That's not cool'. It was then that I realized what coolness is all about... leather sleeves.

I OWN LEATHER SLEEVES.

-Demetri Martin

Gaming was so... cordial

Having my Bluetooth controller disconnect mid game makes me unhappy.

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time

I checked, and this was originally posted on Reddit by the artist in 2019.

Yeah. The 90s were only, like, 10 years ago. Right?

Math checks out to me...

Life was friends, school, weekends, and school breaks.

Now it’s no breaks, bills, and where are my friends?

Yeah, you're basically an inmate when you're a kid. But that time....all that time. Without having a hundred responsibilities floating around your head. That I miss.

More importantly : no responsibility

That's the beauty of being able to do what you want

You put yourself here and you can do whatever you want about it

The 90’s also had a theme of “more information will set us free!” We got the more information part, but we never got the freedom part. And I think that causes a lot of the cynicism you’re talking about.

The world wasn’t that much more idyllic in the 90’s, but now we have great information about all the problems in the world blasted into our phones constantly.

nah my issue is ethnofascists and the nerd reich

if the US could stop being a dumpster fire my inside life would be fine

How else do you reconcile the world we observe with the one we were promised?

Tears? Drugs? Apathy?

Wow. I was ready to post a snarky reply about how the N64 is not 30 years old, and then I did the math, and I do not like this realization!

Being an adult, especially right now, just kinda sucks in a lot of ways. Bills, responsibilities, the general downward trend toward fascism that every major world power took post-covid, a fucked housing market, ever-widening wealth inequality, there's just kind of a lot that sucks right now.

No it’s more like they miss the time in their life where they didn’t have a job or other responsibilities, and were ignorant enough about the world not to worry about the state of the society and how it’s gonna impact their life, plus when you are a kid you have all these years ahead of you and as you get older those years start to shrink so you are constantly thinking about what you’ve done and what you still have to do in the amount of time you’ve got left.

I do miss the same abundance of free time but that is about it. That is what most people seem to miss, the lack of responsibilities or as strict schedules.

The secret to a more comfortable life is to reduce your dependence on systems/things/some people, where possible at least. If a small house leads to small rent/mortgage. Can live without a car, that is a few weeks a year of earnings freed up. You don't need to purchase a thousand books you are unlikely to read if you use the library.

That kind of thinking. It doesn't mean become minimalist to the point of fault, just figure out were you can introduce more slack into your life.

Our generation was sold an idea, that was a fiction,

I would also add that the people who sold us the idea didn't even try to do the things needed to set up the idea they sold.

I'm kinda glad most of my family is dead, because the ones still around have all become horrible people. Nothing like spending a decade and a half being preached the Christian ideal of loving your neighbor and being a good person, only to see the people preaching to turn around and spew bullshit about how we shouldn't be helping people because communism (and racism, but don't you dare point that out, they have black friends!).

What game is it?

This year I seen to have lost my desire to play them (decades later than my father wished I had) but I don't seem to have developed a new desire to replace that one. It reminds me of how being 13 and unable to have fun with my Legos the way I used to felt.

One word: Indie. I agree with you that AAA games absolutely have stagnated and regressed. But smaller productions are far more frequent today and very creative and innovative. Arguably even more so than back in the day, if you really cherry pick. Personally, the main thing I feel is really missing from that time is mid-budget, AA games.

As the other guy said, look indie.

There's so much fun there at the moment. Even double A stuff like Galactic Racer is really damn good this year.

Triple A is a mess rn, gonna take some time to recover and it'll be different I think.

Just a quick note on movies.

I've noticed dialogue is getting dumbed down across the board. The vocabulary is shrinking and plot is being explained more extensitvely (using basic vocabulary) so audiences don't get confused regarding the plot. Basically, making it so the audience doesn't have to think as much to fill in blanks. And as far as I'm concerned, filling in the blanks a little bit is part of what makes a good movie or book better. It makes it more personal to the viewer/reader.

One example I just experienced this weekend, and I'll probably be crucified for this because apparently everyone loved this movie, was The Odyssey. Personally, I thought the dialogue was awful. I don't mind that they went with the American accents, although I always think movies like that are better with British accents. It was the writers behind the dialogue. It just sounded like I was hearing dialogue written by junior high kids. I'm assuming it was a decision made on purpose, maybe to connect more with modern English speakers, but it just sounded bad and kind of ruined the movie for me. I ended up just having kind of a meh opinion of the film largely because of it.

Thats just because well, since the 90s, its all been done. Society creatively peaked and theres really nothing left. Even bands out there being weird for the sake of weird are doing the same thing bands did in the 70s.

There is nothing original in existence anymore. Thats OK though. Enjoy what you like and support art you like, kill slop, and youll be happy.

Also, that time on the couch is now just a brief oasis before having to return to the wasteland of a soul devouring job.

You could disconnect.

I had it explained very sadly to me that my generation was the last that got to choose to be digital.

They were better than now somewhat, but we already knew that we were getting screwed compared to boomers (gen-X checking in).

Food and rent were a lot cheaper.

Life was not exactly simpler. Technology has made a lot of things easier and better, too. Life was slower in a good way though.

The internet was in its infancy and mobile phones were not common. TV was broadcast on a schedule and your favorite show was only on once a week.

There was no algorithmic social media that ranked content by its engagement score. Culture and sub culture were more diverse, less polished and mainstreamed.

At least in the western world there was a lot of hope and optimism about the future. That was naive in hindsight but it sure felt better than the doom and gloom we have today.

I can think of bad things, too. Few cars had catalytic converters and particle filters and smoking indoors was still common everywhere. Basically, the world outside smelled like gasoline and the world inside smelled like cold cigarette smoke.

If you see a lot of nostalgia for the 90s these days that's mostly because Millennials are middle aged now and start talking about "the good, old days".

Keep in mind that what people mean with "good, old days" is never a specific, absolute time period. What they actually think about is their youth when their lives were still simple and fun and when they were full of energy, hopes and dreams.

They start to feel nostalgic about that lost youth, often remembering it as better than it actually was.

It happens to everyone. It'll happen to you. That's just life.

Tech was still exciting and interesting and had a nerd vibe to it. Much how the Linux community has always felt.

Instead of nowadays "ah, how will this new tech invade my life and introduce fascism even faster?"

Things were more affordable and there was much less surveillance, both of kids by their parents and of people in general by the government and corporations. Growing up during that decade gave us a feeling of freedom and limitless possibilities. The millennium was a huge deal and the vibe was hopeful. Technology was advancing fast and making life more fun and convenient, and the downsides had not become apparent yet. Then 9/11 happened and then war and the Patriot Act, and I had to get a job and pay rent and things went downhill from there.

Economically, things were already turning downwards but it was still so close to the peak that it wasn't really that noticeable. But because of the rapidly reducing price of technology it looked as though things were still progressing just fine.

The general vibe however was a largely positive one. The cold war was over, the new "war on terror" had not yet begun. The pace of computer technology was moving at an astounding pace that even if you didn't like what it was today, tomorrow there will be a newer faster and cheaper one available of whatever it is. The idea of online shopping was new, now you can see the whole catalog. Video on a disc that doesn't wear out and has "cinema grade" audio, wild! The internet had just gone mainstream leading to the interconnected global village and the prospect of a new digital utopia. Democracy of information and the end of censorship... yeah.

Computing had been liberated into the general populace and the panopticon of surveillance hadn't been constructed in depth yet.

Mobiles phones started to become common but were so dumb that they didn't intrude much except for some people. We didn't have unlimited plans and it wasn't uncommon for you to just forget to charge the thing for days at a time because you forgot about it for the most part.

The larger messaging and general visible signal of global warming/environmental blowback wasn't much of thing and even then it was seen as something that we could unify on an tackle. There was still the attitude of, the present is pretty good and the future will be a better place and that we will address the issues as we are aware of them and there is enough time to address them.

Just look at anything design wise and you can see what it was like. Many designs of the 80's/90's by today's standards are kind of ulgy but the reason why it looked like that because it felt like the chains holding back progress had finally been removed. Some magazines would have a new style on every single page, they did that simply because they could. No longer were they constricted by the limits of traditional print and the end result was fairly rough most of the time. But it was never boring in that sense.

That lack of constraint permeated everything. It was a time of being bombarded with novelty.

In retrospect, it was a time of pleasant delusion. The foundation for all the issues of today were being laid down but we weren't at the point of it being activated. Speed high on a credit card is fun, the payback however is rough.

That was the 90s for me. I didn't have that much, I spent most of it walking or pondering or whatever. I did fantasize about having lots of shit... And I kinda do now, so there is that.

Agreed.

Most of the old games I revisit now do not hold up at all, as much as I want them to.

I will say that modern games often hold your hand a little too much. There is value in not knowing exactly what to do and having to explore a bit. And I think a lot of modern devs focus too much on spectacle and not enough on gameplay mechanics. To be fair, the tools at their disposal now do allow for a lot of spectacle, and as an artist I can see how you could over-focus on that.

shallowest games anyone ever created

Have you tried some Roblox content?

This comic is likely a decade old at this point, most average people would have just used AI.

And yes, vintage gaming is very much a thing, and is pushing vintage hardware into nosebleed territory. Ten years ago you couldn’t give away a 36″ Sony Trinitron CRT TV. These days you have gamers offering up to $500 for it just to be able to play Duck Hunt (which requires a CRT TV in order for the guns to work). Same goes for the machines and consoles as well… just saw a Commodore Vic-20 on FB Marketplace for $200CAD, and that was just for the bare unit, no extras.

This is what happens when people just repost other's work.

1. Vote
2. Cultivate meaningful local friendships
3. Seek a sense of purpose and explore this with fevor
4. Exercise regularly including with others sometimes
5. Avoid Nestle products whenever possible