Kids today are baffled with the on the Save icon. I mean, I can’t believe there’s still an emoji for a floppy disk.
More and more things that are literally iconic to us are totally lost on the next generation, yet people still refuse to give up their symbolism.
One thing that comes into mind is the HBO’s title sequence:
I’m pretty sure most people under twenty these days have only known digital TV all their lives. They would look at that title sequence and wonder what all the black and white dots and the hissing sound means. A TV without signal would most likely display a blank blue screen to them.
Similarly, people still often represent a TV or screen being turned off with the image collapsing into a single line before that line shrinks into a single dot. People who have not seen the old cathode ray tube technology would have no idea what that is…
What other things we recognize as a symbol in our days won’t get recognized by the next generation?
The first thing that comes to mind is anything related or connected to the smart phone. Music, movies, camera and apps.
Music
As far as I can remember, the music cassette was my first memory of music. My first ever cassette was 小虎隊 - 蝴蝶飛 single that my mom bought for me at the 7-11 across the street when I was living in Taiwan. Second was Will Smith’s Big Willy Style/Gettin’ Jiggy Wit it a few years later. I never got a Sony Walkman, most of my listening was done at home.
Jump a few years and it’s the CD player era. I won’t go into nostalgia about my first CD player, but those born after the iPod era, will never know what it feels like have a song skip when you’re running to catch the bus/MRT. I remember eventually buying an anti-skip Sony Walkman CD player with a metal lid.
Movies
Mostly at home has seen the biggest change. Video rental stores like Blockbuster in the states and a lot of comic book/tape cassette/DVD rental stores are going extinct in Taiwan.
Of course how movies are shot and the originality of a lot of the movies lacks after CGI came along is something they’ll never experience. I didn’t grow up in the 80s, but am a big 80s movie fan.
Those born before the digital era may have not even known what a tape cassette or one of those rewinders looks like or why we have to rewind tapes haha
Camera
They may never know what it was like to have a limit of 24 shots to a camera and to not pull the reel past a certain point so it didn’t expose light to it!
Apps
There’s like a million things that apps have replaced. For some reason, I can’t think of anything aside from “road maps” being replaced by Google maps. I don’t remember the last time I opened up a paper map in the car to figure out where we’re going. Real time traffic updates and Google giving me the fastest route with no highways and no tolls really really makes no use for a 4-10USD road map.
Flip phones, TV static, ‘Surge’ soda, DVDs as well as VHS tapes, mullet hairstyles, disco, dial-up Internet tones, economic surpluses, post offices, newspapers, rhinos, clean air, etc, etc.
Those who work in certain industries will still have the same sounds from facsimile machines. Yes, some people do still use fax. It’s not going away completely too soon yet.
-Max Headroom
-Saxophone solos
-Betamax
-Cable TV scramblers
-Cigarette lighters built into cars
-Smoking and non-smoking (still available in Japan)
-Montgomery Ward and Woolworth
-Layaway
-Saturday morning cartoons being almost entirely populated by barbarians, ninjas, space cowboys and people riding dinosaurs with lasers on their heads
-As Seen On TV
-Setting your VCR to record your favorite show
-Aquanet
-Jordache (though apparently they still exist here!)
-Pet rocks
-Water beds
-WWF
-Urban myths that can’t be easily unproven because you have no way of looking it up
-To wit: being convinced people died in cage matches
-Answering machines
-Validating parking
-Calling collect
-Button Your Fly
-Avoid the Noid
-Where’s the beef?
-Read my lips
Smart lens. (Basically google glass, but much more advanced, practical and integrated into your eyes. They’ll automatically go into flashlight mode when you wake up and it’s dark)
Nonetheless, I bet if I asked my 8 year old niece, growing up in the states, who Michael Jordan or Michael Jackson was, she would know maaaybe one of them.
I recently found this channel by a guy who just records one of his collection of maxi singles at a time. Boy, I had a bunch of those. Kids will never know switching between 33 and 45. I haven’t seen a 45 in Taiwan in ages, BTW. A jukebox by the beach. Well, any jukebox.