This 22-Year-Old Asked What Life Was Like Before 9/11, And The Responses Are Truly Making Me Reminisce About That Time

“One major difference that is tough to even remember, let alone to describe to someone who didn’t live through it, was how parochial information was back then. Take any obscure factoid, for example: What happened downtown this afternoon? Where was a certain rock star born? Who was the goaltender on the 1980 Swedish Olympic team? Today, you can call it up in a matter of seconds; back then, you had to either have the knowledge, have someone who did, or have access to people or resources (news, books, libraries, microfilms, etc.) that did. Otherwise, you shrugged and went on with your day. There was no falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes.”

“So newspapers, books, libraries, and trade periodicals were so much more essential to information sharing, the propagation of culture, and the general and particular acquisition of knowledge. If there was an obscure movie you heard about from the 1950s or 1980s and never got to see, good luck, hope your video rental stores have it, otherwise you will need to check TV Guide and the local TV schedules in the newspaper to see if it was playing. Want to see highlights of a sporting event from over a month ago? Not gonna happen, unless it was some legendary play and shows up in the team’s video yearbook. Wanna watch a cancelled TV show that’s not in syndication? You’re out of luck.”

—BubblyTaro6234