Lisa O
The ’90s were a wild time for everyone—full of dial-up internet, chunky electronic devices, and habits that seemed normal back then but feel totally bizarre now. If you grew up in that era, these will bring back some memories. Here are 10 things we all did in the ’90s that would make no sense today.
Memorizing Phone Numbers
You had to remember phone numbers before smartphones handle our contacts. Your best friend, your crush, your grandma—those digits were locked in your brain. If you forgot one, you either had to check a handwritten list (if you were organized) or hope someone else remembered. Losing your address book was basically a disaster, and prank calls were a real risk because caller ID wasn’t always a thing.
Burning CDs for Friends
If you wanted to share your favorite songs, you didn’t send a Spotify link—you made a mixtape or, by the 2000s, a burned CD. This was serious business. You spent forever picking the perfect tracks, making sure they fit on an 80-minute disc, and then sat there as your computer slowly copied them (the whole process was very slow). And then you even had to decorate it with a Sharpie.
Using MapQuest Printouts for Directions
Road trips in the ’90s required planning. There was no Google Maps taking you to places in real-time—if you wanted directions, you had to visit MapQuest, type in your starting point and destination, and then print out several pages of instructions. One wrong turn, and you were officially lost. And if your co-pilot didn’t read fast enough, you might miss an exit and end up in the middle of nowhere.
Recording Songs Off the Radio
Getting your favorite song wasn’t as easy as hitting download. You had to wait by the radio with a blank cassette tape, finger hovering over the record button, just waiting. The DJ always talked over the intro, and if someone walked in and made noise? Start over. Making the perfect mixtape this way took hours, but when you finally nailed it, it felt like winning something big and important.
Blowing Into Video Game Cartridges
When a video game wouldn’t start, there was only one solution—yank the cartridge out, blow into it like your life depended on it, and slam it back in. Did it actually fix anything? We just know if it didn’t work, you gave it a few more tries or smacked it against your hand very hard (like you do with a remote). Gamers today will never know the satisfaction of finally getting a stubborn game to load after a dramatic blowing session.
Waiting for Photos to Be Developed
Taking pictures was not about snapping a million shots and deleting the bad ones (phones didn’t have decent cameras back then). You had to load a roll of film into your camera, take each photo carefully, and hope it turned out okay. Once the roll was full, you had to drop it off at a store and wait days—sometimes even weeks—to see what you got. No filters and no retakes. If someone blinked or half the pictures were blurry, tough luck.
Calling Movie Theaters for Showtimes
You had to call the theater, sit through a long, robotic recording, and try to scribble down the showtimes before you forgot them. Miss one? Too bad—you had to call back and listen all over again. Some people relied on newspaper listings, but those weren’t always right, so calling was the safest bet back then. It was a real hassle, but somehow, it made movie nights feel much more special.
Using AOL CDs for Internet Access
Getting online wasn’t as simple as tapping Wi-Fi. You had to install the internet using one of those free AOL CDs that showed up everywhere—stuffed in magazines or mailed straight to your house. You’d pop one in, wait an eternity for it to load, and finally get online… only for your mom to pick up the phone and kick you off.
Watching TV on a Schedule
If your favorite show came on at 8 PM, you had one job—be in front of the TV at 8 PM. No pausing, no rewinding, no catching up later. You had to wait weeks for a rerun and just hope you didn’t hear spoilers at school (kids were always giving each other spoilers). Commercials weren’t skippable, either. If you wanted a snack, you sprinted to the kitchen during the break and prayed you made it back in time.
Carrying a Pager
Before texting was a thing, people had pagers to send quick messages. But here’s the catch—you couldn’t reply, just receive a short numeric code, usually meaning “call me.” If someone paged you, you had to hunt down a payphone and pray you had quarters. For teens, having a pager was a total flex, especially the ones with transparent, light-up cases.
Using Encyclopedias for Homework
If you had a school project, you couldn’t just Google the answer in two seconds. You had to dig through a massive set of encyclopedias at home or take a trip to the library. If your family didn’t own the full set, you had to pray no one else checked out the volume you needed. Research actually took effort, and there was no copy-pasting from ChatGPT.
Chatting on AIM for Hours
After school, you raced to the family computer, signed into AOL Instant Messenger, and crossed your fingers that your crush was online. Conversations happened with weird abbreviations, and your away message had to be something deep and dramatic. And the worst part was: if your mom picked up the landline, boom—you were instantly kicked offline.
Taping Over Old VHS Tapes
Recording a TV show wasn’t as easy as hitting “save.” You had to grab an old VHS tape and hope there was enough space—or just tape over whatever was on it. Sometimes, that meant your favorite show suddenly cut to a random birthday party from five years ago. And if you accidentally erased something important? Too bad. Once it was gone, it was gone forever.
Renting Movies from Blockbuster
You had to work a lot for a movie night in the past. How? First, you drove to Blockbuster, wandered the aisles, and hoped the movie you wanted was still on the shelf. If it wasn’t, you either picked something random or hovered by the return bin to see if someone returned it. And the stress of giving it back on time added even more pressure to the task.
Using Actual Alarm Clocks
Waking up in the morning meant dealing with a bulky, plastic alarm clock that beeped so loudly it could probably wake up the neighbors (and their dogs). If you needed to snooze, you smacked the giant button on top. If you had one of the fancy ones with a radio, there was a good chance you woke up to static or a random station playing a song you hated.
Signing Guestbooks on Websites
The coolest way to leave your mark online was by signing a website’s digital guestbook (social media was not a thing back then). It was like an internet time capsule—some people left random jokes, others just dropped their names. It was a weirdly public way of saying, “Hey, I was here,” and back then, that actually meant something.
Buying Ringtones for Your Phone
Customizing your ringtone wasn’t free—you actually had to buy them. People spent real money on 15-second clips of their favorite songs, usually in some weird, robotic-sounding format. If you were really cool, you had a different ringtone for each person in your contacts. And if you didn’t want to pay, you had to record the song off the radio and just accept whatever background noise came with it.
Carrying Around a CD Case
You had to carry music in the 1990s. That meant hauling a giant CD case stuffed with all your favorite albums. Choosing what to play was not as simple as it is today—you had to unzip the case, flip through the different pages, and very carefully swap out discs without scratching them. If you let a friend borrow it, you might as well have said goodbye right then because there was almost no chance you’d ever see it again.
Watching the Same Commercials Over and Over
There was no “Skip Ad” button—if you watched TV, you sat through the same commercials over and over. Some jingles got burned into your brain forever, while others were so annoying you’d change the channel just to escape them. Fast-forwarding was only an option if you had a VCR and remembered to record your show. Otherwise, you just had to suffer through yet another ad for cereal or car insurance.
Manually Rolling Down Car Windows
Before power windows became standard, rolling down your car window took actual effort. You had to grab the handle and crank it until the window finally lowered—sometimes with both hands if it got stuck. Want fresh air in the back seat? You either stretched awkwardly from the front or begged someone in the back to do it for you. It was a small workout every time, but at least you never had to worry about a dead window motor.