Before smartphones and everything-on-demand, life was a full-contact sport. You couldn’t Google your way out of a crisis — you winged it, sweated it, or cried in secret. Gen Z will have the world in their hands but never know the glorious frustration of a pencil rewinding a cassette or a bloodcurdling fight with a sibling over the landline. These are 16 glorious, frustrating, character-building struggles that Gen Z never had — and we’re oddly proud to have survived them.
Dial-Up Internet — a.k.a. Hell on Earth
Need to view your email? Cool — now go instruct everyone at home not to use the landline for 30 minutes. That ear-piercing, nails-on-chalkboard screeching of dial-up? A guaranteed trauma inducer. One wrong call and wham, connection dropped. Don’t even mention streaming a video — buffering was a moral failing. Gen Z’s worst day in Wi-Fi is nothing compared to the torture we endured with dial-up.
Having to Actually Remember Phone Numbers
Your head was your Rolodex when you were growing up. You had memorized everyone’s number like it was going out of fashion. Lose your brick phone Nokia, lose your social life. No backups, no cloud, no “forgot my password.” You remembered your BFF’s number—or you were out of social standing.
Calling Your Crush and Praying Their Dad Didn’t Answer
The anxiety was real. You’d reply with shaking hands, hoping it wasn’t the dad voice on the phone. “WHO’S THIS?” would destroy your self-esteem forever. No caller ID meant bluffing, and don’t even get me started on busy signals. Nowadays? All emojis and DMs. We were messing around with emotional trauma and public humiliation back then.
Being Glued to the Radio for That One Song
Before Spotify, before YouTube, there was… hope. You sat patiently with an empty cassette tape in front of you at the radio, HOURS waiting for your song to be on so that you could tape it at the exact second. A cough, a DJ voice, and it’s gone forever. Gen Z’s “add to playlist” generation is too easy.
Renting Movies and Praying They Rewind
Ah, Blockbuster — the Friday night hotspot. You’d race to grab the last copy of a new release, only to find it hadn’t been rewound. The betrayal. Rewinding a VHS manually was the equivalent of doing penance. And God forbid it was scratched — say goodbye to movie night.
TV Guides and Rage When You Missed the Show
Miss an episode of Friends? You were DONE. No replays, no on-demand, no spoilers – bitter regret. You really had to use a TV Guide in order to find out when things were on. If the power went out during your show, you just cried. That was all you could do.
Need a Real Map to Go Anywhere New
You had to make a go of it with actual maps—the ginormous, tacky fold-out ones that never really did fold out, anyway. Lost? You pulled over, hoped someone would get out and tell you where to go, and probably still managed to end up wrong anyway. No GPS, no “rerouting,” just plain old confusion and a whole lot of cussing.
T9 Texting Like Morse Code
In order to type “I miss you,” you had to hit 4 keys for the ‘s’. You were a predictive text wizard, with thumbs of steel. Mistype one word? You were retyping the entire message. And to delete? Good luck scrolling back for 10 minutes.
Asking a Stranger to Photograph You (and Hope They Didn’t Run)
No selfies. No front camera. If you wanted a photo, you had to approach a stranger and hope they wouldn’t a) steal your camera or b) deliver a blurry headless photo. It was trust, risk, and fuzzy recollections in one cringe-inducing interaction.
Getting Lost — And Having to Navigate By Yourself
No GPS. No “share location.” You got lost, you stayed lost. Maybe you had a folded map in the glove box or relied on that single friend who assured you they knew a detour (they didn’t). Gen Z will never experience the frosty sweat of not knowing the turn and just… making it happen.
Using Actual Encyclopedias for Homework
There was no Wikipedia. You shattered a 12-book encyclopedia set that weighed more than you, and hoped the information was still current. If it wasn’t on there? That was bad luck. You guessed. Gen Z has no concept of the effort of flipping through an old book in order to obtain one little piece of information.
Burning CDs Like It Was an Art Form
Creating the perfect mixtape for your road trip love? That was romance at its peak. You’d go hours picking out tracks, illegally downloading them from LimeWire (RIP your computer), and hoping the CD wouldn’t skip halfway through. Gen Z can curate playlists in two seconds. We made masterpieces. Real blood, sweat, and dial-up internet went into those CDs.
Waiting Weeks for Your Photos to Get Developed
You couldn’t determine if your eyes were open, if you got the shot, or if your thumb was in front. You took the picture, dropped off the film, waited a week—and learned half a roll of film was wasted. Gen Z’s never had to endure the pain of paying money to get 24 pictures developed, and only one was digestible.
Passing Notes in Class Like Secret Agents
Before texts, we literally wrote notes. With a pen. Folded them into origami and sneaked them with precision military. If the teacher caught wind of it? Over. Gen Z never felt the thrill of sneaking a note past four rows of snoopy classmates.
Video Store Late Fees (And the Guilt)
You rented a movie one Friday night and didn’t remember to return it until the next week, and boom — hit with late charges that were like mortgage rates. Blockbuster employees eyed you up and down. It was a shame. Ery shame. Gen Z, with their pause-at-any-time and stream-everywhere luxury, will never know that walk of movie rental shame.
The Existential Horror of Looking at “1 Missed Call” from Your Parents
No texts. Just a missed call. That was your entire warning. You didn’t have any idea if they were mad, worried, or if something had horribly gone wrong. You called back, shaking, knowing you were either getting grounded—or someone had passed away. Gen Z has “seen” texts and emoji reactions. We had raw fear.