The brain drain on Reddit now makes reading some of the forums I used to follow very painful. The level of discourse, the turn of phrase, the obscure references that now now end at the 2000s instead of going back decades. The depth of knowledge there has shallowed because the kids who grew up reading and upvoting our posts, who lived vicariously through our old ass generation, are now in charge, and many of them have no real world knowledge to share.

I remember life before the internet, I remember black and white television, I remember seeing the Beatles live on television, I remember how rap started because I was there, I remember nuclear drills because I lived under Reagan, I remember MTV when they played music videos, I lived through the first World Trade center bombing, and 9/11 in New York.

I went from the Commodore 64 and dialup internet in the 80s, to building my first computer in the 90s. I remember buying Red Hat Linux in a box at Barnes & Noble, and then slowly watching Linux get better, I even watched Android mature from nothing to where it is today. Working in publishing for two decades allowed me to see the development of ebooks. I even saw portable music develop from my walkman, to a CD player, to the bulky ugly ass mp3 player I defaulted to because I rejected Apple.

These kids on Reddit now remember some basic ass shit from the oughts.

I apologize for the old man’s rant.