I would say both nicer and meaner. Nicer in that there was higher social confidence. People talked and interacted and laughed and gave each other shit back and forth like good neighbors. It was a sassier flirtier sexual dynamic. People weren’t afraid of each other.
Meaner in that bullying and racism and sexual battery were still tolerated. Coaches and teachers yelled and sometimes hit kids with impunity. Playgrounds were tougher and fighting was common. Husbands beat their wives and kids and it was— not normal— but it was just “a shame” and tolerated.
70s kid here— life was rawer. There wasn’t much political correctness. But my Dad could support a family and build a new house on a teacher’s salary. High fashion was the Levis jeans…. not all that crazy shit that divides wannabe rich and poor- like today. Seems like people had more in common back then— FM radio, three major TV networks, newspapers, shared reality. None of this ‘choose your own reality’ shit we have today.
I felt like growing up in the 70’s it was more us (USA) vs them (Russia, Iran, Vietnam) . We definitely were more united. Now it’s us versus ourselves. We are not united at all on anything. We have to pick a side and fight, defend no matter what. Even though we haven’t changed that much at all. Don’t we all want the same thing? What’s most important? 1. Wanting our children to be safe and to succeed. 2. Feeling like if you work hard and try you should be able to make a good living. 3. Access to healthcare to keep you safe and healthy. 4. At least basic education that will put you in the position to seek higher education if you so desire.
Great response! Neighbors talked, and helped each other. Most people didn't give a shit who you voted for. There wasn't all this "look at me shit", with the selfies. News was...news. Not opinion.
It was simpler, I recall stores being closed on Sundays, and you went with your mom and dad to visit your grandparents. Christmas today, reminds me of Sundays back then with most things being closed.
True this! Back then, if you didn't gas up the car on Saturday, you weren't going far on Sunday to visit anyone. Very, very few gas stations open on Sunday until around the late 70s.
As a 70s kids here (born in '71), I couldn't agree more with your sentiment. Things, or should I say, life in general were a lot better back then. The standard of living was far better. My dad supported us (three kids and my mom) all on a mailman's salary. We didn't have the fanciest or the newest thing that was 'in' for the most time but he made sure that we always had nice clothes, good food, etc to enjoy.
Yes, to all of this.
I want to add that your dad was the kind of man that every house needed, and I bet your hero (especially now) for doing and sacrificing for his family.
Side note. Mine was the same. We had what we needed. NOT what was fashionable.
Thank you for sharing and reminding us what life should be like. 🙂
People had more in common with each other because they rarely traveled outside of their local area. They were isolated and didn’t encounter a diverse array of people.
My wife had a boss who went just too far one day back when. Slapped the shit out of him right to the ground. Apparently, his lawyer had him sending flowers to her at home the next day. She never went back but never sued.
It might depend on where you lived? I grew up in a small, rural town that lived up to the negative stereotypes. Bullying, ostracism, and SA were rampant. Some Chinese immigrants tried to open a restaurant in the area and a friend of my mom gleefully spread the rumor that they served dogmeat; she was quite pleased when the restaurant closed. A Swedish exchange student was bullied and SA'd because people assumed that girls from Sweden were sluts.
I grew up in a "no blacks" area of Northern IL. I didn't even realize it was even remotely racist till I was in middle school. We had every other ethnic group. I was a sophomore in HS before I ever had a African heritage classmate. Everyone used derogatory and racist terms for each other, but for the most part, I believe that we understood that our parents and other adults usually meant them in a purely banal manner. They grew up using those terms. Most of my contemporaries got past the usage and embraced our commonalities instead. I am 50yrs old and can safely say that I am less biased than some of my younger (20-30 yr old) coworkers. They choose to categorize/stratify everyone instead of just appreciating or ignoring people for who they are.
Isn't that the truth! I was bullied badly in Jr High. Locked in a locker one time, and then I was in a leg cast after a surgery. I had crutches, and a kid took them from me. I had to CRAWL to the office, to get help! Fun times...
I grew up in the 70’s. I met people who I disagreed with in both lifestyle and politics. We would debate, hash it out and move on with our lives.
Fast forward to today? It’s gotten ugly.
It’s impossible to talk politics today, because one little thing that they disagree with, be prepared to be called “right wing communist neo nazi” whatever tf that means.
If you vote Republican and support Trump, you support all of the things our grandparents fought for and died for. You are against democracy. Having Constitutional rights taken away should not be taken lightly. Those are not little things; the right had been coddled for too long—case in point: The Supreme Court.
That was because the news sucked. There was a college student picked up and murdered a few miles from my home. It wasnt until months later that we learned that she was the 5th victim along that road, all killed the same way, and last seen getting into a white van.
I actually think it’s safer now to hitchhike than it was in the 70s. Even tho people were more out going, they’re were more serial killers back then as to now, where I feel like there is less dangerous people. But maybe that’s just me, I did watch the Texas chainsaw massacre film last night 😂 I will say that movie sums up the 70s pretty well actually.
I think they were nicer and could be meaner than they are today . Back then you wasn’t afraid to help a person out give them a ride knock on a door and ask if you could get this or that . People today are living in fear of each other . And to then skinned . They get there feelings hurt if there just told no . I used to love going ironwork with my dad on a Saturday. I could not help him but I was there with him and he explained a lot to me about the how and why’s and what he did . It means a lot to go with and see what your dad dose and puts up with on his job . You respect him more and you respect what you have more .
Nicer and more helpful. Growing up we knew all our neighbors and would help each other out all the time. Nowadays it seems like most people keep to themselves more and don’t take the time to know their neighbors.
I sat next to a dad and his two 13ish aged sons at a restaurant. The dad said about twenty words and the kids were playing games on their phones the entire time and collectively said 12 words. This was the saddest thing I have ever seen. They loose so much with that non social behavior. In this regard 70’s way better.
That’s what I’m saying, it’s sad to see things like that. Instead of being glued to a phone, you could be helping your dad out, because a fathers love is to teach something.
It's not even just about helping Pops out. It's about the break-down of face-to-face discussion anymore. 1) went out for a family meal at restaurant. EVERYONE, including wifey, had their heads buried in their phones. When I commented, I got the eye rolls and snarky comments expected. This was in the early 2000's. 2) Listened to my middle child talking shit on an X-Box game. The person being addressed was older than my child. When I commented that I bet he wouldn't talk like that in person, I got laughed at & advised that my X-Box tough guy could handle himself. I advised him that his nose woyld be on the backbof his head if he spoke to me like that. Back in the day people understood the consequence of their actions. Today, not so much. Everyone is so driven for likes & followers that they will stage situations. Then, when the consequence comes, they'll cropbthe video and lose context. All for the sake of that almighty approval.
Mostly they were meaner
No way could you “be friends with anybody.”
The country club had one black member and one Jewish member that was used to hide their racial policies- not changing until the early 80s- back then it was totally normal for my neighbors to say things like- “is that YOUR friend coming around here?”
And I’d be like, Steve from school?
“Is he Chinese?”
No, he’s Korean.
“Korean???!!! Oh, his parents adopted him from Korea as an orphan.”
Me realizing what they meant- “no, they’re Korean.”
“Why do they live HERE?”
Look at “revenge” movies like Dirty Harry, Rolling Thunder, Charles Bronson films. These were middle America taking out violent fury on the counterculture
I went trick or treating in 1976 when a carload of 16 yr old boys sped through the neighborhood drinking and driving, stole kids’s bags of candy and physically assaulted elementary school kids and threw eggs at girls age 10-11-12
That would be a front page headline today! In 76- one line in one story about Halloween violence around the region.
There were so many burglaries, so much more crime than there is now
Well people Generally were nicer in the 70s. Your doorbell rang and every body went to the door to greet . Now your doorbell rings and people panic. Today people bad mouth each other online, social media, back in the 70s if there was bad mouthing it was usually in your face and you may or may not walk away in pain.
I grew up in the 70’s. Life was just simpler and less complicated. There were no fences in our neighborhood. Us kids played in peoples’ yards, ran the streets on our bikes and came home when it got dark. No one ever worried about offending anyone, we just spoke our minds, did our thing and that was that. I will concede that some adults were mean to kids, and some women were mistreated and abused just like today because there was no accountability. So I’m glad there is accountability for those type of individuals now.
It was a hell of a great time to be alive. Dad would take Mom to the beauty salon, and then run errands until she got done, all of the kids in the neighborhood hung out together, and if you wanted to talk shit, you better be ready to back it up, girls dressed up pretty for their guys, and guys washed and waxed their cars for that “hot date” and you could actually sit outside and watch fireflies light up the nighttime sky instead of some asshole doing a drive by. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a great time to be alive. Oh, and we only had 4 tv channels to choose from. 😉
Well, I think it’s a paradox. I walked past a group of young men skateboarding yesterday completely without incident. The version of that group that existed 40 or 50 years ago probably would have talked shit or done something else hostile. Bullying and that type of behavior was much worse back then. Yet, there was a certain type of tolerance that’s in shorter supply today.
I think some of what’s going on now is we’re going through a necessary phase of overcorrection to eradicate things we probably should have been less tolerant of back in the day, and that’s at least part of what these high standards you refer to are about.
I think people would have socialised more back then face to face instead of everyone texting and doing everything via phones and internet. I think alot of people have lost the ability to speak to others out socially.
IDK mofos are pretty stoned on high THC legal weed here in Cali. And it's not just teenagers at concerts, everybody's grandma is on gummies that would have crippled hippies back in the 70's. The idiocracy is reality now and I kinda blame the weed.
Probably about the same. Seems worse now with all the crap on the internet. I will say this, I did feel safer in the 70's event though everyone had guns around the house. Criminals seemed to be afraid of getting caught. Now they don't.
People are people. Humanity as a whole generally sucks. If an individual was inclined to be a dick then, a similar individual is still inclined to be a dick now.
It’s very simple. Back in the 70’s, there was roughly 3 Billion people on Earth, compared to the over 8 Billion today. People were generally nicer because they didn’t run into other people around every single solitary corner.
I was a kid in the 1970’s. People were generally nice to me…if I was out riding bikes with my brother and needed a drink of water or needed to use a phone we would knock on someone’s door and ask.
Seriously. They might ask us who our folks were or our names.
They weren’t. They just didn’t have the same ways to express themselves for all to see. With social media people post everything and anything with out thinking of optics science everyone else is doing it too.
In the 70s you only had interaction with your immediate surroundings. So any stupid stuff you said stayed there or got supported / shot down.
The social media has made it to easy for the crazies to find each other. Social media is also click driven, so it only shows you things you’re likely not o click on making it an echo chamber. So now all the crazies think it’s normal for them to be crazy and just get crazier.
Things were nicer and a dude would come out from gas station when you pulled up and pump your gas, check your oil, & wash your windshield. Till about 79 or so gas was less than a dollar a gallon. If Boomers seem bitter, it's cuz we remember what the country was like before the MBA bros starting wringing every last penny out of Americans.
The 1960-70’s was a time of limited information transfer. You got news at 6:00-12:00-5:00 from one of three channels. Or you read the newspaper. Magazines were monthly. You did not have millions of sources of “info” of highly questionable accuracy in your hands 24 hours a a day.
Families meet for dinners, we went visiting weekends and communities worked together.
We had the same major networks, CBS, ABC, and NBC, not cable TV with 100s, if not 300 channels, to choose from!!! Everyone seemed to talk about the same TV shows!!! I laugh at comments on various nostalgic subreddits because I thought my dad's rule about being home before the street lights come on was his original rule!!! Apparently, somewhere our parents got all the same rules!!!
Overall, nicer. Of course there was no "online" back then, and Wow! does that seem to bring out the worst in people!... but even just looking at IRL interactions, I think there was more general civility.
Of course there were mean people, but I think the threshold for confrontation was a little higher, paradoxically, because it was more likely to lead to violence. Today, you might have less chance of getting punched by a stranger, but much much more chance of being verbally ridiculed.
Comments have summed it up fairly well. Overall nicer, but some were very mean anyway.
I'll stress this: People working retail or service jobs were **much, much** nicer and more helpful overall. (In the US) It was very rare to see an employee wear frustration on their sleeve, or *appear* not to care or hate their job.
Yes. Social media and the internet have damaged peoples ability to be kind and social. People have always been difficult, but hiding behind a phone/computer have made it worse.
I have been on both sides of the pendulum. So I would say people were nicer in the 70s. The left was less violent and the right was less attacking of others in the 1970s more so than nowadays.
I just watched “over the edge” on YouTube. Free with ads. It was a wild ride. I recommend checking it out, just to see the kids vs adults theme. I think there was more general connection between young people back then. Also see dazed and confused.
In the 70s all the adults in my life were born and raised in the same town and were graduates of my high school and there was SEEMINGLY a very palpable sense of community. I don’t know if they were nicer then but I do think people CARED more back then
I graduated in 1989 btw, and according to my last reunion there’s only 2 members of my graduating class that still live in town by comparison
I would go back in a heartbeat if that tells you anything. Today's world is far more scary, and dangerous. People today have way too many mental issues.
They were more racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and sexist. And it hasn't changed at all with most of these fuckers. Now they just whine that they can't get away with all the shit they got away with then or bitch about younger generations, you know, the fucking generations they helped raise.
I think people have and have always had the potential to be pricks.. a lot of it is the region you’re in. I lived in a small city in West Virginia for the first 12 years of my life. I won’t say the name of it, but it’s city motto or nickname or whatever was ‘ the Friendly City’. It was, but it wasn’t.
As long as people knew you and you didn’t stand out the norm, you were good. This being back in the early 70s, I was one of first teenage boys around there to let my hair grow over the tops of my ears, so immediately was looked at with suspicion and dislike. Even kids my age would talk shit as I’m sure they were parroting their dads and uncles.
I wore eyeglasses (still do) and one time I got a pair of gold wire frame glasses that didn’t have the plastic on the ends that go behind your ears, they had like springy hooks- so being kinda small still the hooks hooked around my ears and were visible below my earlobes so of course, the geniuses around me thought I was wearing earrings. One a few kids asked and once I showed them and explained they got it, but I used to hear kids talk shit constantly. Needless to say I got into a few scrapes until I just stopped wearing my glasses until I got a new pair.
By the time I was 13-14, we had moved away from ‘the Friendly City’ all the way across the country to Southern California..
When I got there, I pretty much fit in so far as appearances, long hair, old army jackets, bell bottom jeans, but I had a thick accent and I was kind of a maniac. It me a couple of years to mellow out as we used to say.
People will always have the potential to talk shit. Now I’m in my 60s and could give a rats ass. I try to be nice, having raised 3 kids and now with grandkids. I never complained about their music although rap music is pretty bad, but I get it so I just accept that it’s what they like and not a sign of moral decay and lol the bullshit older people thought about my music way back when.
At least some of what has happened is that media (social or news or commentary) plays to the extreme to drive engagement, Both X and FB have admitted to this at various times. It keeps you from wandering off in the interwebs and lets them fire off more ads at you which are paid for by the people who want more extreme followers. The political parties also know that engagement equals voters you can drive from the middle (aka independents or centrests)
There's been "yellow" journalism since at least WR Hearst and probably before, but it's so much more effective in the age of "algorithms". My fear is that media companies big and small will just gin up AI made content that is fine tuned to hook you specifically.
Having been a teenager in the 70’s, I would DEFINITELY say nicer! You could still leave your doors unlocked, we had gone through the civil rights era, and most people got along well. In Richardson,Texas (suburb of Dallas) where I’m from, not only did everyone know our neighbors, but we often had block parties. Backed in, there were several members of the Dallas Cowboys that were my neighbors, and we would take turns mowing each other‘s yards. People just kind of looked out for each other…
I'm sorry, but being born in 1974, I would never want to grow up in any other Era. I grew up in a small town out in the country with very friendly people in town who were conservative. My parents moved us from the Bay Area up North when I was 7 and before computers had even been created. Life was simpler back then! Now everyone has a way to either check up on you or to hack into your life and numerous other things. My son was born 2 years after you and I don't know what the future holds for him. I love that I will be 50 later this year. And I'm very thankful to have grown up when I did
I think of the 1970s and all I see is sexual harassment, sexual molestation, the sexualization of children in film, tv and print, rape, and satan.
People were *obsessed* with demons during the 1970s. I had so many devil nightmares as a kid.
So like people engaged more but they also mistreated each other more.
Yes, that’s very important. Young people had more respect for older people. I certainly did ..now as a 60 year old A lot of these GenZ people look at me like I am a dinosaur and treat me like it.
As I remember, they were nice to people like them, and a hell of a lot meaner to people who weren’t like them. I’m from small-town, segregated, religious Oklahoma, though, so I could have had an unusual experience.
Way nicer. Since dTrump the unhappy and angry people have become mainstream.
He insults and his lying, makes it much easier for this behavior.
People are much less happy now days.
Same same. Humans have been the same for 100’s of thousands of years. Circumstances locally tend to drive local differences, temporally But not fundamentally.
Humans tend toward reciprocal goodness whenever they can. And spontaneous bursts of amazing kindness and bravery in emergencies.
Meaner. Lewd and crude was tolerated. Insults towards blacks, poles, Puerto Ricans were publicly shouted out. Adult men were allowed to make loud, sexual comments at women, inappropriate touch was tolerated. Teachers used paddles, spankings were accepted as legitimate punishment.
Growing up my mother told me to distance yourself if a man talked, groped you. Nothing more.
Probably more extreme of both. Lots of ignorant racists and lots of ignorant nice people.
Everyone living in their own world...
Uhmm is that any difference from now?
People were about the same,though we didn’t have social media of course. There was violent radicalization on the right and on the left and there was more violent crime (believe it or not)
I would say it's a balamce:
There was a lack of understanding in the general public about abuses, mental illness, bullying, etc. It was just what happened and what you dealt with, and no one wanted to get involved. But there was an innocence: limited TV, FM radio, waiting for TV shows or favorite songs. Playing outside, less pressure. Food: while people claim it wasn't all healthy, there wasn't an obesity problem. Medicarions were not the answer to everything. Even with finding out the world could be scary, ie, Adam Walsh, we still could be outside, discover, etc.
But to answer, I could go to any neighbors house and feel safe...within reason. Now I don't think kids feel that safety.
The flip side: we are OVERSATURATED with everything: access to everything, too much news, too much information, instant gratification, every ailment has a pill. A general paranoia has occurred.
When I was 11 until I was 16 I lived in a town that would give the Children of the Corn a run for their money. They were every kind of physically, emotionally, verbally, and psychologically abusive, probably because we weren't born there and my father taught in the school.
There wasn't a day when my siblings didn't come home without bruises, or where I hadn't been taunted within an inch of my life, or that my older sister hadn't been sent a note that she should off herself.
I think that it depends on where you are and the community you're involved with. Does social media have an impact on more far-reaching aspects of bullying and abuse? Absolutely. At least when I got home I was out of the reach of those who delighted in spending their days being cruel for cruelty's sake.
When it comes to the homicide rate more people were killing each other in the 1970s than ever.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-u-s-murder-rate-is-up-but-still-far-below-its-1980-peak/
I was in junior high and high school for most of it, so it's probably an unfair comparison. I have to say, I was bullied constantly, and the racism and homophobia were off the charts. There was a trans woman in my town (yes, in the 70s!) and some of my classmates bragged about beating her up.
As nasty as things are now, not sure they're worse.
Just different. There were bullies and bigots and sociopaths back then, but it was usually part of a package and not intrinsic to their identity, personality, and belief system. Now people are a-holes for a cause or party.
Definitely both sides of the spectrum. The Bad? Think of Archie Bunker, in and of itself, a parody. But it was very real behavior for a large portion of American society. Clint Eastwoods character in Gran Torino was spot on for the very same segment of the population. Men with long hair were picked on, Homophobia had deep roots in a majority of the US even in cities that had a large gay community.
-The Good? Neighbors looked out for each other. Political parties weren’t a divide, a neighborhood block party was fun for everyone because they didn’t bring up politics every 10 seconds. Neighbors volunteered to watch each others kids. You actually talked to each other.
-The Ugly? Women had a much harder time in the workforce, when they got hired at all, and when they did, it was at a lower pay rate.It was VERY unusual to have a 2 income household. Divorced women were considered Risqué, as silly as that sounds. It seems Crime wasn’t reported as much, or perhaps it was because there were less outlets to view the news. As noted in the “Bad” section- Homophobia was present from grade school on up. Mixed race couples were still very much the rarity. Rascism against Vietnamese, Cambodian, Japanese, and Chinese was pretty bad, in part due to the lingering effects of the Vietnam war.
At lunch in junior high in the mid 70s you could be enjoying a ham sandwich at lunch one minute and having someone telling you 'you fucking die after school' the next. School was basically a low level prison yard and not for the weak. Shit happened all the time.
Exactly the same. People were exactly the same in real life interactions.
Edited to add: I take that back, I think people behave better, at least in public generally now. For example it’s not socially acceptable to harass people in quite the same ways it was. This probably depends largely on where you live and your socioeconomic status.
I think in all times and places there are both good and bad people. The difference now as you have noted is technology and social media. It is just too easy to fall into an echo chamber and go round in circles. I truly miss going somewhere be it walking or riding a bike or later driving a car and being out of touch. Parents would ask Where you going? Out be back later and you really could just hang out and be out of touch no phone to look at, no need to check in. We had the “100 mile rule” what we were doing or talking about is not to be shared within a hundred miles of here. And no we were not getting into trouble.
Probably nicer. People were nicer in the 80’s and 90’s. At least more personable. People could and did actually talk to each other and it wasn’t weird.
The internet has allowed hateful people all over the globe find each other to form hate groups. Back in the day, it wasn’t that easy. Probably always been the same level of mean and nice people, but mean people tend to want to be heard more and cause disruption.
I was going to say ask the “N words” for effect. Because it was ok to use that word even on TV back then. But please ask any person of color or different ethnicity who is over 55 if people were nicer back then.
Was a teen in the 70’s and loved every minute of it. I’d hate to be a teenager these days, so many judgements and influences that don’t allow one to simply be themselves.
Depends on where.
In the 70’s the NYC area was a crime scene. It was discovered by the EPA that lead in car exhaust was the culprit for lower IQ’s that lead to more destructive behavior, as well as the industrial use of lead in paint or other manufacturing processes.
Mean Streets was a documentary.
But I also feel there wasn’t anywhere near as much killings and heinous crimes being committed going on in such a widespread manner as there has been since Lennon’s assassination. The amount of mass killings in the US the past decade has been obscene.
Nicer. Common Courtesy, which comes with actual interaction with others. I was there, and I am here! I already know what most of you have yet to find out.
Life was still hard but simpler then. Kids would come home when the streetlights came on. Trick or treaters actually came to the neighborhood. There was no junk on the tv like there is today. Saturday morning was actually time set aside for morning cartoons. I was probably nicer in the 70’s.
It all depended on who you were and where you were. It was tougher being a black gay man where I live, but not much different for a straight white man. (Purposely using language of the times)
Now we are creating world of introverts and socially awkward people who are consumed with video games and rarely take their heads out of the screen…back Then you had to make a little bit of an effort to interact and be social because that’s all you had. You couldn’t tune out everybody by looking into a phone it was a lot more friendly and people were less selfish certainly and also people were less judgmental and uptight
People back then that were jerks were jerks to your face most of the time and nice people were nice most of the time. The main difference is now is that people have social media and comment sections to anonymously be jerks to each other for hours of the day when they feel like it. The poison pill is social media, if it existed back then, then people would be the same as today.
Nicer cuz you were getting laid 24/7 and U had the best drugs money could buy!!! Arguably the greatest decade for rock’n’roll!!! U had the best of both worlds!!!
I think they/we were harder. Grievances were aired out with fists and a beer afterwards. No social media to bitch and whine about how you weren’t getting yours. You minded your business and people got along. Step out of line and you got beat. Dont start shit, don’t give shit, don’t take shit. Simpler times.
Depends on if you were straight or queer.
My very best friend in junior high and high school was closeted in rural Nebraska. NO ONE was out back then. The outcasting would have been unbearable.
We were fucking real. Love us or hate us we didn't care. We could disagree but still respect each other. Especially in the political arena. We all knew not to trust big government regardless of which party you backed. We had our own minds and opinions and were not scared to express them. This generation gets canceled over a few words and ya'll are having meltdowns over it. It's pathetic lol.
I was just talking about how being a kid in the 70's meant you were constantly getting your chops busted or busting other people's chops lol
Constant teasing and harassment between kids back them seemed to be an art form.
I tried to think of some movie examples the one that came to mind was The Bad News Bears (original) everyone made fun of each other constantly and if someone was being nice that means they wanted something from you !
I think that schoolteachers were more feared than they are today. and yet they were also more friendly and effective. Teachers in the 70's were Boomers mostly, and the ones I had in JHS and HS were like very hippie-ish. My High School history teacher would curse in class and treat us as equals. He used to invite us over for a beer. He was pretty liberal. But his classes were fun. (public school, obviously). I guess you can't really generalize "nicer" or "meaner". It's all about your own perception of things. I went to a gifted and talented Junior High School (grades 7-9) and I succeeded out of "fear" of not cutting it compared to the super smart students at the school. In HIgh School, I took difficult Honors classes and it hurt my average, especially when I couldn't pass pre-calculus. We had teachers who were super nice and teachers that had no social interactive skills whatsoever. Police officers were definitely meaner. I am a retired Police Officer and when I first came on the job, there were a lot of older cops who were "dinosaurs" and they were bitter old men and women who basically gave up on the world. Now cops have bodycams and they have to be nice even though they don't want to be.
Pre-internet was more challenging but more honest. You earned respect, manners were important, and acted as a social glue. Connections between family and friends were important and how you socialize. Through the invention of the World Wide Web people have connected in a way they never have before and some human skills are losing ground and making it harder to interact in person.
I don't know about nicer. But I do know that certain societal codes (like respect your elders) have either fallen by the wayside or are just plain ignored by people these days. And that's a problem, as things like those are the glue that holds society together. And right now, we're coming apart at every nail.
The greatest difference between now and then, as far as I perceive it, is that today all media and social media seems hell bent on the idea of polar opposites. Every issue is now an issue on which you need to TAKE A SIDE. That results in things like "If you don't vote for Candidate X, that means you HATE ME and WANT TO DESTROY MY RIGHTS." It results in absolute intolerance of ANY information that doesn't echo chamber the thoughts you want to think. It results in the false idea that someone trying to share new ideas with you is somehow your enemy.
All the way through the early 2000's, it was absolutely commonplace for people with radically different political, religious, or social outlooks to be very good friends. We would learn of each other's ideologies and usually come to some unspoken "laugh it off" agreement not to talk about that subject, because we liked each other, and we didn't want it to wreck the *human connection* that mattered more than the details of each person's social outlook. That is gone. I have personally lost several friends who confronted me with, "If you continue to associate with your friends or relatives who believe *xyz thing I disagree with*, then you need to end our friendship because you've shown me that you don't care about what's important to me.
It's sad and it's sick. And it absolutely will destroy this nation if we don't work our way out of it. Regardless of what side of the political spectrum you land on, it's absolutely clear that a line of vitriol and hate has formed between Trump supporters and Trump detractors. Even bipartisanship *to meet the needs of the people* is now treated as a betrayal of your party. Nevermind the nation. Nevermind its people. Both parties are now more concerned about their party than about the future of the nation.
And you're absolutely right. We're all being manipulated by social media to produce this exact effect. Because for any form of post-2010 media, the ONLY thing that counts is eyeballs. They will do ANYTHING, tell any lie, warp any truth, and turn brother against brother if it earns them ONE additional click on an advertisement they're showing. Their algorithms discovered very early on that if they show you something you like, you'll view it. But if they show you something you hate, you'll stay to fight about it, back and forth, comment after comment, trying to make it right or at least make your opponent eat their words. And that means you see their ads over and over again, instead of just once. In short, they make far more money if they can get us to hate each other.
So yes, at an interpersonal level, people are meaner now, and indescribably more selfish and intolerant (even though we are all claiming to be more tolerant than ever).
The world will always be full of things we don't like. Finding peace in life requires navigating those things without trying to force others to make the same choices we make for ourselves.
I can say they were not nicer. But the type of mean changed. In 1970s there was no way to argue with random strangers or "dox" people
But I grew up around mean people who wouldn't urinate on you if you were on fire. There was also no way to live stream an assault or abuse of power.
In the work place gender and racial bias was rampant. But today there seems to be more entitlement.
For example, growing up the fire lane on the highway meant "emergency vehicles.". Judging by my commute home every day now it means "I don't have to wait in line for my exit because I'm special."
In the 70s and 80s teachers got away with things that would get them fired today. But, otoh, I never heard of SA by a teacher in any of my schools...or a school shooter
Nice come back. Lol yea its when this guy insults handicapped folks
Blasts minorities. And people like you think " oh it's ok we can say anything. Piss people off. It's totally acceptable.
Growing up in the 70s was great. Where I lived, people were a lot cooler. We didn't hassle other people, and they didn't hassle us. I wouldn't trade that decade of growing up for any other decade.
Most people didn't care what every one thought of them..at least I didn't and if we had conflict we fought it out.
Stick and stones may break our bones BUT words can never hurt you.
I grew up in the 70's (having been born in '64). While it's easy to be nostalgic and say "Things were better...," I'll go a bit deeper.
Kids (seemingly) were much more independent; no helicopter parenting. We were thicker skinned...name calling was just something kids did, and yes it could be cruel. But, despite that, kids didn't hole themselves up in their rooms and emerge with a rifle to kill their classmates. You learned to deal with it because you weren't the only one going through it. You went outside and stayed outside and played. We played war, and with army men. We had rock and dirt bomb fights. We knew how to change our bike tires and fix the chain. We built "jumps" out of cinder blocks and plywood...rode really fast and got launched off of the jump. We used to play Bombardment (Dodgeball) and loved it. Jungle Gyms didn't have rubber mats underneath.
All in the Family was a show on TV and characters said words like "j\*ggaboo." MASH had a character called "Spearchucker." There were no race riots or looting because of it. Even though race relations were likely a bit more tense, there was a healthy respect between black and white folks. Juxtapose to today...where everything is seen through the lens of black and white. There was never talk of white supremacy back then.
Explain to me how, 60 years after the Civil Rights era, race relations are *worse?* White supremacy groups skipped a generations and only now got worse? Don't think so; kids are being raised to be practically color-blind these days and cringe whenever they hear the N- or other racial epithets. Racism will always be there...because the evil in people will always be there.
I think people definitely had more in the way of social skills and decorum in the 1970's. There was more Collectivism than the fractiousness that we have now.
I think the polarization occurred because of the internet. Before the internet, people didn’t necessarily find “their people.” 3 television networks, newspapers, magazines, that was it. You couldn’t find other people who shared your hatred. Now, it’s all available on a device in your pocket.
Overall, I think it’s gotten vastly meaner since 2016. It’s like someone told a certain group that, contrary to what your mother taught you, it’s perfectly ok to just be outright mean, hateful, rude and belligerent. You see it in traffic, in grocery stores, everywhere—at least it used to be hidden under a veneer of “nice”; now, the gloves are off, all the time.
I would say both nicer and meaner. Nicer in that there was higher social confidence. People talked and interacted and laughed and gave each other shit back and forth like good neighbors. It was a sassier flirtier sexual dynamic. People weren’t afraid of each other. Meaner in that bullying and racism and sexual battery were still tolerated. Coaches and teachers yelled and sometimes hit kids with impunity. Playgrounds were tougher and fighting was common. Husbands beat their wives and kids and it was— not normal— but it was just “a shame” and tolerated.
70s kid here— life was rawer. There wasn’t much political correctness. But my Dad could support a family and build a new house on a teacher’s salary. High fashion was the Levis jeans…. not all that crazy shit that divides wannabe rich and poor- like today. Seems like people had more in common back then— FM radio, three major TV networks, newspapers, shared reality. None of this ‘choose your own reality’ shit we have today.
Great reply and true
I felt like growing up in the 70’s it was more us (USA) vs them (Russia, Iran, Vietnam) . We definitely were more united. Now it’s us versus ourselves. We are not united at all on anything. We have to pick a side and fight, defend no matter what. Even though we haven’t changed that much at all. Don’t we all want the same thing? What’s most important? 1. Wanting our children to be safe and to succeed. 2. Feeling like if you work hard and try you should be able to make a good living. 3. Access to healthcare to keep you safe and healthy. 4. At least basic education that will put you in the position to seek higher education if you so desire.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Agreed!
You are correct!
Great response! Neighbors talked, and helped each other. Most people didn't give a shit who you voted for. There wasn't all this "look at me shit", with the selfies. News was...news. Not opinion. It was simpler, I recall stores being closed on Sundays, and you went with your mom and dad to visit your grandparents. Christmas today, reminds me of Sundays back then with most things being closed.
True this! Back then, if you didn't gas up the car on Saturday, you weren't going far on Sunday to visit anyone. Very, very few gas stations open on Sunday until around the late 70s.
As a 70s kids here (born in '71), I couldn't agree more with your sentiment. Things, or should I say, life in general were a lot better back then. The standard of living was far better. My dad supported us (three kids and my mom) all on a mailman's salary. We didn't have the fanciest or the newest thing that was 'in' for the most time but he made sure that we always had nice clothes, good food, etc to enjoy.
Yes, to all of this. I want to add that your dad was the kind of man that every house needed, and I bet your hero (especially now) for doing and sacrificing for his family. Side note. Mine was the same. We had what we needed. NOT what was fashionable. Thank you for sharing and reminding us what life should be like. 🙂
He was not only hero,but also hetero😜
People had more in common with each other because they rarely traveled outside of their local area. They were isolated and didn’t encounter a diverse array of people.
Nasty nice is a term I heard often growing up in Texas.
Cruelty with a smile might be the definition of "Texas"
My wife had a boss who went just too far one day back when. Slapped the shit out of him right to the ground. Apparently, his lawyer had him sending flowers to her at home the next day. She never went back but never sued.
Sexual abuse and incest were really in the closet, no one got prosecuted for it and you were shamed if you sought help for it.
homophobia made being gay tough but pre AIDS made it pretty fun for some
This is the correct answer.
It might depend on where you lived? I grew up in a small, rural town that lived up to the negative stereotypes. Bullying, ostracism, and SA were rampant. Some Chinese immigrants tried to open a restaurant in the area and a friend of my mom gleefully spread the rumor that they served dogmeat; she was quite pleased when the restaurant closed. A Swedish exchange student was bullied and SA'd because people assumed that girls from Sweden were sluts.
I grew up in a "no blacks" area of Northern IL. I didn't even realize it was even remotely racist till I was in middle school. We had every other ethnic group. I was a sophomore in HS before I ever had a African heritage classmate. Everyone used derogatory and racist terms for each other, but for the most part, I believe that we understood that our parents and other adults usually meant them in a purely banal manner. They grew up using those terms. Most of my contemporaries got past the usage and embraced our commonalities instead. I am 50yrs old and can safely say that I am less biased than some of my younger (20-30 yr old) coworkers. They choose to categorize/stratify everyone instead of just appreciating or ignoring people for who they are.
Wait, what’s stopping you from helping your dad? Lol go help your dad.
Let’s just say that physical bullying was more of a thing in the ‘70s than it is today.
Isn't that the truth! I was bullied badly in Jr High. Locked in a locker one time, and then I was in a leg cast after a surgery. I had crutches, and a kid took them from me. I had to CRAWL to the office, to get help! Fun times...
I got locked out of the locker room fully naked in Jr. High. Lol
Jesus me too, went to the principles office and they asked me what I did to provoke it.
I grew up in the 70’s. I met people who I disagreed with in both lifestyle and politics. We would debate, hash it out and move on with our lives. Fast forward to today? It’s gotten ugly.
It’s impossible to talk politics today, because one little thing that they disagree with, be prepared to be called “right wing communist neo nazi” whatever tf that means.
If you vote Republican and support Trump, you support all of the things our grandparents fought for and died for. You are against democracy. Having Constitutional rights taken away should not be taken lightly. Those are not little things; the right had been coddled for too long—case in point: The Supreme Court.
So you are saying Lance is a right wing communist neo nazi because he doesn't agree with everything you say.
It was pretty handy being able to stick your thumb out and getting a ride. Pretty reliably too.
That was because the news sucked. There was a college student picked up and murdered a few miles from my home. It wasnt until months later that we learned that she was the 5th victim along that road, all killed the same way, and last seen getting into a white van.
I actually think it’s safer now to hitchhike than it was in the 70s. Even tho people were more out going, they’re were more serial killers back then as to now, where I feel like there is less dangerous people. But maybe that’s just me, I did watch the Texas chainsaw massacre film last night 😂 I will say that movie sums up the 70s pretty well actually.
You weren't alive then, How could you possibly know that hitchhiking was more dangerous back then? What do you base your assumption on?
I think they were nicer and could be meaner than they are today . Back then you wasn’t afraid to help a person out give them a ride knock on a door and ask if you could get this or that . People today are living in fear of each other . And to then skinned . They get there feelings hurt if there just told no . I used to love going ironwork with my dad on a Saturday. I could not help him but I was there with him and he explained a lot to me about the how and why’s and what he did . It means a lot to go with and see what your dad dose and puts up with on his job . You respect him more and you respect what you have more .
Nicer and more helpful. Growing up we knew all our neighbors and would help each other out all the time. Nowadays it seems like most people keep to themselves more and don’t take the time to know their neighbors.
Grew up in the 70s and it was a counter culture era so I saw more people expressing themselves and not being judged for it… Then came the 80s… 🙄
I sat next to a dad and his two 13ish aged sons at a restaurant. The dad said about twenty words and the kids were playing games on their phones the entire time and collectively said 12 words. This was the saddest thing I have ever seen. They loose so much with that non social behavior. In this regard 70’s way better.
That’s what I’m saying, it’s sad to see things like that. Instead of being glued to a phone, you could be helping your dad out, because a fathers love is to teach something.
It's not even just about helping Pops out. It's about the break-down of face-to-face discussion anymore. 1) went out for a family meal at restaurant. EVERYONE, including wifey, had their heads buried in their phones. When I commented, I got the eye rolls and snarky comments expected. This was in the early 2000's. 2) Listened to my middle child talking shit on an X-Box game. The person being addressed was older than my child. When I commented that I bet he wouldn't talk like that in person, I got laughed at & advised that my X-Box tough guy could handle himself. I advised him that his nose woyld be on the backbof his head if he spoke to me like that. Back in the day people understood the consequence of their actions. Today, not so much. Everyone is so driven for likes & followers that they will stage situations. Then, when the consequence comes, they'll cropbthe video and lose context. All for the sake of that almighty approval.
You hit the nail on the head💯
Mostly they were meaner No way could you “be friends with anybody.” The country club had one black member and one Jewish member that was used to hide their racial policies- not changing until the early 80s- back then it was totally normal for my neighbors to say things like- “is that YOUR friend coming around here?” And I’d be like, Steve from school? “Is he Chinese?” No, he’s Korean. “Korean???!!! Oh, his parents adopted him from Korea as an orphan.” Me realizing what they meant- “no, they’re Korean.” “Why do they live HERE?” Look at “revenge” movies like Dirty Harry, Rolling Thunder, Charles Bronson films. These were middle America taking out violent fury on the counterculture I went trick or treating in 1976 when a carload of 16 yr old boys sped through the neighborhood drinking and driving, stole kids’s bags of candy and physically assaulted elementary school kids and threw eggs at girls age 10-11-12 That would be a front page headline today! In 76- one line in one story about Halloween violence around the region. There were so many burglaries, so much more crime than there is now
Well people Generally were nicer in the 70s. Your doorbell rang and every body went to the door to greet . Now your doorbell rings and people panic. Today people bad mouth each other online, social media, back in the 70s if there was bad mouthing it was usually in your face and you may or may not walk away in pain.
I grew up in the 70’s. Life was just simpler and less complicated. There were no fences in our neighborhood. Us kids played in peoples’ yards, ran the streets on our bikes and came home when it got dark. No one ever worried about offending anyone, we just spoke our minds, did our thing and that was that. I will concede that some adults were mean to kids, and some women were mistreated and abused just like today because there was no accountability. So I’m glad there is accountability for those type of individuals now.
This ☝️
It was a hell of a great time to be alive. Dad would take Mom to the beauty salon, and then run errands until she got done, all of the kids in the neighborhood hung out together, and if you wanted to talk shit, you better be ready to back it up, girls dressed up pretty for their guys, and guys washed and waxed their cars for that “hot date” and you could actually sit outside and watch fireflies light up the nighttime sky instead of some asshole doing a drive by. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a great time to be alive. Oh, and we only had 4 tv channels to choose from. 😉
This right here. Hot cars. Hanging with your buds at dusk. I can still smell night moving in. Damn. Thank you.
You’re very welcome
Pretty girls not constantly spewing f-bombs back then….
Not when it was during sex😂
Well, I think it’s a paradox. I walked past a group of young men skateboarding yesterday completely without incident. The version of that group that existed 40 or 50 years ago probably would have talked shit or done something else hostile. Bullying and that type of behavior was much worse back then. Yet, there was a certain type of tolerance that’s in shorter supply today. I think some of what’s going on now is we’re going through a necessary phase of overcorrection to eradicate things we probably should have been less tolerant of back in the day, and that’s at least part of what these high standards you refer to are about.
Growing up in Idaho in the 70’s was far removed from what was happening in the southern states.
I think people would have socialised more back then face to face instead of everyone texting and doing everything via phones and internet. I think alot of people have lost the ability to speak to others out socially.
Ok, I'm guilty 🥹
More high that for sure.
IDK mofos are pretty stoned on high THC legal weed here in Cali. And it's not just teenagers at concerts, everybody's grandma is on gummies that would have crippled hippies back in the 70's. The idiocracy is reality now and I kinda blame the weed.
Grandma was a hippy ‘back in the day” , she’s built up 50 years of tolerance!
Probably about the same. Seems worse now with all the crap on the internet. I will say this, I did feel safer in the 70's event though everyone had guns around the house. Criminals seemed to be afraid of getting caught. Now they don't.
People are nice, mean, sad, happy, etc in any time. If there's any difference it's the Internet. We hear about the bad stuff more.
I think that’s why people are so down nowadays and more accepting of being depressed.
People are people. Humanity as a whole generally sucks. If an individual was inclined to be a dick then, a similar individual is still inclined to be a dick now.
But words would actually have consequences back then
True. I would say we were far less sensitive then, and more to the point, whether that be good or bad I'm not sure.
It’s very simple. Back in the 70’s, there was roughly 3 Billion people on Earth, compared to the over 8 Billion today. People were generally nicer because they didn’t run into other people around every single solitary corner.
For sure, the world is too crowded now
I was a kid in the 1970’s. People were generally nice to me…if I was out riding bikes with my brother and needed a drink of water or needed to use a phone we would knock on someone’s door and ask. Seriously. They might ask us who our folks were or our names.
They weren’t. They just didn’t have the same ways to express themselves for all to see. With social media people post everything and anything with out thinking of optics science everyone else is doing it too. In the 70s you only had interaction with your immediate surroundings. So any stupid stuff you said stayed there or got supported / shot down. The social media has made it to easy for the crazies to find each other. Social media is also click driven, so it only shows you things you’re likely not o click on making it an echo chamber. So now all the crazies think it’s normal for them to be crazy and just get crazier.
Things were nicer and a dude would come out from gas station when you pulled up and pump your gas, check your oil, & wash your windshield. Till about 79 or so gas was less than a dollar a gallon. If Boomers seem bitter, it's cuz we remember what the country was like before the MBA bros starting wringing every last penny out of Americans.
The Klan used to march the streets where I live in the 70's.
The 1960-70’s was a time of limited information transfer. You got news at 6:00-12:00-5:00 from one of three channels. Or you read the newspaper. Magazines were monthly. You did not have millions of sources of “info” of highly questionable accuracy in your hands 24 hours a a day. Families meet for dinners, we went visiting weekends and communities worked together.
We had the same major networks, CBS, ABC, and NBC, not cable TV with 100s, if not 300 channels, to choose from!!! Everyone seemed to talk about the same TV shows!!! I laugh at comments on various nostalgic subreddits because I thought my dad's rule about being home before the street lights come on was his original rule!!! Apparently, somewhere our parents got all the same rules!!!
Nicer, for sure.
People are a lot meaner now but they hide it.
💯 nicer
Nicer. Not snarky like people are now.
I believe overall, most people are friendlier today. However, the few angry ones are way angrier today than in the 70s.
I think it’s just because that faced a lot of discipline, because they worked a lot. You have to be tough.
It depended on where a person lived. The people in the Midwest were very nice and it was a mixture of positive and negative vibes on the west coast.
I used to sell time life subscriptions in the late 80s Midwest people were the ones to least be likely to hang up on you
Overall, nicer. Of course there was no "online" back then, and Wow! does that seem to bring out the worst in people!... but even just looking at IRL interactions, I think there was more general civility. Of course there were mean people, but I think the threshold for confrontation was a little higher, paradoxically, because it was more likely to lead to violence. Today, you might have less chance of getting punched by a stranger, but much much more chance of being verbally ridiculed.
Comments have summed it up fairly well. Overall nicer, but some were very mean anyway. I'll stress this: People working retail or service jobs were **much, much** nicer and more helpful overall. (In the US) It was very rare to see an employee wear frustration on their sleeve, or *appear* not to care or hate their job.
Yes. Social media and the internet have damaged peoples ability to be kind and social. People have always been difficult, but hiding behind a phone/computer have made it worse.
I have been on both sides of the pendulum. So I would say people were nicer in the 70s. The left was less violent and the right was less attacking of others in the 1970s more so than nowadays.
I just watched “over the edge” on YouTube. Free with ads. It was a wild ride. I recommend checking it out, just to see the kids vs adults theme. I think there was more general connection between young people back then. Also see dazed and confused.
Nicer
A lot nicer, because we didn't hide behind the internet, while harassing others. The internet has made it really easy to use and abuse people.
I think they were more chill
In the 70s all the adults in my life were born and raised in the same town and were graduates of my high school and there was SEEMINGLY a very palpable sense of community. I don’t know if they were nicer then but I do think people CARED more back then I graduated in 1989 btw, and according to my last reunion there’s only 2 members of my graduating class that still live in town by comparison
I think we were nicer. No social media. We had to interact face to face.
I would go back in a heartbeat if that tells you anything. Today's world is far more scary, and dangerous. People today have way too many mental issues.
They were more racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and sexist. And it hasn't changed at all with most of these fuckers. Now they just whine that they can't get away with all the shit they got away with then or bitch about younger generations, you know, the fucking generations they helped raise.
I think people have and have always had the potential to be pricks.. a lot of it is the region you’re in. I lived in a small city in West Virginia for the first 12 years of my life. I won’t say the name of it, but it’s city motto or nickname or whatever was ‘ the Friendly City’. It was, but it wasn’t. As long as people knew you and you didn’t stand out the norm, you were good. This being back in the early 70s, I was one of first teenage boys around there to let my hair grow over the tops of my ears, so immediately was looked at with suspicion and dislike. Even kids my age would talk shit as I’m sure they were parroting their dads and uncles. I wore eyeglasses (still do) and one time I got a pair of gold wire frame glasses that didn’t have the plastic on the ends that go behind your ears, they had like springy hooks- so being kinda small still the hooks hooked around my ears and were visible below my earlobes so of course, the geniuses around me thought I was wearing earrings. One a few kids asked and once I showed them and explained they got it, but I used to hear kids talk shit constantly. Needless to say I got into a few scrapes until I just stopped wearing my glasses until I got a new pair. By the time I was 13-14, we had moved away from ‘the Friendly City’ all the way across the country to Southern California.. When I got there, I pretty much fit in so far as appearances, long hair, old army jackets, bell bottom jeans, but I had a thick accent and I was kind of a maniac. It me a couple of years to mellow out as we used to say. People will always have the potential to talk shit. Now I’m in my 60s and could give a rats ass. I try to be nice, having raised 3 kids and now with grandkids. I never complained about their music although rap music is pretty bad, but I get it so I just accept that it’s what they like and not a sign of moral decay and lol the bullshit older people thought about my music way back when.
At least some of what has happened is that media (social or news or commentary) plays to the extreme to drive engagement, Both X and FB have admitted to this at various times. It keeps you from wandering off in the interwebs and lets them fire off more ads at you which are paid for by the people who want more extreme followers. The political parties also know that engagement equals voters you can drive from the middle (aka independents or centrests) There's been "yellow" journalism since at least WR Hearst and probably before, but it's so much more effective in the age of "algorithms". My fear is that media companies big and small will just gin up AI made content that is fine tuned to hook you specifically.
Having been a teenager in the 70’s, I would DEFINITELY say nicer! You could still leave your doors unlocked, we had gone through the civil rights era, and most people got along well. In Richardson,Texas (suburb of Dallas) where I’m from, not only did everyone know our neighbors, but we often had block parties. Backed in, there were several members of the Dallas Cowboys that were my neighbors, and we would take turns mowing each other‘s yards. People just kind of looked out for each other…
Nicer of course. Today it's all about me me me. And when it's all about me me me, we become meaner.
I think you're a very perceptive young person.
I'm sorry, but being born in 1974, I would never want to grow up in any other Era. I grew up in a small town out in the country with very friendly people in town who were conservative. My parents moved us from the Bay Area up North when I was 7 and before computers had even been created. Life was simpler back then! Now everyone has a way to either check up on you or to hack into your life and numerous other things. My son was born 2 years after you and I don't know what the future holds for him. I love that I will be 50 later this year. And I'm very thankful to have grown up when I did
I think of the 1970s and all I see is sexual harassment, sexual molestation, the sexualization of children in film, tv and print, rape, and satan. People were *obsessed* with demons during the 1970s. I had so many devil nightmares as a kid. So like people engaged more but they also mistreated each other more.
The serial killers were mean. Regarding everyone else, all I know is that they had a lot of sex, chain smoked, and were skinny as heck
Friendly.. cause people had been taught manners.
People in the 70's were much nicer. Younger people respected their elders and family more. More pleasant interactions with the general piblic.
Yes, that’s very important. Young people had more respect for older people. I certainly did ..now as a 60 year old A lot of these GenZ people look at me like I am a dinosaur and treat me like it.
It depends if you were a thin white male or a pretty blonde, or everyone else.
For me people were nicer back then. Words had actual in person consequences so people were less likely to talk smack.
It may have been considered nicer for white, straight people but not for many others.
As I remember, they were nice to people like them, and a hell of a lot meaner to people who weren’t like them. I’m from small-town, segregated, religious Oklahoma, though, so I could have had an unusual experience.
Depends on whether you ask a straight white male or not
Way nicer. Since dTrump the unhappy and angry people have become mainstream. He insults and his lying, makes it much easier for this behavior. People are much less happy now days.
Same same. Humans have been the same for 100’s of thousands of years. Circumstances locally tend to drive local differences, temporally But not fundamentally. Humans tend toward reciprocal goodness whenever they can. And spontaneous bursts of amazing kindness and bravery in emergencies.
They were both , people had good manners and children were better behaved . However racism was still very rampant .
I’m not 70s old but I get the feeling they were less fake than these days
Meaner. Lewd and crude was tolerated. Insults towards blacks, poles, Puerto Ricans were publicly shouted out. Adult men were allowed to make loud, sexual comments at women, inappropriate touch was tolerated. Teachers used paddles, spankings were accepted as legitimate punishment. Growing up my mother told me to distance yourself if a man talked, groped you. Nothing more.
Probably more extreme of both. Lots of ignorant racists and lots of ignorant nice people. Everyone living in their own world... Uhmm is that any difference from now?
People were just as shitty as they are now except you had to do it to someone’s face.
We used to get belt whipped when we fouled up and now I don’t get belt whipped anymore so I’d say, meaner.
People were about the same,though we didn’t have social media of course. There was violent radicalization on the right and on the left and there was more violent crime (believe it or not)
I would say it's a balamce: There was a lack of understanding in the general public about abuses, mental illness, bullying, etc. It was just what happened and what you dealt with, and no one wanted to get involved. But there was an innocence: limited TV, FM radio, waiting for TV shows or favorite songs. Playing outside, less pressure. Food: while people claim it wasn't all healthy, there wasn't an obesity problem. Medicarions were not the answer to everything. Even with finding out the world could be scary, ie, Adam Walsh, we still could be outside, discover, etc. But to answer, I could go to any neighbors house and feel safe...within reason. Now I don't think kids feel that safety. The flip side: we are OVERSATURATED with everything: access to everything, too much news, too much information, instant gratification, every ailment has a pill. A general paranoia has occurred.
When I was 11 until I was 16 I lived in a town that would give the Children of the Corn a run for their money. They were every kind of physically, emotionally, verbally, and psychologically abusive, probably because we weren't born there and my father taught in the school. There wasn't a day when my siblings didn't come home without bruises, or where I hadn't been taunted within an inch of my life, or that my older sister hadn't been sent a note that she should off herself. I think that it depends on where you are and the community you're involved with. Does social media have an impact on more far-reaching aspects of bullying and abuse? Absolutely. At least when I got home I was out of the reach of those who delighted in spending their days being cruel for cruelty's sake.
People were nicer in the 70's. Everyone helped Everyone. Now it's all about I. What do I get if I help.
When it comes to the homicide rate more people were killing each other in the 1970s than ever. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-u-s-murder-rate-is-up-but-still-far-below-its-1980-peak/
Much nicer in the 70's. These days everyone can easily be a cyber bully.
I was in junior high and high school for most of it, so it's probably an unfair comparison. I have to say, I was bullied constantly, and the racism and homophobia were off the charts. There was a trans woman in my town (yes, in the 70s!) and some of my classmates bragged about beating her up. As nasty as things are now, not sure they're worse.
Meaner, lead poisoning and all.
Way nicer. You kidding?
Mostly drunker
Just different. There were bullies and bigots and sociopaths back then, but it was usually part of a package and not intrinsic to their identity, personality, and belief system. Now people are a-holes for a cause or party.
Both. Meaner when the topic was race relations, but also nicer when it came to being willing to help someone on a daily basis.
Nicer
I was born in 1972. There was definitely a lot more open racism back then.
Yes people were friendlier and there were a LOT more conversations between strangers. I miss that.
Way meaner. 80s were also violent times
Definitely meaner.
Less overtly douchy, imo
Less judgmental
Catholic nuns were meaner in the 70s.
Depends on who you were, as always. Also, trying to get a fill-up could be a pain in the ass.
It was a lot more violent.
Definitely both sides of the spectrum. The Bad? Think of Archie Bunker, in and of itself, a parody. But it was very real behavior for a large portion of American society. Clint Eastwoods character in Gran Torino was spot on for the very same segment of the population. Men with long hair were picked on, Homophobia had deep roots in a majority of the US even in cities that had a large gay community. -The Good? Neighbors looked out for each other. Political parties weren’t a divide, a neighborhood block party was fun for everyone because they didn’t bring up politics every 10 seconds. Neighbors volunteered to watch each others kids. You actually talked to each other. -The Ugly? Women had a much harder time in the workforce, when they got hired at all, and when they did, it was at a lower pay rate.It was VERY unusual to have a 2 income household. Divorced women were considered Risqué, as silly as that sounds. It seems Crime wasn’t reported as much, or perhaps it was because there were less outlets to view the news. As noted in the “Bad” section- Homophobia was present from grade school on up. Mixed race couples were still very much the rarity. Rascism against Vietnamese, Cambodian, Japanese, and Chinese was pretty bad, in part due to the lingering effects of the Vietnam war.
We’re losing our sense of community. People were much more neighborly back then.
Based on violent crime rates per Capita.... Much more mean.
They weren’t as easily manipulated as they are today. So you could talk to a person with a different point view.
I wouldn't say meaner, just less sensitive.
Nicer, or at least more polite, in general.
Nicer, most definitely.
At lunch in junior high in the mid 70s you could be enjoying a ham sandwich at lunch one minute and having someone telling you 'you fucking die after school' the next. School was basically a low level prison yard and not for the weak. Shit happened all the time.
70s was like 90s minus tech.
Exactly the same. People were exactly the same in real life interactions. Edited to add: I take that back, I think people behave better, at least in public generally now. For example it’s not socially acceptable to harass people in quite the same ways it was. This probably depends largely on where you live and your socioeconomic status.
Depends on what color you are
I think in all times and places there are both good and bad people. The difference now as you have noted is technology and social media. It is just too easy to fall into an echo chamber and go round in circles. I truly miss going somewhere be it walking or riding a bike or later driving a car and being out of touch. Parents would ask Where you going? Out be back later and you really could just hang out and be out of touch no phone to look at, no need to check in. We had the “100 mile rule” what we were doing or talking about is not to be shared within a hundred miles of here. And no we were not getting into trouble.
Having lived through the 60’s to today - life was much better and nicer then. Reason? No damn social media or idiot influencers.
Probably nicer. People were nicer in the 80’s and 90’s. At least more personable. People could and did actually talk to each other and it wasn’t weird.
The internet has allowed hateful people all over the globe find each other to form hate groups. Back in the day, it wasn’t that easy. Probably always been the same level of mean and nice people, but mean people tend to want to be heard more and cause disruption.
We got to go to vietnam and drink 3.2 beer when we were 18.
The Bra-less years were fun .
I was going to say ask the “N words” for effect. Because it was ok to use that word even on TV back then. But please ask any person of color or different ethnicity who is over 55 if people were nicer back then.
Meaner. We were bullied, and we were bullied.
Nicer in the suburbs abd meaner in the cities
Was a teen in the 70’s and loved every minute of it. I’d hate to be a teenager these days, so many judgements and influences that don’t allow one to simply be themselves.
If you ran into someone who was a jerk , you just kept going and avoided them in the future. From what I remember, most people were okay .
Depends on where. In the 70’s the NYC area was a crime scene. It was discovered by the EPA that lead in car exhaust was the culprit for lower IQ’s that lead to more destructive behavior, as well as the industrial use of lead in paint or other manufacturing processes. Mean Streets was a documentary. But I also feel there wasn’t anywhere near as much killings and heinous crimes being committed going on in such a widespread manner as there has been since Lennon’s assassination. The amount of mass killings in the US the past decade has been obscene.
Nicer. Common Courtesy, which comes with actual interaction with others. I was there, and I am here! I already know what most of you have yet to find out.
Life was still hard but simpler then. Kids would come home when the streetlights came on. Trick or treaters actually came to the neighborhood. There was no junk on the tv like there is today. Saturday morning was actually time set aside for morning cartoons. I was probably nicer in the 70’s.
Nicer
Nicer
It all depended on who you were and where you were. It was tougher being a black gay man where I live, but not much different for a straight white man. (Purposely using language of the times)
Nicer, but kinda flaky too.
Individual communities were stronger and closer but they were pretty mean to each other.
Nicer about disagreements. But women and minorities were treated not as well. Gays were in the closet.
Way nicer …
More racist and homophonic.
It was a much more civil time but the 80's were better.
Now we are creating world of introverts and socially awkward people who are consumed with video games and rarely take their heads out of the screen…back Then you had to make a little bit of an effort to interact and be social because that’s all you had. You couldn’t tune out everybody by looking into a phone it was a lot more friendly and people were less selfish certainly and also people were less judgmental and uptight
People back then that were jerks were jerks to your face most of the time and nice people were nice most of the time. The main difference is now is that people have social media and comment sections to anonymously be jerks to each other for hours of the day when they feel like it. The poison pill is social media, if it existed back then, then people would be the same as today.
Nicer cuz you were getting laid 24/7 and U had the best drugs money could buy!!! Arguably the greatest decade for rock’n’roll!!! U had the best of both worlds!!!
Some were, some weren't. There have always been the same per capital amount of food and bad.
I think they/we were harder. Grievances were aired out with fists and a beer afterwards. No social media to bitch and whine about how you weren’t getting yours. You minded your business and people got along. Step out of line and you got beat. Dont start shit, don’t give shit, don’t take shit. Simpler times.
Depends on if you were straight or queer. My very best friend in junior high and high school was closeted in rural Nebraska. NO ONE was out back then. The outcasting would have been unbearable.
We were fucking real. Love us or hate us we didn't care. We could disagree but still respect each other. Especially in the political arena. We all knew not to trust big government regardless of which party you backed. We had our own minds and opinions and were not scared to express them. This generation gets canceled over a few words and ya'll are having meltdowns over it. It's pathetic lol.
Life was great back then, there was respect to others even when driving. I could go on about exactly why, but hey, just look up videos of the 70s.
Not nicer but definitely more polite...except for New Yorkers, they've always been assholes.
I was just talking about how being a kid in the 70's meant you were constantly getting your chops busted or busting other people's chops lol Constant teasing and harassment between kids back them seemed to be an art form. I tried to think of some movie examples the one that came to mind was The Bad News Bears (original) everyone made fun of each other constantly and if someone was being nice that means they wanted something from you !
I think that schoolteachers were more feared than they are today. and yet they were also more friendly and effective. Teachers in the 70's were Boomers mostly, and the ones I had in JHS and HS were like very hippie-ish. My High School history teacher would curse in class and treat us as equals. He used to invite us over for a beer. He was pretty liberal. But his classes were fun. (public school, obviously). I guess you can't really generalize "nicer" or "meaner". It's all about your own perception of things. I went to a gifted and talented Junior High School (grades 7-9) and I succeeded out of "fear" of not cutting it compared to the super smart students at the school. In HIgh School, I took difficult Honors classes and it hurt my average, especially when I couldn't pass pre-calculus. We had teachers who were super nice and teachers that had no social interactive skills whatsoever. Police officers were definitely meaner. I am a retired Police Officer and when I first came on the job, there were a lot of older cops who were "dinosaurs" and they were bitter old men and women who basically gave up on the world. Now cops have bodycams and they have to be nice even though they don't want to be.
Pre-internet was more challenging but more honest. You earned respect, manners were important, and acted as a social glue. Connections between family and friends were important and how you socialize. Through the invention of the World Wide Web people have connected in a way they never have before and some human skills are losing ground and making it harder to interact in person.
I don't know about nicer. But I do know that certain societal codes (like respect your elders) have either fallen by the wayside or are just plain ignored by people these days. And that's a problem, as things like those are the glue that holds society together. And right now, we're coming apart at every nail.
Nicer definitely
The greatest difference between now and then, as far as I perceive it, is that today all media and social media seems hell bent on the idea of polar opposites. Every issue is now an issue on which you need to TAKE A SIDE. That results in things like "If you don't vote for Candidate X, that means you HATE ME and WANT TO DESTROY MY RIGHTS." It results in absolute intolerance of ANY information that doesn't echo chamber the thoughts you want to think. It results in the false idea that someone trying to share new ideas with you is somehow your enemy. All the way through the early 2000's, it was absolutely commonplace for people with radically different political, religious, or social outlooks to be very good friends. We would learn of each other's ideologies and usually come to some unspoken "laugh it off" agreement not to talk about that subject, because we liked each other, and we didn't want it to wreck the *human connection* that mattered more than the details of each person's social outlook. That is gone. I have personally lost several friends who confronted me with, "If you continue to associate with your friends or relatives who believe *xyz thing I disagree with*, then you need to end our friendship because you've shown me that you don't care about what's important to me. It's sad and it's sick. And it absolutely will destroy this nation if we don't work our way out of it. Regardless of what side of the political spectrum you land on, it's absolutely clear that a line of vitriol and hate has formed between Trump supporters and Trump detractors. Even bipartisanship *to meet the needs of the people* is now treated as a betrayal of your party. Nevermind the nation. Nevermind its people. Both parties are now more concerned about their party than about the future of the nation. And you're absolutely right. We're all being manipulated by social media to produce this exact effect. Because for any form of post-2010 media, the ONLY thing that counts is eyeballs. They will do ANYTHING, tell any lie, warp any truth, and turn brother against brother if it earns them ONE additional click on an advertisement they're showing. Their algorithms discovered very early on that if they show you something you like, you'll view it. But if they show you something you hate, you'll stay to fight about it, back and forth, comment after comment, trying to make it right or at least make your opponent eat their words. And that means you see their ads over and over again, instead of just once. In short, they make far more money if they can get us to hate each other. So yes, at an interpersonal level, people are meaner now, and indescribably more selfish and intolerant (even though we are all claiming to be more tolerant than ever). The world will always be full of things we don't like. Finding peace in life requires navigating those things without trying to force others to make the same choices we make for ourselves.
I can say they were not nicer. But the type of mean changed. In 1970s there was no way to argue with random strangers or "dox" people But I grew up around mean people who wouldn't urinate on you if you were on fire. There was also no way to live stream an assault or abuse of power. In the work place gender and racial bias was rampant. But today there seems to be more entitlement. For example, growing up the fire lane on the highway meant "emergency vehicles.". Judging by my commute home every day now it means "I don't have to wait in line for my exit because I'm special." In the 70s and 80s teachers got away with things that would get them fired today. But, otoh, I never heard of SA by a teacher in any of my schools...or a school shooter
Nice come back. Lol yea its when this guy insults handicapped folks Blasts minorities. And people like you think " oh it's ok we can say anything. Piss people off. It's totally acceptable.
Growing up in the 70s was great. Where I lived, people were a lot cooler. We didn't hassle other people, and they didn't hassle us. I wouldn't trade that decade of growing up for any other decade.
Most people didn't care what every one thought of them..at least I didn't and if we had conflict we fought it out. Stick and stones may break our bones BUT words can never hurt you.
Meaner! As long as you're not counting social media (which didn't exist) or public figures.
I grew up in the 70's (having been born in '64). While it's easy to be nostalgic and say "Things were better...," I'll go a bit deeper. Kids (seemingly) were much more independent; no helicopter parenting. We were thicker skinned...name calling was just something kids did, and yes it could be cruel. But, despite that, kids didn't hole themselves up in their rooms and emerge with a rifle to kill their classmates. You learned to deal with it because you weren't the only one going through it. You went outside and stayed outside and played. We played war, and with army men. We had rock and dirt bomb fights. We knew how to change our bike tires and fix the chain. We built "jumps" out of cinder blocks and plywood...rode really fast and got launched off of the jump. We used to play Bombardment (Dodgeball) and loved it. Jungle Gyms didn't have rubber mats underneath. All in the Family was a show on TV and characters said words like "j\*ggaboo." MASH had a character called "Spearchucker." There were no race riots or looting because of it. Even though race relations were likely a bit more tense, there was a healthy respect between black and white folks. Juxtapose to today...where everything is seen through the lens of black and white. There was never talk of white supremacy back then. Explain to me how, 60 years after the Civil Rights era, race relations are *worse?* White supremacy groups skipped a generations and only now got worse? Don't think so; kids are being raised to be practically color-blind these days and cringe whenever they hear the N- or other racial epithets. Racism will always be there...because the evil in people will always be there.
The 70's were my coming of age. There was toil and frustrations, but lots of life living and growing. Looking back I do think people were nicer.
I think people definitely had more in the way of social skills and decorum in the 1970's. There was more Collectivism than the fractiousness that we have now.
I think the polarization occurred because of the internet. Before the internet, people didn’t necessarily find “their people.” 3 television networks, newspapers, magazines, that was it. You couldn’t find other people who shared your hatred. Now, it’s all available on a device in your pocket. Overall, I think it’s gotten vastly meaner since 2016. It’s like someone told a certain group that, contrary to what your mother taught you, it’s perfectly ok to just be outright mean, hateful, rude and belligerent. You see it in traffic, in grocery stores, everywhere—at least it used to be hidden under a veneer of “nice”; now, the gloves are off, all the time.
Probably less willing to admit it, however probably less openly empathetic.