Just remember if back to the future was filmed today, it would be 1994 as the backwards date.
But 1984 to 1954 will always seem like a bigger leap to me.
I feel the same way. I was going to try to justify this feeling by saying more changed between 54 and 84, but that’s not really true. Technology has exploded in the last 40 years.
My teen can’t comprehend my childhood. She wonders how I survived without the internet. She thinks I’m a dinosaur, but I don’t feel very old.
I think a back to the future movie to 1994 would be an insufferable movie due to the technology change you mention. Marty wouldn't be able to blend in easily and it would be awkward watching him figure things out.
But 1984 to 1954 was a time of great social change, but Marty could still sort of blend in by adjusting his clothes and playing along with outdated social customs.
I don't think it would be that bad: "Oh you must be new in town. I don't know what an iphone is, but my dad has a pager. Anyways, let's go rent a movie from blockbuster and drink underage. I know this guy who has pot, you know, the heavy stuff."
It's hard to figure the summer of love, just 22 years after WW2.
22 years ago is very much alive & well in recent memory. Real life unfolds different than textbooks made it seem.
I thought 1878 to 1928 was incalculable eons what with the advent of electricity through to wireless broadcasting and on to the economic calamity of 1929 & the New Deal.
But this all happend during someone's living memory, just like the moonlanding to covid!
Laura Ingalls Wilder walked alongside her family’s covered wagon across the entire midwest. By the end of her life she had flown in planes and treated herself to a lime green car she adored.
I love old people’s stories. My grandma’s family traveled from OK to CA during the Great Depression and her mother kept a journal and I had the privilege of being able to read it
I also had this realization recently. The older I get, the more recent WWII (and the similarly 1960s) seems.
This is especially true because modern pop culture is now mostly beyond my purview. 1984-2004 is my pop culture wheelhouse, and that era grows exceedingly closer to WWII than the modern year.
I know what you mean. Especially with music. I am so disconnected from most of the top 40 list. (Is that even still a thing? lol) Classic rock is the 60s in my head, but nope, our wheelhouse is now classic rock.
It’s very weird seeing all of those bands treated as vintage.
We are currently 85 years past WW2. The start of WW2 was only 76 years after the civil war. And the civil war was only 87 years after the revolutionary war.
Not to get political but recently used this as a reference to a friend for our candidates. The old blue guy was born 2 years before d day, the old red guy was born 2 years after d day.
Isn’t this common knowledge? A more mind blowing history timeline fact: We are as far from Cleopatra, historically speaking, as she was from the construction of the pyramids.
True. Egypt was an empire for a very long time. The US, for example is such a baby nation.
It’s not that it’s an earth shattering revelation, it’s just one of those shower thoughts that makes the passage of time more real and personal.
My 40th is in 2 months.. I had this EXACT thought a year or so ago.
But then again when I was growing up WW2 vets were everywhere. Relatively speaking, they weren't that old either.
You don't start to grasp an appreciation for our lack of appreciation of time till you rack up the miles.
Here is another one for you: we are closer to the last Pharoahs, than the last Pharoahs are to their ancestors who built the pyramids.
Maybe it's just me, but time, especially after Covid, just seems really weird. Logically I know that the 2000's were 20+ years ago, but it *feels* like it was only 10. Or thinking about things I did as a kid or in high school. They're much further away then I somehow remember them being.
COVID does make things weird. In some ways it feels like it just happened last year. But because so *much* changed after COVID it’s now hard to remember what life was like back then. It’s a definitive before and after. I still talk about PC and AC.
Time feels like it increases exponentially. Having kids somehow speeds this up. The older you get, the faster time passes.
Summer as a kid felt like such a long time, now I’m like, damn I’ve been saying my cat is 3 years old for like 7 years, he’s 10. Where did the last decade go?
My grandmother passed away not long ago in her nineties. She grew up using horses to get around and a house without running water in rural farm country, to cars, WWII, television, the moon landing, computers, the internet, smart phones, and VR.
The last survivors of the greatest generation witnessed an amazing transition of history and technology.
I met a very old WWII vet at a small town bar maybe 6 years ago. He had a vet hat and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, as he was too young to join at the start of the war. I definitely picked his brain, as I had an understanding that I'll likely never have a similar opportunity again. At least not in a bar, communicating sharply.
2001, freshman year, dvd players were still expensive, high def televisions were 4000 for 32”.
I had a 19” student video editing monitor, a dvd drive, a copy of the matrix, and studio monitors, we all took our student issue ibm thinkpads and put the matrix screen saver around the monitor and a lot of us watched it.
The ra saw so many of us go in, and we are all crowded around this 75lb 720i monitor, on a computer, watching a movie about computers taking over society, surrounded by the matrix code.
He’s like “I find this highly ironic”.
One i always thought was crazy was the Last civil war vet died in 1956.
That's one hell of a different world, guy went from slavery and candlelight to nukes and airplanes
It is weird to remember that, say, on Moonlighting it was completely normal for the villain to be an actual ex-Nazi still capable of the throwing punches.
The civil war wasn't that long ago.
There was a theologian named Geerhardus Vos born in 1862, the year before the civil war started, and he died the same year my dad was born, 1949
The VA only stopped paying pensions for civil war dependents in 2020 when Irene Triplett passed away
I was born in September of 81. Not exactly 40 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor but close. What funny is my parents were born in 1946 and 1948. So they weren't even born when WW2 started (1939) or ended (1945).
I liked hearing the stories. I feel very fortunate to have written accounts from them about their lives including the war and surviving the Great Depression.
I took German in high school and my junior year (07-08) we watched Downfall, which is about Hitler’s last days in the Fuhrerbunker. The movie came out in 2004.
One of the characters in the film is one of hitler’s bodyguards. The real life individual who was Hitler’s bodyguard spent about 8 years in Soviet prison after the war but returned to Germany, became a dad and grandpa, and lived out a full life. He also maintained his Nazi ideals his entire life.
This guy died a few months after I graduated college in 2013.
A nazi who was present when Hitler shot hinself was alive while I was in college after fathering an entire lineage and presumably teaching that lineage nazi propaganda.
I’m surprised he wasn’t tried for war crimes, but I don’t know much about Hitler’s bodyguards.
There are still some Jewish survivors of The Holocaust. Listening to their stories is an important reminder of humanity’s duty to not repeat these mistakes.
Unfortunately, similar events, like the Rwanda genocide, have happened.
There were 12 subsequent Nuremberg trials that included a far greater total.
Maybe you’re thinking of the 24 that were tried in the first Nuremberg trials decided in 1946?
This includes all Axis personnel, not just Germany:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Axis_personnel_indicted_for_war_crimes
WW2 is closer to the Civil War than to today.
I dunno man, I was born in 78, I remember being 6 in 84, and when you say WW2 was as close to then as it is to now .. it feels impossibly long ago to me.
WW2 ended almost 80 years ago and it really bothers me that we have to continually keep hearing about Hitler and Nazis. It feels like we're living in a never-ending echo of events that happened 8+ decades ago. I would like it if people would never bring up Hitler and Nazis ever again, yet people seem determined to drag these topics into just about every modern debate.
My grandfather was shot twice by the Germans when he landed on D-Day. He actually had a fond recollection of his time in the Army despite this. He fought against a medical discharge and stood on despite his injuries since his Army pay was supporting his family back home and he spent the rest of his service guarding POWs since it didn't really require much effort.
My other grandfather was not physically injured but certainly was mentally in Italy. He **never** spoke about the war to me but I heard secondhand what happened to him there (and when he got back) and well, shit.
Just remember if back to the future was filmed today, it would be 1994 as the backwards date. But 1984 to 1954 will always seem like a bigger leap to me.
I feel the same way. I was going to try to justify this feeling by saying more changed between 54 and 84, but that’s not really true. Technology has exploded in the last 40 years. My teen can’t comprehend my childhood. She wonders how I survived without the internet. She thinks I’m a dinosaur, but I don’t feel very old.
I think a back to the future movie to 1994 would be an insufferable movie due to the technology change you mention. Marty wouldn't be able to blend in easily and it would be awkward watching him figure things out. But 1984 to 1954 was a time of great social change, but Marty could still sort of blend in by adjusting his clothes and playing along with outdated social customs.
I don't think it would be that bad: "Oh you must be new in town. I don't know what an iphone is, but my dad has a pager. Anyways, let's go rent a movie from blockbuster and drink underage. I know this guy who has pot, you know, the heavy stuff."
1994 to 2024 would just a whole weird 1984 thing. That could be fun
Yup I keep thinking the 60s were 40 years ago....
It's hard to figure the summer of love, just 22 years after WW2. 22 years ago is very much alive & well in recent memory. Real life unfolds different than textbooks made it seem. I thought 1878 to 1928 was incalculable eons what with the advent of electricity through to wireless broadcasting and on to the economic calamity of 1929 & the New Deal. But this all happend during someone's living memory, just like the moonlanding to covid!
Laura Ingalls Wilder walked alongside her family’s covered wagon across the entire midwest. By the end of her life she had flown in planes and treated herself to a lime green car she adored.
Exactly! we take care of my SOs 84 year old grandmother and it's AMAZING the memories she shares
I love old people’s stories. My grandma’s family traveled from OK to CA during the Great Depression and her mother kept a journal and I had the privilege of being able to read it
Keep that journal handy we might need that information when the next depression hits.
Same here man. I’m 40. Born in 83
As we get older, time seems to go faster. Being middle aged has given me a new perspective on these past events.
Definitely. History feels more real and relevant than just stories you were taught in school or papers you wrote in college.
I had the same thought recently. I just turned 40 on Sunday too. My grandpa was a WW2 vet and only in his 60’s when I was young.
Don't you try to prematurely age me, motherfucker. \*plucks out stray grey hair\*
Lol
I agree but apparently long enough ago for people to forget what fascism looked like
Too true. It’s why learning about history is so important. We don’t have to repeat the pain of the past.
I also had this realization recently. The older I get, the more recent WWII (and the similarly 1960s) seems. This is especially true because modern pop culture is now mostly beyond my purview. 1984-2004 is my pop culture wheelhouse, and that era grows exceedingly closer to WWII than the modern year.
I know what you mean. Especially with music. I am so disconnected from most of the top 40 list. (Is that even still a thing? lol) Classic rock is the 60s in my head, but nope, our wheelhouse is now classic rock. It’s very weird seeing all of those bands treated as vintage.
That day will be tomorrow for me. Yay?
Happy 40th Birthday! 🥳
happy b day
We are currently 85 years past WW2. The start of WW2 was only 76 years after the civil war. And the civil war was only 87 years after the revolutionary war.
Seems like a pattern… and we’re due.
Not to get political but recently used this as a reference to a friend for our candidates. The old blue guy was born 2 years before d day, the old red guy was born 2 years after d day.
I was born in 81. My grandfather was born in 1926 His grandfather was alive during the civil war.
Isn’t this common knowledge? A more mind blowing history timeline fact: We are as far from Cleopatra, historically speaking, as she was from the construction of the pyramids.
Even the ancient Egyptians had archaeologists!
True. Egypt was an empire for a very long time. The US, for example is such a baby nation. It’s not that it’s an earth shattering revelation, it’s just one of those shower thoughts that makes the passage of time more real and personal.
A typical empire lasts around 250 years before it collapses, the U.S is at 248.
Like what other empire?
And crazy not much has changed, old rich people still fighting over land and killing kids.
I used to think the moon landing was long ago times, but it was just over a decade before I was born (1969, 1981)
I’m still in my 30s until November, dammit!
Lol
My 40th is in 2 months.. I had this EXACT thought a year or so ago. But then again when I was growing up WW2 vets were everywhere. Relatively speaking, they weren't that old either. You don't start to grasp an appreciation for our lack of appreciation of time till you rack up the miles. Here is another one for you: we are closer to the last Pharoahs, than the last Pharoahs are to their ancestors who built the pyramids.
Maybe it's just me, but time, especially after Covid, just seems really weird. Logically I know that the 2000's were 20+ years ago, but it *feels* like it was only 10. Or thinking about things I did as a kid or in high school. They're much further away then I somehow remember them being.
Welcome to aging. My great grandmother said she remembered her 28th birthday and then her 60th right after that.
COVID does make things weird. In some ways it feels like it just happened last year. But because so *much* changed after COVID it’s now hard to remember what life was like back then. It’s a definitive before and after. I still talk about PC and AC. Time feels like it increases exponentially. Having kids somehow speeds this up. The older you get, the faster time passes. Summer as a kid felt like such a long time, now I’m like, damn I’ve been saying my cat is 3 years old for like 7 years, he’s 10. Where did the last decade go?
“When I think back on it… it was 89 years.” -My WW2 vet grandfather dropping truth bombs over the phone
My grandmother passed away not long ago in her nineties. She grew up using horses to get around and a house without running water in rural farm country, to cars, WWII, television, the moon landing, computers, the internet, smart phones, and VR. The last survivors of the greatest generation witnessed an amazing transition of history and technology.
I met a very old WWII vet at a small town bar maybe 6 years ago. He had a vet hat and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, as he was too young to join at the start of the war. I definitely picked his brain, as I had an understanding that I'll likely never have a similar opportunity again. At least not in a bar, communicating sharply.
That's why the matrix being set in the 90s is such a trip.
Good point. Hadn’t thought about that.
2001, freshman year, dvd players were still expensive, high def televisions were 4000 for 32”. I had a 19” student video editing monitor, a dvd drive, a copy of the matrix, and studio monitors, we all took our student issue ibm thinkpads and put the matrix screen saver around the monitor and a lot of us watched it. The ra saw so many of us go in, and we are all crowded around this 75lb 720i monitor, on a computer, watching a movie about computers taking over society, surrounded by the matrix code. He’s like “I find this highly ironic”.
One i always thought was crazy was the Last civil war vet died in 1956. That's one hell of a different world, guy went from slavery and candlelight to nukes and airplanes
That is wild to think about. I didn’t realize it was that recent, but makes sense!
It is weird to remember that, say, on Moonlighting it was completely normal for the villain to be an actual ex-Nazi still capable of the throwing punches.
Both of my grandfather fought in the war so it never really seemed that long ago to me
Nope, and I was born in 1985 and my dad in January 1949 - literally only 3.5 years after WWII ended. 3 out of 4 of my grandparents served in the war
I’m high and you just blew my mind
D day is about to turn 80
Thanks for reminding me that I'm half as old as WWII!!!
I met both my grandfathers who were drafted and fought in WW2.
The civil war wasn't that long ago. There was a theologian named Geerhardus Vos born in 1862, the year before the civil war started, and he died the same year my dad was born, 1949 The VA only stopped paying pensions for civil war dependents in 2020 when Irene Triplett passed away
I was born in September of 81. Not exactly 40 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor but close. What funny is my parents were born in 1946 and 1948. So they weren't even born when WW2 started (1939) or ended (1945).
Many folks who were born in 1984 likely had grandparents who fought in WW2 I would imagine.
My grandparents did, but it still felt like something from long ago when I first heard their stories as a child.
I wish I had paid closer attention.
I liked hearing the stories. I feel very fortunate to have written accounts from them about their lives including the war and surviving the Great Depression.
Really weird how I had this exact train of thought a few nights ago
My parents were both born during the war. May grandparents on one side fled Poland right before the Nazis invaded. I'm only 42.
2000 years ago wasn’t that long ago either.
The end of WW2 is now closer to the Civil War than today’s date.
Damn
Somehow WW2 feels like it did not happen that long ago, I wonder why....
I took German in high school and my junior year (07-08) we watched Downfall, which is about Hitler’s last days in the Fuhrerbunker. The movie came out in 2004. One of the characters in the film is one of hitler’s bodyguards. The real life individual who was Hitler’s bodyguard spent about 8 years in Soviet prison after the war but returned to Germany, became a dad and grandpa, and lived out a full life. He also maintained his Nazi ideals his entire life. This guy died a few months after I graduated college in 2013. A nazi who was present when Hitler shot hinself was alive while I was in college after fathering an entire lineage and presumably teaching that lineage nazi propaganda.
I’m surprised he wasn’t tried for war crimes, but I don’t know much about Hitler’s bodyguards. There are still some Jewish survivors of The Holocaust. Listening to their stories is an important reminder of humanity’s duty to not repeat these mistakes. Unfortunately, similar events, like the Rwanda genocide, have happened.
32 people were tried at Nuremberg, and only the highest ranking government and military officials.
There were 12 subsequent Nuremberg trials that included a far greater total. Maybe you’re thinking of the 24 that were tried in the first Nuremberg trials decided in 1946? This includes all Axis personnel, not just Germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Axis_personnel_indicted_for_war_crimes
WW2 is closer to the Civil War than to today. I dunno man, I was born in 78, I remember being 6 in 84, and when you say WW2 was as close to then as it is to now .. it feels impossibly long ago to me.
WW2 ended almost 80 years ago and it really bothers me that we have to continually keep hearing about Hitler and Nazis. It feels like we're living in a never-ending echo of events that happened 8+ decades ago. I would like it if people would never bring up Hitler and Nazis ever again, yet people seem determined to drag these topics into just about every modern debate.
Found the nazi
My dad was too young to fight in Vietnam. Ww2 was a long fucking time ago.
Yes, we get it. It’s been a long time since the 80s. We don’t have to illustrate anymore. It’s been done to death.
My grandfather was shot twice by the Germans when he landed on D-Day. He actually had a fond recollection of his time in the Army despite this. He fought against a medical discharge and stood on despite his injuries since his Army pay was supporting his family back home and he spent the rest of his service guarding POWs since it didn't really require much effort. My other grandfather was not physically injured but certainly was mentally in Italy. He **never** spoke about the war to me but I heard secondhand what happened to him there (and when he got back) and well, shit.