Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evolving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
I found this cool Youtube channel that uploads various home movies from years past, showing what society was like at the time.
This one, for instance, shows people shopping at a mall in 1983.
Amazing how much more civilized everything seemed.
We must return.
There's a lot of great videos on various channels of what life was like in decades past. This one has videos of all different decades and eras.
https://m.youtube.com/@TheHistoryLounge/videos
Having lived some if them, and having parents and grandparents that lived the others, I love watching these sort of videos!
80s FTW. Best decade hands down!
My favourite: Playing with friends in an Arcade
The early 90s arcade scene was pretty fun. Ten years after the 1982 video above, there were some pretty impressive lines to knock off the reigning champ in games like Street Fighter II, especially in places like the boardwalk arcades in Ocean City.
90s dance music > 80s dance music, but…
80s new wave > 90s alternative
There was some improvement and some decline as the 80s turned into the 90s, but the worst overall thing was the mainstreaming of hip hop culture. I admit I was into it too when I was a kid, but looking back only some of it was any good and most of it was crap.
It seemed like a higher percentage of people, especially black people, were cool and normal before they were pressured by hip hop propaganda to be monolithic in their style and political stance. How many black people now middle age or younger even know about BB King, Charley Pride, The Four Tops, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, etc? The young people feel like if they’re not into the same hip hop as their peers, they’re not black.
Plus we’ve had over thirty years now of dorks thinking they’re being cute by parroting gangstas.
Oh HECK no!
70's, last best decade!
No digital stuff, all hands on.