In our house, we have about 2,856,937.4 DVDs. That’s a rough estimate. I am a collector of old movies, and they just seem to proliferate (even though there is a finite number of old movies in existence.)
But recently, I saw an online meme saying that you are officially old if you have ever used anything out of a certain list of technologies, and one of those was DVDs.
Am I crazy, or can you still buy DVDs in stores and on Amazon? So how does owning or buying a DVD make me old?
I’m not saying I’m NOT old, just that using a DVD seems to me a rather arbitrary measure — and an inaccurate one, too.
I know streaming services have outpaced the previous technology, but it’s not like my shelves are stocked with stone tablets and papyrus scrolls. And I don’t go to the Edison Nickelodeon on Saturday nights, or sit home looking at the pyramids on stereopticon cards, either!
There were other items on the list which also seemed to me rather suspect. Flip phones, for example. Flip phones were a common technology into the early 2000s. I know this because I remember losing one in a snow drift in about 2004, which somehow didn’t reappear when the thaw came. This means they could have been used by, say, a 25-year-old. Since when has 25 become part of the geriatric set?
MP3 Players, pagers and PlayStations were on the list, too. All 1990s original technology. So now, if you’re 35, you’re old.
You’d think we were living in the 17th century, when most folks barely lived long enough to boil a 3-minute egg. If the bubonic plague or smallpox could lay you out before you were old enough to be bar mitzvahed, I guess 35 made you nearly Methuselah.
But nowadays, when a good part of the American population has a reasonable expectation of reaching retirement age still relatively intact (unless they keep raising the retirement age) it seems a bit much to call folks old just because they can remember life before the World Wide Web (1989.)
If you’ve ever been to a drive-in movie or listened to the radio, opines this delusional list-maker, then you are a senior citizen. But in 1995, there were 848 drive-in theaters still operating in the U.S., and even as of 2020, there were still 549 — so it’s not impossible to go to a drive-in, even today. And I realize it’s been a long while since I’ve bought a new car, but I think even today, most cars still come equipped with radios.
Have you ever driven a stick shift? Worn blue jeans? Watched “Friends” or “Cheers”? Then, sister, you’d better start shopping for a burial plot!
Ever heard of Whitney Houston or Meg Ryan? Boy, are YOU over the hill! And if you saw Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” in its first release, it’s amazing you’re still up and about and able to take on nourishment!
Can you identify Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Carol Burnett, Sydney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn or Lena Horne? That must be your joints I hear creaking …
Do you know how to operate a record player? Did you take a stack of LPs with you to college, along with a hot pot for boiling water? Did you have to get off the sofa to change the TV channel — and for that matter, do you still WATCH TV? Holy cow, are YOU a dinosaur!
I realize life changes at lightning speed nowadays, but come on!
If 40 is now elderly, I guess we Boomers are positively ancient. I was born during the second Eisenhower administration, and I used rotary phones back when the operator had to dial long distance for you.
We drank milk out of glass bottles delivered to the front porch. We weren’t allowed to pump our own gasoline, Silly Putty was new, and bucket seats were only in sports cars. Overhead projectors in classrooms were a big deal. Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers came along after I was no longer the target demographic, and I never saw Schoolhouse Rock till I watched it on VHS (even older than DVDs) with my own kids.
But I still walk 5-7 miles a day without a walker, and I’m writing this column using voice data on my Samsung Galaxy, so don’t tell me I’m old!
I realize by next week this technology will be obsolete, but I won’t be. I’ll tackle whatever the latest gadgets are that come along, and I will triumph! And I refuse to give up my DVDs — or my LPs, for that matter. They may crackle and pop as much as I do — but they still deliver quality!