SCARE today’s always-online teens witless with these spooky stories about the days before smartphones, Netflix, and Deliveroo:
You had to pick up your takeaway… YOURSELF
In the terrordome of the past, food didn’t come to you at the push of a button. There wasn’t even a button to push! You had to physically walk and pick up your food, joining a queue behind half your f**king town, with only three-day old copies of the Daily Star to read.
There was one shared computer… in the LOUNGE
Imagine surfing the internet in the same room as your parents. Whatever you clicked on being exposed to them any time they get up to make a cup of tea. All opportunities to chat to friends or expand your adolescent horizons ruined in a surveillance hellscape like Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, but in 2003.
There were only FIVE TV channels
Close your eyes and imagine the blood-curdling fate of true boredom, where there was no Netflix, Amazon, Disney, or Sky. The only entertainment came from one chunky but crappy screen with fewer options than even Britbox. And at midnight… they SHUT DOWN.
If you missed it, it was gone… FOREVER
When there was something to watch, you lived in fear. Fail to exercise military levels of bladder control or allow a sibling to slip in and take control of the TV before you, and a crucial episode was lost and you’d never know what happened for the rest of your life.
You had to queue up to cash… a CHEQUE
Cashpoints? No such thing. Banks? Closed at 4pm on weekdays. If you needed money? You’d join the snaking queue to write a cheque and be charged a percentage of your own funds just to have cash in your hands to buy goods. And cash was literally the only currency they took.
Appliances used to come without… PLUGS
Bought a new stereo, television or fridge? Then you’ll be wiring up that plug on your own, and if you’re not a skilled electrician you could destroy your expensive new item and fuse the lights for the whole street. Or electrocute yourself. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
