It is fascinating to look back and see just how drastically accepted norms of the past can now seem absurd in our modern age, how the things we used to respect are now the stuff of jokes. Like brands who’ve let their quality slide, or institutions that just aren’t necessary but still cling to all their pomp and glory. Let’s take a walk down memory lane—our friends on Reddit have chimed in about many of the things we laugh at now that we once loved.
1. Ubisoft and Blizzard
One user said, “Ubisoft and Blizzard.”
Another user added, “EA, too, but you have to go a lot further back to find when they were respected.”
One user asked, “NHL 94?”
Another commenter answered, “Their sports games were great up until like 2008. I also remember when seeing ‘EA BIG’ on PS2 meant a game was gonna be a banger, SSX, Freekstyle, NBA Street, those games were awesome.”
Another added, “I see a pattern in companies like this. Phase 1: Build up a reputation at the cost of profits…. They exchanged short-term profits for building a reputation. Phase 2: After building up your reputation, sell the company to a bigger company for maximum profit. Now the bigger company has to make up for all that money they spent with quick cash.
“Phase 3: The bigger company cashes in the original company’s reputation for profit. This is where we’re at with Ubisoft and Blizzard. Why spend millions making a highly polished game when you can spend significantly less for a game that customers will pay highly polished game prices for because that’s what they’ve come to expect from you?
“Yes, they’re losing the reputation they built up, but building and maintaining a high reputation is a high-cost high, reward business model, which puts them on par ‘money into profits out’ wise with so-so games making so-so profits. By cashing in their reputation, they can live the low-cost high profits dream until their reputation finally dries up.”
2. Privacy
One user shared, “Privacy. I know you’re allowed to film pretty much everything, everywhere, all the time, but do y’all really need to?”
Another added, “I see more and more people walking around with body cams.”
One user also responded, “Another reason I still wear a mask out in public still.”
One user also added, “Yeah, I don’t care about Covid; I just want to be left alone.”
“The internet can be a wonderful place, but the amount of [danger to children] I’ve seen (mostly secondhand through YouTubers like MamaMax and Nick Crowley) is staggering and frightening. I don’t know what I’m going to do about internet restrictions when I have kids because my parents tried to keep me safe, and I easily found ways to put myself in a ton of danger without realizing I was doing so (as any young girl on 2013 Tumblr would),” said one user.
Another also added, “The day my friend sent me my 9 and 7-year-old niece’s TikTok of them doing the WAP dance in short shorts and sports bra on a public account was the day I about ended my sister’s mothering days. She didn’t care about it! ‘Yeah, I saw them filming it; she doesn’t have hardly any followers, it’s fine.’ …
Luckily, once I pointed this out to their dad, he [deleted] the account. It’s been 2 years, and they have one now, but their dad monitors it heavily, and it’s private. I still don’t like it because they learned the dance from somewhere, y’know!!! But it’s better than nothing, I guess.”
3. Working as a Teacher
One Redditor posted, “Working in a school.”
Another added, “Soon to be a former teacher, this one absolutely rings true in my experience. I will have only been in it for 3 years; I have no idea how anyone in their right mind would make a career out of it considering the current state of education.”
One user also commented, “My mom spent forty years teaching elementary school. She said if her first five years had been like her last five, she never would have stayed in the field.”
Another added, “One of my kids has a teacher that is currently attempting to survive their first year of teaching. My kid (young elementary) lost an important paper, so I messaged the teacher telling them my kid lost it and asked if they would be willing to send a new paper with my kid or a picture of the paper to me. The teacher lost it on me. Went on a rant about how they did everything they were supposed to and a bunch of other, similar stuff.
All I could think was, ‘Oh man, what have the other parents been doing to you?!’ I feel bad for the teachers. That outburst didn’t come from nowhere. I wish people would be nice.”
One user commented, “Dad was a public school teacher for 18 years in a major district. In the 90’s, he loved teaching, he was the kind of teacher who was strict, but kids picked up on his love for the game and gravitated to him. By 2007 when he left, he realized he couldn’t be that kind of teacher; he was just strict.
“What happened? Large emphasis on standardized testing and budgeting degraded his freedom in the classroom. Budget cuts also dropped attendance, and dean of discipline to him in addition to his classroom teaching. With so much work and a tight curriculum, he needed to adhere to, he wasn’t the fun, personable teacher. He was burnt out, counting the years left as a teacher…”
One user also shared sympathy, “I feel so horrible for all my teachers (besides my history teacher, who I am terrified of); they’re some of the best people I’ve met. I don’t understand how they aren’t all quiet. Most people in my classes are so horrible to them.”
3. Journalism
One user commented, “Journalism. There’s a reason we call it ‘The Media’ and not ‘The News’. The goal is no longer to inform but to entertain.”
Another added, “It really is difficult to find a solution to the lack of real journalism. We got here because people would rather be entertained or enraged than informed.”
“Correct. And I don’t like the idea of state-run media because that’s called propaganda. There’s not really a good solution except to hope people are better than they have proven to be. However, I do think the post telecommunications act (96?) has been bad. It allowed far too much consolidation. We need trust-busting back. Something like 90% of media is owned by 6 companies,” confirmed one user.
4. The Academy Awards
One Redditor shared, “The Academy Awards! I used to stay up late to watch the end & was so invested in the outcome!! For the past few years, I haven’t seen a single one of the nominated movies and feel so ‘meh’ about the whole thing.”
Another user added, “I still kinda like the ‘In Memoriam…’ montage of stars we lost last year.”
Another added, “I think the Academy Awards and the Grammys are in the same boat. People have woken up to the fact that the awards are rigged, and who wants to watch that? It’s a shame really.”
One added, “It’s a private party for ‘celebrities’ to praise each other. We are not invited.”
5. Being a US President
One user said, “Being US President.”
Another user replied, “I’ll add being a Supreme Court Judge.”
One commenter added, “I think this also extends to public office in general.”
6. Rudy Giuliani
One online user added, “Rudy Giuliani.”
Another replied, “That was my first thought too… He went from ‘America’s mayor’ to a complete bumbling laughing stock to ‘Jesus… Please… Someone put him out of his misery,’ with such efficiency that it almost seemed planned.”
One user responded, “He could’ve coasted on his 9/11 fame, giving a few well-paid speeches every now and then and comfortably riding off into the sunset. Instead, he went full village idiot.”
Another commenter added, “I vividly remember the SNL opening after 9/11 with him and Lorne Michaels in front of a bunch of first responders. After a speech about rebuilding and moving on and getting on with our lives, Lorne turned to him and asked, very seriously, ‘But can we be funny?’
“His response: ‘Why start now?’ I don’t know who wrote that joke, but it was instant therapy for everyone watching. It was the right line at the right time. It pains me now that the guy who delivered it is now that village idiot.”
“He could have had bridges and schools named after him. I heard there is a bridge in New York that was renovated and to be renamed Mario Cuomo bridge. But now they’re rethinking it; poor guy wasn’t even the one to screw up. His kids ruined it for him,” one user replied.
7. Lance Armstrong
One user shared, ”Lance Armstrong.”
One replied, “True, but I don’t think they should have taken away his title for first man on the moon.”
Another added, “The trumpet player went to the moon?”
One answered, “If he had admitted to using steroids after the first accusation, I think people would have been a lot more forgiving. It’s the [things] he did to his accusers that makes him a [terrible] human.”
8. Kevin Spacey
One user shared, “Kevin Spacey.”
Another user added, “He was accused of [assaulting and taking advantage of] a bunch of teen boys and, in response, his public apology was to bravely ‘come out as a gay man’ via tweet.”
Another replied, “Was he convicted or just accused? Didn’t know about that.”
One added, “Looks like he won the case from the first accuser because they couldn’t provide proof, but he’s still got trials ahead and >30 more accusers.”
One user defended the actor and stated, “He is a great actor, singer, and impressionist. I don’t think he has ever been found guilty of anything he’s been accused of.”
Another user argued, “This is [just naive]. O.J. was also found ‘not guilty’. Trump has never been convicted (26 [abuse/assault] allegations). For years, Weinstein was accused by many, but not charged. Same with Bill Cosby. Why don’t we stop pretending that the justice system is 100% fair and always gets its man. The rich & powerful play by a different set of rules, and when you have dozens of people saying you’re an [abuser], then… I mean, you feel free to employ Spacey in a film if you want. Or have him take your teen sons to an amusement park for the day.”
One user responded, “I really hope he didn’t do any of that… He’s one of my favorite actors, but if he did do it then I hope justice is served.”
9. A Lawyer’s Profession
One user shared, “The profession of lawyer.”
Another commented, “The fact people’s freedom and justice is directly related with how much you can afford probably doesn’t help.”
One responded, “It’s because ‘The Law’ and ‘Justice’ are not synonyms, and people are bitter about it.”
One user also shared, “I don’t live in a common law country, but it also seems to me like the laws in many common law countries have been bent to a shape that they do not look like laws or justice. It is not a system that people understand. It is so un-understandable that it is almost like magic. My wife watched a legal commentator with a man who represented himself in an American court. The legal commentator would often say that the man was using specific words in a specific way almost like he thought it was spells and it was kind of silly.
“Later in the court case the legal commentator was yelling at the judge because the judge told the man the word he was looking for, because the man needed to use that precise word for the court to do something specific. So apparently, man needed to use specific words because the court system works a bit like magic. It was just the words he had used before did not hold the power he thought they did.”
10. Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos
One of the Redditors posted, “Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos.”
Another added, “Her voice thing was really… strange.”
One commented, “I’ve heard clips where her voice sounded more high-pitched and ‘normal,’ but I’m still not sure what her real voice is. I know the theory is that she made her voice deeper to stand out and be taken more seriously but I just don’t know.”
Another also answered, “Complete sociopath.”
One user stated, “Anybody who passed high school biology should have had questions about what she claimed to be able to do, and when she never could back it up then it quickly becomes an obvious con. It was the kind of thing that if you really had figured out, it would have been amazing for science, not for the profit.”
11. The Royal Family
One user commented, “The Royal Family.”
Another responded, “The Royal family hasn’t been respected in decades. The Queen was respected, but not the rest.”
One user added, “There is more than one royal family in the world. The concept of it actually seems to become less respected in many countries over time, which is no wonder, especially because scandals cannot be covered up nowadays and many people realize that the nobles do not represent a higher ideal but are just as flawed as the rest of the world only with a bit more jewels and palaces.”
A commenter from Denmark shared, “Here in Denmark, the royal family is supported by 75%—80%. Depending a bit on the definition and when asked. Their popularity has pretty much only grown since the 1920’s. But then again, I am not sure that they ever represented a higher ideal.”
“I don’t really know anything about the Danish royal family, except that there are sometimes quarrels between the two brothers and sisters-in-law, but the queen is likable and had an interesting marriage. When I wrote this commentary, I was thinking more about Spain, and even from Sweden, I hear criticism of the royal family from time to time, although they have a sympathetic heir to the throne in Victoria. I think many people nowadays question the usefulness of a royal house more quickly in case of problems than in the times of my grandparents, where nobles were idealized more,” another replied.
Source: Reddit.
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