7 Things That Quietly Went Away Without Anyone Noticing

Have you ever been in a situation where something disappeared before anyone realized it was even gone? We've all heard about the grand sendoffs and lengthy goodbyes for huge milestones, but what about those quiet moments that quietly slipped away without us noticing them? You know, some things come and go without anyone seeing—yet these things can be so revolutionary, leaving a long-lasting impact. We may not recognize them for what they are at the moment, but once they are not around anymore, we all feel something is missing.

In this blog post, we'll take a trip down memory lane to look at some patterns and traditions that didn't get much attention and were quickly forgotten.

1. Richard Simmons

Mr. Milton Teagle “Richard” Simmons is an eccentric, flamboyant, and enthusiastic fitness celebrity and public figure. He has advocated weight-loss regimens, most notably through his Sweatin' to the Oldies fitness video series.

One Redditor posted, “There is a whole podcast about this—missing Richard Simmons, I believe it's called.” Another user responded, “I came to say the same thing because it's like he disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Sweating to the oldies! I remember those commercials!” one added.

2. Acid Rain

A user posted, “Acid Rain. It was a huge environmental issue in the late 70s thru the early 90s. Rain was acidic and damaged fertile areas, among other things.

“In the US, there was much research done, and eventually, industrial regulations were put into place. Companies were allowed to decide what approach they chose to take as long as the results showed the appropriate amount of reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions. Unfortunately, positive news doesn't sell, so news outlets did not do justice to reporting this success. As a result, as we went into the 2000s, hardly anyone remembered what was done.”

“And the ozone layer was repairing!” a user added.

3. Staticky TVs

A user shared, “When you turn off the TV, how the image would shrink to a dot before slowly fading away.” “And then when you run your finger on the screen and hear the crackle and feel the static on the glass.”, replied one user.

“Ooooh, good memory.”, exclaimed one user.

4 Facebook Poke Wars

One user posted, “Facebook poke wars.” Some one added, “My crush and I used to poke each other all the time 😭”

Another user commented, “My first relationship of length grew out of pokes.”

5. Waterbeds

A Redditor posted, “Used to have one. Nothing like forgetting to turn on the heater an hour before bed in the middle of winter.”

“Wait… I had a waterbed from roughly age 11-18, and I never knew they could have a heater. I was just cold,” another user replied.

A third commenter added, “I'm so hot and sweaty when I sleep. I miss the cold of the waterbed. But I do not miss being drunk trying to sleep on one.”

6. Yo-yos

We undeniably could relate to the original poster, when he shared, “yo-yos, they were all the rage back in my school as a kid, and they just disappeared overnight. Nobody even noticed it was just a fad that died.” Another Redditor responded, “They'll be back. Unfortunately, the popularity of yo-yos goes up and down.” And honestly, that's an excellent pun to describe the popularity of yo-yos.

Another commenter confirmed, “I work nights at a hotel. Some guy actually showed up at my window twirling a yo-yo just last week, and it definitely stood out as something I hadn't seen in a while.”

7 SoBe

SoBe (stylized as SoBe) is a PepsiCo brand of teas, fruit juice blends, and enhanced water products.

One user shared, “SoBe.” Another commenter shared, “…what the h*ll!? This is the answer. I haven't seen SoBe in years, now that I think about it!”

“You know, I think the last time I had one was at a Quizno's. X-Files Music.”, a user responded.

One user also shared, “SoBe had two deaths: the glass -> plastic change when they axed the 3g dragon tea, and when it went away entirely.”

For you, what is hard to forget? Check out more of it here!