windchimeghost | Entries tagged with nostalgia

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: 'Red Letter Day' by Newsong

Anyone who knows me knows I love virtual pets. I fell in love with them back in the 90s, and I’m still avidly collecting them and playing with them even now.

One of my fondest summer vacation memories happened back in July of 1997. I was armed with mad money, and I set out to have fun and buy some new treasures. On my excursion to the stores, I came across this strange new device I’d never seen before. (I think it was at Toys R Us, but I'm not sure.) It was a cute little rounded game device attached to a keychain, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand (or in your pocket). It had a screen and buttons, and it said you could take care of it like a real pet. Naturally, I was curious. So I got it. It was at that moment that my first ever virtual pet came home with me in the form of the Nano Kitty. I was hooked for life the second I pulled out the battery tab and activated it. It became addictive, and I had to have more of them. The Dinkie Dino was my second one. I was intrigued by how many different ones were available and all of them being different in some way. There were Giga Pets, Tamagotchis, Nano Pets, and dozens of off brand ones that you could find in practically every store, with more of them popping up every week as the fad became more fevered. Tamagotchis were the hardest to find since stores couldn’t keep them in stock. It was much later after that when I finally obtained my first Tama. Seems like my parents might have gotten it for me for either birthday or Christmas or something. But I’m not sure.

At the time, the technology and device itself was new and just getting started. I feel like I had a hand in setting the trend in my area, because I was the first of my friends to own one. Friends I had at church were fascinated by my Nano Kitty and asked me a lot of questions about it. Then eventually, they started getting their own. One friend in particular that I had at that time of my life started collecting them like I was doing. Every week when we met at church, we would pull out this ridiculously huge wad of virtual pets and sit out in the foyer and talk about them and care for them together and show each other the newest ones we got. She had some I didn’t and vice versa. It started out with a couple, then before we both knew it, we had a huge wad each that we carried with us. I swear to high heavens you could have probably swung it around and knocked someone down with it. Haha! Now that I look back on it, I have NO earthly idea how we managed to properly care for that many at once. lol! I feel like I took such poor care of mine back then.

But virtual pets are such a beloved nostalgic thing for me that I have a lot of great memories connected to. Such an innocent, carefree time of my life that I wish I could go back and experience again.

I still have every single one of my childhood virtual pets.

NO technology we have today can ever compare to these little watch game devices, imo. They rule forever.

Current Mood: annoyed

Am I the only one who hates the 'new' Internet? And finds it less than impressive and even frustrating. I remember a time, not too long ago, when the Internet was a wondrous place where you could go on at any time and find practically anything you desired, whether it be information or images or backgrounds or animated gifs or whatever. You name it, you could find it if it existed. All you had to do was type whatever in the search box on your browser and boom! Dozens of websites would be brought up that would instantly take you to where you could find what you were looking for. And it was quick to find it usually, unless it was something rare that you had to spend a little time digging for. It was always fun browsing through the many different sites available and picking out the best ones. And don't forget fan sites! Those were always fun to peruse. Fans always made the best sites about their favorite fandoms and had the best information out there. You could spend hours just looking through the amount of stuff.

Now, whenever you type in something, it's insanely hard to find answers or find images or find whatever about anything. All the search manages to do is bring up a bunch of useless sites and pages that, sometimes, aren't even related to what you searched for. Or you end up with a ton of advertising junk. If you DO manage to find what you're looking for, chances are there's very little info there that's either vague or feels halfway written. Not nearly enough to tell you what you need to know. (This is especially frustrating when you're doing research for writing.) Or you have to pay a fee to access it or use it or download it. I don't even see the amount of backgrounds and wallpapers and images as I used to that were usually free to use. Now, everyone wants money for them. Or they've removed them entirely for whatever reason. Or they've suddenly become overly protective of their stuff and won't allow anyone to use it anymore.

If you want answers to anything nowadays, you basically have to fall back on YouTube vids, which can be time consuming to sit down and watch, especially if you're in a hurry. Or you have to search for it on large collected sites like Wikipedia (which isn't always accurate and doesn't offer alternatives to cross check information). Pinterest is the best place to find images these days, because Google and other search engines are somewhat pointless and don't bring up nearly as good of a selection. Fan sites have turned into Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook groups, and other social media platforms that a lot of people don't care to join and are trying to move away from because the atmospheres have grown toxic and vile and the algorithms are changing. Because it's really not possible and practical to just build and own a fan site anymore like it was in the good old days.

Changes to the Internet in more recent years have taken something away from us. The Internet as a whole feels less personal and feels more mainstream and watered down. I literally hate browsing for anything anymore because it always becomes highly frustrating to me because I very rarely find what I'm looking for. I can't begin to count the number of times I've wished I could have the old Internet back.

I'm really glad to see some blogging sites have survived and still exist. It's a little bit of nostalgia that's hung around and hasn't changed much.

Current Mood: hopeful

Okaaaaaay. I’m really not sure what I’m doing anymore, tbh. 😅 I just signed up and got a new blog over on LiveJournal last week. Then I found myself getting an account here on Dreamwidth this week. And already I think I prefer Dreamwidth more. Hrrrm. Good thing I haven’t posted much on LJ.

So yeah. Anyways. Haha! I’ll use both blogs throughout this year and see which one I find myself gravitating toward the most. And that one will be my main one, I guess? I already feel like this one will be my main one. Mostly because I like Dreamwidth’s policies and high support of free expression and such. Censorship is one thing I’m trying to get away from right now as far as social media goes. Which is why I’m distancing myself from social media as much as possible right now. There are other reasons why I no longer care to be on social media, but this is at the top of the list.

I also like Dreamwidth more already because it looks and feels more active and up-to-date when I do searches for fellow bloggers and communities. Hoping to meet some new friends on here in the future!

To be honest. I didn't know Dreamwidth was even still going. A friend of mine told me it was still around, so I looked it up. I remember this place from waaaaaaay back a long time ago! Yikes! 😬 Glad to see it's stood the test of time and is still going strong!

Below is the first post I uploaded on my LiveJournal the other day, explaining my recent decision to get back into blogging in 2023. Cross-posted it to here:

~ ~ ~

Gracious. It’s been SO long since I last did any blogging. I feel a bit rusty! 😅 Since I'm starting out with a new account, I do feel like I need to do a proper introduction for those who don't personally know me. But I'll do that at a later time through future posts. Right now, I'm just trying to get this new blog started so I can feel like I'm headed in some kind of direction with it.

I’ve been doing a lot of changes in my life since the new year started. In my ongoing effort to distance myself from the cesspool of social media, I feel like I’ve come full circle. I started out blogging and I’ve come back to blogging. Let’s face it. There’s just something about having a blog that’s ten times better than social media. It’s like I was telling my cousins. Blogs feel like that little quiet, quaint, out-of-the-way coffee shop and bookstore while social media is Walmart. Social media is okay in short, quick trips, but you hang out at the coffee shop because it’s quiet and easygoing and has books to read.

I guess it’s mostly because I’m a writer and an introvert. I like putting thought and substance into what I write and post. I like thinking hard about random things and posting it in one long post on a blog more so than social media. Social media, to me, feels like small talk. Blogs feel like you’re writing a short story or an entry in a real diary or journal. A blog forces you to think about what you write ahead of time and forces you to be creative with it instead of just quickly posting snippets of what you’re doing at that moment like you're documenting every aspect of your life, including the boring parts no one cares about.

Lately, I’ve felt burned out on social media in general, with the exception of Instagram. (Instagram is the unique one out of the group that’s good for creating art and photo galleries.) And my reasons vary and make a full list. In short, I feel like social media as a whole has deviated away from what it was originally intended to be: another type of blog. It’s something that started off good in the beginning when it was still new to all of us but mobile devices and such have made it too mainstream and too ‘loud’, so to speak. On top of this, it’s become an unhealthy addiction with so many people. They’ve got to constantly see what everyone’s doing and saying and posting. They’ve got to constantly be in on the gossip and news, even if it’s none of their business. Politics, news, drama, gossip, advertisements. This is basically what social media has grown into in recent years. In the process, it’s become anti-social. Because no one really cares about carrying on a decent conversation with others anymore. It’s quicker to just hit the ‘like’ button and move on. Or if you do manage to strike up a conversation with someone, it always results in them getting offended by something you say. So everyone has pretty much grown silent and sticks to their own little corner of Facebook or Twitter or whatever platform it is.

Don't get me wrong. Social media still has its good qualities, too, underneath. Being able to connect with friends and family you wouldn't otherwise be connected to on one platform is probably the only good quality social media has left. Because nowadays it's difficult to keep in touch with some people (family members especially) outside of social media since no one wants to e-mail anymore, or has time to. Someplace like Facebook does make keeping in touch a lot easier and quicker, especially when most of your family is spread out all over the country or outside of the country.

But, I'm tired of social media. I've quickly become part of the crowd who's decided I no longer need it dominating my life. I need a break. So that's why I'm back on LiveJournal, starting out fresh with a new account. I need a place to empty my thoughts that's away from the hussle and bussle of social media. I feel like I'm a different person now than I was. I've grown. I've matured. I've experienced a lot of things in life since I last had a blog. I'm excited to see where this all leads this year. Hoping I can keep it up and going better than I used to. I've always loved blogging, but I've also always been bad at keeping a blog active. I always tend to get busy with other things and forget about it. Ulp. 😣 Maybe that won't happen this time.

So, anyway. Here's to a new year of blogging! 🥳

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Entries tagged with nostalgia

Virtual Pet Memories

Old vs New Internet

Giving This Blogging Thing Another Go in 2023

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June 2024

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