Was it fascinating? Did it feel like the amazing future? Were you all too aware of the mounting cost relative to what you were actually doing?

  • MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    Culture in general was much more monolithic

    That’s interesting - I didn’t experience the advent of the internet like that, probably because I’m from a fairly multicultural background and travelled at lot at that time. I lived near DC for a few months in 1976 and went on a three-week road trip around California in 1990 and did notice how isolated from the rest of the world Americans in general seemed, especially outside the big cities. I was a real novelty, exotic even, and I’m a white cis het woman. Just with a funny accent, from a country they’d never heard of.

    • connect@programming.devOP
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      5 months ago

      I grew up in the rural US, and my family was acquainted with a family who lived in a neighboring state and had a summer home nearby.

      They were so exotic, yes. Just looking at a car with a plate from a different state was a novelty. I wish I’d been bold enough to talk with them myself, but then again my mother probably would have discouraged it.

      When I was first working, my officemate was from that state, and I was kind of impressed that he’d made the globe-trotting jet-setting move of coming to a whole other state. (No, I’d never been to another state myself at the time.)