"They're Nowhere To Be Found Now": 25 Common Things From Back In The Day That Silently Disappeared Without Anyone Noticing (2024)

As a true '90s kid, nothing beat listening to NSYNC on my HitClips and recording the radio to set the ringtone on my indestructible flip phone. But sometimes, it feels like I just woke up one day, had a Spotify subscription, and refused to take my phone off silent.

Looks like I'm not the only one who feels like everything suddenly changed overnight. When redditor u/isawillmakeyouhappy asked the r/AskReddit community, "What disappeared silently and nobody noticed?" people jumped on the nostalgia train to remind us all of the common things from our past we likely forgot about. Here's what they had to say:

1. "Those shoes with the little wheels in them."

2. "Pay phones."

—u/[deleted]

"In a lot of rural areas, they’ve been converted into free lending libraries/book swaps. And there’s a phone box in Yorkshire that was converted into the world's smallest museum."

—u/Pyrometrix

3. "Missing people on milk containers."

4. "Paid lunches. The term '9 to 5' used to mean eight hours, including lunch. Now most jobs are 9 to 6 with no paid lunch, but people still use the term 9 to 5."

—u/pokemonandgenshin

5. "Ringtones."

6. "Picture-in-picture as a television feature. You don't hear about that anymore."

—u/Colonelfudgenustard

7. "The prizes in cereal boxes."

8. "3D TVs and to a lesser extent, 3D in cinemas. For a while, so many movies in the cinema had a 3D option. Many were not even shot with stereoscopic cameras, they just had their regular frames reprocessed digitally for the 3D effect. 3D TVs were the next 'logical step' in bringing this same effect to the living room. But it turns out that something that works in an environment where you sit still in a fixed spot doesn't work as well in an environment where you look at the screen from all kinds of angles and directions throughout a single viewing."

—u/Rannasha

9. "Kids playing outside. I grew up playing outside, and I just don't see that anymore..."

10. "Freestanding newspaper stands."

—u/Nurse_Gringo

11. "AOL messenger (and ICQ). I used to love having people pop in and message me on these apps. ICQ was great because it allowed for people on AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc. to communicate. Sad that it just disappeared. I met so many great people."

12. "So much in games: cheat codes, unlockable cosmetics, and downloadable content that isn't just a veiled micro-transaction."

—u/Kuma9194

13. "Bugs, especially on the car windshield. I'm somewhat horrified thinking about how much bug juice was on the car's windshield and grill when I was a kid, but today my own vehicle is very clean."

14. "Voiceovers in movie trailers. For some reason, I can't think of when exactly they died out. I just remember that they were a thing, and then they weren't."

—u/Sugarbear23

15. "VCR tape rewinders."

16. "Lifetime licenses — everything is a subscription now."

—u/needforspeed5000

17. "Play places at fast food establishments. There aren’t that many that still have them."

18. "Long distance phone companies and their ubiquitous advertising."

—u/res21171

19. "CD players. I have a rather large collection of CDs, and I had to search for a car that could play them. Same with CD players in computers."

20. "Layaway plans, which I’m sure was due to the rise in credit cards, but still."

—u/banana_fana_1234

21. "Pagers. I remember thinking, 'Who's going to page you at school, and how are you going to call them back?'"

22. "Mechanical credit card machines that took an imprint then you had to sign."

—u/optoph

23. "Garage sales and a local newspaper that lists where they are. There was a time I furnished half my house and filled my kitchen from garage sales."

24. "Does anyone remember the coin-operated horses outside of grocery stores? I suddenly realized they're nowhere to be found now."

—u/Wow3332

25. "Cigarette lighters/ashtrays in cars."

Is there anything else you can think of that just slowly disappeared on us over the years? Tell us about it in the comments!

Note: Responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.