These Obsolete Skills Still Live Rent-Free in Our Brain

Wanna feel old? (Or older than you already did?) People online are sharing all the quirky, now-useless skills they still remember… and if you were born before apps were a thing, chances are you’ve got a few of these stored in your mental attic.

Here’s a nostalgic list of obsolete talents many of us haven’t used in decades, but could still pull off in our sleep:

1. Programming a VCR
   If you could make it stop blinking 12:00, you were basically the family tech support.
2. Dubbing tapes with two VCRs
   Including the sacred ritual of removing the plastic tab so no one taped over Spaceballs.
3. Rewinding a cassette with a pencil
4. Loading and developing 35mm film
5. Driving stick
   Still potentially useful if you find a car from the ‘90s or a luxury European rental.
6. Using a Thomas Guide
   You had to read a map using Battleship-like grids.
7. Making a mixtape
   From radio. In real time. With perfect timing.
8. Covering school books with paper bags
   Sharpie doodles were encouraged.
9. Running MS-DOS programs
10. Memorizing phone numbers
    Jenny’s number (867-5309) lives rent-free in our heads forever.
11. Customizing Winamp skins
12. Using carbon paper
    The OG “copy and paste.”
13. Folding a roadmap
    Or more accurately: trying, failing, and then “making it work.”
14. Pinning a cloth diaper
    And doing it without poking a baby. Legend status.
15. Making a weed pipe out of a Coke can
    You didn’t learn that in shop class, but maybe you should’ve.

Whether you’re laughing, cringing, or feeling weirdly proud, these skills are little time capsules of life before everything got smart, touch-enabled, and stored in the cloud.