On this, the day of my triumphant escape from my mother’s womb, I’ve decided to mellow out a bit on the ranting, and share a thought with y’all. Nothing wild or earth shattering, just something to consider.

I’m 24 today, and I remember.

I remember gasoline that was less than two dollars, and children’s toys being purchased for children, instead of internet resale. I remember modems, for heaven’s sake, and landlines that you had to plug them into.

I remember Windows 3.5, 95, NT, 98, ME, 2000, and XP. I know what MS-DOS is, and remember a bit of how to navigate with it. I remember pagers, cell phones the size of wallets that only made phone calls and computer games that used the IBM system messages for sound effects and soundtrack.

I remember my parents having to rent a VCR from Blockbuster because they were too expensive. Heck, I remember VHS and cassette tapes as viable audio and video formats. I remember my older sister sitting next to a stereo as big as she was and making mix tapes by recording songs on the radio. I remember the time before the 80s and 90s were wayback tracks on the radio.

I remember whole television series coming and going. I remember when Sesame Street had a cast and a plot, instead of being song and dance breaks that filled time on the Elmo show. I remember when non-model CGI was new and exciting, and just starting to look realistic. I remember when kids cartoons could tell real stories that actually engaged a child, instead of a weekly rehash of bumbling a lá whatever flavor of stupid Disney’s pushing this week.

I remember MySpace. Oh lord, MySpace, and the way it changed first teenage communication, then world communication. I remember when someone coined “blogosphere” and the strange new information environment it described.

I’m young, and I’ve got a lot of doing to be about, but…

The world is a very different place than the one I started with. Every day of my life, it’s gotten faster, more advanced. I’m writing this on a cloud server that anyone in my office can access from anywhere, without ever bothering to hand over anything physical. The server is hosted by a company that came out of nowhere and changed everything.

And sitting in front of the computer on my desk is a phone that is also a camera, gaming console, instant messenger, internet portal, scientific calculator, radio and functioning computer. And the only reason it’s not more than that is cause I can be arsed with buying hardware add-ons.

Is it better? Maybe in some ways. In others worse, in some the same.

But it is different, it has changed, and I’ve been here for nearly two and a half decades. So yeah, I’m young. But to those who are older than I: If I, or someone my age, stops and sighs, and says “you remember when…?” please don’t cut us off to tell us how much bigger the changes have been in your three or four or more decades.

Cause I remember a lot. And it’s been a while. And the world changes a little more and a little faster every day.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this blog are the opinions of Jeremy Cloud and do not reflect the opinions or views of any other Pioneer employees.

To contact Jeremy Cloud, email editor@occc.edu.