Whatever Happened To... - 21 Things That Just Kind Of Disappeared

Check out this list of people who shared the somewhat subtle changes and quiet vanishing of things that wound end up being mostly ignored.

By Nathan Johnson

Published 1 year ago in Feels

Time changes all things, and waits for no one. Over the years as new technology appears, new forms of entertainment, and traditional values and practices change.

Check out this list of people who shared the somewhat subtle changes and quiet vanishing of things that wound end up being mostly ignored.

1
The outrage over net neutrality and the implications it would have.

2
Murder hornets. They showed up, everyone went "Yeah that's about par for the course", then they disappeared without a trace.

3
Lobster tanks in grocery stores! Not that I particularly want them back, but those are nostalgic af.
4
Actual Human Beings answering phones at businesses, call centers, etc.

5
3D Televisions and all the hype that surrounded them initially.
6
Privacy in your daily life.
7
Toys in cereal boxes.

8
CD/DVD drives in laptops.
9
Critical thinking. As Benjamin Franklin said: "People will believe everything they read on the internet."
10
Somewhere along the way 9-5 turned into 8-5.

11
Acid rain. Huge win for environmental action. Identified a problem, raised awareness, and implemented solutions that have mitigated most of the harm.
12
Attention spans.
13
Being able to buy software products etc without needing a “monthly” subscription for everything.

14
Having many Family photographs in homes. Not completely gone, but homes used to be plastered in them. The only times I really notice them is in homes of older people.
15
Good value for price at restaurants. Restaurants have quietly reduced portion sizes since COVID without restoring them. Noodles and Company (along with many others) advertise large portions like pre-pandemic but only give to-go sizes even when dining in. All for a higher price.
16
Livable wages. Ten years ago. You could work a min wage job maybe a couple bucks more and still afford a 1 bedroom apartment while living a pretty chill life. My goal as a kid was simple. Make 60K a year and get a nice little apartment. Have savings and live happy. Here I am making 80k a year and renting a room that costs as much as a full apartment used to cost. Paying for a tank of gas that used to cost me almost half as much. Paying for food for a week that costs as much as my mom used to get on food stamps for the whole month. Everyone accepts this now a days as life. I’m over here still hoping some huge market crash happens and everything “resets” to an OK economy.

17
Ronald McDonald. You remember the old clown everywhere in and around McDonald's commercials and stores? Gone. Phased out when that "clown scare" prank trend was going around.
18
Longevity in careers has largely gone away. People used to get a job and after being there for decades reap the benefits of being seasoned employees (higher salaries and better perks).
19
I never see swarms of Monarch butterflies anymore.

20
Our need to know who our neighbors are. I listened to a podcast about human interaction recently and the host said that the internet slowly made it possible to live without knowing who the people are next door.It used to be that we would hang out with people in our street or attend dinners, birthdays, and whatnot. Now, everyone seems to have no need to even so much as introduce themselves.The only time we do get to know each other is if we have a complaint.
21
A common pop culture (in the US, at least). Until at least the 80s, most people watched the same TV show, saw the same movies, listened to the same music, could recite the same commercial slogans or jingles, bought into the same fads.I don't know when it happened, but now we are all siloed into highly specific subcultures.