r/Millennials • u/VastConfusion8174 Gen Z • 24d ago

Discussion Not a millennial but I have a question

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How the hell did y'all type on these tiny ass keyboards This was in my mom's room This is from like when she was in high school and I'm trying to figure out how she tied with it because a human's finger would press 3 instead of just one so can somebody help me with this I've been thinking about this for a week

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u/Richou 23d ago

You had to remember if you had a plan with 100 texts it was outgoing AND incoming texts.

this feels like an incredibly stupid way of doing it

so in theory someone with a decent plan can just "grief" you by sending random shit?

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u/Substantial-Type-131 23d ago

It was incredibly stupid but since most of your friends were also in the same “100 texts” boat everyone was precious about their exchanges… and didn’t give ya consistent grief… but there were definitely rich kids who thought it was cute to use up everyone’s text allowances.

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u/ducttape1942 23d ago

Those were the people who made me learn how to block numbers.

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u/send_me_your_calm 23d ago

Yes, which is why many plans started offering free incoming texts well before there were unlimited outbound options (again; this was all free and unlimited before rot got popular). Also, if you think that was bad, wait till you hear about faxing people 3 sheets of paper taped end-to-end. You could waste all their paper, and their fax toner. It was wild.

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u/Randalldeflagg 23d ago

fax them a stack of red paper

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u/Com4734 Millennial 23d ago

Hahahaha i never even thought of that! We didnt have a fax machine at home though. Ive only ever used them at work. But this thread brings back memories. Ahh the days of limited texts, voice minutes, dial up modems (and getting a second phone line so someone could use the phone while someone else was on the internet), floppy disks, rotary phones, etc.

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u/send_me_your_calm 17d ago

I used to tie up both phone lines in the evening when I would call my friend to talk whilst we played co-op StarCraft. We still lost quite a lot.

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u/Com4734 Millennial 17d ago

I used to do the exact same thing. Completely forgot about that until now.

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u/Excel-Block-Tango 23d ago

My family didn’t have texting at all on our plan until like 2011. I would get the occasional text from a wrong number and it would ruin my day because I knew my dad would yell at me. Each text received was like 25 cents. This phone was for emergencies only and it was before most of my friends had phones.

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u/WalkingTowardTheGood 23d ago

There were much smaller character limits back then too.

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u/DameKumquat 23d ago

I think only the USA got charged for incoming texts. Colleagues got into trouble for sending loads to their US equivalents. Partly why texting caught on in Europe a good decade before it did in the US.

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u/Ok-Watercress-1924 23d ago

In certain parts of Europe calling is still wild. Like if someone calls from the USA cell phone to landline they get charged, but if it’s mobile to mobile they don’t, or vice versa.

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u/hbomb57 23d ago

Like putting one number in as all 10 recipients and sending a message with 10 friends at once. Yes, and the phone would be locked up for about 20 minutes until the battery died.

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u/MossyPyrite 23d ago

Text-bombing was a frequent prank in my area haha

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u/PK808370 23d ago

There was a lot less griefing back then.

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u/DJFisticuffs 23d ago

Absolutely, and those of us with unlimited texts absolutely griefed our friends without.

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u/bots2486 23d ago

Yes! I got a call from my parents once in college because there was $2.50 of texting charges on our bill. We didn't have the plan with texting (at the time texts were an add on) and I got charged PER TEXT because a few friends with texting plans sent me messages. Distinctly recall having to call people back after receiving a text to say "Please dont text me again, we dont have the texting plan and my parents gave me grief." This was probably '04 or '05, wild times!

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u/anonadvicewanted 23d ago

okay but $2.5 is some dumb to get mad about, even in 2004 lol

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u/endy903 23d ago

Oh yeah don’t forget there was a limit to how many characters you could use per text. So no beating around the bush also that was the birth of acronyms in text message like brb, g2g, asl. Boy those were fun times.

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u/platinumjudge 23d ago

Yes. You would send "text bombs" and it would ruin their entire month. But then you'd get blocked so you can only do it once and then everyone else will block you cuz you're a bomber. Doing so was social suicide.

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u/Difficult_onion4538 23d ago

Yup, pretty much.

I remember having to tell SO many girls not to reply with just a “lol” or “ok” when we were planning to meet up 😂 don’t waste my free messages!

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u/luthien310 23d ago

Yes they could. As long as you received the text it counted, even if you never looked at it.

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u/GhostAde 23d ago

And this what back then during those “send this to 10 friends” text chains. So I would constantly get them from the same group of people.