Before The Internet: 71 Gen X Memes About Growing Up Offline

Waiting two weeks to get photos developed, using a pen to fix an unspooled cassette tape, or waiting hours for the radio to play your favorite song — these memories will instantly take any Gen Xer back to a wildly analog childhood. While memes didn’t exist at all when they were growing up, today, this specific brand of internet humor perfectly captures what it felt like growing up in the 70s and 80s. Take a look at these viral jokes that show how an entire generation navigated a low-tech, unsupervised world, and how they are coping now.