Nina KalininaMar 8

Every now and then I reminisce about pre-Internet. And it is kind of fun to think about it!

When I was a kid, my parents' place used wood and coal for heating; a couple of times I even helped with stocking up coal at my grandma's place. And it didn't always have stable electricity; at times, electricity was only available at fixed times, and the schedule of electricity was printed in local newspapers. But it did have a television! The reception was poor, and we only had 3-4 TV channels available (one was local TV), but the TV screened films that were otherwise unavailable (VHS was too expensive, local cinemas only had Soviet films screened weekly), stand up, or...

Or had things like this "tik-tok style brainrot", inspired by "America’s Funniest Home Videos" which in turn is based on "Kato-chan Ken-chan Gokigen TV".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0fHY3KIhrQ

I'm not saying that YouTube or TikTok is worse (being able to choose your own flavour of brainrot is good), but it's interesting to know it existed WELL before Internet

РТР - Сам Себе Режиссёр (1998) (VHS, 50fps)

YouTube
Show threadNina KalininaMar 8
The radio was super good. I could tune to dozens of radio stations, some were even foreign. Some would be broadcasting rock music, or even interviews with musicians. Once I managed to learn about such broadcast in advance, and recorded the whole show - that has presented a whole album by a musician I liked back then! Fun times...
Show threadNina Kalinina
Curating one's TV experience used to be possible with paper broadcast schedules, delivered to our place on a weekly basis. It looked something like this. Originally, it was just "find what you like, and try not to forget about it around the time it will be broadcast", but in the late 90s or early 00s my parents finally bought a VCR, so it became possible to program it to record a show, and then watch at a convenient time. Even so, VHS tapes were expensive; we only had two commercially released tapes, and then a couple more pirated VHS tapes with cartoons. And then 3-4 extra tapes were used as "scratch" to mostly record soap operas for my grandma.
Mar 8 at 2:59pmWeb
Show threadphookyMar 8
@nina_kali_nina i actually subscribed to eternal family mostly _because_ of the limited selection; when i'm in the mood to watch something i can just look at their relatively limited palette and choose something. it's a lot like this in some ways. (they also have some streaming channels now that are pretty much exactly like turning on HBO in the 90s and catching half of Beastmaster or whatever.)
Show threadphookyMar 8
@nina_kali_nina (like, i literally just turned it on out of curiousity and was treated to a lizard-man and his thugs busting up an old west general store, briefly waking up George Takei in the room above, who then goes back to sleep? and then the fireman from twin peaks rolls into town? _exactly_ like early 90s HBO)
Show threadNic DafisMar 8
@nina_kali_nina Another important part of self-curation (at least in the area where we lived) was deciding which way to point your aerial. I lived in north-east Wales, but never saw Welsh TV until I went to college in the late 80s. Our channels were BBC North-West, and Granada. Some of my friends had BBC Midlands and ATV (later Central), but I didn't know anyone who chose to watch BBC Wales / HTV.
Show threadDavid OakleyMar 8
@nic @nina_kali_nina In Stoke we could get North West and Wales. If I missed Doctor Who on Saturday, BBC 1 Wales broadcast it on a weekday evening 👍🏻. Crap fuzzy reception on my B&W portable but the only option pre-VHS!
Show threadRaymond RussellMar 8
@nina_kali_nina
Until the early 90's the UK had a quirky thing where most newspapers would have daily TV listings for the 3 or 4 channels available but if you wanted listings for the week ahead you had to buy TWO DIFFERENT magazines.
The "Radio Times" magazine had the listings for the two BBC TV television channels - BBC1 and BBC2.
The "TV Times" magazine had the listings for the independent TV channels - your local ITV station and then Channel 4 when it was launched in 1982.
Show threadLunar 🛸 ♾Mar 8

@nina_kali_nina My parents have a "box" which lets them record live TV. My mum still refers to it as "taping" (e.g. make sure you tape Midsomer Murders!), referring of course to VHS tapes.

I remember watching a lot of taped films when I was growing up, as well, complete with adverts!

I do kind of miss having scheduled TV, but I haven't had a TV licence since I moved out, and it doesn't seem that good value for money these days