Growing up in the 80′s, I was a avid collector of baseball cards. Since the Oakland A’s were my team, my favorite players were the Bash Brothers, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. As the two players achieved early success, I had foolish dreams that my Canseco and McGwire rookie cards would eventually be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Fast forward twenty plus years and a couple of steroid scandals and I would be lucky to get $100 for both of their cards.
As a result, my McGwire and Canseco rookie cards are a good example of something that used to be good, but now sucks. Here are a couple of more examples:
1. Cracker Jack Prizes–You used to be able to at least get some kind of cheap plastic ring or top. Now all you get is a cheap piece of paper or sticker. They are so lame that I don’t even open the prize anymore.
2. American Idol–Who knew that the one of the main reasons most people watched the show was to see what kind of medication Paula Abdul took that day and how it would affect her???
3. The New York Knicks–After making the playoffs for 14 straight years from 1988-2001, the Knicks have not won a playoff game since 2001 and haven’t even made the playoffs since 2004.
4. Toyotas–Do I really have to explain?
5. Lindsay Lohan–This childhood Disney star showed us her talent in movies like The Parent Trap, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, and Mean Girls. Now she is best known for making terrible movies like I Know Who Killed Me, forgetting to wear proper undergarments, and for suing E*Trade.
6. Myspace–Once “The Place” to be on the internet, now Myspace is now just a glittery back ground graveyard that auto plays the popular music of 2003.
7. Scrambled Adult Channels–A long time ago (okay about 20 years ago), the adult channels came in scrambled unless you subscribed to them. Unfortunately for me, my parents did not subscribe to these channels so I had to resort to watching the scrambled version to see what was going on. Fortunately for me, sometimes the scrambling was not that great and I could see (and hear) what was happening.
Now, in this internet age, millions of boys going through puberty will never enjoy this rite of passage. Instead, they are exposed to hard core pornography every day. Yes, those parental controls that you put on your computer can be easily bypassed by your tech-savvy seven year old. 
8. AOL Instant Messenger–This weird yellow guy was on every computer in the United States a couple of years ago. Now only preteen girls and pedophiles seem to use this service.
9. Tiger Wood’s Publicist’s Job–This quickly went from the easiest job in America to a candidate for an episode of Dirty Jobs
10. Saturday Morning Television–Even though I have never been a morning person, I used to at least try to wake up early on Saturday mornings to watch all the good cartoons. These days, you are more likely to see an infomercial on a Saturday morning than some Looney Tunes.
Can you think of any other things that used to be good and now just suck? Leave a comment to let me know.
Most child stars..MTV..Big Love..
It’s amazing that so many people who are born in the late 70s share the same opinions about the way it was when we were younger. Then again people in their 50s talk about the good old days as well.
But my god I have tens of thousands of baseball cards just waiting for the market to return. Also nothing beats the USA Cartoon Express from when we were kids. Granted a lot of those cartoons were from the 60s, but my god Herculoids could not be stopped.
video killed the radio star. internet killed the video star LOL!
Well, there are still some cool things from the past. 80’s music. scarface. godfather part 1 and 2. super mario brothers. final fantasy.
Well, i can think of some PEOPLE who were amazing back then but not so much right now. Al Pacino and Tom Cruise. no offense, guys.
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Other things that are not worth much, but often are brought into shops for appraisals.
Lionel Trains. There are millions of these sets out there from the 50′s and beyond that their owners believe are worth lots of money. And for their sakes, I wish that were true.
Unfortunately there are enough vintage Lionel Model Trains out there to supply one set to every boy and girl in Canada and still have tens of thousands left over.
For all practical purposes, in many instances, one cannot even give old Lionel Model Trains away.
I largely agree with the cracker jack prizes and Lindsay Lohan, although every single one has valid points that make you wish you can go back to the good old days. On the up side, I guess there are also those that used to be bad but got better, like social networking in general and technology.
Lol.. I like the Lindsay Lohan thing. Oh well.. I enjoyed the post. Thanks for making me smile. =D
I’m too young to remember what MySpace was all about. I’ve grown into the Facebook generation. Judging from the number of cool games and the people that play it, I think it’s here to stay for at least 10 years.
The Knicks were my team for years and now they really do suck! You have a picture of my boy Patrick Ewing who has gone on to do funny Snickers commercials!
Myspace is a good one. I remember when everyone was about Myspace and it was incredibly popular. It makes you wonder if Facebook will eventually take the same path.
Facebook is not a graveyard. It is pretty much a junkyard. Full of empty profiles, abandoned avatars and spam bots advertising porn and pirate websites.
It was fun to watch Lindsay in The Parent Trap; she could have been a real star.
Damn those Knicks!!! I love this team but damn Isaiah Thomas destroyed this team by getting washed up stars. Hopefully with this year’s off season, they can get Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, or Rudy Gay. Let’s pray!
I remember getting into cards and seeing a Michael Jordan X-rookie card (not sure what the difference is between an x-rookie card and a regular one), but at the time it was worth over 14k. Now, I think it’s worth a few thousand. That was a fun fad though, good times…
Love this post! And totally agree with #2, #5 and #6!
Myspace definitely sucks now, and so does American Idol!
Just stopping by to say hi
- TriNi
I agree with American Idol..Im getting bored & uninterested with that show anymore
Commercialism is ruining everything on the planet now:
books, tv, movies, sports. You name it.
Nostalgic list man… it really did bring back memories especially since I think we’re around the same age. Here’s a few more:
- Amusement parks – What used to be the highlight of the summer is now a haven for gangsters and Teen idiots trying to make-out on the slow rides. Exception: Parks that price out these idiots (namely: anything Disney).
- Realistic toy guns – not the orange/pink crap that has a yellow tipped barrel
- You said the Knicks; what about the Bulls post Jordan?
- Terminator movies – you now need a chronological time chart to follow
- Black or White enameled colored furniture with gold trim
Cheers,
Tim
American Idol was never good. Are you saying you long for the wonderful days of Justin Guarini? Clay Aiken? That show sucks as much as it ever did.
MTV should definitely be on this list. It used to be a forum for groundbreaking new music. Now it might as well be called reality show tv. They’ve even gone so far as to take the words “music television” out of the logo. At least they realize what they’ve done to it.
I miss MTV and VH1 – - when they actually played VIDEOS…not the crap shows they have on now
Going to movies.
In the 70′s, you got a cartoon, some previews and the movie. And it was good.
You didn’t have to pay for the privilege of watching ad after ad after ad after ad after ad…
Jheri curls, Fat boy laces, Members only jackets, 24, Eric Stoltz, Boy Bands, Madonna, Heroes, Saturday Night Live. Mike Tyson.
Indiana Jones. Ruined a perfectly good trilogy with the Crystal Skulls, which felt like nothing more than an opportunity to position a new actor to take over the franchise, so it can suck over and over again.
Lindsay Lohan rocks! hahah LOL It’s nice to go back in time and reminisce these stuff. Thanks for the laugh. =))
@ Skara Brae
Gotta agree with you. The movies when I was a kid had a trailer movie to start with, a break where we could go and get some food and then the main film.
Quite often the tralier was better than the main.
Now we have to sit through 20 minutes of ads next surrounded by people who have to stuff themselves silly for the next 2 to 3 hours
Enjoyed the read. It was the baseball card comment that got my attention. I think I’m sitting on a couple of those rookies as well. I thought this was going to get me rich back when I was 11! Little did I know…
Indiana Jones. Ruined a perfectly good trilogy with the Crystal Skulls, which felt like nothing more than an opportunity to position a new actor to take over the franchise, so it can suck over and over again.