I used to like that?

To counter the thread on childish things we still do

Focus: What are some things that you loved as a kid or even better as an adult that you grew out of and never understood why you liked in the first place?

Until about 3 years ago I watched every single Anime (Japanese cartoon, Japanese Animation for the purists) I could get my hands on. All of a sudden something clicked and I found them detestably immature, now I can barely sit through the best episode of what was one of my favorite shows when I was 23.

It's hilarious because the two guys I use to watch Anime with are a year older than me and still love to watch. They are also more mature than me in almost every conventional way (i.e. married homeowners) but they still sit down and watch these silly, poorly translated Japanese cartoons with horrible plots, annoying characters and inane resolutions to conflict.

 

Re: I use to like that?

I used to dig Coldplay albums. Parachutes and Rush of Blood to the Head spent a lot time in my playlist, but these days, I can't listen to anything of theirs at all (even albums I used to like). It was probably just where I was at the time combined with some major shifts in the music I listen to since the early 2000's. Either way, when I hear it now I'm automatically searching for a new station, or scolding Pandora for serving that shit up.

 

Re: I use to like that?

Professional wrestling. I used to be a huge WWE fan (as recently as 3 or 4 years ago), but I've stopped watching. I just lost interest and grew out of it, I guess.

Besides... All of my favorite wrestlers have either retired, died because of drug abuse and steroids or went insane and murdered their wife and child before committing suicide in the basement of their Atlanta home.

 

Re: I use to like that?

Same here. I used to watch any professional wrestling I could with my friends in grade school, then after it was over, we'd go outside and wrestle for hours while our Vietnam-vet neighbor acted as referee while drinking beer and smoking pack after pack of True cigarettes.
All of our parents thought wrestling was retarded; whenever they would say "You know all that stuff is fake, don't you?" we would counter with "'Nu uh! It's real!"
Then when I was in about the 6th grade I realized how naive I had been, and haven't watched it since.

The saddest part is that one of my friends never grew out of this, and to this day, he is still trying to become a professional wrestler. I've taken my son to some of his matches, and they are filled with guys just like Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler," on not in anywhere near as good a shape.

Focus: The Weekly World News. Every week I would buy a copy of that rag and read all of it. I knew some of it was pure horse shit, but I really wanted to believe some of it. I stopped reading that around the same time I stopped watching wrestling.

 

I can't believe that I once liked Limp Bizket. That is probably the biggest one in terms of music.

I used to be a huge Green Day fan but I can't even listen to Dookie anymore. This could partially be because I saw them in concert three times and they barely played any music, with Billie Joe running his mouth the whole time. I also can't believe that I ever liked Sublime.

And video games in general. I will still play "party games" like Wii sports, smash brothers, and Mario Kart when I am drunk with friends, but I grew out of the hardcore gamer phase around 10th grade. I think this can mostly be attributed to the fact that I don't have any patience.

 

Scandinavian Black Metal. The originals from Venom to Immortal was all I listened to for the majority of the 90s. I thought nothing could compare to that stuff. It's really hard to get laid when you listen to Dark Throne...



(Immortal in ALL their glory)

 

I used to big into Magic: The Gathering as a kid. I used to spend all my god damn allowance on those pointless fucking cards. It probably worked out nicely for my parents though since I would do just about anything for a new booster pack. I used to go crazy trying to collect the rare cards and make the most amazing decks. I finally grew out of it around the age of 14 when it started to occur to me that they "weren't cool." Even though that's a typical dumb kid reason for giving something up, I'm glad I kid. All those fucking card collecting things are such wastes of time and money. God knows how much time I wasted tinkering with cards and decks that I could have spent doing something more productive.

 

Re: I use to like that?

I had a custom-made windshield sticker on my piece of shit car that I had in high school. I won't tell you what it said. It's that embarrasing.

The other night, my friends and I were drinking and my old car came up. I asked those guys why they didn't kick my ass into the ground on a daily basis for that tacky horseshit.

See also: big speakers for the sake of having big speakers; long hair; Nickleback.

 

Re: I use to like that?

It was the Car Brand wasn't it?


I still like most of the same stuff I liked as a kid, except for my food choices. I'd like to say I have a slightly more refined palate, but I'll still eat spagetti-o's.

 

The old school Japanese Godzilla movies. I absolutely fucking loved those movies when I was a kid. I think I had every one on tape and would watch them over and over again.

I went back and rented one a couple years back and watched it with a friend. Holy shit was it terrible. I mean, I understand that young kids don't have the same kind of expectations or standards as adults when it comes to things like movies, and obviously the effects of those old movies can't compare to the new stuff, but I figured that at least the nostalgia factor would allow me to enjoy it. I don't think I made it 20 minutes before we had to turn it off.

 

Maxim magazine. I read it for about a year and a half. One day at a bookstore I found myself wondering about the money I was spending on this magazine I didn't even like.
I've never even looked at another one.

 

I was really into Yu-Gi-Oh in middle school. I was pretty good at it and really enjoyed playing but it was difficult to find people to play it with. I went to some weekend bookstore events but it was always just high school nerds or ghetto black guys that always had the rarest cards but refused to "duel" or trade. It wasn't all bad though, I made a lot of the money I spent on it back when I eBayed my collection. I got about $130 bucks for the 5 card Exodia monster. True be told though, I would probably still have some fun "dueling" again.

And to the guy that mentioned Anime, its kind of funny how many people go crazy for this well into their thirties. I watched Pokemon when I was about 8 but promptly realized that every single Anime ever made is just the same characters, same plot, same episodes rehashed with some new colors. Here's your typically Japanese cartoon: Bad guy talks about how bad he is and how evil his plan is for 20 episodes. Good guy is a little kid that has hot girls as friends and talks about how evil the bad guy is and how is plan is so bad that it will destroy everything good unless it can be stopped. Last 20 seconds of the season/series finale, the good guy beats the bad guy and the bad guy cries about how badly he was beat. There, you just experienced every cartoon that has ever come out of Japan. Ever.

edit: I guess people here really like Anime because my rep points just got raped to death. What a bunch of fags!

 

I will have to say that nostalgia can be a tricky beast. The number of groups on Facebook about various 90's Nickelodeon shows that people are suddenly nostalgic for: Salute Your Shorts, Hey Dude, Secret World of Alex Mac, and so on are amusing because I know that these people joining them haven't seen an episode since 6th grade. I used to love them too.

These shows are awful looking back at them. Sure, as an 8 year old, they were great because we couldn't process the magnitude of how bad the acting, the plots, the camera work and so on were. I tried to watch them again to see if I could recapture some of that feeling that I had when I was a kid watching them (especially when my dick did that funny thing when Alex Mac lost her clothes), and I couldn't do it they were so bad.

The only exception was Pete and Pete. That show was way beyond its years.

 

"Professional" wrestling here, too. But that was back before cable TV, when it was the WWWF (they thought worldwide was two words) and aired on the Spanish UHF channel out of Newark, NJ (Lucha Libre!), Vince McMahan wasn't on steroids, Bruno Sammartino was the champ, and Fred Blasie, the "Hollywood Fashion Plate," was calling everyone a pencil-necked geek.

"Dark Shadows." Yes, I watched a soap opera. About vampires. Religiously.

 

Late 80's, early 90's sit-coms. Namely, Punky Brewster and Full House. As a kid, I would watch these shows religiously. Now I have no idea how I sat through five minutes of this crap.

 

The Dukes Of Hazard. I loved it religiously as a little kid, but when I watch reruns, all I can think is "You have to have as many teeth as a Jack-O-Lantern to like this show." Oh well, Daisy was smokin' back then at least. Truth is, I loved ALL the 80's actions shows: The Fall Guy, Hardcastle & McCormick, BJ & The Bear, The Incredible Hulk, Air Wolf, Knight Rider, CHiPS, Greatest American Hero, etc.

 

Country music. Yuck. Then after I got into my rebel early teen years I wore the big baggy JNCO jeans and wore a lot of hair gel which I now think are awful. I was also a NASCAR fan at one time. Wow I've made some poor choices growing up.

 

I was going to come back to this thread and post almost this exact thing verbatim.

I have the first two seasons of Pete and Pete on DVD and like to watch those when I am drunk. I really wish that they would release the third (last) season.

But the people who join these "I want my '90s Nickelodeon back" groups on Facebook obviously haven't taken the time to download any of these shows. When I was a kid my favorite Nickelodeon show was Salute Your Shorts, and I still kind of like the episodes that Blake Soper was in for nostalgia, but it's amazing how awful that show was looking back.

I have also seen episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark, My Brother and Me, and Alex Mack recently. Those are the worst.

 

Baseball cards- I had fantasies growing up that my collection would yield Honus Wagner type returns, not so much. I can't even think of a brick and mortar card shop still around, yet I still have my collection stashed away.

Sugar- I used to love anything and everything that was sweet- cookies, cake, candy, etc; you get the point. My tastes have changed to the point a few sodas a week are the only processed sugar I can tolerate.