Ooh, Now Tell Them About The Dial-Up Noise!

I’m in the breakroom of the large superstore where I work. Some teen coworkers of mine are also on break and seem to be engrossed in a video on their phone. They both look confused, and then they ask for my opinion on the video.

It’s a TikTok of a scene from the sitcom “Friends” where Monica and Chandler have met a couple on a vacation, and they are now trying to contact them afterward by going through numbers in the phone book.

Teen Coworker #1: “I don’t get it.”

Teen Coworker #2: “Yeah, why don’t they just swap Instagrams?”

Me: “This was made in the nineties.”

Teen Coworker #1: “Yeah… so?”

Me: “There was no Instagram. There was barely any Internet.”

Teen Coworker #2: “No Internet?”

Me: “Yeah, we had to look people’s numbers up in big printed phone books. This was before Instagram.”

Teen Coworkers: *Solemn whisper* “The before times…”