The Playstation Classic was released this month, a reminder of what it was like to pick up a controller for the first time and immerse yourself in the wonderful world of gaming. Yes, it may be a way to capitalize on nostalgia for a generation who have disposable income now (and don’t have to beg mom for their shiny new game console), but it’s also a way to remember a time before Instagram and Snapchat, a time when music was bought on a disc in a shiny case, and when life was so much simpler. Or at least, that’s how it looks from the perspective of 2018!
In homage to the re-issue of that first PlayStation, we’ve pulled together some of the other things that we’d love to see resurrected from 1994.
Car-sharing isn’t just about the cheapest and easiest way to get somewhere (without using public transit, of course). It’s also about the conversation. Car-sharing apps and services are all about the personal touch, and chatting to a driver is a great way to get to know the local area, or just to make a journey a little more enjoyable. After all, you get to meet the kind of people that you might never otherwise bump into. It’s all about community. While that’s the ideal, it’s not always the reality! Conversations with Lyft drivers can be everything from illuminating to supremely awkward…and we bet that fictional characters might have just as much trouble as people in the real world when it comes to this particular kind of small talk.
November is a bit of a down month. Summer is long gone, the fun of Halloween is over, Christmas is still too far away to get excited about, it’s probably raining outside, and suddenly, it’s getting dark before you even leave work. It’s no wonder that this is a bit of a gray, grumpy month and that all we want to do is stay at home with a good book and a giant mug of tea (or wine). Whether you just have the November blues or you are dealing with something else that’s got you down (a bad breakup, a lost job, or just a day where everything has gone wrong from the moment your feet hit the floor), these books are guaranteed to make you feel just a little bit better about life.
The idea of family is at the heart of the stories we tell in pop culture; from the creation of new families through romance to the tales told about established families through generations, human connection is everything. However, it’s important to remember that family isn’t just about parents and their biological parents; ‘family’ can mean so much more than that. Families can be blended, can be unusual, and of course, can be created through adoption. This November, in honor of National Adoption Awareness Month, we’ve rounded up some of the best (and worst) depictions of adoptive families in pop culture - your favorite movies, TV shows and books, and the characters in them that found their families, rather than being born into them.
Dating in the ‘80s and ‘90s was a simpler time. No Tinder, no Snapchat, no googling or ghosting. Instead, this was a time of phone calls (and answering machines), dinner dates, high school party hookups, and meeting the same guys over and over again. Of course, we don’t mean meeting the literal same person over and over (unless you spent these decades in a particularly small town), but meeting that same trope time and time again. He might have frosted his tips this time, he might have ditched that shell necklace, he might have chosen a suit in eye-wateringly bright colors, but he’s the same underneath it all…and whether it was the Boy Next Door or the Party Virgin, if you were dating in these decades, we guarantee you’ve gone out with at least one of these guys.
Bojack Horseman returns to Netflix for a fifth season, and fans can’t wait to dive back into a world where animals wear clothes, walk upright, and have existential crises…just like the rest of us! Bojack Horseman is an animation that is also a gut punch of a series, managing to balance the absurd with the kind of moments that get us right in the feels as the washed-up Bojack tries to find a little happiness in Hollywoo. It’s also a surprisingly bookish show (especially for one so doused in sex, drugs, and despair), in no small part because it begins with Bojack attempting to write his memoirs. However, this is far from the only book that pops up in the series…or that we would like to see as part of season five!
