# Things you're suprised under-30s don't recognize **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 26, 2010, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-suprised-under-30s-dont-recognize/548101 "2010-07-26T21:06:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-suprised-under-30s-dont-recognize/548101/301 "2010-08-16T03:50:37Z")
You’d squeeze a little dab out of the tube onto the palm of your hand, very reminiscent of Aim Toothpaste Gel, which had just come out at the time, seems like the late 70’s early 80’s was the inception of the rather space age and newly packaged experimentation with gel products … and run them under water, wet and lather the gel, and run through your hair, comb slick; guess it’s the inverse of its modern counterpart, back then gel was used to keep your hair down, nowadays hair gel is used to keep your hair up! ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-suprised-under-30s-dont-recognize/548101/302 "2010-08-16T04:08:47Z")
When I had sufficient hair to worry about such things, I borrowed something my sister used, called “hair wax.” Kind of a dry tacky kind of feel and it tamed the cowlicks quite effectively; I always hated the goopy feeling of gel. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-suprised-under-30s-dont-recognize/548101/303 "2010-08-16T04:16:04Z")
Vitalis? Or was Vitalis a liquid? ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-suprised-under-30s-dont-recognize/548101/304 "2010-08-21T22:16:38Z")
> [@](#): > > That was the Antenna Rotor. > > And ours would make a nice deep _wumwumwumwumwum_ sound as it turned ever so slowly. It actually gave a satisfying bit of feedback that something big was happening (and indeed it was—the antenna was turning on the roof) Ours was VERY noisy. It took me years to realise that all this motor did was rotate the dial at the correct speed, and that there was a separate motor on the roof to turn the antenna itself. H. ---
**Author:** ![NoiseBomb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/49beb7/32.png) [@NoiseBomb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoiseBomb)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-suprised-under-30s-dont-recognize/548101/305 "2010-08-22T02:07:04Z")
Are any cars still made with mechanical odometers? Will the kids of today know how cool it is to see all the numbers turn at once? Watching a digital one change from 099999 to 100000 is nowhere near as exciting. Or better yet, watching a 5-digit one roll back to zero. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-suprised-under-30s-dont-recognize/548101/306 "2010-08-22T12:28:34Z")
My husband owned a small restaurant last year, and one of his employees was 19 years old. One time he used the canister vacuum cleaner while she was there, and she couldn’t stop giggling: she’d never lived anywhere that didn’t have a central vacuum. She was amazed by the noisy motor on wheels that just followed you around. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-suprised-under-30s-dont-recognize/548101/307 "2010-08-22T12:35:08Z")
> [@](#): > > When I was in my early twenties, I expected that people my age then would not know how to tell time (digital doesn’t count) by now. (…) In about 1982 we had bought a book for solving Rubik’s Cube. In there were a few paragraphs where the author took the time to explain clockwise and counterclockwise for some future audience who would never have seen a clock with hands. Of course, almost everybody today can still tell time the old-fashioned way, but few remember the Rubik’s Cube craze. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-youre-suprised-under-30s-dont-recognize/548101.md?page=15)