When you would low-key judge your friend's parents level of tech-savvyness by noting if their VCR was always flashing 12:00
Shoutout to Mr. and Mrs. "E" for their upstairs and downstairs VCRs always set to the correct time.
Related Question: What is the 2025 equivalent to this?
Fixing the wifi when it is down is the equivalent but I still think we should test all potential legislators on their ability to program the VCR clock.
Gen X and Millennials are probably the only ones who could program a VCR. Boomers would expect someone else to just take care of it, and Gen Z/Alpha prob wouldn't even know what they're looking at.
There are Genz who are older than the DVD. I'm certain that the majority of them would know what a VCR is. Unless they were very rich, they still watched movies on tape when they were little. That's before we talk about how the VCR//DVD combo unit was the most popular option well into the DVD life cycle because most people didn't want to re-buy what they already had on tape. VCR didn't really die until Blu-ray kicked it off the combo unit with the DVD which wasn't until like 2007. Some of them were in middle school by then
I'm a gen Z, we still had VCRs and CRT TVs when I was a kid. We weren't quick to switch to DVD and didn't have an LCD screen til the mid 2010s. Schools were still using the TVs on wheels with VCRs as well, half of them had "be cafeful, it eats tape!" labels on them.
The DVD became popular in the late 1990s-early 2000s. My PC in 1997 had a DVD player
Yup. Released in 97' in the US. Not sure why you felt this needed to be added, but yes. You have stated several true facts.
Which is why it would be a good test for current legislators.
Programming a VCR is in a whole other ballpark than just getting the time ok, there was this girl at school who casually recorded like TV2 at 18:30 to 20:15 and watched TV1 at the same time. I was blown away, such a power move.
That is a power move lol. I would just tape Power Rangers and Pokemon during the day to watch after I got my homework done.
Gen Z would pull up search engine lookup and get this: https://www.neuralword.com/en/innovation-technology/tv-audio-home-video-en/how-to-record-a-tv-program-using-a-vcr-a-step-by-step-guide
Yeah, maybe. But if we put them in a locked room with nothing besides a wall clock, a VCR, and the TV it's connected to, and the door doesn't open until the VCR clock is set correctly, I think Gen X / Millennials are the only ones getting out of that room.