Nostalgic Gen Z Things that Future Generations Won't Get to Experience
The one rule of the universe is that if something exists, then it is bound to change at one point or another. And unfortunately, these things from Gen Z's youth are now long gone. NOTE: By "Nostalgic Gen Z Things", I mean a multitude of things, including TV shows, games, stores, channels, websites, and much more. Also, if you're Gen Alpha, I mean no disrespect to you via this list. Anyways, onto the countdown.
June 29, 2018, is a day that will forever live in infamy for Gen Z (and maybe some very early Alpha) kids. My local Toys R Us closed in 2015, so I had already been deprived of the store for about three years. I was devastated to hear it was going out of business entirely.
They did try to make a comeback, though...at the start of the pandemic. You can put two and two together and guess what happened there. There is still some potential for the Toys R Us brand, considering how a few months ago, the brand was acquired by a company that plans to open new locations.
Sad but true. On January 12, 2021, Flash Player was shut down for good by Adobe due to a multitude of reasons, including security issues, incompatibility with iPhones, and competition from HTML5.
Most Gen Z kids grew up playing Flash games (myself included), and it's really sad to see internet history being destroyed. Sure, there's Flashpoint, but still, it's really shocking to see a former titan like Flash Player fall.
FYI to anyone who is wondering: Generation Z is people born from 1997-2012. Some definitions have it from 1995-2010, and others define this generation as 1997-2014.
Now here's a loss that's less recent but still very sad. I grew up on Playhouse Disney shows, including Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, Charlie and Lola, Imagination Movers, and Little Einsteins. I was really sad to see Playhouse Disney turn into Disney Junior, especially since there were plenty of shows from Playhouse that didn't cross over to Junior (including My Friends Tigger and Pooh, among others).
The Hub was an American digital cable and satellite television channel that targeted a family audience. Co-owned by Discovery, Inc. and Hasbro, the channel featured a mix of animated series, game shows, and reruns of classic family entertainment. The channel has since been rebranded as Discovery Family... read more Most people only remember The Hub as "that one network with the pony show that a lot of grown men liked." However, I really liked The Hub as a kid, despite despising MLP at the time (I'm now neutral on MLP, for those wondering).
It introduced me to classic shows such as Animaniacs and Tiny Toons, and it also had some killer original programs, such as Pound Puppies, Twisted Whiskers, Maryoku Yummy, and of course, DAN VS! They should have never rebranded it to Discovery Family, considering how infinitely worse it is than The Hub.
I think we can all agree that Vine was a better app than TikTok. It was funnier, less annoying, and had more memorable memes (the comically large spoon, watermelon, etc.). Overall, it was just a better app.
It's a shame that Byte isn't more popular, considering it's infinitely better and more faithful to Vine than TikTok.
Another retail titan that fell in the 2010s (although they've had financial issues dating back to the early 2000s). Kmart's fall is almost unreal, considering how they went from about 1500 locations in the early 2010s to only twenty in 2021. Even Sears is better off than them.
I went to Kmart a lot as a kid. I still remember going there, and I miss going there. The last time I was at a Kmart was in December 2016.
On September 16, 2020, Nintendo officially discontinued the New Nintendo 2DS XL, thereby ending the DS line after 16 years of constant new consoles. With the release of the Switch Lite, the fate of the line seems sealed.
Hard to believe that the DS went from being just a third pillar to the GameCube and Game Boy Advance to becoming a massively successful console with tons of successors and new models.
I remember playing on my sister's DSi as a little kid. I also played on the 2DS/3DS a lot as a kid, and I still play on my 2DS XL in 2021.
It's still astonishing how fast Saturday morning cartoons just...died. And all because of one company, Litton Entertainment.
In the span of only about four years, they went from owning zero Saturday morning blocks to owning all of them. In the process, they destroyed ABC Kids, Cookie Jar TV, and Vortexx (and if you want to go even later, NBC Kids). I will never forgive Litton Entertainment for what they and their crappy Animal Planet wannabe shows did to Saturday morning cartoons.
THQ Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher. Founded in 1989, the company developed products for home video game consoles and handhelds, personal computers and mobile devices. Its name derived from "Toy Headquarters" during its time as a toy manufacturer in the early 1990s. In 2012,... read more The (former) master of licensed games. Sadly, after the uDraw GameTablet flopped, the company ended up spiraling out of control and went bankrupt shortly after.
It's really sad, too, considering that if they had kept the uDraw on Wii only and never tried to port it to the PS3 and Xbox 360, they would probably still be in business. We would have never gotten those awful, awful Activision SpongeBob games.
The Newcomers
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972, currently by Atari Interactive, a subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA.
Dang, I knew I was missing something on the initial list, but I could never really put my finger on it...
We last went there in 2007. Never went there again ever since.
Unfortunately, it's unlikely that Club Penguin will ever (officially or unofficially) come back, especially after the failure of Club Penguin Island and the 2020 CPO pedophile leaks.
It's really a shame, considering Club Penguin is one of the most nostalgic MMOs for me and many other Gen Z kids.
So many memories. I still have one, but I'm not sure if it still works.
I used to have VHS tapes until we got robbed in 2004. We got most of our things back, but we never got a new VCR player.
Gen Z was the last generation to use cameras.
Yet another TV network only Gen Z would feel nostalgic for. They had everything for a free-to-air kids' channel - fun cartoons and subpar live-action shows. Not to mention, they had some pretty well-known franchises on the network, such as Inspector Gadget and Bob the Builder, as well as obscure shows like ToddWorld and You & Me.
It's a shame Scripps had to erase it in favor of their subpar Katz Networks, which are aimed at Gen Y. Sure, PBS Kids and Smile offer their own good programming, but at least with those, they cater to all sorts of generations and not just Gen Z.
