In what way(s) are you "retro?"

[tad]

Do you have to turn a crank to get the player going?

No but we have a dime on top of the needle to keep it from skipping.

 

[tad]

I receive and read the newspaper everyday.

I didn’t have a cell phone until last June.

 

[gracepoole]

Stick shift car (the old stick shift, not the new kind)

What’s the “new kind” of stick shift?

Incidentally, it seems it’s nearly impossible to train kids to drive stick these days. They’re virtually nowhere to be found…

 

[StephieNorthCo]

UpUpAndAway:

Do you have to turn a crank to get the player going?

No but we have a dime on top of the needle to keep it from skipping.

./~~~ shudder ~~~\

That hurts even thinking about.

 

[Angel_Gabriel]

Oooo, interesting topic!

Ways I am retro:
landline
"dumb"phone for a cell phone (basic texting and calls)
no social media (I don’t count CAF heheh)
drive older cars
like older homes
no cable
prefer paper books and the library
drink diet soda (hey I gotta have a few vices!)
don’t watch many sitcoms/TV in general…mainly cooking or travel shows

I’m sure there’s more. Some things I used to do. I used to have a smart phone and be on social media…till I saw what it did to me…it’s nothing but a platform for voyeurism and narcissism IMO. I have a nook and do some online reading. We have online banking and buy stuff online. I like some craft beer and coffees…mainly it just has to taste good…I don’t want to do it just b/c it’s hip…I’m not hipster lol!

 

[Inisfallen]

Let’s see…

I don’t have a Facebook page, or a Twitter account, or an Instagram account.

I drive a car with manual transmission. Old-fashioned, but I was giving my brother a hard time the other night because he’s on his third transmission in his Cherokee. Manuals are simpler and hardly ever break.

I don’t use Uber.

I had dinner with my sister, visiting from out of town, a month ago, and she was laughing at me because every article of clothing I was wearing could have been bought, exactly the same, in 1968. Or 1978. Or 1988. And so on.

Every year, I go to the optometrist and have my eyes checked. Sometimes I need a new prescription. My wife gets nuts, because I refuse to change my frames. Same ones (well, new, but same style) I wore in high school. She hates them. Too bad.

 

[UpUpAndAway]

I actually haven’t noticed that. I don’t live in the US. There’s very little Pepsi here, and all of it is bottled. Coke comes in the familiar standard red can.

Perhaps that’s part of the reason why I don’t see soda drinking as retro. It’s not getting the same media attention here as it is there. Plenty of soda drinking going on here. Objections from the medical community are rarely aired, and when they are most people just ignore them

 

[Milt]

I use a P38 can opener.

I still have a couple of those and keep one on my key chain.

I am not sure what this retro stuff is all about as I have and do things that are considered old, and love some of the newer modern gadgets etc.

One thing I will never be retro is having an outhouse outside. Nope, no, no, and never again.

 

[FollowChrist34]

Flip phone - yep; I take a lot of heat on this - also don’t carry it around all the time
No cable TV - could not live without it; I tried once years ago but signed back on for the world cup or world series or something
Stick shift car (the old stick shift, not the new kind) automatic can’t drive stick
No social media other than a few online forums. No Facebook, etc. - yep
Don’t shop online ever–I’ve never ordered anything online - nope, I shop online ALL the time - let this one go
Still drink sugary sodas and diet sodas. - never. I gave people a hard time about this starting at like 9 and I continue to
Don’t intend to decorate my home “shabby chic”! - shabby chic is all I can afford
I listen to CDs, and have no idea how to use “iTunes” or even what it is. basically yep; I may do itunes not sure
I still subscribe to the newspaper and read it everyday. I read the UK Daily Telegraph online.

 

[ZMystiCat]

I drink instant coffee

 

[FollowChrist34]

I don’t own a microwave and I never use my dishwasher. Dishes by hand every day.

 

[Greenfields]

Do you have to turn a crank to get the player going?

We have records but nothing to play them on

Aldies here has record players for sale once a year.

 

[StephieNorthCo]

Also Victrola via J.C. Penney, Amazon etc has em for about $80.

All my serious music listening is on vinyl and home made vacuum tube electronics.

No cell phone.

Landline/ rotary dial phone.

Dot matrix printer.

Here’s some of our chairs, direct from a 50s diner…
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[causer00000]

What? It’s good! I swear lol

Have you tried it?

 

[Peeps]

I’m not exactly sure what makes it different–maybe a car guru can set me straight.

But my son-in-law and daughter purchased one–had to have it custom made, since shifts aren’t being made nowadays routinely. When they got it, it had kind of a “delay” when they shifted gears, and my SIL took it back to the dealer, thinking it was broken. (My SIL is a certified auto mechanic as well as a certified airplane mechanic.) The dealer told him that this is the “new” gearshift, and it has a delay. I’m sure my SIL understands the explanation, but I don’t.

They got used to it, but I’m guessing I would probably get in a wreck if I tried driving it!

I love my shift car, but I’m afraid my shifting days are probably coming to an end. My left knee is so arthritic that it hurts to shift.

 

[alice24]

As I´m 26, what I do cant really be called retro in the way of “staying in the time I was young”…and most things I do because of frugality or because I simply like it. Maybe the following could be called a bit anachronistic in germany:
-using no convenience food and making pickles in vinegar, light beer and marmelade at home
-I have no multimedia entertainment instead of an old tv and my laptop, as well as no dishwasher or microwave
-making household textile and clothing by myself

I love most old wooden houses and antiques, and I work with almost dead handicrafts (hobby and job), so this is maybe “retro” - but with retro I myself think more of the 60-80s lifestyle of my parent´s generation, which was not very “plain and simple”.

 

[ZMystiCat]

Have you tried it?

I don’t know. I tried coffee a few times late in high school and early in college, but I never could stand the taste. I would always dump out whatever I got or was given to me after a few drinks. It’s why I drank Monster and Red Bull so much throughout college. I did eventually develop a taste for coffee, but at the risk of sounding like a coffee snob, I can still be very particular about what I drink due to those early, unpleasant experiences.

 

[tad]

Do you also own one of those combo TV/stereo/liquor cabinets?

 

[StephieNorthCo]

Not quite. I do have AM/FM/shortwave/phono console someone gave me to restore. Works reasonable after replacement of a lot of old dried out componentsl

 

[SMHW]

Gosh! Other than using “gosh”, I don’t know how I’m retro. But then, retro is relative.

1. I often drive a stick shift car. And I do enjoy listening to my vinyl records.
2. My house has collectables that have little meaning to anyone but me and my children will have to deal with when I die someday.
3. My stereo only has analog audio connectors and it has speakers big enough to double as side tables. We still buy and listen to CDs.
4. One of our televisions has a built in video cassette player.
5. We still watch cable television (as opposed to watching everything on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. To put that in perspective, where I live is in the Los Angeles television market but it’s far enough from the transmitters --with a few mountains in between-- that most people have had cable since the 1960s just to get the broadcast channels.)
6. We have a formal dining room and we have good china. I even have Christmas china (although I’m not sure I’d use the adjective “good” to describe it.)

We got rid of some of our retro items when we moved last year but we did move to a house that is more than 100 years old. That is retro for California.