Grew up in Asia. The less fancy one. Used to go buy my Dad cigarettes from across the street and toss out the filters when I was like 8 lol.
*He’s been smoke free for over 22 years. The amount of disinformation from Big tobacco, at least where I grew up, was insane. He is a very educated man and still… Cigarette was a status symbol, symbol of sophistication, when he was growing up.
I’m not a smoker, but the cigarette smell, in general, doesn’t feel that bad to my olfactory system. It’s sometimes strong and irritating because I don’t smoke, but I often light up incense sticks so… some cigarettes (e.g. “straw cigarette”) resemble certain incense sticks, which are perceived as “fairly nice smell” by my olfactory system. I also noticed that there are differences among the cigarette brands. Some smell “okayish”, some smell really awful and irritating.
i’m old enough to remember smoking sections on airplanes. Not to be dramatic but, I felt like I was going to die!
Even as a smoker I hated indoor smoking.
Wow that looks awful
It was absolutely disgusting. I only flew once as a kid prior to it being outlawed but I was sick from it.
Yeah, it was weird. Most restaurants had a non-smoking section because allowing people to smoke everywhere was the norm. Leaded gasoline. Little kids playing with real fireworks. The 70s and 80s were a wild ride of irresponsibility.
It wasn’t all bad, though. It was cool being a kid at times. Playing outside almost every day until dinner time with the other kids in the neighborhood.
Don’t forget no cell phones. It’s hard to overstate the (I believe negative) impact constant connection and notification has had on every aspect of our lives
Some boomer on Facebook recently posted a meme with a photo of a rotary phone and how those were better days, and I had to laugh because they decidedly weren’t. When we had no answering machine or call waiting, and had to hang around for phone calls that might come, or have the car break down on the side of the road and hope that someone would stop and help you and that they weren’t a serial killer, that was purely awful. We actually had a serial killer couple abducting and killing teenage girls in my city before cell phones existed, and they made tapes of them raping and torturing these girls before they killed them. A cell phone would probably have helped them a lot. Those girls went through hell, they even raped and ended up accidentally killing her teenage sister.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/paul-bernardo-and-karla-homolka-case
There also weren’t people broadcasting mass shootings live on Facebook and inspiring copycat shootings, or being indoctrinated into incel culture alone in their bedrooms. There are legitimate pros and legitimate cons to 24/7 connection, this isn’t just some “boomer yells at the sky” thing
It’s decidedly worse for mental health. Despite living in the safest times in living memory, we are biased to think our cities are dangerous and economies are failing because of doomscrolling and the dominance of online news.
That’s why I would say that cell phones are fine. It’s when they turned into smartphones where I would draw the line. I just get the feeling that we’d be a lot better off if mobile phone tech never advanced much further than the mid-2000’s flip phone.
Totally agree with this
YES. Flip phones were fine and were enough to handle all the problems mentioned about pre-cellphones. Calls, texts, voice mail. All the new problems mentioned are caused BY smartphones. If the meme showed a Nokia flip phone it would have been perfect.
It’s just I went to one of the victim’s funerals. I’ll never feel nostalgic for those days as a result.
Non smoking section with like an 18 inch wall separating it from the smoking section. My mom almost got into a fistfight at a couple of restaurants for seating us directly next to the smoking section instead of in the opposite corner with less secondhand smoke.
In most restaurants I saw there was no wall in between.
In most restaurants I saw there was no wall in between.
This was my experience as well. I can still see it today in some older restaurants that haven’t been renovated in years, where there’s an area of the dining room with a much higher ceiling.
I have never heard of this. And I’m a smoker and I was alive back then. (Though I was a kid.)
Does the higher ceiling go to the smoking section or the non-smoking section?
And it was usually next to the kitchen and the restrooms. Worst tables all around.
No one can win on this one.
Seat the smokers in back and “oh no, I have to sit next to the kitchen and restroom.”
Seat the smokers in front and “oh no, I have to walk through the smoking section to get to or from my seat, or go to the restroom.”
Or at least that’s how Denny’s was setup in our town.
I don’t know how it was in the U.S., but where I’m from it was like 10% of the seats only, so even if they put it all on good seats, there would still be plenty of good seats for smokers.
As a child of the 70s/80s, although I don’t remember a great deal of the 70s, your parents had no idea where you were until you came home when the streetlights went on, unless you happened to call from a friend’s house to ask if you could sleep over. I remember my friend getting run over by a car which broke her leg because there was no crossing guard on the busy street where the kids had to cross to go to school, and after that they hired one. I lived up the street from the school, and had a cat that went outside, on hot days the front doors were always open and sometimes she’d go nap in the library or show up in my classroom. Then the neighbour who hates animals and had lost his teaching job for exposing himself to students abducted her and dumped her way across town, but someone found her and put an ad in the list and found section of the paper so I got her back.
That poor cat went through so much.
She was happy as can be and loved visiting.
They had smoking/non-smoking sections into the 90s and early 2000s in Texas. I remember very clearly that my parents would have to ask for seats away from the bar if the restaurant had one, because they almost always allowed smoking. Also hotel rooms being smoking/non-smoking, and you could tell when a hotel was cheap and just swapped the door sign.
Little kids playing with real fireworks.
In the early 2000s as teenagers we’d go play in the town with bags of fireworks on new year lmao
From my experience, it’s always been the other way around. There usually were small smoking sections partitioned away from the rest of the restaurant. This was the norm. And it was usually a fraction of the tables compared to the non-smoking sections.
Source: Worked as a server through most of the 80’s-90’s.
Despite never having touched a cigarette in my life, my mom smokes pretty heavily… Knowing i probably stink to everyone else really sucks ;-;
I always thought I had bad indoor allergies until i moved out of my parents house. They have chain smoked inside with the windows closed for my whole life. Moving out was the best thing I ever did for my health.
I hate cigarettes now, especially since I quit smoking myself(didnt smoke inside though) I don’t even know why I started in the first place. I’m dumb I guess?
Straight up child abuse. Fuck…
Every once in a while I still spot someone smoking with kids in the car. That shit makes me irate.
Since my colleagues have missed the invention of Deodorant and washing themselves I’d beg to differ.
Dont worry americans if you want to smell smoke 24/7 just come to france or eastern europe.
Hit the ground in Germany, bombarded by smokers almost instantaneously.
I went to Italy last year and the outdoor seating of restaurants probably had a solid millimetre thick layer of tobacco all over
That surprises me, but noted !
Germany is worse than France ime.
Hmm ive been to a lot of european countries quite a few times and france seemed like the worst out of the high income/western ones. The worst is still hungary(where i grew up) where its absolutely horrible and we also have the highest rate of lung cancer. Smoking is literally a cancer to society. The best in terms of smoking is sweden where i live now, everyone uses snus which is better for both the users and bystanders because theres no smoke, its just a nicotine packet they put in their mouth.
Switzerland is worse than Germany.
Living in Norway, it always strikes me how disgusting smoking still is, even outside, when i go to central europe. You get completely unused to the amount of smoke and stink e.g. outside of stores
I only ever smell it outside anymore, but I walk away fanning the air in front of my face. It’s so nasty.
Can always tell the people who smoke in their cars.
Their cloths are saturated in it and they’re noseblind to it. I’m in Healthcare and you get off an elevator and can tell when the Caregiver who smokes was on the elevator before you.
NICE
Always am heavily cognizant since I smoke weed to not be like the ciggy cunts. Would want someone to tell me.
Isn’t weed the same way? I can always smell it on people who smoke it. It might not be quite as ‘sticky’ as cigarette smoke?, but I can still smell it on people’s clothes until they are washed, or in their house or car.
Yeah weeds pretty much the same, the tar from the smoke sticks to everything.
I think the scent chemicals just break down faster.
Please tell someone. Dunno bout them but I’d appreciate being told. Feel like an ass otherwise.
Still be the case of course lol
Brush teeth if going anywhere before. Never smoke around others. I breath test, cloths test.
Some family smoke cigarettes fairly heavily and I’ve never smelled it on them. Despite living in the same home. They are conscious of others with their habit. I don’t know what the people who reek do. Maybe they hotbox the actual smoke.
Yeah if you reek of smoke that bad you’re probably smoking in confined spaces e.g. inside your house, car, etc. Clothes start being impregnated again as soon as they’re out of the wash coz the whole house is continually full of smoke. Folks that smoke “the modern way” (only outside, etc) will probably only smell when coming back from a smoke for a bit, or maybe the breath/fingertips up close.
The worst is when someone opens their purse or wallet to hand you their health card and a wave of smoke comes out with it.
In the 80s and 90s a cool ash tray was a good gift for literally anyone. Even teenagers since half of them were smoking reefer
It’s true! Making clay ashtrays for your parents in art class was a thing.
My mum kept the triangular one I made her for over 20 years. Still quite proud of it.
As a kid I liked the shitty little ashtrays they had in fast food restaurants. Like McDonald’s. I think they were aluminum and meant to be pretty much disposable. You could play with them like flying saucers. Or a shield for your GI Joe guys. Or if your GI Joe guys were going on vacation in the snow. They were maluable so you could shape them.
Before that, every place had these massive brown glass ashtrays.
Those were good for clubbin people over the head with.
Jokes on you. You also didn’t know how bad everyone smelled because you smelled just like them.
It’s totally true, we all smelled terrible.
I still do!
clubbing became pretty smelly after the smoking bans i think it forced most decent clubs to upgrade their AC
I still remember when it was okay to smoke inside hospitals. Fun times…
When I quit, it took just a few weeks to recover my sense of smell, and I wish it didn’t because my house reeked of acrid smoke for months. Even my clean clothes smelt like unwashed smoked ass, it was sickening.I still remember when it was okay to smoke inside hospitals. Fun times…
All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.
Well, now the streets just smell like weed instead.
Yeah weed easily smells at least as bad
It’s been noticably bad after legalization. I don’t care if you enjoy weed, but you gotta admit there is a reason people compare its smell to skunks.
Nah, I almost enjoy that. Rolling tobacco is about tolerable. Actual cigarettes make me sick
I haven’t smoked in a decade, but I still miss the smell of good Dutch rolling tobacco. Now hardly anybody smokes, and if they do it’s cheap American cigarettes or shitty cigars.
I remember coming home from shows in high school/college and I would have to shower and throw my clothes in the washer. I was so happy when smoking was finally banned in clubs.
My neighbour smokes indoors. When she opens the door, I get the smell you are talking about.
My aunt smoked two packs a day, in the house, and when I visited I had to wear clothes I was ready to throw away, had to strip and shower when I got home, and once in the space of an hour she smoked seven cigarettes and finally one of my eyes swelled shut, and she demanded to know why I didn’t say anything. My husband pointed out the walls were yellow with tobacco, she lived in the house she grew up in and all the furniture was the same as when she was a child. When she died it all had to be junked, despite some of it probably being antique.
When she died it all had to be junked
The tar might have helped it burn better