what was a massive deal when you were growing up that isn't now?

[learthebear]

or you thought was

Wearing swimming caps at the local pool in case you got nits. Wading through shallow disinfected water before you went swimming to prevent veruccas.

My Nan told me i'd get piles from sitting on the cold wall waiting for the bus to school.Unfortunately i had been sitting on this wall for a whole year before she told me and only had a vague idea what piles were so had a nightmare hour with a hand mirror in the bathroom trying to work out if i had them.

Chilblains.

The Spice Girls

Daleks

Getting your ears pierced.

Swallowing gum.
Going through the school showers with the sports mistresses watching you.
Anticipating the reproduction sessions in biology which were a complete anticlimax as all you did was colour in fallopian tubes.

I live in a place where quicksand is a massive deal (it’s swallowed up whole cars!) but the hole in the ozone layer, stranger danger (surely this is still a thing but it doesn’t seem to be talked about) and the green cross code.

Veruccas were definitely a massive deal!

Spontaneous human combustion,
I wasn't allowed to read Blue jean or Jackie magazines but it was somehow perfectly acceptable to read my dad's terrifying Unexplained magazine.
Aids and Heroin, I still have some Smash hits magazines and it's every other page.

Yes to veruccas and whatever happened to cold sores?

Minidisc players. I had one. I think I've still got it somewhere...

Yes to ecstacy deaths and special assemblies and consequently not doing any drugs except weed. Everything else was terrifying!

Rebel perfume.
Internet dialling up noise.
Being taught how to hide under table ,with doors somehow) if nuclear attack.
Answering the phone with your number.

Swallowing bubble gum in case it blocked my intestines

@uncomfortablydumb53 lol that’s one of mine too!

@GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut id say drugs are still terrifying! And weed!

Hiding under desks for the inevitable nuclear attack, then ira bomb warnings/attacks then the ozone layer and cfc's

Yes to the fear of nuclear war. I remember we'd to write a play at school, set in the aftermath. No wonder we were scared! Also that When the Wind Blows animation. Just terrifying.

Dallas and Dynasty.

Crossed lines on the phone ( landline).

Green being an unlucky colour at a wedding (I wanted emerald green bridesmaid dresses but the idea of that upset MIL).

Women having to reapply for their job if they got married and resign if they became pregnant

Yes to not having red and white together.
I carried red roses at my wedding with gypsophila and wild berries. My elderly relatives nearly fainted as, against my white wedding dress, it might signify blood!

There were plenty of people on here getting themselves worked up about nuclear annihilation when the war in Ukraine started.

I thought I'd need my red Record of Achievement folder a lot more than I have!

Rabies

Y2K

This really made me LOL!

Killer clowns roaming neighbourhoods in a scooby doo esque van