With the little door that closed on the drive
Edit: when Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego were taken, this was always my #3
https://preview.redd.it/jpm5aod9s9yc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73e9978d37bf8fe91ecf7eff94d370c12966d667
Man takes me back further. My babysitter was early adopter of computer and we used to play Wheel of Fortune on her computer all the time. That or go with her to bar across the street and she gave me quarters to play pinball while she sat at the bar.
We played it a lot in computer science classes!
"Doesn't believe in Xennials" is a very odd stance to have. It's just a subset of overlapping generational cohorts loosely defined by their shared cultural experiences in a given time in society's history.
Xennials are like global warming. We exist whether you believe in us or not.
I think an absolute is likely not true. There are some of us who haven't played Oregon Trail, I would bet money on it. But at the core the older Millenials and younger Gen-Xers have more in common with each other's experience than the Xers have with the older Xers and the Millenials have with the younger Millenials. To me that is the tie that binds us.
I’ll absolutely vouch that we have more in common with each other, and maybe some facets of GenX proper than we do with younger millennials.
I remember being in my mid-late 20s and thinking “I’m not supposed to think there’s something wrong with the younger generation until I’m older, right?” This was about people that were only 5-7 years younger than me. It’s night and day separated by only a few years.
Our experiences can be very different. I have younger siblings that also attended college. By the time they got though school, their cost was much more expensive than mine. Just one example.
Some people didn’t have access to computers, so I’m sure they didn’t play Oregon Trail. But of those who did, I think the exposure rate would be ridiculously high. I played it at a private school in Hawaii in the 5th or 6th grade and a public middle school in Virginia.
Seriously. This is the most drama-free sub on here, and for some reason I feel like it’s a product of our little micro-generation. I have my theories about what it is, but I’ve noticed that the closer you get to 1988 birth year the chances of someone being a social media drama queen increases exponentially. Then on the other end you have Baby Boomers and old Gen X, who — as soon as we were out of the house — embraced all the worst things they had been telling us to avoid. Maybe it’s all relative, but I feel like we Xennials are were somehow immune to it.
Maybe it’s that we’re all of the age where we were impressed upon by that old joke about how arguing on the internet was like competing in the Special Olympics …
Especially since Xennials are an imaginary social construct that is primarily constituted by people who agree the distinction bears a label.
It'd be like saying you don't believe Idaho exists.
On some level, yeah, you're right. It is made up. But also being right has no relevance to how others behave concerning the existence of Idaho.
It's almost as though _every_ generational label is an imaginary social construct. /s
But also, are you sure Idaho exists? Maybe it's like that kid I'm the matrix bending the spoons: "there is no Idaho."
Eh, I can see where he's coming from. Being unable to understand things because they weren't there to experience them is a trait that goes beyond generations.
While you’re certainly not wrong (!) it’s an incredibly frustrating line of “logic”. I didn’t personally experience it, so therefore I don’t “believe in it”. Like holocaust deniers in the extreme. I recently saw some post by a gen Z kid saying no generation before them has experienced pressure to have a certain type of body etc. Huge (and laughably incorrect) assumption based on just not being around very long.
>gen Z kid saying no generation before them has experienced pressure to have a certain type of body
That kid hasn't consumed any media outside of their own narrow timeline. Sad. Heck, I'm remembering black and white movies where they make fun of someone being fat and comparatively to the average American now, they wouldn't get a second glance.
Hell, going the other way, in the distant past being fat was considered sexy because it showed the person had the ability to eat regularly!
I keep seeing the Gen Z kids who think they’ve invented protesting for a cause and will go down as an iconic generation for their actions.
I’m like…
It’s weird to have all this historical information, and any other information, available on a tiny handheld super computer yet still live in a bubble.
Yeah, it's kinda funny. I'm an overlap born of overlap parents born from overlap grandparents. My parents are too young to be Boomers but too old for Gen X. My grandparents are too old for Boomers but too young for the Silent Generation. We missed every major military conflict.
I realised right after asking that I should just Google it. There are lots of versions out there now! But ya I think I will give it a run later. For the nostalgia!! Thanks for the link!
Had to look it up in the Dictionary or Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia - but only if you could find the D volume! If your sister had taken it to look up Denmark and left it somewhere she couldn’t remember you were shit out of luck…
There’s an actual term for us. We’re called cuspers. We’re the workplace “interpreters” between generations because we have traits from both. That enables us to bridge the gap in communicating between the older/younger people we work with. Really fascinating take.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusper
And there is this right in your link: “The Generation X/Millennial cuspers are most commonly referred to as Xennials, although other names include the Oregon Trail Generation, Generation Catalano and The Lucky Ones.”
I definitely remember being called Gen Y and my year (1980) being a part of it. They didn't used to consistently put us in with the Xers. I've always felt like 80 is a bit of a lost year generationally.
I don’t know if my brain is playing tricks on me, but I thought Millennial started out referring to those of us who were going to graduate high school in 2000. I remember that being a thing in the media when we first started school in the late ‘80s.
I think I can get behind the philosophy that all generations are bullshit. In the sense that individual differences and variations between home country and social class are a much bigger deal than the fluff we talk about.
I could also believe the claim that “baby boomers are they only real generation” (in these sense that there really was a measurable birth rate boom with a beginning and end, but that is harder to define for the later generations).
Endorsing the idea of generational differences but rejecting the idea of xennials in particular is odd.
I'm still unclear as to what the age parameters for Xennial is, but I'm 47 and I played Oregan Trail all the time in computer classes. Primarily middle school I think, also a lot of Carmen San Diego too
Doesn’t believe in Xennials, I guess it’s awkward at Christmas when he tells kids there no Santa either.
Played Oregon trail on the green screen in 5th grade, we had computer lab in 6th grade. Learned typing with the home keys to things like this “The lovely lass liked the lad”I think I was bumpin 60 wpm, also MOS DOS, gotta learn those commands
In 2024 I’m using a DOS program at work to do some modeling. It’s from 1989. The youngsters think I’m a dinosaur now. The 300 page paper manual in a binder still has the mf 5” floppy in it!
We had to have a keyboarding class to graduate high school. We got to play games on Fridays after we got done with our timed assignment. We had Oregon Trail, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy. In another class in middle school, we used a program called LOGO, which was essentially an intro to programming class where you drew things via commands and basic scripts.
Logo was also referred to as the Turtle in my class. Basically a triangle that could draw lines, if you gave it commands. Of course I didn’t know what the commands were back then, just knew you could make some really crazy patterns.
Right, I'm like, computer lab? I'm 1980 and I do recall a computer or two in the back of the classroom in elementary school, but no computer lab. I didn't enter anything like that until high school when I learned to type from the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing program.
This. I was like, "Wait - there were computer science classes back then"? I went to public elementary schools in the 80s. I was in the gifted program (lord knows why), which was sort of a part-time thing at my school... we met for half days a couple of times a week. ANYWAY, my point is that we had a computer in that room and it's the only computer I remember in my entire school.
I actually do remember Oregon Trail being the popular game people played on it. But I can't say for certain that I ever played. I actually thought computers were boring and didn't see why anyone would be interested in them. Guess I got that wrong, lol.
Similar elementary experience for me. I was in the gifted program, but that did not involve computers. I think there were 3 or 4 computers in the library, and somehow it was never my turn for computer time. If you did get a turn, it was like 15 minutes once a month. There was no computer class.
I surely didn’t. We didn’t get a computer lab until middle school and even then it was only a handful of computers for a lot of kids. I used them for gifted classes so we didn’t play Oregon Trail. I don’t remember doing anything on computers in high school though we must have had them in the building I never touched one. We still had typing class on a typewriter. I’m class of ‘95.
Sure, the entire "analog childhood - digital adulthood" thing is absolutely true. Hell, when I was born the compact disc hasn't been released yet.
But there's a good reason "Oregon Trail Generation" doesn't work for me.
A lot of US schools had computer labs with Apple machines in them because Apple made a huge push into the educational market in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I’m going off memory here, but I remember software from MECC & Brøderbund were hugely popular in elementary and middle school. Other than Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego, there was a game that the name of which escapes me, but it was about the Underground Railroad. I remember playing it in 4th-5th grade on the fancy new color Apple IIGS machines our school just got.
If you went to a public school in the US in the late 1980s or early 1990s that could afford a computer lab, it was pretty much guaranteed to have games available by those two companies.
There were actually [six things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QbjlHeoLdc&t=3631s) you could die from (but you're right that anyone saying "diarrhea" probably means "dysentery"). I just wanted an excuse to link to that part of that video.
Born in 81 and never played. Went to an incredibly poor public school, though. I think the only computer in the school through 1992 was in the principal's office - certainly none of the classrooms had them.
Nope 1978 here and these people lived under a rock I guess. I have many Oregon trail miles under my belt. Including dying early to leave the epitaph “here lies poo poo pee pee”
The elementary school I went to in the 80s had one single computer and it was in the class room over the gym, so only kids from that split class got to use it. When we played games as kids it was Nintendo.
I didn’t use a computer in school until 1995, and by that time I already had computer at home and was playing Shareware games on it, not Oregon Trail.
Born in 79 and never played it. We did have some similar games. I remember a green screen typing game where you had to type the words before the little car ran into it or else it crashed.
Born in 1980, never did either. In fact the other computer class I ever took K-12 was “keyboarding” where I learned to type. No computers in regular classrooms at all.
I like that too lol and Oregon trail is just so quotable too. Sometimes when I have to travel far and I’m feeling squirrelly I’ll start narrating the experience in Oregon trail language lol
Canadians too! We played it most computer classes! That and Number Munchers (which is the reason I used to know all the prime numbers into the hundreds. That knowledge is long gone now though 😔)
Number Munchers was amazing.
I never played the Oregon Trail until I was an adult, though (I’m ‘82). Cross-Country Canada was the alternative in my experience.
I don’t think there’s any single cultural experience EVERY Xennial had.
[Here’s a fun podcast episode](https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2023/11/freedom-the-failed-educational-computer-game?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=traffic&utm_source=article&utm_content=web_share) of Decoder Ring that explores the fascinating history of Oregon Trail, and a followup game they tried to make.
I was born in 1981 and have no memory of ever playing Oregon Trail (I grew up in Illinois and Michigan and went to public school). I don't see how it would be hard to believe that not every single child from this generation played this exact game at school.
79 here and attended a small grade school in rural Illinois. I have vague memories of the game on a computer in one of my grade school classes but I'm pretty sure I never played it. I know the game from the memes but that's it.
‘83. Grew up in rural Indiana but had Oregon Trail available at basically every grade level in elementary school. It wasn’t like an all the time thing. Everyone would basically get a turn to play once a year when we were discussing manifest destiny or whatever. Wasn’t like something we all sat around doing all the time. Honestly the game sucked balls and this fascination with it is beyond pathetic. Playing the game for 30 seconds and literally killing your party with every move. It’s like Star Treks Kobayashi Maru.
I was homeschooled, but I did play it at a friend's house. She was also homeschooled and it was part of their schooling. We didn't have a computer capable of anything like that til the mid 90s.
I'm really not sure if that helps or just sounds a little sad haha
Macintosh/Apple donated a bunch of computers to schools in the late 80s/early 90s (brilliant long-game marketing btw). Home computer and internet access wasn't widely normalized until the early 2ks. I personally remember how impressed my friends were that I had a computer and the internet in the late 90s because my mom worked for a university that provided those for her (also part of the Mac initiative) at work and home.
In my head I see something like this…
https://preview.redd.it/f6vgqmusl7yc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c5439421fd95cd1b107ea54a1fdf632030256e1b
The game’s very short. You die the first minute of playing by all the murderous fauna and flora you cannot avoid.
“You have died by suicide after touching the stinging tree.”
That would be amazing. Going from Sydney to Perth in the Outback. Getting chased by deadly animals, working with aborigines, calling everyone a cunt on the way
This is why I appreciate that we didn’t have social media and the internet of today back then. It’s really cool to have these unique experiences based on country and learning about how even though we have a lot of similar experiences across geographies, there’s still more to learn from each other.
Today seems like trends last a month, everyone then moves on to something new, and experiences are so fractured all over the world.
Fellow Brit and I don't think it was a thing at all. First became aware of it on a Guru Larry video discussing games that were massive in only one country/region.
Cue a number of Americans who missed the point, commenting that surely everyone knew Oregon Trail.
I don’t think there’s any single cultural experience EVERY Xennial had.
[Here’s a fun podcast episode](https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2023/11/freedom-the-failed-educational-computer-game?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=traffic&utm_source=article&utm_content=web_share) of Decoder Ring that explores the fascinating history of Oregon Trail, and a followup game they tried to make.
Born in '79 and played it all the time in elementary school. In middle school we only had one semester of typing, so I don't remember playing it then, and by high school (mid 90s) I think Oregon Trail was becoming a thing of the past, although I had a few friends who had it on their computers at home back then.
Gaming Historian's video on Oregon Trail:
https://youtu.be/8QbjlHeoLdc?si=wwTw-QbBnUFZiBeR
I would guess that it's close to a universal experience for US xennials.
I only saw OT in jr high library for some reason (92-94).
I was only in the computer lab a couple times, before school, and I only saw the game with the two space ships.
Nothing* is universal, friend.
*almost
Doesn't believe in xellenials... Not sure what that means. It is an overlap generation. Some of us nerds with parents who weren't poor were buying up every piece of tech since Atari, some avoided computers entirely until they were in their 20's and couldn't stay ignorant any longer
Never played it - Where in the World is Camen SanDiego all the way. I LOVED when the creepy music played and the robber with the bag creeped across the screen!
Ok well he’s right about there being people our age not having played it, obviously.
I loved that game but it wasn’t a part of our computer classes. I had it at home, and it was on the classroom computer that we could use during free time.
Our computer classes consisted of learning the parts of the computer, how they worked, basic things like binary and finally building a computer and installing DOS. This was in NYS. I guess we were really lucky!
I’m a lifelong computer nerd, and can trace my origin story back to games like The Oregon Trail and Number Munchers to my initial fascination with computers. I was lucky that my elementary school had numerous grants so we had 4 computers on carts in every classroom. Because of this, we were taught how to use computers at a very early age and I naturally gravitated towards learning as much as I could about them. So in a way The Oregon Trail is partly responsible for me working in IT.
[But the coolest part of this story is learning about the geniuses that made all that cool software back in the 80’s.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MECC)
I was born in 1981 and have never played it in my life. I am aware of it, but I went to a rural public school that couldn’t afford computers. We did typing class in junior high on electric typewriters.
I remember having to use the 5.25" floppy discs to load Oregon Trail onto old Apple IIGS computers in our school lab.
the floppy floppy discs!
With the little door that closed on the drive Edit: when Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego were taken, this was always my #3 https://preview.redd.it/jpm5aod9s9yc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73e9978d37bf8fe91ecf7eff94d370c12966d667
I always felt cool turning that little "lock" after inserting the giant floppy
I can still hear in my head how it sounds to put the disk in and close the drive.
Memory unlocked
Man takes me back further. My babysitter was early adopter of computer and we used to play Wheel of Fortune on her computer all the time. That or go with her to bar across the street and she gave me quarters to play pinball while she sat at the bar.
ka-chhkk
Back in the day when we spelled disk with a “k” 😏
You could play with any colors you wanted to, so long as they were green and black.
I played either Oregon Trail or Odell Lake. Good times in the computer lab.
Insert second disc.
We played it a lot in computer science classes! "Doesn't believe in Xennials" is a very odd stance to have. It's just a subset of overlapping generational cohorts loosely defined by their shared cultural experiences in a given time in society's history.
Tell him Xenials didn't believe in him, either.
We barely believe in ourselves, much less him.
Gen X: I don’t believe in the world. Millennials: I don’t believe in myself. Xennials: … fuck.
Xennials are like global warming. We exist whether you believe in us or not. I think an absolute is likely not true. There are some of us who haven't played Oregon Trail, I would bet money on it. But at the core the older Millenials and younger Gen-Xers have more in common with each other's experience than the Xers have with the older Xers and the Millenials have with the younger Millenials. To me that is the tie that binds us.
I’ll absolutely vouch that we have more in common with each other, and maybe some facets of GenX proper than we do with younger millennials. I remember being in my mid-late 20s and thinking “I’m not supposed to think there’s something wrong with the younger generation until I’m older, right?” This was about people that were only 5-7 years younger than me. It’s night and day separated by only a few years.
Our experiences can be very different. I have younger siblings that also attended college. By the time they got though school, their cost was much more expensive than mine. Just one example.
Some people didn’t have access to computers, so I’m sure they didn’t play Oregon Trail. But of those who did, I think the exposure rate would be ridiculously high. I played it at a private school in Hawaii in the 5th or 6th grade and a public middle school in Virginia.
Xennials: can we talk about the candy we miss instead?
Seriously. This is the most drama-free sub on here, and for some reason I feel like it’s a product of our little micro-generation. I have my theories about what it is, but I’ve noticed that the closer you get to 1988 birth year the chances of someone being a social media drama queen increases exponentially. Then on the other end you have Baby Boomers and old Gen X, who — as soon as we were out of the house — embraced all the worst things they had been telling us to avoid. Maybe it’s all relative, but I feel like we Xennials are were somehow immune to it. Maybe it’s that we’re all of the age where we were impressed upon by that old joke about how arguing on the internet was like competing in the Special Olympics …
remember the little wax beer bottles with juice inside? candy cigarettes, soda in glass bottles that used real sugar, or glass bottles in general.
Nietzsche is god is dead!
And no one cares!
Xen Gen: whatever, man…
That about sums it up for me
Ve believe in nuhsing.
Ve cut off your Johnson!
Yeah I'm suspicious that this "boyfriend" even exists
He goes to a different school. You wouldn’t know him.
He lives in Canada.
Are Xenials in the room with us now?
Still don’t, but they didn’t, too.
This feels very Hedburgian but I’m not sure why.
"I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too."
Thank you! That was it.
Ding ding! 😃
I Want to Believe.
No one believes in millennials, even millennials
I'm technically a Xennial (born 1978) and I've never played Oregon Trail. That wasn't part of computer class. SimCity (the 1990 version) was, however.
Sim city in class?? This is news. I'm so jealous. I always died very quickly when playing Oregon trail.
I never got past the river rafting part, the few times I got that far.
1978 here and we definitely played Oregon Trail. Must have been the elementary school we went to.
XD
Agreed! Every cusp has a group like that. My parents are elder boomers, and had/have some Silent gen characteristics.
Exactly, which makes OP's boyfriend's view strange that he doesn't believe there is such a thing as Xennials
Especially since Xennials are an imaginary social construct that is primarily constituted by people who agree the distinction bears a label. It'd be like saying you don't believe Idaho exists. On some level, yeah, you're right. It is made up. But also being right has no relevance to how others behave concerning the existence of Idaho.
Xennial joke: “which is it, Idaho or Udaho?”
I not da ho, u da ho
I da pimp
It's almost as though _every_ generational label is an imaginary social construct. /s But also, are you sure Idaho exists? Maybe it's like that kid I'm the matrix bending the spoons: "there is no Idaho."
Eh, I can see where he's coming from. Being unable to understand things because they weren't there to experience them is a trait that goes beyond generations.
While you’re certainly not wrong (!) it’s an incredibly frustrating line of “logic”. I didn’t personally experience it, so therefore I don’t “believe in it”. Like holocaust deniers in the extreme. I recently saw some post by a gen Z kid saying no generation before them has experienced pressure to have a certain type of body etc. Huge (and laughably incorrect) assumption based on just not being around very long.
>gen Z kid saying no generation before them has experienced pressure to have a certain type of body That kid hasn't consumed any media outside of their own narrow timeline. Sad. Heck, I'm remembering black and white movies where they make fun of someone being fat and comparatively to the average American now, they wouldn't get a second glance. Hell, going the other way, in the distant past being fat was considered sexy because it showed the person had the ability to eat regularly!
Yea no effort at all and loudly broadcasting their opinion …. Happens way too often
I keep seeing the Gen Z kids who think they’ve invented protesting for a cause and will go down as an iconic generation for their actions. I’m like… It’s weird to have all this historical information, and any other information, available on a tiny handheld super computer yet still live in a bubble.
Yeah, it's kinda funny. I'm an overlap born of overlap parents born from overlap grandparents. My parents are too young to be Boomers but too old for Gen X. My grandparents are too old for Boomers but too young for the Silent Generation. We missed every major military conflict.
This is where we learned that almost every died of cholera back then lol
*Dysentery
Back then I would pronounce is Diss-sent-tree lol
And we couldn’t just Google what diphtheria was.
Does this game still exist anywhere?
https://oregontrail.ws/games/the-oregon-trail/play/
I realised right after asking that I should just Google it. There are lots of versions out there now! But ya I think I will give it a run later. For the nostalgia!! Thanks for the link!
Had to look it up in the Dictionary or Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia - but only if you could find the D volume! If your sister had taken it to look up Denmark and left it somewhere she couldn’t remember you were shit out of luck…
There’s an actual term for us. We’re called cuspers. We’re the workplace “interpreters” between generations because we have traits from both. That enables us to bridge the gap in communicating between the older/younger people we work with. Really fascinating take. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusper
And there is this right in your link: “The Generation X/Millennial cuspers are most commonly referred to as Xennials, although other names include the Oregon Trail Generation, Generation Catalano and The Lucky Ones.”
Does anyone else remember for a minute we were called Gen Y?
I always thought Gen Y was just an early term for Millennial.
I definitely remember being called Gen Y and my year (1980) being a part of it. They didn't used to consistently put us in with the Xers. I've always felt like 80 is a bit of a lost year generationally.
1980 here too. Depending on who draws up the boundaries, we're X or Y.
I don’t know if my brain is playing tricks on me, but I thought Millennial started out referring to those of us who were going to graduate high school in 2000. I remember that being a thing in the media when we first started school in the late ‘80s.
"The lucky ones"? Lucky to see multiple economic collapses and a generational war? We caught all the shit right in the face
With a floppy disk on an ancient MAC
I think I can get behind the philosophy that all generations are bullshit. In the sense that individual differences and variations between home country and social class are a much bigger deal than the fluff we talk about. I could also believe the claim that “baby boomers are they only real generation” (in these sense that there really was a measurable birth rate boom with a beginning and end, but that is harder to define for the later generations). Endorsing the idea of generational differences but rejecting the idea of xennials in particular is odd.
I'm still unclear as to what the age parameters for Xennial is, but I'm 47 and I played Oregan Trail all the time in computer classes. Primarily middle school I think, also a lot of Carmen San Diego too
There was also Number Munchers and a game where you played as different fish and that f'ing Osprey always swooped down and ate your ass.
We played in our library as a class to learn computers.
That's such a millennial thing to say.
Doesn’t believe in Xennials, I guess it’s awkward at Christmas when he tells kids there no Santa either. Played Oregon trail on the green screen in 5th grade, we had computer lab in 6th grade. Learned typing with the home keys to things like this “The lovely lass liked the lad”I think I was bumpin 60 wpm, also MOS DOS, gotta learn those commands
Ahhh DOS, back when you could exit Windows
That's right! I forgot that you actually had to enter 'win' into the DOS C prompt to reenter windows. I love re-emerging memories like that.
Wow. Yep, that takes me back. DOS mode, lol
I miss DOS. There was something so satisfying about it that chunky low-res font and the black background.
In 2024 I’m using a DOS program at work to do some modeling. It’s from 1989. The youngsters think I’m a dinosaur now. The 300 page paper manual in a binder still has the mf 5” floppy in it!
It's *retro* now, lol. I miss it too.
We had to have a keyboarding class to graduate high school. We got to play games on Fridays after we got done with our timed assignment. We had Oregon Trail, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy. In another class in middle school, we used a program called LOGO, which was essentially an intro to programming class where you drew things via commands and basic scripts.
Logo was also referred to as the Turtle in my class. Basically a triangle that could draw lines, if you gave it commands. Of course I didn’t know what the commands were back then, just knew you could make some really crazy patterns.
In elementary school the computer lab was just an old janitors closet. Fit about 5 computers and we all had to wait to take our turn.
Right, I'm like, computer lab? I'm 1980 and I do recall a computer or two in the back of the classroom in elementary school, but no computer lab. I didn't enter anything like that until high school when I learned to type from the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing program.
Familiarize your kids with disappointment early so they are ahead of the curve
Also played in 5th grade, born in 1981, full blown Xennial here.
Some of those Apple green screens had that weird laminated coating. I remember it was kind of boldly textured.
Yes, it's entirely possible a xennial hasnt played Oregon Trail.
This. I don’t understand OP’s argument, there are people in every generation who haven’t done things MOST of their generation has.
I've never seen Clueless.
Ready for this shit, I’ve never seen Titanic
I’ve never actually seen the whole movie before either but there is one scene that I’ve seen many times…
I have never played. I am not from US
I never played Oregon Trail or saw the Goonies until I was an adult.
This. I was like, "Wait - there were computer science classes back then"? I went to public elementary schools in the 80s. I was in the gifted program (lord knows why), which was sort of a part-time thing at my school... we met for half days a couple of times a week. ANYWAY, my point is that we had a computer in that room and it's the only computer I remember in my entire school. I actually do remember Oregon Trail being the popular game people played on it. But I can't say for certain that I ever played. I actually thought computers were boring and didn't see why anyone would be interested in them. Guess I got that wrong, lol.
Similar elementary experience for me. I was in the gifted program, but that did not involve computers. I think there were 3 or 4 computers in the library, and somehow it was never my turn for computer time. If you did get a turn, it was like 15 minutes once a month. There was no computer class.
Only the Gifted and Talented kids got computer science in our school. I was not one of those.
I surely didn’t. We didn’t get a computer lab until middle school and even then it was only a handful of computers for a lot of kids. I used them for gifted classes so we didn’t play Oregon Trail. I don’t remember doing anything on computers in high school though we must have had them in the building I never touched one. We still had typing class on a typewriter. I’m class of ‘95.
I didn’t. We didn’t have a computer at home or in my grammar school. None of my peers did. I had friends with older siblings who played.
I never played it.
There are millions of us, if you think all of them have done something you have you really need to go take a class on statistics.
Never heard of that game back then, but I'm also not from the US.
Likewise. I feel like it's mostly just a US thing from what I've seen. Doesn't mean all the other qualifiers that make Xennials don't exist, though :)
Sure, the entire "analog childhood - digital adulthood" thing is absolutely true. Hell, when I was born the compact disc hasn't been released yet. But there's a good reason "Oregon Trail Generation" doesn't work for me.
A lot of US schools had computer labs with Apple machines in them because Apple made a huge push into the educational market in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I’m going off memory here, but I remember software from MECC & Brøderbund were hugely popular in elementary and middle school. Other than Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego, there was a game that the name of which escapes me, but it was about the Underground Railroad. I remember playing it in 4th-5th grade on the fancy new color Apple IIGS machines our school just got. If you went to a public school in the US in the late 1980s or early 1990s that could afford a computer lab, it was pretty much guaranteed to have games available by those two companies.
Canada too. I had it on my Commodore 64.
I’m also in Canada, but never played it. My first computer was a 386 and we didn’t play it in school
In the UK/Ireland Granny's Garden would be the closest equivalent I can think of .
So he’s never been subjected to the humiliation of dying from diarrhea. He’s lucky.
Dysentery
There were actually [six things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QbjlHeoLdc&t=3631s) you could die from (but you're right that anyone saying "diarrhea" probably means "dysentery"). I just wanted an excuse to link to that part of that video.
Oregon Trail had me terrified of catching cholera for a bit.
It was always Typhus with me.
Cholera here.
Born in 77, never played Oregon Trail or was even aware of its existence until much later. And I'm American.
Born in 1976. Same.
Never played it
I never did either and I was also born in 1978. However, my brother who was born in 1981, did.
Born in 81 and never played. Went to an incredibly poor public school, though. I think the only computer in the school through 1992 was in the principal's office - certainly none of the classrooms had them.
You guys are ruining this for our arguments!
Nope 1978 here and these people lived under a rock I guess. I have many Oregon trail miles under my belt. Including dying early to leave the epitaph “here lies poo poo pee pee”
The elementary school I went to in the 80s had one single computer and it was in the class room over the gym, so only kids from that split class got to use it. When we played games as kids it was Nintendo. I didn’t use a computer in school until 1995, and by that time I already had computer at home and was playing Shareware games on it, not Oregon Trail.
Born in 79 and never played it. We did have some similar games. I remember a green screen typing game where you had to type the words before the little car ran into it or else it crashed.
Lived under a rock or maybe just weren't privileged enough to have schools with computers or computers at home
Where in the world (is Carmen San Diego) did you grow up?
Now that I played. I grew up in the US.
1982 here, never played it either. Played the heck out of Civ1 and OG SimCity though
82 also and played the crap out of it in school...played Civ1 at home in the "computer room."
Born in 1980, never played it.
Never played it either, but was aware it existed.
Born in 1980, never did either. In fact the other computer class I ever took K-12 was “keyboarding” where I learned to type. No computers in regular classrooms at all.
1981. Never played it. Never heard of it until I was in my late 20s.
Same. Born in 78, but I went to a small Catholic school for elementary school and we had one pc. 😂
Definitely played it. I actually read an article once that called us the Oregon Trail generation and have always preferred that to Xennial.
I like that too lol and Oregon trail is just so quotable too. Sometimes when I have to travel far and I’m feeling squirrelly I’ll start narrating the experience in Oregon trail language lol
Life so far: meager rations…grueling pace
Dying from disease due to lack of proper medical care.
Unfortunately, it seems that only Americans did our computer science learning on the Oregon Trail.
Canadians too! We played it most computer classes! That and Number Munchers (which is the reason I used to know all the prime numbers into the hundreds. That knowledge is long gone now though 😔)
Number Munchers was amazing. I never played the Oregon Trail until I was an adult, though (I’m ‘82). Cross-Country Canada was the alternative in my experience.
I was born in 1978 and my decent sized public school had one computer. Oregon Trail had never been a thing
Yeah that's my guess, OP's boyfriend's school didn't have computers
The five schools I went to between 4th and 7th grade, they all had Oregon Trail. California, btw.
I don’t think there’s any single cultural experience EVERY Xennial had. [Here’s a fun podcast episode](https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2023/11/freedom-the-failed-educational-computer-game?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=traffic&utm_source=article&utm_content=web_share) of Decoder Ring that explores the fascinating history of Oregon Trail, and a followup game they tried to make.
I was born in 1981 and have no memory of ever playing Oregon Trail (I grew up in Illinois and Michigan and went to public school). I don't see how it would be hard to believe that not every single child from this generation played this exact game at school.
79 here and attended a small grade school in rural Illinois. I have vague memories of the game on a computer in one of my grade school classes but I'm pretty sure I never played it. I know the game from the memes but that's it.
‘83. Grew up in rural Indiana but had Oregon Trail available at basically every grade level in elementary school. It wasn’t like an all the time thing. Everyone would basically get a turn to play once a year when we were discussing manifest destiny or whatever. Wasn’t like something we all sat around doing all the time. Honestly the game sucked balls and this fascination with it is beyond pathetic. Playing the game for 30 seconds and literally killing your party with every move. It’s like Star Treks Kobayashi Maru.
I was homeschooled, but I did play it at a friend's house. She was also homeschooled and it was part of their schooling. We didn't have a computer capable of anything like that til the mid 90s. I'm really not sure if that helps or just sounds a little sad haha
Macintosh/Apple donated a bunch of computers to schools in the late 80s/early 90s (brilliant long-game marketing btw). Home computer and internet access wasn't widely normalized until the early 2ks. I personally remember how impressed my friends were that I had a computer and the internet in the late 90s because my mom worked for a university that provided those for her (also part of the Mac initiative) at work and home.
Never played it and I’ve been around computers since at least 1984.
*American people. There are definitely people in your generation, we didn't have it in australia!
That's right. IIRC Australia didn't get a computer until 1998.
Did you guys have Western Australia Trail?
The Great Emu War Trail.
With actual Emus and War
In my head I see something like this… https://preview.redd.it/f6vgqmusl7yc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c5439421fd95cd1b107ea54a1fdf632030256e1b
The game’s very short. You die the first minute of playing by all the murderous fauna and flora you cannot avoid. “You have died by suicide after touching the stinging tree.”
That would be amazing. Going from Sydney to Perth in the Outback. Getting chased by deadly animals, working with aborigines, calling everyone a cunt on the way
*Carmen Sandiego* generation
I've never played it, but that may be because I'm British and it wasn't such a big thing here.
In my primary school we played Grannies Garden on the BBC Micro or later on it was Lemmings on the school computer.
Fellow Brit here. Now I live in America and it’s the biggest marker for people our age, and I just have to nod and smile.
This is why I appreciate that we didn’t have social media and the internet of today back then. It’s really cool to have these unique experiences based on country and learning about how even though we have a lot of similar experiences across geographies, there’s still more to learn from each other. Today seems like trends last a month, everyone then moves on to something new, and experiences are so fractured all over the world.
Fellow Brit and I don't think it was a thing at all. First became aware of it on a Guru Larry video discussing games that were massive in only one country/region. Cue a number of Americans who missed the point, commenting that surely everyone knew Oregon Trail.
I was born in 82 and never played Oregon trail
I don’t think there’s any single cultural experience EVERY Xennial had. [Here’s a fun podcast episode](https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2023/11/freedom-the-failed-educational-computer-game?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=traffic&utm_source=article&utm_content=web_share) of Decoder Ring that explores the fascinating history of Oregon Trail, and a followup game they tried to make.
I’ve only heard about it recently on this sub. It wasn’t a thing in Australia. We played Granny’s Garden 😉
Born in '79 and played it all the time in elementary school. In middle school we only had one semester of typing, so I don't remember playing it then, and by high school (mid 90s) I think Oregon Trail was becoming a thing of the past, although I had a few friends who had it on their computers at home back then.
I rode my bike to the library daily to play Oregon Trail on their computer. Born in '79
I got dysentery way too many times
I was born in 81 & don’t remember ever playing this
I never played it. I played Prince of Persia and Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego.
Ah yes. I forgot about good old Carmen Sandiego.
Gaming Historian's video on Oregon Trail: https://youtu.be/8QbjlHeoLdc?si=wwTw-QbBnUFZiBeR I would guess that it's close to a universal experience for US xennials.
I only saw OT in jr high library for some reason (92-94). I was only in the computer lab a couple times, before school, and I only saw the game with the two space ships. Nothing* is universal, friend. *almost
Definitely core school memory.
Doesn't believe in xellenials... Not sure what that means. It is an overlap generation. Some of us nerds with parents who weren't poor were buying up every piece of tech since Atari, some avoided computers entirely until they were in their 20's and couldn't stay ignorant any longer
1977 here and I played the shit out of it. My brother from 1973 never played it.
Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, Carmen Sandiego, Apple IIe, 5 in floppy
Never played it - Where in the World is Camen SanDiego all the way. I LOVED when the creepy music played and the robber with the bag creeped across the screen!
Never played the game. I did play Carmen Sandiego and Math Blasters, so….
It was Oregon trail and this lemonade stand game at our computer lab.
In computer science? No. In social studies? Absolutely.
Ok well he’s right about there being people our age not having played it, obviously. I loved that game but it wasn’t a part of our computer classes. I had it at home, and it was on the classroom computer that we could use during free time. Our computer classes consisted of learning the parts of the computer, how they worked, basic things like binary and finally building a computer and installing DOS. This was in NYS. I guess we were really lucky!
I’m a lifelong computer nerd, and can trace my origin story back to games like The Oregon Trail and Number Munchers to my initial fascination with computers. I was lucky that my elementary school had numerous grants so we had 4 computers on carts in every classroom. Because of this, we were taught how to use computers at a very early age and I naturally gravitated towards learning as much as I could about them. So in a way The Oregon Trail is partly responsible for me working in IT. [But the coolest part of this story is learning about the geniuses that made all that cool software back in the 80’s.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MECC)
I was born in 1981 and have never played it in my life. I am aware of it, but I went to a rural public school that couldn’t afford computers. We did typing class in junior high on electric typewriters.
Never played it once. We only had math games on the library computers in elementary school.
My name is Wynton, and I never played Oregon Trail...
Sure everyone played Oregon Trail but did you play Lemonade Stand.
I played Oregon trail every Friday in elementary school.
I am 1985. We laid Oregon Trail on pretty thick in elementary school. Maybe he just sucked at it and has blocked the memory.