Being on MXit
Remember giving out your contact to that cute person you met at the movies? Or sending blank messages to Info or Joebanker to make sure you haven’t been disconnected? How about changing your status to ‘DND’ and your mood to ‘hot’ when you started talking naughty to your crush?
Image: Memeburn
Having a flip phone
Some of them even had the little antenna too. You could take grainy selfies with the flap closed and had to actually type out every word you wanted because you didn’t have a QWERTY keyboard yet.
Image: The Guardian
We had to buy polyphonic ringtones
Remember those ads that came on TV that said they’d send you the polyphonic version of your favourite song for just R2? Or you could create them yourself by pressing certain keys to make a tune in your ringtones folder.
Image: Huffington Post
Going to a physical store to rent DVDs
And then spending ages trying to decide what you wanted or if you could watch that action flick that came out last year 'cause the last copy was rented just before you got there.
Image: Giphy
Buying the newspaper
And actually reading it
Image: Odyssey Online
Making mixed CDs or buying them
You had a little bit of everthing on there (even though you could only fit about 13 or 14 songs on one disc) and you played it until it started skipping.
Image: Popkey
Looking in the newspaper for movie times
Because the cinema didn’t have a website you could visit and check.
Image: Giphy
Being able to have conversations without having to Google things
Remember when you used to argue with your friends about something and it would lead to confusion and perhaps hilarity? You’d eventually just give up and talk about something else? Well, now you can google the answer to that question so quickly it’ll make your head spin.
Image: Smosh
Having to use map books
There was no lady in your phone to tell you to “turn left in 200 metres”. You had to use one of those old streetmap books to look for where you’re going, or rely on strangers nearby to tell you where to turn left or right once you got close to your destination.
Image: Gifsoup
Sending faxes
You had to have a separate line for your fax machine and if you were sending a fax to a machine that many people were using, you had to make sure to mark it especially for their eyes.
Image: The Verge