- A comedian asked "older people" what they did before they could look things up on the internet.
- Her question, posted on TikTok, received a number of responses about what life used to be like.
A 26-year-old TikToker and comedian asked "older people" what life looked like before they could easily look up answers to their questions on the internet and was met with responses from people explaining how they coped without instant access to information.
On October 22, a TikTok user named Sarah Adelman posted a video posing a question to "older people" on the app.
"OK this is a genuine question to like, older people, what did you do before you could look something up?" she asked in her video.
"Like, if you saw someone and you were like, 'Oh, they remind me of that actor, what was that, what's his name?' And none of your friends knew, would you go to a library?" she added.
She went on to ask how people coped before Google Maps and the online mapping resource MapQuest existed.
"Would you just accept not knowing? Please stitch this and tell me because I genuinely do not understand how I would survive," she said, writing in the caption that she was born in 1997.
@sarah_adelman Pls help i was born in 1997 #90s #genz #90skids #iphone #rant #question #funny ♬ original sound - Sarah Adelman
Adelman's video received over 400,000 views, sparking a discussion among tens of thousands of commenters, many of whom offered their own answers and explanations about what life looked like before the internet.
One top comment with over 20,000 likes read, "the name of the actor would come up to you 3 weeks later while you were eating a bowl of cereal."
"Your aunt said something was fact and you believed that until you found out otherwise," another user wrote.
One commenter shared details about how people coped before they could easily look up songs on the internet, saying: "I legit went into record stores and sang snippets of songs I'd heard to store clerks. They were shameless times."
Several users responded to Adelman's request that users stitch her video, posting their responses to her thoughts and questions in a video format.
"It is a lot easier nowadays to find out information," said one user who goes by @north_omaha_cat_lady, in a clip with over 21,000 views.
@north_omaha_cat_lady #greenscreenvideo #gettinmyfatbitchon #genxtiktokers #genxwedifferent #genx #1966 @Sarah Adelman ♬ original sound - north_omaha_cat_lady
During the clip, the user, who said she was born in 1966, said when she was growing up and had a question, her mother would direct her to the dictionary or their set of encyclopedias, and she also said that people used to rely on others in their lives whom they considered experts in different fields, reaching out to them if they had certain questions they wanted answers to.
She also said that when it came to navigation without the internet, people would often use paper maps and that it was also common to ask for directions if you didn't know the way to your destination, although you would have to call a friend using a payphone if you got lost, as you would not have had a cellphone.
@tiktoksully I miss not knowing where to find information. #stitch @Sarah Adelman ♬ original sound - Sully
Another user, @tiktoksully, who received 3,000 views on his response to Adelman's video, said that prior to having access to the internet people sometimes "just had to accept not knowing" the answers to questions, which in their opinion, was a good thing.
"I feel like now with the way technology is and the way that just the internet is, you can do anything, you can find anything, and it makes people reliant on it. People don't actually have to learn stuff," he said during the clip.
Sarah Adelman is a 26-year-old comedian based in New York City, according to her TikTok bio. She has 15,000 followers on the platform and typically posts comedic content in the form of storytime videos, a format in which creators recount personal anecdotes that may or may not be fictional. The creator told Insider over Instagram DM that all her content is based on true stories, sometimes utilizing exaggeration for comedic effect.
Adelman also said she posted the video because she was "genuinely wondering" about the topic, and added that she was "fascinated by everyone's answers."
"The answers that interested me most were that urban myths/legends were much more pervasive because there wasn't always easy ways to 'fact check' and secondly that a lot of Gen X and older millennials were saying that you just lived in the discomfort of not knowing and that sometimes you could get a really satisfying 'aha' moment when you figured something out," she wrote.
TikTok, which is often associated with Gen Z users, is increasingly becoming a place where people of different generations can converse and compare experiences. Sometimes, these conversations involve the different generations mocking each other or expressing deep confusion about the inner workings of other age groups.
Earlier this year, Gen Z users mercilessly made fun of their perception of "millennial humor," and other Gen Z users tried but struggled to decipher the significance behind one of Gen Alpha's favorite memes, the "Skibidi toilet."
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.