I stumbled upon this video earlier today, and it was like looking into an altered reality. It almost seemed too fake to be real. Everyone was friendly, sociable, and polite, even though they were amongst strangers.
People didn't have their noses buried in their phones, nobody was awkward, people weren't afraid of eye contact, cursing was kept to a bare minimum, nobody told the camera man to get that fucking camera out of my face, the manager was actually smoking inside the store, and most importantly, nobody was fat, even though they were congregating inside a 7-11. The camera man's ramble was pretty damn good too.
I was born too late into the 80's to know any of this, so was it really like this back then? Nowadays, people seem so cold and distant and suspicious, keeping to themselves, plugging their ears with headphones, burying their faces in the warm glow of their $500 iPhone. I walk into a convenient store today, and I won't see what I saw in that video. I blame social media, the advent of smartphones, and the Internet for this. If someone told me that I'd have to give up all that to get the world back to how it was in that video, I'd do it in a heartbeat.