Everything has a life cycle. So after Reddit user WarBeast86 made a post on the platform, asking: "What was ruined because too many people did it?" people have been paying respects to their life's treasures that have been (slowly) fading into irrelevance.

Some of the most common examples focus on over-saturated internet trends; for example, influencer culture has become so prevalent that it has led to a loss of authenticity and genuine connection online. Numerous hobbies and activities such as thrift shopping have also been mentioned as hurting from commercialization which, in turn, has led to a loss of their original appeal.

Overall, the post serves as a vivid reminder that it's important to appreciate the stuff that makes you happy because you never know when it can be taken away from you.

#1

Subscription everything...especially software. I want to buy Office/AutoCAD one time and use it for a decade. I don't want to buy it every year.

Image credits: TroubledWaterBridge

#2

Craft fairs. Now they're crowded with dozens of MLMs. I just want to find knitted slippers made by an old lady who clearly has a drinking problem, not more Norwex.

Image credits: LadyKnightmare

#3

Airbnb.

Mend35 replied:

Used to love Airbnb years ago. Now, it's pricier than a lot of decent hotels, and some of the house rules are nutty.

Image credits: CG1991

#4

College almost guaranteeing a good job and career. It is not the ticket it used to be. Over, over, over saturated.

Image credits: mjk1260

#5

Cooking shows. It used to be a few talented chefs who had shows to teach. Now it’s every damn celebrity who can or cannot cook making the same recipes as everyone else.

Image credits: CannaKitchen757

#6

Tipping culture in America. I can justify a standard 18-20% for good service in bars/restaurants. Why the actual f**k am I being asked to tip 20-30%+ for carry out to eat at home or when I buy retail goods?

Image credits: notreallyatryhard

#7

Visiting major historical sites...

Most of them have been turned into badly maintained, super expensive tourist traps.

Add in the trash and damages tourists do, and yikes.

Image credits: LadyKnightmare

#8

the internet. it might sound strange because on a surface level it's richer and more accessible than ever, but the experience now is so much worse than what early internet used to give you.

(yes, I know I sound like your crotchety old grandma)

Image credits: _criticaster

#9

Streaming services. I miss the days of one single service: Netflix. Now every studio has its own service and holds their stuff away from services like Netflix and Hulu. Direct consequence: too many subscriptions! At this point it’s more economical to buy stuff you want to watch

Image credits: Foreign-West-6669

#10

Adblock.

Now every website has a warning. It used to be a rare sight.

Image credits: heathERALYssA73

#11

The housing market.

Image credits: SuvenPan

#12

Social media.

iwbia123 replied:

Really enjoyed Facebook when you had to use a college email address

Image credits: iwbia123

#13

declaring their pets as service animals when they are not., thus making it extremely difficult for actual service animals to get their certification, or permission to be around to provide their service

Image credits: AssociateMany102

#14

Podcasts. They used to be funny or insightful or informative or in some way valuable. Now anyone with a microphone and half a funny story thinks they should make a podcast.

Image credits: thekeg0fglory

#15

Writing children's books. Used to be an art form, then every celebrity has written one.

Image credits: Rich_Suspect_4910

#16

Festivals. I use to enjoy going to some local festivals. Now they’re just overcrowded and expensive.

Image credits: TryingToNotBeInDebt

#17

ETSY - It's all resellers that run fake craft stores selling cheaply made junk. There's a handful of crafters on ETSY, and the rest is amazon resellers and cheap chinese stuff.

Image credits: genetic_patent

#18

Thrift shopping.

charlesdexterward replied:

Yup. 15 years ago the prices were soooo cheap and you could always find a gem. Now they’re always crowded and everything is overpriced and you might find something good once every 2-3 visits if you’re lucky

Image credits: charlesdexterward

#19

Driving to work early. I used to do it, but now it's the same as morning Rush hour.

Image credits: andreACOURTeny

#20

Having a dog.

They’re wonderful companions, and many working dogs do great jobs at their tasks, but there are SO MANY people who have dogs and can’t be bothered to do even very basic training. And SO MANY people who are inconsiderate pricks with their dogs in public spaces — letting their unleashed dog charge others, start fights, bark uncontrollably, jump on people, s**t on the trails and not picking up after themselves.

#21

Living in Iceland got f****d up due to Iceland becoming a popular tourist destination. Prices are way up, housing has skyrocketed (lots of reasons, big one being air bnb) and our nature monuments are slowly being eroded by dumbass tourists. I'm a native, but I can barely afford to live here anymore ?

Image credits: KristinnEs

#22

In my dorm room, there was a vending machine that, with just the perfect push of the button, would dispense two sprites. For a few of us, it lasted around 6 months. Then they fixed the machine after one loose lip led to another. Open lips snatch sips.

#23

Undergraduate degrees. We’re experiencing a strange educational inflation, where most jobs now require some form of higher education that previously didn’t. I’m not suggesting education is necessarily a bad thing by any means, but it certainty drives a greater division between those that do and don’t go. It’s used to be a 30/70 spilt and now it is 80/20 as to the percentage of people that go and those that don’t, a striking difference.

#24

There was a fish sauce that Romans used to eat. No one is sure what the recipe was precisely, but accounts say it was delicious. Even if we had the complete recipe, we would never be able to make it. The Romans ate so much of it that the fish species they made it from went extinct.

#25

Influencers

#26

Flying drones. Thanks to all the idiots doing dumb s**t with them, it's not even worth getting into the hobby nowadays - you pretty much can't fly anywhere worth flying, need all sorts of permits, are constantly risking hefty fines or even being investigated for terrorism... no thanks.

#27

Flying. Before there were so many people flying, we had leg room, food, a carry-on, and two checked bags all in the ticket price. Now we are crammed in like sardines and get nickel and dimed for everything.

#28

YouTube.

I miss the days of amateur videos. Classic Smosh. Crappy, but still sent entertaining music videos of video games. Actual real reactions that didn't feel like a fake, acted out script.

Now everything is about fitting in to the algorithm, likes and subscriptions, obnoxious influences. YouTube is all clean, square, corporate, and sanitized.

I won't deny there is also really good content to be found as well, but it's mixed in with a lot of crap.

#29

Covid ruined the National and state parks…too many a******s not respecting the land (leaving trash tagging rocks with graffiti)and crowding the trails.

Image credits: Aromatic_Ad8890

#30

There’s so many things and places most people didn’t know about prior to Instagram and “influencers” visiting and taking photos there. Think “Manhattanhenge” in NYC used to be a cool phenomenon only cared about or noticed by some but now everyone and their mother comes out lining and blocking the streets for something that was once a hey look at that that’s interesting kind of thing. Now it’s just kind of goofy

Image credits: LongtimeLurkerIsHere

#31

Sweet Caroline at EVERY F*****G sports event

#32

Photographers

When digital cameras first got popular in the mid-2000'a it was like an MLM. All your obscure friends and relatives you haven't seen or spoken to in forever are suddenly "professional photographers" and start hitting you up out of nowhere for photo sessions because they badly needed to pay for the 1 class they took, their camera, and the MacBook they bought. It got really weird for a while.

Image credits: WizardOfGunMonkeys

#33

Black Friday

#34

You used to be one of only a few people around bidding on storage lockers. It used to be a fun hobby I gave up on because it became too popular and people are grossly overpaying for the lockers which is often time just paying to make a dump run for someone.

Image credits: The3102Yuma

#35

Games, sometimes they have a wave of new players and it brings a*seholes which wreck the game for everyone else. For example Sea of Thieves, i can't play the game anymore without getting raided by other players regardless if i have loot, and even when i try to play a story adventure i can't complete it coz of tw*tty players.

#36

Moving out to "the country". Traffic used to be that one light that didn't cycle right, now there's backups every day because they failed to upgrade the infrastructure. Urbanites spazzing out because they heard a gunshot from the farm down the street, calling the police because they saw a coyote and "someone needs to do something about it!" All of them putting 10,000 watts worth of lighting all around their house, completely washing out the night sky. Can't forget their bored f**k trophies breaking into garages and trespassing and street racing on dark narrow country roads because there's nothing else to do here. Oh and there's been a couple murders now, before all this the last time we had one was in like the 60s.

Image credits: Guvnuh_T_Boggs

#37

Rap music ... it's everywhere and it's just terrible ... Some songs have good lyrics, but the melody, the "music" is just the same beat everywhere, it's just boring ...

Image credits: FeelingLonely2001

#38

Theme parks. I went to one once on a weekday when it was supposed to rain years back. There was no one there no lines for any rides at all. Was actually pretty fun. Every other time I have been was miserable I dont want to wait in a 1-3 hr line for a 3 minute ride.

#39

Basically anything outdoorsy. Hiking trails, National Parks, fishing spots, etc.

It's fun when you're the only person on the trail, the lake, or at the camp site. It's not so fun when you're hiking and someone is blasting their music on their Bluetooth speaker, when the lake is packed and people decide to fish 10 feet away from you and are obnoxiously loud, or you go to a National Park and there is graffiti and trash everywhere, random people's names carved into the largest and oldest trees on Earth, and mobs of tourists taking selfies in the middle of the trail.

People don't know how to respect nature. People don't appreciate silence. People don't know how to "leave no trace" or appreciate the natural beauty in the world around them.

Image credits: JustAnotherMiqote

#40

Burning Man. The old guard of the old hippies of yore are long gone. It's over run by hedge fund college kids and raver frat kids.

Image credits: g6paulson

#41

Farmers markets. Now they’re full of random people selling really weird s**t and try to hold you captive almost and crazy people doing “shows” as they make them. I just wanna buy my things in peace without being harassed. Or buy good coffee without people there for the “ aesthetic”

#42

Everything that has to do with true Crime. Some years ago it was not "popular" at all and you had to search for any documentary and/or website. Now there are extra TV Channels, Podcasts, Magazines, everything and everyone is "an expert".

Image credits: Queenie0411

#43

Barn weddings

#44

Made lakeside cabins. A few cabins is peaceful and fun. Filling the lakeside with cabins makes it loud and like being in town. (Disclaimer, I don’t own a cabin) *this is me just remembering someone else saying this*

#45

The house flipping trend has certainly not helped home affordability. It's good to make an junk house habitable again, it's not good to turn a $220k house into a $350k house.

#46

The summit of Mt. Everest is like a trash heap now.

Image credits: well_uh_yeah

#47

Collecting of anything that becomes popular (Comic books, Sports cards etc). The whole grading of items that turn a hobby more into an investment then what it should be, a hobby. Having anything and everything graded by PSA is getting out of hand. You say you have a sealed Back to the Future VHS ? Well send it in to be graded, they're grading a box.

#48

The popularity of online gaming has ruined campaign based play. Story mode is now backseat to online multiplayer.

The popularity of online add ons is also very annoying, because now games seem purposefully incomplete. The game sells with a short bare bones storyline, but don’t worry, you can buy “extra” story modes.

#49

Watching anime.

I’m convinced anime got so unbelievably weeby and adding extra fan service because it got more popular which is my conspiracy theory as to why we don’t really get shows like yu yu hakusho, samurai champloo, etc

#50

Being a musician. Oh, you have a computer? Guess you're an "artist" now. Don't worry if you can't sing that's why autotune exists.

#51

Financial news. It used to be non-biased and actually contain information and ideas. They genuinely wanted the readers go make money if it worked. For example, "Here's a good company that if you have some extra cash you should buy. It has these great qualities and here's the history of how it started and what it can do".

Now its b******t like 'Motely Fool' and 'Bazinga' that are owned by mega-corporations that lead sheep to slaughter. The mega corps buy a company on mass, causing a stock price increase. Then they release an article about why you should buy it, which causes slight increases in price. Because of said increases, they short it (bet against where they profit if the price decreases). Then, they sell their entire stake at a small % gain and plummet the price to cash out on the short options. Retail investors get screwed because of the 'News'

#52

Sneakers. I miss the days of walking into footlocker and getting just about any pair. Only a handful of unobtainable ones. For the longest time people would tell me I don’t understand why you like sneakers so much. Now those same people are “into” sneakers. I hope this fad dies quick and we get back to a small community that actually likes them and not this trendy/reseller c**p we have now.

#53

Looking like Kim Kardashian

#54

The Appalachian Trail. People leaving their trash everywhere is really ruining the trail and it’s so f*****g crowded now.

#55

Script writing is ruined by sheer amount of everyone who touches a pen today can write for big movies. It is a hunt if you want to watch a good movie and it is mainly a problem with the script.

It is inflated.

And from the number of movies that come out too, you basically habe no time or spafe to discover the golden script in pile of dogshit.

#56

Reddit. It used to be the social media you could go to that wasn’t overrun by idiots and kids. There are still some gem subs around, but for anything mainstream or front page it’s garbage.

#57

Geek culture. Back in the day, being into stuff like anime, Star Wars, & Star Trek used to be its own subculture. Now all of a sudden being into geek culture is cool and has come out with a lot of s****y stuff lately.

#58

A once-pristine mountain lake that was peaceful and excellent for fishing and swimming was ruined by development.

As I've previously commented, the pine trees surrounding the lake have been cut down and houses built everywhere.

Discharge from motorboats and runoff from development have polluted the once-pure water. The fish are gone and the air stinks of pollution instead of being lightly scented by surrounding pine trees.

#59

Havasupi Falls in AZ. Went back in the early 2000’s and it was nice and little to no trash…. Now all these f**k heads have trashed the park and over crowded it for a effing instagram post making wait times ungodly long. I hold great anger towards people that litter in cities but i get enraged at dipshits that litter in parks! Like wtf is wrong with you people?! CLEAN UP YOUR S**T! And for those who actually care please bring a waste bag and we can start cleaning up after these f**k sticks.

#60

Z-library. Could read so many books before dumb tiktokers made it go viral and had it shut down

#61

We had an amazing Halloween house in our small town, walking distance from my place. Every year the family who owned it would bring in Hollywood level props and lighting and 10 or so actors in full regalia to replicate a Pirates of the Caribbean scene all around the property. The Jack Sparrow was a dead ringer for Johnny Depp. Every kid would get a bag full of real candy, not the mini Halloween stuff. Unfortunately people started coming from other towns and it turned into a mob scene to the point that cops had to direct traffic and they shut it down.

#62

Grocery couponing. Apparently it only used to be done by a relatively small number of people, which is why they were able to get major discounts. But once word of it spread, grocery chains took them away.

#63

Use of the word Karen

#64

When I was young we had this tradition before our cities yearly festival started. We would each get a rubber boat (anything that floated really) and just drift in a nearby lake while drinking beer. The drift took around an hour or so. Then we would go to the festival.

Started out with maybe 20-30 of us for a couple of years. Then some douche bag "popular" guy took note of it. Had to turn it into some massive event with musicians playing and calling for the media to come there etc. Just turned a chill event with friends to something where you couldn't hear your own thoughts because there were so many people there. They even had to close it down after a while because some of the visitors littered too much. Left their boats and s**t in the river etc.

Same thing happened in a university town not that far from us. Some students started a "festival" where we played a more relaxed form of baseball. Sign up as a team, play a tournament, first price was like a bottle of vodka or some s**t like that. Completely free of charge. We slept in tents and drank, super chill and fun thing.

In comes the capitalist mind. Turns the whole thing into some commercialized shitshow where its now the world championship tournament of that casual baseball. Huge entry fees, beer tents, artists.

Like f**k man. What's wrong with setting up a tent, drinking a couple of beers, playing baseball drunk and just having a good time? Noooooooo we need to capitalize on this.

Made both of those things boring as hell.

#65

I've mentioned this before but in the early 2000s I got into record collecting. I got a record player from Salvation Army for like $5, and people would just give you records. I would buy boxes of records for $2-3 from garage sales. If every single record in there sucked a*s, who cares - I was out $2 and I usually got a milk crate out of the deal! I found so much great music that I probably would have never come across otherwise, and part of the joy for me was exactly that - finding new music to listen to. Now the same things that I picked out of someone's garbage are $30 at a picked over, overorganized store and god forbid you want to get a recent release - the 150 gram audiophile on super cotton candy swirl double album deluxe of whatever is the flavor of today will run you $60 and you better preorder so it can arrive at your door six months later than it was scheduled to in a package that isn't fit to transport styrofoam and left in a puddle and f****n A I hate my post office driver.

#66

Whatever the hot new tourism spot is

For example my grandfather used to spend weekends in Nashville when it was a more down to earth low key town

Now it’s one of the hottest travel destinations and is just swamped everywhere

#67

Right now, fanfiction.

Oh boy, take a look through some of the nonsense started because of tictok and Twitter.

There's still a lot of great stuff out there, but the anti-everything-I-personally-dislike mentality and the if-its-not-100%-unproblematic-you're-a-monster-for-writing-it ideals that showed up in the last few years is baffling.

It's fanfiction. Sorry, I guarantee it's never going to be a 100% wholesome or sfw... that's literally the point.

Plus, it is fabulous to see minors suddenly invading established Fandom spaces and yelling weird regurgitated Christian purity slogans and censorship arguments straight out of the 1980s and the 1960s.

And they are SHOCKED when you point this out and show them sources from those times saying the exact same things. Like sweetheart, you're literally quoting stuff from the anti dungeons and dragons satanic panic days...

#68

Enjoying nature. Turn the damn music off you inbred.

#69

Apple picking.
Orchards used to involve parking on a dirt lot, climbing trees to get the best fruit, and paying per bag. Visiting a farm. That’s it.
Now there’s ADMISSION, paid parking, hay rides, food stands, live music, photo taking areas, etc.
Feels like a tourist trap. Because it is.

#70

Nurse practitioners. It was meant for experienced nurses with decades of experience in one field to act as physician extenders. Now a bunch of 21yr olds recently graduated with a BScN directly go into part-time online NP schools and then go to become dangerous clinicians and prescribers that push for independent practice when they have a fraction of the supervised clinical experience and rigour that MD/DO physicians do.

#71

Toss up between the Tik Tok Beyoncé dance thing or Wednesday prom dance re-enactments

#72

Skiing at any resort in Colorado/Vermont.

#73

Disney world toy story characters dropping to the ground if someone yelled Andy’s coming. It used to be a little known secret but it went viral and way too many people started yelling it out constantly that the actors had to just stop doing it

#74

Toronto Globe & Mail literary quiz. 100 obscure literary questions. Winners got G&M merch. Obscure enough that you had to go to the library, the bookstore and antivirus your computer from all the little websites you had to search to find the answers. I was one of the winners once. The next year I shared answers with a couple of people who shared theirs with me. Little did we know where we shared them was searchable by Google. The G&M got overwhelmed with right answers and promptly retired the contest.

#75

Any local joint ruined by Diners, Drive ins, and Dives.

Case in point, my favorite morning breakfast place, Pete's Breakfast, was awesome to pop into, grab a nice bite, enjoy some coffee, and b******t with your neighbors.

After D³ ran the Pete's episode, we were looking at a 60-90 minute wait, period. Never went back before we moved.