Christopher Setterlund, In My Footsteps : telephone

Showing posts with label telephone. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 256: One Crazy Summer & Cape Cod, Creation of the Cell Phone, Movies Filmed on Cape Cod & the Islands(8-12-2026)

The Cape Cod time capsule that is One Crazy Summer. Some of the movies shot on the Cape and Islands. The creation of the cellular telephone.

Episode 256 is a bit of a throwback for the podcast as it is loaded with Cape Cod topics.

We start by going back 40 years ago this week. One Crazy Summer is among the best mindlessly fun comedies of the 1980s. It wasn't a major box office or critical hit, but it did have one thing that made it special, and that was a deep connection to Cape Cod. Watching it today is like opening up an old photo album for Cape Codders who grew up during that time. We celebrate the 40th anniversary of One Crazy Summer this week.

Today it can feel as though cell phone technology has been around forever. In some ways that is true, but in other ways it's still relatively new. We go way back to the beginning and trace the evolution of cellular telephone technology. From World War II to Y2K and all of the bumps and detours, we look at just how cell phones became the indispensable part of life that they are today.

Cape Cod dominates this week's Top 5. We look at some of the films that were shot on Cape Cod or the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. There are a few obvious ones, and some that might surprise you. We'll go over them all, good, bad, and very bad.

As always, there is a brand-new This Week In History and Time Capsule, looking at the creation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy.

To support me and the show, become a member on Patreon.

Or you can support my work and Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

Listen to Episode 255 here

Saturday, February 28, 2026

1996 Changed Everything: The Rise of the Internet

This is going to be a series of articles about 1996, as it holds significance for me since it was the year I graduated high school. In this first one, we look at how the rise of the internet changed society as a whole.

This year marks thirty years since I graduated from high school. It is a line of demarcation in most people’s lives. It’s a symbolic finish line crossed. The only difference is that once you cross this finish line, you are face-to-face with a wide-open horizon. The possibilities are endless, and also terrifying.

I find it poetic that the year I graduated from high school, 1996, feels like a line of demarcation in the world as well. It was during this same time that the world was changing. Much like when your life goes from high school to being in your 40s, sometimes in a flash, the world went from analog to digital in a snap.

The World Wide Web first became available for the general public on April 30, 1993. We didn’t know it at the time, but the countdown was on to the change in how we see and interact with each other and the world as a whole.

My family got our first computer, a Gateway model, early in 1996. It was just in time to have a bit of a leg up on my final months of high school work. Those first few weeks and months saw little change. I wasn’t on the internet all the time. Living in a house with four siblings did limit my screen time. The ball was already rolling, though.

I have heard so many people around my age say that the 1990s were the last decade to have a feel and a look. I agree, but can’t put my finger on why. It may be because it’s the final decade before technology went fully digital. Your opinion may vary.

Think about it. What is retro chic today? 80s and 90s fashions and trends. Thirty years from now, do you think kids will be clamoring for whatever the style is today? What is the style today anyway?

The day I first went online, I still listened to CDs, watched VHS movies, watched cable television on a boxy CRT TV, and talked on a phone attached to the wall. Granted, the phone was cordless, but still. The ability to find any bit of information or converse with people from anywhere was something my 1980s-kid brain never could have comprehended.

The reason I see 1996 as the jumping-off point might be because it’s where I come in as far as internet access goes. It also perfectly lines up with a major life change, as far as high school graduation. However, there are stats to back it up.

In 1995, only 14% of Americans had internet access. I was not one of them. In 1996, that number jumped to between 20-23%. By the time 1999 ended, it was estimated that as many as 50% of Americans had access to the Web at home, school, or work. In less than the time it would have taken me to go to a four-year college, internet access more than doubled. From there, it was off to the races.

Instant messages became preferable to telephone calls. Digital MP3 songs became easier to manage than huge analog music collections. Websites topped libraries for school research. Why go outside to play when you have dozens of friends inside in a chat room?

All of these changes are necessarily bad. They are, however, huge shifts in societal norms. Then again, shifts in society happen all the time. I think they seem more dangerous and egregious when they’re happening to the generations after you.

I am sure my great-great-grandparents couldn’t understand why my grandparents wanted to waste their time with automobiles, radio, and motion pictures. I am sure my grandparents couldn’t wrap their heads around Beatlemania, the Hippie movement, and television. I know that my parents thought my friends and I wasted time with loud music, video games, and extreme sports. Now my generation is the parents, and the music, fashion, and viral trends all seem odd. The point is, we all enjoyed something that our parents thought was dumb.

At one point the automobile was seen as a weird passing fad.

A big part of me never wants to become as close-minded and ignorant as my father, so I do my best to try to understand the who, what, and why of today’s generation. My nieces and nephews are good barometers for that. I don’t need to stay ‘hip’ or relevant. I don’t need to know the words to some random K-pop group's songs, or understand GenZ slang (although I understand ‘slay’ because of my niece Emma). I don’t need to recreate TikTok viral trends because I’d come off as a near-fifty year old man trying desperately to cling to straws of youth.

A reason why I think that 90s kids have adapted so well to the changing landscape of the 21st century is the fact that we got the best of both worlds. We got childhoods free of social media, cyber-bullying, online gaming, and homogenized music (sorry). We were also still young enough to learn and adapt to the rise of the internet, online lives, smartphones, and more.

I might have grown up without the internet, but I have lived more than half of my life with it now. I was there for the rise of America Online, Napster, RealPlayer, Hotmail, AIM, Ask Jeeves, guestbooks, Trojan viruses, and pixelated videos that took ages to download. I am comfortable fully immersed in a digital world, or sitting looking at printed photos, reading a book, and listening to a CD. Yes, I still have my entire analog music collection, just nothing to play it on.

1996 truly was a life-changing year, not only for me but for millions of others. I graduated from high school while many others graduated from analog to digital. The world can be cyclical, though. I have noticed in the last several years a growing number of people looking to pull back from their digital lives and retrieve some of their old analog selves. Maybe that’s why I never got rid of my CD’s? I always have the option to take a step back and remember who I was back before the internet rose to prominence.

This was a subject I wanted to talk about for a while. The strange timeline where my graduation and the rise of the internet intersect. I am also a sucker for nostalgia; it’s kind of my thing, so I didn’t need much prodding to do a deep dive into life back then. All it took was a blizzard and no power for a few days to remind me of living in 1995. No laptop. No smartphone. Just me and my mind to help me escape from boredom. I think we all need that sometimes.

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 191: Donald Duck In Mathmagic Land; Troll Dolls; Defunct Phone Companies; In Living Color(4-16-2025)

The revolving fad that was troll dolls. Donald Duck and math meet in an educational short film. Some telephone companies who can no longer take your calls.

Episode 191 gives you your weekly dose of Gen-X nostalgia with all of this and more!

Many fads come and go. However it takes a special fad to come and go repeatedly over decades. That is what makes troll dolls different. Cute, creepy, bizarre, these and other adjectives could be used to describe the spiky haired toys. What made troll dolls popular? Why did they fade away and return so often? We do a deep dive into them this week.

Can a beloved Disney character make learning about math palatable? We go way back in the day to watch the 1959 educational short film Donald Duck In Mathmagic Land. It is filled with laughs, music, billiards, a few yawns, and way too many pentagrams. We'll give it a good old review.

If you are told this week to call someone who cares unfortunately you won't be able to use any of these telephone companies. The Top 5 looks at defunct phone companies from over the decades. Did you pay bills to any of these?

There is as always a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule centered around the debut of the groundbreaking sketch comedy show In Living Color.

For more great content become a subscriber on Patreon!

Helpful Links from this Episode

Listen to Episode 190 here

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 180: Weirdest 900 Numbers of the 80s & 90s, How Crash Test Dummies Became Celebrities, Top 5 Banned Drinks(1-29-2025)

What were some of the most bizarre 900 numbers of the 1980s and 1990s? How in the world did crash test dummies become celebrities? What are some infamous banned drinks?
Episode 180 answers those questions with a heavy prescription of nostalgia.
It begins with the story behind the crash test dummies. No, not the 1990s alternative band. We look at how a safety measuring tool became a beloved part of 1980s pop culture. You will learn a lot from these dummies.
We go way back in the day and dive into some of the weirdest 900 numbers of the 1980s and 1990s. In a time where it seemed like every celebrity, musician, and cartoon character had their own hotline these are the ones that really make you shake your head and laugh.
This week's Top 5 showcases banned drinks. These were at one point popular but have since been removed from shelves or so drastically altered that they don't resemble what people knew.
There is a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule centered around the tragic Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
For more great content become a subscriber on Patreon!

Helpful Links from this Episode

Listen to Episode 179 here

Pages