Lately it seems like Gen Z is so good at the interwebz that I have near nothing to be smug about anymore. Enter Elite Daily, who just had teens try to text on T9 for the first time. Listen, y'all — I may never get over 15 likes on a single Instagram post. I may never be able to harness the magic of the vortex that is Tumblr. I may never be able to hold a logical conversation with solely emoji, or text and walk simultaneously, or understand what "HTML" is, but you know what I can do? Text with T9.
I'm at a loss for any situation in which this will be a useful skill ever again, but it could happen, guys. There could be a very specific apocalypse where all of our smartphones are raptured, or we all end up getting sucked into a singularity back to the early millennium, and when either of those things happen, my micro-generation will be prepared for the world we've been given. We have known the trials of T9. We have risen above our circumstances, and earned the seamless on-screen texting that we have today. Through every pole we accidentally ran into while trying to remember which number "P" was; for every "duck" we sent instead of "f*ck"; for every text from our mom that ended in "sghsghlkkajfg" because she couldn't figure out where the "delete" button was and just shoved all the extra letters to the side.
We are the strong. We are the deft-fingered. We are ... Generation T9.
Here's what happens when a bunch of bbs tried to use our dinosaur technology:
Yiiiiikes. True life, though: if you counted up all the minutes and hours and probably days that texting on smart phones has spared us, we really all ought to have one Pulitzers by now. We're rolling in free time compared to our 2008 selves.
Ugh, I hate when monotiged wasps wreck a good movie!
In any case, if you need to feel good about yourself today, or want some justification for being as unhealthily attached to your smart phone as you are, take a trip down memory lane with these teenage troopers:
Images: YouTube
