There are whole hosts of cliches around the idea of “appreciating what you have before it’s gone,” but let’s face it, it can be hard to know exactly what is actually going well right now. 

Someone asked “What is currently in its “Golden age”, but not enough people know about it?” and netizens shared their best answers and examples. From interesting, yet often underscored technological developments to sleeper hits, get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites, and be sure to comment your own thoughts and ideas below. 

#1

Documentaries. So many good ones, available through so many online outlets.

Image credits: Wisebutt98

#2

Well, it’s already over now but most content on the internet being made by humans. I’ll really miss the internet from 2000 to +/- 2020.

Image credits: mighij

#3

Paleontology! So much tech bringing new stuff to light.

Image credits: foolishfoolsgold

#4

Home TVs.

The sort of hardware you can get for even $300 is absolutely absurd compared to what the 1980s through 2000s knew. .

Image credits: NotAnotherEmpire

#5

Dietary options. No matter what issue you have, there’s a pantry full of food that will meet that restriction AND taste good.

Compare a Keto diet from 1999 to now. It’s unreal.

Image credits: deathbrusher

#6

Cooking! I’m 30 now and it’s so easy to find amazing recipes, good cooking supplies, and with so much information I can save money on food in so many ways. Literally youtube is teaching me to make so many great things.

Image credits: BootsRubberClumsy

#7

Podcasts – long form storytelling, interviews, investigative journalism on so many topics – new and old. Great form of education, entertainment and everything in between.

Image credits: mixxastr

#8

Self directed learning. There is nothing I can’t find a tutorial for these days. And on top of that I’m finding AI to be an excellent compliment as a fairly decent tutor.

Image credits: Kooriki

#9

The Wikipedia.

I can spend 20 minutes reading a day and gain an in-depth knowledge of global studies, biology, philosophy, religion, language, chemistry, and even physics.

It is nuts and honestly the world would be a better place if more people would check s**t out on there instead of FB.

Image credits: Less_Bed_535

#10

Cooking, the availability of ingredients from around the world, the body of knowledge is expanding, more people are baking their own bread, making yogurt, processing their own foods.

#11

Board games have been having a great run for the past 10 years, tons of amazing games coming out every year.

Image credits: jraff_dot_net

#12

Children not dying of preventable diseases. Less children died in raw numbers in 2023 then in 1924 despite the massive population increase. .

#13

Astronomy is currently experiencing a golden age. It has changed radically in the last 30ish years. Think on this, if you are 30 + years old, you were born into a world that wasn’t sure if planetary systems were rare or common. We now know that nearly all stars are likely to have planets. We know of 5000+ exoplanets. Mars was not considered a place we could find signs of life by most. The generation of spacecraft exploring Mars since the year 2000 changed that. Now some argue that discovering signs of past life on Mars is a matter of when, not if. We found multiple worlds in our solar system with liquid water oceans. This is just scratching the surface. New technologies like JWST promise to keep the momentum for the foreseeable future.

Image credits: Slimjerry

#14

AUDIO BOOKS holy s**t they are amazing now. And there are so many niche books getting audio versions as well.

Image credits: davidcornz

#15

Unfortunately, scams. Technology has made it easy and cheap to pull off. People are lonelier and mental health concerns sometimes make people more vulnerable to these scams. And finally the archaic law enforcement structure isn’t set up to go after them so there’s virtually no punishment for doing it.

Watch out, fam.

Image credits: Jellyfish2017

#16

Playing guitar and recording music. You can buy a quality guitar online for crazy cheap now and some pro recording software out there is free.

Image credits: leatherwolf89

#17

Photography.

Everyone has a camera and video recorder with them at all times. Photography has never been as accessible as it is now.

#18

Seriously? Music.

I’m not saying the average quality of mainstream music has gone up. But there is now so much choice of stuff to enjoy in every genre and subgenre that it’s almost impossible no to find things you like. While the average quality hasn’t gone up, the quantity largely has, therefore the absolute quantity of quality music has gone up, which is all that matters because you don’t listen to everything anyway.

#19

Keyboards, both synthesizers and mechanical.

It’s possible to get a synth that sounds identical to a $5000 Minimoog for $200 and a decent mechanical keyboard for less than that.

Image credits: the_slanted_slope

#20

Information. Never before have we had such a vast amount of information freely available to us, and so easy aswell. We just need to make sure we keep it that way.

Image credits: Adventurous-Bet9747

#21

Anti-censorship movement in the United States. There’s a full on cultural war going in American libraries and the library workers and their community advocates are fighting hard.

#22

Batteries. From needing a plethora C and D batteries or a power adapter for nearly anything that couldn’t fit in your pocket (which needed several AA/AAAs too) no more than 20 years ago, to earbuds that last days with batteries the size of a Tic Tac or even cars that can go hundreds of miles on battery power alone. Honestly don’t think it’s given enough credit how far we’ve come in the past 20 years with energy storage.

Image credits: Fortune090

#23

Horror movies. They suddenly got way better around 10 years ago when movies like It Follows, The Witch and The Babadook came out. Not something you’d notice if you’re not into the genre.
Edit: just to clarify, I mean they suddenly got way better than 90s/00s horror. I’d also consider the 80s a golden age for the genre as well. The 70s definitely had its heavy hitters too, but nothing in terms the sheer numbers you see in the 80s and the last 10 years.

#24

Retro gaming. There are so many ways to play any pre PS2 game on original hardware or through emulation. And hobbyists pumping out fan translations of JRPGs for English speaking enthusiasts. I have played so many quality games the last few years that were literally inaccessible not long ago.

#25

Dinosaurs! On average, a new species is named every other week.

#26

Glass. glass has become so universally used in products beyond just a barrier to the world. its use in electronics, and other applications, have truly advanced a lot and probably have a lot more room to grow too.

#27

Miniatures. There’s no shortage of places to get awesome miniatures for basically anything you want.

#28

Golden age of subscriptions.

Image credits: anglopants

#29

Carbonated water.

#30

Knitting. First, we’re in the golden age of yarns. There are hundreds of indie dyers putting amazing colors on a truly mind-boggling range of yarn bases (both fiber content and weight). Even “cheap” yarn is better quality, and comes in a wider range of colors and bases, than ever before. There’s an abundance of wool yarn soft enough to wear next to your skin (although you can get scratchy yarn if that’s your jam).

Then there are the patterns. Thousands of them, many of them free online. Think of what you want to make, and there’s a pattern out there.

Tools, too. How do you like your needles – wood, bamboo, steel, aluminum, plastic, casein? Circular with 15 sizes of interchangeable tips, straight, long short? They’re out there.

If you’re a knitting nerd, it’s a great time to be alive.

Image credits: cwthree

#31

Genetics

now that we have a variety of very powerful sequencing technologies, combined with equally powerful analysis tools, the amount of information we can glean from a tiny sample is incredible.

meanwhile, techniques like CRISPR have opened a lot of doors for precision genome editing, and this is even being implemented in some treatments for genetic conditions.

I hope we continue in this trajectory, but if they become more common it is likely inevitable that some will see an opportunity to abuse them.

#32

Non-alcoholic beers! I’m just starting my sobriety journey, but I worked for years in restaurants where the only option was O’Douls. Now many major brands (Heineken, Guinness, etc.) have NA versions, and there are lots of craft options as well.

#33

Country music. No I’m not talking about the “ride my tractor while wearing blue jeans” type of bro country. Old school outlaw country music and blue grass is going through a real revival right now.

#34

The linux desktop experience has really matured to a point that it is a viable alternative to mac or windows for almost any user, and continues to grow.
Gaming on linux is also the most accessible and effortless it has ever been. I wont say 2024 is the year of the linux desktop but with the continued monetization/bad development of windows it is getting close.

#35

Modular synthesis. So many companies making odd little devices. People are making bleeps and bloops with the ease previously reserved for banging and thumping.

#36

Food availability.

Climate change and rapid loss of farmable land will make a lot of different types of food very expensive.

#37

LEGOs!! There has never been so many different sets and they get more and more complex and awesome everytime they release new stuff!!.

#38

Scuba diving has been around long enough that you can find high-end used gear ridiculously cheap. It only costs a couple bucks to fill up a scuba tank for an hour and the ocean isn’t exactly getting any healthier.

#39

Very niche, but DJ tech!

~ Newer and better controllers have come out every year for the last 15 years.

~ About 10 years ago they figured out how to get DJ software to enable a DJ to change the tempo of a song without changing the pitch. This was a MASSIVE breakthrough that makes a whole world of things possible.

~ Just in the past three months or so, they have figured out how to get software to enable DJs to do what many have long considered to be the holy grail of DJ abilities: isolate the drums, bass, vocals and other sounds from ANY track. This is called Stems. Until now you would need separate instrumental or a capella versions of a song to do this. These are not available for most songs, and even when they are, instrumental tracks always have all of the instruments not just one. There’s been no easy way to get an isolated drum track or bass track or other instrument track for most songs unless the song happens to have a moment where the instrument plays alone that you can loop, which does not happen in 99.9% of songs. With Stems, you can take any song and push a button to isolate the various parts of the song. This opens up incredible possibilities for creating mashups and remixes on the fly.

#40

Age of empires 2, this ancient game that came out in 1999 just got another dlc and is currently in the midst of it’s biggest tournament to date, hidden Cup 5.

Edit : go watch hidden Cup!

https://www.youtube.com/live/b6utueP-zsU?feature=shared.

#41

Tabletop RPGs

Also, while it’s perhaps more of a “silver age” compared to the 90s-early 2000s, JRPGs are having a hell of a comeback.

Image credits: drucifer271

#42

Single player games have been absolutely kicking a*s recently. I’ve had consoles since PS1 and I’m pretty sure the PS4 era had my most mind blown moments.

#43

Obituaries.

Many ordinary people now have extraordinarily detailed obituaries. In decades past, most obituaries only gave basic information about death, survivors, and funeral plans; perhaps some biographical details, but obituaries of decades ago were not nearly as thorough as obituaries written and published today and over the past decade or so.

A well-written obituary will allow the dead to live on in memory and in the minds of generations yet to be born.

#44

Hockey is pretty awesome right now.

#45

Anime.

I’ve only watched a few, but apparently it’s popping. One Piece is peak, Attack on Titan, JJK, Vinland Saga, Demon Slayer, plus so much more.

#46

I think chess is at a golden age right now it seems like everything is growing exponentially at the moment with it. More and more people playing online and in person. It started with the pandemic and the queens gambit but it’s 2024 and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Last month was the fastest month for chess youtube growth ever I imagine February will top that.

#47

Disc Golf. Still niche enough of a sport that you can literally go attend major tournaments for little to no cost and meet the elite pros. There is a big boom in more courses being created, both public and private ones.

#48

Craft beer.

#49

Sports car racing. Think the guys that race Le Mans and 24 Hours of Daytona. All the big car manufacturers are spending millions to get their cars on the track and it has become very competitive racing with no signs of slowing. And it has very little to do with F1 or NASCAR. It’s all going on in the World Endurance Championship and International Motor Sports Association.

#50

Women’s Professional Wrestling.

#51

Internal combustion sports cars. The Golden age of horsepower.
Source: boredpanda.com