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The past was not that cute

(juliawise.net)
430 points mhb | 1 comments | 06 Dec 25 21:53 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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tacitusarc ◴[07 Dec 25 05:51 UTC] No.46179468[source]▶
This hits on a pet peeve of mine: representing the past as dull and colorless, because we mostly have access to b&w or sepia photos from the time.

I’m not saying that the overall point isn’t true, just that juxtaposing photos propagates an already deeply-embedded and mistaken intuition that the past was somehow less colorful, less vibrant than the present.

To try to combat this, I had ChatGPT colorize the “actual farmer” photo: https://ibb.co/1tkcLKmY

replies(2): >>46180955 #>>46185108 #
1. pezezin ◴[07 Dec 25 11:25 UTC] No.46180955[source]▶
This is something that I have been noticing for years. Whenever I try to imagine "the past" (any time period before I was born), I tend to imagine it with fuzzy colors and film grain, like and old movie. It takes me some conscious effort to remember that the past looked the same as the present!