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I hardly know how to get this out of myself, as it’s been a very long time since I last tried to put my thoughts into words. To be honest, I was never much for writing about what goes on in my head, so perhaps this could be called a confession—or whatever name one prefers for such things.
As someone born in 1991, I feel I grew up during what might have been the most beautiful stretch of time—the late ’90s through the early 2010s. We didn’t have much in the way of technology back then, and the internet was more rumor than reality for most of us. Our social lives unfolded outdoors, on dusty playgrounds, in narrow streets, and between half-finished buildings that became our kingdoms. Those gatherings would begin in the early morning light and stretch well into the evening, until the streetlights flickered on and someone’s mother called out from a balcony.
I wouldn’t be wrong to say that the kids from the neighborhood felt more like family than my own parents at times, since I only really saw my parents from nightfall until the next morning. Whether I’m writing this out of nostalgia, I can’t quite say—but I remember those years as the best.
Then came my first mobile phone—a Siemens A35. It wasn’t so much a luxury as it was a necessity. The long hours we spent outside no longer felt like enough, so our conversations had to continue into the night through whatever means we had. Soon after came girls, and those first awkward, electric infatuations.
As teenagers, we didn’t have much money—just enough for a pack of cigarettes, a cup of coffee, and little else. Calls cost around ten cents a minute, and any credit we topped up would disappear in no time. We’d be left with just a few cents—barely enough to make a proper call.
So we invented something of our own.
We called it “ringing” (or odzvanjanje). You’d call someone, let it ring once, and hang up. That single missed call could carry an entire message. If you thought of a girl late at night but didn’t have enough credit to text or talk, you’d let it ring once and hang up. She’d know—you remembered her.
If we had plans to meet, one ring meant, “I’m on my way.”
Sometimes it meant, “I’m out of credit—call me if you can.”
Other times, it meant something only the two of you understood.
Strange, isn’t it? With so little, we managed to build an entire language of our own—a quiet code carried through missed calls and brief signals. It made everything feel more personal, more inventive… almost magical in its own small way.
It’s even stranger how much we could create out of so little. And how all of that slowly disappeared as we gained more—more money, more technology, more convenience.
In the next part of this blog, I’ll try to bring back the atmosphere of those years—the time of mIRC chat rooms, MSN Messenger, the first internet cafés glowing late into the night, when a little extra credit meant longer calls, and when the late ’90s and early 2000s carried a kind of beauty that’s hard to explain to anyone who didn’t live through it.
I don’t know if anyone will ever read this. But I feel a certain duty to capture at least a fragment of that magic—and to show what it left behind in those of us who remember what it was like before it all slipped away.
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Mutant. 25+
Ai post?
No. Im not native english speaker so my english is not really fluent. I wrote it in my language (Bosnian) and translated it to english
by Ermin; ; Report
This is my original text i wrote:
Ni sam ne znam kako bih ovo izbacio iz sebe posto jako dugo nisam pisao svoju misao. Islren da budem nisam nikada ni volio pisati o necemu o cemu razmisljam pa se ovo moze nazvati i ispovjest ili kako god to ko zove. Kao dijete koje je rodjeno 1991, smatram da sam odrastao kroz najljepsi period zivota a to su kasne 90e do pocetka 2010ih. Nismo imali puno tehnologije kao ni interneta vec su se socijalne interakcije svodile na druzenja vani. Ta su druzenja trajala od samog jutra pa moglo bi se reci do kasno uvece. Ne bih pogrijesio kad bih rekao da su mi zapravo djeca sa vana bila porodica vise nego roditelji buduci da sam sa roditeljima provodio samo od navece do opet ujutro. Da li ovo sada pisem kroz neku nostalgiju ni sam nisam siguran, ali sjecam se tih godina da su bile najbolje. Onda sam dobio svoj prvi mobitel, siemens A35. Taj mobitel je zapravo bila vise potreba buduci da vrijeme koje sam vani provodio nije bilo dovoljno pa se to moralo nastaviti kroz neki vid komunikacije i navece. Onda dolaze djevojke i orva zaljubljivanja. Kao tinedjeri nismo imali nesto puno novca, vec koliko je dovoljno za jednu kutiju cigara, kafu i to je otprilike to. Sjecam se da su pozivi kostali oko 0.10usd pa kada napunim kredit za pozive to se jako brzo potrosi. Ostane tek nekih 0.15 usd na racunu da se moze pozvati neko po potrebi. Buduci da taj iznos nije bio dovoljan za poziv normalnog trajanja, bili smo primorani da odzavnjamo na drugi broj, kako bi sacuvali taj preostali iznos a i poslali neki vid "poruke". Primjer, imas djevojku koje se sjetis navece. Nemas dovoljno da joj posaljes poruku ali je nazoves da jednom zazvoni i prekines. Na taj nacin si sacuvao taj preostali iznos, a djevojka bi znala da si je se sjetio. To kako smo mi zvali odzvanjanje bi koristili ako smo se dogovorili za izlazak vani, kada te odzvon znacilo bi da sma krenuo. Moglo je znaciti i da nemam preostalog kredita dovoljno pa da je nesto hitno i kada te odzvonim to znaci da me trebas nazvati ukoliko ti imas. To odzvanjanje je moglo znaciti jako puno toga a nekako smo mi uvijek znali znacenje tog propustenog poziva. Cudno je kako smo sa jako malo resursa raVili citav jedan novi sloj komunikacije sto je sam taj proces cinio jako simpaticnim i zanimljivim. Zanimljivo je kako smo sa jako malo toga uspijevali napraviti jako puno toga. To se sve izgubilo kada smo poceli imati vise novca, tehnologije i ostalih stvari. U nastavku bloga cu pokusati docarati kako je to sve izgledalo u godinama kada je postojao mIIRC, MSN messenger, prvi internet caffei, vise novca za vise poziva i ljepota tih kasnih 90ih i ranih 2000ih. Ne znam da li ce ovo iko uppste i procitati ali imam misiju da docaram svu tu magiju tog carobnog vremena i kakav je to trag na nas starije ostavilo kada smo sve to izgubili.
by Ermin; ; Report
Ah, that makes sense. The translation must have put ai quirks in there
by Mutant. 25+; ; Report
Tbh i didnt even read translation up untill your comment xD
There are some minor differences from my text but it highlights the small things i wanted to highlight
by Ermin; ; Report