Quarantine In A Nutshell…
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On March 6th, 2020, I was just sitting in school like it was a regular day, and one of the greatest albums of all time happened to drop on that very Friday. Lou Uzi Vert dropped Eternal Atake, definitely one of the most anticipated albums of that year. And I was sitting in class, just listening to the album, not really paying attention to my schoolwork, and then an announcement went over the intercom in my last period, and they said that we would have two weeks off of school.

And everyone remembers this announcement like it was yesterday. But in reality, it was already five years ago, which is insane to think about. And then when we left, obviously we did not go back to school for the rest of the year. Enjoy the content around here. Consider subscribing. I'm trying to hit a million subs. This message is brought to you by Abercrombie and Fitch. I've been ready for summer for a while, and now it's finally time for summer outfits. With the trip coming up, the ANF vacation shop has me covered.

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By the end of the year. Without further ado, let's just get into the quarantine. Definitely the weirdest time of my life. And I'm sure a lot of you can agree with that. And it was pretty much a canon event for everybody. Well, that was conscious at the time.

And this day pretty much just changed history forever. Like, this shit's gonna be in history books. I'm probably gonna be teaching my son about quarantine. Now, quarantine had an impact on everybody, obviously. No matter where the hell you were in the world, that shit was gonna impact you. Unless you were on some distant island or some shit. But as somebody in Gen Z, I'm just gonna talk about my experience in the pandemic and how it impacted me personally and a lot of people in my generation as well. And we'll just start with Zoom class.

Now, it was just crazy how everything happened so fast. We were just in classrooms two weeks ago, and they said we were going to be back in two weeks, but now, for the rest of the school year, we were over Zoom. And it was really hard to adjust to Zoom classes at first. It just felt so weird. And eventually, most people just either cheated through their classes or just didn't show up at all. I mean, at least in my experience, teachers were very lenient. No one

really took zoom super seriously the teachers just wanted to be done with the school year and just move on so at this point they really didn't care if you just joined to say your name for attendance and just never said another word mostly I would just play video games until was done or just talk to my friends or some shit and every time I would take

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It's the Smucker's Uncrustables podcast with your host, Uncrustables. Okay, today's guest is rough around the edges. Please welcome Crust. Thanks for having me. Today's topic, he's round with soft pillowy bread. Hey. Filled with delicious PB&J. Are you talking about yourself? And you can take him anywhere. Why'd you invite him? And we are out of time. Are you really cutting me off? Uncrustables are the best part of the sandwich. Sorry, Crust.

I would just wake up and it would just be me and the teacher. And it was one of the most awkward moments of my life. Like I could hear bro breathing through the mic and everything. Or sometimes they would call and ask if I was still there and that would wake me up. And the fact that I didn't even get in trouble for that was kind of crazy.

I was able to just deadass sleep during a Zoom meeting. And no one even cared. At this point, everybody was just trying to get the year over with. And I'm sure for those of you that had jobs at the time, you had to do remote work. I just remember my parents having meetings, and my mom would tell me about people that didn't even know how to use the fucking mute button. And it just led to so many embarrassing moments that there's literally compilations of it on YouTube. Now, after Zoom class, I would have work like four times a week or so. And I worked at a grocery store.

And a lot of people look back on those times with fond memories. And they were like, ah, shit, I could just play video games all day. I didn't have to work. But my ass was clocking in like four times a week. And now a lot of people quit as well during quarantine. So I had to put in mad hours a week, even though I was part-time. A lot of people look back on quarantine with the fondest of memories. They're like, ah, I could just be a fucking slapdick and do nothing. I would also get calls from them like,

I'd say like maybe once or twice a week asking if I could cover somebody's shift and I would just air that bitch every single time I was not picking up the phone I was not trying to be the store hero in the middle of a global pandemic and now during that point Obviously, I was lucky to even have a job. So I mean i'm grateful I did but at the same time I was 16 years old and I had no bills to pay

A lot of people got laid off from their jobs. Like my brother worked at a restaurant and he ended up getting laid off due to the pandemic. And even some of my friends did too. So obviously people had to think of ways to make money for the time being. A lot of people started content creation. A lot of people also just started businesses online, which is what led to the rise of social media platforms and doom scrolling. Now, I think we can all agree that the pandemic was one of the main causes of social media addiction and gender.

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And honestly, it's crazy like how much I was scrolling on TikTok at that point. Like I was putting up goddamn curry numbers with screen time and I still am to this day, but it's not as bad as it was before. Like I was getting like 14 hour days, 13 hour days. It was ridiculous.

But now by habit, we all open our phone when we're bored and we just doom scroll for hours. Because shit, I mean, that's what we used to do during the pandemic. Like sometimes I will scroll for like an hour or something and my brain will feel so numb and I won't even know what I'm watching anymore.

And then after I realized that, I'm like, "Okay, it's time to get off." And now before the pandemic, short-form content was kind of in its infancy stages. And nowadays, it's just consumed by so many people, it just became a norm at this point. Even though it's not a good thing, bro. I gotta stop scrolling. But also, what a lot of people spent their time doing was playing video games.

Now me personally, I was logging on to Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege, and a bunch of other games every single day. Fall Guys, Among Us, like that was just the meta. I was just sweating a bunch of games because I really had nothing better to do. I was trying to get Platinum on Rainbow Six Siege. Dude, I was not getting Diamond. I was not good enough for that.

And Fall Guys, despite the amount of hours I put into it, I don't even think I got a single win, which is kind of embarrassing. I would just always fumble really badly in the last event. We would have like an hour-long break for lunch during Zoom classes. Me and all my friends would just hop on Among Us. We'd get like a 12-person game going. And nowadays, to be honest with you, I don't really hear much about Fall Guys or Among Us.

Yeah, in the year 2025, I have not heard a single person say, yeah, bro, let's run some Fall Geyser Among Us. And now for its time, these were very great games, but I got bored of them pretty fast, I can't lie. And it's probably because I would play them so often. I mean, I really had nothing better to do.

But a lot of Gen Z was gaming. That's how we would spend our time. So gaming companies started capitalizing on this and just dropping games pretty much every other month. Now, I don't really remember any big game that anyone was playing after quarantine. I think after that, gaming kind of just grew a bit stale. I mean, everyone wanted to go outside. People missed being outside and actually hanging out with their friends. Because once the restrictions were lifted, nobody wanted to sit inside anymore.

Like I remember I was going to the beach a lot in the summer of 2021 I was inviting my friends over my house a lot because we finally did not have to wear masks anymore Now going out in public with a mask on was just annoying as hell The back of my ears would hurt because the straps of the mask were so tight and I have to wear these masks Hours a day when I was at work, I couldn't even breathe in the damn thing either So it was just really annoying to deal with

It was also very hard to communicate with people with a mask on. And it was so annoying because nobody was able to understand me. It was just so muffled and I was already quiet to begin with. So it just sounded like I was mumbling just complete nonsense. And whenever I'd take my mask off to speak clearer, I would get in trouble. And it just became so normalized for like the whole year of 2020. I deadass forgot what people looked like without their mask on.

Like my friends at school or work. And it was weird adjusting to when we were able to finally take the mask off. People would wear these custom design masks. I was just used to seeing that every day. And after I got used to it for so long, it was weird to adjust back at first.

But once I adjusted, I was just like, yeah, fuck that shit. I wish I never had to wear it. But nowadays, there's still some people who go out and wear masks in public. And I definitely don't blame them, especially at dirty-ass places like airports. The amount of times I've gotten sick from an airport is crazy.

Crazy, i'd always leave with some weird ass stomach virus or a cold or something like that But honestly though i'm not wearing a mask and that shit was buns I don't want to do that again Because if I do it's just going to be hard to adjust again and just like with the masks, of course Just in general after quarantine It was very hard for everybody to adjust because at this point we had missed a ton of socialization And it was so bad to the point where I was nervous to order a burger at mcdonald's and I don't know how it got that bad for me but

I guess that's just what happens when you're stuck in the house showerless. Okay, I was not showerless. But for months and months on end, you're just stuck in the house doing nothing. But it also impacted us economically, of course. That was probably the worst the stock market has dipped in a long time.

And the drop that we had this year is competing, which kind of blows my mind. A lot of people had to find new jobs. A lot of people had to go back into the office. It was just a ton of shit that people had to get used to. And right after the pandemic, I think around 2022, there was a whole inflation era where gas prices were like an arm and a goddamn leg. Now people in Gen Z are spawning in as adults. Like we are literally just spawning it. And this is the shit we got to deal with.

House prices are already through the roof. And by the time I buy a house, I don't even want to know what that looks like. So yeah, Gen Z as a generation, we're already lagging economically. The fact that you can now finance a Chipotle burrito just blows my mind. This might be a whole nother video. So our social skills are semi-cooked. You know, we're getting back out there again. Everything is so expensive now. And on top of that, most of us are glued to our phones.

And now, although the pandemic was probably the biggest setback ever, the one thing I took away from it, I definitely now more appreciate just the little things, like the time spent with friends and family and things like that, because I kind of took it for granted before the pandemic. And afterward, I truly realized how important it was. Being cooped up inside, definitely one of the worst feelings of all time. Watch this video about the worst feelings. It's on the end screen. Just click on it.