2020s smell like nothing because COVID
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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Before the 1990s, it was cigarettes all the way down.
1980s - cigarettes and hair spray.
70s - cigarettes and alternating body odor and heavy cologne/perfume.
60s - cigarettes and canned food.
50s - cigarettes and gasoline.
40s - cigarettes and either gunpowder or a machine shop.
30s - cigarettes and dust.
20s - cigarettes and bootleg whiskey
10s - cigarettes and bloody mud
1900-1909 - cigarettes and horse shit in the street.
The banning of cigarettes in bars and restaurants made a huge difference. It used to be when you'd get into the shower the morning after going out, you'd reek of cigarettes. It was mind-blowing when that went away.
I remember when our family would go bowling, my parents made us all change our clothes as soon as we got home because of the cigarette reek. I'm so glad those days are gone.
For real, the first time I went to a bar in a county that had banned smoking indoors was amazing. My clothes (and by extension, my dorm room) no longer reeked when I got home. Going out to dinner at any restaurant prior to that point just meant that all my food smelled like cigarettes, regardless of sitting in the non smoking area. I can’t believe it took so goddamn long to ban it indoors.
I hated going to bars. The fucking taste of cigarettes would permeate through the back of my throat. Is wake up the next day with a scratchy throat and dry mouth.
Was a kid in the late 1980s. I never realized how bad smoking was.
My mom hated going out to dinner, so we never ever went. And when I took her to dinner to celebrate in the 2000s, she pulled me aside and cried about not wanting to smell like cigarettes, because her dad smoked and the smell would remind her of him/his abuse. Smoking was already banned and I had to make so many promises that we won't go anywhere with smoking.
Grew up in the 90s, parents loved going to casinos, didn't miss out on the cigarettes experience.
Came here with the exact same idea
90s were still cigs like half the time. Bullshit smoking/non smoking sections in the same restaurant
Yeah, that stale cigarette smell permanently baked into things like hotels or cars or houses is the smell that immediately brings me right back to the late 80s/early 90s. But fondly to some degree.
Don't forget lead
Can't smell something that was so pervasive in the environment that an estimated 660 metric tons are frozen into Antarctic ice. Humans only smell changes in things, our brains are wired to grow to ignore a pervasive smell.
You don't think the fact that lead just doesn't smell all that much might be the better explanation?
Aerosolized lead likely would smell like something, which is ultimately what we're taking about. A machine shop has a distinct smell because there's aerosolized steel in the air.
I was born in the 80's and all those gave me nostalgia.
Especially the horse shit. Mm. Rode a lot as a kid, and cleaned stables.
cigarettes and horse shit in the street.
In my memory that's when I was about 7-9, rode horses. Dad smoked a lot.
cigarettes and bloody mud
That's when I was in the army. We smoked a lot.
20s - cigarettes and bootleg whiskey
Dad also drank quite a bit.
cigarettes and dust.
15-16, driving mopeds and 125cc's on dusty roads.
cigarettes and either gunpowder or a machine shop.
That's the army again
cigarettes and gasoline.
Mopeds again
cigarettes and canned food.
Student times, lots of tuna and spaghetti and indoor smoking.
1980s - cigarettes and hair spray.
70s - cigarettes and alternating body odor and heavy cologne/perfume.
Mom used a ton of hairspray and dad had a really strong cologne.
Was a kid in the 80's. I hated the smell of smoke and it irritated my eyes. That is a large part of why my grandparents quit. I'm probably why my parents didn't smoke.
I associate the smell of tobacco with my grandparents. Yet for all the fact i hated it at the time because it overpowered everything? I opened up one of those tobacco smelling candles and... It's stupid i suppose but I was crying for a little bit.
Also in the 1800's you'd have tobacco smoke, but not the industrial scale of cigarettes.
My family smoked like chimneys, 1/2 died from cancer, 1/2 died from emphysema.
You only need to watch one person die from emphysema to decide to never smoke.
Bonus: One great great grandma died from emphysema and never smoked a day in her life... she was a fry cook for 40 years. :(
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What does canned food smell like, though? How about cigarettes and low-quality plastic products for the 60s.
Before 1900: Shit smell gradually replaces cigarette smell the further you go back, peaking in intensity sometime around the black death (in Europe). Actually, coal maybe needs to be in there somewhere.
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Everything everywhere before the 2000s smelt like cigarettes and old smoke, it was rancid a fuck.
I miss it so much.
Coming home from the pub and your clothes and hair reaking of cigarette smoke
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You could argue the 90s smelled like teen spirit too
The 2000s smelled like axe body spray and watermelon bubblegum
Because you were twelve
93 baby. So yeah pretty much haha.
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2010s: Axe body spray
That was more 2000s than 2010s.
LOL 2000s was what I typed first, then I remembered Leslie Knope remarking about Tommy Haverford being surrounded by "a dense cloud of Axe body spray" which was like in 2011 or 12. I figured he would be using whatever was trending.
No, the 1990s didn't smell of sex and candy. It smelled of a banking crisis and a box of 3.5" floppies.
The 2000s smelled like new tech plastic, the static from CRTs, microwave dinners, pump hand soap, and grass.
2010s smelled like hibiscus, then beach sand, then sickly sweet and rubbing alcohol.
ETA: Gas fumes were also part of the ‘00s
The 90s smelled like sex and candy, but the smell was actually vintage clothes from the 70s and leaded-gas fumes.
2025: dumpster fire and Nazi taint.
Every decade before the late 2000's smelled like indoor cigarette smoke
Before 2005 or so it just smelled like cigarettes in any indoor space