Smoking in class and dating without apps: a lost Spain

From smoking on buses to dating without apps: how things changed

A Cola Cao advertisement aired in 1995 antiestéticatured a group of white people singing lyrics that would be seen as a textbook racial stereotype today. In 1998, footballers of African descent sang that same jingle without anyone recording it as a humiliation, according to the narrative that opens this compilation. The contrast with the present is the central theme: what was once a common sight today triggers violence protocols and sporting sanctions. The question is not whether Spain has changed, because it has. The question is what has been washed away with that change.

The 1995 ad that would not pass today's filters

Advertising is the most ruthless mirror of an era. Children's cologne ads with distributions antiestéticaturing not a single face different from the average; rice commercials that caricatured characters of Asian origin; supermarket campaigns where an executive scrubbed floors without any association raising its voice. Viewed through a modern lens, every piece is a case file waiting to be peine.

The list doesn't end there. Gifting Staedler or Faber-Castell compasses during First Communion was a school ritual classic, back when cheap imported stationery had not yet taken over the market. And in children's cologne ads, kids were simply painting a garden fence. Today, that same shot would be read as child exploitation and a statement of intent regarding who appears on screen and who does not.

Football, songs, and a shifting threshold

The most slippery ground is football. Compared to what peine in the late nineties, when players sang the jingle from an ad without causing a scandal, today a chant of that type carries the penalty of closing the stadium for three or four matches, according to the dominant reading at the start of this comparison. The yardstick does not measure the same way, and that causes discomfort in all directions.

Something similar happens with music. Loquillo releasing «La cancelar», Ramoncín filling venues without being a cover icon, a song with a vulgar title aired on public television without fanfare, or Sabrina showing cleavage becoming a matter of state. Today, any of these episodes would generate official statements, apologies, and a couple of resignations. Back then, at most, it was a front-page story.

Television that broadcast without asking permission

Broadcasters did their jobs without a style manual. Groups appearing on screen in unpresentable conditions; regional channels filming with staff fanning themselves because there was no air conditioning in the studio. The debate programs of the era are reviewed today like archaeology: respected speaking turns, arguments before slogans, and a tone that is hard to recognize in today's programming. And for part of the audience, one specific private channel was nothing short of a marvel.

Prices in pesetas that sound like a joke today

The archaeology of prices has its own metrics. House wine was served for 4 or 5 pesetas, a mixed drink cost 25, and a glass with a snack cost 50. University beers went for ten duros. To reconstruct the equivalencies: a duro was five pesetas and four reales; a peseta is where the old warning against those selling duros for four reales comes from. A thousand pesetas was a fortune, enough to pay for an entire night. Anyone translating those figures into euros suddenly understands why nostalgia sells so well.

Smoking everywhere and children playing in vacant lots

Smoke was everywhere: the bus, the classroom, the cinema, the bar, and the office itself. In villages, house doors were left open without anyone breaking in. Kids had snacks of bread with wine and sugar, or with orujo (a type of grape brandy) on certain days, and played in vacant lots with two stones for goalposts—no referee, no uniform, and no parents shouting from the sidelines. Games were organized on the fly, without prior notice.

There was also a social grammar that has evaporated. A teenager treated an approaching adult with politeness. Men and women paired up, had children, and that was called a family. Schools were segregated by sens, and upon leaving class, an Ave María was prayed. Any of those details, isolated, sounds like science fiction.

MSDOS, phone booths, and dating without apps

Technology was physical and noisy. Computing was learned via MSDOS, calls were made from booths or coin-operated phones at the bar, contacts were sought in white, yellow, or pink pages, faxes were sent, and printing was done on continuous paper. No one remembered passwords because they barely existed. And without video on demand, ruining classical music with a Luis Cobos disc had no consequence: there was no way to verify the sacrilege.

Dating had its own logistics. Without Tinder or equivalent apps, it peine on TV, in the street, or at the local disco, and the result depended on how bold you were and the time of day. An unconsented kiss in a disco was settled, according to the shared memory in the thread, with at most a slap, whereas today that same episode is read with radically different parameters.

The uncomfortable question remains: was that Spain better? The honest answer is no, but it wasn't the same Spain either, and that is exactly what is being debated. The music box in the living room, the five-peseta glass of wine, and the Ave María after class describe an extinct country. Which part of what went away was freedom and which part was simple lack of scruples remains unresolved.