There are a ton of old-time photos floating around the Internet. While they're not as plentiful as the rapidly multiplying, modern hashtagged selfies, most of them are infinitely more interesting. Especially with a description of what the hell was happening at the time that photo was taken. The folks over at Distractify gathered a number of odd old-timey photos and provided descriptions of what is we're actually seeing in each one. Each of these photos was born for the Internet way before the Internet was even born.
If you've ever wanted to look like a penguin, feel free to time travel back to 1939. People used to sport these face cones to protect their delicate melons during snowstorms.
Photos of people in mid sneeze never get old. Even if they were taken way back in 1900.
Your picture in front of the Statue of Liberty during your recent trip to New York is nothing compared to this one of two people posing next to her face as it was unpacked in 1886.
You think bowling alleys always had machines to do the heavy lifting? Nope. These little fellas known as "pin boys" had the job of resetting the pins in 1914.
The oldest selfie we know of - taken in 1839 - is more badass than your selfie will ever be.
In the 1920s, police motorcycles had this comical little holding cell attached to their bike to transport criminals.
Don't act like you don't wish you had a pair of these glasses made for reading in bed in your possession.
Long before we hated our alarm clocks, people probably despised the "knocker-up" - a person whose job it was to wake up clients by tapping on their windows in the early 20th century.
We need to all be very thankful that someone eventually invented sunscreen, otherwise going to the beach would be a nightmare filled with people in these creepy masks from the 1920s.
These might look like glasses from Kanye West's personal wardrobe, but they're actually TV glasses from the early '60s that never really caught on. Can't imagine why.
Even in the 1950s, people knew that dressing up their dogs in human clothes was pure comedic gold. The cat on its lap was a very nice touch, I might add.
I have no clue why this one wheel motorcycle from the 1930s that could reach close to 100mph isn't still around.
All I have to say is, we need to bring back this ice cold whisky dispenser that was common in many places in the 1950s. Even offices.
Who needs a real cat when you could have this Japanese machine from the 1960s? It meows many times per minute in order to scare off rats and probably drive you completely insane.
This 1940 bombing drill in London shows us that we used to dress our children up like Boo from "Monsters, Inc."
