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Post by amyghost on Jun 28, 2020 10:25:09 GMT
You'd be amazed at the number of people who were adults at the time who don't recall it until reminded. My sister, who is 13 years older than me had forgotten all about it until I mentioned it to her; when she looked it up, she had clear recollection of it, but also recalled that so little had been made of the event that it had pretty nearly completely dropped out of her memory. She's since mentioned it to a number of her friends and acquaintances, and gotten a similar response--until their memory was jogged, most of them had totally forgotten that this previous pandemic had ever occurred. And it was at least as major in its effects globally as the current Covid virus is. I'm wondering is it the present media landscape - 24-hour news, Internet, social media, etc. that has made us more hyper-aware of this latest pandemic? There was none of that back in those days. Or maybe people were terrified back in '68 and have just blocked it out? I'd say it was definitely the former--no social media, and little of the sort of 'round-the-clock 'journalism' of today. Less sensationalism over information in news reporting. And Vietnam was the main concern of the day, cancelling out pretty much anything but cursory notice of the pandemic. People were definitely not going around terrified about it, I recall that for certain. Other than some topical jokes being made about it, there really wasn't much being made over the whole thing. Tough to imagine that in today's climate of hysteria. |
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