Do you remember 9/11?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I don't myself.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I don't myself.

Is this just another way to rub the fact how young you are in our collective faces?

[dead0man]

Yes, work was.....interesting that night.

[Asian Nazi]

Are you just intentionally making a poll to make us 20-something feel old as sh**t?

[Illiniwek]

Absolutely. Was playing with my dog when I first found out. Went to school, and was plotting with my classmates how the us was going to win whatever war was about to happen.

[Mr. Morden]

Yes, of course I remember it.

Serious question: How young would a kid have been (on average) on 9/11 for them not to remember it 15 years later?  I have some fragmentary memories of when I was 3, but that was of course family stuff, as I didn't know anything about world events back then.  Would someone who was 6 on 9/11 have been aware of it, or been able to remember the day years later?  Where's the cutoff?

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Given the demographics, you should have added "wasn't born yet" as an option.

[IceSpear]

Yes. I was in 3rd grade, and the teacher kept going out the door to talk to another teacher. Apparently some of the kids overheard "bomb" and "terrorist" and people started spreading rumors that there was a bomb in the school, which they got in trouble for. The day went on "as normal", with kids gradually leaving getting picked up by their parents, but we didn't know why. My asshole older brother picked me up and said the terrorists were going to kill us to try to scare me. I didn't believe him though and ignored it, even at 9 years old lol. When I turned on the TV upon getting home I was shocked that there was actually a terrorist attack, watched the news in awe for about 5 minutes, then turned the channel back to Cartoon Network (which was one of the few channels that wasn't airing the footage of the towers falling.)

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Yes, of course I remember it.

Serious question: How young would a kid have been (on average) on 9/11 for them not to remember it 15 years later?  I have some fragmentary memories of when I was 3, but that was of course family stuff, as I didn't know anything about world events back then.  Would someone who was 6 on 9/11 have been aware of it, or been able to remember the day years later?  Where's the cutoff?

I have fragmentary memory from the time of the first Gulf War, when I was two and a half (it was on TV all time).

It's frequently accepted that kids develop regular memory around 5, and before that there are random fragments. There's at least two more such random fragments I can recall when I was 2-3.

[Asian Nazi]

I think my earliest memory of global significance was seeing Hale-Bopp, which was about when I was 4 1/2.

[Crumpets]

Yep. I was 7 at the time. Since I live on the West Coast it all unfolded pretty early in the morning for us, and I think I woke up around the time the Pentagon was hit, but I remember everything after that.

[The Last Northerner]

I remember comming back from a ~15 hour flight the previous Sunday and going to school the next Monday (9/11 on was a Tuesday). I remember my teacher making the announcement that a bunch of people attacked America...

People were sad and shocked; they went from crying to hanging their American flags everywhere in a pretty short time. Plane tickets became super cheap ($30? trip to Hawaii?). Thankfully, I didn't know of any anti-Muslim or anti-Arab bashing in my area but I did see a commercial by Muslim or Arab-Americans emphasizing their opposition to radical Islam and love for America.

[Crumpets]

I remember comming back from a ~15 hour flight the previous Sunday and going to school the next Monday (9/11 on was a Tuesday). I remember my teacher making the announcement that a bunch of people attacked America...

People were sad and shocked; they went from crying to hanging their American flags everywhere in a pretty short time. Plane tickets became super cheap ($30? trip to Hawaii?). Thankfully, I didn't know of any anti-Muslim or anti-Arab bashing in my area but I did see a commercial by Muslim or Arab-Americans emphasizing their opposition to radical Islam and love for America.

This is the ad I remember most distinctly from that era. It's actually a bit creepy looking back on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-BNO1jNnFY

[Thunderbird is the word]

Vividly and I find it terrifying that their are posters on here who are cognizant that were born after the fact. Kind of makes me think of the movie "When Harry Met Sally" where the Harry character comments to a friend how she couldn't remember where she was when Kennedy assassinated. A Millenial update of that would have the same line about 9-11.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

That day I had an argument with a friend whether there is going to be a war over this.

I was the one who was right.

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

No (only 3 months old)

[This account no longer in use.]

I wasn't even born at the time.

[Lurker]

Yes, of course I remember it.

Serious question: How young would a kid have been (on average) on 9/11 for them not to remember it 15 years later?  I have some fragmentary memories of when I was 3, but that was of course family stuff, as I didn't know anything about world events back then.  Would someone who was 6 on 9/11 have been aware of it, or been able to remember the day years later?  Where's the cutoff?

Interesting question.

Being born in 1990, the first political event I can vaguely remember anything from was the 1994 EU referendum in my country. But that's an 'outlier' though - other than that I can't remember any political/world event from until I was 7-8 years old.

[LLR]

No, as I was not alive.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No. I was only 2 at the time.
I can only imagine how different my perspective would have been if I was a few years older, though.

[beaver2.0]

Yes.

[RINO Tom]

Yep, incredibly sad day.  Keeping it relatively brief, I was in 3rd grade and we saw one of our teachers crying on the walk to music class but had no idea what was going on.  They finally told us around 10:00 am CST, and even kids of that age got how big of a deal this was.  After school, my mom picked me up and was very worried because she hadn't heard from her sister in DC, but she seemed relatively at ease compared to our neighbors from Long Island who had all their family back in NY and some who worked in Manhattan.  It sucked watching them go through that.  Once I saw the videos and stuff that night, it really set in that this was an event that would change how the world worked.

The two positives I remember from that:

1) Our rec league soccer coach (whom I still tailgate with, haha) was the only one who didn't cancel practice that day, and he said something to the effect of "The entire point of terrorism is to scare you into living your life the way the terrorists think you should - and against the way you believe is right.  Well, they're bullies and cowards, and we're not going to let them scare us!"  Haha, we still give him sh|t for that awesome speech to a bunch of elementary school kids.

2) My mom's host family from when she had studied in Germany during high school had been in the US shortly after, and they came to visit.  They brought us American flag beanie babies and some treats and told us about how people had reacted in Germany and how the rest of the world felt our pain and was gonna stand beside us.

If no one has read that article about several people from around the world remembering 9/11, they should look it up.  Very cool.  Also that new video that the college student took from her dorm of the second plane really gives you a feel for how terrifying that attack was.

[The Dowager Mod]

Yes I was 27.

[Mr. Morden]

OK, here's another question.  Before 9/11, how many of you:

1) Knew who Osama bin Laden was, and
2) Knew what the Taliban was.

Since I was already an adult (and a news junkie) in 2001, yes on both counts for me.  But I don't think that, for example, my mother had ever heard of either of them before 9/11, as she doesn't really follow world events that closely.  Of course, once 9/11 happened, name recognition for both bin Laden and the Taliban reached ~100% overnight.

[White Trash]

Watching Fox News with my meemaw over a few bowls of sugar smacks. Good times.