This isn't mean to be a shitpost or a schitzopost. I meant that this was the one center that acted as a recreational area, that absolutely everyone did in the 1950's, 60's, and 70's. Everyone was on an equal playing ground there, no matter status or wealth elsewhere. It was a brutally difficult sport back then, compared to today where it is a joke where any grandma could average 200+. It was more of an an excuse to go somewhere, smoke, drink, have the kids be in a safe place, and know the lanes in a dark, dirty building filled with the entire community. There was no artificial "party" atmosphere with a darkened building, the real party was the community itself. And it was the most popular sport in the country until ABC decided to shift it to Sunday mornings, killing off the revenue and have it decline.This post isn't really about bowling, or bowling alleys. But rather the impact as their purpose as to bring communities together, with a difficult sport with a convoluted scoring system in a building accessible all year long, being the excuse.And yet, this was all taken away from us, and led to the decline of close communities. This isn't enshittification where the lights were off half the time with rap or Top 40 blaring loudly, pins on strings, and games that can bankrupt you just to play. It was a rite-of-passage back then. It was a dirty, yet safe and welcoming building, and a community's living room.Even if you never touched a bowling ball in your life, watch this video, and weep as to the one collective pastime that we all forgot about, but more importantly, how cohesion in society was permanently broken so that something like this may never happen again. And no, Brusnswick is a shell of its former self, and Lucky Stroke with Bowlero is worse (with not even the classic AMF rebranding in some centers doing anything but applying a band-aid on it), with Brunswick and AMF being the two giants.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8QF-ixW8mI
it doesn't matter if you are making a point you are such a fucking faggot about it you undercut your own argument, and that nostalgia slop video you posted also makes you seem retarded.
>>545110252Undercut, how?
Bluddy confusing symptoms with causes.
I know what you're saying, OP.I've had the same though. Bowling alleys were proper 3rd spaces to have fun with friends, meet people, get some grub, and depending on the location also hang at the bar, pinball, arcade, etc.You can still kind of find this in the smaller operations but it's definitely dead when it's the big corpo ones.
>>545110060goyphones too exciting for anything else
>>545110060Bowling alleys are surprisingly expensive to start and operate if you think about it. They require a fairly large piece of land and the construction of a large building. The pin setting and ball return machines are expensive to buy and constantly breaking and requiring expensive maintenance. At the same time, boomers and honorary boomers like OP think of bowling as a cheap, working class activity that should only cost a few dollars to play all day, because that's what it cost 60 years ago. The reality is that bowling alleys cannot stay in business today just relying on a decreasing number of tightwad older people who want to bowl all day for a few dollars.They had to add more revenue streams like $30 nachos to make more money. They blare Top 40 to appeal to a different audience that will actually pay a decent amount of money for a few hours of entertainment.They had to replace the old, expensive pin setting machines with the string machines because they are significantly cheaper and more reliable.You can compare bowling alleys to golf courses, which took the opposite paths. Golf courses (not like Top Golf, actual courses) maintained their traditional feel and experience without a lot of major changes to the experience BUT it's typically not cheap to play golf.
>>545112432The Brunswick A2s (when they are working), and the AMF 82 series pinsetters are mechinical works of art. If only if my center can install Brunswick GSX-2s instead due to speed and reliability.At least they aren't stringpins.
>>545112432Also, bowling and golf are very similar at a baseline level. They are both target sports that putting the ball at a certain place or distance, and on changing conditions (wind and other weather, and terrain for golf, oil patterns and different balls for bowling), where accuracy is key, as well as trying to judge repetition and consistency through chaotic measures. They are non-contact sports that can be played solo or competitively.
>>545110060The decline lines up with desegregation. Whites stopped going to places because niggers kept ruining it.
>>545113151The black people I know at mine that are regulars, are good people. I cannot say the same for those who are open bowlers, who I don't trust at all, since they could be niggers. Even had a fat sheboon once grab one of my balls and then yelled "THIS AIN'T MAH BALL" while she chucked it on the lane. I have 7 bowling balls, yet that fat dumb sheboon had to use one of mine.
>>545113151Is it like that one post I saw here about amusement parks where black people would show up and the white people got scared and started shutting everything down before anyone had a chance to do anything?
I have 2 still by my house they make pretty decent 1st date locationsOne is ancient tier no bumpers and mostly for srs bowlers the other is a modern one so you can get blasted drunk but man if you like a girl take her bowling most men dont do this
>>545113305If you don't want someone accidentally grabbing one of your bowling balls, then maybe you should have 7 of them crowding up the returner.
>>545110060The bowling alley my grandfather bowled at went out of business in 2010, and the owner cited changing demographics as the thing that killed it. It was a massive bowling alley with 3 restaurants, a bar, and a convention room built in the 1950s, that had turned into a dump with rival gangs claiming it as turf and fighting in the parking lot which drew police presence and caused families to stop going. The bowling alley I bowled at as a child was sold in 2018 and became an Indian Hindu temple and community center. Fucktards don't realize how vital racial homogeneity is. Without it, you will lose every cultural gathering place you have, and end up a stranger in your own country.
>>545110060It's the premise of a pretty famous bookhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpBOgh2zxtE
>>545110060Bowling for Columbine
>>545110060Shut the fuck up, Donny.
>>545110060"Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is a 2000 nonfiction book by political scientist Robert D. Putnam that documents the sharp decline of social capital in the United States since the mid-20th century. Putnam argues that Americans have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and democratic structures, evidenced by plummeting participation in civic organizations, voting, and religious groups. The decline is characterized by a shift from collective, face-to-face engagement to solitary activities, famously illustrated by the trend of people bowling more individually but joining fewer leagues. Putnam identifies four primary causes for this erosion: generational succession (the aging of the "long civic generation"), television privatizing leisure, urban sprawl, and increasing pressures of time and money. While the book highlights negative consequences such as reduced trust, poorer health outcomes, and weaker democratic responsiveness, it also notes exceptions like increased youth volunteerism and the growth of telecommunications. Putnam concludes by urging a revival of social capital through new community-building efforts, emphasizing that strong social networks are essential for individual well-being and societal health."
>>545110252>1970>nostalgiagramps, fuck off from 4chan
>>545110252go fuck yourself you faggot cunt leaf. your nation is in the shitter and you obsess over your far superior neighbors - even more embarrassing
>>545110060>>545112432>>545113083Bowling died when USA start cracking unions and shipping labor overseas. When I was at Deere we had over 540 people on teams bowling every week. Not even sure they have a single bowling team there now. Union would sponsor leagues with free food and beer. Republicans got rid of all that and I doubt the southern plants have bowling teams on company dime.
>>545115675I think he needs to take his pills for his dementia.
>>545113668My alley allows single bowers to use two lanes, for league style. This event actually happened in league.
>>545114847putnam really opened my eyes to just how despicable liberal academia is, especially in the social sciences. he found a rather strong correlation between plummeting social capital and ethnic diversity, softened this as much as he could before writing about it, and still got dogpiled by his fellow liberals.it just goes to show how fake the social sciences are. there is very little research here, and the research they do conduct is ensured that it agrees with their findings. their typical MO is to create a framework that sort of works in a hyperspecific situation and they normalize it until the framework becomes a given, then they interpret off of it like they're reading scripture. it's all so vile.
>don't read post>mouse over video link>jeetslop thumbnailsaged
bump for bowling
>>545118222Leftists can't handle the truth
>>545110060I'd love to bowl more, but it costs more than golf these days. I took my son to bowl s couple games and it was like 100 bucks. Crazy
Same with wrestling and baseball
That's just one example, you could find a hundred more. To me the most symbolic death of the community was the loss of organizations and clubs that used to exist exclusively for that purpose. Things like the Elk Lodge. There were a ton of organizations like this, this is just one that most people might have heard of
>>545112901>**PSSSSSSCHT**>90 ON 23 AND A DEAD PIN ON 12
>>545113424you left out the part where the blacks would riot and cause general havoc, resulting in astronomical insurance premium hikes. those amusement parks mostly started out as family owned and operated. can't have that anymore
Over the Line! Mark it zero!
>>545122474Then it's revised that dem parks wuz raciss because they'd kick everyone out and niggers would go riot on the surrounding town and it's the park's fault they're rioting or something.
Your post feels like AI op but I'll assume you're serious. Bowling didn't die because ABC switched it to Sunday. It died because Americans had to work longer hours, got paid less, and had more TV channels to watch. By the 1980s most new subdivisions were walled off or gated because that's what boomers buying their 2nd or 3rd home wanted. If there were commercial spaces as part of a real estate project, it was always the same strip mall with Target / Walmart and Home Depot / Lowe's as the center. Bowling along with other sports like pool never made a big return and requires a lot of real estate space that could be occupied by another McDonalds. The same is true for roller rinks and ice rinks, both of which require specialized construction and the latter 24/7 A/C. All of this was already declining by 2000 but by 2010 it was very visibly over.American communities changed too much. As commutes went from 45 minutes to 2 hours, the average person does not have time for fun after work. Suburban tract developments adapted by becoming more explicitly isolated, offering social removal as an explicit benefit. The idea of moving to a suburb to be with other families or kids ended by 2010, by that point a majority of buyers became boomers while young families get whatever they can afford. The shift in home buying from young people to only old people also meant no more community parks or public spaces, since old people have no use for them.
>>545114615Shameful I had to scroll down this far to see this.
>>545110060>It was a brutally difficult sport back then, compared to today where it is a joke where any grandma could average 200+.really? why?
>>545113151If it was just black people ruining things then they'd still be around but with a membership card and door fee. Exactly as all clubs, strip clubs and many bars work. But those all died too. After the iphone came out, nobody really needed to go to these spaces anymore and, for a young person, there is no point when they're busy with school, college and work which totally consumes their life by age 25. There is rarely any escape from this since most people would rather just play vidya after work than go find friends and pretend like you know each other.It's that latter aspect that is the real social collapse. People have to find friends these days. Society has become extremely split between wealth levels, and because of that most people can't easily socialize outside of their wealth group. Joe Blow truck driver has nothing to say to his brother Joe Tech Worker, in the same way Stacy HR Manager has nothing to say to Stacy House Cleaner. Even within wealth groups, everyone is just divided by the apps they use, and age gaps become much more noticeable and irreconcilable. This problem is even very evident within churches, where everyone is supposed to be on the same page (literally) but more typically everyone subdivides into groups and shuts out loners, who then stop showing up, and people just chose to watch church on TV instead. Which is what happened to my local congregation and my parents.As the average age goes up, social isolation becomes frequent and typical rather than rare and exceptional. Which is the actual social collapse itself manifest.
>>545116581Hey, my dad might have been in that league. I spent many evenings as a kid with my dad and his friends/colleagues bowling in the league at Miller Time.
>>545124321Depends on the alley. Where I live by 2018 both local bowling alleys had bumpers on all the lanes on by default so it's very hard to not hit. Prior to that, if you didn't line up right you absolutely would get a gutterball the whole time and no refunds. This was funner and more tolerable when drunk and with friends, especially someone who was good and could just tell you how to play right. Which is what most people did and the skill floor was much higher. By 2019, the remaining one was only open Thurs-Sun and had no more food bar besides popcorn. Covid closed it and it never reopened. The local theaters all gradually closed at the same time, their entire business became Friday Night Movie as that's the only event that a lot of teenagers would show up for. But by 2016 they weren't even selling out big blockbuster films, then Covid killed them. Both of these closures had the effect of ruining the strip malls they were in, effectively ending them. Dollar General, Autozone and several nail salons now stand as pallbearers to empty caskets that used to be their recreational anchors. It did not help that the local waterpark died too. Not even because of black people, but the white owners sold to jeets who stopped cleaning the pools and let people bring their own food. By the time Covid closed them, they were known to be a giant toilet only divorced kids went to.Literally the only thing that survived was the train station, since liberals still buy a train once a day. The local greyhound depot was sold off and turned into a sad Subway that became a drive-through Starbucks, that is literally used only by uberjeets. People would rather have a jeet give them a coffee than walk into a restaurant and buy it themselves.
>>545110060Bowling is cock smoker dick in your ass gay
My hometown lost the skating rink, the community pools (filled in with concrete), both bowling alleys closed, billiard hall, drive in movie theater shut down and overgrown, the local butcher shop demolished, shopping mall abandoned. It's been depressing watching it all fade away, little by little.
>>545113151Bowling was very popular all through the 80s. I swear you guys are all on vpns or Mexicans that crossed the border in the 90s
>>545124321Because unless if you were stroking, there wasn't any hooking potential. Bowling balls were all made the same, with no differing coverstocks or cores, which means less hooking, much less any potential. Oil back then was made solely to protect the lanes from being worn by the balls, but professionals took advantage of the oil to generate hook. Mark Roth had one of strongest hooks, and was the most major influence for the cranker style (high revolutions, standing all the way to the right, having the ball go towards the 5 board about 42 feet, before snapping back into the pocket), and he was also the first televised PBA bowler to convert a 7-10 split back in 1979 (and only four 7-10 splits has ever been converted during televised tournaments). Lanes were also typically made out of wood instead of synthetic material, which drastically affected how the balls hook.
>>545110060What sort of psychopath makes ai write shit like this?
>>545125015I was born in 1990. The bowling alley that I went to growing up was a candlepin one, and that more or less what the video I posted described. It closed when I was 10, but converted to ten-pin, especially since candlepin alleys around here closed due to a lack of new candlepin pinsetters due to nobody manufacturing them, as well as it not being as commercially viable due to one single candlepin can last over 20 years, compared to 1 year for a tenpin.Candlepin is also the hardest form of bowling, period, since you have tall, symmetrical pins, lightweight balls that fit in the palm of your hands, no hooking, period, but also playing with fallen wood for up to three shots per frame (strike, spare, and no bonus for each consecutive ones). The highest score in sanctioned play anybody has ever achieved in candlepin, was 245 (with 300 being the highest score as usual).
remember when everyone wore bowling shirts during the ‘90s. salad days.
>>545118222This is why all of my research remains in the binders on my shelf and I'll never attempt to publish. Fuck academia, fuck modern (((science))). There's nothing worth contributing to, it's all so fake and gay now.
>>545113869It's this but it's not just that. It's not really just that white people don't want to be around diversity even if it's that too but the core reason is because the population got replaced by Mexicans and Mexicans don't give a shit about bowling or American community spaces. Lose the people, lose the customers
>>545110060Correlation is not causation.It was niggers.
>>545110060The bowling alley I went to as a kid, that was still a kind of cool place to hangout and meet girls in my teens, is now a shitskin infested basically nightclub where there's monkeys smoking niggerweed in the parking lot and a shooting or stabbing every few weeks. Same goes for the malls.
>>545127200Then make shitposts on /pol/ of your findings.
