The glasses. The bowl cut. The striped polos. The hamster cages near the fire place, and the actual Ghostbusters theme song sets the scene of a Very 1988 Christmas, when little Steve— after two months of hoping and praying— is surprised by his parents with a brand new Nintendo Entertainment System.
“NINTENDO!” he screams with the pure joy only a child could express. He immediately starts crying and hugging his dad, who says “Don’t come and hug me, go play with it!”. Steve then swiftly runs to his room to get money to give his dad for the gift. It’s so pure and wholesome I could (ok, I did) cry.
The video was posted to the /videos subReddit on Monday by Steve himself, who captioned it “I present to you my greatest shame. When my parents surprised me with a new Nintendo.” No way Steve. This is maybe your greatest glory. Although your brother Kyle couldn’t be less impressed by it (“I don’t wanna play with it,” he repeatedly proclaims).
Many of the comments, both on Reddit and on YouTube waned nostalgic over the NES as well as just “the times” in general, when kids were grateful and unspoiled and still impressed by the cool things in life instead of perpetually bored and ambivalent.
“I gotta say, you seemed like a really grateful kid with a wonderful family. I bet you turned out well.” wrote u/Mavec 2. “Makes me really happy to see this video. P.S. I used to put the Zapper (gun) in my mouth too like your brother, bit of weird trivia.”
“‘Kids back then: “OH SHIT NINTENDO WOOP WOOP. THANK YOU GUYS”. Kids nowadays: “THE FERRARI IS BLACK AND I WANTED A RED ONE. YOU RUINED MY WHOLE BIRTHDAY. I HATE YOU” commented YouTuber robizzlor, which is a totally sad truth.
“This is wonderful and amazing,” shares ecmyersvids. “Having Real Ghostbusters on in the background makes it even more perfect! It would have taken something like a Nintendo to get me to turn that show off voluntarily.”
Reddit user Wisefancymoses commented on the fact that the little brother always ended up as Luigi.
“Little bro: “I want to play with it”
Big bro: “Sure, you can be Luigi!”
little bro problems”
Others just pointed out how “dad” Steve and Kyle’s dad is.
“Your dad seemed like such a dad” commented u/ThatOneAssGuy. Dude, totally.
“80s dads are like the Mt Everest of dadhood,” writes u/121gigawhatevs.
“Dad, ‘Hey, hiya doing with that game?’ lol” writes u/GhostOfTimBrewster. “Dad is trying hard to figure out how to plug that thing in” jokes u/BunzLee.
Aw, ’80s dads. Makes you miss those thick-lensed ill-fitting office suit dads of yesteryear, especially when we think about the hip dads of today sporting man buns and glitter beards. It’s all so wholesome we could just die. Now, if only the original NES were as easy to come by…