Unnnhhhhh…pun groan…
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But in Japan right now, you can go to pretty much any video arcade, and there are ashtrays attached to the machines. Even the ones that are lower and/or have smaller chairs for children.
That chart only shows the prevalence of cigarette smoking.
Surely people still smoked a great deal before 1900, it’s just that they were smoking pipes and cigars, not cigarettes.
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I…don’t…know…
I’ve heard that before the American Expeditionary Force entered WW1, it was considered ill-mannered to smoke cigarettes instead of the labor-and-time-intensive (by the consumer) forms of tobacco. But because the American soldiers had the more convenient cigarettes by the pound, the stigma disappeared. I think you just stumbled across a white paper topic.
The AEF also made it socially acceptable for pants to have zippers, instead of buttons, because they spent less time peeing instead of shooting.
I read that here:
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Well, /someone/ had to…
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That’s the lie the tobacco companies love. I quit 25 or so years ago. My Dad quit when I started, but it did not help. He lost a lung. And then, oh so slowly and ever so painfully, died.
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I’ll see your short, and raise you a whole Bob Newhart movie:
Cold Turkey (movie)
…and the most evil reality TV show ever devised!
Cold Turkey (TV show)
Told they were signing up for a bucket list/wish fulfillment reality show, they didn’t read the fine print that allows the producers to change the format of the show without warning the participants. They’re locked in a mansion and forced to quit smoking while completing challenges. BWA-HAA-HAA-HAAA!
Edit: Here’s a review by the NY Post calling it “…the cruelest reality show”:
Actually, it wasn’t that bad. I did a lot of flying in the 80s, and the difference between the airborne smoke in the smoking sections and the nonsmoking sections was substantial. (I should add that this wasn’t an entirely amateur observation, as it was after my job as an EPA pollution inspector, and while I’d been in water quality instead of air quality my colleagues in Air had spent some time teaching me some smoke reader skills.)
When I moved to England in the 80s I was a little shocked to discover that many movie theaters had their smoking and nonsmoking sections side-by-side.
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I remember it as a light miasma anywhere on the plane, although trekking through the smoking section to the restroom was definitely worse. I was so thankful when smoking was finally banned on domestic flights, and remember truly noticing the difference when I flew on a foreign carrier that still worked the old system.
That reminds me of the related issue of smoking in arenas and its effect on photography:
Pauley Pavilion 1967:
Pauley Pavilion 2015:
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I like the first photo more!
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Yes. I remember my clothes, my hair, everything in my checked luggage - it ALL reeked of someone else’s smoke and you couldn’t just ‘air it out’. You had to re-wash all of your clothes when you arrived or walk around smelling like a bowling alley for the whole trip.
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Among the many things that are disgusting about smoking, this is one that really never stops bugging me. Almost without exception, nearly every smoker I’ve ever met has been a horrible litterbug. It’s like the hit of nicotine banishes all thought of behaving in a proper and acceptable manner.
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The last tax hike on tobacco over here (Krautistan) was earmarked for providing additional funds for anti-terror-theatricals.
If I quit, the terrorists win.
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I would so watch a minseries based on this.
Good working title, actually.
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An invasive species in North America since 1492, I’m given to understand.
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It wasn’t always so bad. Ashtrays were everywhere, ubiquitous in homes, cars, businesses, and public areas. Smokers used them when I was growing up, with the exception of rural areas, where people would just flick the filters to the edge of the property, which also collected rocks dug up from the garden, fallen branches, raked up leaves, etc.
But then someone thought it would be a good idea to eliminate all the ashtrays without eliminating the need for them. And later someone else came along and decided that it would be good to remove the trash cans as well. So now there’s a mess. Unlike a candy bar wrapper, stubbed out cigarettes or burnt-out filters smell way worse than smoke, nobody wants to carry them around in their pocket and walk 3 miles out of their way to find a trash can.
Later generations are more conscious about it, and may carry an airtight container to put them in. But the ones who grew up with ashtrays and trashcans everywhere and now have to suffer shame because they’re gone just toss the filters in defiance against those who took them away and doomed them to that shame.
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I remember being appalled by the littering of smokers in the 70’s too. Ashtrays or their absence seem to have nothing to do with it.
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The Boing Boing Store, for once, has you covered:
This is a public service announcement by the BBSAS.1)
1) The Boing Boing Store Appreciation Society
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It seems the decline of cigarette smoking is being followed by the rise of weed smoking (in public). My views are libertarian, and I have no issue with any substance others want to consume. But I don’t enjoy secondhand weed smoke any more than secondhand cigarette smoke.
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Spain seems to be holding steady. It feels to me like they are taking on the stereotypes of the French.
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