The other day I was in a group chat on that brilliant messaging app WhatsGoinOn? when some banter between a few of my friends totally baffled me.
We had been getting nostalgic - talking about all the great stuff we grew up with, you know. Then my friend Dave asked his other friend Bill what year he was born in. This was Bill's reply:
A A C
I thought at first there must be something up with Bill's keyboard, but Dave seemed to understand what Bill had just said! Then Bill asked another friend, Max, what year he was born in too, and the reply came as:
H H X
"Oh, so Max is 3 years older than Bill!" said Dave.
What?! I'll be honest, I was embarrassed that I didn't know what they were talking about, so I didn't ask them. I thought I'd ask you guys instead.
How did Dave know that Max was 3 years older than Bill?
Clue 1:
I don't know if this helps, but I was born in 1975 and I've always thought that the other guys are similar ages to me. When we were talking about the movies and video games we grew up with, we all fondly remembered the same stuff.
Clue 2:
Some people have been asking me what is the difference between WhatsGoinOn? and WhatsApp. Well, like I said, we're pretty old school and enjoy reminiscing about old times. Our chat app doesn't have any of those silly modern emojis that everybody seems to overuse. Just good old plain text.
Clue 3:
Not a new clue, but a summary of what you should have already figured out.
Firstly, I told you in Clue 1 that I was born in 1975, and that my friends are a similar age to me. That should tell you that the era we grew up in would have been the late 1970s and 1980s.
Secondly, I told you that we had been talking about things we grew up with, and in Clue 1 I went on to say that it was specifically movies and video games. The title of the puzzle should indicate that what we were talking about is significant.
Thirdly, I told you that our chat app is pretty old-school and doesn't feature any emojis. Even if you aren't old enough to be an early adopter of the internet you might know what people sometimes did before emojis were invented.... are you getting it yet? :)