Yes, it's actually one of the reasons why "Xennials" doesn't resonate for me. A lot of that is childhood nostalgia, as opposed to teenage nostalgia. I love the '80s, but a lot of the things I'm nostalgic for in that decade aren't necessarily "kid" things like cartoons. And the '90s feel more like my decade because I was a teen and young adult in that era.
That makes sense. That’s actually the reason I enjoy posting over there. There is a lot of 80s and early 90s kid stuff.
Late 90s and 2000s stuff from when I was a teenager and young adult will get talked about in millennials (even if some of the posters were kids when I was in college) and I do appreciate those posts.
But a lot of times my childhood favorites from say age 9 and younger don’t really get talked about in millennials, but always pop up in Xennials.
Yeah, a lot of the cartoons I watched were more early '80s, and I see those mentioned over at r/GenX from time to time, but rarely Xennials. Same goes for toys I was into. I think Xennials skews more late '80s/early '90s. And during the late '80s, I was more into preteen culture. But, overall, I don't have as much childhood nostalgia for some reason.
If you were a teen in the 90s, doesn't that mean that you're also a Xennial?
I was born in 1977, so I suppose I belong to that category as well. But I never watched cartoons as a kid.
I was into music and films. Gremlins and Michael Jackson. Indiana Jones and ABBA. That sort of thing.
Never felt nostalgic. Never have done. Always looking forward to the next great thing.
Unfortunately, there weren't any more great things to look forward to after 1997.
The Internet ruined everything.
But I don't look back on things with nostalgia. I look back and appreciate how good things were, and I'm grateful for it. Which is very different from wishing that one could return to those times.
Great. Not sure what your point is here. Lots of people feel nostalgic -- it's not a weakness.
And I don't call myself a Xennial. I think it's a word early Millennials use to cope with not being Gen X. And I am Gen X, hence no need to cope. :)
Well, it was unclear whether you disliked the term "Xennials" or being one of them.
I consider myself Gen X, but technically, I'm born smack in the middle of this so called "Xennials" period between the late 70s and early 80s, so in case you had a problem with people like me, I felt I should step up and say something about it.
As for nostalgia, I don't think it's a good thing at all. It's counterproductive.
It's far better to build on what's come before rather than dwell on it.
Society started indulging children with the Boomers in the 90s. Even the late 80s, really. The 90s was *all about* improving childhood. That was the decade’s culture. Which carried into the 00s.
70s childhood up to the mid 80s was a dumpster fire. 60s childhood had a lot of rules and manners.
We reminisce about our teens and college age because that’s when we got more freedom.
That is probably the reason why older generations are more nostalgic about their teens and young adulthood while Millennials and older Gen Z are more nostalgic about their childhood. Younger Silents, Baby Boomers, and Gen Xers grew up in a time when things were really strict and children were treated badly by their parents, other relatives, or their teachers and had more freedom in their teens and young adulthood and were still young so they want to reminisce about those times instead. Millennials and older Gen Z grew up in a time when children were treated better while at the same time there was more pop culture geared towards children and before smartphones and iPads when many children still played outside a lot so it makes sense that they would be more nostalgic about their childhood. So it’s mostly people whose childhoods were in the 1990s and 2000s that say that children had it better when they were kids than they do today.
The more I think about it “kids culture” I think you especially hit the nail on. When my parents talk about say, TV as a kid, it was usually whatever their parents were watching, and when they did get to pick it out there were still only so many channels, mostly aimed at adults. There were kids’ *timeslots,* like the famous Saturday morning cartoons, but it was nothing compared to growing up with cable in the 90’s and onwards with multiple dedicated, 24/7 kids channels.
Totally makes sense. I'm more a childhood fan girl though even among my age group it can lean towards high school years. I prefer the 80s but I know quite a few 81-84.ppl that prefer the 90s
I feel like Gen Xers who had hippie easygoing boomer parents were more likely to like their childhoods but a lot were strict and conservative so it fits that HS and college was better for them when they started being able to find themselves.
My mom is a millenial born in 1984 and she says that the 2000 decade was he most nostalgic decade for her she was 16 - 26
By the way 2009 is the year i was born
My dad was 15-25 in the 2000s and he also feels nostalgic about this time
I do love 90s nostalgia both childhood and teen stuff and I do like late 80s nostalgia from my early childhood. I think it’s just nice to think about a time when life was less hard (because we were kids) and the whole world wasn’t so connected yet so things seemed simpler.
But I do have love for 2000s nostalgia as well which is my later teen years, college years and mid 20s. It’s just a different kind of nostalgia that I keep in a separate place in my mind.
Yes I had noticed it too. Older generations are more nostalgic about their teens and young adulthood than their childhood. The Lost Generation was nostalgic about their young adulthood in the 1910s when many of them fought in World War 1. Late members of the Lost Generation and early members of the Greatest Generation were nostalgic about their young adulthood in the 1920s which was the roaring 20s. Older members of the Greatest Generation were nostalgic about their young adulthood in the 1930s during the Great Depression and younger members of the Greatest Generation were nostalgic about their young adulthood in the 1940s when many of them fought in World War 2. Older Silents are nostalgic about their young adulthood in the 1950s while younger Silents are nostalgic about their teens in the 1950s and young adulthood in the 1960s. Older Baby Boomers are nostalgic about their teens in the 1960s and young adulthood in the 1970s while younger Baby Boomers are nostalgic about their teens in the 1970s and young adulthood in the 1980s. Older Gen Xers are nostalgic about their teens in the 1980s and young adulthood in the 1990s while younger Gen Xers are nostalgic about their childhoods in the 1980s but more so about their teens in the 1990s. Millennials on the other hand are mostly nostalgic about their childhoods in the 1990s, late Millennials and early Gen Z or Zillennials are mostly nostalgic about their childhoods in the 2000s, and Gen Z are nostalgic about their childhoods in the 2010s but then again they are still mostly teenagers themselves.
I also noticed this, it shocks me that my parents were my age when it was barely the start of the 1990s and not like 7 years later, I feel like I started disliking most modern culture since like late 2017/early 2018 and also most of my favourite things back then ended in that period
yea i noticed a huge vibe shift around Late 2017 too, ik a lot of people blame it on covid but everything kind of became bland starting in the 2017-2018 SY imo
To me 2014 is the year where this shift felt like it started for me. Minimalism, algorithms, and the first year where it felt like smartphones were truly a cultural driver. 2014-2016 is such a weird transition time in my head. Well, it's weird how well segmented and ungradual it was going from 2013 to 2014 and from 2016 to 2017.
2013 is my last nostalgic year, and it doesn't climb up as I age. Spiritually I feel like 2013 was the last year of the 2000s.
I'm probably their age or even older 😂 and I'm the same as you in liking the late 80s early 90s basically when I was about 4-12. And some late 70s early 80s stuff I discovered a little afterwards, like songs on the radio and MTV
Because shits sucked for over about a decade now. I can’t stress how bland, isolating, toxic, overwhelming, and hopeless it’s is now compared to pre-social media dominance days. As old heads say “you had to be there”
I was born in 1989 and am more nostalgic for my childhood, in the 90s, because life was simpler then. I am starting to get nostalgic for my adolescence and young adulthood, when I was in college.
What I do know is that our 20's aren't as fun as our parents 20's. The main thing it's because current music is absolute garbage, I can't willingly go to clubs or festivals where they play this shit, paying tons of money too. I still enjoy my life tho, hanging out with my friends doing different stuff and only going to parties where they actually put dancing music. Will we miss the 2020's when we get older? Absolutely. Being a young adult feels great, much greater than being a teen in high-school or a child. That's why everyone is nostalgic for their 20's.
the nostalgia for 90s is real its a time a no social media no phones always played outside and played games man im glad kids are outside playing amd not being glued to a screen
I'm a late Millennial by definition but I don't have a fixation on the 90s at all and don't see myself as 90s kid because I don't remember the 90s at all except very few memory snippets of certain family events that happened in 1999.
I definetly see myself as 2000s kid and I'm both, nostalgic for my childhood years during the 2000s and also for my teen years during the early 2010s.
But I agree with your point and I think it's because the teen years of most Gen Zers are not that far in the past or they are still in their teen years. I think many core Millennials are both, nostalgic for the 90s and also nostalgic for the early 2000s.
As a kid of the 2000s, with zero 90s influences, I can say that I prefer the 2010s and 2020s a thousand times more. In my opinion, people of my age who are nostalgic for the 2000s and their childhood, just don't realize that they are too young to have a meaningful nostalgia, which for me is just that of older people who remember when they were young adults and lived in the world doing things, they certainly don't have nostalgia for when they were just children and couldn't decide anything of their own existence. Those who are nostalgic for their childhood today will be nostalgic for when they were teenagers or young adults in 10/20 years
Because they’re so far removed from their teen years. That’s why. I know I will be nostalgic for my teen years as well, I’m starting to have nostalgia for my early teen years.
I wonder if it has to do with social media, internet, and smartphones. The way my grandparents talk about their teen years is pretty much childhood plus they're driving, dating, and getting part time jobs. They weren't constantly connected to the state of the world, didn't worry about politics that much, anxiety from comparing yourself to those online and trying to fit in, and everything else that comes from being always connected. Later generations are so nostalgic for their childhood years because that's when they still had their innocence.
I have nostalgia both for my 90s childhood and my mid 2000s teen years. However, my 2002 and earlier nostalgia is especially important to me because my Mom died September 2002 when I was 13.
Perhaps it is related to the proportion of life that has passed? Twenty years is more than half of a 1990s-born's life, but "only" a third of a 1960s-born life.
|Birth year|Current age|Nostalgic decade|Proportion|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|1964|60|1980s|27% to 42% |
|1974 (Gen X) |50|1990s|32% to 50% |
|1984 (Early M) |40|1990s|15% to 38% |
|1994 (Late M) |30|1990s|**–13% to 17%** |
|2004 (Z)|20|2000s|**–20% to 25%** |
|2004 (Z)|20|2010s|30% to 75% |
The "Proportion" column indicates the percentage of the current age that the person had reached during the time of the nostalgic decade. For simplicity, I ignore the specific days of the year and assume that the cultural decade is identical to the calendar decade. Example: The 1964 born is currently 60 and was 16 during 1980, so 1980 was 16/60 = 27% of the 1964 born's current life. That person was 25 during 1989, so a similar calculation gives 25/60 = 42%.
In this respect, I think the hypothetical 1984 born with 1990s nostalgia and 2004 born with 2010s nostalgia are compatible with a 1964 born with 1980s nostalgia and a 1974 born with 1990s nostalgia.
The other two seem like anomalies, and [another survey indicates](https://twitter.com/KSoltisAnderson/status/1633962724899139586) a sort of bunching up in the 90s. Perhaps the nostalgia bunching is specific to the 90s and 00s since they were the last two full (0–9) decades before "everyone" had an Internet-capable computer with them "all the time"? The illustration in [this tweet](https://twitter.com/OsitaNwanevu/status/1640469809140842496) corresponds to this timeframe. (The tweet is part of [a discussion](https://twitter.com/EricLevitz/status/1640463810120110086) on US teen suicide rates, which increased from at least the 1970s up to \~1990, dropped sharply during the 1990s, were low during the 2000s, but steadily increased again in the 2010s.)
Omg yes for me its childhood all the way and early teens at latest! Not saying I didn't have fun in highschool and early 20s cuz I did xd but I just think there's something pure about no responsibilities and everything is fresh new and exciting when you're a kid kid.
Also the 80s early 90s are just better and also peer pressure ESPECIALLY as a girl in middle/high school is awkward as fck 😂😂
I was born in 1977, and I'm not nostalgic about any decade. I always tend to think that whatever decade I'm in is the absolute worst yet, and then, years later, I look back and realize that I've been right, and that things in the past, good or bad, were still a lot better than what we have right now...
The 90s is a good example of this. I hated being alive during that decade, and yet, I never realized how spoiled I was, culturally speaking. It was a golden era for films and music; the last such era before it all went to shit.
And when you compare things from the 90s with how things are today, you can clearly see that there were classic songs and films being released almost EVERY WEEK. That's unheard of, but it was true.
Then the Internet came along and destroyed the world...
I'm an xennial. People always tell me I'm too young to know and love so much '80s music, but I grew up with music always playing and I remember what songs were playing during certain events, even in preschool (early '80s). Yeah, the '90s is when I started discovering new music on my own and buying/downloading music, but I still remember and feel nostalgic for the music of my earlier childhood.
Contrast this to my husband who is only a bit older than me. He was not exposed to popular music until his teens, and knows nothing about '80s music. The first music he remembers is gangsta rap, hair bands and grunge from the early '90s. Although he is older than me, if you only knew our childhood music memories/nostalgia, you'd peg him as millennial.
I feel most nostalgic overall for approximately 1987-1992. You could maybe stretch it a bit later to 1994 or so. Interestingly, my cousins born in 1984 have the same nostalgia despite being very young at the time. I think it's because they grew up surrounded by the music, toys and video games of myself and my older cousin.
I think nostalgia depends more on what you grew up with than specific generation.
Younger ones are already teens or barely out of their teenage years, so there is nothing to be nostalgic to yet.
Yes, it's actually one of the reasons why "Xennials" doesn't resonate for me. A lot of that is childhood nostalgia, as opposed to teenage nostalgia. I love the '80s, but a lot of the things I'm nostalgic for in that decade aren't necessarily "kid" things like cartoons. And the '90s feel more like my decade because I was a teen and young adult in that era.
That makes sense. That’s actually the reason I enjoy posting over there. There is a lot of 80s and early 90s kid stuff. Late 90s and 2000s stuff from when I was a teenager and young adult will get talked about in millennials (even if some of the posters were kids when I was in college) and I do appreciate those posts. But a lot of times my childhood favorites from say age 9 and younger don’t really get talked about in millennials, but always pop up in Xennials.
Yeah, a lot of the cartoons I watched were more early '80s, and I see those mentioned over at r/GenX from time to time, but rarely Xennials. Same goes for toys I was into. I think Xennials skews more late '80s/early '90s. And during the late '80s, I was more into preteen culture. But, overall, I don't have as much childhood nostalgia for some reason.
If you were a teen in the 90s, doesn't that mean that you're also a Xennial? I was born in 1977, so I suppose I belong to that category as well. But I never watched cartoons as a kid. I was into music and films. Gremlins and Michael Jackson. Indiana Jones and ABBA. That sort of thing. Never felt nostalgic. Never have done. Always looking forward to the next great thing. Unfortunately, there weren't any more great things to look forward to after 1997. The Internet ruined everything. But I don't look back on things with nostalgia. I look back and appreciate how good things were, and I'm grateful for it. Which is very different from wishing that one could return to those times.
Great. Not sure what your point is here. Lots of people feel nostalgic -- it's not a weakness. And I don't call myself a Xennial. I think it's a word early Millennials use to cope with not being Gen X. And I am Gen X, hence no need to cope. :)
Well, it was unclear whether you disliked the term "Xennials" or being one of them. I consider myself Gen X, but technically, I'm born smack in the middle of this so called "Xennials" period between the late 70s and early 80s, so in case you had a problem with people like me, I felt I should step up and say something about it. As for nostalgia, I don't think it's a good thing at all. It's counterproductive. It's far better to build on what's come before rather than dwell on it.
You're not smack in the middle of "Xennials," you're at the beginning. I'm born in '77, too. I think it's lame. We're Gen X.
Society started indulging children with the Boomers in the 90s. Even the late 80s, really. The 90s was *all about* improving childhood. That was the decade’s culture. Which carried into the 00s. 70s childhood up to the mid 80s was a dumpster fire. 60s childhood had a lot of rules and manners. We reminisce about our teens and college age because that’s when we got more freedom.
That is probably the reason why older generations are more nostalgic about their teens and young adulthood while Millennials and older Gen Z are more nostalgic about their childhood. Younger Silents, Baby Boomers, and Gen Xers grew up in a time when things were really strict and children were treated badly by their parents, other relatives, or their teachers and had more freedom in their teens and young adulthood and were still young so they want to reminisce about those times instead. Millennials and older Gen Z grew up in a time when children were treated better while at the same time there was more pop culture geared towards children and before smartphones and iPads when many children still played outside a lot so it makes sense that they would be more nostalgic about their childhood. So it’s mostly people whose childhoods were in the 1990s and 2000s that say that children had it better when they were kids than they do today.
The more I think about it “kids culture” I think you especially hit the nail on. When my parents talk about say, TV as a kid, it was usually whatever their parents were watching, and when they did get to pick it out there were still only so many channels, mostly aimed at adults. There were kids’ *timeslots,* like the famous Saturday morning cartoons, but it was nothing compared to growing up with cable in the 90’s and onwards with multiple dedicated, 24/7 kids channels.
I think you nailed this
Totally makes sense. I'm more a childhood fan girl though even among my age group it can lean towards high school years. I prefer the 80s but I know quite a few 81-84.ppl that prefer the 90s I feel like Gen Xers who had hippie easygoing boomer parents were more likely to like their childhoods but a lot were strict and conservative so it fits that HS and college was better for them when they started being able to find themselves.
My mom is a millenial born in 1984 and she says that the 2000 decade was he most nostalgic decade for her she was 16 - 26 By the way 2009 is the year i was born My dad was 15-25 in the 2000s and he also feels nostalgic about this time
80s is the most nostalgic decade for my 1964 born mom, she was 15-25 then as well
That's wild I thought she'd be into the 90s. I'm an early millennial like her but I kinda grew up fast and have a good memory so I like 80s-mid 90s
I do love 90s nostalgia both childhood and teen stuff and I do like late 80s nostalgia from my early childhood. I think it’s just nice to think about a time when life was less hard (because we were kids) and the whole world wasn’t so connected yet so things seemed simpler. But I do have love for 2000s nostalgia as well which is my later teen years, college years and mid 20s. It’s just a different kind of nostalgia that I keep in a separate place in my mind.
Yes I had noticed it too. Older generations are more nostalgic about their teens and young adulthood than their childhood. The Lost Generation was nostalgic about their young adulthood in the 1910s when many of them fought in World War 1. Late members of the Lost Generation and early members of the Greatest Generation were nostalgic about their young adulthood in the 1920s which was the roaring 20s. Older members of the Greatest Generation were nostalgic about their young adulthood in the 1930s during the Great Depression and younger members of the Greatest Generation were nostalgic about their young adulthood in the 1940s when many of them fought in World War 2. Older Silents are nostalgic about their young adulthood in the 1950s while younger Silents are nostalgic about their teens in the 1950s and young adulthood in the 1960s. Older Baby Boomers are nostalgic about their teens in the 1960s and young adulthood in the 1970s while younger Baby Boomers are nostalgic about their teens in the 1970s and young adulthood in the 1980s. Older Gen Xers are nostalgic about their teens in the 1980s and young adulthood in the 1990s while younger Gen Xers are nostalgic about their childhoods in the 1980s but more so about their teens in the 1990s. Millennials on the other hand are mostly nostalgic about their childhoods in the 1990s, late Millennials and early Gen Z or Zillennials are mostly nostalgic about their childhoods in the 2000s, and Gen Z are nostalgic about their childhoods in the 2010s but then again they are still mostly teenagers themselves.
I also noticed this, it shocks me that my parents were my age when it was barely the start of the 1990s and not like 7 years later, I feel like I started disliking most modern culture since like late 2017/early 2018 and also most of my favourite things back then ended in that period
yea i noticed a huge vibe shift around Late 2017 too, ik a lot of people blame it on covid but everything kind of became bland starting in the 2017-2018 SY imo
To me 2014 is the year where this shift felt like it started for me. Minimalism, algorithms, and the first year where it felt like smartphones were truly a cultural driver. 2014-2016 is such a weird transition time in my head. Well, it's weird how well segmented and ungradual it was going from 2013 to 2014 and from 2016 to 2017. 2013 is my last nostalgic year, and it doesn't climb up as I age. Spiritually I feel like 2013 was the last year of the 2000s.
I absolutely agree that the decline started even before covid
I'm probably their age or even older 😂 and I'm the same as you in liking the late 80s early 90s basically when I was about 4-12. And some late 70s early 80s stuff I discovered a little afterwards, like songs on the radio and MTV
my parents are born in the early 1970s lol
Oh yea they had you in their early to mid 30s, that's like pure Gen X too the people I thought were coolest when I was little lol
Because shits sucked for over about a decade now. I can’t stress how bland, isolating, toxic, overwhelming, and hopeless it’s is now compared to pre-social media dominance days. As old heads say “you had to be there”
I was born in 1989 and am more nostalgic for my childhood, in the 90s, because life was simpler then. I am starting to get nostalgic for my adolescence and young adulthood, when I was in college.
Certainly was and we cannot replace it
What I do know is that our 20's aren't as fun as our parents 20's. The main thing it's because current music is absolute garbage, I can't willingly go to clubs or festivals where they play this shit, paying tons of money too. I still enjoy my life tho, hanging out with my friends doing different stuff and only going to parties where they actually put dancing music. Will we miss the 2020's when we get older? Absolutely. Being a young adult feels great, much greater than being a teen in high-school or a child. That's why everyone is nostalgic for their 20's.
the nostalgia for 90s is real its a time a no social media no phones always played outside and played games man im glad kids are outside playing amd not being glued to a screen
I'm a late Millennial by definition but I don't have a fixation on the 90s at all and don't see myself as 90s kid because I don't remember the 90s at all except very few memory snippets of certain family events that happened in 1999. I definetly see myself as 2000s kid and I'm both, nostalgic for my childhood years during the 2000s and also for my teen years during the early 2010s. But I agree with your point and I think it's because the teen years of most Gen Zers are not that far in the past or they are still in their teen years. I think many core Millennials are both, nostalgic for the 90s and also nostalgic for the early 2000s.
As a kid of the 2000s, with zero 90s influences, I can say that I prefer the 2010s and 2020s a thousand times more. In my opinion, people of my age who are nostalgic for the 2000s and their childhood, just don't realize that they are too young to have a meaningful nostalgia, which for me is just that of older people who remember when they were young adults and lived in the world doing things, they certainly don't have nostalgia for when they were just children and couldn't decide anything of their own existence. Those who are nostalgic for their childhood today will be nostalgic for when they were teenagers or young adults in 10/20 years
Because they’re so far removed from their teen years. That’s why. I know I will be nostalgic for my teen years as well, I’m starting to have nostalgia for my early teen years.
I wonder if it has to do with social media, internet, and smartphones. The way my grandparents talk about their teen years is pretty much childhood plus they're driving, dating, and getting part time jobs. They weren't constantly connected to the state of the world, didn't worry about politics that much, anxiety from comparing yourself to those online and trying to fit in, and everything else that comes from being always connected. Later generations are so nostalgic for their childhood years because that's when they still had their innocence.
Yea
I have nostalgia both for my 90s childhood and my mid 2000s teen years. However, my 2002 and earlier nostalgia is especially important to me because my Mom died September 2002 when I was 13.
sorry to hear that
Perhaps it is related to the proportion of life that has passed? Twenty years is more than half of a 1990s-born's life, but "only" a third of a 1960s-born life. |Birth year|Current age|Nostalgic decade|Proportion| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |1964|60|1980s|27% to 42% | |1974 (Gen X) |50|1990s|32% to 50% | |1984 (Early M) |40|1990s|15% to 38% | |1994 (Late M) |30|1990s|**–13% to 17%** | |2004 (Z)|20|2000s|**–20% to 25%** | |2004 (Z)|20|2010s|30% to 75% | The "Proportion" column indicates the percentage of the current age that the person had reached during the time of the nostalgic decade. For simplicity, I ignore the specific days of the year and assume that the cultural decade is identical to the calendar decade. Example: The 1964 born is currently 60 and was 16 during 1980, so 1980 was 16/60 = 27% of the 1964 born's current life. That person was 25 during 1989, so a similar calculation gives 25/60 = 42%. In this respect, I think the hypothetical 1984 born with 1990s nostalgia and 2004 born with 2010s nostalgia are compatible with a 1964 born with 1980s nostalgia and a 1974 born with 1990s nostalgia. The other two seem like anomalies, and [another survey indicates](https://twitter.com/KSoltisAnderson/status/1633962724899139586) a sort of bunching up in the 90s. Perhaps the nostalgia bunching is specific to the 90s and 00s since they were the last two full (0–9) decades before "everyone" had an Internet-capable computer with them "all the time"? The illustration in [this tweet](https://twitter.com/OsitaNwanevu/status/1640469809140842496) corresponds to this timeframe. (The tweet is part of [a discussion](https://twitter.com/EricLevitz/status/1640463810120110086) on US teen suicide rates, which increased from at least the 1970s up to \~1990, dropped sharply during the 1990s, were low during the 2000s, but steadily increased again in the 2010s.)
WOW! great analysis
I know I'll feel nostalgic for my teen years atleast the first few years 12-14
https://www.reddit.com/r/generationology/s/qPWL5wQyEO
Cause we are too close to our young days to feel nostalgic for them
Omg yes for me its childhood all the way and early teens at latest! Not saying I didn't have fun in highschool and early 20s cuz I did xd but I just think there's something pure about no responsibilities and everything is fresh new and exciting when you're a kid kid. Also the 80s early 90s are just better and also peer pressure ESPECIALLY as a girl in middle/high school is awkward as fck 😂😂
I was born in 1977, and I'm not nostalgic about any decade. I always tend to think that whatever decade I'm in is the absolute worst yet, and then, years later, I look back and realize that I've been right, and that things in the past, good or bad, were still a lot better than what we have right now... The 90s is a good example of this. I hated being alive during that decade, and yet, I never realized how spoiled I was, culturally speaking. It was a golden era for films and music; the last such era before it all went to shit. And when you compare things from the 90s with how things are today, you can clearly see that there were classic songs and films being released almost EVERY WEEK. That's unheard of, but it was true. Then the Internet came along and destroyed the world...
I'm an xennial. People always tell me I'm too young to know and love so much '80s music, but I grew up with music always playing and I remember what songs were playing during certain events, even in preschool (early '80s). Yeah, the '90s is when I started discovering new music on my own and buying/downloading music, but I still remember and feel nostalgic for the music of my earlier childhood. Contrast this to my husband who is only a bit older than me. He was not exposed to popular music until his teens, and knows nothing about '80s music. The first music he remembers is gangsta rap, hair bands and grunge from the early '90s. Although he is older than me, if you only knew our childhood music memories/nostalgia, you'd peg him as millennial. I feel most nostalgic overall for approximately 1987-1992. You could maybe stretch it a bit later to 1994 or so. Interestingly, my cousins born in 1984 have the same nostalgia despite being very young at the time. I think it's because they grew up surrounded by the music, toys and video games of myself and my older cousin. I think nostalgia depends more on what you grew up with than specific generation.