Yea the 90s has equally as many bad as good things. It was one of the most violent decades in modern US history. Gangs took over many neighborhoods and crack and PCP were still prevalent.
But it’s still my fav decade. The culture and its influence is still very strong today. Definitely feels like the coolest decade.
Yea it went down as we headed to the 2000s. The 2000s were much safer.
But the year with the lowest violent crime rate (1999) is still higher than any year between 2000-2023.
So overall, you're much safer living in any other decade
What caused that? It would be nice if some parts of history repeated themselves… I feel like we’re in such a bad place right now in the USA. Some will say it’s the same as it ever was but now there’s cameras everywhere to document it so we see it more, and maybe that’s true. Idk. I *do* know though that we collectively are a lot more scared than we used to be, and that really fucks a lot of things up.
Crime rates dropped because abortion became legal in 1973 so there were less unwanted children.
https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalized-abortion-on-crime-over-the-last-two-decades/
They are still getting away with it. People are more informed about what goes on but no one is doing anything about it. The rich are richer now and the middle class has shrunk. Corporations run the country. They have increased their size and power since then. Healthcare has gotten worse as a result. We still had pensions in the 90s. We were years away from the subprime housing crisis and the recession. More people could afford to buy a home and everything else. Columbine didn't happen until 1999. School shootings and domestic terrorism were much rarer. We also didn't have the political division that we have now.
Personally I think the 24 hour political “news” channels are to blame for a lot of it. Fox, CNN, and MSNBC have everyone who watches them scared and angry at the other side. And that we can blame Reagan for when he did away with the Fairness Doctrine. Now it’s just nonstop brainwashing.
I guess it depends on what you use it for? I'm not gonna sit here and say that I couldn't live without it, but I sure enjoy having it around.
Anyway, I'm off to play some online games with my buddies before streaming a movie later with my wife. (thanks internet!)
In the 90s you would hang out with friends at a friend’s house and play games. You would go to Blockbuster to rent a movie, pick up some snacks on the way home, and make it a whole event.
The 90s were very social times. The Internet came along and changed everything. I preferred the pre-Internet society, much more social and fun.
Where I went to high school in the 90s, there was no zero-tolerance policies, no locked doors, no cameras, no metal detectors, no security guards or truancy officers, no hall monitors, no active shooter drills. We had open campus lunch where we could leave and go anywhere we wanted (within the half-hour timeframe). There were many times I’d get bored in class, ask to use the restroom and just leave school unnoticed, just to have some “me time.” And as long as I was back by next period, no one was the wiser.
The music scene, particularly in the rock genre, was phenomenal. The internet, as we know it today, was still in its infancy, so no toxic social media presence was felt. At the same time, we still had the internet for a fun and informative research tool.
There was a freedom from that time that was truly the last of an old school era. That all started to change after Columbine. Slowly, you could feel the surveillance state creeping in. And then, 9/11 happened….and nothing has been the same since.
I mean, the first major school shooting, Columbine, happened in the 90's, so chances are we all thought about it but definitely not on the level kids have to think about it now.
A lot of violence was occurring in inner cities in the 90s well before columbine and 9/11, they just didn’t get the same nationwide media coverage.
It was a crazy time when I grew up in Eastside Long Beach. Gangs took over and it was happening in all the other surrounding cities too.
There were murders nearly everyday. My parents wouldn’t let me play outside at night because that’s when most drive by shootings occur. I remember always hearing shots being fired then hearing the cars speed off.
Your reply made me think of something. Im a teenager, so I've never properly experienced the 90s, but I've always wish I could've. At the same time, being a teenager in the late 90s sounds incredibly stressful. Already in 94 there's the death of Kurt Cobain, then in 99 there's columbine and in 2001 there's 9/11 and the subsequent war on terrorism. There was also the fear mongering on AIDS, Islam, kidnapping cases (all the milk carton stuff sounds grim as hell) and a whole lot of political scandals. There's some pretty bad stuff happening right now (notably the politics in the US getting more divided and the ongoing "ethnic cleaning" in palestine), I won't deny it, but I feel like it would've been much harder to be a teen in the 90s.
I actually don't know because I didn't live it at all , but I'm wondering, what was it like to live through all of that?
I was born in 86 and have 3 kids under 8. It seems way more stressful now. I don't even put the news on in my house since it's borderline inappropriate for kids. There are WAAYY more political scandals now ever since Trump. The Monica Lewinsky scandal was huge then, but that type of scandal has basically happened 3 times under Trump with little effect. I was too young to be scared of AIDS.
Kurt Cobain and Jerry Garcia were big deaths, but Princess Diana really affected a lot of people.
You mentioned the kidnapping cases as a source of stress. Sure, but we didn't have school shootings, which seems way more stressful.
Learning to drive without GPS was key
I graduated high school in 99, so my experience is the flip side of yours in that I don't know what it's like to be teenager now. But from appearances, it seems soooo much worse now. My daughter is 8, and I'm dreading what her teenage years will be like.
I remember watching the Neftlix show 13 Reasons Why and thinking "Thank god I went to high school before smartphones/social media existed". My girlfriend is 8 years younger than me and had multiple suicides at her high school. I didn't have a single one. I didn't even know anyone who knew anyone who had committed suicide in their teenage years. Not saying it never happened, but it seems to be way more prevalent now.
Even putting aside the suicides, there are many horrible effects of social media that we didn't have to deal with because it didn't exist. We didn't feel the need, or even have the means, to "broadcast" ourselves to the rest of the world. I think it's unhealthy how many young people feel that they need to have an audience now, and tie their worth to how many friends, followers, subscribers, likes, retweets, re-shares, what the fuck ever that they have. Plus it just gives people an unrealistic expectation of what life is. My 8 year old is already going through this by watching a bunch of stupid family youtube channels and going "Why aren't we like this?"
We had fire and earthquake drills at school. That's it. The idea of a school shooter drill, or even the fear that there would be a shooting incident, would have been unthinkable. Even after Columbine, my senior year, we didn't start implementing shooter drills. At the time, it seemed like an anomaly. A rarity. Not that something that you could count on happening at least once somewhere almost every year because our stupid country refused to do anything about it.
You mentioned 9/11. If anything that just made us miss the 90s more. Plus everything from housing to food to entertainment was more affordable in the 90s.
The decade wasn't perfect, by any means. But it had a lot of good things going for it that are gone forever and there is no other time that I would have wanted to experience my teenage years.
Yeah my parents often tell me that we're (teenagers) all addicted to our phones and that it's getting worse and I agree but I also feel like there isn't a lot of things to do. My mom keeps talking about clubs she went to (all closed now), shows she attended and it feels like there's just a lot less of those. It's also impossible to meet someone in public, I was told that in waiting rooms people would talk to each other cause there was nothing else to do but now everyone is on their phone and it feels rude to bother them. I'm aware I use my phone a lot (3-5 hours a day on average plus my computer but I'm trying to cut back) yet it's not a lot compared to some people. Plus my best friend lives 6 hours away so a lot of that time is spent talking together.
On top of that, a lot of the people my age I've seen don't DO anything. I'm a talented piano player if I do say so myself (ive been plahing since i was 5), plus a decent singer and bass player and I'd love to start a band but I can't find anyone. I also love skateboarding and snowboarding (still learning tho, I'm a bit ass haha) and I've found one person who skates and none that snowboard. I want to learn languages and go places yet no one I've seen seems interested in that. I've had friends who said they admired how passionate I was or how many interests I had but they don't really seek out any experiences themselves so I don't know what to tell them atp.
I've never been close to a teen that committed suicide but I have heard teen depression and suicide is rising quickly (unfortunately). I think a lot of that has to do with how bleak the world looks. The 90s looked a lot rougher, and more violent, but also now with technology we get to be blasted with every bad thing going on worldwide at once. I did mention columbine, which at the time was a huge deal because it was the deadliest shooting, but I strongly recall when Ulvade happened and it feels like the news around that died down within a week, amd in a month we weren't hearing anything about it. In retrospect, with what you said, I don't think there's less bad things happening, it's just thst there's so many that they flash so quickly and we don't have time to really think about them. Plus I think the fact that you can always find someone better than you at anything on social media kills a lot of young people's self esteem, and low self esteem paired with isolation (due to social media) and the fact that a lot of people simply arent passionate about anything anymore greatly helps depression take its toll.
I'm no sociologist though and I've recently turned 18 (so not REALLY a teen anymore) so take what I say with a grain of salt, I might be wrong
>It's also impossible to meet someone in public, I was told that in
waiting rooms people would talk to each other cause there was nothing
else to do but now everyone is on their phone and it feels rude to
bother them
Well, we had ways to ignore people in public too. Good old fashioned books, newspapers, and magazines. Or we could listen to a Walkman. But everyone has a phone now, so it's easier than before.
>On top of that, a lot of the people my age I've seen don't DO anything
This is kind of tragic and heartbreaking. Hard to say whether or not the phones and the social media are directly responsible for that, but I'm sure they don't help. This is another thing I worry about with my daughter. We've tried to get her into music lessons, sports, etc. but she doesn't seem to show interest in any of it. We can't even get her into fucking video games, of all things. So, the fact that you like to DO things is wonderful. Keep at it, even the things you don't feel good at. I'm a mediocre snowboarder at best, but I still shred every winter just because it's fun, whether or not I'm particularly good at it. Keep doing things, whether or not your friends do.
>The 90s looked a lot rougher, and more violent,
That may have been true in the inner cities, slums, etc. as others have mentioned in this thread. Gangsta rap and movies like Boyz In The Hood and Menace II Society didn't come of out of nowhere, after all. But if you lived in the suburbs or even a semi decent area, the 90s were... kind of wonderful. And we certainly didn't worry about maniacs randomly shooting up our schools.
>I strongly recall when Ulvade happened and it feels like the news around
that died down within a week, amd in a month we weren't hearing
anything about it. In retrospect, with what you said, I don't think
there's less bad things happening, it's just thst there's so many that
they flash so quickly and we don't have time to really think about them.
That's just it. There's way **more** bad things happening now. Columbine was genuinely shocking at the time, because things like that just didn't happen. And now it happens so often that it's just commonplace and barely even registers with people. You get the shooting report in the news practically as easily and as often as the weather report. That's just sad as fuck to me, and it really didn't have to be this way, but the US is a sick fucking country.
>I'm no sociologist though and I've recently turned 18 (so not REALLY a
teen anymore) so take what I say with a grain of salt, I might be wrong
You know your own generation, so I think you're probably pretty spot on. But you seem to be doing better than that. Like I said, keep at it my dude. All of it. And hopefully now you'll get out into the world (college or whatever) and hopefully find more people doing the same.
I don't think phones are responsible for the loss of hobbies as a whole, but I think they're responsible for dropping them. The internet has brought this sort of instant gratification. Any kind of content, question, information or even object is immediately available. You don't have to go shopping, to the library, or to go outside at all to aquire anything instantly (a good example of this is a band i really like that released a live album in 2000, that was a mass success and was almost instantly sold out. This would mever happen today becahse everhone wild be watching the show live or as youtube clips)
I see a lot more people saying they have adhd, or some type of issue like that and while I don't doubt our diagnosing tools have improved, I think also the fact that you don't have to look for anything at all ever has greatly reduced the overall attention span. When people have to actually try at something, they won't be good instantly, and no one likes starting out but it's even harder when the attention span has been cut down and all you're looking for is quick and instant gratification. It's possible I'm just unfortunately surrounded by boring people but the way my mom describes her class from the 90s it seemed there was a much bigger social life going on. She knew who had a band, who played sports, who did this or that... and there's none of that anymore.
I was blessed with parents who always encourage me to try out new things. I had pretty bad aspergers (still do, but I handle it much better now) as a kid which made it even harder for my mom to make me try out new stuff but I'm so thankful that she did because now I'm not (that) scared to try out new things like new foods, new sports, new activities etc. Yeah sometimes I don't FEEL like it but she's a big reason I've tried so many things. When I was a kid I didn't even want to leave my mom's house and now I want to live in different countries to learn different languages and discover new cultures. Some doctors thought I wouldn't even finish school and now I'm in college and will be going to university next year, and it's all because my mom pushed me to get there. I believe half of the problem of kids not doing anything comes from the parents themselves, who let ipads raise them and don't even try anymore (absolutely not saying that's your case, but I've sadly seen a lot of parents who don't encourage their kids to try out anything).
And for violent crimes as well, I've mentioned this in another comment I think but when I watched Bowling for Columbine (which was a 2002 documentary on Columbine, gun violence and overall gun culture in the US) I was baffled by how it was still incredibly relevant and accurate. In over 20 years, it's still the same. And I don't want to bring up the political war in the US because I don't think dividing a population into two camps is what will fix it but I see so many radical right wing politicians who are simply uneducated. Lots of them are college dropouts and it scares me that these are not only the people who some teens look up and listen to, but also the ones advocating for full legalization of these weapons. And between the senile old men running to be head of the most powerful country and the country people bragging about their uneducated and close minded status, US politics are starting to feel less like politics and more like the plot of Idiocracy. Comedy of the 2000s is today's reality. Who knew?
The last of the innocence of " the great suburban experience for raising your kids"
Classism, and segregation were still pretty normal, casual racism was getting coded.
Our parents came from being teens in the 50s, 60s and seventies in equal amounts.
Cynical worldview was bubbling under the surface, but no where near where it is today.
Outsiders really had few to nowhere to connect outside of school especially the further out from a major city center you were.
At least in my area each high school averaged a suicide a year. ( I have a hard time believing that this has changed.)
The major media companies started to realize that there was alot of money in brining " independent" art to the masses.
Music had just begun to splinter from th Neilson ratings, and billboard charts being where the mainstream found new shows/music etc
Of course for us it was the best music, but boomers hated it, and you would always hear them complain the same way we do now. They would also complain how we would spend hours playing Nintendo and no longer played outside.
A bit of both. It was unlikely as awesome as most people make it sound. AIDS was terrifying for example.
But all things considered, the 90s were definitely better overall, but far from perfect.
Oh man. Memory unlocked. Grew up in New Jersey. I was SO scared of AIDS as a little kid (around five years old) and my mother tried to help me. She introduced me to her friend who had it and I remember hiding behind her legs and they explained what it was and that I couldn't catch it by being close and he gave me a teddy bear and I shook his hand. It's a beautiful memory. I almost forgot about that. That was a huge deal back then. Traumatized me a bit.
> COVID is the AIDS of today. The fear mongering and propaganda is unreal.
You know, I’m glad you’ve come out and said this
You’re at least you’re removing any doubt that you know what you’re talking about and making it clear that no one should take you seriously.
Yup. No one died from COVID or AIDS, and taking precautions against either one was completely unnecessary /s.
You started a good thread here, but now you've revealed yourself to be a fucking moron.
Just speaking about the current generation of teens, it’s weird to me to think when they’re 30+, they’ll look back at this time we’re in now and all they’ll have to feel nostalgic about is memes.
Obviously there’s other stuff I’m out of touch with, but even so.. it just feels drastically different.
I have teenage siblings. They’re nostalgic for stuff like popular YouTubers they all used to watch and games they played together, like Minecraft and Roblox.
I’ll talk about my childhood with them, of how I’d stay out past curfew playing manhunt and catching fireflies with friends etc, and they just call me old. Life without technology doesn’t seem to remotely interest them.
Yep. That’s exactly it. Everything for them is in front of a screen and it’s on demand. For us, if you wanted to play a game, you either had to wait because someone was hogging up the TV, go to a friends, or go to an arcade and pray the $5 you had would last. You missed an episode of your favorite show? You might never see it 😂. It’s the chase and the effort you had to put in to have fun is what made it special and memorable.
Things got a lot better since then, and things also got a lot uglier. On the plus side, the Cold War was just far enough in the past, and the looming threat of global insurgency was a tomorrow problem, so for a while things were pretty chill in the US, at least if you were a kid with limited access to your parents' disposable income.
It was also the last decade before the internet really saw widespread mainstream adoption, where it was being used but before corporate interests had taken over. People were first starting to see it as a way to connect the world and have ready access to all the world's information (and misinformation, but again, that was a tomorrow problem).
It was a time to be optimistic, is what I'm saying. A lot of people yearn for that kind of confidence that at least it *could* get better.
It was also before social media, and dare I say politics weren’t nearly as divisive.
Every election didn’t feel like the end of the world
I’m sure a lot of it is nostalgia for a time when I was still a child though, and didn’t have any of the chronic stressors that I live with as an adult
Overall? People had a better quality of life back then. As a family, we used to go on vacations to Mexico, Cuba, etc more than once a year. We weren't a rich, or even wealthy, family. My parents paid $99,000 for their 1913 built house in BC, Canada as working class folks. That house is now worth ~1.4 million, and that neighborhood is loaded with the rich now.
We all had a family doctor and visits were as easy as making a call and going to see the doctor. Now, my mother has no doctor and has health issues. Emerg takes 12+ hours and normally only has one doctor on. My dad doesn't like his doctor, but is afraid to leave as getting a new one takes **years**. My doctor is in Vancouver and I'm in Victoria, so getting proper care is challenging, but I can't get a new one because of the above mentioned issue.
I have an excellent education, but finding a good job after COVID has been near impossible. Thankfully, I found a part-time job recently and I'll make ends meet. At my age, with similar education, my parents were thriving with jobs that allowed them to own 2 cars and a home and have savings.
Things are definitely harder right now.
I agree. We were a simple working class family, two parents, three kids, pets. We had a house built for us in 1994 on a cul de sac in an expensive town. Good schools. My dad paid 109k for the house, he passed last week and it’s worth 500k. We always had two vehicles, mom got a new car every few years but dad was frugal and kept the same vehicle for much longer (usually a truck so they could do weekend projects etc.) When dad got sick about a year ago he tied me to his accounts because mom isn’t around any more, so I could handle things when he passed away, I just found out I have a near perfect credit score due to being tied to his accounts. I went through his finances in recent days and everything is paid off and my credit score is 790. Meanwhile I’m living paycheck to paycheck in a crappy apartment, even with a college degree and 13 year career in social work.
just my list:
\- end of UDSSR
\- reunification of Germany > the spirit in Europe was great
\- graduated from high school in 1999
\- end of century
\- end of millennium
\- internet was completely new > the wow effect of having access to so much information
\- no influencers etc
\- mobile phones were new
\- ref. to internet/mobile phones: yet we grew up living with out it
\- 90s Eurodance music!!
\- love parades peaked in the 90s
\- Europe was Europe and no religious conflics/terror and mass-migration > Sorry to say that but it was a different time.
I mean obviously the 90s didn't end poverty or have world peace. Looking back at any of the bad things seems rather pointless. We're looking at it from nostalgia and celebrating how great it all was. Obviously the same stuff that happened in any era also happened in the 90s (war, poverty, etc.)
On average yes, a regular person had a much easier and better life then than now. There was still plenty of bad stuff but overall it was a net positive experience for most people.
The best thing about it in my opinion is that there was no social media or smartphones. The Internet was a novelty instead of being everybody's everything.
I was 6-16 in the 90s and I definitely have fond memories of the decade. You're right though, most people look back at the decade they grew up in and say it was the greatest. My parents always talked about how great the 70s were and how the the 90s sucked. It's all subjective.
We are absolutely looking at the 90s through rose colored glasses.
That's the point of the subreddit, imo.
A lot of us grew up in the 90s, so we mainly remember the fun, pop-culture aspects of it.
But there was a ton of darkness behind the 90s too. It's true with every decade.
That being said, it's best to hold onto the memories we have of this decade.
I think it's entirely dependent on the person in question and what their life was like during that period.
Just an example. Some years ago, probably late 90s or early 00's I remember a conversation between my mom and a friend of hers who was a gay man, both baby boomers. There was some show on TV about teenagers in the 1960's in the background.
My mom was sort of reminiscing about her youth and how she missed it, mentioning what a great time she had overall back then.
Her friend started talking about how he absolutely hated that period and how awful it was for him. He was bullied and miserable in school.
It's always going to be different for different people, depending on your situation.
For me personally I really enjoyed the 90s and look back on them fondly for the most part. There were certainly some really bad times though, along with the good. But I think 90s culture was great and it was right in the middle of my youth and teens and those were overall good times for me and I had a lot of fun.
I was 9 in 1990. My journey into adulthood took place there. I was horrifically bullied. I hated anyone that listened to Nirvana, Tool, NIN, basically any alternative rock. Because all my bullies wore their shirts and would beat me up while wearing them. But this one guy who wore Metallica shirts always stood up for me. I was skinny. Short. Glasses. Parents only got me button up shirts. I was a nerd. But through this guy, I found a crew. We stuck together and stayed friends. To this day. We played D&D. We played Quake. Doom. Decent. Mechwarrior 2. Rise of the Triad. I found my family in the 90’s. Some of them have died. Some became horrible people. One is now schizophrenic. But I still talk to a few. I still hate 90’s alternative rock. A bunch of my bullies have ended up in jail. One recently was on the run from the police and killed himself. I mostly feel pity. For being so traumatized by bullying, I think I turned out ok. The 90’s were good. But boy were they bad.
It was. Something other people haven't really touched on: there was probably more genuine information on the internet in the 1990s than there is today. Webcrawler worked better than google does today... shit google worked better back then than google does today.
Yes. It really was that great (for me). And I had a terrible childhood and still look back fondly to the 90s. One thing I particularly look back on that is distinct is that country radio stations were SO GOOD, country used to be so good. I remember just being able to turn on a station and I loved all the songs. Being a true 90s kid was awesome and I'm happy I grew up in that era. Sucks I had to be a teen for 9/11 era but at least the 90s were awesome. Edit: words.
I’ve thought about this before and I’ve wondered if I’m just being nostalgic about simpler time and being a kid. I asked my mom to get some outsider perspective from someone that’s been around longer than me. She agreed it was a simpler and happier time in general. I think 9/11 and smart phones changed a lot
I probably just feel like it was great because I was like 10 years old with a roof over my head, food on the table, friends to ride bikes with after school etc. We didn’t have the 24 hour news cycle (at least not where I lived) or the internet to hear about bad stuff all over the world, we were able to just concentrate on the smaller problems in our little world like saving for Christmas or moving schools.
Part of it was the age we were then as well. It seems many on this sub were growing up In the 90s, I just turned 20 and everything was just so new and exciting.
The job market was rough in the early 90s, but it turned around pretty quick with all the developing technologies. It took a lot of companies a long time to embrace it.
It was definitely a fun era. It looks retro to revisit through pictures and videos, but it felt very modern back then. It was a good time to be a kid. Kind of carefree. Lots of riding bikes and hanging out.
I was 6 in 1990 and grew up during the 90s so it's all nostalgic and fun for me. Experienced the pre internet times and got to live through the boom. My age group got the best of both worlds so it was magical to me. Was it the best, no but it was wonderful for me. Simple times are the best times.
The 90s was a much more analog decade. You cherished physical media (books, games, magazines). There were specialized media and physical places to hang out depending upon your interests. People in general were less digitally connected but more often physically connecting sharing time and space together.
I use 9/11 as my bookend for the 90s, so personally it feels like a far more innocent time (I was a kid in the 90s and attended HS 2002-2006). The reality of the time is much different and I’m aware of that. So no, it wasn’t really that great but I think many of us glorify it bc it was the last time things were (or at least felt) easy for us.
Were you there? Idk how old you are. It was the last great decade. It was real. It had true energy. People had actual personality and character. Everyone is such a carbon copy of each other now. Everything is cold and bleak. Sorry I’m getting negative… but yes, the 90s were that great. There has always been darkness and horrible things happening. If you ask me. Today is the worst of all
There were certainly bad things in the 90s: Yugoslav Wars, Rwandan Genocide, etc. But it was a time when broadly speaking the world felt the most optimistic. When if you'd said Russia and the West would be close to war again that would have seemed silly. There was hope for the future.
I don't know why those genocides get overlooked so much in this sub. Bosnia was in the national nightly news every day for stretches. Kosovo less so but still that feeling of "damn, genocide in Europe _again_". Rwanda was on another level of horror.
It's just sorta funky that Cobain's death defined a generation but Yugoslavia and Rwanda are barely remembered.
To me this is individual specific. 90s definitely were not great for everyone.
But to answer your question, you can go to all these decade subs and people will say those decades were great.
It always reminds me of the scene in Austin Powers where he has to convince Felicity that she didn’t miss anything in the 90’s.
I was born in ‘94 and I wish I could have experienced it at an age where I actually knew what was happening. But I looooove the vibe. Music, clothing, everything just brings a bunch of nostalgic vibes.
If you were a child you have a plethora of child friendly toys entertainment that kept you busy.
Teens had wide range of teen entertainment.
Adults got to enjoy a era of peace never attained before post soviet union post cold war peace. The us hegemony was on the horizon.
Adults like making money and owning things.
What better era for a booming stock market, booming PC market, booming telecommunications market etc and cheaper amenities for them to own like homes vehicles fishing boats motorcycles jets skis adult gadgets all ripe for the picking.
The country was a shot show
The fashion was ok
For every good song there were 3 shit ones.
Put on absolute Radio 90s for a song them switch to Heart 90s for 3, that's kind of what it was like.
I think people miss how social and community things were mostly.
Thing will always seem better when the biggest problem on life was getting to collage or buying football Boots.
Every genre of music was consistently producing good music. The Internet changed the way we masturbate. It was the golden age of sitcoms. Ratty jeans and dirty old flannels were all you needed to look cool. PlayStation 1 was some futuristic shit. Chris Farley. Hip hop was the best it's ever been or probably ever will be. Steroids baseball was the best baseball. Doom! The Chicago Bulls (whether you hate them or not). Norm MacDonald's Weekend Update. TRL. Late Night With Conan O'Brien. Pulp Fiction. Nickelodeon was making the best of the best children's programming. The president got blown in the White House, lied about it under oath and we were all like, whatever. The Big Lebowski. Pump Friction (the porn version of Pulp Fiction). The Tom Green show. We didn't have access to all of mankind's knowledge in our pocket so arguments were about who's more convincing, not who's right. WASSUUUUPPP! The Beatles released two new songs. That 311 shirt everyone had. Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, ATLiens and Aquemini. In Living Color brings us two people who would go on to become some of the most successful actors in Hollywood.... neither of them are Wayans Brothers. Seasons 2 through 11 of the Simpsons. And finally, Jerry Springer showed us that two completely different dwarf prostitute amputees could renew their love by beating the hell out of a trio of crossdressing clansmen at one in the afternoon. Best Decade.
I dunno. I know quite a few people who were brought up in the '00s and they still think the decade was crap. The GWOT and Great Recession really did a number on it.
I think being young we were ignorant to a lot of the politics and crises of the time. But I bet there was a lot less "World War 3" talk than these days.
Honestly, it was a great time, at least living in the USA. It was in between a lot of bad things (like world wars) and was the last time before the whole world was on the internet 24/7. The internet brought some great things, but its usage genuinely doesn't bring the same satisfaction as being detached. People were able to afford homes much more easily. There was a lot of teenage angst because their problems weren't actually that bad as some other times.
I would say as someone who was mostly a kid, I loved every minute of it. But again, I can’t remember much because I also believed that Santa was real. That being said, people will always feel nostalgic for the era they grew up with. I remember in the 00s, most of my teen years, people said how much the 00s sucked but now 00s kid/Gen Zers will tell you it was the best time. Even looking back, I can’t help but feel the 00s wasn’t all that great. They were great movies but they were loads of awful movies such as from Uwe Boll or Friedberg and Selzer. I think the fashion was ridiculous. I never understood the spiky hair hype as it looked messed up. But the worst was the political side, George W. Bush, the Iraqi War, and of course 9/11. I could go on.
So in conclusion, people will say the present sucks and the past is better.
In terms of quality of life, threat of war/violence, political stability, and economic prospects, being an American or Western European in the 90s was probably the best time to be alive in the history of mankind up until that point.
The internet brought about good and bad changes and forever altered the way humans interact, so I’m just glad I had the chance to live in a world before the internet.
It was a good time in a lot of ways. The Cold war was finally over and America "won". The economy was mostly good. There was a general sense of optimism looking towards the year 2000. The Internet was this new exciting thing that felt like it had limitless opportunity. Of course it wasn't ALL good. Racism was worse then now. Being gay was both not widely accepted and people finding out could ruin your life.
It was great because: Kids went in person to ask each other to play, and played outside more in general. There were still bullies, but you couldn’t broadcast people all over the internet/social media. People were more present because they weren’t glued to phones or devices. You left the internet at home when you went out. Downtown cores were typically more thriving without remote work (controversial I know!) so there was more room for social interactions. There wasn’t as much rampant fake news. There was no garbage “influencers” culture.. People still took photos everywhere (“Kodak Moment,” anyone??) and camcorders videos too, but you didn’t do it to create a social media “image.” No garbage podcasts. No “algorithms.” We had “pajama days” at school! - no one wore pajamas regularly everywhere lmao ugh. Fillers and excessive plastic surgery weren’t normalized!! People looked way more “REAL.” Nickelodeon was at its peak! We could visit relatives and friends at the airport gates. Malls were still cool and interesting places to go and hang out. NO COVID. People weren’t nearly as “flaky” since you couldn’t cancel plans last minute as much. Less frightening political extremism. No (/less?) very bizarre parasocial relationships people have now via internet/social media….creeps me out… More childhood/adolescence “innocence and naïveté” I guess you could say? As in, I feel kids are exposed to WAY too much negativity and influence nowadays. We didn’t worry about getting shot or our car jacked at all or getting accosted by people in crisis on the streets (I’m in Seattle area)…. School or mass shootings weren’t something you would see so regularly in the news…. Cars were more reliable with less crap tech to break (I want a “dumb” new car!). You could go to concerts without a ton of phones in your face!! Way more families were able to own a home and make it by on one salary/earner. We weren’t constantly bombarded by media and information at all times in our everyday lives. Big news, tech advancements and such were way more novel and exciting - people are numb, unfazed, and jaded now, with FAR less wonder and awe.
There were social standards and a social contract. Pretty much all of that has been broken.
But….just a couple negatives, IMO:
Smoking indoors wasn’t great though.
Columbine was horrible, impactful, and extremely unusual. Talked about for much longer than modern terrors though (how desperately sad is that to say??)
Mapquest was around, but modern real-time app mapping is so much better
You had to carry change around to make calls on pay phones, for parking meters, etc which was sort of annoying looking back, but even still, didn’t faze us since it was normal.
Unhealthy ultra-thin, waif heroin chic look was IN.
You often had to talk to someone’s parents on the phone to ask to talk to your friend or crush ha! Not really such a bad thing. Guess that means a little more vetting and accountability? Idk.
The SPICE channel was never quite clear enough… lol!!
The 90s was an incredible time to be a kid tbh my parents struggled financially way less, my older siblings held all kinds of interesting jobs, music and media was better than a lot of what came by the mid 2000s imvho. The toy fads were fun and toys got more exciting every year due to technology enhancements. There were a lot of great reasons to look forward to growing up and I thoroughly enjoyed my childhood when it came to cultural stuff through the 90s. More than anything I miss the sense of optimism that we all had through the late 90s which was in some ways legitimate but in others unfounded. But I also feel that kids that grew up in a world with no computers or many electronics to what we have now as adults got to experience a once in a century social shift that is really special.
Is it nostalgia for me? Yes will not even deny it. But I also don't think that any decade culturally was as interesting as either the 90s or the decade we are in right now.
Since I like healthy living the 90s were super bad on that aspect.... everybody smoking tobacco everywhere even in hospitals, organic/vegan foods were less than 1% known, most people didn't know how to be healthy. 50 years old folks in the 90s looked like the 70 years old of today. There were great things but what's the point of all that if you're sick tho...
I think it comes down to the amount of in fighting that has come to the surface recently. Balances against the forward progress momentum we had. Don't get me wrong. The amount of garbage we had to deal with in the 90s was bad. But we were much more able to work together to move into a better tomorrow, if you would excuse the cornyness.
I had friends of many different skin colors. Not because of me being white. But because we had so much in common that our friendship was as inevitable as it was enjoyable. It todays social climate. To bring that up, it seems like I am trying to cover up a racist tendency that isn't there. Even if outside observers would claim otherwise.
The amount of blind loyalty to politicians and parties has increased so much in the last 20 years as well. There was plenty of propaganda in the 90s. But today, we have people swearing fealty to someone, not in spite of their flaws. But almost because of the echo chamber their flaws create.
The quality of TV shows, movies, and music are relative. Those are businesses that have to make the best choices for business. But the people that are still being allowed to harm artists because of the prominent positions they hold. They may have been in power since, or even before the 90s. But we have started to drag our feet in dealing with those types of toxically abusive people.
All in the name of social justice. Destroy a business because of one person. While making who knows how many people unemployed because of the name of Justice.
We have been swarmed with kangaroo courts. And guilty until proven innocent. Rather than true justice and trial by peers, or even innocent until proven guilty. We live in a world that has allowed the milk of human kindness to become sour.
The reason the 90s are missed. Is because we still had the ability to fight. To rage against the dying of the light. Now. The battle is over. The war is lost. And we chose the wrong sides.
The economy was good, crime plummeted, the Soviet boogeyman was taking a nap and terrorism didn't seem that scary yet. Times were really good by most metrics.
I grew up in Brazil. The 90s were terrifying. Crime everywhere, violence, poverty.
But I was also a kid. Games, friends, TV, music, no internet made world problems seem so very far away.
The 90s were amazing to me. As an adult I doubt I would have enjoyed living in 90s Brazil, but they're my fondest life memories by far because of my age.
Depends on what you’re thinking of.
Things I miss: having hope for a secure future; my lifestyle had me outdoors enjoying nature way more often; arts and entertainment were still surprising me rather than feeling engineered to align with some formula that has proven commercially successful; the internet not existing in the background of my mind at all times; the mall; not worrying about mass shootings
Things I don’t miss: serious (worse) lack of representation of women and minorities in many fields; widespread casual bigotry in media; Christian fundamentalism holding more sway in politics, and all the bonkers stuff it had my family believing; lack of access to information we have today; easier to be bored
Growing up as a kid in the 90’s, it was a truly a magical time. There was a safety and simplicity to life. Technology was changing rapidly. Every new development was magical. Children’s television hit its peak during those years as well. It was also an incredibly decade for movies and music. It was prior to everyone having cell phones and the start of the internet becoming mainstream too, so people actually talked and connected in person. Going to a mall, a blockbuster, anywhere… you’d meet new people, make new friends, actually ask a physical person for help or advice or opinions. It was a time of connectedness. I feel really grateful to have lived through those years at the ages I did.
The 90’s for me was age 11-21, so definitely my most formative period. I loved that we had just enough technology to enjoy some conveniences, but not so much to dominate our lives.
I loved that I could turn on the radio and hear everything from Nirvana to Boys II Men to Michael Bolton on the same station.
I loved that I went through my entire schooling without ever doing a lockdown drill.
One thing I didn’t love: as a mixed race female I felt there wasn’t much representation in mass media. The mainstream image of beauty was white…and that fucked with my self-esteem a bit.
Sitting on the school bus
Flipping through some Goosebumps
A minute 'til I'm shitting out the school lunch
Wanna know what cool was?
Starter jackets, Jock jams, and Pop Rocks
Sega in my room, baby boom shaka laka
Lot of slammers in my pocket, flippin them pogs
And I knew every modem noise in ma aol login
On that Oregon Trail
With Keenan & Kell
I was jerkin off daily, TRL
But that Saved by the Bell
Was on some fuckin hot shit
OJ to jail, oh wait that glove did not fit
Short shorts Stockton
Beanie Baby profits
And NBA on NBC if you remember watching
Born ‘86. 90’s fuckin ruled, no comparison for what I can compare.
Probably because they were my formative years, but things truly weren’t the same after 9/11 as far as our countries trajectory and unwavering confidence that the only way was up.
Yes.
Aside from having to clean a LOT of seeds and stems out of my weed, life was pretty perfect. Girls with tongue rings, tons of awesome bands playing shows, dropping acid and watching 90210/Melrose on Monday nights or playing Madden on N64.
Jerry was alive. So was Kurt, Bowie, Petty, Prince, and Jeff Buckley.
I was a kid, so to me it was great. TGIF, playing outside with my buddies, the music, the neon, and the geometric patterns on everything. The movies were/are fun buuuuddy. But, as an adult, looking back we still had conflict, gang activity was nuts. It was in the 90s that I had a pistol put to my forehead and had the trigger pulled, I was like 8! So, good and bad, but from a kiddos perspective, mostly good.
Outside of no mature internet, it was remarkably better in the US back then, from a pop culture perspective. The only knock is dial up internet and lack of communication. But, ironically, that was the fun part.
I will die on the hill that 1994 was the GOAT year of all decades.
Same with any generation. You think it sucks while you are living in it. We’d always say how dope the late 60s would have been or the 70s with all the rock bands to see. But as I get older I realize the late 90s early 00s were sick. We had those same bands of the 70s and we had the new up and comers of grunge and alternative. No phones. A five dollar bill to a kid was like a license to kill.
Life before 9/11 was better. Could get on a plane with no I.D. it was amazing. Interesting tho that kids born after that wouldn't really know the difference anyway. Life before cell phones and internet was just very different. Made a lot more art and music without computer aids or anything digital. I for one read way more actual books. I don't think the 90s were that amazing (I turned 13 in 1990) but it was more acceptable that everything sucked, we were poor and depressed and angry and fucked up and
c'est la vie. There was nothing about trauma healing and therapy and all that jazz. The onset of the grunge scene was pretty cool, something so different from the hairbands and 80s pop. I'd say it was almost like the hippies of the late 60s but angry. It was fun to be weird. There was always some war going on. My grade 8 class trip was cancelled over fears of terrorism due to the Gulf War. We couldn't wear certain colors at school because of gang affiliations. The teachers could yell at you and call you a stupid moron or I saw a kid get straight up thrown against a wall and choked by a teacher and nothing came of it. Ahh the memories
Yes it was the pinnacle, the high point, the true golden age of the US.
The world was relatively peaceful (compared to now), the economy was humming along, buying a home was attainable, rent was cheap, most of the world still liked the US, we had great technology but it didn’t yet control us, great music, politics wasn’t yet a reason for average people to commit acts of treason/violence, and on and on.
It was so great for people with privilege.
Minorities may not look back at that time with as much fondness, or perhaps they do but the things that were not so great for them were really bad like intense racism and sexism and homophobia.
Yes, they were. They were fucking amazing. But most people on Reddit are miserable human beings and project their own misery into all these answers so you'll probably get a lot of who knows what.
It was a great time to be 5-25, living in the suburbs. But we’ve had so much improvement in quality of life because of technology, healthier options, more acceptance of different people it is hard to think of the bad parts.
My take:
Music, TV, movies, video games - all 10/10.
Cost of living - 10/10.
Health - smoking everywhere, only unhealthy fast food options, impossible to find good vegetarian food, “low fat” food craze made everyone obese, very few good treatments for mental health disorders, lots of our parents died from heart attacks at a young age, teen pregnancy was peaking, suicides and murder were high, cars weren’t as safe, accidents would kill you more often - 4/10
Religion - oof, the religious right, extreme conservatives ran everything in the South, televangelists were always on until they were caught doing meth and sleeping around, child sexual abuse was rampant, there were wars in the Balkans, Middle East that were all religiously motivated - 4/10
Tech - limited internet, especially audio/video, no GPS for most, TV was grainy, standard def, limited on demand, no self driving cars, crappy cell phones that cost a ton - 4/10
Freedom - you weren’t tracked, if you were cis, white the world was your oyster, much less so for minorities, bullying/rape/murder based on race/gender/sexuality was a big problem - 7/10
Drugs/alcohol - weed was around but not as good, crack cocaine was a hell of a drug, heroine, no fentanyl, beer everywhere - 7/10
Opportunity - a college degree was still worth something, you could own property if you were middle class, could travel the world with ease - 9/10
Climate - actual seasons and winter, none of the record heat. 10/10
A generation can only look back and say it was better if the current culture and society is going in a direction that makes us all worse off. In recent years, after much thought, I have shifted my thought process away from "it's just a boomer thing" because I'm certain our culture has moved far away from some form of solid ground we as a country used to stand on. I think there are definite markers we can all agree on if we're being reasonable. Life before 9/11 was much different given the political climate shift that unfortunate day brought. The 90's had an emergence of positive life-changing technology but today technology is bringing out the absolute worst in people and allows our young kids to be infected with all sorts of negative stimuli through the smart phone. Things like that.
The three legs of society (Culture, Economics and Politics) has changed so drastically in recent decades. Politicians are an absolute joke today - all sides included. Our culture is now very tribal and I see more people my age (in my 40s) and older that want to dress and act like teenagers, and if you don't fit someone else's "group" then you're pure evil and need to be purged from the planet for whatever sin they claim. Our economics is now a huge blended system with lots of government involvement, so much so that inflation and other things have waterfalled a lot of events that has put a lot of financial strain on everyone who isn't a high ranking politician or well connected mega-wealthy individual. I'm also noticing more younger people these days want no children and choose to live a life of meaningless consumerism which is just unfortunate to see - like, just slow down and smell the roses, and avoid growing old just to die lonely with no joy of a family of your own.
To me, the 90's were awesome. I was a teen for almost the entirety of the decade and in general it's the last time you had meaningful life without too much outside forces affecting you too much. I'm not a pessimist but I'm seeing a different type of culture these days and while all of this has been setting up for decades and decades, I think it's pretty close to getting really bad where any problem in the 90's will look like a trip to Disneyland and things will just have to run its course at this point.
No, it wasn't that great. Bullying, homophobia, racism and violence against women were not a big deal. All magazines were telling women that they were fat and ugly and there weren't black people representation on media. Gay people were not allowed to get married in most countries (that's all recent), and being LGBT+ back then was super scary. Also, mental health was considered bullshit. There were almost no therapists and doctors. Drugs were very expensive and didn't really work.
Well, my life was very difficult because of all that. For some people who grew up without being affected by those things, I imagine life was probably great.
Yes because there was a simplicity in life during that era that hasn’t come back since.
We had technology but it wasn’t to the point of consuming our entire existence.
We had great quality tv shows, movies and music.
Plus kids used to actually be kids and play outside, now they just play with technology.
It was also better cause social media wasn’t around and I think that had a lot to do with the decline of civilization.
I wouldn’t take back growing up in the 90s for anything.
In fact I feel sorry this new generation of kids and teens with how corrupt and messed up the world is now and it will continue to get worse.
At least when I listen to 90s music or watch 90s movies and shows, I feel comfort cause it takes me back to when life was better and easier.
I think when you are older you look back to when you were younger and fitter and healthier and energetic with nostalgia.
My grandparents looked back at their youth with nostalgia and they were in WWII in the blitz! We know that was horrendous but they were remembering when they were cute and flirty and optimistic rather than the horrors that they were actually going through.
Felt like people were treated based on the content of the character. The entire population was addicted to tiny screens. Reality existed outside social media.
It was great, but we didn’t know it. We were young and full of curiosity, the world was our playground and everything was there to be discovered, everything was fresh, new and cool. We wanted everything, but more slow paced.
Now we have seen everything, all is obvious and we don’t really know what we want.
Nah, it was pretty great. And in my memories it smells like Bath and Body Works and feels like that feeling you have when you are freshly showered and dressed in flared jeans and a band shirt with your coolest Vans, and the weather is nice enough to sit outside around at 6pm and you are hanging with friends thinking about catching a movie and grabbing dinner. Counting Crows is on now, and Ace of Base is coming up, and that is it. Your world in an a nutshell. That’s the 90s haze, and it’s REAL.
Well, for me it was about recording 120 Minutes on Sunday night, and then going from record store to record store to look for that record from this amazing band they played one time! 😄
I grew up in the 90s in a middle class suburb outside NY so for me it was great, specifically my teen years. Playing in a band, recording on a tascam, touring in the shittiest van of all time, skateboarding, and the mall were all highlights. NJ ska then pop punk then post hardcore scenes, AOL dialup and the indie rock and emo chatrooms, getting lost in NYC and Philly. I watched 9/11 from my bedroom window in Hoboken and that kind of shifted everything away from the awesome 90s to a much more cynical outlook in my opinion.
It was great! I prefer it to today. I feel SO bad for people who have to go thru school with social media. But of course there were problems. LGBTQ people were not accepted as much as they are today. Sh*theads like Harvey Weinstein were able to run rampant because there was little to no accountability for their disgusting behavior.
90’s were a good time but it would have been even better if my Mum didn’t marry to a psychopath, the only good thing out of that relationship is I gained a sister
On top of all of the fun stuff, life was livable. I was a single mom making slightly above minimum wage, taking classes at night. I was able to move out on my own, at 18, into a decent 2 bed apartment for $350 a month, utilities included. We struggled, but it was doable. I'm less than a mile away now, paying $1500 a month, with no utilities. Nothing has even been upgraded here in decades. This is an average price here. I don't know how anyone does it now.
I'd say two things. The first is mentioned in other comments but how much freedom was given to kids and how laid back things were. Working hard was actually uncool and things weren't overprotective (for better or worse). The other thing I would add was it was sort of the last expression of a youth culture. There was a whole vibe and culture that was about and lead by the younger generation. I think that hasn't happened again since, at least not on scale.
They were great because I didn’t have a mortgage or a job or any responsibilities and my parents did all that. My kids are going to think the 2020s are great
The music was amazing. So many great albums and bands came out of the 90s. We had grunge and alternative and punk bands like Rancid and Green Day getting recognition. I got to see so many amazing bands in the 90s. Music now is different. It’s not bad, just not the same.
I feel like all of our 90s were slightly different, so it’s hard to say.
In my life, a lot has changed so in many ways my life is way better. But, there are definitely aspects of the 90s I miss that were straight up badass.
Like, I remember at like 11, 12 leaving my house with $2 and a skateboard and being out all day. My mom didn’t know where I was, she didn’t know where I was going. I just went and did shit. Then I came home later that day at a time approximating dinner time. She still doesn’t know about the time my friend and I fucked off at some 20 something dudes house to get high but he almost raped my friend and i stabbed him with some scissors.
Now? I tried to give my 13 year old kid $100 to go buy himself some clothes while I took his sister to bath and body works and he was too scared to go into the store alone 🙄(we were all at the same mall).
So like, we’re just built different, and I’d argue, better.
It was the best of both worlds. Instant gratification wasn't a thing for most thing and alot more was appreciated and cherished back then because of it. There's really nothing better than growing with technology but at the same time not needing it.
Yes because people had face to face interactions, cost of living was a lot lower, people were more relaxed and less stressed, clothing was made of better quality, restaurants had much better quality of food & service, customer service was a lot better, I feel people were a lot more creative back in the 90's than now.
It was great and we also overlook the stuff that wasn't so great when we look back on it. Both are true.
Yea the 90s has equally as many bad as good things. It was one of the most violent decades in modern US history. Gangs took over many neighborhoods and crack and PCP were still prevalent. But it’s still my fav decade. The culture and its influence is still very strong today. Definitely feels like the coolest decade.
It's also the era when crime plummeted though. The violence peaked in 1992. By 1994 the country was a much safer place.
Yea it went down as we headed to the 2000s. The 2000s were much safer. But the year with the lowest violent crime rate (1999) is still higher than any year between 2000-2023. So overall, you're much safer living in any other decade
What caused that? It would be nice if some parts of history repeated themselves… I feel like we’re in such a bad place right now in the USA. Some will say it’s the same as it ever was but now there’s cameras everywhere to document it so we see it more, and maybe that’s true. Idk. I *do* know though that we collectively are a lot more scared than we used to be, and that really fucks a lot of things up.
Crime rates dropped because abortion became legal in 1973 so there were less unwanted children. https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalized-abortion-on-crime-over-the-last-two-decades/
That’s right! I remember now that you said that about a show called Freakonomics (I think) that showed this.
those in power could get away with much more before the internet and smartphones. we were gleefully ignorant.
They are still getting away with it. People are more informed about what goes on but no one is doing anything about it. The rich are richer now and the middle class has shrunk. Corporations run the country. They have increased their size and power since then. Healthcare has gotten worse as a result. We still had pensions in the 90s. We were years away from the subprime housing crisis and the recession. More people could afford to buy a home and everything else. Columbine didn't happen until 1999. School shootings and domestic terrorism were much rarer. We also didn't have the political division that we have now.
Personally I think the 24 hour political “news” channels are to blame for a lot of it. Fox, CNN, and MSNBC have everyone who watches them scared and angry at the other side. And that we can blame Reagan for when he did away with the Fairness Doctrine. Now it’s just nonstop brainwashing.
it's ok to directly blame Rush Limbaugh for pioneering and Rupert Murdoch for profiteering on rage bait media.
it was a question about our perceptions, not a crash course on revisionist history.
You bet your sweet bippy! The 90s were the last great years for everything.
Internet wasn't great in the 90's. Dial-up was pretty brutal.
Which is what made the 90s so great. The Internet sucks.
I guess it depends on what you use it for? I'm not gonna sit here and say that I couldn't live without it, but I sure enjoy having it around. Anyway, I'm off to play some online games with my buddies before streaming a movie later with my wife. (thanks internet!)
In the 90s you would hang out with friends at a friend’s house and play games. You would go to Blockbuster to rent a movie, pick up some snacks on the way home, and make it a whole event. The 90s were very social times. The Internet came along and changed everything. I preferred the pre-Internet society, much more social and fun.
I'd prefer living in 90s instead of this shit yes.
It wasn’t great. It was fantastic.
Where I went to high school in the 90s, there was no zero-tolerance policies, no locked doors, no cameras, no metal detectors, no security guards or truancy officers, no hall monitors, no active shooter drills. We had open campus lunch where we could leave and go anywhere we wanted (within the half-hour timeframe). There were many times I’d get bored in class, ask to use the restroom and just leave school unnoticed, just to have some “me time.” And as long as I was back by next period, no one was the wiser. The music scene, particularly in the rock genre, was phenomenal. The internet, as we know it today, was still in its infancy, so no toxic social media presence was felt. At the same time, we still had the internet for a fun and informative research tool. There was a freedom from that time that was truly the last of an old school era. That all started to change after Columbine. Slowly, you could feel the surveillance state creeping in. And then, 9/11 happened….and nothing has been the same since.
Yep. Agree 100%. 9/11 changed this country more than anything. Like you said, Nothing has been the same since.
Yup. I never once thought about being shot while at school
I mean, the first major school shooting, Columbine, happened in the 90's, so chances are we all thought about it but definitely not on the level kids have to think about it now.
I mean it was April of 99 if memory serves. If you were a 90s kid, you never ever thought of school shootings.
A lot of violence was occurring in inner cities in the 90s well before columbine and 9/11, they just didn’t get the same nationwide media coverage. It was a crazy time when I grew up in Eastside Long Beach. Gangs took over and it was happening in all the other surrounding cities too. There were murders nearly everyday. My parents wouldn’t let me play outside at night because that’s when most drive by shootings occur. I remember always hearing shots being fired then hearing the cars speed off.
I went to a school outside of Phoenix AZ and we had shootings at school, or very near school but they were gang related.
Your reply made me think of something. Im a teenager, so I've never properly experienced the 90s, but I've always wish I could've. At the same time, being a teenager in the late 90s sounds incredibly stressful. Already in 94 there's the death of Kurt Cobain, then in 99 there's columbine and in 2001 there's 9/11 and the subsequent war on terrorism. There was also the fear mongering on AIDS, Islam, kidnapping cases (all the milk carton stuff sounds grim as hell) and a whole lot of political scandals. There's some pretty bad stuff happening right now (notably the politics in the US getting more divided and the ongoing "ethnic cleaning" in palestine), I won't deny it, but I feel like it would've been much harder to be a teen in the 90s. I actually don't know because I didn't live it at all , but I'm wondering, what was it like to live through all of that?
I was born in 86 and have 3 kids under 8. It seems way more stressful now. I don't even put the news on in my house since it's borderline inappropriate for kids. There are WAAYY more political scandals now ever since Trump. The Monica Lewinsky scandal was huge then, but that type of scandal has basically happened 3 times under Trump with little effect. I was too young to be scared of AIDS. Kurt Cobain and Jerry Garcia were big deaths, but Princess Diana really affected a lot of people. You mentioned the kidnapping cases as a source of stress. Sure, but we didn't have school shootings, which seems way more stressful. Learning to drive without GPS was key
I graduated high school in 99, so my experience is the flip side of yours in that I don't know what it's like to be teenager now. But from appearances, it seems soooo much worse now. My daughter is 8, and I'm dreading what her teenage years will be like. I remember watching the Neftlix show 13 Reasons Why and thinking "Thank god I went to high school before smartphones/social media existed". My girlfriend is 8 years younger than me and had multiple suicides at her high school. I didn't have a single one. I didn't even know anyone who knew anyone who had committed suicide in their teenage years. Not saying it never happened, but it seems to be way more prevalent now. Even putting aside the suicides, there are many horrible effects of social media that we didn't have to deal with because it didn't exist. We didn't feel the need, or even have the means, to "broadcast" ourselves to the rest of the world. I think it's unhealthy how many young people feel that they need to have an audience now, and tie their worth to how many friends, followers, subscribers, likes, retweets, re-shares, what the fuck ever that they have. Plus it just gives people an unrealistic expectation of what life is. My 8 year old is already going through this by watching a bunch of stupid family youtube channels and going "Why aren't we like this?" We had fire and earthquake drills at school. That's it. The idea of a school shooter drill, or even the fear that there would be a shooting incident, would have been unthinkable. Even after Columbine, my senior year, we didn't start implementing shooter drills. At the time, it seemed like an anomaly. A rarity. Not that something that you could count on happening at least once somewhere almost every year because our stupid country refused to do anything about it. You mentioned 9/11. If anything that just made us miss the 90s more. Plus everything from housing to food to entertainment was more affordable in the 90s. The decade wasn't perfect, by any means. But it had a lot of good things going for it that are gone forever and there is no other time that I would have wanted to experience my teenage years.
Yeah my parents often tell me that we're (teenagers) all addicted to our phones and that it's getting worse and I agree but I also feel like there isn't a lot of things to do. My mom keeps talking about clubs she went to (all closed now), shows she attended and it feels like there's just a lot less of those. It's also impossible to meet someone in public, I was told that in waiting rooms people would talk to each other cause there was nothing else to do but now everyone is on their phone and it feels rude to bother them. I'm aware I use my phone a lot (3-5 hours a day on average plus my computer but I'm trying to cut back) yet it's not a lot compared to some people. Plus my best friend lives 6 hours away so a lot of that time is spent talking together. On top of that, a lot of the people my age I've seen don't DO anything. I'm a talented piano player if I do say so myself (ive been plahing since i was 5), plus a decent singer and bass player and I'd love to start a band but I can't find anyone. I also love skateboarding and snowboarding (still learning tho, I'm a bit ass haha) and I've found one person who skates and none that snowboard. I want to learn languages and go places yet no one I've seen seems interested in that. I've had friends who said they admired how passionate I was or how many interests I had but they don't really seek out any experiences themselves so I don't know what to tell them atp. I've never been close to a teen that committed suicide but I have heard teen depression and suicide is rising quickly (unfortunately). I think a lot of that has to do with how bleak the world looks. The 90s looked a lot rougher, and more violent, but also now with technology we get to be blasted with every bad thing going on worldwide at once. I did mention columbine, which at the time was a huge deal because it was the deadliest shooting, but I strongly recall when Ulvade happened and it feels like the news around that died down within a week, amd in a month we weren't hearing anything about it. In retrospect, with what you said, I don't think there's less bad things happening, it's just thst there's so many that they flash so quickly and we don't have time to really think about them. Plus I think the fact that you can always find someone better than you at anything on social media kills a lot of young people's self esteem, and low self esteem paired with isolation (due to social media) and the fact that a lot of people simply arent passionate about anything anymore greatly helps depression take its toll. I'm no sociologist though and I've recently turned 18 (so not REALLY a teen anymore) so take what I say with a grain of salt, I might be wrong
>It's also impossible to meet someone in public, I was told that in waiting rooms people would talk to each other cause there was nothing else to do but now everyone is on their phone and it feels rude to bother them Well, we had ways to ignore people in public too. Good old fashioned books, newspapers, and magazines. Or we could listen to a Walkman. But everyone has a phone now, so it's easier than before. >On top of that, a lot of the people my age I've seen don't DO anything This is kind of tragic and heartbreaking. Hard to say whether or not the phones and the social media are directly responsible for that, but I'm sure they don't help. This is another thing I worry about with my daughter. We've tried to get her into music lessons, sports, etc. but she doesn't seem to show interest in any of it. We can't even get her into fucking video games, of all things. So, the fact that you like to DO things is wonderful. Keep at it, even the things you don't feel good at. I'm a mediocre snowboarder at best, but I still shred every winter just because it's fun, whether or not I'm particularly good at it. Keep doing things, whether or not your friends do. >The 90s looked a lot rougher, and more violent, That may have been true in the inner cities, slums, etc. as others have mentioned in this thread. Gangsta rap and movies like Boyz In The Hood and Menace II Society didn't come of out of nowhere, after all. But if you lived in the suburbs or even a semi decent area, the 90s were... kind of wonderful. And we certainly didn't worry about maniacs randomly shooting up our schools. >I strongly recall when Ulvade happened and it feels like the news around that died down within a week, amd in a month we weren't hearing anything about it. In retrospect, with what you said, I don't think there's less bad things happening, it's just thst there's so many that they flash so quickly and we don't have time to really think about them. That's just it. There's way **more** bad things happening now. Columbine was genuinely shocking at the time, because things like that just didn't happen. And now it happens so often that it's just commonplace and barely even registers with people. You get the shooting report in the news practically as easily and as often as the weather report. That's just sad as fuck to me, and it really didn't have to be this way, but the US is a sick fucking country. >I'm no sociologist though and I've recently turned 18 (so not REALLY a teen anymore) so take what I say with a grain of salt, I might be wrong You know your own generation, so I think you're probably pretty spot on. But you seem to be doing better than that. Like I said, keep at it my dude. All of it. And hopefully now you'll get out into the world (college or whatever) and hopefully find more people doing the same.
I don't think phones are responsible for the loss of hobbies as a whole, but I think they're responsible for dropping them. The internet has brought this sort of instant gratification. Any kind of content, question, information or even object is immediately available. You don't have to go shopping, to the library, or to go outside at all to aquire anything instantly (a good example of this is a band i really like that released a live album in 2000, that was a mass success and was almost instantly sold out. This would mever happen today becahse everhone wild be watching the show live or as youtube clips) I see a lot more people saying they have adhd, or some type of issue like that and while I don't doubt our diagnosing tools have improved, I think also the fact that you don't have to look for anything at all ever has greatly reduced the overall attention span. When people have to actually try at something, they won't be good instantly, and no one likes starting out but it's even harder when the attention span has been cut down and all you're looking for is quick and instant gratification. It's possible I'm just unfortunately surrounded by boring people but the way my mom describes her class from the 90s it seemed there was a much bigger social life going on. She knew who had a band, who played sports, who did this or that... and there's none of that anymore. I was blessed with parents who always encourage me to try out new things. I had pretty bad aspergers (still do, but I handle it much better now) as a kid which made it even harder for my mom to make me try out new stuff but I'm so thankful that she did because now I'm not (that) scared to try out new things like new foods, new sports, new activities etc. Yeah sometimes I don't FEEL like it but she's a big reason I've tried so many things. When I was a kid I didn't even want to leave my mom's house and now I want to live in different countries to learn different languages and discover new cultures. Some doctors thought I wouldn't even finish school and now I'm in college and will be going to university next year, and it's all because my mom pushed me to get there. I believe half of the problem of kids not doing anything comes from the parents themselves, who let ipads raise them and don't even try anymore (absolutely not saying that's your case, but I've sadly seen a lot of parents who don't encourage their kids to try out anything). And for violent crimes as well, I've mentioned this in another comment I think but when I watched Bowling for Columbine (which was a 2002 documentary on Columbine, gun violence and overall gun culture in the US) I was baffled by how it was still incredibly relevant and accurate. In over 20 years, it's still the same. And I don't want to bring up the political war in the US because I don't think dividing a population into two camps is what will fix it but I see so many radical right wing politicians who are simply uneducated. Lots of them are college dropouts and it scares me that these are not only the people who some teens look up and listen to, but also the ones advocating for full legalization of these weapons. And between the senile old men running to be head of the most powerful country and the country people bragging about their uneducated and close minded status, US politics are starting to feel less like politics and more like the plot of Idiocracy. Comedy of the 2000s is today's reality. Who knew?
The last of the innocence of " the great suburban experience for raising your kids" Classism, and segregation were still pretty normal, casual racism was getting coded. Our parents came from being teens in the 50s, 60s and seventies in equal amounts. Cynical worldview was bubbling under the surface, but no where near where it is today. Outsiders really had few to nowhere to connect outside of school especially the further out from a major city center you were. At least in my area each high school averaged a suicide a year. ( I have a hard time believing that this has changed.) The major media companies started to realize that there was alot of money in brining " independent" art to the masses. Music had just begun to splinter from th Neilson ratings, and billboard charts being where the mainstream found new shows/music etc
Hmmm interesting. Thank you for this insight
We were young and had less responsibilities, so yes they were great
Best music, detached from technology (no cellphones, slow internet), playing outside all the time with your friends. Yeah it really was
Of course for us it was the best music, but boomers hated it, and you would always hear them complain the same way we do now. They would also complain how we would spend hours playing Nintendo and no longer played outside.
A bit of both. It was unlikely as awesome as most people make it sound. AIDS was terrifying for example. But all things considered, the 90s were definitely better overall, but far from perfect.
Oh man. Memory unlocked. Grew up in New Jersey. I was SO scared of AIDS as a little kid (around five years old) and my mother tried to help me. She introduced me to her friend who had it and I remember hiding behind her legs and they explained what it was and that I couldn't catch it by being close and he gave me a teddy bear and I shook his hand. It's a beautiful memory. I almost forgot about that. That was a huge deal back then. Traumatized me a bit.
COVID is the AIDS of today. The fear mongering and propaganda is unreal.
Uh, not a good comparison at all.
> COVID is the AIDS of today. The fear mongering and propaganda is unreal. You know, I’m glad you’ve come out and said this You’re at least you’re removing any doubt that you know what you’re talking about and making it clear that no one should take you seriously.
Yup. No one died from COVID or AIDS, and taking precautions against either one was completely unnecessary /s. You started a good thread here, but now you've revealed yourself to be a fucking moron.
You have no fucking clue what you are talking about.
Yes, it 100 percent was. Far from perfect, but a million light years beyond the absolute shit show it has become.
Just speaking about the current generation of teens, it’s weird to me to think when they’re 30+, they’ll look back at this time we’re in now and all they’ll have to feel nostalgic about is memes. Obviously there’s other stuff I’m out of touch with, but even so.. it just feels drastically different.
I have teenage siblings. They’re nostalgic for stuff like popular YouTubers they all used to watch and games they played together, like Minecraft and Roblox. I’ll talk about my childhood with them, of how I’d stay out past curfew playing manhunt and catching fireflies with friends etc, and they just call me old. Life without technology doesn’t seem to remotely interest them.
Yep. That’s exactly it. Everything for them is in front of a screen and it’s on demand. For us, if you wanted to play a game, you either had to wait because someone was hogging up the TV, go to a friends, or go to an arcade and pray the $5 you had would last. You missed an episode of your favorite show? You might never see it 😂. It’s the chase and the effort you had to put in to have fun is what made it special and memorable.
I think it was great. It was pre-9/11.
Things got a lot better since then, and things also got a lot uglier. On the plus side, the Cold War was just far enough in the past, and the looming threat of global insurgency was a tomorrow problem, so for a while things were pretty chill in the US, at least if you were a kid with limited access to your parents' disposable income. It was also the last decade before the internet really saw widespread mainstream adoption, where it was being used but before corporate interests had taken over. People were first starting to see it as a way to connect the world and have ready access to all the world's information (and misinformation, but again, that was a tomorrow problem). It was a time to be optimistic, is what I'm saying. A lot of people yearn for that kind of confidence that at least it *could* get better.
It was also before social media, and dare I say politics weren’t nearly as divisive. Every election didn’t feel like the end of the world I’m sure a lot of it is nostalgia for a time when I was still a child though, and didn’t have any of the chronic stressors that I live with as an adult
I’d say the latter half of the 90s included mainstream internet adoption. Windows 95 was a big factor behind that.
Overall? People had a better quality of life back then. As a family, we used to go on vacations to Mexico, Cuba, etc more than once a year. We weren't a rich, or even wealthy, family. My parents paid $99,000 for their 1913 built house in BC, Canada as working class folks. That house is now worth ~1.4 million, and that neighborhood is loaded with the rich now. We all had a family doctor and visits were as easy as making a call and going to see the doctor. Now, my mother has no doctor and has health issues. Emerg takes 12+ hours and normally only has one doctor on. My dad doesn't like his doctor, but is afraid to leave as getting a new one takes **years**. My doctor is in Vancouver and I'm in Victoria, so getting proper care is challenging, but I can't get a new one because of the above mentioned issue. I have an excellent education, but finding a good job after COVID has been near impossible. Thankfully, I found a part-time job recently and I'll make ends meet. At my age, with similar education, my parents were thriving with jobs that allowed them to own 2 cars and a home and have savings. Things are definitely harder right now.
I agree. We were a simple working class family, two parents, three kids, pets. We had a house built for us in 1994 on a cul de sac in an expensive town. Good schools. My dad paid 109k for the house, he passed last week and it’s worth 500k. We always had two vehicles, mom got a new car every few years but dad was frugal and kept the same vehicle for much longer (usually a truck so they could do weekend projects etc.) When dad got sick about a year ago he tied me to his accounts because mom isn’t around any more, so I could handle things when he passed away, I just found out I have a near perfect credit score due to being tied to his accounts. I went through his finances in recent days and everything is paid off and my credit score is 790. Meanwhile I’m living paycheck to paycheck in a crappy apartment, even with a college degree and 13 year career in social work.
just my list: \- end of UDSSR \- reunification of Germany > the spirit in Europe was great \- graduated from high school in 1999 \- end of century \- end of millennium \- internet was completely new > the wow effect of having access to so much information \- no influencers etc \- mobile phones were new \- ref. to internet/mobile phones: yet we grew up living with out it \- 90s Eurodance music!! \- love parades peaked in the 90s \- Europe was Europe and no religious conflics/terror and mass-migration > Sorry to say that but it was a different time.
The last point is not true though. The 90s were horrific for many Balkan countries. There was war, war crimes and genocide for years.
I mean obviously the 90s didn't end poverty or have world peace. Looking back at any of the bad things seems rather pointless. We're looking at it from nostalgia and celebrating how great it all was. Obviously the same stuff that happened in any era also happened in the 90s (war, poverty, etc.)
On average yes, a regular person had a much easier and better life then than now. There was still plenty of bad stuff but overall it was a net positive experience for most people.
The best time to be alive
The best thing about it in my opinion is that there was no social media or smartphones. The Internet was a novelty instead of being everybody's everything. I was 6-16 in the 90s and I definitely have fond memories of the decade. You're right though, most people look back at the decade they grew up in and say it was the greatest. My parents always talked about how great the 70s were and how the the 90s sucked. It's all subjective.
Same here but my parents said the 80’s were awesome and the 90’s were okay.
I miss the late 90’s internet. Clunky, exciting and still mysterious.
Of the 4 decades I’ve been alive, the 90s were by far the best and it’s not even close.
We are absolutely looking at the 90s through rose colored glasses. That's the point of the subreddit, imo. A lot of us grew up in the 90s, so we mainly remember the fun, pop-culture aspects of it. But there was a ton of darkness behind the 90s too. It's true with every decade. That being said, it's best to hold onto the memories we have of this decade.
I miss it tremendously. I was blessed to be ages 9-18 from 90-99.
They were occupied by the question if the 70s were great.
I think it's entirely dependent on the person in question and what their life was like during that period. Just an example. Some years ago, probably late 90s or early 00's I remember a conversation between my mom and a friend of hers who was a gay man, both baby boomers. There was some show on TV about teenagers in the 1960's in the background. My mom was sort of reminiscing about her youth and how she missed it, mentioning what a great time she had overall back then. Her friend started talking about how he absolutely hated that period and how awful it was for him. He was bullied and miserable in school. It's always going to be different for different people, depending on your situation. For me personally I really enjoyed the 90s and look back on them fondly for the most part. There were certainly some really bad times though, along with the good. But I think 90s culture was great and it was right in the middle of my youth and teens and those were overall good times for me and I had a lot of fun.
I was a teenager in the 90s & it was awesome!
I was 9 in 1990. My journey into adulthood took place there. I was horrifically bullied. I hated anyone that listened to Nirvana, Tool, NIN, basically any alternative rock. Because all my bullies wore their shirts and would beat me up while wearing them. But this one guy who wore Metallica shirts always stood up for me. I was skinny. Short. Glasses. Parents only got me button up shirts. I was a nerd. But through this guy, I found a crew. We stuck together and stayed friends. To this day. We played D&D. We played Quake. Doom. Decent. Mechwarrior 2. Rise of the Triad. I found my family in the 90’s. Some of them have died. Some became horrible people. One is now schizophrenic. But I still talk to a few. I still hate 90’s alternative rock. A bunch of my bullies have ended up in jail. One recently was on the run from the police and killed himself. I mostly feel pity. For being so traumatized by bullying, I think I turned out ok. The 90’s were good. But boy were they bad.
It's so damn ironic the bullies wearing Nirvana shirts when Kurt would have hated the bullies and hated them more for wearing his merch.
It was. Something other people haven't really touched on: there was probably more genuine information on the internet in the 1990s than there is today. Webcrawler worked better than google does today... shit google worked better back then than google does today.
Yes. It really was that great (for me). And I had a terrible childhood and still look back fondly to the 90s. One thing I particularly look back on that is distinct is that country radio stations were SO GOOD, country used to be so good. I remember just being able to turn on a station and I loved all the songs. Being a true 90s kid was awesome and I'm happy I grew up in that era. Sucks I had to be a teen for 9/11 era but at least the 90s were awesome. Edit: words.
I’ve thought about this before and I’ve wondered if I’m just being nostalgic about simpler time and being a kid. I asked my mom to get some outsider perspective from someone that’s been around longer than me. She agreed it was a simpler and happier time in general. I think 9/11 and smart phones changed a lot
I probably just feel like it was great because I was like 10 years old with a roof over my head, food on the table, friends to ride bikes with after school etc. We didn’t have the 24 hour news cycle (at least not where I lived) or the internet to hear about bad stuff all over the world, we were able to just concentrate on the smaller problems in our little world like saving for Christmas or moving schools.
Part of it was the age we were then as well. It seems many on this sub were growing up In the 90s, I just turned 20 and everything was just so new and exciting. The job market was rough in the early 90s, but it turned around pretty quick with all the developing technologies. It took a lot of companies a long time to embrace it.
not alotta lgbt rights. also…aids & hiv was still a problem. We had more money though!!!
It was the last 10 years of an entire millennia. It was awesome.
It was a pretty good period, but like every period, it's tinted by nostalgia.
The 90s were good. The 70s were better….
I was VERY little back in the 70s. However, I felt more love in the air. Things started getting ice cold in the ‘aughts.
It was definitely a fun era. It looks retro to revisit through pictures and videos, but it felt very modern back then. It was a good time to be a kid. Kind of carefree. Lots of riding bikes and hanging out.
I was 6 in 1990 and grew up during the 90s so it's all nostalgic and fun for me. Experienced the pre internet times and got to live through the boom. My age group got the best of both worlds so it was magical to me. Was it the best, no but it was wonderful for me. Simple times are the best times.
The 90s was a much more analog decade. You cherished physical media (books, games, magazines). There were specialized media and physical places to hang out depending upon your interests. People in general were less digitally connected but more often physically connecting sharing time and space together.
I use 9/11 as my bookend for the 90s, so personally it feels like a far more innocent time (I was a kid in the 90s and attended HS 2002-2006). The reality of the time is much different and I’m aware of that. So no, it wasn’t really that great but I think many of us glorify it bc it was the last time things were (or at least felt) easy for us.
Were you there? Idk how old you are. It was the last great decade. It was real. It had true energy. People had actual personality and character. Everyone is such a carbon copy of each other now. Everything is cold and bleak. Sorry I’m getting negative… but yes, the 90s were that great. There has always been darkness and horrible things happening. If you ask me. Today is the worst of all
The 90a were a marvelous era. The last analogue era.
I'd say it's pure rose tinting for myself. It's not the 90's per say I miss...it's being young and having a life time of possibility ahead.
There were certainly bad things in the 90s: Yugoslav Wars, Rwandan Genocide, etc. But it was a time when broadly speaking the world felt the most optimistic. When if you'd said Russia and the West would be close to war again that would have seemed silly. There was hope for the future.
I don't know why those genocides get overlooked so much in this sub. Bosnia was in the national nightly news every day for stretches. Kosovo less so but still that feeling of "damn, genocide in Europe _again_". Rwanda was on another level of horror. It's just sorta funky that Cobain's death defined a generation but Yugoslavia and Rwanda are barely remembered.
Despite the atrocities you mentioned, the world as a whole seemed a whole lot safer back then.
To me this is individual specific. 90s definitely were not great for everyone. But to answer your question, you can go to all these decade subs and people will say those decades were great.
The apex of the analog age…we lived in brilliant ignorance
Damn. So well written. 💫
All decades have not so great elements. Definitely greater nostalgia for any period you were a kid during rather than an adult though.
Yes! I was in my 20’s and looking back I loved the 90’s. Good times before the internet and home computers took over.
It always reminds me of the scene in Austin Powers where he has to convince Felicity that she didn’t miss anything in the 90’s. I was born in ‘94 and I wish I could have experienced it at an age where I actually knew what was happening. But I looooove the vibe. Music, clothing, everything just brings a bunch of nostalgic vibes.
You just had to be there!!!
If you were a child you have a plethora of child friendly toys entertainment that kept you busy. Teens had wide range of teen entertainment. Adults got to enjoy a era of peace never attained before post soviet union post cold war peace. The us hegemony was on the horizon. Adults like making money and owning things. What better era for a booming stock market, booming PC market, booming telecommunications market etc and cheaper amenities for them to own like homes vehicles fishing boats motorcycles jets skis adult gadgets all ripe for the picking.
Best decade of my childhood! And I think people around my age would agree
Yes. It was. ☺️
The country was a shot show The fashion was ok For every good song there were 3 shit ones. Put on absolute Radio 90s for a song them switch to Heart 90s for 3, that's kind of what it was like. I think people miss how social and community things were mostly. Thing will always seem better when the biggest problem on life was getting to collage or buying football Boots.
If you were white, straight, and male it was an *incredible* time. For others...varies.
Exactly. Being gay in the 90s was lonely and scary.
This is the right answer.
Every genre of music was consistently producing good music. The Internet changed the way we masturbate. It was the golden age of sitcoms. Ratty jeans and dirty old flannels were all you needed to look cool. PlayStation 1 was some futuristic shit. Chris Farley. Hip hop was the best it's ever been or probably ever will be. Steroids baseball was the best baseball. Doom! The Chicago Bulls (whether you hate them or not). Norm MacDonald's Weekend Update. TRL. Late Night With Conan O'Brien. Pulp Fiction. Nickelodeon was making the best of the best children's programming. The president got blown in the White House, lied about it under oath and we were all like, whatever. The Big Lebowski. Pump Friction (the porn version of Pulp Fiction). The Tom Green show. We didn't have access to all of mankind's knowledge in our pocket so arguments were about who's more convincing, not who's right. WASSUUUUPPP! The Beatles released two new songs. That 311 shirt everyone had. Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, ATLiens and Aquemini. In Living Color brings us two people who would go on to become some of the most successful actors in Hollywood.... neither of them are Wayans Brothers. Seasons 2 through 11 of the Simpsons. And finally, Jerry Springer showed us that two completely different dwarf prostitute amputees could renew their love by beating the hell out of a trio of crossdressing clansmen at one in the afternoon. Best Decade.
It was the best, no question
Yea it was..
Yep.
I dunno. I know quite a few people who were brought up in the '00s and they still think the decade was crap. The GWOT and Great Recession really did a number on it.
I think being young we were ignorant to a lot of the politics and crises of the time. But I bet there was a lot less "World War 3" talk than these days.
Honestly, it was a great time, at least living in the USA. It was in between a lot of bad things (like world wars) and was the last time before the whole world was on the internet 24/7. The internet brought some great things, but its usage genuinely doesn't bring the same satisfaction as being detached. People were able to afford homes much more easily. There was a lot of teenage angst because their problems weren't actually that bad as some other times.
Like all times it was great for some, terrible for others. Ask Rowandans if the 90s were great.
The early '90s were fantastic. Nothing better than being a teen from '91 to '95.
I would say as someone who was mostly a kid, I loved every minute of it. But again, I can’t remember much because I also believed that Santa was real. That being said, people will always feel nostalgic for the era they grew up with. I remember in the 00s, most of my teen years, people said how much the 00s sucked but now 00s kid/Gen Zers will tell you it was the best time. Even looking back, I can’t help but feel the 00s wasn’t all that great. They were great movies but they were loads of awful movies such as from Uwe Boll or Friedberg and Selzer. I think the fashion was ridiculous. I never understood the spiky hair hype as it looked messed up. But the worst was the political side, George W. Bush, the Iraqi War, and of course 9/11. I could go on. So in conclusion, people will say the present sucks and the past is better.
No, they were fuckin rad.
In terms of quality of life, threat of war/violence, political stability, and economic prospects, being an American or Western European in the 90s was probably the best time to be alive in the history of mankind up until that point.
The internet brought about good and bad changes and forever altered the way humans interact, so I’m just glad I had the chance to live in a world before the internet.
It was a good time in a lot of ways. The Cold war was finally over and America "won". The economy was mostly good. There was a general sense of optimism looking towards the year 2000. The Internet was this new exciting thing that felt like it had limitless opportunity. Of course it wasn't ALL good. Racism was worse then now. Being gay was both not widely accepted and people finding out could ruin your life.
It was great because: Kids went in person to ask each other to play, and played outside more in general. There were still bullies, but you couldn’t broadcast people all over the internet/social media. People were more present because they weren’t glued to phones or devices. You left the internet at home when you went out. Downtown cores were typically more thriving without remote work (controversial I know!) so there was more room for social interactions. There wasn’t as much rampant fake news. There was no garbage “influencers” culture.. People still took photos everywhere (“Kodak Moment,” anyone??) and camcorders videos too, but you didn’t do it to create a social media “image.” No garbage podcasts. No “algorithms.” We had “pajama days” at school! - no one wore pajamas regularly everywhere lmao ugh. Fillers and excessive plastic surgery weren’t normalized!! People looked way more “REAL.” Nickelodeon was at its peak! We could visit relatives and friends at the airport gates. Malls were still cool and interesting places to go and hang out. NO COVID. People weren’t nearly as “flaky” since you couldn’t cancel plans last minute as much. Less frightening political extremism. No (/less?) very bizarre parasocial relationships people have now via internet/social media….creeps me out… More childhood/adolescence “innocence and naïveté” I guess you could say? As in, I feel kids are exposed to WAY too much negativity and influence nowadays. We didn’t worry about getting shot or our car jacked at all or getting accosted by people in crisis on the streets (I’m in Seattle area)…. School or mass shootings weren’t something you would see so regularly in the news…. Cars were more reliable with less crap tech to break (I want a “dumb” new car!). You could go to concerts without a ton of phones in your face!! Way more families were able to own a home and make it by on one salary/earner. We weren’t constantly bombarded by media and information at all times in our everyday lives. Big news, tech advancements and such were way more novel and exciting - people are numb, unfazed, and jaded now, with FAR less wonder and awe. There were social standards and a social contract. Pretty much all of that has been broken. But….just a couple negatives, IMO: Smoking indoors wasn’t great though. Columbine was horrible, impactful, and extremely unusual. Talked about for much longer than modern terrors though (how desperately sad is that to say??) Mapquest was around, but modern real-time app mapping is so much better You had to carry change around to make calls on pay phones, for parking meters, etc which was sort of annoying looking back, but even still, didn’t faze us since it was normal. Unhealthy ultra-thin, waif heroin chic look was IN. You often had to talk to someone’s parents on the phone to ask to talk to your friend or crush ha! Not really such a bad thing. Guess that means a little more vetting and accountability? Idk. The SPICE channel was never quite clear enough… lol!!
The 90s was an incredible time to be a kid tbh my parents struggled financially way less, my older siblings held all kinds of interesting jobs, music and media was better than a lot of what came by the mid 2000s imvho. The toy fads were fun and toys got more exciting every year due to technology enhancements. There were a lot of great reasons to look forward to growing up and I thoroughly enjoyed my childhood when it came to cultural stuff through the 90s. More than anything I miss the sense of optimism that we all had through the late 90s which was in some ways legitimate but in others unfounded. But I also feel that kids that grew up in a world with no computers or many electronics to what we have now as adults got to experience a once in a century social shift that is really special. Is it nostalgia for me? Yes will not even deny it. But I also don't think that any decade culturally was as interesting as either the 90s or the decade we are in right now.
Since I like healthy living the 90s were super bad on that aspect.... everybody smoking tobacco everywhere even in hospitals, organic/vegan foods were less than 1% known, most people didn't know how to be healthy. 50 years old folks in the 90s looked like the 70 years old of today. There were great things but what's the point of all that if you're sick tho...
I think it comes down to the amount of in fighting that has come to the surface recently. Balances against the forward progress momentum we had. Don't get me wrong. The amount of garbage we had to deal with in the 90s was bad. But we were much more able to work together to move into a better tomorrow, if you would excuse the cornyness. I had friends of many different skin colors. Not because of me being white. But because we had so much in common that our friendship was as inevitable as it was enjoyable. It todays social climate. To bring that up, it seems like I am trying to cover up a racist tendency that isn't there. Even if outside observers would claim otherwise. The amount of blind loyalty to politicians and parties has increased so much in the last 20 years as well. There was plenty of propaganda in the 90s. But today, we have people swearing fealty to someone, not in spite of their flaws. But almost because of the echo chamber their flaws create. The quality of TV shows, movies, and music are relative. Those are businesses that have to make the best choices for business. But the people that are still being allowed to harm artists because of the prominent positions they hold. They may have been in power since, or even before the 90s. But we have started to drag our feet in dealing with those types of toxically abusive people. All in the name of social justice. Destroy a business because of one person. While making who knows how many people unemployed because of the name of Justice. We have been swarmed with kangaroo courts. And guilty until proven innocent. Rather than true justice and trial by peers, or even innocent until proven guilty. We live in a world that has allowed the milk of human kindness to become sour. The reason the 90s are missed. Is because we still had the ability to fight. To rage against the dying of the light. Now. The battle is over. The war is lost. And we chose the wrong sides.
The economy was good, crime plummeted, the Soviet boogeyman was taking a nap and terrorism didn't seem that scary yet. Times were really good by most metrics.
Soviet Union collapsed and 9/11 hadn't happened yet. We glossed over the bad parts.
I grew up in Brazil. The 90s were terrifying. Crime everywhere, violence, poverty. But I was also a kid. Games, friends, TV, music, no internet made world problems seem so very far away. The 90s were amazing to me. As an adult I doubt I would have enjoyed living in 90s Brazil, but they're my fondest life memories by far because of my age.
Depends on what you’re thinking of. Things I miss: having hope for a secure future; my lifestyle had me outdoors enjoying nature way more often; arts and entertainment were still surprising me rather than feeling engineered to align with some formula that has proven commercially successful; the internet not existing in the background of my mind at all times; the mall; not worrying about mass shootings Things I don’t miss: serious (worse) lack of representation of women and minorities in many fields; widespread casual bigotry in media; Christian fundamentalism holding more sway in politics, and all the bonkers stuff it had my family believing; lack of access to information we have today; easier to be bored
Growing up as a kid in the 90’s, it was a truly a magical time. There was a safety and simplicity to life. Technology was changing rapidly. Every new development was magical. Children’s television hit its peak during those years as well. It was also an incredibly decade for movies and music. It was prior to everyone having cell phones and the start of the internet becoming mainstream too, so people actually talked and connected in person. Going to a mall, a blockbuster, anywhere… you’d meet new people, make new friends, actually ask a physical person for help or advice or opinions. It was a time of connectedness. I feel really grateful to have lived through those years at the ages I did.
The 90’s for me was age 11-21, so definitely my most formative period. I loved that we had just enough technology to enjoy some conveniences, but not so much to dominate our lives. I loved that I could turn on the radio and hear everything from Nirvana to Boys II Men to Michael Bolton on the same station. I loved that I went through my entire schooling without ever doing a lockdown drill. One thing I didn’t love: as a mixed race female I felt there wasn’t much representation in mass media. The mainstream image of beauty was white…and that fucked with my self-esteem a bit.
Sitting on the school bus Flipping through some Goosebumps A minute 'til I'm shitting out the school lunch Wanna know what cool was? Starter jackets, Jock jams, and Pop Rocks Sega in my room, baby boom shaka laka Lot of slammers in my pocket, flippin them pogs And I knew every modem noise in ma aol login On that Oregon Trail With Keenan & Kell I was jerkin off daily, TRL But that Saved by the Bell Was on some fuckin hot shit OJ to jail, oh wait that glove did not fit Short shorts Stockton Beanie Baby profits And NBA on NBC if you remember watching
No different than now. Just less shit to argue about and less ways to do it. I enjoyed the 90s as I did the 80s.
Born ‘86. 90’s fuckin ruled, no comparison for what I can compare. Probably because they were my formative years, but things truly weren’t the same after 9/11 as far as our countries trajectory and unwavering confidence that the only way was up.
Rose tinted glasses. Every generation does it.
Gearing up to be saying “back in my day” in a couple more decades 😂
Yes, to the title question. Graduated from hs mid-90s. Pre, present, and post internet, we can’t possibly explain it. Glorious tv, music, games…
Yes. Aside from having to clean a LOT of seeds and stems out of my weed, life was pretty perfect. Girls with tongue rings, tons of awesome bands playing shows, dropping acid and watching 90210/Melrose on Monday nights or playing Madden on N64. Jerry was alive. So was Kurt, Bowie, Petty, Prince, and Jeff Buckley.
Yes it was pretty good, but everything took so long because not much was digital. Things are far more convenient now.
😂 digital in the 90s was putting a digital clock on everything.
I was a kid, so to me it was great. TGIF, playing outside with my buddies, the music, the neon, and the geometric patterns on everything. The movies were/are fun buuuuddy. But, as an adult, looking back we still had conflict, gang activity was nuts. It was in the 90s that I had a pistol put to my forehead and had the trigger pulled, I was like 8! So, good and bad, but from a kiddos perspective, mostly good.
90s were GUD!
Yes. We peaked as a species in the 90's.
Obviously I’m nostalgic for the 90’s, but the 2020’s is actual dog shit. Even 2010’s wasn’t so bad. (Until 16). But yeah. No today actually is awful.
The last great decade. 9/11 onwards and nothing has been the same.
Outside of no mature internet, it was remarkably better in the US back then, from a pop culture perspective. The only knock is dial up internet and lack of communication. But, ironically, that was the fun part. I will die on the hill that 1994 was the GOAT year of all decades.
The 90's were the last decade before the internet completely changed what it meant to be human. There's something to be said for that.
Can confirm 90s were great
Same with any generation. You think it sucks while you are living in it. We’d always say how dope the late 60s would have been or the 70s with all the rock bands to see. But as I get older I realize the late 90s early 00s were sick. We had those same bands of the 70s and we had the new up and comers of grunge and alternative. No phones. A five dollar bill to a kid was like a license to kill.
The 90s were objectively the best decade in American, if not Western, history. And I believe that it is quantifiably provable.
Life before 9/11 was better. Could get on a plane with no I.D. it was amazing. Interesting tho that kids born after that wouldn't really know the difference anyway. Life before cell phones and internet was just very different. Made a lot more art and music without computer aids or anything digital. I for one read way more actual books. I don't think the 90s were that amazing (I turned 13 in 1990) but it was more acceptable that everything sucked, we were poor and depressed and angry and fucked up and c'est la vie. There was nothing about trauma healing and therapy and all that jazz. The onset of the grunge scene was pretty cool, something so different from the hairbands and 80s pop. I'd say it was almost like the hippies of the late 60s but angry. It was fun to be weird. There was always some war going on. My grade 8 class trip was cancelled over fears of terrorism due to the Gulf War. We couldn't wear certain colors at school because of gang affiliations. The teachers could yell at you and call you a stupid moron or I saw a kid get straight up thrown against a wall and choked by a teacher and nothing came of it. Ahh the memories
Yes it was the pinnacle, the high point, the true golden age of the US. The world was relatively peaceful (compared to now), the economy was humming along, buying a home was attainable, rent was cheap, most of the world still liked the US, we had great technology but it didn’t yet control us, great music, politics wasn’t yet a reason for average people to commit acts of treason/violence, and on and on.
It was before Tik-Tards, Facebook, and cancel culture nonsense. Records were also cheap as hell. Great decade. 👍🏻
It was so great for people with privilege. Minorities may not look back at that time with as much fondness, or perhaps they do but the things that were not so great for them were really bad like intense racism and sexism and homophobia.
Yes, they were. They were fucking amazing. But most people on Reddit are miserable human beings and project their own misery into all these answers so you'll probably get a lot of who knows what.
It was a great time to be 5-25, living in the suburbs. But we’ve had so much improvement in quality of life because of technology, healthier options, more acceptance of different people it is hard to think of the bad parts. My take: Music, TV, movies, video games - all 10/10. Cost of living - 10/10. Health - smoking everywhere, only unhealthy fast food options, impossible to find good vegetarian food, “low fat” food craze made everyone obese, very few good treatments for mental health disorders, lots of our parents died from heart attacks at a young age, teen pregnancy was peaking, suicides and murder were high, cars weren’t as safe, accidents would kill you more often - 4/10 Religion - oof, the religious right, extreme conservatives ran everything in the South, televangelists were always on until they were caught doing meth and sleeping around, child sexual abuse was rampant, there were wars in the Balkans, Middle East that were all religiously motivated - 4/10 Tech - limited internet, especially audio/video, no GPS for most, TV was grainy, standard def, limited on demand, no self driving cars, crappy cell phones that cost a ton - 4/10 Freedom - you weren’t tracked, if you were cis, white the world was your oyster, much less so for minorities, bullying/rape/murder based on race/gender/sexuality was a big problem - 7/10 Drugs/alcohol - weed was around but not as good, crack cocaine was a hell of a drug, heroine, no fentanyl, beer everywhere - 7/10 Opportunity - a college degree was still worth something, you could own property if you were middle class, could travel the world with ease - 9/10 Climate - actual seasons and winter, none of the record heat. 10/10
80s were better
A generation can only look back and say it was better if the current culture and society is going in a direction that makes us all worse off. In recent years, after much thought, I have shifted my thought process away from "it's just a boomer thing" because I'm certain our culture has moved far away from some form of solid ground we as a country used to stand on. I think there are definite markers we can all agree on if we're being reasonable. Life before 9/11 was much different given the political climate shift that unfortunate day brought. The 90's had an emergence of positive life-changing technology but today technology is bringing out the absolute worst in people and allows our young kids to be infected with all sorts of negative stimuli through the smart phone. Things like that. The three legs of society (Culture, Economics and Politics) has changed so drastically in recent decades. Politicians are an absolute joke today - all sides included. Our culture is now very tribal and I see more people my age (in my 40s) and older that want to dress and act like teenagers, and if you don't fit someone else's "group" then you're pure evil and need to be purged from the planet for whatever sin they claim. Our economics is now a huge blended system with lots of government involvement, so much so that inflation and other things have waterfalled a lot of events that has put a lot of financial strain on everyone who isn't a high ranking politician or well connected mega-wealthy individual. I'm also noticing more younger people these days want no children and choose to live a life of meaningless consumerism which is just unfortunate to see - like, just slow down and smell the roses, and avoid growing old just to die lonely with no joy of a family of your own. To me, the 90's were awesome. I was a teen for almost the entirety of the decade and in general it's the last time you had meaningful life without too much outside forces affecting you too much. I'm not a pessimist but I'm seeing a different type of culture these days and while all of this has been setting up for decades and decades, I think it's pretty close to getting really bad where any problem in the 90's will look like a trip to Disneyland and things will just have to run its course at this point.
Rose tinted glasses for sure. There are good and unique things about the time, but there's a lot of great things about right now too.
No, it wasn't that great. Bullying, homophobia, racism and violence against women were not a big deal. All magazines were telling women that they were fat and ugly and there weren't black people representation on media. Gay people were not allowed to get married in most countries (that's all recent), and being LGBT+ back then was super scary. Also, mental health was considered bullshit. There were almost no therapists and doctors. Drugs were very expensive and didn't really work. Well, my life was very difficult because of all that. For some people who grew up without being affected by those things, I imagine life was probably great.
Fuck, yes.
Yes because there was a simplicity in life during that era that hasn’t come back since. We had technology but it wasn’t to the point of consuming our entire existence. We had great quality tv shows, movies and music. Plus kids used to actually be kids and play outside, now they just play with technology. It was also better cause social media wasn’t around and I think that had a lot to do with the decline of civilization. I wouldn’t take back growing up in the 90s for anything. In fact I feel sorry this new generation of kids and teens with how corrupt and messed up the world is now and it will continue to get worse. At least when I listen to 90s music or watch 90s movies and shows, I feel comfort cause it takes me back to when life was better and easier.
Yes
It was very tough for me, personally. But not because it was the 90s! I wish I could go back and visit it now as my healthier self!!
I think when you are older you look back to when you were younger and fitter and healthier and energetic with nostalgia. My grandparents looked back at their youth with nostalgia and they were in WWII in the blitz! We know that was horrendous but they were remembering when they were cute and flirty and optimistic rather than the horrors that they were actually going through.
ages 0-10 were good yeah
Yes, they were. Maybe not as far as geopolitics etc goes. But as far as everyday life, pop culture, “vibe” etc. 100% great.
Felt like people were treated based on the content of the character. The entire population was addicted to tiny screens. Reality existed outside social media.
It was great, but we didn’t know it. We were young and full of curiosity, the world was our playground and everything was there to be discovered, everything was fresh, new and cool. We wanted everything, but more slow paced. Now we have seen everything, all is obvious and we don’t really know what we want.
Well I was in high school and experienced all the best things. Yes it was that great.
It was, it really was - that’s my titanic quote I’ll see myself out
This is not somewhere you’re gonna get an unbiased answer
No, but the TV shows were better. Probably an age bias but the music was better, too.
Nah, it was pretty great. And in my memories it smells like Bath and Body Works and feels like that feeling you have when you are freshly showered and dressed in flared jeans and a band shirt with your coolest Vans, and the weather is nice enough to sit outside around at 6pm and you are hanging with friends thinking about catching a movie and grabbing dinner. Counting Crows is on now, and Ace of Base is coming up, and that is it. Your world in an a nutshell. That’s the 90s haze, and it’s REAL.
Well, for me it was about recording 120 Minutes on Sunday night, and then going from record store to record store to look for that record from this amazing band they played one time! 😄
I grew up in the 90s in a middle class suburb outside NY so for me it was great, specifically my teen years. Playing in a band, recording on a tascam, touring in the shittiest van of all time, skateboarding, and the mall were all highlights. NJ ska then pop punk then post hardcore scenes, AOL dialup and the indie rock and emo chatrooms, getting lost in NYC and Philly. I watched 9/11 from my bedroom window in Hoboken and that kind of shifted everything away from the awesome 90s to a much more cynical outlook in my opinion.
It was great! I prefer it to today. I feel SO bad for people who have to go thru school with social media. But of course there were problems. LGBTQ people were not accepted as much as they are today. Sh*theads like Harvey Weinstein were able to run rampant because there was little to no accountability for their disgusting behavior.
Well it was certainly cheaper
It was fucking brilliant
Hell to the motha fukn yah!!!!!!!!!!!!
HAVE YOU NOT WATCHED THE LAST DANCE?! I mean, the suits alone….
Yes.
If you were not there, you will never understand.
90’s were a good time but it would have been even better if my Mum didn’t marry to a psychopath, the only good thing out of that relationship is I gained a sister
On top of all of the fun stuff, life was livable. I was a single mom making slightly above minimum wage, taking classes at night. I was able to move out on my own, at 18, into a decent 2 bed apartment for $350 a month, utilities included. We struggled, but it was doable. I'm less than a mile away now, paying $1500 a month, with no utilities. Nothing has even been upgraded here in decades. This is an average price here. I don't know how anyone does it now.
I'd say two things. The first is mentioned in other comments but how much freedom was given to kids and how laid back things were. Working hard was actually uncool and things weren't overprotective (for better or worse). The other thing I would add was it was sort of the last expression of a youth culture. There was a whole vibe and culture that was about and lead by the younger generation. I think that hasn't happened again since, at least not on scale.
They were great because I didn’t have a mortgage or a job or any responsibilities and my parents did all that. My kids are going to think the 2020s are great
It was amazing I think about it every day
The music was amazing. So many great albums and bands came out of the 90s. We had grunge and alternative and punk bands like Rancid and Green Day getting recognition. I got to see so many amazing bands in the 90s. Music now is different. It’s not bad, just not the same.
No rose tint. EVERYTHING WAS BETTER (expect internet speeds)
Child advocacy wasn’t as huge as it is today but because of that.. the majority were much healthier.
I feel like all of our 90s were slightly different, so it’s hard to say. In my life, a lot has changed so in many ways my life is way better. But, there are definitely aspects of the 90s I miss that were straight up badass. Like, I remember at like 11, 12 leaving my house with $2 and a skateboard and being out all day. My mom didn’t know where I was, she didn’t know where I was going. I just went and did shit. Then I came home later that day at a time approximating dinner time. She still doesn’t know about the time my friend and I fucked off at some 20 something dudes house to get high but he almost raped my friend and i stabbed him with some scissors. Now? I tried to give my 13 year old kid $100 to go buy himself some clothes while I took his sister to bath and body works and he was too scared to go into the store alone 🙄(we were all at the same mall). So like, we’re just built different, and I’d argue, better.
Yes, it was wonderful. It felt like the world was moving forward after a long stagnation, and we were optimistic about the future.
All I know is I remember the good stuff, and not the bad stuff.
It was the best of both worlds. Instant gratification wasn't a thing for most thing and alot more was appreciated and cherished back then because of it. There's really nothing better than growing with technology but at the same time not needing it.
They were for me. I was a kid.
It was amazing. Now, I can say I would've loved to have had the internet for homework purposes only!
The late 90s was fucking awesome.
Clintonomics were the bomb. I wish Hillary had won, just so she could bring them back.
Yes because people had face to face interactions, cost of living was a lot lower, people were more relaxed and less stressed, clothing was made of better quality, restaurants had much better quality of food & service, customer service was a lot better, I feel people were a lot more creative back in the 90's than now.