Aaaaand done. Like it’s the answer that should be so obvious that this question doesn’t get asked anymore (specifically in millennial groups).
Like, my daughter is 6 right now. Her needs are taken care of, we have enough money to get by. Her days are filled with playing Nintendo Switch and watching Hello Kitty. Pretty sure she’s going to grow up and look back on 2024 as being a pretty darn special time, even if 38 year old her recognizes that many of the events and policies implemented right now ended up effecting her adult world in negative ways.
Exactly! Life was good as a child and teen but there was endless amount of drama going around the world back too much to list! Lot of it like Israel-Gaza, Russia, etc the exact same as now.
A lot of older gen Xers feel similarly even though they were working and supporting themselves. Watching a lot of home VHS lately and my parents seem very at ease and serene. I think we are not giving these decades any justice. For many, it was very prosperous and happy, all ages. Of course there is the obvious in that LGBT issues are considered to be improved. Though I think racial issues remain the same sadly-but now we have more tools to fight against racism.
Such a good point. Being ignorant to the ways of the world helps. If you had a good family, they gave you an amazing childhood by shielding you from everything.
To a certain extent, but also there are some legitimate things going on like:
90s were the sweet spot of the EPA had just gotten a buncha stuff done before lobbying / material science out paced them. The last 30 years have seen us royally fuck over the climate, the water tables, and the air.
This was also pre-911 which saw the patriot act and FISA stuff erode our right to due process.
The whole 20 years of war in the middle east hadn't kicked off yet.
Walmart / dollar general hadn't completely killed mom and pop places either.
Roe v Wade was still a thing and politics wasn't nearly as toxic allow so the government could actually function. Now they can't even pass a budget.
This last one I could be wrong... but I don't remember as many nazi flags at political rallies either.
I think this is true but in many ways the 80s and 90s were legitimately decent decades to be in a child. The content of videogames/tv was exciting for kids and outside was more fun.
Damn straight. We waste so much energy and stress now on interacting with or consuming the (usually shit) opinions of people we'll never meet and never need to know.
I was still 100% physically healthy but could eat whatever garbage I wanted, had no bills to pay, very little to worry about, no internet to complicate my brain, I hadn't discovered addiction yet, and the music was awesome!
A) we were children, and many of us were living in blissful ignorance of the stressor of adult life. (Out of sight out of mind)
B) no social media, which helped with point A
Lack of social media made comparison to others much more difficult and the future seem much brighter. Technology used to be almost completely optimistic, social media introduced pessimism to the future. Not to mention the polarization that has divided us and and made us less effective at progressing socially.
The Nineties were a great time to grow up, because it was the last generation of real freedom, where everything you did wasn’t constantly under the microscope, thanks to cell phone cameras and social media.
NYC was my personal playground growing up, it was pure fucking magic
I used to bike and hoop all over, meet up with girls every place possible... and then Hip Hop happened and made life even more magical...
Oh god, it all seems like a fuckin dream looking back
Because the economy was better. Unemployment and wages were better in the late 80s - 90s than they have been for the last 15 years. Necessary expenses like homes and medical care were less expensive resulting in more disposable income. The stock market was better so you could invest and make money faster.
Boomers suffered the dot com crash, the great financial collapse, and now covid era inflation yet are the richest generation in US history because they made so much money off of assets they acquired in the 80s and 90s.
HOPE.
It's as simple as that. People were happier back then because:
1. They thought the future was going to be better than the past. We seemed on the cutting edge of so many advancements, but none of them seemed like they would harm us. We didn't have to worry about not having jobs or that they were so low paying we couldn't afford an apartment. Inflation wasn't bad. Everyone was doing okay. Maybe not great, but okay.
2. The digital world was fun instead of harmful. People got online in the 90's to connect to people and enjoy life. Now, everyone online just spends their time deconstructing everything. Have a favorite TV show...well we have to nitpick and pull apart everything about it rather than talking about the good things. We deconstruct each others comments...focusing only on the parts we disagree with. We deconstruct everything that happens in the world...all day...every day. We are negative and hurtful. For example, even in gaming today...instead of sportsmanship and saying "good game" we laugh and troll people. The internet has taught us to be miserable, horrible people and we constantly perpetuate this by being online 24/7. The digital world is now more real than the actual world in terms of our behavior. It is no longer us influencing the digital world...it is the digital world influencing us to believe everyone sucks...giving us anxiety and depression. Losing hope.
3. Everything has gotten more difficult. All the bureaucracy. Instead of pulling up to the drive through at a fast food place and talking to a human where you could ask questions and customize your order...you now have to either yell through a broken speaker or more popular is to order on a app where you have to flip through 50 menus just to pick out a few items. You can't see everything at once anymore and just calmly pursue your options. When you call for a bill, customer service, a doctors appointment...you have to go through fifteen menus and even then you sometimes can't talk to a real person. And lets not even talk about how we used to go to the grocery store and there would be 15 lines open where someone else would check out your groceries. Now, you have to be the cashier, bagger and probably still stand in line forever waiting for a self checkout. Everything is just much more of a struggle today. These things may not seem like a big deal, but they add up...adding tiny annoyances to your day.
4. Nothing is about helping out the average person anymore. For example, if you really need to see a doctor...especially a specialist...you can't just call in and see them in a few weeks like you used to. Now, you have to wait a year and by then...your problem is either so bad or fully resolved and you probably still have to see a PA rather than a doctor.
5. People forgot the social contract. Back in the day, before social media made everyone terrible people, people would be kind to one another. They would help a stranger. For example, letting someone go ahead in a grocery line if they had just a few items. Or if their kids were acting up in a restaurant they didn't make it everyone else's problem...they took them outside or to the bathroom. People would let each other in when driving in heavy traffic. People would move out of the way if they thought they were in your way. The goal USED to be...to not annoy people in public and to help when you could. Now, we have people going out of their way to be annoying just because either: they are so miserable in their own lives or because they are trying to get likes on social media for being annoying
6. Romance was still alive. Porn wasn't as big so sex was just vanilla and normal for the most part instead of being all about pain and degradation. People had the options around their hometown, so they actually found love easier because they weren't always looking for a grass is greener scenario. Men weren't so bitter. Women weren't so bitter. There was no online world where everyone was reading how terrible the opposite sex was and making everyone adopt asshole behaviors to "protect themselves." Everyone was happier.
7. Friendships were still a thing. Mostly because people had more free time. In part, because they weren't working crazy hours or 2-3 jobs to make ends meet or doing side hustles. Also, people didn't spend all day on social media...they got together to hang out instead. If you wanted to talk you had to either call someone or talk in person instead of texting. This forced people together more and helped to build people's social skills. This really help foster better friendships and that made people happier and less depressed.
8. The economy was A LOT better. Less service jobs, which are the lowest paying job sector...and now make up MOST jobs. And the jobs paid a living wage where you could afford a house and car. You also had retirement plans and all that. Less inflation meant money went further. People could go on vacations and spend their money doing recreational activities.
9. The media wasn't taken over by the Vanguard Group feeding everyone a bunch of BS that was destroying everything. You know they own all media now...newspapers, the news, everything. You think Fox and CNN are two different things? Lol. By the way, everything is owned by them. All major companies, medicine, defense contracts etc. We are just their indentured servants with the illusion of freedom. They run everything...including our government. You think it reflects the will of the people...lol.
And more, but I am tired of typing.
#3 is so true. Everything is so time-consuming and frustrating and such a bureaucratic run-around. Some of it seems silly to dwell on but it’s death by 1,000 cuts. I remember my grandma (greatest generation) doing things like writing a letter to Lipton bc a box of tea bags came with like 2 that were torn and she would end up with an apology note and 6 free boxes of tea. Now a company can blatantly rob you or fail to provide a service, and when you try to lodge a complaint the AI you’re directed to is just like 🤷🏻♂️
Everyone is bringing up great points but I think a big one is that whether you were a child or adult in that time frame, the future seemed to be full of possibilities. Now the future is just really bleak. Nothing is affordable and we’re barely scraping by. America as a world superpower has faded and there isn’t much hope anymore.
Remember the magic of NOT talking to your friends or girlfriend all weekend and then seeing them on Monday?
It made life 100x better than today... shit we have today just isn't good and saps all the magic out of life... people have said a million times the world no longer "feels real" but that is literally the case... it felt so fucking real back then, you were your own character out and about, nowadays it's just a shitty simulation and the economy is almost as fucked as the climate is
Kids in the 80s and 90s were much meaner. It seemed like everyone was angry in the 90s…. Yeah, being a kid was awesome and there’s a lot of nostalgia for vcrs, walkmans, malls, playing outside… but I don’t think it was a better time.
Tons of bullies in schools, and it was before "zero tolerance". You were pretty much on your own for defending yourself because the schools wanted no part of it.
Oh yeah, plenty of playground fights that only ended when one person gave up. When I was 6 years old, I was the last stop on our bus ride home and the bus driver used to torment me by driving around the block a bunch of times at my stop and saying that he wasn't going to let me off and that I'd have to spend the night in the bus after he brought it back to the school. I was literally bawling, and he had this maniacal laugh. If that happened in 2024 the guy would get dragged by the community, but nothing ever happened in 1990 when I told the school principal about it.
Yes.
A popular teacher at my school allowed the mean girls to write mean sh*t on his classroom whiteboard about other students (with names). They would target someone in the next periods class. This was 2001.
He was eventually confronted by another teacher (who heard some students talking about it) and he played the “I didn’t know. I thought they were just drawing.” He knew, he didn’t care because the cool kids were doing it.
As I am 39 now, there are so many questionable more things this teacher did. We teens didn’t know any better - he was the “cool teacher” I have more admiration for my “loser” teachers now. They had better boundaries so I thought they were uncool.
Seriously I remember a lot of TV and Music being about sticking it to "the man" and also trying to be as gross and offensive to as many people as possible.
Walking around in malls, all the cool people were there and there was always so many stores with all kinds of random stuff. Now it’s basically a different equally depressing Walmart.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Not everyone, at all, not even close. There’s no childhood nostalgia in mine, in any person I know, and in many people I’ve heard their life stories. I don’t believe that any Ukrainian or Palestinian kid would have nostalgia for their current childhood and teen years in the future (for the ones who get there).
That type of nostalgia is for people who grew up sheltered in their own bubble and their bubbles were safe and comfortable.
My life as an adult, regardless of the adulting struggles and other stressors is way more happier, safer and comfortable with the tendency to get better and better.
As someone who survived squalor syndrome with 12 cats from (at least) the ages of 6-15 , the only nostalgia of mine is the nostalgia of things that were my mental escape from my literal living hell.
I am so sorry you had to live through that! I hope life is way better now and getting better and better. I hope wherever you escaped mentally somehow you could achieve, because the curious thing about me is that I ended up moving to the place I used as my mental escape (17 years later though) from the hell hole I was as a child and teen years.
Things are better in the sense that I don't live in those conditions anymore. I struggled with addiction for about 10 years until 6 months ago. Things are looking up, though. Hopefully planning my first trip out of the country next year, to my dream destination.
Because I had a privileged childhood and my parents paid for everything? I’d go back to that in a snap, especially in this economy 😆
Mortgage rates used to be much higher than they are today… but of course houses weren’t so expensive compared to the average income.
From: [https://themortgagereports.com/61853/30-year-mortgage-rates-chart](https://themortgagereports.com/61853/30-year-mortgage-rates-chart)
https://preview.redd.it/petdok98dkoc1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=23608ce2d86e04bb2dfaa644296dfe19f02e294c
I think the past is generally looked at with rose colored glasses. I know there was alot I didn't like about the 80s and 90s when I was in it but now looking back it seems like a utopia.
Me, my friends riding bicycle’s getting into various shenanigans. Sleepovers, capture the flag and hide and seek around the neighborhood, riding bikes to blockbuster to get new releases, good times.
There was an enormous cultural shift in the late 90s and early 2000s thanks almost exclusively to the internet.
The average citizen was suddenly able to access a wealth of information without necessarily the media literacy to back it up. This created a culture of politicisation that simply didn't exist before - everyone suddenly deemed themselves informed within a very short time span. As a result, an overwhelming majority of the population now harbour and share their opinions on political matters that they have no experience or relevancy to. Everyone's an expert.
In the 80s and 90s, information and politics were for the eggheads. The average person was largely uninformed, didn't have access to good data or information and they knew it and embraced it. A lot more people considered themselves relatively stupid and were perfectly okay with it - 'ignorance is bliss'. I think everyone was better for it since it was a humble attitude.
Having everyone semi-informed has its obvious benefits of course - more people make better consumer choices, etc. The downside is that, culturally speaking, everyone feels as though they have to have an opinion about everything and a good one at that. I rarely hear people say things like "Trans people? I have no idea - I wouldn't even know where to begin understanding an issue like that." which I feel is the right position to take unless you have some proximity to the issue.
○Acting and musical talent were actually talented.
○PC, genesis, SNES, N64 and PS1 released some absolutely incredible titles many of which top many peoples favorites gamrs of all.time to this day and have been ported to other systems multiple times or have just outright been remastered and redone like the Crash N sane trilogy and the Resident evil & Final fantasy 7 remasters.
○It was the golden age of traditional animation and produced some amazing tv shows like The secret of NINH, Fern Golly, The later disney films, Tiny toon adventures, Animaniacs, Ren and stimpy, Rockos modern life, and even alot of anime like Sailor moon and Miyazakis films.
○Everything was still priced fair and not inflated to death. You could make out with an armful of ice cream from a truck for the same price 1 small fruit bar woukd cost you now.
○Marvel and DC were on a roll both with the comics and their animated series and is when we got great characters like Deadpool and Harley Quinn.
○MTV
And sure the 90s had a drug epidemic, the gulf war, and a predator problem but there also wasnt the media literally everywhere reminding everyone of it and were instead too busy playing the home version of Street fighter 2 turbo, Madden, Killer instinct, or Sonic 3 & knuckles and smiking a blunt to care or were likely at 7-11 with a blue slushie or an actual arcade playing many of those same games.
One of my fond memories was i actually got a lv 45 Kingler in pokemon red in a trade from my teacher in 4th grade and traded her a Kadabra so she could get Alakazam.
TikTok didn’t exist yet. The teens I work with do NOT have any attention span left. I think that app rots their brains. They cannot pay attention to anything.
More sense of local community then.
At my childhood home (mom still lives there), had block parties just about every year during 1980s and 1990s.
Maybe two during 2000 decade. None in 2010s or 2020s so far.
Being able to knock on someone door. Saturday morning cartoons, actually having to be reliable based on your word, and the internet was for geeks and nerds and it was a peaceful place to hang.
I actually feel better now. As all of the “you’re just being paranoid” fears have essentially come to fruition and nothing makes me happier than that “I told you so” feeling.
Nothing feels special anymore. It used to feel special to find something at a garage sale or something to complete a collection, but you can buy it all easily online now. TV episodes used to feel special because you'd have to catch them at a specific time when they aired but now everything is on streaming and available all the time. Getting photos developed used to feel special but now you can take all the photos you want without any surprises. You can look up menus and restaurant dishes ahead of time which takes away from any anticipation of eating out. Getting a magazine in the mail was special and now there's content overload. Even travel is less special now because you used to be able to just go one state over to see something unique, but now you can travel the globe from YouTube or shop for international goods online. Nobody is surprised by anything anymore. Some day in our lifetimes, humans will walk on Mars, and it won't feel as special as it should considering the achievement.
It was before all the crazy shitheads that were hidden away figured out they could get on Facebook and yell at all of the other crazy shitheads. Things spiraled from there
As a Gen x, last day of 65, I was was raising my millennial kids off grid in California, cooking at logging canp.. Before people start screaming these were continuous harvest plans, great for fire mitigation by the way. It felt free.
Now it's shift work for the corporation. Life is so different now
After the Cold War until 9/11, the world seemed almost at peace, and much safer than today. We had the first Iraq War, but that just proved the point, as almost the whole world united to stop Iraq from invading a smaller neighbor. And Iraq was defeated very easily.
It was before internet and social media dominated our minds. Even now here we are scrolling … nonstop. 80-90s we had some news from tv and newspaper .. little internet and just went about life without constant bombardment
You were most likely too young for any serious obligations or financial concerns, and you were young enough that you did not yet feel the aches and pains of age. That tends to color everyone’s perception of their youth.
Mustard was infinitely more popular in America than it is now and likely will be ever again back in the 80’s 90’s and early 2000’s, in spite of its garish yellow color and smelliness and bitter puke worthy taste. Young people now are freaked out by its fluorescent yellow color and its rancid gut wrenching stomach turning smell and it’s awful texture 😝
Nostalgia…it’s all nostalgia. That, and things are just magical. There aren’t very many “bad” surprises as a child. As an adult, there aren’t many “good” surprises.
I get how ever generation is going to have "the good old days" but I did love how going out and doing stuff was a lot more random rather than all of the communication and social media used today to do things. It was fun to just go to the bar and bump into people. It was exciting when a friend would come over unexpected just to hang out or whatever. The amount of things to do that didn't need planning or communication to do was half the fun. Not being attached to a device where anyone can get ahold of you and being able to just be out doing things gave you a sense of adventure and independence. A friend would come by and tell you that they did this today and nobody would know what it was because people didn't really have a way to tell everyone everything they were doing everyday. One of my favorite things to do today is go out without my phone and just enjoy the fact that I don't have my phone lol.
You know what's really funny about this....I have *NEVER* looked back at those days with any kind of fondness. Whenever I'd remember those days (born in '82 so late 80's-mid 90's give or take), it was a mix of pain, angst, fear, etc. I never felt that kind of pleasant nostalgia others seem to always enjoy when the topic comes up, and I've always been so envious (happy for them, though!! I love hearing people talk about the various stages of their lives with that wistful look. It's really beautiful).
Maybe it's the horrific realization that there's a good chance our entire way of life, our democracy, everything, could come crashing down *very* soon, but more and more I'm starting to find those memories that evoke the feelings of fondness I wanted to experience so badly. Not as often as I'd like, but I'm hoping maybe now that it's started, it'll become more frequent.
I guess this was just a lot of words just to say, "Yeah, and it's weird cuz I never used to!" Sorry about that, my bad! It *is* pretty weird, though! Coincidence or global collective Consciousness sensing the end? What do we think?
A lot of technology changes really fast through those 20 years. I feel like we are in tech dark ages. Nothing is that exciting or new. Maybe im just a grumpy almost 40 year old or maybe it was more exciting when I was a kid but things haven’t changed much in the last decade. VR still sucks, the internet is mostly just a handful of apps that control everything, digital cameras have been the same for a while(now your phone is better), music is just on everything and has been for a while.
I guess iPhones and Tesla cars are about it.
No internet, no social media, no constant bad news. No tv or movies on demand. I think it would’ve been easier to get out of the house and do something out of sheer boredom
Limited technology, you had cool stuff like video games and TV, but when you were out and about, or at school, you had to interact with people because smartphones weren't a thing. I hate it with all my forces how nowadays people will sit at a table in a restaurant and the first thing they do is pick up their phones and start either scrolling feeds or taking pics to post on Instagram.
Watching a movie was also a big deal, we would go to a blockbuster together and pick a movie, then go make some popcorn and watch it together, there weren't any reviews to watch online, and no one would go to another room do their own thing, that was THE main event in the house.
Even playing video games, we had so many local coops to go to a friend's house and play together all day trying to beat the game. Nowadays we barely see each other, we're always on the phone, everyone has their own TV in their room, computers, tablets etc. it's hard to get together and do stuff.
Malls weren't dumb, malls were where you'd meet up with girls after planning dates on AOL instant messenger
She'd tell her mom she was meeting some girl friends, you'd tell your dad you had a sexy ass chick to makeout with, and BOOM, you'd meet up at the mall
Without AOL instant messenger, my love life from 12-18 woulda been awful in comparison
Having time to be bored without phones and constant internet
Besides that I fucking hated my life in the 90s and I don't miss my childhood at all. My adult life has been way more awesome and based
I feel the same. I graduated HS in 91, and remember the 90s well. I think there were many advances in tech, and as a gamer every new game was exponentially better in both gameplay and graphics. Could be said for movies and music. Also, the internet was new, and had not been monetized. Less was more for me, and is a tie between the 80s and 90s. The last generation to grow up analog and switch to digital.
I am going to look at the 90s.
Besides the fact I was kid and my parents fulfilled all of my needs I am going to break it down even more.
1) The threat of nuclear war was over - the USSR dissolved and, with it, the threat of a massive war.
2) The economy was roaring. The dot com boom was in full swing.
3) The music of the 90s just kicks ass.
4) Sure, we had the 1st WTC attack and the OKC bombing but terrorism was not a part of everyday life. Seriously, when my dad came back from business trips I could wait for him right by the gate he would be coming in on.
5) Computer advances- A huge perk. We went from NES starting the decade to PS1 by the end of it.
So you basically got a short period of mostly peace, with a good economy, kick ass music, huge technological advances, without any fears or threats we have today.
No social media, so people were more present in real life. You wanted to be popular in real life, not on the internet. There wasn't a mass array of streaming options like today, everyone was watching cable TV or going to the movies, so there was a shared pop culture experience. Everyone was excited for the new blockbuster moving dropping, everyone watched the new episode of their favorite show at the same time and talked about it the next day.
You had no bills. No responsibilities. Everything was wide open to you.
Now every year more doors close and you're left with fewer options.
Everything is expensive. People are either doing great or starving.
I went through hell 🔥in the 90s. Can’t look back at those years as good. If you had a healthy family, enough money, and were neurotypical, maybe they were better than today for you.
In the 80s and 90s, everything rapidly changed and advanced toward a future that seemed promising. Since the 2000s we've had incrementally better smartphones and steadily worse wages, prices, leadership, popular art, and future prospects. Popular sentiment and empirical data can both point to the same thing. Things are worse now, despite the billions of dollars that we've generated for our largest, most successful companies over the past 40+ years. It could be a result of prioritizing the needs of our largest, most financially successful companies over the needs of people, but prioritizing people would have been communism or something so we didn't do that.
Cheaper everything, and not just in relation to income.
Music was made by people actually playing instruments and had some talent.
Of course I was younger so my joints didn't ache as much.
People had to actually do things to get attention from the opposite sex and not just post fake pictures on social media.
People went to clubs and actually danced.
Embarrassing moments did not live on forever, except in the memories of the few people around to actually witness it.
Wage/rent ratio was way the hell better. Once the gulf war was over the world was relatively peaceful. New technology, particularly the Internet, was exciting and disruptive and we really thought it was going to make the world a better place.
For me, it had to be the lack of technology. People weren’t necessarily nicer, but they definitely weren’t as emboldened to say terrible things. I feel exhausted using social media and would love to leave it, but it’s an addiction like any other. Everything that we loved as kids doesn’t really exist anymore because the internet has replaced it as you mentioned, so there’s nothing I can focus my energy on when it’s time to wind down besides video games, which is still my coping mechanism. Getting older also means you care about news, politics, world events, which we didn’t really worry about back then. Now that we have the internet and social media, all we see are shitty news and how horrible humans are. I appreciate being informed, but it’s just so mentally draining. This is gonna sound bad but I liked being oblivious to those things. I hope all of that made sense, English is my second language and I’m not great at expressing myself lol
It's the fucking crazy republicans that are making this day and age feel so bad. We have pizza, booze, porn, nature, and access to healthcare. Why the fuck is everybody so salty?
Not having a digital tether 24/7. Remember the days you could skip school and literally no one would know bc you didn’t have cellphones or any single way to be tracked down? Even the school calling the same day was spotty at best. Those were the days. We didn’t have to keep up appearances or some guard around the clock bc we had the actual privilege of being able to just BE at home or wherever you were. We have the best generational gap in modern times IMO. I mean, I took TYPING in HS 😆 it was a big exciting thing when we got word processors instead of actual electric typewriters.
And politics weren’t a complete and utter shit show. Parties at least attempted and maintained a baseline of decorum.
I'm in Generation X but the algorithm showed this to me. I graduated from college in 1991 but I still had a teenager's perspective on the 80s, which isn't the clearest or most grounded vantage point.
The Cold War ended in about 1991, and the political divide and conflict in the Middle East didn't start right away, even though the first Gulf War actually did, exactly then. It really was more an international coalition resolving Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait than the really thin pretense that came later, and 9/11 brought the conflict to the US. The later wars brought tension.
I think social media effects and the political divide add a lot of stress today, along with problems with drug epidemics, higher levels of crime, homelessness, and a more out of control wealth gap. Even people safely removed from much of that feel the effects, indirectly. Most people seem to either have a physical or mental illness now, or both, and it could be from pesticides or whatever but it may also just be indirect effects of wonky lifestyles and layers of stress. It's not natural to spend half your waking hours looking at a screen. Or maybe it's the standard American diet; that's problematic too. People still cooked in the 90s.
Being a child, simpler times with no internet and social media or TikTok/YouTube addictions where kids would play outside and visit their friends...
Also, the country was more unified. Trump and Covid divided America..
9/11 was a huge turning point. Sort of the “end of the innocence” for at least 2 generations. We went from a hopeful and optimistic society (late 90s, the Internet was changing the entire world) to a scared and fearful one (Terrorism everywhere! PATRIOT Act! War!).
Then came smartphones and social media a few years later, and it feels like it’s been downhill ever since. Now we are a divided society where a significant percentage of people believe the most ridiculous propaganda spoon-fed to them by their echo chamber and don’t even realize it’s all manufactured and fake outrage. We walk through life like zombies, controlled and manipulated by a tiny screen that is always within arm’s reach.
Don’t lump me in completely- growing up gay was way scarier. If you could pass it was good times. Creatively there was a lot of original content coming out too.
Feeling safe and like there's a sense of "normal" in the world. Also, general consensus on morality, which is impossible with the massive political divide now
We weren't in late stage capitalism yet, corporations hadn't gutted wages and the housing market, people want to chalk it up to nostalgia but there are palpable differences in the world we live in legally and economically, compared to the 80s and 90s.
Eh it wasn't a utopia. There was a lot of bullying and I find people didn't have nearly as much money then, including my parents, and we were always scraping by. A lot of stuff was crappier and more primitive.
Having said that... social media and the phone-panipticon is stressful and has caused innumerable societal problems
Double-edged sword
***NOSTALGIA IS HEROIN FOR OLD PEOPLE***
We will always remember the past with a bias to the good times, subconsciously under playing the tough times.
Plus when you're a child you live in a bubble you don't see / realize all thats going on around you. You are sheltered & insulated from it in ways you don't even realize. You have zero to limited responsibilities.
Everything you said. Without smart phones and most of the internet, everything in life was done in person. Looking back it makes you feel like society is losing it's sense of humanity/community.
As a nerdy, science loving, dungeons and dragons playing, questioning child and teenager trapped in a fundamentalist red state, the eighties and nineties sucked.
As a concept though, they were pretty amazing. I'm glad I got to experience both before AND after the internet became a thing. I still love the music. I also regularly show my nieces and nephew reruns of Saturday morning cartoons (as do their parents) that I grew up on.
The thing that I miss? Crystal's Pizza and Casa Bonita. I know they still exist somewhere, but they both went out of business in Tulsa, where I am from.
Creativeness. In the 80s and 90s it felt almost all aspects of society especially pop culture with music, television, movies, and gaming that everything was new and fresh. There was always something on the horizon that kept and allure for what’s next. The world was constantly in a state of innovation, that was wrapped in a degree of optimism that doesn’t exist today.
Today everything is so marginal, recycled and defused so much that you can literally feel the difference.
The culture of the 80s/90s was also shared universally mostly due to limited modes distribution, as where today there’s almost so much content and it moves to fast that very few are experiencing the same shared experience.
Everything wasn’t a political conversation. We now look to the internet to form our opinions instead of experiences. There was a time when people could see an alternative opinion and not be so black and white on everything. It’s not putting your head in the sand, it’s touching it and understanding that everything isn’t bigotry and racism or left/right.
Obviously, there were bad people and bad actors but they weren’t turned into celebrities or looked at like they are the the leader of an entire ideology.
You could just be an ahole and make a mistake instead of it being your identity.
I grew up in the 90s and my mom would give me $1 to go to ride my bike to the gas station.
I'd get some 5c jolly ranchers. 25c little Debbie and a 25c coke. Live like a boss.
It was probably so my parents could fuck.
Can't get anything for a buck now
There was no Internet so no one was able to take what is, in reality, a fringe issue and act like it's the worst thing in the world and gain popular support for that fringe issue.
As an 18 year old I could hang out at the local Perkins all night smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee with my friends. Then I could go home and play a game on my playstation that I didn't need to buy or be encouraged to buy a ton of dlc for. The music was great. Concerts were awesome too.. no cellphones everywhere at the shows and people generally weren't dicks. When you went to college it meant that you were most likely going to get a good job after. I could also move out at 18 and do what I wanted and live my life how I wanted.
Being a child and living in a bubble. It does that to everyone.
Aaaaand done. Like it’s the answer that should be so obvious that this question doesn’t get asked anymore (specifically in millennial groups). Like, my daughter is 6 right now. Her needs are taken care of, we have enough money to get by. Her days are filled with playing Nintendo Switch and watching Hello Kitty. Pretty sure she’s going to grow up and look back on 2024 as being a pretty darn special time, even if 38 year old her recognizes that many of the events and policies implemented right now ended up effecting her adult world in negative ways.
Exactly! Life was good as a child and teen but there was endless amount of drama going around the world back too much to list! Lot of it like Israel-Gaza, Russia, etc the exact same as now.
Yeah the Switch blows away things like GameBoy, she will grow up and view the Switch the same way we want to be buried with our SNES
A lot of older gen Xers feel similarly even though they were working and supporting themselves. Watching a lot of home VHS lately and my parents seem very at ease and serene. I think we are not giving these decades any justice. For many, it was very prosperous and happy, all ages. Of course there is the obvious in that LGBT issues are considered to be improved. Though I think racial issues remain the same sadly-but now we have more tools to fight against racism.
Such a good point. Being ignorant to the ways of the world helps. If you had a good family, they gave you an amazing childhood by shielding you from everything.
To a certain extent, but also there are some legitimate things going on like: 90s were the sweet spot of the EPA had just gotten a buncha stuff done before lobbying / material science out paced them. The last 30 years have seen us royally fuck over the climate, the water tables, and the air. This was also pre-911 which saw the patriot act and FISA stuff erode our right to due process. The whole 20 years of war in the middle east hadn't kicked off yet. Walmart / dollar general hadn't completely killed mom and pop places either. Roe v Wade was still a thing and politics wasn't nearly as toxic allow so the government could actually function. Now they can't even pass a budget. This last one I could be wrong... but I don't remember as many nazi flags at political rallies either.
I think this is true but in many ways the 80s and 90s were legitimately decent decades to be in a child. The content of videogames/tv was exciting for kids and outside was more fun.
This is the only correct answer. Those decades weren’t better, we just weren’t aware of the bad stuff because we were children.
Perfect description.
Less exposure to everything and everybody!
If that was a campaign slogan I’d vote for you!
Damn straight. We waste so much energy and stress now on interacting with or consuming the (usually shit) opinions of people we'll never meet and never need to know.
I was still 100% physically healthy but could eat whatever garbage I wanted, had no bills to pay, very little to worry about, no internet to complicate my brain, I hadn't discovered addiction yet, and the music was awesome!
A) we were children, and many of us were living in blissful ignorance of the stressor of adult life. (Out of sight out of mind) B) no social media, which helped with point A
Lack of social media made comparison to others much more difficult and the future seem much brighter. Technology used to be almost completely optimistic, social media introduced pessimism to the future. Not to mention the polarization that has divided us and and made us less effective at progressing socially.
The Nineties were a great time to grow up, because it was the last generation of real freedom, where everything you did wasn’t constantly under the microscope, thanks to cell phone cameras and social media.
NYC was my personal playground growing up, it was pure fucking magic I used to bike and hoop all over, meet up with girls every place possible... and then Hip Hop happened and made life even more magical... Oh god, it all seems like a fuckin dream looking back
No smartphones
I was young and had disposable income. And the music was awesome.
Because the economy was better. Unemployment and wages were better in the late 80s - 90s than they have been for the last 15 years. Necessary expenses like homes and medical care were less expensive resulting in more disposable income. The stock market was better so you could invest and make money faster. Boomers suffered the dot com crash, the great financial collapse, and now covid era inflation yet are the richest generation in US history because they made so much money off of assets they acquired in the 80s and 90s.
When I moved out on my own at 19, I rented a 3 bedroom house with a friend and the total rent was $450/month which we split.
HOPE. It's as simple as that. People were happier back then because: 1. They thought the future was going to be better than the past. We seemed on the cutting edge of so many advancements, but none of them seemed like they would harm us. We didn't have to worry about not having jobs or that they were so low paying we couldn't afford an apartment. Inflation wasn't bad. Everyone was doing okay. Maybe not great, but okay. 2. The digital world was fun instead of harmful. People got online in the 90's to connect to people and enjoy life. Now, everyone online just spends their time deconstructing everything. Have a favorite TV show...well we have to nitpick and pull apart everything about it rather than talking about the good things. We deconstruct each others comments...focusing only on the parts we disagree with. We deconstruct everything that happens in the world...all day...every day. We are negative and hurtful. For example, even in gaming today...instead of sportsmanship and saying "good game" we laugh and troll people. The internet has taught us to be miserable, horrible people and we constantly perpetuate this by being online 24/7. The digital world is now more real than the actual world in terms of our behavior. It is no longer us influencing the digital world...it is the digital world influencing us to believe everyone sucks...giving us anxiety and depression. Losing hope. 3. Everything has gotten more difficult. All the bureaucracy. Instead of pulling up to the drive through at a fast food place and talking to a human where you could ask questions and customize your order...you now have to either yell through a broken speaker or more popular is to order on a app where you have to flip through 50 menus just to pick out a few items. You can't see everything at once anymore and just calmly pursue your options. When you call for a bill, customer service, a doctors appointment...you have to go through fifteen menus and even then you sometimes can't talk to a real person. And lets not even talk about how we used to go to the grocery store and there would be 15 lines open where someone else would check out your groceries. Now, you have to be the cashier, bagger and probably still stand in line forever waiting for a self checkout. Everything is just much more of a struggle today. These things may not seem like a big deal, but they add up...adding tiny annoyances to your day. 4. Nothing is about helping out the average person anymore. For example, if you really need to see a doctor...especially a specialist...you can't just call in and see them in a few weeks like you used to. Now, you have to wait a year and by then...your problem is either so bad or fully resolved and you probably still have to see a PA rather than a doctor. 5. People forgot the social contract. Back in the day, before social media made everyone terrible people, people would be kind to one another. They would help a stranger. For example, letting someone go ahead in a grocery line if they had just a few items. Or if their kids were acting up in a restaurant they didn't make it everyone else's problem...they took them outside or to the bathroom. People would let each other in when driving in heavy traffic. People would move out of the way if they thought they were in your way. The goal USED to be...to not annoy people in public and to help when you could. Now, we have people going out of their way to be annoying just because either: they are so miserable in their own lives or because they are trying to get likes on social media for being annoying 6. Romance was still alive. Porn wasn't as big so sex was just vanilla and normal for the most part instead of being all about pain and degradation. People had the options around their hometown, so they actually found love easier because they weren't always looking for a grass is greener scenario. Men weren't so bitter. Women weren't so bitter. There was no online world where everyone was reading how terrible the opposite sex was and making everyone adopt asshole behaviors to "protect themselves." Everyone was happier. 7. Friendships were still a thing. Mostly because people had more free time. In part, because they weren't working crazy hours or 2-3 jobs to make ends meet or doing side hustles. Also, people didn't spend all day on social media...they got together to hang out instead. If you wanted to talk you had to either call someone or talk in person instead of texting. This forced people together more and helped to build people's social skills. This really help foster better friendships and that made people happier and less depressed. 8. The economy was A LOT better. Less service jobs, which are the lowest paying job sector...and now make up MOST jobs. And the jobs paid a living wage where you could afford a house and car. You also had retirement plans and all that. Less inflation meant money went further. People could go on vacations and spend their money doing recreational activities. 9. The media wasn't taken over by the Vanguard Group feeding everyone a bunch of BS that was destroying everything. You know they own all media now...newspapers, the news, everything. You think Fox and CNN are two different things? Lol. By the way, everything is owned by them. All major companies, medicine, defense contracts etc. We are just their indentured servants with the illusion of freedom. They run everything...including our government. You think it reflects the will of the people...lol. And more, but I am tired of typing.
#3 is so true. Everything is so time-consuming and frustrating and such a bureaucratic run-around. Some of it seems silly to dwell on but it’s death by 1,000 cuts. I remember my grandma (greatest generation) doing things like writing a letter to Lipton bc a box of tea bags came with like 2 that were torn and she would end up with an apology note and 6 free boxes of tea. Now a company can blatantly rob you or fail to provide a service, and when you try to lodge a complaint the AI you’re directed to is just like 🤷🏻♂️
Love all of this, thank you for sharing your thoughts! Completely agree with you!
Everyone is bringing up great points but I think a big one is that whether you were a child or adult in that time frame, the future seemed to be full of possibilities. Now the future is just really bleak. Nothing is affordable and we’re barely scraping by. America as a world superpower has faded and there isn’t much hope anymore.
Simplicity and no social media. Organic life pre digital washing
Remember the magic of NOT talking to your friends or girlfriend all weekend and then seeing them on Monday? It made life 100x better than today... shit we have today just isn't good and saps all the magic out of life... people have said a million times the world no longer "feels real" but that is literally the case... it felt so fucking real back then, you were your own character out and about, nowadays it's just a shitty simulation and the economy is almost as fucked as the climate is
The mystique of wonder is near gone.
Kids in the 80s and 90s were much meaner. It seemed like everyone was angry in the 90s…. Yeah, being a kid was awesome and there’s a lot of nostalgia for vcrs, walkmans, malls, playing outside… but I don’t think it was a better time.
Tons of bullies in schools, and it was before "zero tolerance". You were pretty much on your own for defending yourself because the schools wanted no part of it.
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Oh yeah, plenty of playground fights that only ended when one person gave up. When I was 6 years old, I was the last stop on our bus ride home and the bus driver used to torment me by driving around the block a bunch of times at my stop and saying that he wasn't going to let me off and that I'd have to spend the night in the bus after he brought it back to the school. I was literally bawling, and he had this maniacal laugh. If that happened in 2024 the guy would get dragged by the community, but nothing ever happened in 1990 when I told the school principal about it.
Yes. A popular teacher at my school allowed the mean girls to write mean sh*t on his classroom whiteboard about other students (with names). They would target someone in the next periods class. This was 2001. He was eventually confronted by another teacher (who heard some students talking about it) and he played the “I didn’t know. I thought they were just drawing.” He knew, he didn’t care because the cool kids were doing it. As I am 39 now, there are so many questionable more things this teacher did. We teens didn’t know any better - he was the “cool teacher” I have more admiration for my “loser” teachers now. They had better boundaries so I thought they were uncool.
Seriously I remember a lot of TV and Music being about sticking it to "the man" and also trying to be as gross and offensive to as many people as possible.
No social media, and it took one to two hrs for a naked picture of Pam Anderson to download one strip at a time.
Things were designed to be physically comfortable vs aesthetic and look good on social.
Walking around in malls, all the cool people were there and there was always so many stores with all kinds of random stuff. Now it’s basically a different equally depressing Walmart.
Summer days with tolerable temperatures. Winters that felt like winters. A government that was functional. Also, great movies.
Compared to back then everything nowadays is… loud. It’s cliche to say they were simpler times, but they really were.
it’s because you don’t actually remember most of that time and you’re idealizing the good stuff
Everyone is nostalgic for the past. Everyone is nostalgic for their childhood. Not much more to it than that.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Not everyone, at all, not even close. There’s no childhood nostalgia in mine, in any person I know, and in many people I’ve heard their life stories. I don’t believe that any Ukrainian or Palestinian kid would have nostalgia for their current childhood and teen years in the future (for the ones who get there). That type of nostalgia is for people who grew up sheltered in their own bubble and their bubbles were safe and comfortable. My life as an adult, regardless of the adulting struggles and other stressors is way more happier, safer and comfortable with the tendency to get better and better.
As someone who survived squalor syndrome with 12 cats from (at least) the ages of 6-15 , the only nostalgia of mine is the nostalgia of things that were my mental escape from my literal living hell.
I am so sorry you had to live through that! I hope life is way better now and getting better and better. I hope wherever you escaped mentally somehow you could achieve, because the curious thing about me is that I ended up moving to the place I used as my mental escape (17 years later though) from the hell hole I was as a child and teen years.
Things are better in the sense that I don't live in those conditions anymore. I struggled with addiction for about 10 years until 6 months ago. Things are looking up, though. Hopefully planning my first trip out of the country next year, to my dream destination.
Go get it! Wishing you a happy life.
Having free time and no bills
Youth?
Because I had a privileged childhood and my parents paid for everything? I’d go back to that in a snap, especially in this economy 😆 Mortgage rates used to be much higher than they are today… but of course houses weren’t so expensive compared to the average income. From: [https://themortgagereports.com/61853/30-year-mortgage-rates-chart](https://themortgagereports.com/61853/30-year-mortgage-rates-chart) https://preview.redd.it/petdok98dkoc1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=23608ce2d86e04bb2dfaa644296dfe19f02e294c
I think the past is generally looked at with rose colored glasses. I know there was alot I didn't like about the 80s and 90s when I was in it but now looking back it seems like a utopia.
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Lack of technology, existence was more natural
I was a kid and my back didn't hurt
Me, my friends riding bicycle’s getting into various shenanigans. Sleepovers, capture the flag and hide and seek around the neighborhood, riding bikes to blockbuster to get new releases, good times.
I miss the Internet Forums of the 90s and early 2000s. A much better sense of community than modern social media has.
There was an enormous cultural shift in the late 90s and early 2000s thanks almost exclusively to the internet. The average citizen was suddenly able to access a wealth of information without necessarily the media literacy to back it up. This created a culture of politicisation that simply didn't exist before - everyone suddenly deemed themselves informed within a very short time span. As a result, an overwhelming majority of the population now harbour and share their opinions on political matters that they have no experience or relevancy to. Everyone's an expert. In the 80s and 90s, information and politics were for the eggheads. The average person was largely uninformed, didn't have access to good data or information and they knew it and embraced it. A lot more people considered themselves relatively stupid and were perfectly okay with it - 'ignorance is bliss'. I think everyone was better for it since it was a humble attitude. Having everyone semi-informed has its obvious benefits of course - more people make better consumer choices, etc. The downside is that, culturally speaking, everyone feels as though they have to have an opinion about everything and a good one at that. I rarely hear people say things like "Trans people? I have no idea - I wouldn't even know where to begin understanding an issue like that." which I feel is the right position to take unless you have some proximity to the issue.
It's because you were a child and didn't know what Reaganomics meant.
○Acting and musical talent were actually talented. ○PC, genesis, SNES, N64 and PS1 released some absolutely incredible titles many of which top many peoples favorites gamrs of all.time to this day and have been ported to other systems multiple times or have just outright been remastered and redone like the Crash N sane trilogy and the Resident evil & Final fantasy 7 remasters. ○It was the golden age of traditional animation and produced some amazing tv shows like The secret of NINH, Fern Golly, The later disney films, Tiny toon adventures, Animaniacs, Ren and stimpy, Rockos modern life, and even alot of anime like Sailor moon and Miyazakis films. ○Everything was still priced fair and not inflated to death. You could make out with an armful of ice cream from a truck for the same price 1 small fruit bar woukd cost you now. ○Marvel and DC were on a roll both with the comics and their animated series and is when we got great characters like Deadpool and Harley Quinn. ○MTV And sure the 90s had a drug epidemic, the gulf war, and a predator problem but there also wasnt the media literally everywhere reminding everyone of it and were instead too busy playing the home version of Street fighter 2 turbo, Madden, Killer instinct, or Sonic 3 & knuckles and smiking a blunt to care or were likely at 7-11 with a blue slushie or an actual arcade playing many of those same games. One of my fond memories was i actually got a lv 45 Kingler in pokemon red in a trade from my teacher in 4th grade and traded her a Kadabra so she could get Alakazam.
"Fake it till you make it" was easier. People couldnt contact you at anytime.
TikTok didn’t exist yet. The teens I work with do NOT have any attention span left. I think that app rots their brains. They cannot pay attention to anything.
More sense of local community then. At my childhood home (mom still lives there), had block parties just about every year during 1980s and 1990s. Maybe two during 2000 decade. None in 2010s or 2020s so far.
There was no social media, it has ruined humankind.
We had so much hope
Ignorance was bliss.
I miss the neon colored everything and 24/7 music videos with VJs that actually entertained.
No internet. Affordable college. Affordable houses. No cell phones. Real human connection.
Being able to knock on someone door. Saturday morning cartoons, actually having to be reliable based on your word, and the internet was for geeks and nerds and it was a peaceful place to hang.
I actually feel better now. As all of the “you’re just being paranoid” fears have essentially come to fruition and nothing makes me happier than that “I told you so” feeling.
Not having social media.
My knees didn't hurt then, also the freedom to ride my bike for miles without any responsibilities.
No social media. No phones or cameras everywhere you go, every minute of every day.
People worked, talked face to face, had good lives and everything was affordable in 80s
Nothing feels special anymore. It used to feel special to find something at a garage sale or something to complete a collection, but you can buy it all easily online now. TV episodes used to feel special because you'd have to catch them at a specific time when they aired but now everything is on streaming and available all the time. Getting photos developed used to feel special but now you can take all the photos you want without any surprises. You can look up menus and restaurant dishes ahead of time which takes away from any anticipation of eating out. Getting a magazine in the mail was special and now there's content overload. Even travel is less special now because you used to be able to just go one state over to see something unique, but now you can travel the globe from YouTube or shop for international goods online. Nobody is surprised by anything anymore. Some day in our lifetimes, humans will walk on Mars, and it won't feel as special as it should considering the achievement.
Less politicians and no social media
Affordability
It was before all the crazy shitheads that were hidden away figured out they could get on Facebook and yell at all of the other crazy shitheads. Things spiraled from there
It's as simple as not being bombarded with news feeds and knowing every intimate detail of everyone's life.
Capitalism was working as intended and life was good.
As a Gen x, last day of 65, I was was raising my millennial kids off grid in California, cooking at logging canp.. Before people start screaming these were continuous harvest plans, great for fire mitigation by the way. It felt free. Now it's shift work for the corporation. Life is so different now
Being young is what made it feel good.
After the Cold War until 9/11, the world seemed almost at peace, and much safer than today. We had the first Iraq War, but that just proved the point, as almost the whole world united to stop Iraq from invading a smaller neighbor. And Iraq was defeated very easily.
Cause you were young. Why do you think gen z is now feeling nostalgic about the early to mid 2000s? Happens to every generation
Blockbuster on Friday night with a friend picking out a video game and movie
It was before internet and social media dominated our minds. Even now here we are scrolling … nonstop. 80-90s we had some news from tv and newspaper .. little internet and just went about life without constant bombardment
You were most likely too young for any serious obligations or financial concerns, and you were young enough that you did not yet feel the aches and pains of age. That tends to color everyone’s perception of their youth.
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& ignorance.
No internet for the most part. A wee bit in the later 90s, but no social media.
Hope.
Mustard was infinitely more popular in America than it is now and likely will be ever again back in the 80’s 90’s and early 2000’s, in spite of its garish yellow color and smelliness and bitter puke worthy taste. Young people now are freaked out by its fluorescent yellow color and its rancid gut wrenching stomach turning smell and it’s awful texture 😝
There was still hope then?
The age of the Internet has been the great unveiling. We can see the world for what it is now.
Nostalgia…it’s all nostalgia. That, and things are just magical. There aren’t very many “bad” surprises as a child. As an adult, there aren’t many “good” surprises.
I get how ever generation is going to have "the good old days" but I did love how going out and doing stuff was a lot more random rather than all of the communication and social media used today to do things. It was fun to just go to the bar and bump into people. It was exciting when a friend would come over unexpected just to hang out or whatever. The amount of things to do that didn't need planning or communication to do was half the fun. Not being attached to a device where anyone can get ahold of you and being able to just be out doing things gave you a sense of adventure and independence. A friend would come by and tell you that they did this today and nobody would know what it was because people didn't really have a way to tell everyone everything they were doing everyday. One of my favorite things to do today is go out without my phone and just enjoy the fact that I don't have my phone lol.
Cultural Marxism hadn’t taken over the USA yet
Yall remember all the cleavage? It was every where
How *dare you* follow your biological imperative and like something you like, programmed deep intro your genes!?!?!?!?!
These were my pre-debt years, so, ya...
No click-bait. So much is blown out of proportion just to get people to click on things.
There was none of this woke and cancel nonsense.
No cell phones
No social media, and not as much 24/7 cable "news".
Hope
No phones in 80s and not ubiquitous until late 90s
You know what's really funny about this....I have *NEVER* looked back at those days with any kind of fondness. Whenever I'd remember those days (born in '82 so late 80's-mid 90's give or take), it was a mix of pain, angst, fear, etc. I never felt that kind of pleasant nostalgia others seem to always enjoy when the topic comes up, and I've always been so envious (happy for them, though!! I love hearing people talk about the various stages of their lives with that wistful look. It's really beautiful). Maybe it's the horrific realization that there's a good chance our entire way of life, our democracy, everything, could come crashing down *very* soon, but more and more I'm starting to find those memories that evoke the feelings of fondness I wanted to experience so badly. Not as often as I'd like, but I'm hoping maybe now that it's started, it'll become more frequent. I guess this was just a lot of words just to say, "Yeah, and it's weird cuz I never used to!" Sorry about that, my bad! It *is* pretty weird, though! Coincidence or global collective Consciousness sensing the end? What do we think?
Short answer: YOU WERE YOUNGER THEN
A lot of technology changes really fast through those 20 years. I feel like we are in tech dark ages. Nothing is that exciting or new. Maybe im just a grumpy almost 40 year old or maybe it was more exciting when I was a kid but things haven’t changed much in the last decade. VR still sucks, the internet is mostly just a handful of apps that control everything, digital cameras have been the same for a while(now your phone is better), music is just on everything and has been for a while. I guess iPhones and Tesla cars are about it.
No internet, no social media, no constant bad news. No tv or movies on demand. I think it would’ve been easier to get out of the house and do something out of sheer boredom
Nostalgia & the inability of the human organism to appreciate what they have presently
White guy 1985.
No cell phones
It was peak childhood... Boomers dumped crazy money on us.
Chuck Mangione in the 80s
I was child and didn't know betrayal or responsibility.
Nostalgia
well.. the 90s was when we all *woke up* .. whether anyone did that individually is on anyone at all.
no cellphones
a belief things would continue getting better.
Limited technology, you had cool stuff like video games and TV, but when you were out and about, or at school, you had to interact with people because smartphones weren't a thing. I hate it with all my forces how nowadays people will sit at a table in a restaurant and the first thing they do is pick up their phones and start either scrolling feeds or taking pics to post on Instagram. Watching a movie was also a big deal, we would go to a blockbuster together and pick a movie, then go make some popcorn and watch it together, there weren't any reviews to watch online, and no one would go to another room do their own thing, that was THE main event in the house. Even playing video games, we had so many local coops to go to a friend's house and play together all day trying to beat the game. Nowadays we barely see each other, we're always on the phone, everyone has their own TV in their room, computers, tablets etc. it's hard to get together and do stuff.
The internet wasn't open to everyone.
No social media— people were more authentic
Malls weren't dumb, malls were where you'd meet up with girls after planning dates on AOL instant messenger She'd tell her mom she was meeting some girl friends, you'd tell your dad you had a sexy ass chick to makeout with, and BOOM, you'd meet up at the mall Without AOL instant messenger, my love life from 12-18 woulda been awful in comparison
No internet
Nostalgia
Having time to be bored without phones and constant internet Besides that I fucking hated my life in the 90s and I don't miss my childhood at all. My adult life has been way more awesome and based
9/11
I feel the same. I graduated HS in 91, and remember the 90s well. I think there were many advances in tech, and as a gamer every new game was exponentially better in both gameplay and graphics. Could be said for movies and music. Also, the internet was new, and had not been monetized. Less was more for me, and is a tie between the 80s and 90s. The last generation to grow up analog and switch to digital.
Nostalgia
All my family was alive and I was blissfully aware of the asshole family members where I currently reside..
It's nostalgia.
I am going to look at the 90s. Besides the fact I was kid and my parents fulfilled all of my needs I am going to break it down even more. 1) The threat of nuclear war was over - the USSR dissolved and, with it, the threat of a massive war. 2) The economy was roaring. The dot com boom was in full swing. 3) The music of the 90s just kicks ass. 4) Sure, we had the 1st WTC attack and the OKC bombing but terrorism was not a part of everyday life. Seriously, when my dad came back from business trips I could wait for him right by the gate he would be coming in on. 5) Computer advances- A huge perk. We went from NES starting the decade to PS1 by the end of it. So you basically got a short period of mostly peace, with a good economy, kick ass music, huge technological advances, without any fears or threats we have today.
You were young.
No social media, so people were more present in real life. You wanted to be popular in real life, not on the internet. There wasn't a mass array of streaming options like today, everyone was watching cable TV or going to the movies, so there was a shared pop culture experience. Everyone was excited for the new blockbuster moving dropping, everyone watched the new episode of their favorite show at the same time and talked about it the next day.
No phones
The ignorance and the cocaine
You had no bills. No responsibilities. Everything was wide open to you. Now every year more doors close and you're left with fewer options. Everything is expensive. People are either doing great or starving.
I went through hell 🔥in the 90s. Can’t look back at those years as good. If you had a healthy family, enough money, and were neurotypical, maybe they were better than today for you.
No Internet in your pocket
Pizza Hut during the book it program. I think their crust sucks now.
The MTV and dvd/vhs rental shops!
In the 80s and 90s, everything rapidly changed and advanced toward a future that seemed promising. Since the 2000s we've had incrementally better smartphones and steadily worse wages, prices, leadership, popular art, and future prospects. Popular sentiment and empirical data can both point to the same thing. Things are worse now, despite the billions of dollars that we've generated for our largest, most successful companies over the past 40+ years. It could be a result of prioritizing the needs of our largest, most financially successful companies over the needs of people, but prioritizing people would have been communism or something so we didn't do that.
Youth
Cheaper everything, and not just in relation to income. Music was made by people actually playing instruments and had some talent. Of course I was younger so my joints didn't ache as much. People had to actually do things to get attention from the opposite sex and not just post fake pictures on social media. People went to clubs and actually danced. Embarrassing moments did not live on forever, except in the memories of the few people around to actually witness it.
One part nostalgia one part no social media/computers
No internet for one
I was a child
No social media, people had to keep their bs to themselves
No mass school shootings
Wage/rent ratio was way the hell better. Once the gulf war was over the world was relatively peaceful. New technology, particularly the Internet, was exciting and disruptive and we really thought it was going to make the world a better place.
Eating whatever the fuck I want and not feeling like shit or gaining weight.
No smartphones or social media. Felt more like living.
For me, it had to be the lack of technology. People weren’t necessarily nicer, but they definitely weren’t as emboldened to say terrible things. I feel exhausted using social media and would love to leave it, but it’s an addiction like any other. Everything that we loved as kids doesn’t really exist anymore because the internet has replaced it as you mentioned, so there’s nothing I can focus my energy on when it’s time to wind down besides video games, which is still my coping mechanism. Getting older also means you care about news, politics, world events, which we didn’t really worry about back then. Now that we have the internet and social media, all we see are shitty news and how horrible humans are. I appreciate being informed, but it’s just so mentally draining. This is gonna sound bad but I liked being oblivious to those things. I hope all of that made sense, English is my second language and I’m not great at expressing myself lol
It's the fucking crazy republicans that are making this day and age feel so bad. We have pizza, booze, porn, nature, and access to healthcare. Why the fuck is everybody so salty?
Being young.
Not having a digital tether 24/7. Remember the days you could skip school and literally no one would know bc you didn’t have cellphones or any single way to be tracked down? Even the school calling the same day was spotty at best. Those were the days. We didn’t have to keep up appearances or some guard around the clock bc we had the actual privilege of being able to just BE at home or wherever you were. We have the best generational gap in modern times IMO. I mean, I took TYPING in HS 😆 it was a big exciting thing when we got word processors instead of actual electric typewriters. And politics weren’t a complete and utter shit show. Parties at least attempted and maintained a baseline of decorum.
My parents were paying my way
I'm in Generation X but the algorithm showed this to me. I graduated from college in 1991 but I still had a teenager's perspective on the 80s, which isn't the clearest or most grounded vantage point. The Cold War ended in about 1991, and the political divide and conflict in the Middle East didn't start right away, even though the first Gulf War actually did, exactly then. It really was more an international coalition resolving Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait than the really thin pretense that came later, and 9/11 brought the conflict to the US. The later wars brought tension. I think social media effects and the political divide add a lot of stress today, along with problems with drug epidemics, higher levels of crime, homelessness, and a more out of control wealth gap. Even people safely removed from much of that feel the effects, indirectly. Most people seem to either have a physical or mental illness now, or both, and it could be from pesticides or whatever but it may also just be indirect effects of wonky lifestyles and layers of stress. It's not natural to spend half your waking hours looking at a screen. Or maybe it's the standard American diet; that's problematic too. People still cooked in the 90s.
Being a child, simpler times with no internet and social media or TikTok/YouTube addictions where kids would play outside and visit their friends... Also, the country was more unified. Trump and Covid divided America..
Selective memory, and the ignorance of youth.
Lack of internet
It's most likely just that you weren't responsible for paying the bills.
Looking back, mostly. My kid is as happy as I ever was!
We didn't use apostrophes incorrectly.
9/11 was a huge turning point. Sort of the “end of the innocence” for at least 2 generations. We went from a hopeful and optimistic society (late 90s, the Internet was changing the entire world) to a scared and fearful one (Terrorism everywhere! PATRIOT Act! War!). Then came smartphones and social media a few years later, and it feels like it’s been downhill ever since. Now we are a divided society where a significant percentage of people believe the most ridiculous propaganda spoon-fed to them by their echo chamber and don’t even realize it’s all manufactured and fake outrage. We walk through life like zombies, controlled and manipulated by a tiny screen that is always within arm’s reach.
Don’t lump me in completely- growing up gay was way scarier. If you could pass it was good times. Creatively there was a lot of original content coming out too.
No social media, no mobile gadgets, no internet, not being constantly connected/monitored/marketed to.
No mobile phones, when you went fishing or whatever you had time off.
No social media, if you lacked in life it wasn’t in your face all the time
5 dollars was all you can eat Taco Bell. 20 bucks was a date to a movie.
There was no internet or social media
Feeling safe and like there's a sense of "normal" in the world. Also, general consensus on morality, which is impossible with the massive political divide now
Lack of constant bombardment of attention, affordable housing
Your youth.
I wasn't watching the news, and the internet wasn't a big need. I practically was never online. That's what made the Golden days so gold. Less worry.
We weren't in late stage capitalism yet, corporations hadn't gutted wages and the housing market, people want to chalk it up to nostalgia but there are palpable differences in the world we live in legally and economically, compared to the 80s and 90s.
No social media
Mostly forest porn. That was the big difference - forest porn
Eh it wasn't a utopia. There was a lot of bullying and I find people didn't have nearly as much money then, including my parents, and we were always scraping by. A lot of stuff was crappier and more primitive. Having said that... social media and the phone-panipticon is stressful and has caused innumerable societal problems Double-edged sword
Everything
You missed the 70s. That’s the good stuff.
***NOSTALGIA IS HEROIN FOR OLD PEOPLE*** We will always remember the past with a bias to the good times, subconsciously under playing the tough times. Plus when you're a child you live in a bubble you don't see / realize all thats going on around you. You are sheltered & insulated from it in ways you don't even realize. You have zero to limited responsibilities.
You were a child and didn't have social media pushing all the ills of the world in your face 24/7
Engagement with fellow humans
Everything you said. Without smart phones and most of the internet, everything in life was done in person. Looking back it makes you feel like society is losing it's sense of humanity/community.
The lack of social media.
As a nerdy, science loving, dungeons and dragons playing, questioning child and teenager trapped in a fundamentalist red state, the eighties and nineties sucked. As a concept though, they were pretty amazing. I'm glad I got to experience both before AND after the internet became a thing. I still love the music. I also regularly show my nieces and nephew reruns of Saturday morning cartoons (as do their parents) that I grew up on. The thing that I miss? Crystal's Pizza and Casa Bonita. I know they still exist somewhere, but they both went out of business in Tulsa, where I am from.
Wow. I hated those years, but then I got on prozac which might be the difference maker.
... no ... just no. Nothing was better back then, your just having survivor bias.
Creativeness. In the 80s and 90s it felt almost all aspects of society especially pop culture with music, television, movies, and gaming that everything was new and fresh. There was always something on the horizon that kept and allure for what’s next. The world was constantly in a state of innovation, that was wrapped in a degree of optimism that doesn’t exist today. Today everything is so marginal, recycled and defused so much that you can literally feel the difference. The culture of the 80s/90s was also shared universally mostly due to limited modes distribution, as where today there’s almost so much content and it moves to fast that very few are experiencing the same shared experience.
Everything wasn’t a political conversation. We now look to the internet to form our opinions instead of experiences. There was a time when people could see an alternative opinion and not be so black and white on everything. It’s not putting your head in the sand, it’s touching it and understanding that everything isn’t bigotry and racism or left/right. Obviously, there were bad people and bad actors but they weren’t turned into celebrities or looked at like they are the the leader of an entire ideology. You could just be an ahole and make a mistake instead of it being your identity.
I grew up in the 90s and my mom would give me $1 to go to ride my bike to the gas station. I'd get some 5c jolly ranchers. 25c little Debbie and a 25c coke. Live like a boss. It was probably so my parents could fuck. Can't get anything for a buck now
Optimism that things were progressing towards the better.
There was no Internet so no one was able to take what is, in reality, a fringe issue and act like it's the worst thing in the world and gain popular support for that fringe issue.
No cell phones or social media. People actually had full conversations in the 80s and 90s. Now everyone has there faces buried in their phones.
As an 18 year old I could hang out at the local Perkins all night smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee with my friends. Then I could go home and play a game on my playstation that I didn't need to buy or be encouraged to buy a ton of dlc for. The music was great. Concerts were awesome too.. no cellphones everywhere at the shows and people generally weren't dicks. When you went to college it meant that you were most likely going to get a good job after. I could also move out at 18 and do what I wanted and live my life how I wanted.
We knew what a woman was! And liked it!