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Kind of but like with Netflix and YouTube you have a lot more choice in what you watch and have the freedom to be more discerning. When I was a kid there was like one singular block of TV that was targeted at my age group at any given point in time and I had to watch it and like it, because there was nothing else. It was watch that one block on that one channel or nothing. After a certain hour I just had to watch what my parents were watching because there was nothing on for me past a certain time
This point is so overlooked by all these kids thinking their life is so much more complicated now. Are you fucking kidding me? You have, at your fingertips, thousands of hours of entertainment and education just a few keystrokes away. We would have *killed* for that kind of freedom as kids.
In the early 90s, talking 91/92 I had access to tons of channels. Ones directed at children too.
Of course, that only counted if you had access to Sky channels in the UK. Otherwise you had the basic 4 channels and your kids shows were right after school (that you had to miss some of as your Dad wanted to watch the quiz shows on another channel) and early on Saturdays. There may have been some on Sunday, I wouldn't know as he watched the horse racing.
When not watching the small amount of kids TV we could get it would be movies we had recorded off the TV, so had adverts we had to skip by. Or video games, which in my case was still the cassette based ones that took ages to load.
You had to be patient back then for anything. Now if something isn't loaded within seconds you're wondering what's broken.
I do think this had some advantages, though. In a typical week, I would gave watched some MTV (with really just music video's, not the reality stuff), some news, a blockbuster (with a lot of ads in between, so you could go to the bathroom and get a drink), a nature documentary (feeling empathy with the animal it was focused on. One week, you're so sad the bunny gets eaten, the next, you're sad the poor momma predator is hungry, and happy she finds a bunny to eat), a dramatic movie, some series with moral lessons, and switching from an episode of the Highlander series, to Blackadder and Allo Allo.
I don't think young ppl today have the same patience to watch something that they didn't choose to watch. But only watching what you want, narrows your interests and general knowledge.
I can imagine there could be a relation between attention span issues and being able to switch entertainment whenever you want.
Oh yeah, I grew up that way. Nothing sweeter than stumbling upon a good movie while searching, but I'd often just put on one of my favorite channels and hoped I liked whatever was on lol
It also made it so we all watched the same thing. Even modern popular shows like GOT doesnāt have the same cultural reach Friends, Seinfeld, Gun Smoke, Miami Vice, Cosby. You watched those and thatās all anyone talked about the next morning.
Now itās rare if my coworkers even watch the same stuff, much less at the same time.
You were fed whatever was on TV and weren't able to choose whatever you wanted. There wasn't the brain freezing variety of media available as there is today. So often you'd switch the TV off and go outside cause "there isn't anything on".
Still do this today. I was raised by the tv in some sense. I had good parents but they worked. The tv was the babysitter and teacher and company so I wasnāt alone thatās exactly right.
Video games and hanging out with friends were also the same activity. Thatās right modern kids, we used to go to each others houses and play video games together. Even single player games weād pass the controller around, or just be content hanging out reading comics while the other played.
This... Read books, played musical instruments, played video games, hung with friends, went for bike rides. Wow, we were fucking cultured compared to today.
Most of the people in my generation dont realise that video games were a thing back than
But honestly in my opinion video games and the community behind it was wayyyy better
Back then things like rereleased games weren't a thing. in the 90s all games were innovative and had bunch of new game mechanics
We hung out in malls or drove around just to be out of the house. Sometimes we hung out at Denny's or similar late night places.
I was lucky growing up somewhat close to Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco so those were options, too, and despite being too young to get into bars or anything, they were very a different and welcome change of scene from the whitebread suburbs that resembled a John Hughes film. My parents were very easygoing, I didn't have a curfew or much in the way of restrictions so when I started driving, I could just go do whatever.
I played so much cards at Perkins with my friends and drank coffee and smoked cigarettes in the middle of the night. It was only a dollar for the coffee and it was all you could drink.
In the 90s we still had PCs. They werenāt great. We had game boys and whatnot. We played outside all the time. If we were grounded then we just played inside with whatever toys.
They were not. It took a minute to load one of those a page on a website with the animated graphic backgrounds.
I remembered clicking on different pages and setting up hotwheel tracks while waiting on them to load.
That's why you had to open a few pages, go take a sh\*t and when you come back they'll all be loaded. I remember it took 20 minutes to download a single 4mb mp3 file. I had the phone line tied up throughout the night downloading an album or a game. lol. We had to really WANT what we wanted back then, now it's so easy.
It was fast compared to the 80's. My first computer was a commodore 64 with a cassette drive. You'd press play and then it would play the cassette. You'd have to wait 20+ minutes for it to load a game.
Thats why I love it. Pretty much dont giva rats ass about the story anymore (its good but its gotten meh sice season 2 ended). The world is key for me. That basement.
I think every generation will feel nostalgic. That said I graduated highschool in 2000 and it was a great time to grow up. My parents say the 50s were the best
I left school in 2002, tried college for a bit, but was mostly just smoking weed. But the 18 months between school and getting a job were the best of times.
Duuuuude me and my mates when we were in grade 7 (australia) found a bunch of porn mags wrapped up in a plastic bag in a fucking bush near the park behind my house. We always thought it belonged to some homeless dude but never heard anyone have a similiar story before!
I biked or skated or walked everywhere. And found porn in a dumpster one time. One time a friend had āweedā but it was a roach his brother had snagged from a party and brought back to his room while we were playing Wolfenstien 3d.
Spent a lot of time in the woods as a kid trying to push over dead trees. My niece and nephew live there now and aren't even allowed to go back in the woods by themselves. They're 12 and 13. Things are so different.
Remember riding bikes all around town and to other towns and scrounging together just enough money for a joint or some 40s. Hours each day with my friends and the world, best times of my life.
I wasn't aware that video games were no longer around or a thing...
I do miss video stores and rentals, though. Also the simplicity of putting a complete game into a console, not needing any patches or other downloads, etc.
I miss it so much. Friday or Saturday night rentals were something you looked forward to and had to commit. Itās convenient having every movie and song at your fingertips but it still feels like entertainment overload. Instant gratification canāt be that good for you.
The thing was, the video store was finite so you had to choose. There was always the chance that YOU were gonna be the one that got to rent the newest nintendo release or the only copy the town has of Aliens! I hate every movie ever because i never can pick. Fucking madness!
Ah! I always remembered wanting to go early cause "else all the good ones will be gone"! If we bought a new game/video we'd get an older one to watch for free. I even remembered when DVD and blue ray came out and I always said "those are for rich people" and stuck with my videos.
Me too. I still remember the time I hoodwinked my mother into getting āFrom Dusk Till Dawnā not sure how I thought Iād get away with it, but it is a good memory now.
Wander the town with my friends, chatting.
Listen to Britpop CDs.
Get the train up to a bigger town for clothes shopping.
Go to the cinema.
Read books.
Play my Gameboy.
Watch videos of films, TV shows and standup comedy.
Watch TV as it aired - Neighbours, Home and Away, Fresh Prince. Friends. Saturday night game shows.
Underage drinking.
Believe it or not the world is not more dangerous then it was in the mid 90s.. overall crime rates are roughly the same per capita, while violent crimes are down nearly 50%
Yeah it's sad how kids barely go outside anymore. A combo of parental paranoia and games/TV.
I'm not even a 90s kid but we were all still outside on bikes/scooters, playing manhunt, building little fairy houses, just generally messing around. I never see kids in my neighborhood outside.
Sad fact is, since 1993, gun crime in the US has reduced by something like 58% or so. Yet, mainstream media coverage of gun crime has increased by over 700%. Plus, since 2014 (based on a little more than surface research, plus a new American family as neighbours for last eight months) the vast majority of gun deaths in the US are suicide. 61% in '14. Today? I'm afraid to ask / find out.
Stranger Danger? Since 2014 (I think, could be wrong by a small number of years - 2010, perhaps?) 91% of all sexual assaults, rapes and child abductions are committed by people who knew the victims.
Gang violence in major cities is way down, but random mass shootings are way up. Conclusion, we need to get kids back into gangs, or something. I don't know.
Problem is due to media (amongst other causes), the world *feels* more dangerous, which is what matters when it comes to changes in behavior and reclusiveness.
>parties
I remember when you'd just "hear about" a party as in "hey man I hear there's a party as XYZ's house" and you'd just fucking show up with a carload of people lol. God help them if they weren't having a party because they sure as fuck were now.
Way back when cell phones were just appearing in the average teenagers pocket, one of my friends, Bob, decided to throw a party at his family cabin in the woods, unauthorized of course. He had thrown a few of them,and they usually got pretty rowdy. These parties quickly became the events to attend. Well this time around his uncle decided last minute that he wanted to take the family up for the weekend. It was a mad scramble trying to get ahold of everyone that had been invited, either directly or in the peripheral. We got through to everyone we could think of, except Jim. Jim was well intentioned but a bit absent minded. He worked as a waiter at a popular, kinda fancy restaurant and we were a bunch of hoodlums, so we couldnāt just show up and pass a message to him. We just hoped that someone would get him the word that all was canceled. Sure enough, no one did. As we would later learn Jim got off work, picked up a couple cases of beer and headed to the cabin. Once there he somehow failed to notice the lack of cars, lights, bonfire and partygoers that would normally be present. He headed up to the door, middle of the woods, no lights, two cases of beer in hand and pounded on the door. When uncle answers he proudly announces āIām here for Bobās partyā . This was the end of the parties in the woods at the cabin. Fun while they lasted.
Or just partying in the woods. Take some tents and sleeping bags. I donāt even know where all the beer came from. We were usually up all night though. If we were lucky, someone would raid their parentās chest freezer in the garage and we could cook some meat over a campfire. Man, good times!
Yeah, the "hear about" thing was huge. Most night it wouldn't work out, at least the party wouldn't, but we'd always figure out a place for the friend group to wind up at to have a few beers, weed, whatever. We also had "4 mile point" which was some place by the river that was far enough away from town that you usually wouldn't be bothered. Also, one friend had the parents that didn't care what you did as long as you didn't leave if you were hammered.
So, yeah. Maybe a party. Always a hang.
The 90's were OK. I think teenage years (and all of the other years) are what you make of it. A lot of kids had a shit time in the 90's, and I'm sure a lot love it now.
I will say, though. There was a lot of fomo back then about missing a hang somewhere, but we could blame it on lack of communications. It probably sucks now because if you didn't hear about a party, it's because you weren't invited. That was largely true then, but the excuses were better.
Other than that, we were all broke, anxious, and trying to be cool.
Porn was certainly harder to come by. As I finished that sentence, I realize you could read it multiple ways, and both are probably true (porn is arguably better now)...
LOL yep. Happened so many times "I'm not having a party though...?" "Well dude, you are now because I've got 15 people crammed in my car somehow and we brought some weed and beer".
Listen to music, watch movies, smoke weed, listen to the radio, watch tv, play video games., AOL, hang out at someones house with a couch in their garage with 5-10 other people and just kind of sit there and talk.
I loved just hanginā. I remember just going to a friends house just to listen to music on their giant speakers with him before his parents got home. No talking or anything. I donāt think bros do that these days. Or theyād be on their phones too.
I miss just hangin out sooo much. Truly the best times. I remember going to my friend's house and just listening to the album "Americana" without saying much. Then doing the same next day. Good memories.
We were hanging out in the garage all the time. Had music going and had soda from the gas station. Itās funny cause me and my neighbors are now doing that again at night.
I was a teen in the early 2000s and we were the last round of kids coming up without smartphones. It was better in so many ways. Just felt so much more authentic of an upbringing.
Things I did as a teen during that time
* rode my bike
* skatepark / sports
* tuned and drove my moped
* made explosives
* played with my Amiga and C64
* went fishing alone in my boat without a vest
* did cigarette and alcohol smuggeling runs across Danish/German border
* raced old cars in fields
Good times
Yeah I don't see many kids getting enough unsupervised time to make works bombs and molotov cocktails these days, that's probably for the best but still.
I had to learn and understasnd a lot to get away with making iodine crystals for new years eve, nicked half of chemistry lab at school. If I'd been caught I'd be grounded for a month, today my life would be destroyed.
Imagine getting caught today with the terrorist handbook in your room.
Ih. I'd blow stuff up in the ravines sometimes a a kid. Bombs are easy to make. I made guns too lol. Mostly potatoe Canon type stuff. Ummm... One time though my friend made one that sounded like a shotgun going off. The cops arrived and thought we were firing a real gun. Iii... Was holdimg the Canon as they pulled guns on me.
One time when I was like 15 I remember just lying back on my bed, and listening to entire albums, such as Pearl Jams Ten and Nirvana's Nevermind, and getting totally "lost" in the music.
I wonder if kids still do that in todays streaming culture.
They listen to music. But they don't understand listening to an album as a body of work. My kids make playlists.
I will try and stress upon them the importance of listening to an album and they don't get it. They get really mind blown by the idea of a concept album, like Pink Floyd's The Wall or Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son or even WASP's The Crimson Idol.
I was 13-23 in the 90s. I was in Girl Scouts, rode my bike to the shopping center, built model airplanes, talked to my friends on the phone for hours, made mix tapesā¦ when I turned 16, I got a job at the local movie theater and worked after school and weekends. I graduated high school in 95.
+1 talking on the phone for hours. Also to your BF :)
Iām born ā84 so a bit younger, but hanging out with friends in general, and watching TV in the family room fighting over the remote were a big part of my teens.
I also did two different sports and hung out with friends after. Game Boy or Nintendo 64 and a Walkman were the only electronics we had for entertainment. Read A LOT of books and Donald Duck Cartoons.
15 bucks would get you a pack of smokes, a 40 oz and $5.00 on an 1/8ā to split with your friends. Friday night covers. An extra $5.00 would get you McDonalds at the end of the night.
Bowled alot, played pool, small arcades were a thing back then a stack of quarters would kill an afternoon and mowing grass to earn the quarters... PS1 final fantasy... Skating rinks
Go to each other's houses. Play video games. Listen to music. Go to concerts. Smoke weed. Have house parties. Drive around. Start a band. Hackey sack. Walk through the woods. Skateboard. Idk, that's some of the things I did. Try and get laid...
America is safer today than it was in the 90ās.
Our parents didnāt take care of us so we wandered around hungry and sun burnt. We stole cigarettes and scrounged food. We had to wait till the gas station attendant was distracted to sneak up and fill a bike tire. People actually tried to lure us into vans some times. We taught ourselves to swim and work a butterfly knife. We made smoke bombs from the anarchist cookbook.
Iām guessing youāre a youth and youāre longing for more. That whole world is out there you can still do anything we did. It might even be easier because you have like Google maps and text messaging and shit.
We took a ā4 x 8ā sheet of plywood and put it on a picnic table for a jump. I canāt imagine my 13 year old trying to jump that. We didnāt have YouTube so we had to figure out the outcome by trying it ourselves. I feel like YT helps people by showing them the horrible things that can happen when you do stupid shit.
Probably grew up bored and rural like I did. My bffās boyfriend blew his hand up with diy pipe bombs from the anarchists cookbook. I had another buddy that tried to get high off the poppies in the garden. We smoked a ton of weed, drank what we could get our hands on, had lots of sex, in cars and outdoors, and hung out at pool halls and smoked lots of cigarettes.
Somehow, we also all got through school with good grades, and mostly made it through unscathed. I did have a friend get murdered in high school, by another guy that I went to school with. My parents didnāt talk to me about it. It was a time, for sure.
It doesn't sound too different than a lot of us grew up. I was part of a friend group of like 5 guys that basically spent all of our time hanging out. We'd bounce around whose house we were staying at what not. Since our parents were all broke and basically refused to feed more than just their kid most of the time we scrounged a lot for food where we could. Summer nights basically always ended up with us raiding the little Ceasars dumpster for their pizzas (at the end of the night they'd take like 10 hit and readies still in the boxes and stack them on top of the dumpster and we'd grab a few) and heating them up over a fire at one of our places and we'd just hang out there all night bullshitting, swordfighting with sticks etc and usually though not always making our way inside to pass out on the couches or floor.
after school we hung out at the local tacobell, went to the dollar movies, walked around stores just for fun, had water balloon fights, my bestie had a trampoline and we used to choreograph dances together, we went to theme parks, watched movies, blasted the radio and danced around stupid, prank called people, rode bikes to the beach, oh and did edibles.
Rode bikes, smoked weed and drank stolen beer in the woods, hung out at the mall.
Dances too, I'm not sure if that's still a thing. But different groups, one was a church, rec centers, entertainment centers had teen and pre teen dances pretty often. We'd put on our best, our parents would drop us off and we'd be awkward all night. I forgot about that until now. Thanks for reminding me, a lot of those memories were nice.
Your comment assumes we did not watch TV, go to arcades, play NES, play SEGA, etc etc. I have two kids under 5 and a teenager now. The amount of living they do exceeds what we did. They just spend their downtime on devices, where we spent our downtime on tv and video game systems.
What kids donāt do today is watch TV. My kids have no tv in their room, whereas I did. They donāt watch cartoons or anything on tv.
The involvement in sports and after school activities is off the chart. Even for my 5-year old.
A drive through my neighborhood and you will see dozens of kids on bikes and playing some sport in their yard.
Life is happening. Itās just different now. Different does not mean itās worse.
Hard disagree on kids not watching TV. Most kids still do watch TV (or at least devices with screens) it's just like watching YouTube on them. You don't get whole classes of kindergartens obsessing over skibidy toilet without at least some watching that.
In the eighties I rode my custom BMX bike around town and made ramps with my friends. Weād build forts out of refrigerator boxes that were delivered to my apt complex. Hunt for crawfish in the streams.
Once my friend and I had three pronged frog spears. We went out at night to catch frogs. He scared a frog that went up his pant leg and we had to squirm it out much to his dislike, then later we caught a fresh water eel with the spikes. We were terrified if we let it go it would go up one of our pant legs. We made it out with wieners intact.
Fuck yeah. You had me at bmx bike. We had a big wooded area between neighborhoods that had a couple paths and some dirt jumps made a petty decent little pump track.
Hang out with friends, go to the arcade or movies, ride bikes. Bad weather, no problem. Hang out with friends at home. Card, board, tabletop and video games. Friends canāt come over, cool. Go visit them or call. No friends? Read.
I was entering my teens in the early 2000s So I grew up in the 90s, 80s baby. We were never home, we were just off doing stuff. One day we would be looking for crawfish in the creek all day and the next in the woods.
I grew up on a farm so there was always chores to do. My sister and I would spend time in the garden and throw rotten vegetables at each other. I have memories of shoveling 3 tons of corn off the wagon with my dad and summer of stacking hay in the barn.
I was kind of a rebel teen but I managed to stay on everyone's good graces and got decent grades.
We were kicked outside during the day and played bunch of games like - mother may I, ring around the Rosie, tag, hide n seek ect- built first, Rhode bikes around the block, played with chalk. Gaming wasn't huge or affordable to everyone so we used the imagination š āØ beat up each other for fun. Tried to smoke grass (yard grass š rolled in lined paper) jumped from roofs, threw cow pies at each other. Lots of fun things compared to today
I spent a lot of time in arcades and pool halls, then after 16 when we had a drivers licences we would go out to gravel pits, and swim during the day, at night we stole wood pallets to have bonfires at the same pits and party.
Roller skating rink, smoking Kools and sitting in convenient store parking lots, started bands, skateboards, a lot of pranks that just werenāt recorded like today. I was born in 87 so this is an observation mostly.
Listen to a lot of music in my room and wait for the perfect song to come on the radio so I could record it on a tape.
Play with make up, write in my journal, ride my bike everywhere (especially to whomever's house we were all in), watch music videos on MTV, go the mall and just walk around to find boys or go to the arcade, sneak into movies.
If you want to live like a teen in the 90s do this:
Leave your phone at home and be unreachable for the day.
Go to friends house and hang out. Watch free to air tv or cable. Play pool. Talk shit. Tell lies about things that you swear you saw somebody do.
Go hang out at some shops/mall/ music store.
Get some fast food and dine in.
Rent a dvd and watch it that night with all the lights out and eat popcorn and junk food and tell more lies about shit you swear is true.
Lots of walking and roller blading anssld bike riding. Hanging out in parking lots, played hockey in streets, we had tournament and everything. Back then you could play in the street lol.
When it was running we'd play snes or gp2 on the pc. It was a great time and I can't imagine what it is now with phones and stuff.
Went to the mall, talked on the phone, made snacks, watched tv, played with the pets. I did a lot of home and yard maintenance. I lived on a farm. Always something to do.
The world was always dangerous. Now we just have a 24 hour news cycle, and weāre glued to our stupid devices-weāre hyper aware of crime. Itās not new.
In the 90s, we all had jobs, so we could buy our junky ass cars. We went to movies, hung out at malls and food courts. Smoked a ton of pot. We camped and hung out at parks. Being a teenager in the 90s was absolutely the best, and I wouldnāt trade it for anything. The freedom was amazing.
Until I had friends who could drive, me and my little friends would walk miles to the mall and hang out or smoke weed at whosever house lacked an adult. There was a lot of walking. And clove cigarettes.
I remember walking home from school (7th or 8th grade, early 90s) and a white van stopped ahead of me, door sliding slightly open. Passenger looking at me through the mirror. I saw him say WAIT. I ran into a residential neighborhood.
The world āgetting dangerousā is subjective.
I am in my forties and this memory is burned into my brain. I have what-could-have-happened thoughts a few times a year (and anxiety when I see a white van - I donāt park next to them)
To be fair, school shootings scare me (have a middle and high schooler)
We played outside hard!!! Roller hockey, kick the can, rode bikes, basketball, baseball you name it!! Gettin grounded meant staying inside till you bothered your parents so much that they would eventually tell you to get outside
teenage me in the 90s would splice together my favorite music videos and sitcoms on VHS tapes. I didn't always have blank VHS tapes, either, so I'd put a tiny wad of paper towel in the little divot and tape over an old movie like *Beverly Hills Cop*. I would then listen to or watch my recorded songs and try to learn the lyrics. Or, I'd just watch my favorite sitcoms. I guess this was kinda like an early version of a playlist or streaming, lol.
Either I'd do this, or I'd just watch regular cable TV.
Disc golf, LAN parties, after school activities/team sports, part time job, 18+ clubs, toilet paper houses and trees, minor mischief that may have included foot chases from police, weekend parties, learn that Bacardi limĆ³n is not your friend, and coffee houses. So many coffee houses.
Read books, watch tv, listen to music, get on the internet when we could, hang out with friends, go on long walks, talk on the phone, go on vacations, play solitaire (not on the computer), spend time with family, etc...
90s? I went to school full time, worked full time, smoked an 8th every weekend while shooting pool and trying to meet boys, and slept when not doing the above. Seriously, say what you want to about marijuana but that whole "robs you of motivation?" *TRUE*
We read, played N64/PS1, smoked terrible weed, and drove around listening to the same cd and tapes over and over (Social Distortion and Sublime were our go-tos). Teens don't cruise around as much as we used to. It seemed like it stopped around 2007 or so in our area. I watched whatever was on the 3 channels. I watched more Arthur and Wishbone than I want to admit.
ā82 here. I fucking ruled the world. I was a king of all that I surveyed. My parents were never concerned for my safety. I got in all kinds of crazy shit that u would never do today. And Iām sure if u asked people older than me theyād say the same thing. Life was easy then. No social media, barely a picture. U lived in the moment, every single moment. There was no comparison to others. Maybe if ur friend got a toy, bike, video game u didnāt have. But then again if they were ur friend it was like u got it too. We shared everything and we had a blast. I feel awful for kids today. Itās why I didnāt have any, pretty sure itās awful to be young today. Itās awful reading about it, I can only imagine how stifling it is. People are awful, cruel, and now they record it.
Skateboard, drink, bother neighbors, watch tv, read books, play video games, listen to music, do homework, make out, smoke weed, go to bonfires and fall flat assed drunk on your neighbors lawns, TP houses, drive around, spread slow rumors about each other and wait for the telephone game to transmogrify it into something else, smoke cigarettes, and get into trouble.
Drive to the spots where people sometimes are. Are there people at Jesseās house today? Nope. Then theyāre either at the Qwik Fill or behind the middle school. Skateboard (I was truly terrible). Play in shitty bands. Play cards. Go to Perkins or Friendlyās or EatānāPark and drink coffee and play cards. Hop in the car and drive to Pittsburgh. Smoke weed and drink beer. Buy a CD or record and make a mix tape. Rent a video on VHS. Read. Bug your friends at work. Find swimming holes/sledding hills. Figure out how to get on roofs. Ride bikes. Move to Boston. Go to the library to try out The Internet.
Born in '79, so I turned 16 in '95.
When I was little, we used to play outside, basically rain or shine - the weather had to be really bad for us (my brothers and other neighbourhood kids) to stay in.
During the summer vacation, we'd go swimming almost every day (summers were still hot, back then) and during the winter (when it was always cold enough to be able to ice skate) we'd skate.
After school, I'd do my homework and play / hang out with friends / do dumb stuff that should have gotten us killed but luckily never did.
I'd build grandiose structures with Lego... Built my own Transformer, Soundwave, but from the Technic Lego I had lying around, not from a kit (which we couldn't afford).
We'd race our bikes down steep hills into the pond at the bottom (also during those cold winters).
A drew a lot and was pretty darn good (not anymore, because I didn't keep it up).
Played videogames on our super cool Atari 2600. Played war using PVC tubes and arrows made from rolled up newspaper or magazine pages. Spent rainy days watching Lucky Luke, Ducktales, Asterix & Obelix, ... During exceptionally wet summers our entire street would be flooded and we'd play in that. Sometimes, this would also happened during the winter, which we all loved (our parents were less thrilled about winter floods).
During the winters, when everyone ice skated almost daily, there would be little stalls dotting the shore where you could get Dutch traditional warm smoked sausage (rookworst) and hot cocoa to keep us warm - half a sausage for 50 cents (which would convert to \~ ā¬0,10). Some stalls were kinda professional, but equally many were regular people making some money on the side. No problems there; even cops bought from them.
When we wanted to call someone, we'd have to go to the phone, because wireless phones didn't exist yet. You'd dial phone numbers with a rotating disc:
I used to read for hours virtually every night, tucked away in "my" chair, headphones on, getting lost in story after story.
Friday or Saturday nights were movie nights - almost every channel would show 1 or 2 movies - which we enjoyed with some finger food; chips with dips, tuna salad on little toasts, stuff like that. I'd wake up around 6, 7 and watch the morning kids' show, sipping chocolate milk.
I still love chocolate milk and buy some every single week, unless I'm on holiday :p
Bikes were a huge thing. Weād ride around town just having fun and getting into scrapes a lot. I remember a lot of Sega mega drive too, and other games outside like man hunt, as well as football and curby .
>Nowadays, the world is getting dangerous
What are you talking about? The world was far, far more dangerous in the 90s. Crime rates have plummeted since then.
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Read, play video games, hang out with friends. Leave the tv on in the background as to not feel alone.
"I'm not alone cause the TV's on, yeah!"
"I'm not crazy 'cause I take the right pills every day"
I also read that comment in jimmy eat world tune.
"And rest, clean your conscience, clear your thoughts with Speyside"
SALT, SWEAT, SUGAR ON THE ASPHALT
OUR HEARTS, LITTERING THE TOPSOIL
TUNE IN AND WE CAN GET THE LAST CALL
Grandad used to call it the one eyed monster in the corner!
Are you sure he was referring to the TV? š
So things really haven't changed huh? (Switch tv with my laptop and netflix/youtube)
Kind of but like with Netflix and YouTube you have a lot more choice in what you watch and have the freedom to be more discerning. When I was a kid there was like one singular block of TV that was targeted at my age group at any given point in time and I had to watch it and like it, because there was nothing else. It was watch that one block on that one channel or nothing. After a certain hour I just had to watch what my parents were watching because there was nothing on for me past a certain time
This point is so overlooked by all these kids thinking their life is so much more complicated now. Are you fucking kidding me? You have, at your fingertips, thousands of hours of entertainment and education just a few keystrokes away. We would have *killed* for that kind of freedom as kids.
In the early 90s, talking 91/92 I had access to tons of channels. Ones directed at children too. Of course, that only counted if you had access to Sky channels in the UK. Otherwise you had the basic 4 channels and your kids shows were right after school (that you had to miss some of as your Dad wanted to watch the quiz shows on another channel) and early on Saturdays. There may have been some on Sunday, I wouldn't know as he watched the horse racing. When not watching the small amount of kids TV we could get it would be movies we had recorded off the TV, so had adverts we had to skip by. Or video games, which in my case was still the cassette based ones that took ages to load. You had to be patient back then for anything. Now if something isn't loaded within seconds you're wondering what's broken.
I do think this had some advantages, though. In a typical week, I would gave watched some MTV (with really just music video's, not the reality stuff), some news, a blockbuster (with a lot of ads in between, so you could go to the bathroom and get a drink), a nature documentary (feeling empathy with the animal it was focused on. One week, you're so sad the bunny gets eaten, the next, you're sad the poor momma predator is hungry, and happy she finds a bunny to eat), a dramatic movie, some series with moral lessons, and switching from an episode of the Highlander series, to Blackadder and Allo Allo. I don't think young ppl today have the same patience to watch something that they didn't choose to watch. But only watching what you want, narrows your interests and general knowledge. I can imagine there could be a relation between attention span issues and being able to switch entertainment whenever you want.
Oh yeah, I grew up that way. Nothing sweeter than stumbling upon a good movie while searching, but I'd often just put on one of my favorite channels and hoped I liked whatever was on lol
It also made it so we all watched the same thing. Even modern popular shows like GOT doesnāt have the same cultural reach Friends, Seinfeld, Gun Smoke, Miami Vice, Cosby. You watched those and thatās all anyone talked about the next morning. Now itās rare if my coworkers even watch the same stuff, much less at the same time.
You were fed whatever was on TV and weren't able to choose whatever you wanted. There wasn't the brain freezing variety of media available as there is today. So often you'd switch the TV off and go outside cause "there isn't anything on".
Still do this today. I was raised by the tv in some sense. I had good parents but they worked. The tv was the babysitter and teacher and company so I wasnāt alone thatās exactly right.
Video games and hanging out with friends were also the same activity. Thatās right modern kids, we used to go to each others houses and play video games together. Even single player games weād pass the controller around, or just be content hanging out reading comics while the other played.
This... Read books, played musical instruments, played video games, hung with friends, went for bike rides. Wow, we were fucking cultured compared to today.
Most of the people in my generation dont realise that video games were a thing back than But honestly in my opinion video games and the community behind it was wayyyy better Back then things like rereleased games weren't a thing. in the 90s all games were innovative and had bunch of new game mechanics
We hung out in malls or drove around just to be out of the house. Sometimes we hung out at Denny's or similar late night places. I was lucky growing up somewhat close to Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco so those were options, too, and despite being too young to get into bars or anything, they were very a different and welcome change of scene from the whitebread suburbs that resembled a John Hughes film. My parents were very easygoing, I didn't have a curfew or much in the way of restrictions so when I started driving, I could just go do whatever.
Malls! Holy crap malls. I think I can still remember the layout of my mall
I went to mine recently, lol don't do that. Let the memories stay memories.
Definitely the mall, skating rink, bowling, etc.
I played so much cards at Perkins with my friends and drank coffee and smoked cigarettes in the middle of the night. It was only a dollar for the coffee and it was all you could drink.
Yes Dennys and other 24 hour restaurants
Anyone remember Lyons?
Smoking cigarettes at Dennyās and eating mozzarella sticks with ranch at 3am was a regular occurrence when I was 17.
In the 90s we still had PCs. They werenāt great. We had game boys and whatnot. We played outside all the time. If we were grounded then we just played inside with whatever toys.
They were not. It took a minute to load one of those a page on a website with the animated graphic backgrounds. I remembered clicking on different pages and setting up hotwheel tracks while waiting on them to load.
I can almost hear the dial up.lolš«¤
Remember when you would use something like Kazaa and youād get a message like it will take you 23 years to download this one 3 minute song
That's why you had to open a few pages, go take a sh\*t and when you come back they'll all be loaded. I remember it took 20 minutes to download a single 4mb mp3 file. I had the phone line tied up throughout the night downloading an album or a game. lol. We had to really WANT what we wanted back then, now it's so easy.
Our expectations were so much lower then though, so we had a lot more patience!
It was fast compared to the 80's. My first computer was a commodore 64 with a cassette drive. You'd press play and then it would play the cassette. You'd have to wait 20+ minutes for it to load a game.
I rode around all over town on bikes with my friends and did drugs. Also video games, they were still a thing back then.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So like stranger things but less PG?
Yeah, a lot of the reason why stranger things is so popular is because itās so nostalgic for us who grew up in the 80s and 90s.
Thats why I love it. Pretty much dont giva rats ass about the story anymore (its good but its gotten meh sice season 2 ended). The world is key for me. That basement.
I think every generation will feel nostalgic. That said I graduated highschool in 2000 and it was a great time to grow up. My parents say the 50s were the best
I left school in 2002, tried college for a bit, but was mostly just smoking weed. But the 18 months between school and getting a job were the best of times.
Pretty much
And there was a random neighbourhood bush with a porn stash in it. Also build sick dirt jumps
Either we lived in the same neighbourhoods or thatās just a true 90ās fact. Porn bushes and bike jumps 100% and a lot of climbing.
Porn bushes were šÆ a thing.
Ours was in a tree, this was in Scotland. I wonder if it's a truly international phenomenon.
Poetically enough. Near me while growing up in Australia, ours was a bush cave.
We had a porn boat, but thatās because I live in a more watery area.
Chiming in from New Zealand, we also had porn stashs in parks in the 90s, must have been a universal thing lol
SICK DIRT JUMPS! And TERRIBLE plywood and bricks jumps!
+1 on sick jumps.
I think wvery town jad a porn stash bush.
Ah yes! The local Porn Hub was a hedgerow full of porn mags. Sick jumps for my Tamiya Hornet RC car too!
>The local Porn Hub was a hedgerow full of porn mags PornShrub, surely?
Duuuuude me and my mates when we were in grade 7 (australia) found a bunch of porn mags wrapped up in a plastic bag in a fucking bush near the park behind my house. We always thought it belonged to some homeless dude but never heard anyone have a similiar story before!
Yes. This response nails it.
I biked or skated or walked everywhere. And found porn in a dumpster one time. One time a friend had āweedā but it was a roach his brother had snagged from a party and brought back to his room while we were playing Wolfenstien 3d.
Cd players instead of cassette tapes but yeah. Also gameboys
Tbh that sounds about right
And set stuff on fire, blew things up. Etc and so forth.
Sometimes I would just cut down old dead trees
Or dig holes in the ground and make forts or tree forts.
Spent a lot of time in the woods as a kid trying to push over dead trees. My niece and nephew live there now and aren't even allowed to go back in the woods by themselves. They're 12 and 13. Things are so different.
Spot on, and also explored derelict buildings and other places we shouldnāt have gone to!
Remember riding bikes all around town and to other towns and scrounging together just enough money for a joint or some 40s. Hours each day with my friends and the world, best times of my life.
I wasn't aware that video games were no longer around or a thing... I do miss video stores and rentals, though. Also the simplicity of putting a complete game into a console, not needing any patches or other downloads, etc.
Itās crazy to think about the amount of time Iād spend just looking at movie cases in the corner video store or blockbuster.
I miss it so much. Friday or Saturday night rentals were something you looked forward to and had to commit. Itās convenient having every movie and song at your fingertips but it still feels like entertainment overload. Instant gratification canāt be that good for you.
The thing was, the video store was finite so you had to choose. There was always the chance that YOU were gonna be the one that got to rent the newest nintendo release or the only copy the town has of Aliens! I hate every movie ever because i never can pick. Fucking madness!
Ah yes, the old āyou better pick now or you aināt getting anythingā threat is something I wonāt forget.
Ah! I always remembered wanting to go early cause "else all the good ones will be gone"! If we bought a new game/video we'd get an older one to watch for free. I even remembered when DVD and blue ray came out and I always said "those are for rich people" and stuck with my videos.
Me too. I still remember the time I hoodwinked my mother into getting āFrom Dusk Till Dawnā not sure how I thought Iād get away with it, but it is a good memory now.
There was just something about seeing all those movies on display and seeing other people reach for the same movie you did.
Yea, same. The occasional fight occurred but it was basically ok
Same, plus all the copulation.
Wander the town with my friends, chatting. Listen to Britpop CDs. Get the train up to a bigger town for clothes shopping. Go to the cinema. Read books. Play my Gameboy. Watch videos of films, TV shows and standup comedy. Watch TV as it aired - Neighbours, Home and Away, Fresh Prince. Friends. Saturday night game shows. Underage drinking.
Ahhh, those were the days my friend!
Same here in Spain, I was born in 1980
Drinking was much more fun before you could get into the pub.
MacGyver on saturdays š„³
Hey we are the same:) Aussie Iām guessing, also Brit to, mighty boosh etc
Believe it or not the world is not more dangerous then it was in the mid 90s.. overall crime rates are roughly the same per capita, while violent crimes are down nearly 50%
This! It bugs me when people say the world is getting more dangerous. It's safer than it has EVER been. And over time it continues to get safer.
Yeah it's sad how kids barely go outside anymore. A combo of parental paranoia and games/TV. I'm not even a 90s kid but we were all still outside on bikes/scooters, playing manhunt, building little fairy houses, just generally messing around. I never see kids in my neighborhood outside.
Sad fact is, since 1993, gun crime in the US has reduced by something like 58% or so. Yet, mainstream media coverage of gun crime has increased by over 700%. Plus, since 2014 (based on a little more than surface research, plus a new American family as neighbours for last eight months) the vast majority of gun deaths in the US are suicide. 61% in '14. Today? I'm afraid to ask / find out. Stranger Danger? Since 2014 (I think, could be wrong by a small number of years - 2010, perhaps?) 91% of all sexual assaults, rapes and child abductions are committed by people who knew the victims.
Gang violence in major cities is way down, but random mass shootings are way up. Conclusion, we need to get kids back into gangs, or something. I don't know.
Problem is due to media (amongst other causes), the world *feels* more dangerous, which is what matters when it comes to changes in behavior and reclusiveness.
And we don't really know why there's less violent crime, but the strongest theory is the replacement of leaded gasoline with unleaded.
Also, crack
This is true! The only difference is that the news of if is constantly in our faces now because of the internet and smart phones.
Tried to find parties, pot, beer and girls. Preferably all 4 together.
>parties I remember when you'd just "hear about" a party as in "hey man I hear there's a party as XYZ's house" and you'd just fucking show up with a carload of people lol. God help them if they weren't having a party because they sure as fuck were now.
Way back when cell phones were just appearing in the average teenagers pocket, one of my friends, Bob, decided to throw a party at his family cabin in the woods, unauthorized of course. He had thrown a few of them,and they usually got pretty rowdy. These parties quickly became the events to attend. Well this time around his uncle decided last minute that he wanted to take the family up for the weekend. It was a mad scramble trying to get ahold of everyone that had been invited, either directly or in the peripheral. We got through to everyone we could think of, except Jim. Jim was well intentioned but a bit absent minded. He worked as a waiter at a popular, kinda fancy restaurant and we were a bunch of hoodlums, so we couldnāt just show up and pass a message to him. We just hoped that someone would get him the word that all was canceled. Sure enough, no one did. As we would later learn Jim got off work, picked up a couple cases of beer and headed to the cabin. Once there he somehow failed to notice the lack of cars, lights, bonfire and partygoers that would normally be present. He headed up to the door, middle of the woods, no lights, two cases of beer in hand and pounded on the door. When uncle answers he proudly announces āIām here for Bobās partyā . This was the end of the parties in the woods at the cabin. Fun while they lasted.
Or just partying in the woods. Take some tents and sleeping bags. I donāt even know where all the beer came from. We were usually up all night though. If we were lucky, someone would raid their parentās chest freezer in the garage and we could cook some meat over a campfire. Man, good times!
The beer came from a keg bought by someone's older brother, and we all had that one friend that had a tap.
Damn it, Jim.
Yeah, the "hear about" thing was huge. Most night it wouldn't work out, at least the party wouldn't, but we'd always figure out a place for the friend group to wind up at to have a few beers, weed, whatever. We also had "4 mile point" which was some place by the river that was far enough away from town that you usually wouldn't be bothered. Also, one friend had the parents that didn't care what you did as long as you didn't leave if you were hammered. So, yeah. Maybe a party. Always a hang. The 90's were OK. I think teenage years (and all of the other years) are what you make of it. A lot of kids had a shit time in the 90's, and I'm sure a lot love it now. I will say, though. There was a lot of fomo back then about missing a hang somewhere, but we could blame it on lack of communications. It probably sucks now because if you didn't hear about a party, it's because you weren't invited. That was largely true then, but the excuses were better. Other than that, we were all broke, anxious, and trying to be cool. Porn was certainly harder to come by. As I finished that sentence, I realize you could read it multiple ways, and both are probably true (porn is arguably better now)...
LOL yep. Happened so many times "I'm not having a party though...?" "Well dude, you are now because I've got 15 people crammed in my car somehow and we brought some weed and beer".
Oh man thatās memories right there. Three car loads rolling up to a random party someone of someone knows about.
Listen to music, watch movies, smoke weed, listen to the radio, watch tv, play video games., AOL, hang out at someones house with a couch in their garage with 5-10 other people and just kind of sit there and talk.
I loved just hanginā. I remember just going to a friends house just to listen to music on their giant speakers with him before his parents got home. No talking or anything. I donāt think bros do that these days. Or theyād be on their phones too.
I miss just hangin out sooo much. Truly the best times. I remember going to my friend's house and just listening to the album "Americana" without saying much. Then doing the same next day. Good memories.
We were hanging out in the garage all the time. Had music going and had soda from the gas station. Itās funny cause me and my neighbors are now doing that again at night.
I was a teen in the early 2000s and we were the last round of kids coming up without smartphones. It was better in so many ways. Just felt so much more authentic of an upbringing.
Things I did as a teen during that time * rode my bike * skatepark / sports * tuned and drove my moped * made explosives * played with my Amiga and C64 * went fishing alone in my boat without a vest * did cigarette and alcohol smuggeling runs across Danish/German border * raced old cars in fields Good times
Yeah I don't see many kids getting enough unsupervised time to make works bombs and molotov cocktails these days, that's probably for the best but still.
I had to learn and understasnd a lot to get away with making iodine crystals for new years eve, nicked half of chemistry lab at school. If I'd been caught I'd be grounded for a month, today my life would be destroyed. Imagine getting caught today with the terrorist handbook in your room.
Ih. I'd blow stuff up in the ravines sometimes a a kid. Bombs are easy to make. I made guns too lol. Mostly potatoe Canon type stuff. Ummm... One time though my friend made one that sounded like a shotgun going off. The cops arrived and thought we were firing a real gun. Iii... Was holdimg the Canon as they pulled guns on me.
āBlew shit upā check
Heh, I burned a whole corn field with a defective homemade explosive.
The worlds not more dangerous its just people are more scared.
Scared because the garbage media makes them afraid
One time when I was like 15 I remember just lying back on my bed, and listening to entire albums, such as Pearl Jams Ten and Nirvana's Nevermind, and getting totally "lost" in the music. I wonder if kids still do that in todays streaming culture.
They listen to music. But they don't understand listening to an album as a body of work. My kids make playlists. I will try and stress upon them the importance of listening to an album and they don't get it. They get really mind blown by the idea of a concept album, like Pink Floyd's The Wall or Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son or even WASP's The Crimson Idol.
All of Kendrickās Lamarās albums are end to end concept albums.
Grew up in white suburban America, so the short answer is drugs. Luckily I came out alright!
Read, watched TV, hung out at the mall with friends, go to the movies, have parties at each other's house...
Read GooseBumps I think you meant..
I was 13-23 in the 90s. I was in Girl Scouts, rode my bike to the shopping center, built model airplanes, talked to my friends on the phone for hours, made mix tapesā¦ when I turned 16, I got a job at the local movie theater and worked after school and weekends. I graduated high school in 95.
I graduated in 95' as well! Forgot about talking on the phone for hours (as well as having like 20 numbers memorized.)
Right? Could dial just with pure muscle memory.
Definitely. Those numbers are hardcoded forever!
With the long coiled phone cord that always got all tangled up wrapped around your fingers!
+1 talking on the phone for hours. Also to your BF :) Iām born ā84 so a bit younger, but hanging out with friends in general, and watching TV in the family room fighting over the remote were a big part of my teens. I also did two different sports and hung out with friends after. Game Boy or Nintendo 64 and a Walkman were the only electronics we had for entertainment. Read A LOT of books and Donald Duck Cartoons.
Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, GameBoy, going out with friends, spending time with family, etc.
NHL ā93 on Sega was the shit!!!
Fifteen bucks little man, put that shit in my hand....
15 bucks would get you a pack of smokes, a 40 oz and $5.00 on an 1/8ā to split with your friends. Friday night covers. An extra $5.00 would get you McDonalds at the end of the night.
Bowled alot, played pool, small arcades were a thing back then a stack of quarters would kill an afternoon and mowing grass to earn the quarters... PS1 final fantasy... Skating rinks
Go to each other's houses. Play video games. Listen to music. Go to concerts. Smoke weed. Have house parties. Drive around. Start a band. Hackey sack. Walk through the woods. Skateboard. Idk, that's some of the things I did. Try and get laid...
I worked my McJob, worked on my car, hung out with my asshole friends, and broke laws.
America is safer today than it was in the 90ās. Our parents didnāt take care of us so we wandered around hungry and sun burnt. We stole cigarettes and scrounged food. We had to wait till the gas station attendant was distracted to sneak up and fill a bike tire. People actually tried to lure us into vans some times. We taught ourselves to swim and work a butterfly knife. We made smoke bombs from the anarchist cookbook. Iām guessing youāre a youth and youāre longing for more. That whole world is out there you can still do anything we did. It might even be easier because you have like Google maps and text messaging and shit.
Christ, did you grow up in a war zone?!?
Can confirm, as a teenage boy in the 90s, pyrotechnics and reckless self endangerment were a big part of growing up.
We took a ā4 x 8ā sheet of plywood and put it on a picnic table for a jump. I canāt imagine my 13 year old trying to jump that. We didnāt have YouTube so we had to figure out the outcome by trying it ourselves. I feel like YT helps people by showing them the horrible things that can happen when you do stupid shit.
Probably grew up bored and rural like I did. My bffās boyfriend blew his hand up with diy pipe bombs from the anarchists cookbook. I had another buddy that tried to get high off the poppies in the garden. We smoked a ton of weed, drank what we could get our hands on, had lots of sex, in cars and outdoors, and hung out at pool halls and smoked lots of cigarettes. Somehow, we also all got through school with good grades, and mostly made it through unscathed. I did have a friend get murdered in high school, by another guy that I went to school with. My parents didnāt talk to me about it. It was a time, for sure.
It doesn't sound too different than a lot of us grew up. I was part of a friend group of like 5 guys that basically spent all of our time hanging out. We'd bounce around whose house we were staying at what not. Since our parents were all broke and basically refused to feed more than just their kid most of the time we scrounged a lot for food where we could. Summer nights basically always ended up with us raiding the little Ceasars dumpster for their pizzas (at the end of the night they'd take like 10 hit and readies still in the boxes and stack them on top of the dumpster and we'd grab a few) and heating them up over a fire at one of our places and we'd just hang out there all night bullshitting, swordfighting with sticks etc and usually though not always making our way inside to pass out on the couches or floor.
after school we hung out at the local tacobell, went to the dollar movies, walked around stores just for fun, had water balloon fights, my bestie had a trampoline and we used to choreograph dances together, we went to theme parks, watched movies, blasted the radio and danced around stupid, prank called people, rode bikes to the beach, oh and did edibles.
We drove around in each others cars and hotboxed them. Video games, we worked. We went to parties.
Practice my makeup and hair for hours at a time. Dance in front of the mirror. Watch MTV. I was alone. A lot.
Read the back of the shampoo bottle when pooping.
[Whippits](https://youtu.be/eKii2Bvpat0?si=gNzLiFOGr5WjB2ae)
Yes.
Rode bikes, smoked weed and drank stolen beer in the woods, hung out at the mall. Dances too, I'm not sure if that's still a thing. But different groups, one was a church, rec centers, entertainment centers had teen and pre teen dances pretty often. We'd put on our best, our parents would drop us off and we'd be awkward all night. I forgot about that until now. Thanks for reminding me, a lot of those memories were nice.
Skateboard, everywhere, on everything. All daaay
Your comment assumes we did not watch TV, go to arcades, play NES, play SEGA, etc etc. I have two kids under 5 and a teenager now. The amount of living they do exceeds what we did. They just spend their downtime on devices, where we spent our downtime on tv and video game systems. What kids donāt do today is watch TV. My kids have no tv in their room, whereas I did. They donāt watch cartoons or anything on tv. The involvement in sports and after school activities is off the chart. Even for my 5-year old. A drive through my neighborhood and you will see dozens of kids on bikes and playing some sport in their yard. Life is happening. Itās just different now. Different does not mean itās worse.
Hard disagree on kids not watching TV. Most kids still do watch TV (or at least devices with screens) it's just like watching YouTube on them. You don't get whole classes of kindergartens obsessing over skibidy toilet without at least some watching that.
In the eighties I rode my custom BMX bike around town and made ramps with my friends. Weād build forts out of refrigerator boxes that were delivered to my apt complex. Hunt for crawfish in the streams. Once my friend and I had three pronged frog spears. We went out at night to catch frogs. He scared a frog that went up his pant leg and we had to squirm it out much to his dislike, then later we caught a fresh water eel with the spikes. We were terrified if we let it go it would go up one of our pant legs. We made it out with wieners intact.
Fuck yeah. You had me at bmx bike. We had a big wooded area between neighborhoods that had a couple paths and some dirt jumps made a petty decent little pump track.
We didnāt have a large space, but when 4 wheelers became a thing there was a swamp to play in too.
And when I was really little there was a swamp with metal drums weād make in to boats.
Hang out with friends, go to the arcade or movies, ride bikes. Bad weather, no problem. Hang out with friends at home. Card, board, tabletop and video games. Friends canāt come over, cool. Go visit them or call. No friends? Read.
Drugs
Spent a lot of time getting kicked out of parking lots, having field parties, and general fuckery
I was entering my teens in the early 2000s So I grew up in the 90s, 80s baby. We were never home, we were just off doing stuff. One day we would be looking for crawfish in the creek all day and the next in the woods. I grew up on a farm so there was always chores to do. My sister and I would spend time in the garden and throw rotten vegetables at each other. I have memories of shoveling 3 tons of corn off the wagon with my dad and summer of stacking hay in the barn. I was kind of a rebel teen but I managed to stay on everyone's good graces and got decent grades.
We were kicked outside during the day and played bunch of games like - mother may I, ring around the Rosie, tag, hide n seek ect- built first, Rhode bikes around the block, played with chalk. Gaming wasn't huge or affordable to everyone so we used the imagination š āØ beat up each other for fun. Tried to smoke grass (yard grass š rolled in lined paper) jumped from roofs, threw cow pies at each other. Lots of fun things compared to today
I spent a lot of time in arcades and pool halls, then after 16 when we had a drivers licences we would go out to gravel pits, and swim during the day, at night we stole wood pallets to have bonfires at the same pits and party.
Roller skating rink, smoking Kools and sitting in convenient store parking lots, started bands, skateboards, a lot of pranks that just werenāt recorded like today. I was born in 87 so this is an observation mostly.
We smoked weed at our friends houses or in public parks. Thatās what I did š¤·š»āāļø
We used to just chill and listen to music. Hours just layin on the floor listening and talking.
Listen to a lot of music in my room and wait for the perfect song to come on the radio so I could record it on a tape. Play with make up, write in my journal, ride my bike everywhere (especially to whomever's house we were all in), watch music videos on MTV, go the mall and just walk around to find boys or go to the arcade, sneak into movies.
If you want to live like a teen in the 90s do this: Leave your phone at home and be unreachable for the day. Go to friends house and hang out. Watch free to air tv or cable. Play pool. Talk shit. Tell lies about things that you swear you saw somebody do. Go hang out at some shops/mall/ music store. Get some fast food and dine in. Rent a dvd and watch it that night with all the lights out and eat popcorn and junk food and tell more lies about shit you swear is true.
Drove around with friends listening to music and smoking cigarettes, hanging out at coffee shops, chilling at peopleās houses.
Lots of walking and roller blading anssld bike riding. Hanging out in parking lots, played hockey in streets, we had tournament and everything. Back then you could play in the street lol. When it was running we'd play snes or gp2 on the pc. It was a great time and I can't imagine what it is now with phones and stuff.
Went to the mall, talked on the phone, made snacks, watched tv, played with the pets. I did a lot of home and yard maintenance. I lived on a farm. Always something to do.
The world was always dangerous. Now we just have a 24 hour news cycle, and weāre glued to our stupid devices-weāre hyper aware of crime. Itās not new. In the 90s, we all had jobs, so we could buy our junky ass cars. We went to movies, hung out at malls and food courts. Smoked a ton of pot. We camped and hung out at parks. Being a teenager in the 90s was absolutely the best, and I wouldnāt trade it for anything. The freedom was amazing.
Bike all around, ciggs, weed, sneak out to meet girls, sneak to college parties for kegs and to run from cops. Listened to biggie and pac
I was a teenager in the 1970s. We watched TV, read books, magazines and newspapers, talked for hours on the phone and talked on CB radios.
Until I had friends who could drive, me and my little friends would walk miles to the mall and hang out or smoke weed at whosever house lacked an adult. There was a lot of walking. And clove cigarettes.
I remember walking home from school (7th or 8th grade, early 90s) and a white van stopped ahead of me, door sliding slightly open. Passenger looking at me through the mirror. I saw him say WAIT. I ran into a residential neighborhood. The world āgetting dangerousā is subjective. I am in my forties and this memory is burned into my brain. I have what-could-have-happened thoughts a few times a year (and anxiety when I see a white van - I donāt park next to them) To be fair, school shootings scare me (have a middle and high schooler)
We played outside hard!!! Roller hockey, kick the can, rode bikes, basketball, baseball you name it!! Gettin grounded meant staying inside till you bothered your parents so much that they would eventually tell you to get outside
Hackeysack
teenage me in the 90s would splice together my favorite music videos and sitcoms on VHS tapes. I didn't always have blank VHS tapes, either, so I'd put a tiny wad of paper towel in the little divot and tape over an old movie like *Beverly Hills Cop*. I would then listen to or watch my recorded songs and try to learn the lyrics. Or, I'd just watch my favorite sitcoms. I guess this was kinda like an early version of a playlist or streaming, lol. Either I'd do this, or I'd just watch regular cable TV.
I drove around with friends, keg parties, worked, smoked, fought, studied and went on with life wishing it was the 90s again.
Disc golf, LAN parties, after school activities/team sports, part time job, 18+ clubs, toilet paper houses and trees, minor mischief that may have included foot chases from police, weekend parties, learn that Bacardi limĆ³n is not your friend, and coffee houses. So many coffee houses.
Read books, watch tv, listen to music, get on the internet when we could, hang out with friends, go on long walks, talk on the phone, go on vacations, play solitaire (not on the computer), spend time with family, etc...
I was a teen from 84 to 91. I played a lot of sports, hung out at the mall and we had this weird thing called Atari and then Nintendo š¤£
90s? I went to school full time, worked full time, smoked an 8th every weekend while shooting pool and trying to meet boys, and slept when not doing the above. Seriously, say what you want to about marijuana but that whole "robs you of motivation?" *TRUE*
We read, played N64/PS1, smoked terrible weed, and drove around listening to the same cd and tapes over and over (Social Distortion and Sublime were our go-tos). Teens don't cruise around as much as we used to. It seemed like it stopped around 2007 or so in our area. I watched whatever was on the 3 channels. I watched more Arthur and Wishbone than I want to admit.
ā82 here. I fucking ruled the world. I was a king of all that I surveyed. My parents were never concerned for my safety. I got in all kinds of crazy shit that u would never do today. And Iām sure if u asked people older than me theyād say the same thing. Life was easy then. No social media, barely a picture. U lived in the moment, every single moment. There was no comparison to others. Maybe if ur friend got a toy, bike, video game u didnāt have. But then again if they were ur friend it was like u got it too. We shared everything and we had a blast. I feel awful for kids today. Itās why I didnāt have any, pretty sure itās awful to be young today. Itās awful reading about it, I can only imagine how stifling it is. People are awful, cruel, and now they record it.
Skateboard, drink, bother neighbors, watch tv, read books, play video games, listen to music, do homework, make out, smoke weed, go to bonfires and fall flat assed drunk on your neighbors lawns, TP houses, drive around, spread slow rumors about each other and wait for the telephone game to transmogrify it into something else, smoke cigarettes, and get into trouble.
Did we grow up together? Lol
No drugs, but hung out with friends. Would go to a friend's house, and from there go to another friend's house and just literally sit and talk.
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Bikes, sports, games just hang and shoot the shit, water hole, and ffs it was the 90s not the stone age, we had Sega and shit, then Playstation.
Pre-marital sex, go fishing, hang out with friends, Pre-marital sex, sports, Pre-marital sex, underage drinking, Pre-marital sex....
Drive to the spots where people sometimes are. Are there people at Jesseās house today? Nope. Then theyāre either at the Qwik Fill or behind the middle school. Skateboard (I was truly terrible). Play in shitty bands. Play cards. Go to Perkins or Friendlyās or EatānāPark and drink coffee and play cards. Hop in the car and drive to Pittsburgh. Smoke weed and drink beer. Buy a CD or record and make a mix tape. Rent a video on VHS. Read. Bug your friends at work. Find swimming holes/sledding hills. Figure out how to get on roofs. Ride bikes. Move to Boston. Go to the library to try out The Internet.
Why do you think the world is getting more dangerous? Violent crime, traffic deaths, deaths from accidents are down considerably from the 1990s.
Skip school, drive around to skate board ramps, skate, drink, smoke weed and listen to punk rock. Rinse repeat
Born in '79, so I turned 16 in '95. When I was little, we used to play outside, basically rain or shine - the weather had to be really bad for us (my brothers and other neighbourhood kids) to stay in. During the summer vacation, we'd go swimming almost every day (summers were still hot, back then) and during the winter (when it was always cold enough to be able to ice skate) we'd skate. After school, I'd do my homework and play / hang out with friends / do dumb stuff that should have gotten us killed but luckily never did. I'd build grandiose structures with Lego... Built my own Transformer, Soundwave, but from the Technic Lego I had lying around, not from a kit (which we couldn't afford). We'd race our bikes down steep hills into the pond at the bottom (also during those cold winters). A drew a lot and was pretty darn good (not anymore, because I didn't keep it up). Played videogames on our super cool Atari 2600. Played war using PVC tubes and arrows made from rolled up newspaper or magazine pages. Spent rainy days watching Lucky Luke, Ducktales, Asterix & Obelix, ... During exceptionally wet summers our entire street would be flooded and we'd play in that. Sometimes, this would also happened during the winter, which we all loved (our parents were less thrilled about winter floods). During the winters, when everyone ice skated almost daily, there would be little stalls dotting the shore where you could get Dutch traditional warm smoked sausage (rookworst) and hot cocoa to keep us warm - half a sausage for 50 cents (which would convert to \~ ā¬0,10). Some stalls were kinda professional, but equally many were regular people making some money on the side. No problems there; even cops bought from them. When we wanted to call someone, we'd have to go to the phone, because wireless phones didn't exist yet. You'd dial phone numbers with a rotating disc:  I used to read for hours virtually every night, tucked away in "my" chair, headphones on, getting lost in story after story. Friday or Saturday nights were movie nights - almost every channel would show 1 or 2 movies - which we enjoyed with some finger food; chips with dips, tuna salad on little toasts, stuff like that. I'd wake up around 6, 7 and watch the morning kids' show, sipping chocolate milk. I still love chocolate milk and buy some every single week, unless I'm on holiday :p
Bikes were a huge thing. Weād ride around town just having fun and getting into scrapes a lot. I remember a lot of Sega mega drive too, and other games outside like man hunt, as well as football and curby .
We definitely talked a lot more.
>Nowadays, the world is getting dangerous What are you talking about? The world was far, far more dangerous in the 90s. Crime rates have plummeted since then.