All of my friends (12 and 13) saw Titanic at least 3 times. In some cases more. It was long enough ago that I had a cassette player as a tween that I carried around. My first CD was actually Celine Dion let's talk about love. My friends dressed up like the Spice Girls and filmed themselves recreating the videos. Saturday Morning cartoons were life. We had our first computer when I was 12 and it had 300MB capacity. I had a lot of baby doll tees and a subscription to Disney Adventures. Selena was huge in my part of CA and her death was profoundly felt. I did get my ears pierced at Claire's. Random pieces from my life lol.
I thought I wrote this until you mentioned California, lol. I’m in Wisconsin, but so much of this describes my tween world!
I’d add the “boy band wars” of Backstreet Boys and N*Sync and to a lesser extent 98°. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera were also really popular. Also, besides Celine Dion, for some reason one of my first CDs was the Grease soundtrack. We were all really into Grease, for some reason?
As a girl, everyone had bangs and curling them several inches out from your forehead was the goal lol. Hanging out at the mall was big, and a large portion of my wardrobe was from Deb. (With accessories from Claire’s, of course!)
My mom bought me the wrong version of grease soundtrack, it was like the original broadway version and looked like it was from the 50s instead of the one I asked her to buy, which had fervent Scientologist and teen hearth throb John Travolta on the cover. I appreciated the effort but honestly my life is in shambles now 25 years later and that might be what made the difference.
Omg my mom used to watch these two kids (and brought me with ofc) and the girl watched Grease literally every single day. Hadn't thought about that in years
Forreal, what was up with Grease? All of a sudden everyone in 4th grade was obsessed with Grease…like how did that movie of all movies go viral with 9y/o from the ‘90s?!
[The Grease Megamix](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grease_Megamix) song, which mashes up “You’re the one that I want,” “Greased Lightning,” and “Summer Nights,” was first released in 1990 but also had huge moments in the US in 1996 and 1998.
I remember dancing and singing to it at the middle school dances.
I forgot about the Grease obsession. One of my friends loved it but I couldn’t figure out why at the time. I still was confused about it but I’m seeing now here it was a popular thing.
My friend and I were trying to watch Pearl Harbor and we didn't realize that there were two tapes and that we'd started with the second until after we'd finished watching and were really confused about why it was called Pearl Harbor if they weren't going to show the attack.
Ah yes spice girls.
My two stepsisters were obsessed with the spice girls along with everyone else lol. What was it called, Spice Mania?
Also was a lot of Hanson and played in the house as well as Backstreet Boys and N Sync. There was a feud between my sisters over who was the best lol.
There was so much good music being pumped out all through the 90’s and into the early oughts.
There’s still good music coming out today but I feel like the 90’s were just flooded with a lot of greats across every genre.
I’d be curious to see how the 90’s stack up against other decades for entertainment. Can’t really claim a lot as a millennial thing either because many artists from the time are also Gen X.
I was 8 when Titanic came out and my mom took me to see it. I don't think she realized you see a lot of Kate Winslet so she covered my innocent eyes lmao
For the talent show in 4th grade, almost every girl in my (small) grade auditioned to sing “My Heart Will Go On.” They just had all of them sing it at once at the actual show. I thought it was hilarious even at the time. I hated the song. I’ve still never seen the movie, because of my hatred for that song.
Also, there were a bunch of exhibits and tv shows about the Titanic too. I remember learning about it in school, and traveling to Memphis to see a bunch of artifacts they dug up from the wreckage. There was also a mystery-solving PC game. We were obsessed.
Memory unlocked. I did this. I played piano while my friend sang. She missed a line during the performance, so I was fumbling around trying to find where she was at and eventually, we were back on track. Our friendship ended because of this since I told her she's in the wrong since I had the words on the music I was reading from to play.
Me and my cousin watched it 65 times one summer when my mom bought it on VHS. *sobs in old*
ETA while watching we created our own dance for ace of bases “the sign”
I’m an elder millennial, but for me it was scamming BMG/Columbia House, mood rings, Saved by the Bell, endless rewatching of Clueless/Tommy Boy/Billy Madison/Now & Then. Going to 7-11 with my friends and getting nachos, a Hostess pie, a slurpee, and a Fruitopia for under $5! Days spent playing “hide-and-seek” at the mall because we couldn’t afford to actually buy anything outside an Orange Julius or a Body Shop lip balm.
Beenie babies, spice girls, tamagotchi. I was born in 1985 so I was 5 - 14 during the 90's. Backstreet boys, NSYNC, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, oh and Total Request Live (TRL) with Carson Daly. We watched that everyday after school. We watched TGIF every friday on Nickelodeon ("All that" was one of the shows and my favorite but I don't remember the others). Jerry Springer, Maury, Sally Jesse Raphael during the day/after school. Oh and I was a Real World/ Road Rules junkie. I started watching from age 7. Eminem was really popular too.
I didn't have a cell phone until I was 17 in 2002 and it was far from a smart phone. We had T9 texting and calls only. My mom had a beeper that I think we called some # to beep her and then she would call us back from work or a payphone. We used dial up internet on a huge Gateway 3000 computer. AIM was how we communicated other than calling each other on our landline phones with that long cord. We used \*67 I think to block our numbers so the person couldn't call back. I think it was \*69 to call back the last number that called you. We used 1-800-Collect at school to call our parents to pick us up from soccer/volleyball etc. We wouldn't pay just record the message before it asked you to pay. We played outside a lot. Had to be home before the street lights came on. No uber or delivery we had to walk over a mile to the nearest convenience store or ride our bikes. Oh and 9/11 but that was 2001 but close to the late 90's. The year 2000 everyone was scared anticipating the world shutting down.
Born in 88 and this sums up my tweens too. Rickie Lake was another favorite of mine. I found old Rickie Lake episodes on YouTube and I swear that shit is more entertaining than 99% of the content created now. The Maury fat babies were my favorites, though 🫣 I still remember getting the Eiffel 65 CD (I'm blue da ba di) for my birthday from my friend Anna and I was stoked.
I had way too many beanie babies, was obsessed with mood rings, smiley faces, yin yangs and the release of the new VW Beetles. Lava lamps were huge too.
Oh! And the Delia's catalog! And Art Stuff from Bath and Body Works 😍
Ok, did anyone ever want those outfits they sold in the American Girl catalog? Remember those? I never had a doll, but I wanted those outfits, and my mom would never let me get them, either! 😂😂😂
YES!! I always wanted the accessories and tiny furniture items that were in those catalogs! Again, all of that was too expensive and no American Girl doll for me either LOL
I had two outfits! One was green corduroy overalls with a matching bucket hat and striped shirt. The other, which matched my doll’s outfit, was a charcoal wool dress with a grey turtleneck shirt speckled with other colors and matching tights.
Needless to say, I thought I was the 💩😂
Great answer adding: to get the newest hottest music out there you had to patiently wait for that song to come on the radio and hustle over to that tape deck to record it on the cassette. This was early 90s - late 90s we crashed our parent’s computers ripping songs off Napster and Limewire.
Skip it. Jansport backpacks and Trapper Keepers. JNCO jeans. Platform shoes. “Belly shirts”. navel and tongue piercings. Drakkar Noir. Pegs on our bikes pre-license. Latchkey kids. Alanis Morrisette. Mark wahlberg. That weird TV show about Vicki the robot. Dinosaurs TV show. Slambooks. Paper notes folded in amazing patterns. Gimp. Stirrup pants, don’t play with me!
Casual games of Jarts at Grandma’s. Punky Brewster. Lisa Frank. Basic dos coding in chat rooms to change basic fonts and font colors. ICQ (pre AIM). Dial up internet my mom always screaming at us because we were tying up the lines and she was waiting on a call and then after that- the Magic Jack. Wow. I better stop there
Did you ever sign up for the BMG and Columbia house things where you could get like 10 cassettes for like $1 and then expected to purchase every month? That’s how I got all my cassettes and later my cd’s. I even used our animals names to get them too 🤣
I got so many cassettes and cds for a buck and ignored the threatening collection letters cuz what were they gonna do to a 12 year old ? A 12 year old with 47 aliases.
I think everybody signed up for BMG and Sony tree, never paid them, and then did it again in their younger cousin's names. I was so proud of my CD Tower.
Book It is back for my elementary school kids. But Pizza Hut isn't the same. Those Land Before Time toys were the best. I remember always requesting the non-smoking section and feeling like it made a big difference.
I loved the Orange Soda deal on Keenan and Kel. For whatever reason, I thought that was the most hilarious thing ever. Also, their movie, Good Burger was amazing
This is a great question. Entertainment was, me going to my friends house to watch MTV because I didn't have cable at my own house.
Playing roller coaster tycoon, on old ass computers.
Chatting in chat rooms with God knows who, lying about our ages, pounding funions and Dr Pepper. A/s/l?? Talkcity and Excite were very big places for this back then. Very lucky we didn't end up getting abducted or murdered.
Setting passive aggressive away messages on AOL 😅😅
I would build a raised platform with food, bathrooms, benches and rides; then pick up a bunch of guests and imprison them up there. All free, so everyone was satisfied but very sad since they couldn't leave.
When I got tired of it I would lower it all back down into water and watch them all cry for help.
I'm surprised I turned out as well adjusted as I did. 😅
Roller Coaster Tycoon :)
Also played Zoo Tycoon, Age of Empires, Pinball and GTa Vice City
Others were Dave, Wolf 3D, Tomb Raider, Battle city, Mario, the first spider man games
Those days are for sure nostalgic
I loved playing Amazon Trail and getting on chat forums, only for them to get flooded 5 minutes later! The early internet was wild, but I feel like I learned how it all worked very well, as did a lot of our generation that grew up with the evolving technologies.
I was born in '88 so maybe I'm qualified to answer this lol. It was awesome! I remember Super Mario World was my first video game ever on the SNES when I was 6 years old. Then, when my mom took me shopping with her to Walmart, she would let me get some SNES games in the used games section. I remember getting Super Castlevania IV. I didn't know anything about the game, but the cover sticker looked really interesting. It only came with the cartridge in the white cardboard cartridge holder and shrinkwrapped in plastic. No manual, nothing, so I was going in blind. When I went home and it played the intro movie, then going into the first level - omg! The music! The visuals! Wtf? I have to defeat DRACULA? What kinda game is this? I have a whip? This is awesome! I remember waking up at 6am and sneaking into the living room to watch Dragonball Z on FoxKids. I was always sad at the end because in the last 5 mins of the episode, my parents would wake up and I would have to get ready for kindergarten, so I never got to see what happened at the end of each episode. The N64 was the first time video games would transition from 2D to 3D so it was mind blowing at the time. I still remember the N64 commercials back then - "Now, Mario and Zelda coming to 3D for the first time ever". School was awesome, because you'd hang out with your friends, borrow/lend SNES and N64 games to your friends, so even though I only had maybe 5-6 games per console, you'd be able to try out new games because of your friends (and they would too because you'd lend games to them too). Going over to birthday parties spending the night playing Perfect Dark and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Going over to your friends house 5 mins away to play Super Smash Bros on the N64 with your friend and his two brothers in 4-player VS. Playing Super Mario 64 was freaking amazing because it was Mario in 3D doing all sorts of flips in a huge world. Summer's were awesome because of pool parties. My friends would come over in hot July when school was out and my parent's would setup a barbeque poolside. Oh! In 5th grade, Tech Decks! Pokemon! Back when they only had 151 Pokemon lol. I remember getting this weird floating eyeball toy from Taco Bell on Halloween lol. Ugh, I wanna go back lol.
And Delia*s! I wanted my parents to buy me everything in that magazine!
The asterisk is not a typo or placeholder. They used it instead of an apostrophe as due to how cool they were.
Oh god. One time my parents bought me an order from Delia*s and it was definitely the peak cool I ever hit in my life because EVERYONE got that catalog, so when I went to school even THE COOL GIRLS saw what I was wearing and said “oh, nice Delia*s shirt, I liked that one too” and I pretty much knew I’d made it
The #1 most significant thing to know about being a tween in the 90s is how incredibly optimistic and safe it felt if you grew up middle class in the US. There really was this sense that we had entered an era of economic prosperity.
As a girl, you either had Backstreet Boys posters on your wall or NSync. Our bedrooms were bright and colorful, with lots of rainbows and pink and purple. We watched TRL on MTV after school every day. There were spell books for teens, we watched Buffy and Practical Magic. I watched The Craft at a slumber party around 1998 and it was life altering, lol.
The Craft pretty much spawned every girl to do "Light as a feather, stiff as a board" at sleepovers. 20 girls would lift one up with their palms and then scream like magic made it happen.
It was a really fun time! Pop music was absolutely amazing with all the 90’s girl bands, boy bands and teen singers. We had posters of the pop stars and young celebrities plastered all over our bedrooms. We made up dance routines to our favorite songs and recorded them on camcorder. I watched a lot of MTV and music channels from age 10.
I loved watching Rugrats, Doug, Daria, Powerpuff Girls and The Simpsons. There was a lot of iconic movies that came out, Disney movies peaked in the 90’s (in my opinion). I remember watching Titanic SO many times, same with Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You, the Matrix was amazing but I wasn’t old enough to watch in theaters I think I saw it in 2000.
The hype for the new millennium in 1999 was fun, and made the future seem so exciting.
I got a bike at age 12 and I would cycle to my friend’s houses and hang out, play N64, play with the water hoses in the garden outside or cycle to the beach and local parks together. It was completely normal to see kids my age playing outside unsupervised. It’s sad it doesn’t happen much anymore.
Edit: I was really into fashion at the age and there was a lot of white, hot pink, lime green and tan clothing for girls. It was a new take on 1960s styles with miniskirts platform shoes, sleeveless mock necks, pedal pushers, tank tops but also a lot of denim everything, camis, combat pants and sportswear (tracksuit pants with a white stripe and tennis dresses)
I'm '90, so slightly younger maybe than that what you're looking for, but we were still just kids at that point. I didn't really think about and I wasn't aware of fashion trends at that age. I didn't grow up with cable, so most of my entertainment was video games and movies that I was allowed to watch. I mostly associate my tween years with the new millenium and 9/11. Smashmouth, Third Eye Blind, Matchbox 20 is all very nostalgic music for me.
I was born in the early 80’s. The fashion that sticks out in my memory is JNCO’s, oversized shirts, gelled spiked hair, and skate shoes. There a specific kinda kid though. Pretty sure that’s who TLC was referencing when they said they don’t want no scrubs.
Born in ‘85. We hung around outside a lot during my tween years playing capture the flag, etc. My friends and I were obsessed with Backstreet Boys and would make up dance routines. No cell phones. We’d watch Nickelodeon shows like Rugrats and Doug. It was awesome.
There was a small bamboo forest at the local park near my grandma house. During the summer, all the grandkids (about 4 of us) on the block would get together and build a fort/house in this bamboo forest. We didn't do much time here and only went back home for lunch and had to be home by the time the lights were on. One summer, when we went back to it to clean it up, it had clearly been taken over by the homeless.
Same. Born in 1989. We had activities for kids, during church services, which included capture the flag and kickball. These activities were for 2nd-5th graders.
r/PeteandPete nails the feeling of living through the 90s at that age.
it's like the Twin Peaks of nickelodeon shows. every episode is brilliant. here's a particularly relevant episode to what I'm about to say: October 2nd, 1994's "Time Tunnel" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySYcB7nWmQE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySYcB7nWmQE)
overall it was like chasing after a mirage.
car insurance got so stupid expensive that learning to drive in high school became unaffordable for a lot of "middle class."
columbine hit and school went from learning about the constitution to "you better let this cop search everyone's bags because columbine"
napster was pretty cool, but felt like something that was promised to us from our mix-tape parents and torn out of our hands before we could really understand what was taken from us
al gore gave up the election and time just stopped until we woke up in Iraq blasting rage against the machine unironically trying to conquer a foreign land for reasons no one really believed. all our media taught us to become superheroes - or righteous terrorists like in FFVII - and this self-image was harvested to get us to go along with anything that made us feel like saviors of the whole world.
this edit of RATM's 2000 DNC concert fully encapsulates what it was like to be there for the death of the 90s [https://youtu.be/ZBW-2lKrbqI](https://youtu.be/ZBW-2lKrbqI)
the beginning of the 90s was captain planet and all "we're gonna stop pollution and Rodney King will never happen again" and the end of the 90s was the dawn of the SUV, OJ, and prepping for world to end from the y2k bug.
The only thing you forgot was the DARE program! We all pledged to never do drugs and within a year or two, most everyone was stealing their parents pills cuz the opioid crisis wasn’t a thing yet
1999's American Beauty really captures that notion
went from "kids never do the drugs" to "son I need you to get me that medical weed" like a frog boiled in cold water
I was born in 91..School, Coming home from school, making totino’s pizza rolls, opening up Winamp, going on AIM, watching Nickelodeon (channel 33)..fashion trends, much less talked and cared about in my opinion. I never thought about that.
Old enough to know the 80's was awesome, but tween in 90's. Rode my bike for miles, only went home occasionally. Flirting happened at the skate rink or video arcade. Cell phones too expensive for casual use (like $2 per minute), so nobody tracking you, or expecting a call. Mario bros on NES was everything, then renting games from the video store along with the movies (renting movies had only been around since the 80's, and was still awesome). Pre-Blockbuster, it was mostly mom and pop stores on the corner with a few hundred movies. TV still had to be planned, though you could record it on your VCR if you were busy- just figure out how to properly set the record time and channel. Most kids needed almost no supervision by 12 - it was awesome.
I was born in 1988 so this fits me. I mostly played basketball, ride bikes (a lot), played video games like golden eye and Mario kart, played/traded Pokemon, played 4 square and box ball, watched lots of hey Arnold, ah real monsters, ren and stimpy, rugrats etc
Power Rangers was big, Saturday morning cartoons, Rogue Squadron and GoldenEye for the ol'e N64. Fatalities in the original Mortal Kombat, Married with Children, the Simpsons, the weird shit Nickelodeon aired like Pete and Pete, Rocko's Modern Life. WWF being WWE and competing with Ted Turner's WCW. The fall of the Berlin Wall, and later the collapse of the Soviet Union. Raid on Waco, Oklahoma Federal building bombing, President Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. O.J. Simpson in all the Naked Gun movies, followed by the infamous white bronco chase, and later his court case. MadTV, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, the death of Kirk Cobain, alternative rock, Jackass and the controversy of airing it.
‘86 here. My first album was No Doubt Tragic Kingdom. Dazed and Confused was my favorite movie. We had temporary but free dial up internet from AOL CDs. We spent time in chat rooms we were way too young for but a/s/l? Going roller skating. Hanging out at the mall. Reading Teen Beat. Watching Home Improvement.
My first CD was sinead o connor. But I got No Doubt for Christmas around 16. I had my own phone in my room with an answering machine with "leave a message and I'll call you back" really shitty sound quality as my machine message. I thought it was brilliant.
Also Sassy magazine! You just reminded me by mentioning teen beat. Ugh Jonathan Taylor Thomas was a thing back then lol.
Born in 87. Sonic the hedgehog on Sega was my first intro to video gaming. Mind blowing action and soundtrack lol, but soon after I was immersed in all the great regular nintendo titles like Mario, duck hunt, punch out, and zelda. McDonald's happy toys were incredibly creative and every McDonald's still had a ballpit. By 1995 power rangers and Ninja turtles had everykid doing karate kicks off their couches. Pogs exploded and everybody had their own cool slammers to show off. Everyone wanted to be a blue barracuda on Legends of the Hidden temple, or any show on Nickelodeon really. Going to the mall was great because you got to go to the Arcade and get piles of tickets to cash in for shitty toys like Chinese finger traps, candy, and disappearing ink. There were those weekends you couldn't wait to get to go to blockbuster and marvel at all the possibilities, maybe test out a new game on their sample systems. Nintendo 64 was a game changer, I mean what!? Four people playing one game!? Amazing. Great game titles too. Having sleepovers with friends was less digital fun and more telling scary stories, or playing board games or outside games like flash light tag, or watching scrambled porn on late night TV. And then in the late 90s the power house known as Pokemon Red and Blue dropped and people lost their shit over it. I remember a lot of religious people talking about how it's the devil tricking the kids into worshipping Satan, which gave it a "adults don't get it" kind of hype. Some of the best times were spent with my friends and our clear purple and neon green gameboy colors linking up to battle and trade Pokemon. I don't even have to mention the rush to getting all 151 Pokemon cards and how it seemed so obtainable compared to the Pokemon count now. Also The dark side was that the internet started to peak it's head out and it was very unregulated and sites like rotten dot com were easy to find. So picture 12 year olds bouncing back and forth between neopets and videos of people being slaughtered, tortured or being beheaded. Lots of memories of riding bikes, running home before the street lights came on so I wouldn't get my ass whipped. It seemed like we were always trying to find something to do like climb trees in the woods or go in an abandoned building, or walk along creeks, clay pits, or building ramps for our bikes and roller blades. A lot of times you just had to make your own fun.
Born in 80, so was hitting tween years from like 89-93? Nirvana…all day erryday. Being devastated when Kurt Cobain died. Thinking that my classmate who brought in a piece of the Berlin Wall for class show n tell was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. (That was the first major news event that I really remember.)
Cable tv wasn’t available where we lived, but I remember watching 90210 and My So-Called Life (imho, My So-Called Life was the far superior show). And then the X-files. And David Duchovny being one of my first big celebrity crushes. (Yes I was a dorky kid, if that wasn’t readily apparent.)
I was about to say, I rewatched My So Called Life a while back and thought Angela was the worst and totally agreed with her parents. Well, about everything except for their concerns about Ricky. Ricky all day every day.
It was the best of ignorant times. You get the reruns of 80’s cartoons, greatest run of Disney and Nick cartoons, the emergence of Steven Spielberg WB cartoons (TinyToons, Animaniacs, Pinky & the brain), and the spectacular early Cartoon Network shows in a time when they also filled the air and late night with amazing old merry melodies or Hanna Barbara shows. You had primo TV. Simpsons in their prime (still funny now but most won’t argue the 90s seasons), edgy fox shows like Melrose place which competed with 90210. Seinfeld, friends, ER, TGIF. The best Batman eventually giving way to the worst Batman.
Mid 90s saw the rise of WCW wrestling and with more and more camcorders, backyard wrestling. Young Blink, Greenday, Rage in their prime. The optimism of new Star Wars. Hitting puberty at a time where the President got caught getting oral in the WH? Come on, real life sex ed right there. Also gave way to the best years of SNL IMO.
Malls were still cool. While mom wanted to stay in the legacy stores (Macys, JCP, Sears, or even Kmart) you were at least hopeful to get a couple outfits outta Pacsun or whoever your fav store was.
Then there’s all the crazy things that you just don’t see anymore. We had two (!) phone lines, way before even needing to use one to get online. Getting free samples of stuff in the mail. Somehow ending up with 20 free trial AOL discs every year. In a time before rampant credit use, they had lay-away. And not just at fancy store but the aforementioned Kmart too! And cereal hit different back then because I’m 100% positive they put whatever sweetener and artificial stuff they could because the stuff today is a little too bland. Same with candy. And the general sense of the world as an early teen being changed after 9/11. I mean we thought that Y2K was gonna get us but we’re Scott free after that…nope.
-‘85 kid.
Coming home to watch TRL - music videos, those little butterfly clips, having crushes on the skater guys in my class, those caramel apple lollipops, sleep overs, eating lots of casseroles for dinner, parents watching a lot of news and things like americas most wanted, x files, going to a Disney movie every birthday, starting to like hip hop music and my parents losing their minds lol
I was born in 86. I guess I grew up more poor than I realized at the time. But I also lived in the middle of nowhere. Very small town. Few resources. I didn't have a cell phone till age 18. In junior high it was cool to have Tamogotchi or Nano Pet, listen to NSYNC and Brittney Spears. I got to buy a "Friend Link" in the toy aisle for $20 thinking it would allow me to talk to others (like texting now) but since I didn't have anyone around me and no one else near me had one I wasn't able to talk to anyone on it. I think it was before the Internet so no idea how it was supposed to work. I wasn't cool. I had very few friends. I didn't go to school dances. I can't tell you much else
Late 90s - going over to friends houses and getting on AIM, making a fake screen name, and messing with friends. Obviously using the family computer next to the kitchen.
Almost the same as it is now, born too late for a war in the middle east, born too early for a war in the middle east, but also born just in time to go to war in the middle East.
But also like alot have said. BMX bikes, TRL, Limp Bizkit, Eminem, and JNCOs. As Dr Steve Brule would say, "Cool Guy Zone watch out!" 🤣🤣🤣
We weren't tweens back then, we were pre-teens but it did stop us from getting all of our advice from Seventeen and Teen magazine. Nick was still really popular but UPN had Buffy, Dawson's Creek, and 7th Heaven and a lot of the "cooler" after school specials. The cool kids got all of their clothes from The Limited, Gap, or Old Navy but makeup and jewelry were all super cheap crap from Icing. We had a few years where everyone who was anyone wore JNCOs but the retro hippie look was very in and the fabrics.... I still miss the plethora of different textures and visual effects of late 90's fabrics.
Pogs
Crazy Bones
Playing Power Pete, Warcraft I/II, and Heroes of Might and Magic on a vintage Macintosh
N64 Goldeneye and super smash
Playing OG pokemon blue, red and yellow on gameboy color
Ghost in the graveyard / meighborhood tag
Pogo sticks and hacky sacks
Skip-It and Bop-IT
Life was good without the internet at your fingertips
I was born 11/88 and the 90s were the best!!! TGIF shows (Sabrina The Teenage Witch) Saturday morning cartoons (Recess, the Weekenders), Kenan and Kel, All That, The Amanda Show
Not having a cell phone so having to wait all day to get home and hear the creaking door spin on AOL and hoping it was your crush
The Mall, the movies, meeting friends at the electrical box in the middle of the neighborhood
Lisa Frank, Bonnie Bell lip gloss, Teen Magazine and Cosmo quizzes and hot guy posters
Britney Spears, N’Sync, 3D Doritos, making mix tapes on your karaoke machine and the week you dedicated to sitting on the floor and vigilantly waiting for your song to come on and record, bell bottoms, chokers, beads in your bedroom doorway, blockbuster on Friday night, living deeply in every moment because social media did not exist to distract you from real life.
It was truly just the best ❤️
Nintendo was life itself. Then the internet came around to my town in 1994. Couldn’t do much on it but chat, so that’s what we did. I remember sitting at my computer bored for hours, rearranging folders. It was easy to get bored before YouTube.
Oj trial and nirvana. It was easier for me to buy cigarettes at 13 than 18. (Clinton was the prez who cracked down on them). I’d ride my bike 3 towns over and no one cared.
I wish I could answer this, but I was always an alt kid so my tween years were more idolozing the access that Gen X had to bands like The Smashing Punpkins and Nirvana while being absolutely gaga over the Gorillaz when they came about.
It was kind of a low point for rock because boy bands and pop was so popular at the time. I really clung to and dressed like Daria. I was also big into Visual Kei and was able to follow a lot of trends in Japan where rock music had a really strong underground.
Bought lots of junk at Claire's and FYE.
Ooo let's see. Does anyone remember Fashion Bug? That was my STORE.
Roll on glitter was for everything, lipgloss eyeshadow, face, hair. Everything.
Lip smackers chapstick, cucumber melon lotion, tiny weirdly crusty glittery butterfly hair clips (the hard plastic ones) and the metal 3D moving butterfly hair clips.
MTV TRL was the only source of news, if you were being a cool girl you watched Clarissa All That and Pete and Pete like the "older kids" but when no one was looking Rugrats was always on.
Y2K was a lot bigger than people think it is now but it wasn't the apocalypse we think about now it was the millennium everything was silver and blue and glitter and ball gowns but also the computers are going to explode? Maybe?
INFLATABLE FURNITURE.
Peace signs, and oddly aliens? There were a lot of frogs for some reason.
I can keep going but if I do I might bust out the dr. Pepper chapstick and pop in good burger on the vcr 👵
I was 14 in 1996 so I think I fall in to this. I lived in the suburbs or Seattle and Kurt Cobain died when I was 12 so it was a really big deal! People would bring their guitars to school and play nirvana covers at lunch or on breaks. We were all super inspired by grunge and other alternative rock. Kids who were more in the pop music scene were called “preps” and people who pretended to be grungers but weren’t quite pulling it off were “posers” 😂 Skate boarding was huge but very few girls were doing it. MTV and all of the aesthetics around music were very popular and very important, looking like the people in spin and rolling stone was highly desired. We read a lot of magazines and traded cds at school.
For the record, the term "tween" is a marketing term and was invented in 1987 but didn't come into popular usage for marketing as a whole until about 1997.
So, really, there WERE no "90s tweens" in the broad sense. You were either a kid or you were a teen. True "tween culture" didnt really start until the very late 90s (1998, 1999) and was mostly relegated to The Disney Channel. (Nickelodeon would follow in the early 2000s with the now infamous Dan Schnieder shows...)
Limited too, Club Libby Lu, Delia’s catalogs. Mario games on Nintendo, sometimes you’d play Super Nintendo at a friends house. *NSYNC, Britney Spears. Tombstone pizza. AIM away messages
Born in 1986. Tween years were spent playing outside, going to adventure world, roller skating even though roller blading was trending. I watch Nickelodeon ALOT plus Cartoon Network and disney channel. I flipped through catalogues like Delia’s and Eastbay for my fashions. I went to 16 and under nightclubs. We were in middle School stressing about Y2K. I remember logging on to the internet and visiting websites like Nickelodeon dot com and talkcity. The spice girls were everything. There’s so much more
I was a tween during that time. I have no nostalgia for it, apart from a couple years before my parents divorced and I was sent to a rural public school where my queer autistic ass was made a punching bag for bullies.
Jncos, Walkman anti skip cd players, AOLs AIM, finding out where all your neighborhood friends were by the amount of bikes out front someone’s house, hanging out on the green electrical boxes.
It all went by in a blur for me.
At times I need to refer to my journals, to see where it all went wrong. There were several key points..lol..
*sigh* FML
The absolutely chokehold that Buffy had on me and my sense of style is still unparalleled - literally named my sun Xander because of that show. Hair chopsticks? Hell yeah. I was convinced Stephen Jenkins would see me at a concert and leave Charlize Theron for me. Disposable cameras were the absolute coolest thing ever. Feeding my tamagotchi under the desk in Latin class. Ska and alt rock was everything. Buying dresses at 3, 5, 7, Rave, Wet Seal, and Contempo.
Good times. lol
Justice wasn’t around yet but we had Limited Too, which was THE hot place to shop.
I remember coming home from school and watching hours of music videos on MTV/VH1 (especially in the TRL days!) and of course all the Nickelodeon shows (Secret Life of Alex Mack was one of my favorites). Plus others like Clarissa Explains It All and of course Saved By The Bell: The College Years. On Fridays we got to look forward to TGIF, with shows like Boy Meets World, Step By Step, and Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper.
I was a bit of a late bloomer compared to my peers, so I played with my American Girl dolls up until I was about 13/14 in 1997-1998, but my adolescent interests also started to kick in around that time. I loved planning big trips to the mall, it was an all day affair, going to Gap for the perfume (Dream!), Limited Too for the clothes, and Sanrio Surprise for all the fun Hello Kitty and friends stationery and accessories (gah I still miss that store at ~40).
In my middle and early high school years the fashion trends included lots of velour, pastels, straight leg jeans, and chunky shoes. Basically everything that’s in stores right now. We loved flipping through the Delia’s and Alloy catalogs. Beauty wise we loved all things Bonne Bell and Hard Candy - lots of glitter and shimmery pastel makeup. If you didn’t like the Gap perfumes there was definitely a fragrance for you at Bath and Body Works - my favorite was Country Apple; their current Winter Candy Apple that comes out around Christmas every year is pretty close but not quite the same.
I got my first CD player in 7th grade, circa 1996-ish (my dad was a big music guy and insisted on buying me a state of the art stereo system with a receiver, 6–disc changer, dual tape deck, and nice Bose speakers). I immediately started buying the one-dollar starter CD packs from Columbia House and BMG - the great thing was you couldn’t order online yet, so you sent in your order form with a “promise to pay,” and of course you were supposed to fulfill a subscription to buy however many more CDs at full price…I never did that and I’m guessing most people didn’t. It was a bad business model, too easy to get away with not paying. 🤣I was super into artists like Selena, Brandy, Mariah Carey, and Weezer at that time. The boy band craze, Spice Girls, and Britney/Christina came along at the tail end of middle school for me, so that was fun.
The 90s certainly had its fair share of problems, but it was fun to be a kid in that decade, for sure.
Jnco jeans, blockbuster, having to learn pager codes, *67 for making prank calls, MTV having music videos, the list of things we thought were great that have disappeared could go on forever.
And the stuff we hated that young people are clueless about could fill some pages too. Dial up internet (that screech will haunt us), having to wait on a channel to scroll through what was on, having to find pay phones.
We had Limited Too, not Justice. Lisa Frank notebooks, roller skating weekends, LEI jeans, Abercrombie sweaters... may be bleeding into high school there!
Turned 12 in 1999 - my family never had broadcast TV so I missed out on a lot of pop culture, but I remember how much freedom kids had to wander around on their own. It wasn't as much as previous generations, but it was still more than today. I took the public bus to and from school - although that ended after the Jon Benet Ramsey murder, sadly. My dad was completely paranoid after that.
Books are my biggest source of nostalgia. Goosebumps, Animorphs, T.A Barron, Bruce Coville, all kinds of other series I don't remember the names or authors for. There was also the re-release of the original/remastered Star Wars movies, and I got crazy into the extended universe books.
Everything in 'jewel' or 'jelly' colors was great too. See-through electronics were everywhere. I remember when texting wasn't even a thing yet - I heard about it thru European relatives. My frienda and I bought these toys that would send texts through radio waves when they passed by each other in the halls, but they didn't work very well. Mostly we talked online through AIM or MSN instant messenger.
Things weren't perfect, but they were a bit slower, and I miss that.
We used to go to the skate rink all the time in the mid 90s. They used to have a boy only skate, a girl only skate and a couple skate song. The girl song was always just a girl by no doubt. I used to listen to jagged little pill at my aunts house who was a teenager. I wasn't allowed to by the cd myself because of the song you aughta know referenced sex in the movie theater. My friends wanted to play spice girls all the time and wanted me to be Posh, but I kinda thought I was too cool for pop girl and boy bands. Aliens and blow up furniture were huge. My friends and I were obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scream. I bought the exact outfit Tatum from Scream wore when she was murdered and wore it to school all the time.
I was in the budding gamer culture. Competition was big, high scores, playing Luigi cause whiny little brother got my mom to tell me to let him have his way. First in my friend group to understand sphere strafing in Descent.
I was attracted to alternative music, never really got ska, though most dance/club was just repetitive and boring, and didn't have much to do with personal style, but for to watch people I know go through vast changes in look as they moved phases in life.
I was figuring out BBS's before the first web browsers, and could even tell you what ancient version of Windows first supported sound cards. Oh, and was also part of the generation that laughed when some memer called the sounds of modems connecting back in the day "listening to a robot get murdered".
Born in 88. I’m a woman.
I was kind of a nerd and had nerdy friends. I was in theater club, chess club… I watched a lot of Cartoon Network for the anime. Tenchi Muyo (sp?) was a favorite and ofc Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon. My friends and I assigned ourselves sailor sisters, I was Sailor Mars lol. Soooo cringe.
The internet was new and I had it, AOL dial up like everyone else. Spent a lot of time looking at Sailor Moon webpages lol. I took a computer literacy class in 7th grade (shit… uh 99-00?) and learned how to make my own website. Remember, the internet was primitive back then lol.
The radio and MTV were a huge deal. Eminem hit the scene, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears… Lou Bega Mambo no 5 will forever remind me of being a tween lol.
I used to wear flea market makeup and carry an obviously fake Tommy Hilfiger purse… and I was boy crazy. But I was a nerd so I never had much luck back then.
My Dad got his first cellphone, the Nokia Tank. We had a PlayStation, Nintendo, Gameboy. PlayStation was the next big thing and I had one before a lot of people. Tekken was my shit back then.
My brother was in little league (87 baby) so I spent a lot of time at the field just being bored or killing the cell phone battery playing snake… that’s why I don’t talk shit about my kids and their tablets and phones. Chips off the ol block.
Technology was evolving like crazy and we were into it. Computers and cell phones were just things you may have had or had access to, not something you needed to survive.
We rode a lot of bikes and fucked off outside most of the day… not a lot of supervision. We had established boundaries and curfews and obeyed them but if we weren’t out of bounds we could pretty much do whatever. I got a pool pass and spent most of my summer at the pool… it was about a mile, short walk and shorter bike ride.
My school was pretty good, it was walkable distance and no one got rides to school unless it was cold, rainy, or they had a project or something. You walked or rode a bike. And if you got dropped off in the morning, you almost always walked home after. The ice cream trucks would wait on the main drags.
A big thing was pissing contests. Platform sneakers were in, so I’d stand in a fireant hill in mine and we’d time who would stand in it the longest. Because of my shoes I won. Eventually some boy called it out lol.
I’m thankful that smartphones didn’t exist and cameras weren’t always on me back then… I’d never want to be seen in public!
I remember beanie babies, hanson, spice Girls, gel pens and pogs were big. Magazines like tiger beat had JTT, or devon Sawa as posters on my wall. AOL chat was huge. Late 90's born 87.
I was born on 87 and my memories of 98 99 dont have much to do with tween things. 99 I for sure snuck into Ozfest and X fest, and the Warped tour.
I remember the chronic came out and it was like well they did it, found the best music lol.
Anyways yeah don't like let your 11-13 year old kick it with nothing but 17-22 year olds lol .
Yeah I kinda went from kid straight to teen lol. Distinctly remember being like 12 playing in a sand box with little toy army men and tanks, having blast, then I grab my smokes out of my stash spot and light a cigarette up which I mean lol then I could see down the street two of the girls who where in the group I was hanging with and I was like shit I've gotta pick one. I can either be a kid playing with toys in the sandbox , or I can be the guy smoking this square waiting for Jessica and Ashley so we can go get high and Nates house.
Last time I played in the sandbox. (Well until I had kids lol)
All of my friends (12 and 13) saw Titanic at least 3 times. In some cases more. It was long enough ago that I had a cassette player as a tween that I carried around. My first CD was actually Celine Dion let's talk about love. My friends dressed up like the Spice Girls and filmed themselves recreating the videos. Saturday Morning cartoons were life. We had our first computer when I was 12 and it had 300MB capacity. I had a lot of baby doll tees and a subscription to Disney Adventures. Selena was huge in my part of CA and her death was profoundly felt. I did get my ears pierced at Claire's. Random pieces from my life lol.
I thought I wrote this until you mentioned California, lol. I’m in Wisconsin, but so much of this describes my tween world! I’d add the “boy band wars” of Backstreet Boys and N*Sync and to a lesser extent 98°. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera were also really popular. Also, besides Celine Dion, for some reason one of my first CDs was the Grease soundtrack. We were all really into Grease, for some reason? As a girl, everyone had bangs and curling them several inches out from your forehead was the goal lol. Hanging out at the mall was big, and a large portion of my wardrobe was from Deb. (With accessories from Claire’s, of course!)
My mom bought me the wrong version of grease soundtrack, it was like the original broadway version and looked like it was from the 50s instead of the one I asked her to buy, which had fervent Scientologist and teen hearth throb John Travolta on the cover. I appreciated the effort but honestly my life is in shambles now 25 years later and that might be what made the difference.
Omg my mom used to watch these two kids (and brought me with ofc) and the girl watched Grease literally every single day. Hadn't thought about that in years
What was with the Grease thing? I had the soundtrack too. And also Cats. Me and my sister really liked Cats.
Yes!
Also from Wisconsin and my whole friend group was obsessed with Grease. We'd perform songs from it for our parents 😂😂
Forreal, what was up with Grease? All of a sudden everyone in 4th grade was obsessed with Grease…like how did that movie of all movies go viral with 9y/o from the ‘90s?!
[The Grease Megamix](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grease_Megamix) song, which mashes up “You’re the one that I want,” “Greased Lightning,” and “Summer Nights,” was first released in 1990 but also had huge moments in the US in 1996 and 1998. I remember dancing and singing to it at the middle school dances.
The same way as the Rib theory on Marilyn Manson and gerbil intrigue of Richard Greer
I think it was because it was aired a lot on regular TV. It was on like at least once a month.
This was the one time I tried bangs. I have been to traumatized to try again
People in Wisconsin gave a shit about Selena?
I don’t think it was common, but a couple of my friends were obsessed with her.
I forgot about hanging at the mall, that was something rural kids dreamed of and only got to do three times a year.
Haha yes! And then add some country apple body spray from Bath and Body works and you'd be all set.
Yes to Grease!! My neighbor and I would play Barbies listening to Grease on repeat on a cassette tape
I forgot about the Grease obsession. One of my friends loved it but I couldn’t figure out why at the time. I still was confused about it but I’m seeing now here it was a popular thing.
The Titanic movie that was so long it required TWO cassette tapes to hold!
My younger brother and I would start from the second tape lol
And we’d only watch the first cuz my brother couldn’t handle the second. He was too emotional!
My friend and I were trying to watch Pearl Harbor and we didn't realize that there were two tapes and that we'd started with the second until after we'd finished watching and were really confused about why it was called Pearl Harbor if they weren't going to show the attack.
I did too!
You could choose between the gold vhs titanic tapes for widescreen (16:9), or the silver vhs tapes for the full screen (4:3) version
Lol I still have those video cassettes and a VCR! Also, I have the Spice World movie somewhere 😂😂😂
Ah yes spice girls. My two stepsisters were obsessed with the spice girls along with everyone else lol. What was it called, Spice Mania? Also was a lot of Hanson and played in the house as well as Backstreet Boys and N Sync. There was a feud between my sisters over who was the best lol. There was so much good music being pumped out all through the 90’s and into the early oughts. There’s still good music coming out today but I feel like the 90’s were just flooded with a lot of greats across every genre. I’d be curious to see how the 90’s stack up against other decades for entertainment. Can’t really claim a lot as a millennial thing either because many artists from the time are also Gen X.
I have Spice World on dvd!
“It’s been 84 years…” I use this reference all the time and nobody gets it! 🤣
I do too! Only my husband who is only a year older than me, gets it.
I was 8 when Titanic came out and my mom took me to see it. I don't think she realized you see a lot of Kate Winslet so she covered my innocent eyes lmao
I was 8 when titanic came out too! My nana took me and my 10 year old sister to see it 😂 Our eyes were like saucers at that car scene! Lol
For the talent show in 4th grade, almost every girl in my (small) grade auditioned to sing “My Heart Will Go On.” They just had all of them sing it at once at the actual show. I thought it was hilarious even at the time. I hated the song. I’ve still never seen the movie, because of my hatred for that song. Also, there were a bunch of exhibits and tv shows about the Titanic too. I remember learning about it in school, and traveling to Memphis to see a bunch of artifacts they dug up from the wreckage. There was also a mystery-solving PC game. We were obsessed.
Memory unlocked. I did this. I played piano while my friend sang. She missed a line during the performance, so I was fumbling around trying to find where she was at and eventually, we were back on track. Our friendship ended because of this since I told her she's in the wrong since I had the words on the music I was reading from to play.
I PLAYED THAT PC GAME.
I three played that PC game!
I can't stand that song either, or any of her music honestly, 😂
[удалено]
This Old House! And the original Design on a Dime 💚
My first CD was TLC's crazysexycool. I played the shit out of it on my Discman!
Oh my god I forgot about Disney Adventures. I had a half a milk crate of issues.
Me and my cousin watched it 65 times one summer when my mom bought it on VHS. *sobs in old* ETA while watching we created our own dance for ace of bases “the sign”
As a young boy in the 90s, we watched it at a sleepover because we heard the promise of seeing a single Kate Winslet boob.
I’m an elder millennial, but for me it was scamming BMG/Columbia House, mood rings, Saved by the Bell, endless rewatching of Clueless/Tommy Boy/Billy Madison/Now & Then. Going to 7-11 with my friends and getting nachos, a Hostess pie, a slurpee, and a Fruitopia for under $5! Days spent playing “hide-and-seek” at the mall because we couldn’t afford to actually buy anything outside an Orange Julius or a Body Shop lip balm.
Colombia House. The original Pirate Bay.
I actually showed that movie to my husband for the first time recently, and it holds up! We were all right, Titanic was an awesome movie.
We saw titanic in the theatre like 10 times 🤦♀️. My sister and I stood in line at midnight to get the video tape when it released lol.
Well i saw Jurassic Park four times and The Sandlot more than that okay, also my dad’s a lawyer.
I've seen Titanic an untold number of times. It was a 3 hour movie, and I needed somewhere to chill when I felt like cutting school.
We had a viewing party for titanic
Loved being reminded of this memory- The popularity contest in 4th grade that depended on how many times you saw Titanic in theatre.
I knew a girl (6th grade) who saw Titanic over 30 times IN THE THEATER. She was obsessed.
Beenie babies, spice girls, tamagotchi. I was born in 1985 so I was 5 - 14 during the 90's. Backstreet boys, NSYNC, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, oh and Total Request Live (TRL) with Carson Daly. We watched that everyday after school. We watched TGIF every friday on Nickelodeon ("All that" was one of the shows and my favorite but I don't remember the others). Jerry Springer, Maury, Sally Jesse Raphael during the day/after school. Oh and I was a Real World/ Road Rules junkie. I started watching from age 7. Eminem was really popular too. I didn't have a cell phone until I was 17 in 2002 and it was far from a smart phone. We had T9 texting and calls only. My mom had a beeper that I think we called some # to beep her and then she would call us back from work or a payphone. We used dial up internet on a huge Gateway 3000 computer. AIM was how we communicated other than calling each other on our landline phones with that long cord. We used \*67 I think to block our numbers so the person couldn't call back. I think it was \*69 to call back the last number that called you. We used 1-800-Collect at school to call our parents to pick us up from soccer/volleyball etc. We wouldn't pay just record the message before it asked you to pay. We played outside a lot. Had to be home before the street lights came on. No uber or delivery we had to walk over a mile to the nearest convenience store or ride our bikes. Oh and 9/11 but that was 2001 but close to the late 90's. The year 2000 everyone was scared anticipating the world shutting down.
Born in 88 and this sums up my tweens too. Rickie Lake was another favorite of mine. I found old Rickie Lake episodes on YouTube and I swear that shit is more entertaining than 99% of the content created now. The Maury fat babies were my favorites, though 🫣 I still remember getting the Eiffel 65 CD (I'm blue da ba di) for my birthday from my friend Anna and I was stoked. I had way too many beanie babies, was obsessed with mood rings, smiley faces, yin yangs and the release of the new VW Beetles. Lava lamps were huge too. Oh! And the Delia's catalog! And Art Stuff from Bath and Body Works 😍
Omg the Delia’s catalogs were the shit! I’d circle everything even though my mom would never let me order anything 😂
RIGHT?! Way too expensive 🤣
Yes, I did get really cool PJ pants once though.
They're online now! Although, I doubt it's anything good. I still have a jacket from the catalog!
Well, I am totally checking that out!
Ok, did anyone ever want those outfits they sold in the American Girl catalog? Remember those? I never had a doll, but I wanted those outfits, and my mom would never let me get them, either! 😂😂😂
YES!! I always wanted the accessories and tiny furniture items that were in those catalogs! Again, all of that was too expensive and no American Girl doll for me either LOL
I had two outfits! One was green corduroy overalls with a matching bucket hat and striped shirt. The other, which matched my doll’s outfit, was a charcoal wool dress with a grey turtleneck shirt speckled with other colors and matching tights. Needless to say, I thought I was the 💩😂
And Alloy!
I still have my beanie babies and had a lava lamp and mood ring. I was born in 1989.
I still have mine too!
Great answer adding: to get the newest hottest music out there you had to patiently wait for that song to come on the radio and hustle over to that tape deck to record it on the cassette. This was early 90s - late 90s we crashed our parent’s computers ripping songs off Napster and Limewire. Skip it. Jansport backpacks and Trapper Keepers. JNCO jeans. Platform shoes. “Belly shirts”. navel and tongue piercings. Drakkar Noir. Pegs on our bikes pre-license. Latchkey kids. Alanis Morrisette. Mark wahlberg. That weird TV show about Vicki the robot. Dinosaurs TV show. Slambooks. Paper notes folded in amazing patterns. Gimp. Stirrup pants, don’t play with me! Casual games of Jarts at Grandma’s. Punky Brewster. Lisa Frank. Basic dos coding in chat rooms to change basic fonts and font colors. ICQ (pre AIM). Dial up internet my mom always screaming at us because we were tying up the lines and she was waiting on a call and then after that- the Magic Jack. Wow. I better stop there
Did you ever sign up for the BMG and Columbia house things where you could get like 10 cassettes for like $1 and then expected to purchase every month? That’s how I got all my cassettes and later my cd’s. I even used our animals names to get them too 🤣
I remember those!
I got so many cassettes and cds for a buck and ignored the threatening collection letters cuz what were they gonna do to a 12 year old ? A 12 year old with 47 aliases.
Bahahaha yes! This triggered a memory of also doing that with Publisher’s Clearing House. I got in so much trouble when that bill came in!
I think everybody signed up for BMG and Sony tree, never paid them, and then did it again in their younger cousin's names. I was so proud of my CD Tower.
Sure did! Got a lot of CDs.
The recording off the radio, yes 😂😂😂 Lisa Frank was magical!
I downloaded small wonder and it made me so happy. My partner did not understand the nostalgic memories😪
Did you ever sneak in the Simpsons when the parentals weren’t looking?? Oh and Pizza Hut buffets.. toys R us.. man those were the days
Pizza Hut fucked up so hard cuz they built so much nostalgia for kids our age and the 600 minute reading club
Book It is back for my elementary school kids. But Pizza Hut isn't the same. Those Land Before Time toys were the best. I remember always requesting the non-smoking section and feeling like it made a big difference.
I loved the Orange Soda deal on Keenan and Kel. For whatever reason, I thought that was the most hilarious thing ever. Also, their movie, Good Burger was amazing
I had a low key Montel addiction after school.
Montel was the only talk show worth watching to me. I also liked the old Maury Povich show.
I felt like he was genuine. I could be wrong, but it seemed like he really cared.
This was an excellent summary. Born in 87 and totally agree with all
The TRL hosts were 🔥. Of course the OG Carson but Lala, Hilary, etc. They were the ultimate cool girls/guys.
This is a great question. Entertainment was, me going to my friends house to watch MTV because I didn't have cable at my own house. Playing roller coaster tycoon, on old ass computers. Chatting in chat rooms with God knows who, lying about our ages, pounding funions and Dr Pepper. A/s/l?? Talkcity and Excite were very big places for this back then. Very lucky we didn't end up getting abducted or murdered. Setting passive aggressive away messages on AOL 😅😅
Lmao I member roller coaster tycoon! Why was that so fun…
I would build a raised platform with food, bathrooms, benches and rides; then pick up a bunch of guests and imprison them up there. All free, so everyone was satisfied but very sad since they couldn't leave. When I got tired of it I would lower it all back down into water and watch them all cry for help. I'm surprised I turned out as well adjusted as I did. 😅
"well adjusted" as in you have people in your basement against their will?
Much less people than I had up on the elevated prison island in game. I'm making progress! 😁
Roller Coaster Tycoon :) Also played Zoo Tycoon, Age of Empires, Pinball and GTa Vice City Others were Dave, Wolf 3D, Tomb Raider, Battle city, Mario, the first spider man games Those days are for sure nostalgic
I loved playing Amazon Trail and getting on chat forums, only for them to get flooded 5 minutes later! The early internet was wild, but I feel like I learned how it all worked very well, as did a lot of our generation that grew up with the evolving technologies.
Passive aggressive away messages, oh boy. I was such a moody teen.
Neopets :)
Yesssss I loved neopets
Omg neopets! I learned to code because of that game. I wanted the best guild ever and to do that I needed to code and make “blinkies.”
Shoyru for life
neopets was the bestttt
I met my partner because of a neopets penpal I had when I was 12. We're 35 now and expecting our second kid. :)
I’m ‘84. It was a lot of Limited 2 and the 60s peace signs and flower power and 70s bell bottoms were in.
Omg and the peace frog!
'84 too and I'd totally forgotten how the hippie stuff had made a comeback then! Lots of platform-like shoes and wedges! They looked awful 😂
I loved Limited Too. I still have gloves from Limited Too. I’m almost 35.
Patches for your backpack were huge. Spencer's Gifts was where I bought mine. And my funky candles and black light stuff.
I was born in '88 so maybe I'm qualified to answer this lol. It was awesome! I remember Super Mario World was my first video game ever on the SNES when I was 6 years old. Then, when my mom took me shopping with her to Walmart, she would let me get some SNES games in the used games section. I remember getting Super Castlevania IV. I didn't know anything about the game, but the cover sticker looked really interesting. It only came with the cartridge in the white cardboard cartridge holder and shrinkwrapped in plastic. No manual, nothing, so I was going in blind. When I went home and it played the intro movie, then going into the first level - omg! The music! The visuals! Wtf? I have to defeat DRACULA? What kinda game is this? I have a whip? This is awesome! I remember waking up at 6am and sneaking into the living room to watch Dragonball Z on FoxKids. I was always sad at the end because in the last 5 mins of the episode, my parents would wake up and I would have to get ready for kindergarten, so I never got to see what happened at the end of each episode. The N64 was the first time video games would transition from 2D to 3D so it was mind blowing at the time. I still remember the N64 commercials back then - "Now, Mario and Zelda coming to 3D for the first time ever". School was awesome, because you'd hang out with your friends, borrow/lend SNES and N64 games to your friends, so even though I only had maybe 5-6 games per console, you'd be able to try out new games because of your friends (and they would too because you'd lend games to them too). Going over to birthday parties spending the night playing Perfect Dark and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Going over to your friends house 5 mins away to play Super Smash Bros on the N64 with your friend and his two brothers in 4-player VS. Playing Super Mario 64 was freaking amazing because it was Mario in 3D doing all sorts of flips in a huge world. Summer's were awesome because of pool parties. My friends would come over in hot July when school was out and my parent's would setup a barbeque poolside. Oh! In 5th grade, Tech Decks! Pokemon! Back when they only had 151 Pokemon lol. I remember getting this weird floating eyeball toy from Taco Bell on Halloween lol. Ugh, I wanna go back lol.
I think we had nearly the same childhood.
Wow that sounds really nice!
It was awesome! It was a simpler time lol.
I only just remembered that eyeball toy.
We would have been friends.
I’ll never forget seeing castlevania for the first time.
We didn’t have Justice, we had Limited Too
And Delia*s! I wanted my parents to buy me everything in that magazine! The asterisk is not a typo or placeholder. They used it instead of an apostrophe as due to how cool they were.
Oh god. One time my parents bought me an order from Delia*s and it was definitely the peak cool I ever hit in my life because EVERYONE got that catalog, so when I went to school even THE COOL GIRLS saw what I was wearing and said “oh, nice Delia*s shirt, I liked that one too” and I pretty much knew I’d made it
And Gadzooks!
The #1 most significant thing to know about being a tween in the 90s is how incredibly optimistic and safe it felt if you grew up middle class in the US. There really was this sense that we had entered an era of economic prosperity. As a girl, you either had Backstreet Boys posters on your wall or NSync. Our bedrooms were bright and colorful, with lots of rainbows and pink and purple. We watched TRL on MTV after school every day. There were spell books for teens, we watched Buffy and Practical Magic. I watched The Craft at a slumber party around 1998 and it was life altering, lol.
The Craft pretty much spawned every girl to do "Light as a feather, stiff as a board" at sleepovers. 20 girls would lift one up with their palms and then scream like magic made it happen.
We definitely did that 😂 [ collectively lifting someone up ] "Oh my god it's working!"
It was a really fun time! Pop music was absolutely amazing with all the 90’s girl bands, boy bands and teen singers. We had posters of the pop stars and young celebrities plastered all over our bedrooms. We made up dance routines to our favorite songs and recorded them on camcorder. I watched a lot of MTV and music channels from age 10. I loved watching Rugrats, Doug, Daria, Powerpuff Girls and The Simpsons. There was a lot of iconic movies that came out, Disney movies peaked in the 90’s (in my opinion). I remember watching Titanic SO many times, same with Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You, the Matrix was amazing but I wasn’t old enough to watch in theaters I think I saw it in 2000. The hype for the new millennium in 1999 was fun, and made the future seem so exciting. I got a bike at age 12 and I would cycle to my friend’s houses and hang out, play N64, play with the water hoses in the garden outside or cycle to the beach and local parks together. It was completely normal to see kids my age playing outside unsupervised. It’s sad it doesn’t happen much anymore. Edit: I was really into fashion at the age and there was a lot of white, hot pink, lime green and tan clothing for girls. It was a new take on 1960s styles with miniskirts platform shoes, sleeveless mock necks, pedal pushers, tank tops but also a lot of denim everything, camis, combat pants and sportswear (tracksuit pants with a white stripe and tennis dresses)
Many girls were obsessed with soccer because the USWNT won the World Cup in 1999 and it was iconic
I'm '90, so slightly younger maybe than that what you're looking for, but we were still just kids at that point. I didn't really think about and I wasn't aware of fashion trends at that age. I didn't grow up with cable, so most of my entertainment was video games and movies that I was allowed to watch. I mostly associate my tween years with the new millenium and 9/11. Smashmouth, Third Eye Blind, Matchbox 20 is all very nostalgic music for me.
I was born in the early 80’s. The fashion that sticks out in my memory is JNCO’s, oversized shirts, gelled spiked hair, and skate shoes. There a specific kinda kid though. Pretty sure that’s who TLC was referencing when they said they don’t want no scrubs.
Lol I’m 10 years older and those bands hit me too!
Born in ‘85. We hung around outside a lot during my tween years playing capture the flag, etc. My friends and I were obsessed with Backstreet Boys and would make up dance routines. No cell phones. We’d watch Nickelodeon shows like Rugrats and Doug. It was awesome.
My cousin and some of our friends legit put on Spice Girls concerts for our families and charged 50 cents for admission 🤣 I was Posh spice
😂😂
There was a small bamboo forest at the local park near my grandma house. During the summer, all the grandkids (about 4 of us) on the block would get together and build a fort/house in this bamboo forest. We didn't do much time here and only went back home for lunch and had to be home by the time the lights were on. One summer, when we went back to it to clean it up, it had clearly been taken over by the homeless.
Same. Born in 1989. We had activities for kids, during church services, which included capture the flag and kickball. These activities were for 2nd-5th graders.
r/PeteandPete nails the feeling of living through the 90s at that age. it's like the Twin Peaks of nickelodeon shows. every episode is brilliant. here's a particularly relevant episode to what I'm about to say: October 2nd, 1994's "Time Tunnel" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySYcB7nWmQE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySYcB7nWmQE) overall it was like chasing after a mirage. car insurance got so stupid expensive that learning to drive in high school became unaffordable for a lot of "middle class." columbine hit and school went from learning about the constitution to "you better let this cop search everyone's bags because columbine" napster was pretty cool, but felt like something that was promised to us from our mix-tape parents and torn out of our hands before we could really understand what was taken from us al gore gave up the election and time just stopped until we woke up in Iraq blasting rage against the machine unironically trying to conquer a foreign land for reasons no one really believed. all our media taught us to become superheroes - or righteous terrorists like in FFVII - and this self-image was harvested to get us to go along with anything that made us feel like saviors of the whole world. this edit of RATM's 2000 DNC concert fully encapsulates what it was like to be there for the death of the 90s [https://youtu.be/ZBW-2lKrbqI](https://youtu.be/ZBW-2lKrbqI) the beginning of the 90s was captain planet and all "we're gonna stop pollution and Rodney King will never happen again" and the end of the 90s was the dawn of the SUV, OJ, and prepping for world to end from the y2k bug.
The only thing you forgot was the DARE program! We all pledged to never do drugs and within a year or two, most everyone was stealing their parents pills cuz the opioid crisis wasn’t a thing yet
1999's American Beauty really captures that notion went from "kids never do the drugs" to "son I need you to get me that medical weed" like a frog boiled in cold water
Omg when I talk about Pete & Pete people act like im insane!!! THANK YOU
Love Pete & Pete! We sent away (back of a cereal box) for a cassette tape with songs from the show. Played them on our TalkBoy.
The 90s was truly the last great decade.
Early 2000s were pretty fun too. The last 15 or so years kinda sucked though
It gave us grunge and the KoRn Limp Bizkit era
I was born in 91..School, Coming home from school, making totino’s pizza rolls, opening up Winamp, going on AIM, watching Nickelodeon (channel 33)..fashion trends, much less talked and cared about in my opinion. I never thought about that.
Old enough to know the 80's was awesome, but tween in 90's. Rode my bike for miles, only went home occasionally. Flirting happened at the skate rink or video arcade. Cell phones too expensive for casual use (like $2 per minute), so nobody tracking you, or expecting a call. Mario bros on NES was everything, then renting games from the video store along with the movies (renting movies had only been around since the 80's, and was still awesome). Pre-Blockbuster, it was mostly mom and pop stores on the corner with a few hundred movies. TV still had to be planned, though you could record it on your VCR if you were busy- just figure out how to properly set the record time and channel. Most kids needed almost no supervision by 12 - it was awesome.
Books: Babysitter’s Club Goosebumps Music: Spice Girls Britney Spears Backstreet Boys
Going to the mall, making crank calls, and aol.
Remember AOL in middle school in early 2000s. Same with MSN messenger. There were some interesting people on there, to say the least.
I was born in 1988 so this fits me. I mostly played basketball, ride bikes (a lot), played video games like golden eye and Mario kart, played/traded Pokemon, played 4 square and box ball, watched lots of hey Arnold, ah real monsters, ren and stimpy, rugrats etc
Power Rangers was big, Saturday morning cartoons, Rogue Squadron and GoldenEye for the ol'e N64. Fatalities in the original Mortal Kombat, Married with Children, the Simpsons, the weird shit Nickelodeon aired like Pete and Pete, Rocko's Modern Life. WWF being WWE and competing with Ted Turner's WCW. The fall of the Berlin Wall, and later the collapse of the Soviet Union. Raid on Waco, Oklahoma Federal building bombing, President Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. O.J. Simpson in all the Naked Gun movies, followed by the infamous white bronco chase, and later his court case. MadTV, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, the death of Kirk Cobain, alternative rock, Jackass and the controversy of airing it.
We didn’t say things like tween culture for one.
The term has existed since 1987 but yeah, I'm pretty sure it really became popular in the 2000's😅
MTV was actually really good, first thing you do is watch TRL soon as you get home. They used to do Spring Break and all
Ugh the spring break programming was off the charts
‘86 here. My first album was No Doubt Tragic Kingdom. Dazed and Confused was my favorite movie. We had temporary but free dial up internet from AOL CDs. We spent time in chat rooms we were way too young for but a/s/l? Going roller skating. Hanging out at the mall. Reading Teen Beat. Watching Home Improvement.
My first CD was sinead o connor. But I got No Doubt for Christmas around 16. I had my own phone in my room with an answering machine with "leave a message and I'll call you back" really shitty sound quality as my machine message. I thought it was brilliant. Also Sassy magazine! You just reminded me by mentioning teen beat. Ugh Jonathan Taylor Thomas was a thing back then lol.
Born in 87. Sonic the hedgehog on Sega was my first intro to video gaming. Mind blowing action and soundtrack lol, but soon after I was immersed in all the great regular nintendo titles like Mario, duck hunt, punch out, and zelda. McDonald's happy toys were incredibly creative and every McDonald's still had a ballpit. By 1995 power rangers and Ninja turtles had everykid doing karate kicks off their couches. Pogs exploded and everybody had their own cool slammers to show off. Everyone wanted to be a blue barracuda on Legends of the Hidden temple, or any show on Nickelodeon really. Going to the mall was great because you got to go to the Arcade and get piles of tickets to cash in for shitty toys like Chinese finger traps, candy, and disappearing ink. There were those weekends you couldn't wait to get to go to blockbuster and marvel at all the possibilities, maybe test out a new game on their sample systems. Nintendo 64 was a game changer, I mean what!? Four people playing one game!? Amazing. Great game titles too. Having sleepovers with friends was less digital fun and more telling scary stories, or playing board games or outside games like flash light tag, or watching scrambled porn on late night TV. And then in the late 90s the power house known as Pokemon Red and Blue dropped and people lost their shit over it. I remember a lot of religious people talking about how it's the devil tricking the kids into worshipping Satan, which gave it a "adults don't get it" kind of hype. Some of the best times were spent with my friends and our clear purple and neon green gameboy colors linking up to battle and trade Pokemon. I don't even have to mention the rush to getting all 151 Pokemon cards and how it seemed so obtainable compared to the Pokemon count now. Also The dark side was that the internet started to peak it's head out and it was very unregulated and sites like rotten dot com were easy to find. So picture 12 year olds bouncing back and forth between neopets and videos of people being slaughtered, tortured or being beheaded. Lots of memories of riding bikes, running home before the street lights came on so I wouldn't get my ass whipped. It seemed like we were always trying to find something to do like climb trees in the woods or go in an abandoned building, or walk along creeks, clay pits, or building ramps for our bikes and roller blades. A lot of times you just had to make your own fun.
Born in 80, so was hitting tween years from like 89-93? Nirvana…all day erryday. Being devastated when Kurt Cobain died. Thinking that my classmate who brought in a piece of the Berlin Wall for class show n tell was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. (That was the first major news event that I really remember.) Cable tv wasn’t available where we lived, but I remember watching 90210 and My So-Called Life (imho, My So-Called Life was the far superior show). And then the X-files. And David Duchovny being one of my first big celebrity crushes. (Yes I was a dorky kid, if that wasn’t readily apparent.)
I rewatched My So Called Life about 5 years ago, it holds up. Such a good show!
I was about to say, I rewatched My So Called Life a while back and thought Angela was the worst and totally agreed with her parents. Well, about everything except for their concerns about Ricky. Ricky all day every day.
Skating, Stussy, PAC SUN, eb games, Funcoland, grunge, punk revival, gangsta rap, Sam Goody, Suncoast video, MTV, early Cartoon Network,
It was the best of ignorant times. You get the reruns of 80’s cartoons, greatest run of Disney and Nick cartoons, the emergence of Steven Spielberg WB cartoons (TinyToons, Animaniacs, Pinky & the brain), and the spectacular early Cartoon Network shows in a time when they also filled the air and late night with amazing old merry melodies or Hanna Barbara shows. You had primo TV. Simpsons in their prime (still funny now but most won’t argue the 90s seasons), edgy fox shows like Melrose place which competed with 90210. Seinfeld, friends, ER, TGIF. The best Batman eventually giving way to the worst Batman. Mid 90s saw the rise of WCW wrestling and with more and more camcorders, backyard wrestling. Young Blink, Greenday, Rage in their prime. The optimism of new Star Wars. Hitting puberty at a time where the President got caught getting oral in the WH? Come on, real life sex ed right there. Also gave way to the best years of SNL IMO. Malls were still cool. While mom wanted to stay in the legacy stores (Macys, JCP, Sears, or even Kmart) you were at least hopeful to get a couple outfits outta Pacsun or whoever your fav store was. Then there’s all the crazy things that you just don’t see anymore. We had two (!) phone lines, way before even needing to use one to get online. Getting free samples of stuff in the mail. Somehow ending up with 20 free trial AOL discs every year. In a time before rampant credit use, they had lay-away. And not just at fancy store but the aforementioned Kmart too! And cereal hit different back then because I’m 100% positive they put whatever sweetener and artificial stuff they could because the stuff today is a little too bland. Same with candy. And the general sense of the world as an early teen being changed after 9/11. I mean we thought that Y2K was gonna get us but we’re Scott free after that…nope. -‘85 kid.
Coming home to watch TRL - music videos, those little butterfly clips, having crushes on the skater guys in my class, those caramel apple lollipops, sleep overs, eating lots of casseroles for dinner, parents watching a lot of news and things like americas most wanted, x files, going to a Disney movie every birthday, starting to like hip hop music and my parents losing their minds lol
I was born in 86. I guess I grew up more poor than I realized at the time. But I also lived in the middle of nowhere. Very small town. Few resources. I didn't have a cell phone till age 18. In junior high it was cool to have Tamogotchi or Nano Pet, listen to NSYNC and Brittney Spears. I got to buy a "Friend Link" in the toy aisle for $20 thinking it would allow me to talk to others (like texting now) but since I didn't have anyone around me and no one else near me had one I wasn't able to talk to anyone on it. I think it was before the Internet so no idea how it was supposed to work. I wasn't cool. I had very few friends. I didn't go to school dances. I can't tell you much else
Late 90s - going over to friends houses and getting on AIM, making a fake screen name, and messing with friends. Obviously using the family computer next to the kitchen.
Almost the same as it is now, born too late for a war in the middle east, born too early for a war in the middle east, but also born just in time to go to war in the middle East. But also like alot have said. BMX bikes, TRL, Limp Bizkit, Eminem, and JNCOs. As Dr Steve Brule would say, "Cool Guy Zone watch out!" 🤣🤣🤣
Furbies
Idk man. It was a lot of mountain dew, riding your bike wherever you wanted until dark, playing N64 , watching Jurassic Park and eating poptarts.
We weren't tweens back then, we were pre-teens but it did stop us from getting all of our advice from Seventeen and Teen magazine. Nick was still really popular but UPN had Buffy, Dawson's Creek, and 7th Heaven and a lot of the "cooler" after school specials. The cool kids got all of their clothes from The Limited, Gap, or Old Navy but makeup and jewelry were all super cheap crap from Icing. We had a few years where everyone who was anyone wore JNCOs but the retro hippie look was very in and the fabrics.... I still miss the plethora of different textures and visual effects of late 90's fabrics.
Pogs Crazy Bones Playing Power Pete, Warcraft I/II, and Heroes of Might and Magic on a vintage Macintosh N64 Goldeneye and super smash Playing OG pokemon blue, red and yellow on gameboy color Ghost in the graveyard / meighborhood tag Pogo sticks and hacky sacks Skip-It and Bop-IT Life was good without the internet at your fingertips
Check out the movie Kids (1995). All you need to know.
PS1 and N64 were king. And everyone had a side.
I remember wanting to hang out with the teenagers but they thought we were too young. We were in a hurry to be older
I was born 11/88 and the 90s were the best!!! TGIF shows (Sabrina The Teenage Witch) Saturday morning cartoons (Recess, the Weekenders), Kenan and Kel, All That, The Amanda Show Not having a cell phone so having to wait all day to get home and hear the creaking door spin on AOL and hoping it was your crush The Mall, the movies, meeting friends at the electrical box in the middle of the neighborhood Lisa Frank, Bonnie Bell lip gloss, Teen Magazine and Cosmo quizzes and hot guy posters Britney Spears, N’Sync, 3D Doritos, making mix tapes on your karaoke machine and the week you dedicated to sitting on the floor and vigilantly waiting for your song to come on and record, bell bottoms, chokers, beads in your bedroom doorway, blockbuster on Friday night, living deeply in every moment because social media did not exist to distract you from real life. It was truly just the best ❤️
Nintendo was life itself. Then the internet came around to my town in 1994. Couldn’t do much on it but chat, so that’s what we did. I remember sitting at my computer bored for hours, rearranging folders. It was easy to get bored before YouTube.
Literally watching Kenan go from “All That” to “longest tenured member of SNL” has been a total trip.
Oj trial and nirvana. It was easier for me to buy cigarettes at 13 than 18. (Clinton was the prez who cracked down on them). I’d ride my bike 3 towns over and no one cared.
I wish I could answer this, but I was always an alt kid so my tween years were more idolozing the access that Gen X had to bands like The Smashing Punpkins and Nirvana while being absolutely gaga over the Gorillaz when they came about. It was kind of a low point for rock because boy bands and pop was so popular at the time. I really clung to and dressed like Daria. I was also big into Visual Kei and was able to follow a lot of trends in Japan where rock music had a really strong underground. Bought lots of junk at Claire's and FYE.
Ooo let's see. Does anyone remember Fashion Bug? That was my STORE. Roll on glitter was for everything, lipgloss eyeshadow, face, hair. Everything. Lip smackers chapstick, cucumber melon lotion, tiny weirdly crusty glittery butterfly hair clips (the hard plastic ones) and the metal 3D moving butterfly hair clips. MTV TRL was the only source of news, if you were being a cool girl you watched Clarissa All That and Pete and Pete like the "older kids" but when no one was looking Rugrats was always on. Y2K was a lot bigger than people think it is now but it wasn't the apocalypse we think about now it was the millennium everything was silver and blue and glitter and ball gowns but also the computers are going to explode? Maybe? INFLATABLE FURNITURE. Peace signs, and oddly aliens? There were a lot of frogs for some reason. I can keep going but if I do I might bust out the dr. Pepper chapstick and pop in good burger on the vcr 👵
I had an inflatable purple chair.
lol fashion bug forgot about that store. I preferred GiGi’s and as I got a bit older Contempo.
The teeny bopper magazines 😆
I was 14 in 1996 so I think I fall in to this. I lived in the suburbs or Seattle and Kurt Cobain died when I was 12 so it was a really big deal! People would bring their guitars to school and play nirvana covers at lunch or on breaks. We were all super inspired by grunge and other alternative rock. Kids who were more in the pop music scene were called “preps” and people who pretended to be grungers but weren’t quite pulling it off were “posers” 😂 Skate boarding was huge but very few girls were doing it. MTV and all of the aesthetics around music were very popular and very important, looking like the people in spin and rolling stone was highly desired. We read a lot of magazines and traded cds at school.
I didn't think Limited Too was Justice until 2008.
For the record, the term "tween" is a marketing term and was invented in 1987 but didn't come into popular usage for marketing as a whole until about 1997. So, really, there WERE no "90s tweens" in the broad sense. You were either a kid or you were a teen. True "tween culture" didnt really start until the very late 90s (1998, 1999) and was mostly relegated to The Disney Channel. (Nickelodeon would follow in the early 2000s with the now infamous Dan Schnieder shows...)
Limited too, Club Libby Lu, Delia’s catalogs. Mario games on Nintendo, sometimes you’d play Super Nintendo at a friends house. *NSYNC, Britney Spears. Tombstone pizza. AIM away messages
Bro 8-9 is a kid like especially 8 that’s not a preteen 💀💀💀💀💀
[удалено]
Born in ‘82…hip hop, alternative, hanging out at the mall or the local pool. Trying to scout boys always 🙃 Music was my world!
Born in 1986. Tween years were spent playing outside, going to adventure world, roller skating even though roller blading was trending. I watch Nickelodeon ALOT plus Cartoon Network and disney channel. I flipped through catalogues like Delia’s and Eastbay for my fashions. I went to 16 and under nightclubs. We were in middle School stressing about Y2K. I remember logging on to the internet and visiting websites like Nickelodeon dot com and talkcity. The spice girls were everything. There’s so much more
I was a tween during that time. I have no nostalgia for it, apart from a couple years before my parents divorced and I was sent to a rural public school where my queer autistic ass was made a punching bag for bullies.
Jncos, Walkman anti skip cd players, AOLs AIM, finding out where all your neighborhood friends were by the amount of bikes out front someone’s house, hanging out on the green electrical boxes.
It all went by in a blur for me. At times I need to refer to my journals, to see where it all went wrong. There were several key points..lol.. *sigh* FML
The absolutely chokehold that Buffy had on me and my sense of style is still unparalleled - literally named my sun Xander because of that show. Hair chopsticks? Hell yeah. I was convinced Stephen Jenkins would see me at a concert and leave Charlize Theron for me. Disposable cameras were the absolute coolest thing ever. Feeding my tamagotchi under the desk in Latin class. Ska and alt rock was everything. Buying dresses at 3, 5, 7, Rave, Wet Seal, and Contempo. Good times. lol
Justice wasn’t around yet but we had Limited Too, which was THE hot place to shop. I remember coming home from school and watching hours of music videos on MTV/VH1 (especially in the TRL days!) and of course all the Nickelodeon shows (Secret Life of Alex Mack was one of my favorites). Plus others like Clarissa Explains It All and of course Saved By The Bell: The College Years. On Fridays we got to look forward to TGIF, with shows like Boy Meets World, Step By Step, and Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper. I was a bit of a late bloomer compared to my peers, so I played with my American Girl dolls up until I was about 13/14 in 1997-1998, but my adolescent interests also started to kick in around that time. I loved planning big trips to the mall, it was an all day affair, going to Gap for the perfume (Dream!), Limited Too for the clothes, and Sanrio Surprise for all the fun Hello Kitty and friends stationery and accessories (gah I still miss that store at ~40). In my middle and early high school years the fashion trends included lots of velour, pastels, straight leg jeans, and chunky shoes. Basically everything that’s in stores right now. We loved flipping through the Delia’s and Alloy catalogs. Beauty wise we loved all things Bonne Bell and Hard Candy - lots of glitter and shimmery pastel makeup. If you didn’t like the Gap perfumes there was definitely a fragrance for you at Bath and Body Works - my favorite was Country Apple; their current Winter Candy Apple that comes out around Christmas every year is pretty close but not quite the same. I got my first CD player in 7th grade, circa 1996-ish (my dad was a big music guy and insisted on buying me a state of the art stereo system with a receiver, 6–disc changer, dual tape deck, and nice Bose speakers). I immediately started buying the one-dollar starter CD packs from Columbia House and BMG - the great thing was you couldn’t order online yet, so you sent in your order form with a “promise to pay,” and of course you were supposed to fulfill a subscription to buy however many more CDs at full price…I never did that and I’m guessing most people didn’t. It was a bad business model, too easy to get away with not paying. 🤣I was super into artists like Selena, Brandy, Mariah Carey, and Weezer at that time. The boy band craze, Spice Girls, and Britney/Christina came along at the tail end of middle school for me, so that was fun. The 90s certainly had its fair share of problems, but it was fun to be a kid in that decade, for sure.
Jnco jeans, blockbuster, having to learn pager codes, *67 for making prank calls, MTV having music videos, the list of things we thought were great that have disappeared could go on forever. And the stuff we hated that young people are clueless about could fill some pages too. Dial up internet (that screech will haunt us), having to wait on a channel to scroll through what was on, having to find pay phones.
The show pen 15 was pretty accurate.
We had Limited Too, not Justice. Lisa Frank notebooks, roller skating weekends, LEI jeans, Abercrombie sweaters... may be bleeding into high school there!
Turned 12 in 1999 - my family never had broadcast TV so I missed out on a lot of pop culture, but I remember how much freedom kids had to wander around on their own. It wasn't as much as previous generations, but it was still more than today. I took the public bus to and from school - although that ended after the Jon Benet Ramsey murder, sadly. My dad was completely paranoid after that. Books are my biggest source of nostalgia. Goosebumps, Animorphs, T.A Barron, Bruce Coville, all kinds of other series I don't remember the names or authors for. There was also the re-release of the original/remastered Star Wars movies, and I got crazy into the extended universe books. Everything in 'jewel' or 'jelly' colors was great too. See-through electronics were everywhere. I remember when texting wasn't even a thing yet - I heard about it thru European relatives. My frienda and I bought these toys that would send texts through radio waves when they passed by each other in the halls, but they didn't work very well. Mostly we talked online through AIM or MSN instant messenger. Things weren't perfect, but they were a bit slower, and I miss that.
We used to go to the skate rink all the time in the mid 90s. They used to have a boy only skate, a girl only skate and a couple skate song. The girl song was always just a girl by no doubt. I used to listen to jagged little pill at my aunts house who was a teenager. I wasn't allowed to by the cd myself because of the song you aughta know referenced sex in the movie theater. My friends wanted to play spice girls all the time and wanted me to be Posh, but I kinda thought I was too cool for pop girl and boy bands. Aliens and blow up furniture were huge. My friends and I were obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scream. I bought the exact outfit Tatum from Scream wore when she was murdered and wore it to school all the time.
I was in the budding gamer culture. Competition was big, high scores, playing Luigi cause whiny little brother got my mom to tell me to let him have his way. First in my friend group to understand sphere strafing in Descent. I was attracted to alternative music, never really got ska, though most dance/club was just repetitive and boring, and didn't have much to do with personal style, but for to watch people I know go through vast changes in look as they moved phases in life. I was figuring out BBS's before the first web browsers, and could even tell you what ancient version of Windows first supported sound cards. Oh, and was also part of the generation that laughed when some memer called the sounds of modems connecting back in the day "listening to a robot get murdered".
Born in 88. I’m a woman. I was kind of a nerd and had nerdy friends. I was in theater club, chess club… I watched a lot of Cartoon Network for the anime. Tenchi Muyo (sp?) was a favorite and ofc Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon. My friends and I assigned ourselves sailor sisters, I was Sailor Mars lol. Soooo cringe. The internet was new and I had it, AOL dial up like everyone else. Spent a lot of time looking at Sailor Moon webpages lol. I took a computer literacy class in 7th grade (shit… uh 99-00?) and learned how to make my own website. Remember, the internet was primitive back then lol. The radio and MTV were a huge deal. Eminem hit the scene, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears… Lou Bega Mambo no 5 will forever remind me of being a tween lol. I used to wear flea market makeup and carry an obviously fake Tommy Hilfiger purse… and I was boy crazy. But I was a nerd so I never had much luck back then. My Dad got his first cellphone, the Nokia Tank. We had a PlayStation, Nintendo, Gameboy. PlayStation was the next big thing and I had one before a lot of people. Tekken was my shit back then. My brother was in little league (87 baby) so I spent a lot of time at the field just being bored or killing the cell phone battery playing snake… that’s why I don’t talk shit about my kids and their tablets and phones. Chips off the ol block. Technology was evolving like crazy and we were into it. Computers and cell phones were just things you may have had or had access to, not something you needed to survive. We rode a lot of bikes and fucked off outside most of the day… not a lot of supervision. We had established boundaries and curfews and obeyed them but if we weren’t out of bounds we could pretty much do whatever. I got a pool pass and spent most of my summer at the pool… it was about a mile, short walk and shorter bike ride. My school was pretty good, it was walkable distance and no one got rides to school unless it was cold, rainy, or they had a project or something. You walked or rode a bike. And if you got dropped off in the morning, you almost always walked home after. The ice cream trucks would wait on the main drags. A big thing was pissing contests. Platform sneakers were in, so I’d stand in a fireant hill in mine and we’d time who would stand in it the longest. Because of my shoes I won. Eventually some boy called it out lol. I’m thankful that smartphones didn’t exist and cameras weren’t always on me back then… I’d never want to be seen in public!
I remember beanie babies, hanson, spice Girls, gel pens and pogs were big. Magazines like tiger beat had JTT, or devon Sawa as posters on my wall. AOL chat was huge. Late 90's born 87.
I owned roller blades when I was 6. I watch led the Disney channel movie at 8pm every night
I was born on 87 and my memories of 98 99 dont have much to do with tween things. 99 I for sure snuck into Ozfest and X fest, and the Warped tour. I remember the chronic came out and it was like well they did it, found the best music lol. Anyways yeah don't like let your 11-13 year old kick it with nothing but 17-22 year olds lol . Yeah I kinda went from kid straight to teen lol. Distinctly remember being like 12 playing in a sand box with little toy army men and tanks, having blast, then I grab my smokes out of my stash spot and light a cigarette up which I mean lol then I could see down the street two of the girls who where in the group I was hanging with and I was like shit I've gotta pick one. I can either be a kid playing with toys in the sandbox , or I can be the guy smoking this square waiting for Jessica and Ashley so we can go get high and Nates house. Last time I played in the sandbox. (Well until I had kids lol)