Did The 90s Suck? - And if so, why?

[Judge Dredd]

When the topic of the 1990s comes up, especially in regards to entertainment, it's somewhat common for someone (usually an American) to say that "the 90s sucked!", but I've never really heard a good reason why.


Games: The first half of the 90s had the SNES and MegaDrive, and the second half gave us the Playstation, Nintendo 64, and a string of classic PC games. Half-Life, Deus Ex, Resident Evil, Pokemon, Theme Hospital, the list goes on and on. Plus high quality sequels like Metal Gear Solid, Mario World, and Ocarina of Time.

Movies: Again, a list of classics. Jurassic Park, Heat, The Matrix, Terminator 2, Titanic, Shawshank Redemption, The Rocketeer, and Iron Giant are just some of the films out at the time. Not to mentioned the animated Disney movies like The Lion King and Toy Story.

TV: There was some quality here, but I haven't seen them in a while so I can't be sure. Prince of Bel-Air, Due South, Tales from the Crypt*, Red Dwarf*, and Mr Bean are all fondly remembered.
*Technically started late 1980s but ran through the 90s so they count

Anime: Hard to measure because anime was niche back then, and often took a long time to make it to England. While popular choices here would be Sailor Moon, Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, and Evangelion, my choice would lean more towards Ghost in the Shell. I'd add Appleseed here, but it's technically from the 80s.

Music: I hear people complain that the 90s sucked because Nirvana started the grunge genre, even if they begrudgingly admit that Smells Like Teen Spirit is a good song. I don't think a popular album you didn't care for is enough to ruin a decade, but he real problem with this argument is that in the 90s me and my friends were listening to Offspring and Fatboy Slim, while most at school were listening to rave music from local clubs copied 80,000 times. A quick look at any "hits from the 90s" playlist will have music from all kinds of genres, not wall-to-wall flannel shirts and grungy guitars. Maybe that verity was just a UK thing?


I've also heard it said that the 90s sucked because PS1 ruined gaming by killing off pixel art platformers and allowing dude bro normies into gaming. I dismiss that as salt from nostalgic generation-x Nintendo fanboys that never got over their favourite childhood console company lost to Sony.


So, did the 90s suck? And if so, why? And if it didn't suck, what was some of your favourite things from the 90s?

 

[Xenomorph]

Nope as an American I have NEVER read someone bashing it, quite the opposite the only ones who do usually had a bad childhood growing up so they draw from that.

 

[Super Shiro]

If entertainment in the 90's wasn't good, you'd be seeing a lot less remakes/reboots being churned out by entertainment monopolies who own the rights to every beloved piece of media from that decade.

 

[Day Walker]

Two things sucked about the 90’s, politically correct garbage that led to gobohomo and grunge.

 

[Jason Wynn]

I mean, I was born in 1984 so I spent my childhood and early/mid teen years in the 90s. We’re all going to be nostalgic at times for the time period our carefree childhood days with little to no responsibility were spent. Same can be said for Gen X and the 80s and Zoomers and the 2000s.

I’m sure older people who lived through the 90s will easily be able to find things about the decade that get overlooked when we put on our rose colored glasses, but just strictly speaking as a child/teen during that time, it was pretty fucking sweet. Even my dad (who is a very staunch conservative that likes to laugh with me over PC police/wokescold faggotry) will say to me that yeah that shit started in the 90s, but even back then it was mostly just roll your eyes and chuckle before moving on. People just seemed much more laid back and willing to let shit slide then, for good and for bad.

 

[IDanceonTrannyGraves]

No way.

 

[Spitz]

It had some of the funniest fucking movies:

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

Yes and no.

 

[General Disarray]

It's the lead-up decade for the worst to come. The "before times" prior to Covid. Am old, so I came of age in the 80's - first concert, first apartment all in that decade so I am jaded a bit. After 2001 it all went downhill fast.

Each decade has their defining style (trad 50's, hippies 60's, earth toned 70's, big everything 80's) until the last gasps of the 90's. After that, name me one thing that can cohesively define the 2000's or the 2010's. You can't, it's just all shit.

 

[batterybee]

name me one thing that can cohesively define the 2000's or the 2010's.

mental illness

 

[AmpleApricots]

The 80s felt like a buildup and the 90s felt like anything's possible and everything can happen, especially in regards to technology. The early 00s were exciting too, then 9/11 happened and the colors slowly faded over the next years, then everything dropped off a cliff with the financial crisis.

 

[Judge Dredd]

After that, name me one thing that can cohesively define the 2000's or the 2010's. You can't, it's just all shit.

For the 2010s, I'd argue the woke/hipster look of rainbow hair, black rimmed glasses, and skinny jeans was popular, as was the bald with beard look or the Richard Spencer haircut.

Those are still shit though.

I’m sure older people who lived through the 90s will easily be able to find things about the decade that get overlooked when we put on our rose colored glasses, but just strictly speaking as a child/teen during that time, it was pretty fucking sweet.

I thought of that, but the only things I can think of that might have sucked in the 90s was the moral panic around games, and politics.

With politics, there was John Major who is largely forgotten, considered bland and boring, and Tony Blair who is a largely hated politician, but I don't know specifics. I think he started mass immigration? In the US it was Bill Clinton I think? I don't know anything about his policies. Just the affair he had.

And the moral panic. Thrill Kill was banned and a few games like Carmageddon were censored, and then nothing much after that. Compared to the constant censorship and cancellations of today, that's basically nothing.

Though that's just speculation on my part, because of the people who say the 90s sucked, most don't give a reason.

 

[Spicey McHaggis]

I thought of that, but the only things I can think of that might have sucked in the 90s was the moral panic around games, and politics.

Honestly that's the main part that sucked ass. However if you had hobbies that were firearm related, the 90s were a downright BAD time for you.

 

[Pedophobe]

Early 90s was pretty late and gay. Bad music, worse fashion, the rise of political correctness, shitty ISA PCs and first gen consoles. Things had mostly turned around by the end of the decade fortunately.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

In contrast to the endless current year the 90s were amazing even with all the problems. Even the zoomers are nostalgic for the 80s and 90s and they weren't even alive yet.

The 90s were the last decade of a paradigm that died and has been phased out for a current one thats more inhuman and leaves people isolated and unfulfilled, the 2010s and 2020s feel like the technodistopia that cyberpunk warned us about finally consolidating. A lot of mainstream fashion and pop culture in the 90s sucked balls , ngl there but it was still fun to be edgy, some of the best metal albums were made in the 90s, there were a lot of alternatives to the mainstream that have since been co-opted.

1999 as when Chavez came to power in my country so i am even more biased. The 90s was before the nightmare began.

 

[Mark Goldbridge]

Comedy was a lot more free in the 90s/early 00s compared to now. Not everything was recorded so going out and having fun was a lot better especially house parties.

 

[Twinkletard]

After 1998 things began to slowly suck more and more. I fear the 2030s.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Internet was limited. Also anime (as mentioned in OP) was heavily localized and censored, as were JP vidya.

But there was no "social media" and having a cellphone wasn't that common. Corporate-made media was better.

 

[Bubble Ba'ath]

I was born in the 80s and had my entire childhood span the 90s. I dont feel nostalgia or hate for it as overall it was a mixed bag. My childhood was good but even then I preferred a lot of media from the 70s and 80s as it felt more creative. Now, I prefer older media even more than then.

It was undeniably the best and most important decade for gaming. Especially if you are like me and love turn based strategy and boomer shooter FPS. Gen X was rising giving it a great sense of contrarian humor. I wasnt really into anime much back then but the 80s and 90s style of it had so much character compared to the very standardized and sterile look that would arise in the mid 2000s (that we still have today). Western kids animation was at its peak, with stuff like Batman The Animated Series and Gargoyles being mainstream. Underground comics and indie comics were great, with Bone, SCUD, and the like. Hell, I even like 'the dark age of comics', albeit ironically, for mostly being different and unique from other eras. Most controversially I even think the 90s, not the overwrought corporate boardroom prestige tv of today, was the true 'Golden Age of Television' because you had both serialization and non-serialized stories in the same show. Twin Peaks, X-Files and Deep Space 9 are some of the best shows to ever exist.

But I see a negative side too. I think the mainstream film offerings were a huge downgrade from the 80s even if there are obvious good films everyone remembers from the 90s. The sheer output was so much weaker than the decades before and the good examples are much harder to find as a percentage. Horror in particular took a tumble it would not recover from until the mid 2010s. Action movies were worse all around too and sci fi was tepid at best. And I really dislike 90s (and early 2000s) mainstream music quite a lot. While the first grunge bands like Nirvana and early Pearl Jam were great, they created a genre of mass homogenization that basically killed rock as a genre to this day. Pop got fully Karenized and lost all of the fun and inventiveness it had in the 80s, becoming a fully neoliberal and seterilized Lillith Fair type thing ('I said HEY...WAZ GOIN ON???'). Ska, for some reason, influenced everything. Then came the nu metal and bling eras to really just suck. The whole thing seemed to be being enamored with (boring) Southern California culture. There is a reason even as a tween I got into music from the 60s-80s more than my own period.

In some ways it was the last decade before social media ruined a lot of creativity but in other ways it was the first fully neoliberal decade. Its aesthetic and artistic sense was all off outside of animation but it was also still experimental. The End of History in the end was pretty much just average on base.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

If entertainment in the 90's wasn't good, you'd be seeing a lot less remakes/reboots being churned out by entertainment monopolies who own the rights to every beloved piece of media from that decade.

Yup that was the decade where big media realized rehashing the same old stuff makes most money.

It's the lead-up decade for the worst to come. The "before times" prior to Covid. Am old, so I came of age in the 80's - first concert, first apartment all in that decade so I am jaded a bit. After 2001 it all went downhill fast.

Each decade has their defining style (trad 50's, hippies 60's, earth toned 70's, big everything 80's) until the last gasps of the 90's. After that, name me one thing that can cohesively define the 2000's or the 2010's. You can't, it's just all shit.

2000s: The terrorism/post911 panic
2010s: The tranny menace