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

[Screamer_2]

I feel like a lot of shit matured in the 90s and just stagnated in the 00s. There's still been plenty of good shit, but it stagnates so quickly. Worse in the 10s.

I think one major change is that people growing up in the 90s were probably the last generation to consume a lot of contemporary and past media content.

 

[Otoya Yamaguchi]

View attachment 5509830
Mr. Yamaguchi
For the sake of the Emperor and of the Rising Sun
I beg you

beg me what? i know what i posted....whats with the "???"

 

[SilentDuck]

Thing about the 90s internet is you could literally do anything with the exception of threatening POTUS in the late 90s. An 85 year old judge who doesn't own a computer, will never use a computer, and doesn't know what the internet is would most likely preside over your case as some prosecutor that doesn't "know computers" tries to stumble fuck their way through a prosecution. Now you get female coomer judges in their 40s with 6 digit ICQs numbers who intuitively know your kind and that you probablly post on kiwifarms.

Also in the 90s I didn't feel like I'm perpetually drowning in the wrong thing, falling behind regardless of whether I am or not and that there isn't enough time to do anything. The pace of everything now is wild as the middle class goes through modern history's biggest rug pull and couldn't care less.

 

[Doctor John B. Zyklon]

I feel like a lot of shit matured in the 90s and just stagnated in the 00s.

It's said the 90s never ended.

 

[PipTheAlchemist]

The only thing good about the 90s was that they led to the golden age that was the early 2000s. That's when human culture was at its peak.

Both are good doe

 

[Spitz]

You go out into the world and find something you enjoy doing, become good at it, maybe even the best, and you do it. If you have to sacrifice everything for what you love doing, that would be a life worth living.

Even if you have to hold court on the street.

 

[skykiii]

The funny thing about the 1990s, personally, is I did an about-face on it.

I didn't mind the first half (I would've been like, eight or so when the decade began) but by the tail end, I was beginning to hate the decade. This was when I started hooking up my NES again, or watching old cartoons from the eighties, and it felt like something that had been missing had been restored. I remember especially hating American television at the time, and certain aspects of what at the time seemed to be "American Culture"--I hated stuff like GI Joe Extreme and its testosterone edgy aesthetic, for example.

But the thing is.... well.... after the nineties were gone, I started to miss them. Especially nowadays, I wish I was living in the 1990s again.

It was really easy to get tunnel-vision when the decade was actually going, but in retrospect it was kind of a golden age. Video games in the 1980s were good but in the 1990s was when they got interesting with all the advancements, evolutions, and just plain new things that were being done or things I hadn't known about before coming more into my limelight.

It felt like a decade of endless optimism and possibilities, even if I hated some of the aesthetics at the time (like the tendency towards gross-out or the whole "loud and tough" thing pop culture had going on). It was a time where living was actually fun.

And nowadays, I look on the nineties much more fondly than I did while actually living them.

.......

One caveat though, in some areas I think the eighties were genuinely better. Most notably cartoons (outside of anime). While the nineties had the occasional good thing, the eighties was positivey loaded with goodness. Even some shit you never heard of could be an undiscovered classic.

And on that note, it bothers me that the nineties is when media starts getting more blatantly corporate in this regard. It feels like all the actually good cartoons went unnoticed while everyone brings up all the Marvel and DC stuff all the time, which you know is being astroturfed by comic book fans. I've re-watched both the Marvel and DC cartoons of the time and most of them are just not that good, meanwhile stuff like Highlander The Animated Series or Fox's Peter Pan and the Pirates are way better than I recall them being.

 

[Broseph]

Nope, the 90's was based AF and we will never get another decade like that ever again. Mainstream popular music was still good, TV shows were actually fun to watch, gaming was a new and exciting thing to experience as it evolved throughout the decade and faggotry was looked at with disdain and disgust like it's supposed to be.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Something that could have been awkward in the '90s was a teen calling his or her crush over landline, only for parents to answer.

(as this was in the days before everyone and their dog had a "smartphone")

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Something that could have been awkward in the '90s was a teen calling his or her crush over landline, only for parents to answer.

That was normal and I think it is a thing contemporary society lacks. Back then you had to interact with parents and chit-chat for a minute or two on the landline while waiting for the person you are calling to show up. I think that was beneficial.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

That was normal and I think it is a thing contemporary society lacks. Back then you had to interact with parents and chit-chat for a minute or two on the landline while waiting for the person you are calling to show up. I think that was beneficial.

at least kids voicechat more often now thanks to discord and hangouts like that but the dynamics of that are really different. Also all the gross stuff that happens in those groups outside of parents supervision. Its offsets any benefit that could come from the social interaction

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

at least kids voicechat more often now thanks to discord and hangouts like that but the dynamics of that are really different. Also all the gross stuff that happens in those groups outside of parents supervision. Its offsets any benefit that could come from the social interaction

I meant the forced interaction with the parents when using landlines. It was landlines or knocking on the door unless you went to the same school.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

I meant the forced interaction with the parents when using landlines. It was landlines or knocking on the door unless you went to the same school.

oh i agree, its a bonus in social skills but also a safety filter. Even though it sucks when you are that age.

 

[Woodchipper]

It's basically impossible to answer that since it's so heavily based on personal experience. Really horse-shoe theorying it is the only acceptable answer. There was awful shit along with amazing things, just like any other era.
To tangent, you should be very wary of overindulging in nostalgia. It's neat to revisit things that have faded but it can easily lead to escapism and an inability to adapt to our present reality. It's easily one of the biggest indicators that someone is afflicted by soy to the point I've never met a gay ass nerd that wasn't obsessed with some dead era.

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

this is a US-centric perspective but Pax Americana was at its peak here too.

I think most Americans will see it that way.

The US was a unipolar superpower.

The end of the 20th century could've been the peak of the history of civilization in this world.

I would say it's possible it was the peak of this, the 6th cycle, for our planet. Hard to say how it will go for future cycles.

I have a bad feeling the reset button for the 6th cycle is coming sooner than later. Hopefully not, but it's hard to say, considering how the end of the 5th cycle came out of nowhere. Humans will be the first advanced lifeforms to survive a cycle if we can manage to get enough humans off the planet before the reset for the 7th cycle.

 

[Bagronkleton]

I'd give my good left nut to go back to the 90s and live it up for nine years then neck myself when the clock strikes just before the end of 1999.

It all went downhill from there. Straight up muddy missile nosedive into the septic tank.

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

I'd give my good left nut to go back to the 90s and live it up for nine years then neck myself when the clock strikes just before the end of 1999.

It all went downhill from there. Straight up muddy missile nosedive into the septic tank.

I agree with most other people, that the nosedive really hit after 9/11. That is the day the party was over.

 

[Johann Gambolputty...]

The 90s gave us the N64 and the Attitude Era. That pretty much makes up for all the boy bands and shitty TV shows.

 

[Johan Hulth]

The 90s was a high watermark of culture for sure

 

[The Hardest R]

The 90s was a high watermark of culture for sure

Keep this clip in mind the next time he pisses and moans about how hard he has it as an actor. It’s totally due to racism like he says.