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

[Dysnomia]

I can still recall the late '90s when it seemed that was taking over pop music on the air.


I think it was the same with '80s too. Looking at photos of '80s rooms shows they usually didn't have that "vaporwave" aesthetic.

But '70s rooms could be a different story: they could easily have those wood panel walls and orange carpet floors.

My grandparents kept the same tacky stuff for years. Creamed spinach green furniture and brown wood paneling (white in the TV room) paneling strangely paired with white on white French fleur de lis wallpaper. Green wall to wall. The downstairs bathroom had pink and black tile with wallpaper that featured huge pink butterflies. The upstairs bathroom had this hideous wallpaper that bled 70s. Orange, green and yellow sunburst patterns. My uncle told me that my grandparents got into a horrible argument over it because my grandmother insisted on that wallpaper and my grandfather hated it but had to put it up. It was bad. So bad.

Some 90s furniture could be nice. TV showed a lot of heavy florals for sofas, chairs and wallpaper. But I didn't know many people who had the same kind of furniture. We had a dark blue living room set with tiny pink flowers. Most people had woodgrain tables and other furnishings and not anything too wacky. Wacky stuff was for a kid's bedroom.

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

The 90s is one of the worst decades in my opinion. The fall of the Soviet Union green lit the massive rise in identity politics and political division.

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

Well, we got the rise of otakudom, wars everywhere, decline of Japan and western manufacturing at large, rise of the chinese, fall of Sovietland, rise of the whole alphabet movement, the foundations of the EU, LA riots, Columbine and the first modern school shootings, wizards/incels, fukuyaman theory, etc. But besides that, we got a free but largely responsible internet (as if that would last), Neon Genesis Evangelion, of course, gaming at its peak, with the likes of Doom and Metal Gear, and also the post-Cold War optimism of the era, as well as an economic boom in most of the West.

All in all, I would say that the decade itself was good, but it set many dangerous precedents and planted many of the seeds of our current problems.

 

[The Hardest R]

The 90s was the peak of the American empire so it was basically a victory lap for “American values” which laid down the groundwork for the things we see today. The first wave of political correctness hit, the overt glorification of negroes really took off, the shift of fags being disease ridden and degenerate (Philadelphia) to being a pet for white girls (Will and Grace) took off, etc.

The pop culture rewrite was really interesting too. Grunge was big but Garth Brooks’s 1991 album outsold every grunge album released that year, which included Nevermind. However I doubt any zoomer would know who the fuck Garth Brooks is. Any pop culture “historian” basically glosses over anything that didn’t appeal to Generation X. Guns N’ Roses still sold a shitload during this time, even though hair metal went away.

Chuck Klosterman’s book on The Nineties is shit btw.