If you could would you go back to the 90’s?

[Beaniebeemer]

The more I think about it the more I would love to go back to that time. I was too young to appreciate it fully (born 83).

I think it was a great time to be a kid and I’d imagine it would have been great to be an adult too. I really hate the world my children are growing up in

Much as I enjoy early Oasis albums, no thanks.

I still think I'm in the 1990s. I was 30 in 1990. Everything was so optimistic (to me at least). I was already on the property ladder and set on a career path.

Great memories of Levi 501s, Rouge Noir and power perfumes.

I'd go back in a heartbeat.

I was in my late teens/early 20s and compared to today's youth we were so carefree. Used to run out of work in London to the nearest bar, didn't care what you looked like because no one would take photos of you and send them to strangers to gawp at and judge you. If you met a nice guy on that night out he would have to find paper and pen to write your number down and that's how you knew if he really liked you. He might ring you later that week, then you'd go for a drink and that was it, you were "going out with" him. None of this, talking then seeing you, then non exclusive, exclusive nonsense.

We were so easily pleased back then. And engaged with the world, not social media.

Yes! I was born the same year as you OP and would love to go back to the late 90s!

I would like to, for a month at least.

@DustbinTimberlake ooh I had a Baby G! It was baby pink!

If I had to go back to my actual life in the 90s (miserable home life) then I wouldn’t but I’d choose to live during that period in a heartbeat. Some random stuff I’d like to enjoy all over:

Smash Hits magazine
Body Shop Dewberry
Taping the top 40 on my tape deck
Gladiators on a Saturday night
The fashion (even though realistically I wouldn’t wear that stuff now!)

The music, films and TV are largely still readily available and the fashion periodically comes back around.

So for me, it doesn't seem worth travelling back to a time where casual racism, sexism, homophobia, etc was 'just one of those things' when we can still get the good parts today.

I would love to go back as well. S Club 7, Ballykissangel on telly on Sunday, Fresh Prince on in the morning in the holidays. My favourite films were The Craft, Notting Hill and Misery.

No, not at the age I am now. The sexism was much worse and accepted in the workplace. People got away with much more discrimination. Men didn't even take paternity leave due to fear of losing their jobs. Much higher teen pregnancies.

It always looks rosy in the past.

@Handsoffisback nostalgia for your youth more than anything

Blimey such rose tinted spectacles. No you didn't get PCNs, your car got clamped and taken away to some dodgy area and you had to pay £££ to get it back.

Most music was rubbish after the 80s. Although I think we see 80s music through rose tinted spectacles too.

Smoking was allowed indoors, yuck.

And kids did not dress like kids. And at least now they can be themselves with music taste whereas then if you liked anything other than what was in the charts right then you were square.

I agree very little student debt but student loans started in the early 90s. But I had so little I'd cleared it in my first holidays after graduating and was able to start work at zero.

But being at uni was good (early 90s for me) and it was amazing when Labour won the election in 1997, such optimism. Oh well.

(and looking at what we have now, John Major's government wasn't even that bad)

I had my children in the mid-90s. It would be quite sweet to relive those years as it was a very happy time. I don't fancy reliving the sleepless nights though

No. I am 2 years older than OP, turned 18 not long before the millennium, spent most of the 90s depressed, self-harming, contemplating suicide. Had some great friends, there were some good times and right now things are pretty shit, but I wouldn't want to go back. There was great music, but I wasn't old enough to see nirvana live. I remember reading the line up for the Glastonbury festival in the sixth form common room so either 1999 or 2000, and there were some amazing bands playing and I had no hope of going.

And kids did not dress like kids. And at least now they can be themselves with music taste whereas then if you liked anything other than what was in the charts right then you were square.

Must be a different 90s to the one I experienced. Teens definitely had separate fashions to their parents. Now 12 yr olds & 40 yr olds dress the same. Plus I found it much more accepting with the different music tribes & associated fashion Most young people dress & look the same nowadays.

Yes! It was so much simpler, yes you had to wait an age for ‘dial up’ before you could go online but everything was simpler.

In a heartbeat. We thought life was complicated and challenging then. We obviously knew nothing

Ha I remember phoning my friends up after school (cause we had to talk some more) & my sister would be on the internet & the dreadful noise! 🤣 I still sometimes feel super lucky that I can download any film & pause live TV whereas it's the norm for my kids.

I actually wasn't particularly aware of sexism until I became a mother a few yrs ago.

I actually wasn't particularly aware of sexism until I became a mother a few yrs ago.

It was just called 'life' back then.

Yes because then I would maybe be dead by the time 2020 came so wouldn't have to be dealing with this shit show 😂

young people had their own sense of style in the 90's - everybody looks the same now, the make-up, the eyebrows, the sheets of long straight hair, the filters, the contouring - you'd be laughed in the 90's, for the narcissism involved in taking selfies. None of the wokeness and lack of freedom of thought that covers the world now. Oh and a much more varied music scene.

It was the start of "political correctness" which was derided by some older people but which I thought symbolised greater tolerance. The late nineties seemed like such a positive time, with so many opportunities. Part of that is the optimism of youth of course, but it was the beginning of a very stable time economically and politically.

Yes definitely. I was a teenager most of the 90s and I loved that time.