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

I've started a similar thread before OP, just longing for pre-internet, pre-smartphone days. I was 6-16 so a child really but had loads of formative experiences as a teen and they were so different from teenlife now.

It was a time of incredible optimism politically and socially, I honestly felt like the world was mine for the taking and the goodness would prevail.

The 00s were also great at university, traveling and meeting DH etc and internet was still more of a useful tool for emailing or ordering something or occasionally checking Facebook. The rest of my life was still mine and people still made an effort to engage properly.

I hate the smartphone addiction, internet pornography, social media obsessed, ultra-woke shitshow we live in just now. I've lost all the optimism of my youth despite actually having an objectively great life that I dreamed of. I despair for my lovely children.

I'd love to go back but I'd need to take my DC with me

Also born in 83 here. They were simpler times, however for me lots of that is because I was a teenager, rather than married mother of 2 trying to juggle work, home and elderly parents!

I miss the time before mobile phones when someone had to ring you on a landline or turn up at your house or see you on person to speak to you. There was far more downtime where you weren't checking you phone. It's too easy to get sucked into obsessive phone checking these days.

I agree that makeup has improved. I used Panstick plus Creme Puff. I swear that my skin is good now because even the strongest sun could not penetrate it.

I loved having lots (it seemed) of money to spend on (second hand) designer gear such as Armani trouser suits for work. And wearing rouge noir on my nails (there was also a matching lip pencil by Chanel that was made out of black wood).

I was usually covered in Opium.or something equally strong.

I'm sure today's perfumes aren't so strong.

A bittersweet decade for me - I was 20 to 30. I found the transition from the innocent 80s quite difficult. I used to be in a big crowd of friends, we'd go to clubs, dress really smartly and drink vodka and orange. Then the 90s came and all of a sudden the drug scene crept in and divided our group between those who were into it and those who weren't. The fashions changed dramatically and stilletoes were replaced by trainers. But I had so many epic nights out in the 90s and not a care in the world - never took anything that seriously. We had Brit Pop and the Ministry of Sound Dance Anthems - from the Manics to Dave Pearce on Radio 1. I remember mortgage interest rates going through the roof and lots of people having their homes repossessed in the early 90s - it wasn't a great decade for everyone.

So no, I wouldn't go back but at least the music lives on!

Yes but only if I could take my current mind with me into my young body. God, I'd never want to be a teenager again. It was HELL.

And I do not miss Joop either 😂

I was born in 1981 and had a very unhappy teenage era but I did love 90s music, fashion and clubbing. I would go back, but the age I am now and take my daughter with me!

80’s first, then ride into the 90’s. I actually get quite upset when reality dawns on me that there is never going to be any going back in time.

"mortgage rates going through the roof..."

Oh yes.15%. The drama of Black Wednesday.

God yes, ideally 92/3. I was with my first love and it was before I made several utterly stupid decisions that still impact my life now

@InDeoEstMeaFiducia

Yes, but only if I could go back with my 50-year-old mind and all its experience.

This

I'm so glad that I'm not imagining life was better, I would go back in a heartbeat

08:46cece

InDeoEstMeaFiducia

Yes, but only if I could go back with my 50-year-old mind and all its experience.

This

Yep

Would go back in a heartbeat too!
Buffy on TV.
Great music. Discovered PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Portishead etc
Political optimism.
Cheap real travel for students. I went interrailing through Eastern Europe in 1993, on a shoestring. It was incredible.

I feel very nostalgic for the 90s too. I was in my teens. I can't imagine being a teenager today with the pressures of social media. We had none of that. If you wanted to arrange to meet friends, you had to phone them on a landline.

If you were having a difficult time at school you could go home and forget about it, no online bullying. Nowadays no one can switch off.

Fashion was easy - jeans and big baggy (tie-died) t-shirts or checked shirts. DMs on your feet. Girls weren't done up to the nines with plucked eyebrows and contoured faces.

The pervading sense of political optimism was, looking back on it, infectious and joyous. It was genuinely believed that despotic regimes would collapse and liberal democracies would prevail worldwide. How wrong we were.

I also travelled widely on my own in the 90s, in Africa, India and the Far East - places that I wouldn't feel safe today or allow my daughter to go.

Some of the places I loved are now controlled by Boko Haram and the like. So sad.

Yes please! I loved the 90's.
For those that loved the music - absolute radio 90's does a chart show (like pick of the pops) on Sundays at 3pm

I was in my twenties in the 90’s.

As well as the fashion and music and the fun stuff of the time being great for me as not too dressy and just more casual. It really felt as if great strides had been made with women’s rights in the right direction.

I’m glad there was no social media when I was young.

I’m the same age as you, OP. I loved and am nostalgic about the 90s too.

I was 7 at the start / 17 at the end so feel that really was my childhood!

Kids TV was great, as was Saturday night. Remember being very excited about the American shows that started to pop up - Clarissa Explains it All, Ghostwriter, Secret World of Alex Mack.

Loved the games consoles - SNES especially.

Charlie Red body spray, and at the end of the decade, Bacardi Breezers and Smirnoff Ice!

Couldn’t imagine being a teenager with the image obsessed, smartphone culture of today. Very grateful to have had that time in the 90s

Inspired this thread, I found and watched an episode of The Girlie Show on YouTube. I loved that programme when I was about 14 and remember watching it with my mum. Utter trash

Yes, with zero hesitation.

Yes, I’d like to meet my cheekbones and flat stomach again.

100% yes there are some things I’d love to go back and redo and some people I’d love to see again, life just went down hill from the 00s onwards

Handsoffisback that made me so sad today, thinking of my parents and how young they were - and yes, how it never occurred to me that a different life was just around the corner.