Bad things about the 90s?

[Sittinbythetree]

In my mind the early - mid 90s were pretty good, I don’t mean personally, but generally, just largely positive and a feeling that things were improving and the world was moving forward to a better future for most.
I’ve been listening to repeats of old comedy programs and the satire from the 90s seems so innocent and gentle. All about how boring John major was (little did we know about edwina) and late trains. And there were no phones or social media (sorry mn!)
What (lighthearted) reasons are there for not wanting to time travel back to the 90s?

And the hatred seems to have grown. So many people seem so down on being British in a way that other countries aren’t down on themselves, like a kind of inverse snobbery. It’s like we (wrongly) used to think we were the best at everything but we’ve over-corrected and now (wrongly) think that we are the worst at everything. When in reality we aren’t particularly unusual at anything and pretty similar to our neighbours. I blame Nigel farage.
I remember in the 90s that people though we were basically sorted, ‘the end of history’.

I think it's hard to look back at the decade you became a teenager in objectively. I get why, growing up, my parents and those in charge of telly, were so fond of the 60s. I can't think about the 90s without the emotion attached.
I wonder if we're seeing optimism because we could see OUR futures ahead- as adults. I do remember being 17 when Labour won. We'd been living under Conservative government my whole life (much like my dc now) and it felt like a new world. Added to that, we had the new century ahead.

Incidentally, watching an officer and a gentleman last night, and at one point the Debra Winger character says her mother is 39. It made me feel ancient.

yy to rape/harrassment culture, particularly regarding men in power.

locally to me there was a GP who was known for copping a feel at every opportunity. it was a standard "joke" that if you went to him for a sprained ankle he'd still "examine" your chest. It was passed down from grandmother to daughter to granddaughter all over the estate that Dr Hudson was dodgy, and yet no-one ever dared report him. Awful.

sorry, I see that this is lighthearted. My bad.

In that case I nominate really heavy perfumes in the daytime - Giorgio beverley hills, poison, opium etc stinking up the sixth form common room.

Tbh, I track what's gone wrong to the Blair era. I was so hopeful and excited when he won the election and he did so many positive things. But the whole WMD thing led to a total loss of confidence in British politicians - it's not so much that they were better before because they probably weren't, it was just the lying on such a mass scale. Followed by expenses scandal and I think we now live in a cynical she where we just accept the dishonesty of our leaders. Some of the lies told would have utterly destroyed careers in the 70s/80s and now we seem to just shrug our shoulders and are resigned to it.
I remember Cecil Parkinson having to resign over his affair and subsequent treatment of his daughter, these days I think it would barely raise an eyebrow.

locally to me there was a GP who was known for copping a feel at every opportunity. it was a standard "joke" that if you went to him for a sprained ankle he'd still "examine" your chest. It was passed down from grandmother to daughter to granddaughter all over the estate that Dr Hudson was dodgy, and yet no-one ever dared report him. Awful

In a similar vein to this there was a teacher at my secondary who was know to ogle the female students constantly. The old drop a pen on the floor so he could look up our skirts etc. Everyone was aware of it. Even the other teachers. One big joke that went on for years. Completely ignored

Section 28.

Heroin chic, Sunday sport, page 3, sexism, racism, smoking in offices! No central heating, nowhere to buy plus sized clothes, having to study from library books

@User133847

The death of Diana and then the insanity of the hysterical reaction from the British public.

Totally agree and this was the moment the country went a bit mad and it hasn't recovered.

Yeah on the hatred subject, I think people under 20 would be suprised by the almost complete lack of Islamophobia before 9/11

My Tamagochi died the same day as Diana.

I would take every single bit of the 90s over this absolute shit show decade.

This.

In early 1990s:
We were still in the EU
We didn't have COVID
We had a credible PM. (Not saying I agreed with him all the time, but at least he wasn't TRYING to be a comedy buffoon, like Boris.)
The World Trade Center was still standing.
IRA were around in the early part of the decade but Isis threat wasn't - so swings and roundabouts.

The recession was pretty bad. My family had cars stolen and burglaries then in a way we hadn't experienced before or since.

I was very aware of the activities of the IRA, especially the Manchester bombing. In that decade you also had the genocide in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia which were both horrific and on the news frequently.

The Yugoslav wars
Gulf War
American politics and the Bush years totally paving the way for the likes of Trump.
The 90s were, on the face of it, brilliant. But actually, I see the 90s as the start of a sea change in geopolitics. Lots of shit that happened in the 90s was the catalyst for the exceptional shit show the last 20 years have been.
Deeply rooted misogyny and the promotion of lad/ladette culture which has had a butterfly effect on British culture.
the macarena

I was a tween/teen & loved the 90s for so many reasons.

Funnily enough I feel like race relations were better then (at least in my corner of London) but racism in education, hiring and advancement was absolutely rife.

Agree, I live where I grew up. Way more diverse back then.

Not being able to use the house phone if someone else was using the internet

OMG that noise!

@Fridainexile. I agree. The attitude towards teenage victims of sexual assault and rape can still be really awful now but it was even worse back then. 'slut shaming' wasn't a known phrase because to blame the female victim was the norm for many adults, - men and women. I certainly wasn't helped after being attacked as a young teenager. Even when I told a teacher.

An underage girl at my high school publicly 'dated' (her words at the time) a 55 year old man and everyone just called her gross for it. No adults ever intervened despite it being very public and lasting a few years. Sadly, I saw a lot of that kind of thing.

What about the impression that the future was likely to be better?

Maybe it was idealistic youth but I definitely felt there was a moment of excitement & positivity about the future.

Clubbing was amazing then & the music, do the youth still club?

@user1471565182

My Tamagochi died the same day as Diana.

That is the best post I have ever read!

Vegetarian food was utter shit.

It was not a good decade to stop eating it, my first year at Uni in 1991 was in a catered halls and the veggie offering was frozen mixed veg tarted up in a number of awful disguises.

No great choice in restaurants, soya milk tasted like chalk and supermarkets didn't stock even a quarter of the stuff they do now...

@Fridainexile

I don’t know but... I look back on my teenage years in the 90s with absolute horror. We were bombarded with ‘ladette’ culture, pics of women with smeared lipstick and ‘bed head’ hair, falling out of clubs, zoned out on drugs and alcohol. To our small town teenage brains, we tried to emulate this by downing five shots for a pound and taking drugs until we ourselves stumbled out of clubs, inebriated to the point of oblivion, having probably being sexually assaulted by older men the whole night long. It continued into the kebab shop where everyone would be snogging and men would be groping teenagers (of the hands in knickers variety.. very 90s groping method) and smelling of malibu and blue wkd and kebab and impulse o2, wearing sparkly lipsy lycra dresses and stripper shoes with six inch heels. It took me a decade to get over the shame and trauma of my 90s teenage Saturday night sexual escapades, honestly.

Sorry random men just stuck theirs hand in your knickers?!?! I was 16 in 1996 and I swear if any guy would’ve done that to me or my mates we’d have punched him. That would not have been shrugged off.

Yes there was often a someone, a man who people used to joke about being a perv yet nothing ever came of it.

Just watch TOTP 1990 on a Friday night, so much bad music. There's a reason why I don't remember lots of it. Lots of good music too.

I'd go back to the 90s in a heartbeat too, but again is that because that was my teen era? I was 11 in 1990 and 21 in 2000 (obvs) so they really were my growing up years. Loved them.

Some really awful things happened around the world e.g. Rwanda, former Yugoslavia

I agree the ladette culture was awful. Girls were so manipulated to think they were cool and empowered by staggering about drunk, flashing their boobs etc.

I grew up in the 90s though and absolutely loved the music, Britpop etc and am very glad there was no social media back then!

Hated some of the trash tv like The Word and Eurotrashbut it was also the decade that bought us Father Ted which more than makes up for it!

@Babymamamama

What was bad? All of the flashing and men casually following women. Worse in other European cities than London actually. But I would still go back in a heart beat. Friendly clubbing and great music. None of the gangland undertones and aggression that seem to be out there now.

You obviously didn’t grow up in Manchester!