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?

Needing to go for a wee while wearing a 'body'.

Frosted lipstick.

'Someone' taping over the video of the Mary Whitehouse Experience I'd been carefully recording from the TV each week

Homophobia. Lost a friend to drug addiction that was no doubt triggered by homophobic bullying.

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.

Same.
I reckon location probably makes a difference as well. I never stumbled around drunk in stripper heels. Always trainers, generally water & needed my wits about me for the night bus. You have to do underage clubbing sensibly! 😆

Oh and light hearted, smoking on trains! How gross was that?!

Needing to go for a wee while wearing a 'body'.

Yes!! 🤣

Education was terrible.
Because the DofE had brought in the national curriculum, and then changed it every 5 minutes, kids like me who struggled were left to rot. As a result, I have very basic maths skills. I can't do my times tables other than 2,3,5 and 10s and my dyspraxia was seen as a nuisance.
There were teachers who didn't know how to run a classroom without the fear of a cane or slipper, and it showed. I had one teacher who regu6reduced the entire year 3 class to tears with her sadistic behaviour and nasty comments which fucked my confidence for many years.
Social work was grossly negligent, I was left in an absuive home and about 5 years back after counselling decided to ask for a review of my childhood and why, when serious concerns where raised by teachers, I wasn't removed. In fact, I was marked down as disruptive and abusive and had to go to family therapy. Anything I said in that therapy was treated with contempt and lies. I remember pouring my heart out to one of the men who ran the therapy, he asked to see individual family members alone and when it was my turn I finally thought I could explain what was going on. So I talked, I was honest and said how scared I was.
He sat back, said "quite finished" to me then said I was a master manipulater who "nearly had me going then" and called me an actress who deliberately dressed in a way to get myself picked on and didn't attempt to make myself attractive. I was 13.
On that review, they told me that because my parents were married, my dad worked and thwy owned their home and car, and wore nice clothes then they believed there was no chance of abuse. In other words, I wasn't with a single, benefit dependent parent in a tracksuit. That's how they used to judge where I grew up. They apologised but it was a bit late really.

The nineties have some good memories, for me being with my mates and leaving home never to go back.

There's a good documentary about drum & bass & clubbing that brings back lots of 90s memories. I think it's on netflix

IRA bombings (grew up in London)
Lack of car safety (school trip with 5 of you in the back of a parents car...)
School admissions... Completely random. Some people having no offers while others had four or five.

@terribletea

Coffee shimmer lipstick

oooh and worse yet - that dark brown lip liner paired with a much lighter lipstick!

Tony Blair

Being made redundant

Homophobia
Sexism
Racism
Depressed economy (certainly early on)
IT, and mobile IT, nothing like it is now.

But there were certainly two strands of the clubbing experience. I remember going to Glasgow / Birmingham / Manchester , wearing trainers and dancing the night away, the ecstasy /the music , the culture of acceptance etc. Once in a while we’d go and see Ibiza djs in big clubs, really dance the night away. But the other side of 90s clubbing was more sinister, the sticky carpet local town nightclubs with uv lights and smoke machines, full of sexual predators and underage drinkers and cheesy music.

Eldorado.

Having your high-shine polyester clubbing outfit melted by someone drunkenly wafting a silk cut about in a sticky floored fleapit of a club.

I remember feeling so optimistic, now looking back I just feel angry about sexual harassment being re-packaged as ladette culture and sold back to us as a lifestyle.

This may have been more early 2000s but I remember FHM used to have its annual list of the hundred sexiest women.

All the blokes at uni would rush out and pore over it. I find that a bit distasteful looking back.

Impulse body spray. Not sure what we were thinking there.

I find it mildly offensive that anyone considers The Spice Girls to be a negative in any way 😄

Sexism, lads mags advocating DV, sexual harrasment in the workplace being normalised, rape within marriages being legal, and the horrendous relaunch of Crossroads

@Tiktokersmiracle I can identify with what you describe. I hope you have made your own life, and that it is good now.

^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.*

Yup that happened to me twice, in public. First time, bloke I was snogging tried...in the middle of a pub! Second time I was on holiday, a bloke tried it on with me. I made it clear I wasn’t interested (told him I had a boyfriend, went to the bar to get a drink), walked up behind me, stuck his hand up my skirt (and I’m pretty sure I was wearing so he was touching bare arse cheek!) and said “Hello gorgeous, remember my name?” creep. I don’t know if things are better but both of those were in about 1998.

I mostly loved the 90s. I was a huge Britpop/indie fan and spent a lot of times at gigs and festivals. But yes I think misogyny and homophobia was much worse back then, I’m not saying it’s better but it’s different.

I was a waitress in the 90's, I waitressed from age 14. Literally there wasn't one night that passed where I wasn't groped by a customer. My boss - who was also my aunty!!! - basically told me to STFU and smile sweetly

Yes I remember it’d happen. You’d be drunkenly snogging a guy and he’d suddenly he’d be trying to put his hands in your knickers. Or you’d be on the dance floor in a club bumping and grinding, and you’d feel a guy put his hand up your skirt. And it’d be better if I could look back on this and think it was only my experience, or it was a one off sexual assault that I minimised at the time, but I’ve had lots of discussions with women of a similar age since who experienced similar in 90s clubs and pubs. It was pretty common for a bouncer to waive the need for ID in exchange for a boob flash in our Northern town, but I do think that’s probably quite unique.

I started work in the mid-90s and the culture was quite old-fashioned compared to now. Things like calendars of scantily clad women were OK on desks, and everything was 'we do it like this because that's how we have always done it'. Little in the way of diversity and inclusion awareness.

Generally, though, I loved the 90s. I preferred life pre-internet and before mobile phones were something the average person would be expected to have. Popular music was miles better too, although I feel it gradually deteriorated as the decade went on - by Y2K it was rubbish.

In the run up to Y2K, the 'millennium bug' hysteria was a bit tedious. There was an idea that everything would grind to a halt as the millennium turned. In the event, so far as I know, nothing whatsoever happened.

The Millennium Dome was a pointless, long-running farce as well.

Same @Jamemiddletonsmarshmallows.
I never had a shift without a man nipping my arse or staring down my cleavage as I served food. We were encouraged by our boss to wear skimpy outfits. I went for a job interview as a ‘vodka shot girl’ at 18 in a trendy London club. The female boss explained to us all that we should view being felt up on the job as a POSITIVE that helped us sell more shots. To the groper we should remark "ooooh you owe me a vodka shot for that” (bum nip/ tit squeeze etc) like we were in some bizarre carry on movie. And then we’d be quids in for our 10p commission or whatever it was on every one sold.

I was certainly groped but I would kick off. I generally had boyfriends though which probably reduced it.

@Fridainexile

Same *@Jamemiddletonsmarshmallows*. I never had a shift without a man nipping my arse or staring down my cleavage as I served food. We were encouraged by our boss to wear skimpy outfits. I went for a job interview as a ‘vodka shot girl’ at 18 in a trendy London club. The female boss explained to us all that we should view being felt up on the job as a POSITIVE that helped us sell more shots. To the groper we should remark "ooooh you owe me a vodka shot for that” (bum nip/ tit squeeze etc) like we were in some bizarre carry on movie. And then we’d be quids in for our 10p commission or whatever it was on every one sold.

This still goes on. Some of the young women I know work as shot girls, and still get groped, and still get told to put up with it or look elsewhere for a job.