Things from the 90s/00s you don’t see anymore?

[Firebird83]

What are some things you remember from the 90s or early 2000s that don’t exist anymore?

I remember old ladies used to wear headscarves or those plastic rain bonnets

Lucky heather sellers in town centres

In my gran’s rural village she used to get a mobile library van and also a man selling soft drinks in glass bottles

Any more?

Of course a lot of these things existed before that era too, I just don’t remember seeing them anymore after the early 2000s.

@wertgyhjk thank you that's right!

Cheap drinks in pubs- we used to get a triple vodka and Red Bull for £1.99 and on Thursdays it was 2 for 1 on cocktails in one place. For £3 you got two pint glasses full. Screaming Orgasm was the favourite.

Dolphins all over the place on everything.

China figurines, Coalport did them I think, those ladies in Victorian dresses that Grandmas had in cabinets.

Wicker furniture.

Fruit and veg van driving round every week selling produce

Kids knocking on each other’s doors to see if they wanted to come out and play.

Birthday parties at McDonalds

Floppy disks and dial up internet

Does anyone else ever feel that the 90's were the sort of last semblance of "normality" (for want of a better word). Or is it just me.

The candyfloss van!

Cassettes!

Cassette Walkmans.

Free cassettes in music magazines. I worked in a newsagent in 96-97 and would detach the cassettes from unsold magazines at the end of the week. Some were great.

Kids knocking on each other’s doors to see if they wanted to come out and play.

This one definitely hasn't gone away. Theres a gang of about 20 of the little buggers on the green outside my house every bloody evening.

Ohhhh, I loved those

Never a truer word spoken.

Also -
The Pier,
The Mexican pine furniture they used to sell in The Pier,
Cars that actually looked different and weren't all black, grey or white,
TV shows that don't waste half their viewing time telling you what you're doing to see, what happened in that section, what will happen after the adverts and what happened before the adverts.
Today newspaper.

BBC TV mid 90s:

Our Friends In The North with Daniel Craig looking like a womble - soooo watchable
This Life
Fantasy Football League

Bjork

BT Chargecards
Joss sticks
Exclamation perfume
Dewberry and white musk from the Body Shop
Mix tapes recorded from the charts
Encyclopaedia sets, and later on Encarta on disc

Bliss and Sugar magazines - after school every Thursday I'd be over to the shop to get the latest.

Panda pops, twopenny pick n mix and freddo bars for 5p.

When low carb first became fashionable (and very very controversial), M&S did a range of low carb lunch items. They did a Thai chicken wrap with the wrap made from egg....it was lovely. Now low carb is mainstream...people used to get really angry if anyone said they were low carbing.

Also, Atkins chocolate decadence bars....they spent 20 years perfecting the recipe until it was perfect and now it's discontinued and those terrible Carb Killa bars have taken over, which taste like Atkins bars from 2002.

Proper Milky Way bars with chocolate nugget in the centre instead of the vanilla rubbish. For a while they brought them back as Flyte bars but then they were discontinued.

Proper Body Shop stuff in the chunky bottles in different sizes. White Musk, Dewberry etc.

Tax credits and a proper welfare state.

Carefree fun.

Fat Willys surf shop t shirts.

Inflatable furniture
Body spray
Smash Hits

And optimism

Everyone watching the National Lottery on TV on Saturday evenings

Also…

Top of the Pops
Live and Kicking
SM:TV
Blue Peter
Gladiators
Blind Date

Later on, Big Brother and Pop Idol. Everyone seemed to watch the same things back then.

The 90s headlice lotion was different. You had to leave it on all night and wake up with a banging headache but the little bastards would be gone. None of this combing for hours!

We had a sweets/fizzy drinks vending machine and an ice cream van at high school, bet that doesn’t happen now.

Those tops and skirts with the little mirrors in.

Little stars and things to stick on your face. Maybe it’s best for some things to stay in the past, I found an old choker necklace recently, it hadn’t changed since 2001 but my neck has!

Oh I had little silver stars to stick on my face. Spectacular was the brand I think. They did loads of nail polish too.

Pyramints
Mix Tapes
Buying CDs and DVDs
TV Shows such as Art Attack, or Saved by the Bell
Birthday Parties at The Wimpy

Courtesy

Smoking section on a plane 🥴 Unwanted sexual advances that went with the territory and not questioned or called out. Two tone jeans (I had one leg black and one leg red)! Pump bottle hairspray. Gas fires. Tiny school ties. Horn of plenty gold necklaces. C&A. Booking holidays off your TV. List could be endless.

No, it's not just you. Everything began to change after 9/11, I think. Then Facebook in 2004, iPhone in 2007 ... and look at the mess we are in now.

I'd love to be able to transport folks under 30 back to the 90s, so they could see and believe that life could be simpler and less cynical. It wasn't perfect of course, but it felt a lot better than today.

Spiras

Fun.