What did people in the UK think of this during the 1990s?

[Femusia]

If you were a young person during the 1990s when "Cool Britannia" was all the range as Britain's cultural rejuvenation with things like the Union Jack being fashionable again and Spice Girls and Oasis being cool; or even if you weren't young but remember it, how did you and other Brits at the time feel about Australia?

I have been doing some research into Australian attitudes at the time of the 1990s and I learnt how at the time they were at the tail end of their own cultural rejuvenation which began in the 1970s as they started asserting their nationhood and culture against Britain and stopped feeling British. They were rebelling against British symbols like the very Union Jack that Geri Halliwell had so famously made fashionable again with her Union Jack dress and were trying to abolish the monarchy and acting indifferent to British culture.

A quote from a sociological journal investigating Australian attitudes to Britain in the 1990s, "But Cool Britannia was too late to matter Australians. By then, Britain was a foreign country and not the best known one. The Spice Girls did not displace Seinfeld and the Simpsons and that was in place by the 1980. The 1970s was the last decade that British culture could have such an impact."

How did you as British people, especially British youth have such self-confidence, pride and enjoyment at the time if Australians were actively behaving as such, which surely delegitimised Cool Britannia because if they didn't care why did you? Or, were you just not thinking about them to start off with and Cool Britannia was an internal thing not concerned with the world and by the 1990s, Britain didn't care what the likes of Australia thought?

I just watched a 1997 clip of Coronation Street in which an 18-year old Leanne Battersby has a Geri Halliwell poster on her bedroom wall and is listening to Spice Girl songs, symbolic of youth at the time. This would likely not have been something an Australian teenager or young adult would've done because according to that article, "As late as 1990, Kylie Minogue found that Australians were not impressed or bothered about the fact that she had departed for London or adopted a British accent".

So, what do you think of this?

I don't think I did really think of Australia all that much, except if there was a tv show on. I think it was Home and Away that had a girl called Angel in it and I loved her hair and tried to copy her style as a child. It could well have been neighbours though! I think the Spice Girls were almost globally popular for a while.

I'm still stuck on Geri Halliwell making the union jack cool or fashionable (err did she?)... For me it was more about Blur and Oasis. Australia was about Neighbours,.home and away and Kylie. I can't say I thought much about Australia beyond that, or cared what Australia thought of Britain.

@Femusia you’re also putting too much importance on cool Britannia to be honest
It was just a cultural bit of fun like nation PR
Not something that anybody thought about on a daily basis

In my lifetime Brits have never viewed any colonial country as more than 'used to be connected, hopefully we are still fairly good friends and it would be nicer that way, but whatever...'

I think you are looking for something that isn't there and it's seems weird (or at least a massive waste of time) that you are speculating wildly on something you haven't experienced when half the population have.

If we thought of Australia, we just thought kangaroos, boomerangs and Neighbours. It didn't have any further impact.

Cool Britannia was manufactured hype designed to try to evoke the spirit of the Sixties. Most young people recognised it as bullshit.

In the 1990s, Australian = barman.

I'm not Australian and have never been to Australia. I met an Australian friend around 2000 who told me that Australians couldn't stand British or American people. She also told me Australian men were mostly sexist drunks. So not sure if her opinion would count. She did love Italian and Irish people though.

This. We weren't reading the views of people in Australia or able to easily access their media. We loved their TV and celebs but we only saw it from a British press perspective. Today you might follow some of these people on Instagram and pick up on their culture, views and politics. We'd just see a report on what Kylie was wearing on a red carpet event or who she was dating.
I didnt pick up on a lot of anti British sentiment because you have to remember the huge reception princess Di got in Australia. This confirmed our perception the Aussies loved us and that anti- monarchy views were more of a sideline, as they were here.
Britain was cool but then so was Australia. Many of us Britpop era kids did gap years and Aus was top of the list.

Watched Neighbours and Home and Away, was aware that Australians discriminated against Aboriginals and that Ularu / Auers rock got renamed. No other thoughts about Australia beyond that. Thought the Spice Girls were irritating and thst 'Cool Britania' was a bit cringey (because we didn't say cringe in the 90's).

I didn’t give Australia any thoughts whatsoever. I was far too busy partying with my friends. I adored the 90’s though and I miss it like mad.

What an odd thread. I have never lived my life wondering what Australians, or people of any nationality, thought about the UK! Least of all when I was young! Even today with the internet I don't know what people in other countries think about the UK, and if I did, I wouldn't be affected by their opinion.

Australia in the 90s was Neighbours, boomerangs, and Crocodile Dundee. The Internet didn't exist like it does now so the only things we knew about Australia was from movies and TV. Also, teenagers tend to be quite self-obsessed and most won't consider global politics or international trends. It was far more important to get down to Jane Norman to pick out an outfit and then secure the Hooch and 10 B&H before setting up in the local park for the evening.

Oh yes, Crocodile Dundee, every time we needed to butter some toast "Call that a knife...?"

We loved Australians because of the absolutely huge influence of soaps at the time but it was a completely separate very far away country. There was a camaraderie, as they spoke the same language, had a dry sense of humour and weren't American. But there was no concept of mother/daughter or sister nation. This is not a concept that is taught, talked about or thought about in Britain. I was a teenager in the 90s and loved Brit Pop and indie music but didn't spare a thought about the rest of the world.

Why would I as a child under 10 have been thinking about what the Australians thought about Ginger Spice? It wouldn't have crossed my mind. Australia is on the other side of the world

Eh? I enjoyed the positivity of Cool Britannia and never thought about Australia at all.

The way this whole post is written sounds like AI…? OP where are you getting these ideas from and why are you interested? I don’t think most British or Australian people would identify with what you seem to believe.

As a teen i couldn't have given a fuck about Oz's attitude to us, neither would i today. I was more concerned about Blair flooding our country with immigrants, Northampton was destroyed by this means very early in the game and it was clear to see, even as a young teen.

I was in my twenties. I spent some of that time in Australia, travelling around.

Being English was still very useful to me, I was considered educated and cultured. I had a lot of attention from men whilst in Australia, probably more than when in the UK.

I don’t think anyone in UK gave a rats arse about what Australians thought about us. It was no more important than what Indonesians, Mexicans or South African people thought of us.

cool britannia passed me by - i had young children from 1994 onwards - never liked oasis
did not think of australia

As a not particularly cool teenager at the time, even to me, CB seemed naff and something the adults thought was cool - I liked the music etc but the concept seemed try hard.

Australia was where Neighbours was filmed. That was the extent of my thoughts on it!

Are you a student doing a dissertation?

Don’t think thought that much about Australia other than neighbours and home and away made it look like a great place to visit and wanted to beat them at sport

It surprised you think of Britain as a single entity. I mean, we're a small country but we don't all care about the monarchy or mourn Diana.
Australia is a long way away. If I thought anything about Australia divesting itself of the monarchy I'd probably think it was easier being a long way from Buckingham palace and would assume the monarchy had even less impact on standard Australian lives that on mine.

I liked Blur & Oasis and Indie/shoegaze music a lot, and occasionally sang along with a Spice Girls song (though we mainly made fun of them).. the Cool Britannia stuff was just a press buzzword afaiwc and I didn't pay it much attention. The magazines then (Sugar etc) always had pop culture sections that were very sarcastic & irreverent, so any self-importance bands/musicians might have had was always punctured by that.

Couldn't have given a monkeys what the rest of the world, or Australians thought of Britpop tbh. Literally never crossed my mind. My awareness of Australian culture was limited to Neighbours and Home & Away which I think by my teens I watched a lot less anyway.