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?

As a young adult in that era I barely gave Australia a thought. I used to watch neighbours after school in 80s, the Scott & Charlene wedding was a huge thing in uk for teens. I vaguely knew I had some distant relatives there who had been £10 poms. If I went to the football they would shout out sometimes to people visiting from Tasmania (the small former mill town must have had lots emigrating to there it always struck me)
But as for the rest totally unaware what people my age were doing or thought in a far flung country.

OP either written entirely, or with the help of, AI. But the real giveaway is the subsequent (but few) responses answer questions with questions. I don't know why people continue to engage with these threads where the OP vanishes up their own silicon arse.

I was a teenager in the 1990s. I don't remember being aware if Australia at all, unless it was a storyline on Neighbours/Home and Away, from which I gained the impression that Australia was a much more interesting place to live than the Welsh Valleys, with very beautiful people who had a better school uniform than I did

I remember post 1997 onwards being a real time of hope and positivity, my parents were big labour supporters and there was a strong feeling that better things were coming for our community - and the popularity of British music/sport etc was part of those positive feelings.

I never really felt much about how Australians thought about anything - although as PP have said when I moved to London in the late 90s I met lots of Australians who seemed positive about London as they had moved there!

You had Kylie, what more do you want?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the back drop, Pauline Hanson was busy doing a Farage and polarising the politics all through the 90s with her One Nation stuff...

I remember Skippy. What's up Skippy? Johnny's trapped down a well.

Prisoner Cell Block H with top dogs.

Apart from watching Neighbours and Home & Away and fancying Jason Donovan I didn't give Australia another thought at any point in the 90s. Or tbh, at any point since the 90s.

My only knowledges of Australia in the 90’s came from Kylie, Dani, Jason and the other lovable folks from Neighbours and Home and Away.

The Cool Britannia thing was a contrived load of crap dreamed up by music moguls over a boozie lunch. Even as a 16 year old I could see that.

As a teenager in London during the 90s I was living my best life, it was an amazing time. Never thought about Australia beyond Heartbreak High etc.

The Cool Britannia thing was a contrived load of crap dreamed up by music moguls over a boozie lunch. Even as a 16 year old I could see that.

London was definitely cool & exciting in the 90s

There was a fair bit of cultural exchange in the 90s. Remember when kids were stated to start speaking with upward intonation at the end of sentences and it was attributed to neighbours? I was a teen in the neighbours and half my tv consumption was australian - all the best SF shows on BBC, neighbours, home and away, heartbreak high, round the twist. I also loved Prisoner Cell Block H and all the daytime soaps too. I don't know what aussies thought of us, but plenty of aussies made money by being more famous here than they were at home.

There seems to be less of that now, which is a bit sad, but Australia more clearly has its own identity now too which is great.

I don't remember switching allegiance to cool britannia or anything like that - rather, I grew up and stopped watching CBBC and the soaps. For me, the aussie exchange was nearly all TV-related (and it was FANTASTIC).

The Spice Girls did consider the connection between the Union Jack and the National Front, and Geri had a huge peace symbol on the back of the famous Union Jack dress.

I don't know about Australia but I spent a good part of the 1990s in New Zealand and the Spice Girls where definitely a thing there. The tween girl who I lived next door to during some of that time was a massive fan, she cried when they split.
I used to go to the Big Day Out in Auckland every year (which also happened in Australia) and the big acts in the 90s for that where grunge and similar bands, I've seen Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, PJ Harvey and loads others there. Spice Girls would have been considered quite naff in that setting

@FancyKeyboardI loved round the twist!!

OpenAI employee to agent "without hacking the Aussie Government this time, can you find out..,"

Agent, "yes, I'll just ask Mumsnet"

Yes, exactly. I mean, it’s only a ‘mother country’ for a certain subset of Australians, surely, and if your ancestors were forcibly transported there, whether from the UK or Ireland, it’s hardly likely to involve the warm-and-fuzzies, is it?

I’m Irish and was living mostly in Ireland in my teens and early 20s (with a stint in the US) throughout the early 90s, before moving to England in 1997. Despite having lots of UK tv channels and hence exposure to UK pop culture, I don’t remember thinking much about Cool Britannia, other than that the Spice Girls were a cheery crime against music, but there was some excellent indie stuff coming out, which was consumed here as enthusiastically as in the UK. But US pop culture was also a huge influence as well as homegrown stuff. The two events that impinged on me were New Labour coming into power just before I moved and the GFA while I was living in England. And, more weirdly, because I moved to study in England a week after Diana’s death, thinking ‘I have just moved to a country that has collectively lost its mind.’

But I’d be surprised if Brits in the 1990s were any more concerned about how Cool Britannia was being viewed in Ireland any more than Australia.

Exactly! Its not that big of a deal

Hated Spice Girls, really hated Blair gurning away with all the pop stars - he seemed such a snake 🤮 - liked britpop and suppose I enjoyed 'Cool Britannia' when Labour weren't slithering all over it, though I don't remember taking it very seriously. I also don't remember thinking at all about what other countries thought of us. I don't think outlook was as global back then, possibly as we were mostly pretty monocultural and more focussed on our own society. I was only a teenager though, so it might be that I was just too young to have much perspective.

I travelled to Australia in 1998 when I was 17 and don't remember thinking anything at all about what they thought of us, or what they thought of Cool Britannia. I suppose I did think about our relationship as their 'mother country' as I was studying the First Fleet at the time, and the tokens in the Australia Museum remain one of my most memorable museum exhibits. But that didn't extend into wondering what Australians thought of us in 1997, they were obviously an entirely independent nation and the vast majority of their history is their own making, not ours. I do remember thinking their food was more American than British though, and being very annoyed that it was seemingly impossible to get a margherita pizza!

I've always found non-Brits are much, much more interested in our empire than we are. I'm not sure I've ever met a British person who's mentioned it at all, unless in context of a historical event.

But, how would people in the mother country itself feel about a former settler colony? Do British people regard themselves as a mother country in that sense?

They don't imo. Why would ordinary people think this way? They don't. Too busy living their lives to care about this kind of thing. It doesn't matter what was happening in the UK at the time, Cool Britannia doesn't come into it, it's irrelevant when it comes to Australia or any other country for that matter.

It feels like you are trying to make a connection that's not there?

Wasn't cool Britannia linked to guitar playing Tony Blair and his misses? Who was Aussie PM then, don't know.

Well I was late twenties then and loved oasis, quite liked spice girls, watched neighbours but the Union Jack dress was just another celebrity outfit. I think I must have missed the message completely. Just listened to the music not the words. I just got on with my life and didn’t give Australia another thought, even though my mum and dad were originally £10 poms. They came back just before I was born.
I don’t relate to anything you are saying.

@Femusia As others have asked, why do you want to know and where are you from? It sounds like you're writing an essay. If you explain the background to your 'research', I may be more inclined to answer.

I wish the laugh emoji still existed!

Frankly OP, I think you've got a roo loose in the top paddock.