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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Anyone Else Miss The 1990s?

128 replies

JediJim · 28/07/2019 23:16

With everything that’s been going on in the world and the UK over that last decade or so, did anyone else think that life seemed more simple two decades ago? I’m talking about the 1990s...
To me life seemed so much more simple. Lots of people still had just the four channels( well at least in the early 90s anyway) , no mobile phones, no internet as such, not until the late 90s anyway. I remember the kids tv programmes seemed good at the time, maybe down to the fact there was less choice, but the BBC used to make decent kids dramas, like Byker Grove and Grange Hill. I remember starting secondary school and being terrified of the older kids ( 16 year olds seemed old when you are 11).
People seemed to live within their means more and if you couldn’t afford it you didn’t get it. I remember the early 90s when interest rates were really high, people were hard up but rode it out. Politics didn’t seem to be on the news constantly, and Brexit was a word that hadn’t even been thought of yet. John Major was the PM, but I can’t think of anything of significance that he did. People on benefits seemed to get left alone, unlike the constant scrutiny they have now.
I remember people used to collect CDs and people smoking in shopping centres and restaurants. People still paid for things with cheque books, town centres seemed busier( probably down to no amazon back then).
Euro 96 seemed to bring the country together like nothing else I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, it really was a great time. Then Tony Blair came into power, promising to change the country from a tired Tory Government. The D:Ream song things can only get better was the anthem for Labour. It seemed a turning point for the decade.
The summer holidays seemed to go on forever with decent summer weather.
Life just seemed generally easier back then, to apply for a job you could hand in a cv to a real person.
Anyone else miss the 90s?

OP posts:
TulipsTwoLips · 29/07/2019 10:15

No

QuimReaper · 29/07/2019 10:19

Even more different in the early 90s - this is Gwyneth Paltrow at a premiere in 1993!

Anyone Else Miss The 1990s?
nowifi · 29/07/2019 10:20

She looks like a school teacher on a night out after work!

spikyplants · 29/07/2019 10:24

Started the 90s as a young teenager and finished it in my early 20s. Save for the usual woes about boys and falling out with friends, etc. I'd be back there in a heartbeat. So many fun times in pubs, clubs, at gigs, etc. spending my student grant, err, wisely Grin

We all had our various style tribes and made our various respective sartorial choices - nothing was as meticulously styled and samey as it is now. We just winged it with make up, hair, etc.

I loved picking up vintage pieces and mixing things up although if I wore some things now it mightn't be appropriate (white - wore things like bindis).

I miss the optimism I used to feel and not really living beyond the weekend.

QuimReaper · 29/07/2019 10:25

Pancake true! The only way to wear a memorable dress these days is to wear something truly bonkers like Lady Gaga. That Dress wasn't even all that special. In general, looking at 90s red carpet pictures it looks like most actresses had their make up done and had a blow dry but not much more. Nowadays you see them with a whole crew of people getting ready, taking hours over it. There doesn't seem to have been the same pressure to be quite so thin, either, although fake tan and those awful bolt-on breast implants did have their heyday in the late 90s if I remember correctly.

QuimReaper · 29/07/2019 10:26

I remember the bindi trend!

Moomin8 · 29/07/2019 10:29

Yes. The later 90s we're a much nicer more civilised time than we're in now. Disabled people weren't fair game to be called lazy scroungers in those days.

These days things seem to get worse and worse Sad I have children about to become young adults and it makes me angry that we've screwed up the UK for them and others.

Passthecherrycoke · 29/07/2019 10:30

Yes, watched Derry girls recently and it brought it all back, being a teen in the 90s

BillywigSting · 29/07/2019 10:33

I miss the 90s because I was born in 1990 so that decade was my childhood, which was a very happy one.

Life was simpler but I don't necessarily think that means it was better.

The music in the 90s was bloody brilliant though

AndNoneForGretchenWieners · 29/07/2019 10:41

The 90s was my adolescent decade, I started senior school in 1990 and met DH in 1999 so my life was pretty much shaped by those 10 years.

I too miss the simplicity, and the genuine excitement around new tech and stuff like that - the Channel Tunnel for example, it was such a groundbreaking idea, we went on a school trip to see the other end of it in France while it was being constructed. I can't see that happening now, nobody would be interested as a teen.

Clothes were much cooler, music was banging, but then maybe I would feel like that about the 80s or 00s if I was a teen in those decades. My sister is 10 years younger than me and disagrees about the 90s.

LucilleBluth · 29/07/2019 10:49

I was 10 in 1990 and 20 in 2000. The 90s are hugely nostalgic for me. The Derry Girls does the 90s well. It was a decade of great music, of no internet (well hardly until the end), no mobile phones. I had an amazing social life and Manchester City centre was my Mecca, from gay clubs to indie clubs, you could have a night out on £20 and no one took pictures of you throwing up.

PaddyF0dder · 29/07/2019 10:56

The 90s do feel like a more liberal, calmer, less reactive time. Discourse has gotten more and more toxic.

But nostalgia is nostalgia. In 20 years time people will be pining for the 2010s. So it goes.

90s Music was great though. Probably better than today. But we can listen to 90s music whenever we want.

I personally think 90s cinema and tv has (on the whole) aged poorly.

dangerrabbit · 29/07/2019 11:07

No.

LittleDoritt · 29/07/2019 12:48

God, I loved the 90s. It felt like the whole world would just get more liberal and progressive and everything would keep getting brighter. What the hell happened?
I wish my daughter's fashion icons could be Rayanne Graf from My So Called Life and not some perma-tanned, butt implanted, Dolmio-browed monstrosity.

DrCoconut · 29/07/2019 13:41

I was 18 in 1995. It was probably the best year of my life. Lovely summer, A levels were over and there was a sense of optimism that is absent now. I remember things being on the up for the less well off like us. Things are nastier now with all the rhetoric about scroungers, immigration etc. It's as though society kind of peaked and is now going backwards again.

GreenwoodLane · 29/07/2019 13:47

I’m not sure why people think jobs were easy to come by in the 90s.

There was a recession in the early 90s and things were dire for ages. I graduated in 92 and there were no jobs. It took me 2 years (1 year msc and 1 year job hunt) to secure a decent graduate job.

BIL graduated in 91 and things were just as bad, despite having a 2:1 from an RG uni in IT. Took him about 2 years, eventually entering the job market via a government scheme.

comingintomyown · 29/07/2019 13:51

Yep 80s and 90s totally agree life was just intrinsically simpler ,less expectations and altogether gentler.

UserThenLotsOfNumbers · 29/07/2019 13:52

"It's as though society kind of peaked and is now going backwards again."
In some aspects, yes definitely.

AristotlesTrousers · 29/07/2019 14:01

YANBU.

I miss the 90s so much. I'd do anything to go back to 1995 and starting uni for the first time. Can't think about it too much without getting a bit choked up as things didn't end well and I fell out with the best friends I ever had, but still. Best years of my life. Feels like a different life now and I'd sell my soul to go back.

IntoValhalla · 29/07/2019 14:06

Oh and chocolate bars were bigger!!

Were they though?
Me and DH had low key arguement about this a few months ago Blush
I was adamant that yes, chocolate bars were indeed bigger!
DH reckons that a creme egg for example, just seemed so much bigger because I was only a child, so my hands/mouth etc were smaller Hmm

RubbingHimSourly · 29/07/2019 14:06

Totally agree. The 90s had it all.

If we can just tweak it with earlier introduction of the minimum wage I'd happily go back.

JustDanceAddict · 29/07/2019 14:49

Yes in some ways. I was 18-28 in the 90s so went from finishing school to getting engaged in 10 years!
I remember the late 90s with Blair etc feeling very optimistic, Britpop, putting money into nhs/education.
I did find it hard to get a graduate job though - there was a recession and not much about.
Uni was great - no fees so it didn’t matter if your degree wasn’t rigorous. It was more the fun of the uni experience for me!
Had great fun clubbing, pubbing, gigs, holidays pre-kids.
And as others have said no social media which really was a good thing! No worries over likes, couldn’t be contacted on a mobile until late 90s (got my first brick in 1999).

CarolDanvers · 29/07/2019 14:54

Life is better now with my children in it.

However the freedom of the nineties for me was amazing. I had quite a good job but not too taxing, a great circle of friends, a nice little goose. A boyfriend who worked away during the week so plenty of time to myself. It wasn't too bad at all I have to admit Smile

CarolDanvers · 29/07/2019 14:55

House not goose! Why on earth would autocorrect change it to that? 🤷‍♀️

bellinisurge · 29/07/2019 14:56

No. I was an adult then too. Different decade. Different shit - not as able to wrangle it as I am now.