To miss the simplicity of the 90s/early 2000s

[Wazza89]

I was discussing with a friend yesterday how much simpler life was was in the 90s/early 2000s. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely enjoy the perks of Netflix, Messenger, etc. But things were just more laid back.

When my younger sister turned eighteen, her and her friends got their lips done. They all looked almost identical. 😂 I remember when any form of cosmetic surgery was only reserved for celebrities. Not that it was right, just that there was less pressure and money in regards to our appearance.

My aunt told me how her daughter-in-law spends over £200 on her children’s birthday parties - the cake, the balloon arrangements, and the costumes. I don’t live in an affluent area at all (it was actually one of the poorest areas in the UK a few years ago) and the school DS goes to has a lot of funding for disadvantaged kids. Yet most the parents I see (and their kids) wear Nike or The North Face. Loads of mums get their hair and nails done regularly and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that (I’m a bit jealous, to be honest 😂), but I’m worried about the insane amount of
pressure young girls are under to keep up appearances.

One of the mums was talking about the cake she had specially made for her DS and the lavish birthday party he was going to have. I actually felt guilty that my DS had a Colin the Caterpillar cake complete with balloons and a banner from Poundland. It was acceptable when I was a child but now it seems increasingly uncommon.

Sometimes I wander whether I’m stuck in the past and I’m worried DS will be left out by his peers. Anyone else?

Yanbu

Social media and the whole ‘perfect house/holiday/baby/ life’ on Instagram has a lot to answer for.

This neatly sums it up (another poster said it up thread)

@Ionlydomassiveones the space invader packets are probably from the 90s!

The good thing is you can opt out of most of it - we have that choice.

If you look back over the course of human history we're living in the very best bit, probably the best 0.1%.

Humans (homo sapiens, anyway) have been around for over 300,000 years. I can't imagine living in the middle ages for example, the world wars, Victorian times, bronze age... etc. To me, pretty much any of those eras would be horrible. I'm imagining a very cold world, hungry, without central heating, no showers, no sanitation, no sewerage disposal, not much food, and maybe constant fear.

I know things are tough right now and a lot of the world lives in horrible conditions but things like world hunger have drastically reduced even in the past 10 years. I feel massively lucky to be in the UK and in this time period.

Having said that, yeah I do feel that things have gone backwards a bit. For me the peak probably was 90s-2015 or so. There just isn't a good feel, a good sense of things in the last five years or so. Facebook was actually fun when it started. I remember being on it in 2007 at a new job and not having any strife or worry over it. I remember when it updated your homepage every time you commented on someone's wall! I personally haven't moved on to twitter, instagram or anything else - for some reason I just stopped around 2010 and I don't actually have a smartphone as I'm concerned I'd spend too much time on it.

I do blame the media for some of this because as much as I feel it's good to be aware of things, we're constantly bombarded with news from around the world that we wouldn't know about naturally or otherwise - and often we don't actually DO anything about it so the knowledge just by itself is futile.

I do feel like certain things have gone backwards. I always felt there was a safety net there (the benefits system) and I feel now (for personal reasons) that has gone. That frightens me a lot.

Homelessness has massively increased and that scares me.
I find it incredibly sad that we are one of the richest countries in the world and we have people living on the streets who don't want to. I feel that things are more precarious and unstable for people.

The 90s just seemed simpler in a way and like someone else says there was a sense of optimism and hope.

I get scared about the future now but I try to focus on all of the positive things. Even having a tap... that when I switch on water comes out of... that's something a lot of people never had.

It was your age not the decade.
My 19/20/21 Yr old niece's have a great life, working, studying, training, partying, their friendships are healthy.
They remind me of my youthful friendships.
Besides lots of my friends had breast implants and other surgical work in the late 90's early 2000's there was lots of drugs too ecstasy and cocaine, my niece's are very open they're into makeups and appearances but not drugs.
There friends are doing far better than we did at their age, they've got drive.

100% with you OP. My kids go as bananas for a caterpillar cake as they would a fancy thing. They love outings that give them time to play, develop and grow more than of expensive forced experiences.

An experience is nice as a special treat if you can afford it but families local to us seem to do it 2-4 times a month in term time and almost every day in hols. Minimum! I’m talking £50-£150 days out here.

How do they afford it and when do kids get time to just be kids?

They do infinite dance and drama clubs too and nails and makeovers for eight year olds.

And all the fillers and plumpers for the mums.

I don’t get it.

We’re just a northern village. More well off than some areas but definitely not fancy.

@Emerald5hamrock

It was your age not the decade. My 19/20/21 Yr old niece's have a great life, working, studying, training, partying, their friendships are healthy. They remind me of my youthful friendships. Besides lots of my friends had breast implants and other surgical work in the late 90's early 2000's there was lots of drugs too ecstasy and cocaine, my niece's are very open they're into makeups and appearances but not drugs. There friends are doing far better than we did at their age, they've got drive.

I was in my late teens and early twenties in the late nineties and not one of my friends had implants and none of us did drugs. We had a hell of a lot of drive and after graduating worked hard to do well.

I guess it’s anecdotal.

@EightWheelGirl

Rape, violence, and drug use were more common in the 90s, but I agree that there wasn't the same amount of social pressure. But if you don't use social media you don't see it, so it's largely optional.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/04/highest-ever-number-of-rapes-recorded-in-england-and-wales

Rapes are higher than ever now

I was in my late teens and early twenties in the late nineties and not one of my friends had implants and none of us did drugs. We had a hell of a lot of drive and after graduating worked hard to do well.
That's great I'm glad you had the support and guidance to avoid it.
There has been dozens of threads on MN related to drug use in the 90's early 2000's the rave scene.
Countless professional successful pps like yourself describing the euphoria of that era.
It went across Europe mc and wc alike.
Breast implants were also popular during that time, people aimed for the inflatable look like the glamour models, pin up girls of that time.
Pamela set the trend.

Social media and the whole ‘perfect house/holiday/baby/ life’ on Instagram has a lot to answer for.
Very easily avoided.

‘Social media and the whole ‘perfect house/holiday/baby/ life’ on Instagram has a lot to answer for.’

‘Very easily avoided.’

100% true. Never check Facebook anymore, never signed up to Twitter or Instagram. Very easily avoided. MN is my only social media and when it gets too toxic I hide the relevant thread.

Life wasn't any better in the past, it's just a symptom of getting older and slightly fearful of moving forwards. I remember being in my teens/20s in the 1990s and people going on about how brilliant the 1960s and 1970s were and how much better than the 1990s, and thinking how wrong they were. Best to focus on the here and now and live your best life.

@JackieWeaverHandforthCouncil

‘Social media and the whole ‘perfect house/holiday/baby/ life’ on Instagram has a lot to answer for.’

‘Very easily avoided.’

100% true. Never check Facebook anymore, never signed up to Twitter or Instagram. Very easily avoided. MN is my only social media and when it gets too toxic I hide the relevant thread.

It is and I limit mine but it's hard to feel connected to other people these days. Before social media people talked on the phone everyone is too busy to do that now.

Lots of people who were in their 20s then had drive, ambition...AND took drugs. It certainly wasn't mutually exclusive.

It's clearly anecdotal though - It just jars when people keep saying "it's because you were young that you are nostalgic". It really isn't that.

And being young doesn't equal carefree, the constant money worries aren't something I've forgotten even now.

The positives is that social media wasn’t around the pressures were not quite as constant but they were there heroin chic etc

We are bombarded with so much information now it’s too much and I think make us stressed it’s so hard to switch off or not look up more information

The negatives were plenty acceptable racism, sexism etc and now people have a platform to discuss issues and realise that are not alone which is a positive

I think nearly every generation looks back with rose tinted glasses to some point in their life that seemed easier

^But now we are forced to participate in tech
In the 90s, it was in the workplace a but not pretty much essential for running your banking, for example, or paying for a car parking space^

But I love that, it makes my life much simpler to not have to get the bus to town, go to the bank (currently between 2 and 4pm!!) to do anything. Paying in a cheque used to take me an hour and a half, then the local post office accepted them, cutting it to 25 min, now 2 to 5 minutes online.

I'm not forced to do it online, the other options are still there. Online is just simpler and easier to acess.

I don’t think it’s all nostalgia and getting older. Things don’t automatically get better as time goes forward. We’ve come to expect that and we tend to want to believe it, but that doesn’t make it so.

Some things have gotten worse since the 90s. Homes have become roughly twice as unaffordable since the mid 90s for example. That’s not good. From what I can see statistically young people are less happy, even if anecdotally you know a seemingly happy young person.

I don’t know, I went to a crappy inner city secondary in the 00s and there was definitely a pressure to have branded trainers for PE for example and branded backpacks. Anyone who had crap or unbranded ones were ripped apart, I remember it being the same in the latter years of primary school on non uniform days or with your coat. Kids always find shit to pick on and always have. Mobile phones were a big deal too, even in year 5 and 6 at school and ringtones were!

I’ve always baked my DC’s cakes from scratch. They never look amazing but the kids really appreciate the effort and they taste alright. They’ve never had a big birthday party, we just go out for the day as a family and have a meal together. Maybe that’s weird but I really couldn’t be arsed hosting a birthday party with loads of stranger’s kids.

It's just not as simple as saying it was better or worse than today. Apart from the fact it's all highly objective, there will also be some things that have progressed for the better, and some things that will have been lost for the worst.

On the whole, as a woman especially, I could never go back, there is no point in time where I think society would have been better or safer for me, plenty more to be done though of course.

I don’t know, I went to a crappy inner city secondary in the 00s and there was definitely a pressure to have branded trainers for PE for example and branded backpacks. Anyone who had crap or unbranded ones were ripped apart,
Me too though before you, I left in 97, gosh the different lifestyles people have on here, when I said we didn't have the drive our offspring have when I should have said we didn't have the opportunities.
We couldn't wait to leave school, earn a wage and buy some nice clothing or shoes, it wasn't an option unless you earned it, nowadays most DC around here leave school with a plan.
@JackieWeaverHandforthCouncil I gave up FB 6 years ago, after one month I didn't miss it at all, never joined Instagram.
MN is my SM fix.

The trouble I have is that if my Mum wanted to know what was influencing me at 14, she'd only have to watch top of the pops or read my weekly magazine, whereas now we have no idea what our kids are seeing/watching/reading.

I'm 'only' 40 and was stunned yesterday when a group of teenagers sat next to me and DD yesterday. They were talking about a girl at school getting "jumped" and then watched a video of it on her phone. I genuinely didn't know what to think, and that sort of thing would have had a huge impact on me at school. Imagine your bully filming their attack on you.

It kinda made me want to weep for this generation of teens.

@Royalbloo

The trouble I have is that if my Mum wanted to know what was influencing me at 14, she'd only have to watch top of the pops or read my weekly magazine, whereas now we have no idea what our kids are seeing/watching/reading.

I'm 'only' 40 and was stunned yesterday when a group of teenagers sat next to me and DD yesterday. They were talking about a girl at school getting "jumped" and then watched a video of it on her phone. I genuinely didn't know what to think, and that sort of thing would have had a huge impact on me at school. Imagine your bully filming their attack on you.

It kinda made me want to weep for this generation of teens.

I saw two boys on the train watching a video like this. They looked primary school age. It was so depressing.

Posters saying you can ignore social media - yes, but only to an extent. It's bled into real life massively.

To me the peak was mid 90s until the 2007 recession - things definitely took a step back then. Austerity has been hanging over our heads for nearly 15 years now, and let’s not even start on post 2015.

I think there was a sweet spot with social media and tech where it was easy to be connected to friends and buy things online, but your boss didn't expect you to respond to WhatsApp at 9pm and the HR department didn't monitor your Facebook page.

It's not tech that has caused the problem, it's us. Somehow we have failed to stand up for the right to be a private individual and there is a unpleasant tell-tale culture now, which the pandemic has made even worse. It's the same prissy judgmental elements that have always existed in society but now there is no escape from them, and the biggest worry is that it is the young who are in the vanguard.