To miss the 90’s so much it hurts

[Backonceagainwiththerenegademaster]

😫It was the best.

The Rachel green outfits post has reminded me of it all. I was 15/16/17 early-mid 90’s and it was just the best time. Just about scraped in for the times when clubs were good with house music etc, Blur vs Oasis and the whole Brit pop thing. Proper pubs with pool tables and drinking and smoking, great clothes, jobs more easily available, great music. I know we all probably hanker to the time that was our youth…but really, truly, weren’t the early-mid nineties an amazing time..freedom, no internet/mobiles..if only to go back for a bit.

And yes, voting in 1997 felt exciting. Not so much now.

Amazing times - I was team Blur and obsessed with The X-Files. 😂

Or, dashing to the phone to beat dad because he found it funny to pick it up:

”battersea dogs home, how can I help you”

or some such silliness
good times

Top of the Pops 1993 was on BBC4 last night, so many great songs from totally different genres and I could sing along to all of them. I miss the clubbing, the pubs, the gigs, the fashions and the shopping. Everything felt bright and glittery and optimistic and now it feels generic and beige. I think shopping especially holds a lot of 90’s nostalgia for women because it was where we first went out without parents with are friends to the neared city Centre and still be relatively safe. There was a bigger artistic influence in music, especially indie and dance music. We could wear sequins and glitter and fake fur and feather boas without drawing a crowd, girls and women could still have an individual fashion sense and style. Compared to now, the fake eyelashes and contouring, people are desperate to look one version of perfection. Give me Spectacular nail varnish over Charlotte Tilbury any day!

Most of my sons friends listen to classic pop/rock bands from the 70s/80s/90s and don’t really enjoy today’s music. My DS is always saying he wishes he was gen x and lived in the 90s. My parents generation used to go on about the 60’s/70s being amazing, but they all loved Britpop too.

There was also a lot of crap stuff. Early 90s recession was pretty rough, part time work had no holiday, sick pay or protection,the tabloids were a law unto themselves, the Tories shagged anything that moved and there were some really horrible grim murders that traumatised a generation to the point that we don’t allow our kids the same freedoms we had. 9/11 felt like the moment everything got shit but really it had been brewing for years.

I really miss the things the internet has taken away, decent high streets and shops (now there is an illusion of choice online which just means we spend more on stuff we haven’t actually seen,) good music (it really has gone boring since streaming took off) and the freedom to look how you like and have a political opinion that isn’t polarised click bait. A lot of terrible recent things would not have tolerated in the 90’s.

YANBU

Id absolutely hate to be a young person in the world of social media today. Thank god we used to be anonymous and didn’t document everything.

And the smoking. Aaah the smoking. I only have a fag on a night out now (so basically bloody never) but a smoky bar or smoky student digs - I don’t know why because obviously it’s gross but there’s just something about it that takes me back.

I'm more of a late 80's /early 90's girl but I agree. Not convinced that mobile phones and the internet have added to the happiness of society as a whole.

Without a doubt seeing Jurassic Park is the best experience I’ve ever had in a cinema. The most memorable scene of course is when the first dinosaur (Brachiosaurus) appears eating the leaves. A genuine open mouthed moment seeing this enormous creature for the first time, it was the closest thing to being transported back 60 million years. It’s the one film more than any other that you had to see in the cinema. The first time CGI had been used, nobody had seen anything this real before. The flying bike scene with a backdrop of the moon in E.T. is often seen as the most magical in film, and it probably is, but imo the dinosaur scene eclipses it in terms of awe as you were basically watching something that actually happened million of years ago in the same space we inhabit today.

I'm undecided as to whether I'd go back, but I get your nostalgia for the 90s, was a teenager all the way though them and full of happy memories!
Body shop white musk, hyper colour t-shirts, mood rings, DMs with my long skirts 😁
Beverly Hills 90210 and Heartbreak High.
Mid 90s in the pub drinking snakebite and black 😁
Those were the days lol

1997 was the first year I was old enough to vote, was great going out to vote for the first time!
Still remember the public excitement and tha feeling that yes, "things can only get better....'
Certainly felt that way

I miss certain people and places (the two together- of course the places on their own wouldn't be the same now.)

I wish I'd somehow managed to keep in touch with more people properly.

The music I listened to in the mid-late 90s was quite gloomy and so was a lot of the artistic culture I feel (post-modernist lyrics etc.)

It took until about 2001 for me to realize it wasn't that I didn't like music much- I just mostly like upbeat pop.

Id absolutely hate to be a young person in the world of social media today.

I lived in a village, was bullied at school, and was very isolated. I think internet would've helped me in that respect. I make use of it a lot today.

I think the 80s were much better (for music too).

Indiana Jones (series)
Back to the Future (series)
The Empire Strikes Back
Karate Kid I And II
Superman II
Ferris Buellers Day Off (and other John Hughes films such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles)
National Lampoon (series)
Rocky III And IV
E.T.
Gremlins
The Goonies
Ghostbusters
Police Academy (series)
Terminator
Trading Places
Die Hard
Batman
Aliens
Blade Runner
Lost Boys
Beetlejuice
Top Gun
Rain Man
Scrooged
The Shining

Music, watch Youtube video “most popular song each month since January 1980”

m.youtube.com/watch?v=nNoaXej0Jeg&t=268s

Try and find three back to back months from the 90s that has anything close to this:

July 1983 - Every Breath You Take
August 1983 - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
September 1983 - Total Eclipse of the Heart

The emergence of Michael Jackson and Madonna, Freddie Mercury at Live Aid, Guns N Roses, Phil Collins, U2 etc.

So much of 90s music is forgettable. Trance, derivative music from the 60s (Britpop), the Spice Girls (the girl power thing was huge which really drove the popularity of their songs rather than the songs being any good), boy bands...and Mariah Carey destroying every song with over singing.

I miss the 70s and 80s, and even the 90s too. Life seemed so much more simple then, and more fun. I agree with a pp in that I'm also not convinced that mobile phones and the internet have added to the happiness of society as a whole.

The nosedive in the quality of music from the 80s to the 90s can be best summed up with:

Fairytale of New York....to...All I Want for Christmas Is You

Are you from North America? (I feel you) 😊

Yes! The stussy brand T-shirt took right back.

Ah I ache for the 90s! I was in my 20s, going out raving, not a care in the world, looking the best I’ve ever looked! I miss the fashion, the carefree attitude and the illegal parties that the police always turned a blind eye to. I miss the music, The Word on Friday nights… I miss it all! Happy daze.

I miss my youth. Reflecting is just part of middle age. I was mid teens to mid 20s in the 90s and I had some amazing times but then I had a second ‘youth’ in the mid 00s going out dancing and meeting new people online and I have equally as amazing memories from then too. My mum talks of the early 70s in the same way, my grandparents the early 50s. It’s more about the stage of development than the decade.

I totally agree! It was the sweet spot of humanity, racism and sexism etc no longer acceptable (although I’m sure rife), there was sexual freedom, we had all the mod cons, everyone watched the same tv shows and movies so could talk about them, it seemed like there was so much social mobility and less inequality, before mobile phones etc so people actually went out and did things, we were trying to be kind to the environment but climate change anxiety was a long way off, houses were affordable - my mums house purchased early 90s was 2 x her salary. I was only single digits in the 90s but think it would have been fantastic to be 20s/30s in the 90s, even if only to have bought property before the boom 😂

F everyone else. You dress and act like it’s the 90s if you want.

Same age here! I was 18 in 1990. Uni days were great, but economically and politically early 90s were rough. The illegal raves and proper dance nights were awesome though.

As we moved into mid 90s I had a good job, money for fab clothes and I clubbed and clubbed and clubbed all over the UK (long live the Hacienda) and Europe, working 2 seasons in Greece along the way.

The music was phenomenal and life just seemed easy and full of hope. I agree with the PP that said folk took drugs to be happy, and skin colour/ sex seemed not important at all- everyone was focused on having a good time. In the young scene, anyway. Noone gave a shit what you wore, where you came from, what you did/didn't have- it was just about having a good time.

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Yes, good point about house prices. I bought my first flat in 1996 at age 24. It was £34, 500. My mortgage payment was £160 a month. I had a good job, so life was easy.

I got a promotion ans saved £9000 in one year and went travelling. I rented out my flat and off I went. It was a breeze.

I was 26 at the start if the 90s, it was such a great time. Plus, 1999 was roughly the last time I saw my waist.

I loved the 70s - 90s, didn't go out so much in the 90s as DS was born in 1992 so no gigs for us. I went to see Bob Dylan recently and he had banned mobile phones, we had to lock them in pouches, it was so much better than the sea of mobiles in front of your face, I wish more artists would do this as everyones phone wafting about always spoils the enjoyment a bit.

I squandered the 90s laminating my revision timetable and worrying about my fringe.