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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To thank god I was a teenager in the 90's

44 replies

TheThoughtOfIt · 27/12/2022 22:14

Every so often I get little flash back of my teen years. A wave of mortification washes over me and I get palpitations at the thought of what would happen if I was a teenager now.

I think of being mid teens and being absolutely obsessed with this boy. I can imagine if it was now with social media, I would be a borderline stalker, and I would never get anything else done. I also can't imagine if there was an actual record of what I would have said existed.

The worst one is thinking of a time I was kissing a guy in a doorway and he opened the button of my pants and they fell to my ankles and I had to hurriedly pull them back up...it wasn't in a secluded area, and I'm sure if I was a teenager today, there's a good chance it would have been recorded and circulated...and loads of people including my parents could have seen it.
It genuinely makes me shudder, and I can't imagine how stressful it must be being a teenager now.

My DCS are still under 10, but AIBU to think that it is so much harder to be a teenager now?

OP posts:
XenoBitch · 27/12/2022 22:22

YANBU
Nowadays there are photos as evidence for everything, bullying on social media. I am so glad proms were not a thing when I was young.,

Aquamarine1029 · 27/12/2022 22:24

I agree completely. My kids are 23 and 25 now. They have no idea how "free" we were back then. I was a teen in the 80's and had no fear of every single fucking thing being recorded.

PriamFarrl · 27/12/2022 22:30

I’m glad I was a teen in the 80s/90s just because no photographic or video evidence exists. Can you imagine if our every night out had been photographed like they are now.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 27/12/2022 22:35

I think this all the time.

I was bullied enough at school as it was. Those days you had to know parent initials and at least some idea of address to find you in the phonebook, and then get past your parents.

I imagine my mobile number getting passed about and people having fun and piss taking on Facebook.

I have openly thanked the Lord many times

Imthegingerbreadwoman · 27/12/2022 22:36

I was a teenager in the 00s and couldn't agree with you more!!

Awrite · 27/12/2022 22:36

I had a conversation about this a few years ago on a works night out. I remarked that none of us had our phones out taking photos for social media.

This led on to us wondering if we would have behaved if there had been mobile phones when we were teenagers.

There is no evidence of all the dodgy, risk taking shit I did as a young'un.

@Aquamarine1029 said it - we had total freedom. I kinda feel that young people today are coerced into changing their behaviours.

Changingplace · 27/12/2022 22:40

I completely agree, I dread to think about what would’ve ended up on social media had it existed when I was a teen, it must be an absolute nightmare to be young now with every move videoed/photographed/monitored :(

Hailingfrequenciesopen · 27/12/2022 22:40

I am sooooo thankful that mobile phones were very new when I left high school. Literally one girl had one in my school had one, so who knows who she was phoning. Also, cameras and Facebook were distant, future things.

VeniVidiWeeWee · 27/12/2022 22:41

Well, you missed all the good bands.

Annoyingwurringnoise · 27/12/2022 22:42

I was a massive druggy in my late teens, thank God no video or photographic evidence exists of my exploits.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 27/12/2022 22:42

What?? There were so many great indie bands in the 90s!

tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz · 27/12/2022 22:45

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 27/12/2022 22:42

What?? There were so many great indie bands in the 90s!

Absolutely. Pulp, Verve, Sleeper, Oasis. As a start 😳

Drywhitefruitycidergin · 27/12/2022 22:45

I was talking to my parents about this earlier - they said the same about the 60's/70's 🤣😂

TheOGCCL · 27/12/2022 22:46

I think, rightly or wrongly, teenagers are evolving to their environment. So many of them look like they've mastered make up and fashion in a way I never had by the same age. They are often much more knowing and sophisticated. Whether they actually have the matching emotional maturity is another matter so quite dangerous.

The thing that horrifies me is the instant and easy availability of porn. The idea that my male peers could be looking at that, and comparing us, and having very skewed expectations.

HelloBunny · 27/12/2022 22:54

I used to have to wait for my crush to pass by my house (I’d be casually waiting by the window, playing my coolest records) to catch a glimpse. The thrill of seeing him! Imagine if I’d had social media? Agree with OP, I’d be totally obsessed...

And going to the pub to see your mates. There was no other way of chatting to them. You also didn’t know who’d be there & there was always news, as you wouldn’t have been on FB, WhatsApp, TikTok etc... And the bloke you fancy might even be out, too!

Georgeskitchen · 27/12/2022 23:24

70s teenager here. Very thankful that there was no social media and camera phones 🤔 Not many restrictions around underage drinking, slap on the make up and platform shoes and if you looked 18 you got served in the pub. Same with getting into nightclubs
. If you looked the part you were in.
A lot of underage sex going on, probably the same today tbh, but woebetide your parents finding out, it wouldn't be pretty.
I feel for youngsters nowadays, same adolescent angst, with the added pressure of social media to deal with on top of it x

Hankunamatata · 27/12/2022 23:25

Totally agree. Sons mind was blown we didn't have phones or broadband when talking yesterday

porpy · 27/12/2022 23:34

I love this Hollie McNish poem soo true m.youtube.com/watch?v=kFd8ZE22lIc

No way would I want to go to a party and get drunk these days as a teen, you’d just feel the constant threat of being plastered over Snapchat and a million videos/photos being taken.

forceofhabitandnotneed · 27/12/2022 23:44

Oh god, yes. There's a part of me that thinks I would have been a little bit less isolated and would have more easily found people who shared my niche nerdy interests, but the bullying would have been much much worse.

A girl pulled my shirt and exposed my rolls of fat at a house party when I was 16. Although I don't think it was done with great malice, it hurt as I've long had massive body confidence issues. Anyway, some lovely individual managed to procure a photograph of this which was then slid into a locked glass cabinet on a busy school corridor. I managed to get a teacher to remove it (and then I tore the fucking thing to shreds), but that alone was embarrassing enough. These days it would have been plastered all over the internet.

VeniVidiWeeWee · 27/12/2022 23:47

tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz · 27/12/2022 22:45

Absolutely. Pulp, Verve, Sleeper, Oasis. As a start 😳

Show quote history

Pink Floyd, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, to continue.

JimBob61 · 27/12/2022 23:47

YA definitely NBU
I actually had this exact conversation with my 15 year old yesterday
I would have made myself look like a complete twat. Just the thought of it makes me shudder.

Onnabugeisha · 27/12/2022 23:51

I voted YABU because I think teens are safer today than in the 90s.
Yes there’s more chance they might be videoed doing something stupid, but this same chance deters attackers as well.
I was a teen in the 80/90s and the lack of cell phones and cctv put me into some very tight, life threatening spots.

mommatoone · 28/12/2022 00:02

Oh the joys of being a 90s teenager. Smelling of exclamation ❗ perfume and rimmel false tan. The only care i had in the world was getting to the phone box to ring the lad i fancied!! Some good times- aprt from the hangovers from concorde / 20/20🤣

Appleandoranges · 28/12/2022 00:02

I also think teens are safer. Less underage drinking and teenage pregnancies gone down massively. And less acceptable for teenage girls to have relationships with older men. But yes social media has risks. Though these may be better understood now than they were few years back.

Adelant · 28/12/2022 00:15

Onnabugeisha · 27/12/2022 23:51

I voted YABU because I think teens are safer today than in the 90s.
Yes there’s more chance they might be videoed doing something stupid, but this same chance deters attackers as well.
I was a teen in the 80/90s and the lack of cell phones and cctv put me into some very tight, life threatening spots.

So true.

I think a lot of these threads do look at the 80s and 90s with rose tinted spectacles.

I remember teen pregnancies, 19 year old men picking up 13 yo friends up from school, girls losing their virginities to men on school trips. And I had a very sheltered upbringing, God knows what else my other friends saw.

And yet we’re supposed to just be grateful there were no phone cameras and Snapchat.

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