To think the UK was really cool and exciting in the nineties and early noughties?

[Fuckthecostofliving]

Just thinking of all the music, films and general whole vibe. It was amazing! I visited London in 1997 as a teen for the first time and loved everything about it immediately.

I know part of this is to do with nostalgia for being young, but honestly there seemed to be such an exciting mixture of brilliant cultural stuff going on. And way less internet, no iphones, it was just a whole different atmosphere.

Anyone else nostalgic for the 90's?

@ThreeB me too- met my H , we lived in a pretty gritty flat but in Hampstead and got pregnant just as Blair won election. 10 minutes walk to a rocking Camden market! Makes me nostalgic just thinking back

I don't remember the early noughties bring exciting at all. 9/11 changed everything. I remember it as a really fearful time, like waking up with a hangover after a great party.

Being not bring!

What I’d do to be wearing double denim (possibly with a side order of a global hyper colour t-shirt), listening to the Spice Girls while reading J17 and reeking of CKone.

I don't think it's only about the nostalgia of youth, I was in my late 20s / early 30s in the 90s and I think it was a brilliant time - much more so than the 80s of my teen years. A feeling of things opening up, an optimism, a vibrancy and confidence - you could feel the energy in the air!

yep! the music mostly. miss it!

On the surface maybe. The country was getting into better shape anyway the late 80s was the age of the yuppies. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/pfi-banks-barclays-hsbc-rbs-tony-blair-gordon-brown-carillion-capita-financial-crash-a8202661.html

Oops scrap that. I am tired. We had the crash in the late 80s. By the mid 90s things were picking up internationally and he monopolised on that.

I had the time of my life in the 1980's,the 1990's are a blur of hospital appointments with my DC.

Yes and no.

Certainly we were in a much better place economically and politically. The UK was on a rising tide financially, the stock market was powering ahead. We had a relatively progressive government with a strong mandate which actually invested in public services, people had money in their pockets. There was buzz about the UK as a destination, culturally there was a lot going on with Britpop. good British movies, strong media, investment in the arts etc. Compared to the moribund, insular, paranoid kleptocracy of a government we live under now it was a paradise.

But in many ways I look back on this era aghast at the sexism in society. I was just thinking about the whole Lad/Ladette culture the other day, the era of lads mags and celebrity women having to ape a kind of blokeish culture to be tolerated and thinking how retrograde it was in terms of relations between the sexes. It's bizarre because we live in one of the most socially conservative governments I can recall in my life but I feel women, minorities and other people who are marginalised by society in various ways have come a long way since then.

Happy to have been a teen in the 90s. Lots of nostalgia. No phones. I wouldn’t go back to the teen angst though. And I was a bit envious that my parents were teens in the 60s.

Mid-70s born, absolutely loved that era. Had a brilliant time. Social media on mobile phones ruined everything

YABU. I’m 37 and even I could tell as a young teen then that the clothes were terrible and pop music manufactured crap.

Britpop was great, but the rest? A bit meh.

Women saying - women had it better. They are forgetting it was literally the fashion to show your underwear off. A whole market of glittery thongs. All showed off in magazines with names like Zoo! A magazine called zoo to display “exhibits of women.” Societal attitudes to LGBTQ certainly were hideous back then. People remember what they want to remember. Mostly, it’s nostalgia.

Britpop era. Loved that

No, I hated the 90s. Struggling on one erratic wage with two SN kids. Hell on earth.

Absolutely agree

You clearly weren't involved in the rave scene then! It was incredible, mind blowing

I was just thinking about the whole Lad/Ladette culture the other day, the era of lads mags and celebrity women having to ape a kind of blokeish culture to be tolerated and thinking how retrograde it was in terms of relations between the sexes
I think that's nonsense. "Ladette" culture and Lad mags were just part of mass media and I don't think anyone took all that seriously, it was just marketing. In reality I think the 90s was the decade where I really felt like men and women could be friends. Nowadays it's all understanding menopause in the workplace while the men watch violent porn on their phones in the bogs. The 90s felt so optimistic and positive compared to now.

Started my first job after graduation and lived in central London - seemed to have loads of ££££ and there was loads of great stuff going on to spend it on. Great clubs / bars / restaurants - seemed that a new place was opening every week - great venues and live music. London was taking off in the 90s. I was a teenager in central London in the 80s - there was a ‘scene’ but you had to find it and it was no where near as vibrant or energetic. Glad to have had all those experiences - feel like it was a privileged youth culturally and economically.

My DCs are early 20s now and although better educated and from much more comfortable background they don’t have the opportunities and optimism we had.

Think the ‘ladette’ thing was a media construction - wasn’t something I ever bumped in to?

I completely agree. I was at secondary in the 90s and I remember sort of rolling my eyes at the idea of 'ladettes', it just meant Zoe Ball and Sara Cox drinking pints and talking about sex; it was obviously just media thing.

I was exhausted with a toddler and a newborn 1994-1997. And a husband who worked away from home.
I wish my children were small again though..

Was there a wanker of the week?

No there was too much racism and way worse than it is now.