Toxic 90s nostalgia

[Lowrolller]

Is anyone else finding articles like this one https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/03/bridget-jones-is-a-welcome-reminder-of-a-much-more-comfortable-era a bit too much?
I also experienced this era, a simlar number of years into life as the author, but I always feel marginalised when I read them. I didn't have this easygoing yet perfect job, or boyfriiends that know cabinet ministers, or a job situation that allows you to continually mess up and drink as much as you like while still having enough to be financially secure. I agree life is evern tougher right now, but its like its saying to anyone alive then - this was your one socially sanctioned window for happiness, there's no point trying to be happy now, its all doom and decline, all the time ramming their perfect Richard Curtis film 90s down the throat of anyone who wasn't in such control of their circumstances.

Yes I know what you mean. I think it's a yearning for simpler times - ie no social media and Internet. I know toxic masculinity was sky high and many young teen girls were groomed by men old enough to be their fathers without anyone batting an eye in the 90s. The ladette culture of drinking too. Not ideal.

I've always found bridget jones incredibly annoying and not relatable

Yeah, agree, it's just nostalgia though, I think it's always the same.

I can remember in the 90s listening to a lot of 60s and 70s music, watching That 70s Show, loving the hippie movement, obsessed with Woodstock. And thr fashions of thr 90s were very much a recycled 60s / 70s look.

I can remember my mum saying "I wore something like that!" or saying "the original was better!" to every remixed song.

Things I now find myself saying to my kids.

I think there's a kind of security to the past. You know how things panned out so there no anxiety. Whereas 2025 is an unknown....so people look back.

But I do agree the 90s are being fetishized and it can be a bit 🙄

But that's how it is there's days. Everything's dramatized and over the top and rose tinted glasses. A lot of navel gazing rather than just getting on with the here and now.

Both the current issues with alcohol use ( as more prevalent 90’s Ladette culture, women started to drink more and binge drinking/ normalising alcohol everyday at home) and the obesity crisis ( as more upf’s, more American attitudes to food over-consumption, less traditional diet) were seeded in the 90’s so it’s an unusual decade to yearn for!

Bridget Jones films are make believe, something put together for entertainment. Each decade, in fact each Century, was what it was, and there’s nothing that can change history, only lessons that might be learned where things went badly wrong in some instances.
FWIW, this current decade at least in the UK is probably going to be remembered as one of abysmal parenting, anxious and stressed over weight children, children addicted to social media, adults obsessed with their looks and crazy surgical reconstruction, worryingly bad political decisions, shockingly bad relationship choices, humans giving themselves a label, etc…. The only consistent in the UK is that the whole country is still Class obsessed!

Suddenly, the 1990’s don’t look that bad🤣

Reminds me of a quote from the song 'Sunscreen': Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

I am now old enough that people are painting the nineties as a golden era - it wasn't, just like any era that people live through. There were good things about it and bad things. There are good things about this era as well. Honest!

I was bridget jones! (not the cabinet ministers admittedly) But I was literally her in the 90's. A bumbling mess where chaos and 'foot in mouth' would follow me around! I miss the 90 without the social media - you actually had to interact with people and had groups of friends. I was the one at the family party who would make an idiot of myself, that my mother was always trying to match me up with farmers or doctors. Google wasn't at the drop of a hat. And I was young! The 90s where the best decade for me.

We actually shared the same birthday - until they changed it in the 3rd film from November to May

90s were a lot of fun. I agree a lot of the 90s culture was recycling of 70s fashion and music. Life was an adventure, the future was positive. Teenagers travelled alone.

However : mysogyny was extreme (lads and laddettes), girls were scrutinised, bullying dressed up as humour was rife. Parenting was handsoff once you got to the teenage years. Parents were often quite self absorbed and immature. There was less therapy, less analysis, which is both a good and a bad thing.

I remember the drugs scene being huge too - illegal raves, graffiti all over schools, estates you couldn't set foot on, homeless all over London - really when you consider how the youngsters of today aren't drinking as much and crime has gone down, we have relatively little to worry about. I still think of poor Leah Betts.

I've always found bridget jones incredibly annoying and not relatable
In a lot of ways, I found her very relatable, perhaps I was annoying!
Me and my friends worried about putting a couple of pounds on, worried about our love life, and at times I was social awkward and made a fool of myself (actually too many times)
When watching the first Bridget Jones it was as if someone had done a screen play of my life!
Despite all the alcohol I always ended up in good jobs and was paid well!

But doesn't every generation do this?

Some think back to when they left the back door unlocked and you could nip in to your neighbours house for a cup of sugar and leave babies outside shops in their prams without batting an eyelid.

Then those that look back on the 80s, 70s etc. Everyone does it.

At the time it unrealistic that someone on a junior office wage could afford a flat in central London by herself. It's laughable now but it was always a fairy tale.

At the time it unrealistic that someone on a junior office wage could afford a flat in central London by herself. It's laughable now but it was always a fairy tale.
Maybe but in 1990, I got a mortgage with a deposit a friend lent me. It was for a nice terraced house in the north east.
I was on reoccurring temporary contracts working 20hrs a week with a local authority. It was an entry level job.
I still lived the Bridget Jones lifestyle! I'm not sure how i did it but I did!
There's not a chance that would happen now.

Not really, she is a publisher not junior office staff and she lives in a converted old loft flat doesn't she? I did work experience for a broadsheet for a bit in the late 90s and I knew a woman who was around her age, (I was only late teen at the point so definitely didn't have a flat in central London) and she lived in Covent Garden. I also knew someone who lived near London Bridge who was mid twenties.

Yes, my older siblings bought a 2 bed period flat in Crouch End for a pretty reasonable price, they were only 23.

Oh for the days when boys were boys, girls were girls, and you dated people you met in real life.

understandable nostalgia.

I was at university and a teen so when I got to that age in the 00s things had gone up considerably they were very much windfall generation.

It was a slightly easier time for everyone of all backgrounds. Even for example people working underpaid jobs could easily find more work when needed. The cost of living was also more manageable so young people could move out of home earlier than now. I was only a young child in the 90s but even for me it was better, children played out on the street, there was much less traffic and there wasn't any social media to dominate anyone's life.
It's worth adding though that there was much more open misogyny/ homophobia/ racism back then, too, so not everything was better.

Reading these messages I think the missing link is class. My 90s included bereavement, dependency issues, having to work a job I hated with the aim of becoming a breadwinner for my own parents, who had no money nor prospects. When I hear middle class people who went to a universoty where they fitted in, it all sounds like one long round of parties, interesting jobs, kooky romance and buying well located flats for small money. It honestly seems like a different planet. I wonder if people like the author even realise how hard life is when you are young with no money, contacts and the weight of the world (plus the horrendous you've got to have a good time now because by the time you're 30 the rest of your life will be dreadful) marrative. Anopther place I've learnbed to avoid is the comments section beneath 80s or 90s YoutUBe music clips for the same reason

This is kind of the point the OP was making.

There was a very dark side to the 90s. The murder of Stephen Lawrence happened in 1993, divorce rates were very high (I sometimes felt like an anomaly at school because my parents were together) recessions in the early 90s made it a miserable time for many. Bullying at school was awful - it was really bad at my school. No real provision for inclusion. Homophobia was terrible.

That isn’t to say it’s all bad, but it isn’t all bad now.

I think this is a really good point.

That's a very good point but class doesn't stop sexual harassment, rape, drugs issues were across classes in the 90s.

dont get me wrong, broken family, nothing but 4 gcse's, got a canny little job, i had a small flat, bad relationships, a marriage breakdown at 20! I would buy cheap wine at £1.50 a bottle. My friend and I went out one night with 80p between us, just for a dance, not to intentionally get drunk, came home in a taxi with £5 left over and very drunk, turns out we new a lot of people.

I like to think I had the spirit of Bridget Jones.....and less 'big' pants 😂

It did feel like there was a more noticeable gap back then - possibly because so few went to Uni unless they got the best grades. I do think now it is harder to tell if someone is earning over 50k for example, because class isn't as prominent. You could be a millionaire and still the style of clothes people who used to be thought of as common would wear now, without anyone thinking much of it. Sevenoaks and the obsession with lycra at school pick-ups comes to mind here.

I know the gap between the billionaires and poorest has got wider, but it does generally feel as if the standard of living has improved (as you would hope!) for the majority since the 90's. We at least know how to deal with homelessness, poor mental health and addiction, even if governments refuse to fund programmes to support it.

i was a tween/teen in the 90s and i'd rather my dc experienced that then todays teen hood.