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.

There are good things about this era as well. Honest!

what are the good things about this era?

As someone who was a teenager when the book came out, it seemed like a completely miserable existence and for the first time gave me a complex about my weight, which at age 16, 5 ft 4 and ten stone was pretty bang average. Especially as I genuinely was pretty muscular as I danced 5 nights a week.

I am really glad my teens are teens now than back then! Remember the teen pregnancy rates? As I said before, 40yo men grooming girls in uniform and the papers calling them all sluts and men thinking it was their right to hang naked pictures of women in their offices?

If my teens watch shows from the 90's they always pause and go "WTF!" about things I hadn't even thought about - women being talked over all the time, no female comedians...come on, there's loads!

Things aren't as overt but I don't think misogyny or sexual abuse has gone away...

My late MIL always said the only reason you could leave your door unlocked was because nobody had anything worth nicking.

Definitely not. But it was once treated as a joke or at best a sort of rite of passage in a way.

I never said the 90s were perfect because they weren't but I don't think things are great for teenagers now & I preferred my experience. You don't have to agree..

There were definitely female comedians in the 90s

Yes, in some ways very much worse with the Incel stuff. I would say there is zero progression- it looks different and sounds different but at the end of the day misogyny is alive and kicking!

The rave scene was amazing but I always hated drugs...they were rife.

Yes, in some ways very much worse with the Incel stuff. I would say there is zero progression- it looks different and sounds different but at the end of the day misogyny is alive and kicking!

Absolutely

The rave scene was amazing but I always hated drugs...they were rife.

I loved the dancing & freedom but never touched the drugs.

I remember the 90s as mostly terrible recession with unbelievably difficult job hunting, wages on the floor (no minimum wage), AIDS/HIV still rampant. Couldn't afford to go out much. I went for a job in publishing at one point, wage was under £8k in London, i wanted the job but had to say that i simply couldnt pay the bills on that. I do remember being able to live in shithole shared flats that smelled of dead fox for low rent though (no washing machine, having to stay up til 11 for any decent TV but that was fun, we all watched Northern Exposure every week), and eventually found a partner and we could afford to buy somewhere in 2000 at the arse end of zone 6 as I was finally earning more. I think mainly it's just nostalgia about being young.

The best thing about now compared to then is that tights are no longer essential. I hate them and used to wear them to the office every day, haven't worn them for 15 years.

There were quite a few female comedians or comedy actors that were good at highlighting this inequality and the whole ladette culture was about women going out and getting what they wanted with no pretences. These Trad movements now of young women believing they are best in the home, looking pretty are thoroughly depressing. Comedies like Ab Fab show women not pretending to be genteel and feminine, they are honest and free! I re watched that 90's comedy, Game On and yes, the male character is outrageous and constantly refers to the Mandy character as a 'slapper', implying she is using her feminity and attractiveness to get promoted at work but at the same time it is written so that she has the last laugh and he always ends up looking like a pathetic loser who won't leave the house. Equally, in Men Behaving Badly, Caroline Quentin and the other female character always appear wittier, intelligent and mature compared to their idiotic male counterparts.

As I was a teen at that time I would watch American shows like Dawson's Creek and when you watch those now it is quite sexist, Joey appears to be something the two teenage boys own and can fight over. It is the same in The OC, men then appeared more possessive and it was accepted more as romantic but that's definitely changed I think.

Everyone thinks the decade in which they were young and carefree was the best decade ever. There's about a thread a week of "[Decade in which I was 16-25] was the best decade ever, way better than now" and the only thing that varies is the age of the poster (and quite how much they decry social media while posting on social media).

People never change. It says a lot less about the individual decade and more about the person posting. See: Socrates moaning about how rude young people are these days.

I think the irony is that in the book of BJD she and her friends are not experiencing it as a golden age, they are miserable about their bodies and chronically unable to apply feminist principles in their personal lives (ie boundaries). Bridget Jones is quite nostalgic for her parents generation who all seem to be fitted out with big houses in the country and husbands.

Money is the key though - I’ve “realised” that Bridget probably had her flat bought for her by her parents when she graduated, they’re Home Counties well off. She is well connected, probably private school - walks into a job in TV just like that with no real qualifications if I remember. She’s not supposed to be an example of how we could or should all live, she’s a character.

If I had been a yr or so older I could have worked full time in my weekend retail job and I would have been able to buy a property in places like Hackney. Im a Londoner & have friends who did that with 100% mortgages or interest free ones. They made so much money from doing that.

Bridget Jones was intended as satire, at least to start with. I loved her.

Agree with the pp who said we all romanticise the decade we were most free.

However I will die on the hill that the 90s had the best music.

Its interesting that the longing for the 90s is lamented in this paper, I would've attributed most of the change away from 90s attitudes to the guardian and the liberal left.

Gay marriage is legal.

anything else?

a few things that are better now:

• mobile phones which have their downsides but overall I feel much safer with one esp when travelling alone
• healthcare, there’s so much more they can actually do for many illnesses now and for premature babies etc
• Sexual equality - again a long way to go but everything from women on panel shows (there might occasionally be one, now there is always one or two or three) to politics (hadn’t had a female Home Secretary, Chancellor or Foreign Secretary at that time) women have worked their arses off to break glass ceilings
• minimum wage
• waaaaaay less toleration of racism and homophobia

the music now is shite however I agree 😁

The 90s were an amazing time for the world though...Berlin Wall down, fall of the soviet union, free travel. It seemed full of hope..."the end of history"..That bit I do feel.nostalgic for. 9/11 changed that.

Whatever else, the 90s had the best music. Miss my raving days.

In tough times people turn to nostalgia, reminding them of better times.

I'm pleased we are finally addressing euthanasia, but that could be taken the wrong way!

I honestly feel that men these days are more aware of their impact on women and grooming is frowned upon. It obviously doesn't mean it has gone away and misogyny is arguably more prevalent (with the internet making it so) we have better laws around rape in marriage, coercive control and a better understanding of domestic abuse, for example.