Things now, that 90's kid would have mocked?

[H202too]

This is light hearted. Working in a school it is interesting to see how trends change. Sure some of this is regional, but what things do kids do now that just wasn't the done thing in the nineties?
I have noticed

1. Double strappers. This was so uncool at the time. I am sure I still get shoulder pain now from carrying mountains of books on one shoulder. Single strap now is a bad thing. ( Good!)

2. The star spot patches. Some kids wear about 6. Not seen any adults do this yet.

3. Boys with massive brushes in their pockets which they whip out and swish their fringe. They even borrow each others and swish each others fringe. It is actually quite cute. My mind chuckles when I think of the 90s boys spiking their hair with pointy hair gel. But absolutely no to carrying a brush about.

4. Water bottles. I once got in trouble for taking a drink from my water in 1998 in a lecture. In 1991 it just wouldn't have been a thing to have a watsr bottle.

I am sure there is more. AIBU to think most new trends are probably better but to miss the 90s nostalgia.

Kids of today would rip us for backing our books in wrapping paper.

I forgot about the trainers for going out in a dress. It just wouldn't have happened back then.

I still do this with my laces and I'm 36 😂

When I was at school in the grunge era the coolest girls wore a skirt to their ankles. No way would we wear the tiny skirts popular now.
I don’t get the moustache craze at the moment, mullets, huge glasses, trainers with skirts, socks with sliders (or mules as we called them then) socks pulled up to the knee.

We would’ve worn trainers with a dress back then but it would be a babydoll dress with t shirt underneath and Gazelles or short tartan type skirt with Kangols, wouldn’t have done all dressy and then trainers
I like a lot of the clothes now, but still do not like New B trainers, hate the clumpy look, loving all the Adidas though
Social lives just seem so different to us back in the mid 90’s, we were out every night, drugs, clubs, boys, lots of fun
The thing I do like is they seem to go out with their parents more? My niece and nephew (late teens ) will regularly go with my sister (early 40’s) to festivals and concerts etc. No way would I have wanted to go with my mum or dad, only socialised with friends, that seems quite sad now

All boys and men are ugly
Why do you think that? Very strange thing to say.

We called socks up to the knee virgies because only virgins wore them. We were 4th year juniors so we all were. 🤦‍♀️

Hahaha
This was a few years ago but I did mutter something about irony as I walked away

She thought tesco (our supermarket of choice) had been around since doomsday

I explained that when I was a kid (back in the old days) if you wanted fish,you went to the fishmongers
Meat-butchers
Newspapers/sweets-newsagents
Fruit/veg-greengrocers
Bread-bakery
If you wanted a book,you went to a bookshop/library etc

She didnt believe me and rang poor,long suffering grandad again who backed me up

She then googled that,just in case we where winding her up!

She still mutters about 'the old days' and a trip to the local museum blew her mind (I had taken her before but she'd been a bit too young to take it in properly)

You'd have rather shit yourself than use a netto carrier bag for PE

Trousers at half mast out of respect for the budgie.

everything old becomes new again https://www.lboro.ac.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2025/december/pimple-patches-hidden-blemishes-for-centuries/

But they were cool when we were in primary. Fergie bows

Lips looking like they're about to burst.

I've thought of another one.

In the late 80s and early 90s it was totally normal for mid teen girls to have boyfriends well into their 20s. These days it would be considered appalling and the blokes would be called paedos.

I don't disagree and am glad it's now not acceptable, though I had several "old" boyfriends myself in my youth. It was a badge of honour at school to have the oldest boyfriend, with extra points is he'd been in prison and it was "boring" and uncool to have a boyfriend the same age. . I have a secondary school aged daughter now and the notion fills me with abject horror!

I worked with a fully grown woman a couple of years ago who wore crocs to work! Amongst other incredibly inappropriate items of clothing.

What do kids today think of the oversized animal-shaped slippers with eyes? (Not worn outdoors, at home.) When I was at university in 1998, they were surprisingly popular. Both boys and girls wore them around the hall of residence.

And flip flops. I don't think many 90s kids would wear them, even in summer; do kids and teens wear them now, in summer?

Yeah weird.

Smacks of an incel (they have been on here). Either that or a female who has faced rejection from boys/men, or a man hating lesbian. Damaged individual regardless which way it is.

Sure it did, I remember going clubbing in slip dresses and trainers in the mid 90s.

I am starting to wonder if I lived in an alternative reality 😂

A young teacher at my DC’s secondary school wears the star-shaped colourful spot-patches

Yes, remedial classes. We had these.

Shopping in cheap shops!! I would have died if my mum had gone the netto- now? Fine to shop at Lidl and Aldi

Online dating.

when that first became a thing in the late 90s / early 2000s it was considered for desperate loners who couldn’t get a date in real life.

now… it’s the norm.

Yes!!!! I remember being mercilessly teased for wearing new balance trainers in my Aussie high school in the 90s. I absolutely dreaded PE days when I would have to wear them

I was saying to my 19 year old ds the other day about how nice it is that they are happy to chat with each others parents now. I saw some of his friends in the local pub on NYE, I spoke to one at the bar who greeted me by name and asked about my Christmas, the others I saw above the crowds but they waved enthusiastically and shouted hello. I think I avoided calling my friends parents by any name just referring to them as “Claire’s mum” and we didn’t chat beyond saying hello before scurrying up to friends bedrooms.

My then 14 year old had one for about a year, a short while back. Dreadful. I tried to be “it’s only hair” about it all, but honestly I was so glad when he reverted to a normal hairstyle. He used to look like something out of East Germany.

Kids at my teen sons school where dressing and listening to the stuff that was in fashion when I was a teen. Like Nu metal and Emo are back in fashion, its like stepping back into the 00s.

One fashion that baffles me for coming back though is mustaches being fashionable again.

I know hipsters made fancy old school waxed silly mustaches fashionable last decade but this isn't that. Its boys with curly mullets paired with a thin 'bum fluff' top lip that seems the fashion now.

In my day you would be mocked to death by everyone for looking the type to lure kids into a van with the promise of puppies and sweets if you showed up like that. You could have the bum fluff mustache but you HAD to pair it with a soul patch, devil beard or goatee. A mustache on its own was an ultimate fashion crime.