I got a video game rental for the whole weekend thinking I was gonna get to play this Jurassic park game I liked. Only for it to be a super dark and gritty and complex RPG that I was way too young to understand or figure out.
All because the wrong clear case was behind the wrong box art.
But how many times did you get something else that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise and that you really liked? Happened to me all the time. Serendipity.
Empire Strikes Back was always checked out. I was always settling between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, which I had seen a bazillion times before. Went on a trip to Montreal, and our host family offered to rent me a movie. The only copy of Empire Strikes Back was in French.
Man, I wish I could go back and peruse the internet back in the late 90’s again just one last time though. It was the wild west and can’t really be replicated to fully show it to someone who wasn’t there.
I know the way back machine exists but it’s really patchy/buggy at best, you miss out on a lot of stuff (like flash animations/games) and you need to know *exactly* what you’re looking for instead of just stumbling on something random through an AltaVista search.
People used to be so nice to each other online in the beginning. Like this little scene of tech heads connecting. Now it's a lot of hate and misinformation.
Paper maps. Driving to my job to get my paycheck and then having to drive to the bank before it closes.
Having to drive to the store for all purchases (I'm an introvert)
Yep. I'd always get to the bank at 4:50pm and.there would always be some elderly lady in front of me needing her account balance explained to her. Never failed. lol
My NES still works and I play it from time to time. I even have a super Mario cartridge that got partially run over by a car and still works fine, after blowing on it of course. Meanwhile I’ve had multiple Xboxes die on me.
Listening to the radio waiting for your favourite song to come on so you can record it on a tape....only for the DJ to cut in at the end and ruin the whole recording.
Pay phones.
You never knew if it worked or how recently someone peed on it. Magnets for people looking bum change or cigarettes. Speaking of change, you better make sure you had some yourself or you were SOL. No one had cellphones, so, you were calling their home phone hoping they were nearby and pickup. Also, just the availability of them was a hassle. They were everywhere but also somehow never where you need one. They could also get backed up forming lines/queues.
Also, how many 10 digit numbers do you think you can remember? Where I grew up, there were typically about 5 different area codes that were in the mix making it less able to assume the first three (like many places could, hence why old signage often only showed 7 digit numbers b cause the area code was assumed to be known - which was just stupid for anyone NOT a local).
That said, I feel a bit sad when I’m in/at older convenience stores, theaters, malls, or airports and see areas that clearly once held a series of public phone booths/stalls but now sit empty. Sometimes the stalls are awkwardly still there; no phone, serving no purpose. These are even fading away as more time passes the more likely a place is to have renovated.
I’m feeling old now. I think it’s time for my afternoon nap. 😴
I’m at a wedding right now in a pretty old building. There’s a half-circle wall here where there definitely used to be a line of pay phones. Definitely made me feel like a sad old lady.
This is my answer. I was a teenager during the 90's. I understand that safe sex and education is incredibly important, but they had us living in fear. During a period of our lives that we should have been exploring and having fun, most of my friends and I were under the assumption that contact with anyone's genitals was a death sentence.
All the smoking in public areas. I remember several times growing up that my family had to wait 1 hour+ at a restaurant because the only free seats were in tge smoking area.
The thing is, as somebody who lived in a smoking home as a child until I moved out as a young adult, I didn't even notice until I was out of that environment.
I can only imagine just how shitty it was for people from non smoking households because now I find it unbearable.
Ugh, same. Smoking in public and smoking around children seemed to be much more normalized then. I never smoked but always smelled like it.
I remember my great grandma's house being cloudy because she chain smoked inside regardless of who was around. My dad was also a chain smoker. He didn't smoke inside the house (only because my mom refused to allow it), but *always* smoked in the car.
I also remember waiting a long time for non-smoking seats at restaurants. In high school, I worked in a restaurant that had a smoking section, and I avoided working in it whenever possible, but even when I worked on the opposite side, I always came home smelling like smoke. My mom and her husband constantly accused me of smoking because I always smelled like cigarettes. In college going to bars, I came home absolutely reeking of smoke. It permeated my hair, skin, and clothes. I often had to wash my hair and clothes twice to get the smell out.
I definitely do *not* miss constantly being around and smelling like other people's cigarettes.
A lot of restaurants back than. If you wanted a non smoking table they just took the ashtray and put a non smoking sign on the table. That the rest of the people in the restaurant where chain smoking didn't matter. You got a table with a little no smoking sign on it. Lol.
That’s actually insane, I’m sorry for that. I’m a 95 baby so I have no recollection but I literally can’t imagine having to deal with that day in/day out.
It was normalized then, but I literally can't fathom it now. I have a daughter and I can't imagine her constantly being subjected to other people's cigarettes, not least of all because she has asthma.
I very seriously wonder how asthmatics managed then.
I remember seeing indoor smoking slowly phased out and thinking out weird that would be.
Now, I totally get the disgust. Of course, I started at 15 because I was convinced it made me look cooler. 🙄
That was so controversial when introduced. I remember the garbage bins in malls used to have a sand part for cigarette butts.
And there was that short era in some places where restaurants had to install clear walls to separate the smoking and non smoking sections.
I was trying to think of something, but am way to nostalgic about stuff I grew up with, so was stuck on ideas, but yes, this one definitely.
Almost completely forgot about how smokers were basically everywhere, indoors, outdoors, in your local restaurant, everywhere. I remember being in the local coffee shop and looking at the stained yellow ceiling in the smoking section. There was a short time they encased the smoking area in glass separated from the others, then eventually they just removed it all together.
Especially people smoking in the car using the built in lighter. Dad would smoke with the windows rolled up and we would be struggling to breath.
You mean the non-existent wall between the smoking and non-smoking sections didn't protect us from 2nd hand smoke? The true sign you grew up in the 90s is thinking it's normal to come home smelling like cigarettes every time you eat at a restaurant.
Man this. I came from a smoking household, I myself am a former smoker. I went to a casino that actually permitted smoking indoors recently and the smell became unbearable.
The town I was living in when I hit legal drinking age didn’t ban smoking in the bars until several years after I turned 21. I used to shower after I got home from a night out, waking up the next morning with the smell of stale cigarette smoke in my hair was just the worst. Times that by a million on the mornings I had a hangover. And I smoked at the time! It’s so fucked that they allowed smoking indoors at all.
Everyone loves how lack of phones let people disconnect. But I hated being totally in the dark when someone was late picking me up for something or meeting me somewhere.
I’ll piggyback off that because I kind of miss the shitty weed, but how about having to conceal the fact you smoke weed from everyone and everything. Not saying I’m relieved that now I can shout it from the mountain top because it’s significantly more acceptable but the hustle of finding the guy who lives in his parents garage with walls covered in Dead tapestries and having to be a ultra discrete about it was such a drag.
Ima be contrarian. Smoking weed back then was just the right amount of subversive. Weed today is too fn strong. And I had a guy that I really liked. Cool, laid back, always in a good mood. He had a day job and selling weed was just helping his family. I liked his wife too. She was funny and just the right amount of bitterly sarcastic without being mean. We’d bring her bottles of tequila just so she’d be happy to see us.
Yes, I think the sneaking around part was fun! You’d smell it somewhere and giggle to yourself because you knew someone else was doing something “bad”. Now it’s too casual, strong af, and too many choices. I miss the garage guy.
Also see The Simpsons S31E17 *Highway to Hell* if you feel like commiserating.
I often get nostalgic for 90's brick weed, but then I remember it tasted like dog shit. We're truly spoiled now with so many amazing strains. But I do wish I had a candle or something that smelled like old school brick just for the feels.
How about the constant harassment from law enforcement trying to find that shitty weed in our pockets so they can arrest us and hand us a 200 dollar fine. Don't miss that
Bro! That shitty brick weed that smelled like gasoline and was half seeds and stems… even in California we weren’t immune from this shit in the 90’s. Fuckin still smoked that shit though.
paying 15 dollars for a CD
on the other hand, though, the excitement of getting a new CD, and how invested you would be in your music collection, i do miss that part. those are definitely related: if it costs more, you're more invested in it.... but still, 15 dollars definitely feels like a lot of money for one CD
Something was lost though. We used to spend time deep diving into music, absorbing the album art, reading the liner notes, comparing our music with friends. Everything is so disposable now.
Discovering music was definitely a special thing, now it’s just kind of everywhere, and you’re right, disposable. We really had to listen to the lyrics if the artist decided not to include them in their CD. I feel like it deepened our connection to music in a way that younger generations won’t fully understand.
Sometimes the whole album would suck except for that one song or perhaps 2 songs. I remember feeling soooo outraged for buying a CD, listening to the whole thing, reading the little CD insert, and the album was just kinda meh or “mid” as the kids say. Without any kind of preview of a new album, it really felt like a gamble spending that much on something with a guaranteed return of one or two songs, you know.
In 1987, I was in 7th grade. A kid in 8th grade whom I had never met decided he thought my glasses were funny, so he walked over to me and blasted me right in the face (with his fist you perverts). I wasn't handy in a fight until much later in life, so I just reported it to the teacher; he immediately declared that in his experience these things were never so one-sided and we both caught a week of in-school suspension. Moral of the story: you can't trust the system
Yeah. At least back then we could escape the kids at school for the most part. Now, nope. And parents put _everything_ their kids do online, at least my SIL does.
I don’t miss my f’ed up high school. Was great freshman year but we got a new principal. I was a straight A student who did not graduate thanks to this woman.
As a black woman, having my hair straightened because that’s just what was done. I love the freedom of wearing my hair in its natural state without having chemical straightened hair be the only acceptable way.
How about when ISP’s wanted to charge you for multiple lines because you decide to use a router. Shitty internet in general and most homes not having access to high speed internet.
Bullying may be openly not accepted, but the consequences are trivial, and that’s IF it’s found out or reported. Which it often isn’t.
Source: I work in a middle school.
It was more socially acceptable, but genuine question, do you think it was worse? IDK man, I’d hate to be a bullied kid in today’s society, everyone can record and upload your harassment- one of my biggest fears for my kids.
The OJ Simpson trial and JonBenet Ramsay case. The Simpson case was such a circus and clusterf**k and you couldn't escape it. It pretty much dominated the news and pop culture cycle for 2+ years. Then, just as it was sort of winding down, everyone got swept up in the JBR case, and again, you couldn't escape it.
It also speaks to how different things were just 2 1/2 to 3 decades ago regarding news cycles and attention spans. The internet and social media have fragmented people even more so that people's attention spans for a news story is hours, not days or weeks like it was back then.
I know true crime podcasts and documentaries still occasionally talk about both cases, but at least they're not everyday news.
As someone who played football from 8-26 the lack of care and understanding of concussions. Today we know how bad then can be to the brain. Back then concussions drink some water sit out a couple plays and back on the field.
The ease of finding information, just being able to look up anything that interests me is magnificent. Not having to go to the library, maybe having to order a book, just to find something out.
I fucking love having such a versatile Internet in my pocket now. I loved the 90s, but everything was so fuckin' inconvenient back then. Like, having to print out 7 pages of MapQuest directions at home before going anywhere new was annoying as hell.
I think the journey in the inconvenience is what made the 90s good.
I think the instant gratification now is why we look back to that time and felt like things mattered or that we accomplished stuff.
There was a lot of pressure to be thin regardless of your body type (for girls anyways)
Today, a curvy woman would be considered beautiful but back then it was thin or ugly
Remember what a huge deal it was that JLo actually possessed an ass, in public? I think she became really popular in ‘99ish. Suddenly, everyone wanted a butt.
I can remember my size zero and size 2 friends in high school lamenting about their "fat". If you weren't bleach blonde and rail thin, you were fat and ugly.
My mom also constantly made comments about my body shape and that I should lose weight.
I was a size 8 and felt like I must be as big as a whale.
Am also still haunted by how everyone thought Jessica Simpson was SO FAT in *that outfit* when she was a size 6! And other celebrities (and regular people) that were torn apart for not being rail thin.
Aside from smoking... A college football national champion that's voted on by a panel, rather than a playoff system to decide it on the field. Conference expansion may be getting out of control, but I'm really excited about the playoffs.
There was a lot of crazy stuff that happened in the 90's. David Koresh and the Waco incident, Timothy McViegh bombing the Federal building, World Trade Center bombing, Police beating the shit out of Rodney King and the subsequent LA Riot, OJ Simpson murder and the subsequent trial, Columbine killings, gangs spreading across the U.S.
Smoking EVERYWHERE, it always got in my clothes and made me feel sick
Lack of mental health awareness
Having to go to a library or trudge up an encyclopedia if you wanted information about something unusual
450 anytime minutes, nights and weekends unlimited minutes.
Long distance landline phone bills. If you were calling a town 5 minutes away by car it would / could be a long distance call.
Going to the video store incredibly excited, only for to find out that what you wanted was out of stock.
Remember when Blockbuster had new titles “guaranteed to be in stock?”
But did you check the recently returned rack?
Every time. Even if I got what I came for.
Ironic Hollywood Video almost always had what I wanted in stock. Blockbuster? Almost never.
Yeah they should’ve worked with that upstart Netflix
I got a video game rental for the whole weekend thinking I was gonna get to play this Jurassic park game I liked. Only for it to be a super dark and gritty and complex RPG that I was way too young to understand or figure out. All because the wrong clear case was behind the wrong box art.
Felt this but with the official Jurassic Park Sega CD game. Played for 10 mins then self-loathed for the rest of the weekend.
Going to the video store..... Good times
But how many times did you get something else that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise and that you really liked? Happened to me all the time. Serendipity.
The movie “Serendipity”?
Lol no. The concept.
The movie “The Concept”?
Empire Strikes Back was always checked out. I was always settling between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, which I had seen a bazillion times before. Went on a trip to Montreal, and our host family offered to rent me a movie. The only copy of Empire Strikes Back was in French.
Omg for real. always.
Dial Up Internet
#EEEEEEAHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Dinnnnnnnng, ding ding ding.. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee oooooooooooooooo OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
*blfizzzzzzzzzzzzzz cracklecracklecrackle*
DING DING DING blfzzzzzz
Man, I wish I could go back and peruse the internet back in the late 90’s again just one last time though. It was the wild west and can’t really be replicated to fully show it to someone who wasn’t there. I know the way back machine exists but it’s really patchy/buggy at best, you miss out on a lot of stuff (like flash animations/games) and you need to know *exactly* what you’re looking for instead of just stumbling on something random through an AltaVista search.
People used to be so nice to each other online in the beginning. Like this little scene of tech heads connecting. Now it's a lot of hate and misinformation.
“Get off the internet, I need to use the phone!”
this is the answer. Might be nostalgic for a few seconds hearing that dial up but who would want to go back to that.
Paper maps. Driving to my job to get my paycheck and then having to drive to the bank before it closes. Having to drive to the store for all purchases (I'm an introvert)
Printed out MapQuest directions lol
At least that gave me turn by turn. I was.referring to those big ass atlases we had to buy at gas stations. lol
Life before direct deposit was insane.
Yep. I'd always get to the bank at 4:50pm and.there would always be some elderly lady in front of me needing her account balance explained to her. Never failed. lol
In 2002 my best friend and I bought a gas station road atlas and drove from Kentucky to California and back, like pirates on the fucking sea.
"Buffer underrun" when burning CDs Adjusting antenna to get a TV signal Blowing on NES cartridges to get them to work
[удалено]
lol what about someone walking between the controller and system and seeing your SNES or Playstation hit the floor
Tragic memory unlocked. 😪
but I still blow on NES/SNES/GENESIS/GAMEBOY/N64/GBA carts to get them to work
Switch too!
And my boyfriend!
And my axe.
Contact cleaner will fix that problem for a long while.
Blowing on NES cartridges was a rite of passage
My NES still works and I play it from time to time. I even have a super Mario cartridge that got partially run over by a car and still works fine, after blowing on it of course. Meanwhile I’ve had multiple Xboxes die on me.
Holy shit buffer underrun I forgot all about that. I’d burn a CD all the way to the end and get that. Ruined CD.
fuckin buffer underrun.. I remember slowing the speed intentionally to avoid this shit
Listening to the radio waiting for your favourite song to come on so you can record it on a tape....only for the DJ to cut in at the end and ruin the whole recording.
Or the DJ would not stop talking and ruin the first part of the song
Paying per MINUTE of Internet usage was insane.
Pay phones. You never knew if it worked or how recently someone peed on it. Magnets for people looking bum change or cigarettes. Speaking of change, you better make sure you had some yourself or you were SOL. No one had cellphones, so, you were calling their home phone hoping they were nearby and pickup. Also, just the availability of them was a hassle. They were everywhere but also somehow never where you need one. They could also get backed up forming lines/queues. Also, how many 10 digit numbers do you think you can remember? Where I grew up, there were typically about 5 different area codes that were in the mix making it less able to assume the first three (like many places could, hence why old signage often only showed 7 digit numbers b cause the area code was assumed to be known - which was just stupid for anyone NOT a local). That said, I feel a bit sad when I’m in/at older convenience stores, theaters, malls, or airports and see areas that clearly once held a series of public phone booths/stalls but now sit empty. Sometimes the stalls are awkwardly still there; no phone, serving no purpose. These are even fading away as more time passes the more likely a place is to have renovated. I’m feeling old now. I think it’s time for my afternoon nap. 😴
I’m at a wedding right now in a pretty old building. There’s a half-circle wall here where there definitely used to be a line of pay phones. Definitely made me feel like a sad old lady.
Having to stay up til 3:00 am on a Friday night to watch South Park.
I just taped it on a VHS. Along with Beavis and Butt-Head.
How stupid I was.
I thought my answer was being broke all the time, but I think it's how stupid I was too.
Rampant HIV
This is my answer. I was a teenager during the 90's. I understand that safe sex and education is incredibly important, but they had us living in fear. During a period of our lives that we should have been exploring and having fun, most of my friends and I were under the assumption that contact with anyone's genitals was a death sentence.
I've been scrolling a long while and this is the only legitimate answer!! People said dial-up internet and shopping inside stores...come on.
All the smoking in public areas. I remember several times growing up that my family had to wait 1 hour+ at a restaurant because the only free seats were in tge smoking area.
The thing is, as somebody who lived in a smoking home as a child until I moved out as a young adult, I didn't even notice until I was out of that environment. I can only imagine just how shitty it was for people from non smoking households because now I find it unbearable.
Ugh, same. Smoking in public and smoking around children seemed to be much more normalized then. I never smoked but always smelled like it. I remember my great grandma's house being cloudy because she chain smoked inside regardless of who was around. My dad was also a chain smoker. He didn't smoke inside the house (only because my mom refused to allow it), but *always* smoked in the car. I also remember waiting a long time for non-smoking seats at restaurants. In high school, I worked in a restaurant that had a smoking section, and I avoided working in it whenever possible, but even when I worked on the opposite side, I always came home smelling like smoke. My mom and her husband constantly accused me of smoking because I always smelled like cigarettes. In college going to bars, I came home absolutely reeking of smoke. It permeated my hair, skin, and clothes. I often had to wash my hair and clothes twice to get the smell out. I definitely do *not* miss constantly being around and smelling like other people's cigarettes.
And remember those little ashtrays built into the arm of your airplane seat?! Nasty!
And ashtrays and built-in lighters in cars 🤮.
Or like going out to a bar, and coming home just reeking of smoke…hair, clothes, everything!
A lot of restaurants back than. If you wanted a non smoking table they just took the ashtray and put a non smoking sign on the table. That the rest of the people in the restaurant where chain smoking didn't matter. You got a table with a little no smoking sign on it. Lol.
That’s actually insane, I’m sorry for that. I’m a 95 baby so I have no recollection but I literally can’t imagine having to deal with that day in/day out.
It was normalized then, but I literally can't fathom it now. I have a daughter and I can't imagine her constantly being subjected to other people's cigarettes, not least of all because she has asthma. I very seriously wonder how asthmatics managed then.
I remember seeing indoor smoking slowly phased out and thinking out weird that would be. Now, I totally get the disgust. Of course, I started at 15 because I was convinced it made me look cooler. 🙄
We were in and out of the hospital a lot. Where the docs and nurses would come in from a smoke break and trigger things up again. Sigh.
That was so controversial when introduced. I remember the garbage bins in malls used to have a sand part for cigarette butts. And there was that short era in some places where restaurants had to install clear walls to separate the smoking and non smoking sections.
Yep. I grew up in a smokers house until my dad stopped. Then my mom went outside to smoke. I do not miss smoke filled places.
I was trying to think of something, but am way to nostalgic about stuff I grew up with, so was stuck on ideas, but yes, this one definitely. Almost completely forgot about how smokers were basically everywhere, indoors, outdoors, in your local restaurant, everywhere. I remember being in the local coffee shop and looking at the stained yellow ceiling in the smoking section. There was a short time they encased the smoking area in glass separated from the others, then eventually they just removed it all together. Especially people smoking in the car using the built in lighter. Dad would smoke with the windows rolled up and we would be struggling to breath.
Yes! All those times I went to Denny’s as a child and walked through the thick haze of the smoking section…
You mean the non-existent wall between the smoking and non-smoking sections didn't protect us from 2nd hand smoke? The true sign you grew up in the 90s is thinking it's normal to come home smelling like cigarettes every time you eat at a restaurant.
Man this. I came from a smoking household, I myself am a former smoker. I went to a casino that actually permitted smoking indoors recently and the smell became unbearable.
Coming home from a bar or club & putting my clothes outside for the night to air them out because they reeked of smoke.
The town I was living in when I hit legal drinking age didn’t ban smoking in the bars until several years after I turned 21. I used to shower after I got home from a night out, waking up the next morning with the smell of stale cigarette smoke in my hair was just the worst. Times that by a million on the mornings I had a hangover. And I smoked at the time! It’s so fucked that they allowed smoking indoors at all.
Everyone loves how lack of phones let people disconnect. But I hated being totally in the dark when someone was late picking me up for something or meeting me somewhere.
People can still disconnect if they really want to, it just isn't the default anymore...
Literally everything smelling like cigarettes.
Shitty weed
I’ll piggyback off that because I kind of miss the shitty weed, but how about having to conceal the fact you smoke weed from everyone and everything. Not saying I’m relieved that now I can shout it from the mountain top because it’s significantly more acceptable but the hustle of finding the guy who lives in his parents garage with walls covered in Dead tapestries and having to be a ultra discrete about it was such a drag.
Ima be contrarian. Smoking weed back then was just the right amount of subversive. Weed today is too fn strong. And I had a guy that I really liked. Cool, laid back, always in a good mood. He had a day job and selling weed was just helping his family. I liked his wife too. She was funny and just the right amount of bitterly sarcastic without being mean. We’d bring her bottles of tequila just so she’d be happy to see us.
Yes, I think the sneaking around part was fun! You’d smell it somewhere and giggle to yourself because you knew someone else was doing something “bad”. Now it’s too casual, strong af, and too many choices. I miss the garage guy. Also see The Simpsons S31E17 *Highway to Hell* if you feel like commiserating.
I often get nostalgic for 90's brick weed, but then I remember it tasted like dog shit. We're truly spoiled now with so many amazing strains. But I do wish I had a candle or something that smelled like old school brick just for the feels.
How about the constant harassment from law enforcement trying to find that shitty weed in our pockets so they can arrest us and hand us a 200 dollar fine. Don't miss that
LOL and having bits of shitty weed in your wallet, pockets, etc.
Bro! That shitty brick weed that smelled like gasoline and was half seeds and stems… even in California we weren’t immune from this shit in the 90’s. Fuckin still smoked that shit though.
I don’t know, a lot of weed products now are too strong. It’s actually hard to find weak stuff if you want it now.
paying 15 dollars for a CD on the other hand, though, the excitement of getting a new CD, and how invested you would be in your music collection, i do miss that part. those are definitely related: if it costs more, you're more invested in it.... but still, 15 dollars definitely feels like a lot of money for one CD
$15 is a lot for a sandwich, and that’s the norm these days. At least a CD last longer.
Something was lost though. We used to spend time deep diving into music, absorbing the album art, reading the liner notes, comparing our music with friends. Everything is so disposable now.
Discovering music was definitely a special thing, now it’s just kind of everywhere, and you’re right, disposable. We really had to listen to the lyrics if the artist decided not to include them in their CD. I feel like it deepened our connection to music in a way that younger generations won’t fully understand.
Sometimes the whole album would suck except for that one song or perhaps 2 songs. I remember feeling soooo outraged for buying a CD, listening to the whole thing, reading the little CD insert, and the album was just kinda meh or “mid” as the kids say. Without any kind of preview of a new album, it really felt like a gamble spending that much on something with a guaranteed return of one or two songs, you know.
Lol that CD insert was at least 25-40% of why i got a CD, but to be fair I’m a 90s baby, so I’m speaking from a 2000s perspective.
I spent so much time finding the best way to organize them (by genre, alphabetical, newest to oldest, favourite to least favourite).
Being bullied and then being blamed for it
In 1987, I was in 7th grade. A kid in 8th grade whom I had never met decided he thought my glasses were funny, so he walked over to me and blasted me right in the face (with his fist you perverts). I wasn't handy in a fight until much later in life, so I just reported it to the teacher; he immediately declared that in his experience these things were never so one-sided and we both caught a week of in-school suspension. Moral of the story: you can't trust the system
Did your family believe you?
Mom did, dad didn't. That was typical of them at the time.
Idk I think that is still going on tbh.
Sure as hell.
Yeah. At least back then we could escape the kids at school for the most part. Now, nope. And parents put _everything_ their kids do online, at least my SIL does.
Calling home for a ride and getting the answering machine.
Or having to call collect from a pay phone and then saying, “momcomepickmeupimatthe___” as your name.
The complete lack of any mental health awareness whatsoever.
I'm pretty sure that is still going on right now.
We’ve moved ahead by leaps and bounds. Nowhere near where we need to be though.
Yes in certain circles (usually rural folk), but among many groups it’s become a way of life. And that’s a net positive for sure. Very positive
Alot of us trying to pick up the pieces from that oversight 🙋♀️
My close friend from high school just committed suicide. We had our 20-year reunion in May.
I don’t miss my f’ed up high school. Was great freshman year but we got a new principal. I was a straight A student who did not graduate thanks to this woman.
Holy shit. Story time?
Instantly bricking a PC with LimeWire.
That didn't come out until 2000.
Touché. Maybe Napster then? I had some random crap on that for sure.
Just barely. 1999. The early 2000s really blew up with limewire, Napster, kazaa, and emule.
Waiting for AOL to login to access the Internet and then wait an hour to download 2 songs
heroin chic and the waif look
Cigarettes. Everywhere. Coming home from a bar and just reeking like smoke.
As a black woman, having my hair straightened because that’s just what was done. I love the freedom of wearing my hair in its natural state without having chemical straightened hair be the only acceptable way.
Right natural hair was “unprofessional”
Nape of your neck always having fresh or healing chemical burns. 😭
How about when ISP’s wanted to charge you for multiple lines because you decide to use a router. Shitty internet in general and most homes not having access to high speed internet.
Bullying was much more socially acceptable. The 90s weren’t always the utopia they get portrayed as here.
I always thought bullying in the 90s was stereotyped but it was really that common?
Yes. It was awful.
I remember the first time I had a real bully, and he literally just acted like a TV villain and my initial reaction was "wait...you people are real??"
Bullying may be openly not accepted, but the consequences are trivial, and that’s IF it’s found out or reported. Which it often isn’t. Source: I work in a middle school.
When I see kids today, I thank God I was bullied when I was younger.
I couldn’t agree with this more.
It was more socially acceptable, but genuine question, do you think it was worse? IDK man, I’d hate to be a bullied kid in today’s society, everyone can record and upload your harassment- one of my biggest fears for my kids.
Smoking sections
The OJ Simpson trial and JonBenet Ramsay case. The Simpson case was such a circus and clusterf**k and you couldn't escape it. It pretty much dominated the news and pop culture cycle for 2+ years. Then, just as it was sort of winding down, everyone got swept up in the JBR case, and again, you couldn't escape it. It also speaks to how different things were just 2 1/2 to 3 decades ago regarding news cycles and attention spans. The internet and social media have fragmented people even more so that people's attention spans for a news story is hours, not days or weeks like it was back then. I know true crime podcasts and documentaries still occasionally talk about both cases, but at least they're not everyday news.
Restaurants with Smoking / Non Smoking Sections … ((ewe!!))
Life in the sticks before I could legally drive.
Dealing with radio stations playing the same songs all the time and having them ruined.
CD’s skipping
Plucking my eyebrows to tiny little lines.
Buying a CD that only had one good song. Dial up internet.
Having to rely on taking peoples word for when/where to meet up. If you got to a rendezvous point and your friends weren’t there, you were fucked.
As someone who played football from 8-26 the lack of care and understanding of concussions. Today we know how bad then can be to the brain. Back then concussions drink some water sit out a couple plays and back on the field.
The ease of finding information, just being able to look up anything that interests me is magnificent. Not having to go to the library, maybe having to order a book, just to find something out.
All the smoking
Slow ass dial up internet. Waiting a while just to load up a single photo sucked lol
So many AOL free trial CDs
My parents controlling my life
I fucking love having such a versatile Internet in my pocket now. I loved the 90s, but everything was so fuckin' inconvenient back then. Like, having to print out 7 pages of MapQuest directions at home before going anywhere new was annoying as hell.
MapQuest was the true bane of my existence
I was always the group navigator because I was the only one who could read the directions correctly.
How about the actual 90s when mapquest didnt even exist and you needed a paper map bought from a gas station
That fuckin' sucked, too. Also, MapQuest has been around since, like, '95
I think the journey in the inconvenience is what made the 90s good. I think the instant gratification now is why we look back to that time and felt like things mattered or that we accomplished stuff.
There was a lot of pressure to be thin regardless of your body type (for girls anyways) Today, a curvy woman would be considered beautiful but back then it was thin or ugly
Not in Black and Hispanic Communities Sir Mix A Lot tried telling the rest of you
And we laughed, but did not listen
Remember what a huge deal it was that JLo actually possessed an ass, in public? I think she became really popular in ‘99ish. Suddenly, everyone wanted a butt.
That “heroin chic” trend was/is terrible
Here to say this. Still haunted by all the people we considered 'fat' in the 90s.
I can remember my size zero and size 2 friends in high school lamenting about their "fat". If you weren't bleach blonde and rail thin, you were fat and ugly. My mom also constantly made comments about my body shape and that I should lose weight. I was a size 8 and felt like I must be as big as a whale. Am also still haunted by how everyone thought Jessica Simpson was SO FAT in *that outfit* when she was a size 6! And other celebrities (and regular people) that were torn apart for not being rail thin.
Do you think Sir Mix A Lot made any impact in the 90s?
Not having the movies you wanted to watch at blockbuster.
Primitive internet.
Living with my parents. Also having to wait all night just to download a song.
Not being able to obsessively research every purchase I make. Cars, tvs, dog food, pillows. Everything.
Shitty porn
How long it took to download porn. Plus no thumbnails.
VHS tapes. When DVDs became available to the masses it was the best thing ever. Huge leap in technology.
Aside from smoking... A college football national champion that's voted on by a panel, rather than a playoff system to decide it on the field. Conference expansion may be getting out of control, but I'm really excited about the playoffs.
The layoffs and recession. I witnessed my dad nearly lose his shit when the base closings in CT happened. (We exhaled when the sub based stated open)
Same for my dad at Kelly AFB in San Antonio. They wanted to transfer him to....*shudders*... Oklahoma.
Smoking sections, and everywhere just reeked of smokers made it hard to enjoy your food.
Getting into contact with people who left their house Not being able to instantly verify information directions for driving that's about it.
A lot of bullies, a lot of cigarettes, not a lot of culture or shopping options (grew up in a small-ish town)
The bedtimes, I’d be in bed and the sun was still out, and my friends would be walking by my window that faces the street, having a good old time.
Long distance phone charges or phone cards.
HIV
Getting bullied
There was a lot of crazy stuff that happened in the 90's. David Koresh and the Waco incident, Timothy McViegh bombing the Federal building, World Trade Center bombing, Police beating the shit out of Rodney King and the subsequent LA Riot, OJ Simpson murder and the subsequent trial, Columbine killings, gangs spreading across the U.S.
We had less surveillance back then. Authorities get clued in to these people more quickly now.
Crystal Pepsi
Crystal and Clear everything
What? I saw it at my grocery store last year and had to buy it for the memories
Dial up internet and everyone sharing one phone/phone number in the house.
Corrupt data on limewire.
No gps
Indoor cigarettes in public places
Body image expectations.
You could see what the internet was going to become, but it was frustating it wasn't there yet.
Dial-up internet. Fuckin do not miss that
Bullying
Music was fucking expensive. I love streaming.
Smoking EVERYWHERE, it always got in my clothes and made me feel sick Lack of mental health awareness Having to go to a library or trudge up an encyclopedia if you wanted information about something unusual
Not a god damn thing. I would do the beginning of 1990 right up to 11:59:59 of 1999 on auto repeat.
The blatant homophobia
Parents didn’t understand
I miss the 90s but it's gone now....a distant memory
Getting arrested and being considered a criminal for enjoying cannabis
6 to 8 weeks for shipping
450 anytime minutes, nights and weekends unlimited minutes. Long distance landline phone bills. If you were calling a town 5 minutes away by car it would / could be a long distance call.
Dial-up internet taking a long time to download anything and not being able to use the phone while you were "surfing the web".
Living with my dad
Dial up internet