People Who Grew Up In The 1990s Describe What It Was Really Like
With certain trends coming back into fashion from the 1990s, as well as reboots from '90s kids' favorite TV shows and movies, some who were born since then might be wondering what all the fuss is about.
And the '90s kids were ready for a walk down memory lane.
Redditor Anitoko_chan182 asked:
"To all those who grew up in the 1990s, what was life like?"
What Homework?
"Get home from school, lie and say I had no homework, and go ride bikes or hang out in the tree house with neighborhood kids until it got dark."
"Go home, eat dinner, watch cartoons or play video games, and lay in bed with anxiety because I didn't do my homework."
"Rinse and repeat."
- Slawth_x
"Car!"
"'Car!'"
"What amazes me is the universality of this. Because there was no other phrase. And I think people think it's a reference to 'Wayne's World,' but let's be real, that was art imitating life, not the other way around."
- whatever_befall
The Sweetest of Afternoons
"Don't forget riding bikes with a group of like eight kids to 7-11, all of you leaving your bikes out in front unlocked while you went in and loaded up on candy and Slurpees, and then going back to someone's house to play cards and listen to music while we ate the junk food."
- brasslamp
Unlimited Nights and Weekends
"I remember my parents got cell phones when I was pretty young. Like early-early versions."
"My mom turned hers off unless she needed to make a call. And then one day my dad had road trouble or something and then couldn't get ahold of her because she just didn't turn her phone on."
"It was a whole thing. But it was like this light bulb moment of, 'if I have a mobile phone so I can be reached wherever I am, I need to keep it turned on.'"
- Catsdrinkingbeer
Ghost in the Graveyard
Staying out playing in the front yard until dark (yes, the cliche was true). We played 'Jurassic Park' a lot and made up dances to the Spice Girls."
"My personal favorite was Ghost in the Graveyard (Hide and Seek in the dark), but it sounds like that may be a regional thing."
- midnightlightbright
That Dial-Up Sound
"No social media, which means all my f**kups are only captured on Polaroids and the mind of people slowly approaching dementia, thank merciful Christ."
"The internet was slow as s**t, like it took 20 minutes to get online with dialup. China's economy was still dominated by Hong Kong, and Russia looked like they were going to modernize into a real democracy. The president of the US played jazz on live TV, and hair gel sold faster than crack."
"We were definitely more optimistic than we are now, but maybe that was just delusion rather than fact. It's hard to tell sometimes if things were actually better, or if I was just a kid who could enjoy the simple moments in life."
- Cyanora
The Little Things
"No social media, or cell phones, was the absolute best. If we wanted a picture, we had to remember that the person, who in my case was a real gossip at high school, was going to see it."
"I was in high school in the mid-90s, my elementary days were spent playing hide and go seek with the neighborhood kids, and every front yard on the block was fair game; not one neighbor ever complained."
"Everyone seemed kinder, the music was awesome, and we were all so much more connected it seemed. Lots of basketball, rollerblading, and 'jacka**' type shenanigans that we would come up with."
"And Dunkaroos, Surge, and Flinstone push-ups were the ultimate treats."
- expecto_your-mom
Just Relax
"Colorful, unashamedly campy, and everything basically had that 'your lame parents trying to impress your friends' vibe... and it worked."
"I was born in 87, but I grew up in the 90s. I miss that decade immensely. It was so laid back and carefree (as a child)."
"Everything now takes itself so f**king seriously. It's depressing."
- MateriaMuncher
Before the Crash
"I was reading something about this not too long ago. Compared with much of the previous century, the 90s would have come off as amazing."
"No world wars, the cold war had just ended. The economy was doing very well. The modern tech industry was up and coming and the downsides that we're aware of today hadn't become apparent yet. 9/11 and its aftermath hadn't happened yet."
"Someone growing up in the 90s would have definitely felt pretty optimistic."
- Always_Statsing
What Health Issues?
"We all had health issues and ate the terrible 1990s all-carb diet."
"We just didn't discuss mental health, etc. Those topics were incredibly taboo. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, nobody wanted that diagnosis, nobody wanted to have to be in special needs classes, etc."
"Tony Soprano being public (on tv) about taking Prozac was a HUGE deal."
- imnothereurnotthere
Entertainment on the Rise
"Pretty cool. The Internet was fresh and exciting. Video games were this really creative interactive medium that was seeing rapid development."
"3D animation became a thing and had some really creative TV shows like 'Reboot.' 'Chumbawumba' made us all feel like nothing could keep us down. 'The Simpsons' were a comedy powerhouse."
"Pokemon became an international craze and kids were obsessive about it."
- ILikeToThinkOutLoud
Living Slower
I am super grateful for my coming of age in the 90s! I’ve written about it before, but looking back, it was a great time for a childhood. It was hard to beat Friday night at the local video rental place, perusing the horror VHS movies from the 80s."
"I was born in the early 80s and remember the late 80s well and had my formative years in the 90s. It was actually really amazing, gaming on the early consoles, but having a full life outside that the digital world just didn’t really intrude upon. Playing outdoors on summer days and retiring to the Super Nintendo at night was a really great balance."
"We watched and participated in the growth of the internet, with a pretty solid delineation between a time before the net and the time after. To a middle schooler, getting the internet for the first time was damn near a magical experience."
"Things were slower. We didn’t have instantaneous gratification or access to so much information/goods/services so quickly. Even though I enjoy getting my stuff within a day or two as much as the next yak, I would be lying if I said that we didn’t sacrifice something important for the wonders of same-day shipping."
"In short, I wouldn’t trade my childhood in the ’90s for anything. While I love my awesome gaming PC, my home theater, and above all else, my iPad that I’m typing this out on, I miss the slower-paced world of the 90s and wish we could get a little of that patience back."
- The_Best_Yak_Ever
The Information Age
"Hank Green recently did a video talking about how, in an earlier video he'd joked about the internet being as big a change for society as the printing press. And while he'd originally intended that as joking hyperbole, it's become apparent that it might be an understatement."
"Us born in the 80s kids are more or less the last generation to remember life before the internet. My family had a computer early on, and I'm really nostalgic for the early days of chatrooms and message boards before everyone was online and in these walled gardens."
"It's a little helpful to realize we're still in the early days of the Information Age. It takes time for society to adjust and figure out healthy ways to live with big things like this in our lives."
"It doesn't help, though, that big things like this seem like they're happening at an increasing rate."
- Krail
Knowledge in Your Pocket
"I am still impressed with the idea of literally having a repository of essentially all human knowledge in my pocket."
"Back then you couldn't remember something or wanted to know what was the primary language of a different country? Hope you know someone reliable who knows that or you own an encyclopedia or can get to the library. Good luck with the dewy decimal system in the card catalog."
"The amount of effort to obtain knowledge has become so minute that we should all be smarter than we are but when it's so accessible the value is diminished to some degree."
"I remember seeing on inspector gadget penny his niece have a book that was effectively a mobile computer and videophone and thinking it was pure insanity if that were to ever exist. I am literally typing on such a device now."
"When I saw the internet become accessible on a phone for the first time it was 2006 and my friend's sidekick and I about lost my mind. We are living in the future."
- DanielFyre
I.R.L.
"Everything felt a lot more real, and a lot more wholesome, for the most part. Mind you, I was a child back then so I'm sure I'm biased. Things felt slower. Kids used to play outside whenever they could, and no one was EVER using electronics outside, except for the occasional Walkman."
"I preferred the houses back then a lot since they still had some semblance of beauty and color. Unless you were in a big city, almost everyone had yards. There were a lot more trees everywhere. People weren't just constantly cutting down every single tree in every town for no reason."
"And the average person's language skills were MILES better than they are today."
- RebeccaETripp
Watching a Movie
"When the commercial came on, you RAN to the bathroom. Then your sibling yelled, 'it's back on!' And you RAN back to the couch!"
- chompytown
Snuggled in-between wars and economy crashes, the 1990s felt like a uniquely safe time that we may never fully see again. But it sure is fun to reminisce.
Since its advent way back in the 1960s and its popularization in the 1990s, the internet has long departed its primitive roots and become the most influential technology to grace the human race since the printing press.
With every passing year, the capabilities of just a few years before seem quaint, slow, and clunky.
What used to be an interconnected network of documents using fax machine technology is now a robust invisible universe that facilitates sweeping political action, allows for the creation of multi billion dollar corporations, and even exerts long-term influence on our personal neurochemistries.
It's so easy to take the latest advancements for granted. Some Redditors took a momentary step back and reflected on the earliest days of the internet, before it had already changed the world.
They recalled the silliest idiosyncracies they could.
DevilYouKnow asked, "What was the weirdest part of the early internet?"
Absolute Chaos
"The early days of CSS & HTML with cursor effects, far too many different fonts, visitor counters on every website, inexplicable scrolling text, animated gifs everywhere, etc."
"It was an assault on the senses, but it was also glorious!"
When it was Small Enough
"How AOL didn't use URLs. Every 'website' had a keyword, meaning that every topic literally only had one website."
"I remember when Nickelodeon would constantly promote themselves on TV and said 'Log on to AOL keyword 'Nick!' meaning that that was literally the only place you could see Nickelodeon content."
-- redxrain86
"Fast" is a Relative Term
"Starting a download before you went to bed so it would be done when you got up the next morning." -- Nightdave
"I've had my taste of that recently. A friend broke his phone so hard, the only thing that still worked to get his files out was Bluetooth. Estimated transfer time to my PC: 9 hours."
"Felt just like downloading Empire Earth again." -- Allegutennamenweg
The Wild West
"I must be older than anyone here, because the 'early days' of the internet was back when years still started with 19. And there were NO RULES."
"There was no online tracking, no ad-bots, just no enforcement of any kind. Essentially the internet then was what the dark net is now. Anything could be found, but only if you knew where to look."
"Search engines we're all but useless and nothing was protected for sh**. A few hours in a dumpster full of paper could get you access to nearly anything."
"That was the early days of the internet."
-- jk013x
A Little Too Interconnected
"Telling people not to use the phone because you were on the internet." -- omegaclick
"Downloading a big file when someone picks up the phone. Fffffffffff" -- 1019throw2
"Mom, hang up! I'm on the Internet!!!!" -- philpalmer2
First to Market
"Who here remembers Netscape Navigator being the best browser?" -- UndeadWarlord
"Oh god, I hung on to using it way longer than I'd like to admit!" -- BootlegMickeyMouse
"Just yesterday I was signing up for an account on a company's site and on their recommended software for viewing the site they had Netscape still listed." -- rhen_var
Digitized Rascals
"My friend's mom's reaction when I replaced AOL's 'you've got mail' with 'you've got porn'" -- UndeadWarlord
"I replaced mine with the 'You just got a letter' song from Blue's Clues." -- KnockMeYourLobes
"I had the twang 'message for you sir' from Monty Python and the Holy Grail." -- house_autumn
Before it Owned the World
"Amazon was still a bookstore." -- HumongousBratwurst
"And it would list the best selling books in your location." -- Roche77e
"And it used to have a little monkey swinging on a vine as it's logo" -- watchman28
"My Amazon account, created in early 2001, is older than Billie Eilish..." -- Knauserer
Pining for Old Simplicity
"I dunno. But, I really miss the way recipes used to be shared online. No scrolling through a giant website of background story of the recipe and countless ads."
"It was literally just the text of the recipe, with comments under of how to tweak that recipe."
"We were so spoiled by the simplicity and immediacy of ingredient lists back then and we didn't even know it."
-- rawsugar87
Quite the Scheme
"People printing porn at the library" -- Chunky0P
"Ahem. I had myself a little system."
"I couldn't do it now, but I managed to learn how to read normal text printed in Cyrillic font. Not a different language -- literally just the English text printed in Cyrillic font.
"At the time I couldn't possibly have got hold of a private printer, or indeed a private computer where I could... err... be myself. The University printers at the time were all run by actual staff and you had to collect and pay for your printouts from them."
"My little system allowed me to print out lots of alt.sex.stories content on the University printers and when collecting, claim to my dismay that the printout went a bit wrong, and aww shucks I guess I'd better just pay for the failed printout and I'll take it and use it to wrap fish or something." -- IcyCrust
A Contemporary Edison
"My step dad made a 'receiver' to steal the neighbour's internet out of a strainer covered in tinfoil."
"I'm sure there was more to it but that's how my 12 year old brain perceived it."
-- RyuksShadow
Outdated Selling Points
"Idk how weird it is, but does anyone remember the early Road Runner internet commercials where the spokesman bragged about the size of their internet cables compared to dial up?"
-- CrashRiot
Needed a Whole Extra 30 Seconds
"Driving in the car and hearing radio commercials explain how to spell the URL."
"'Now kids, ask your parents for permission to log on and type 'h t t p colon two forward slashes (that's the one that goes up from left to right) double u double u double u dot (that's the period)...'"
-- jaa928
Informed Downloading
"There were websites that posted videos, and they'd describe what's in the video, and how big it is."
"So you'd be able to decide if it's worth waiting an hour to watch it."
-- SensiSparx
Tread Lightly
"All the random sh** on Limewire under completely different titles" -- pdxblazer
"Limewire was horribly dangerous." -- archavex
"That was like going into a wild orgy without a condom. So many virtual STDs. I think I had Norton antivirus at the time." -- P_elquelee
End of an Era
"I think it's a tie. Either trying to download something like "Barbie Girl" on limewire to make a mix CD you could bring to summer camp and after waiting 10 hours for it download you find out it's just an audio clip of Bill Clinton saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" and having to start all over again."
"OR, it was playing what you assumed was a basic flash maze game or maybe watching a sweet music video that your friend sent you only to be terrified by a picture of Regan from the exorcist popping up and screaming at you when you least expect it."
"Between those two and the Ally McBeal dancing baby, I think that covers all my early experiences of the internet."
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People Noticed A Common Thread In This Photo Of A Movie Theatre Marquee, And 90s Kids Are Relating Hard
As the republic continues to crumble, nostalgia has never been more in.
This is exemplified by the theatre marquee at Edwards Cinema which features a list of movies that will have you checking the date to make sure you're in the right decade.
The picture of the marquee shows the films Toy Story 4, Men in Black, Godzilla, Aladdin, and Child's Play—all of which had wildly successful iterations in the 1990s.
Devon Sawa—himself a 90s heartthrob—tweeted the image with the caption:
"Dear children of today: Like it or not, you're really 90s kids."
The films are still a little different than their original counterparts: Pixar's animation has grown by leaps and bounds since the original Toy Story's release in 1995, Aladdin is a live-action remake, This decade's Child's Play revolves around technology rather than voodoo, and Men in Black now features a woman as the lead.
Nevertheless, the marquee had people hella disoriented.
Some lamented that the nostalgia is actually a lack of originality.
If that doesn't overwhelm you, The Lion King will be arriving to theatres next month.
Overly Prepared People Reveal The One Thing That Saved Them A Major Headache
Life will always through us curveballs. You can prepare and prepare and prepare to a fault but things will still go awry. It's how you handle yourself in those moments that matter. We must have a mantra, a count to ten mini-break, whatever can get you over the hurdle that the situation you planned meticulously has blown up in your face. But you can be saved.
Redditor u/OvertOperation needed to find some ways to avoid stress by asking... What "you know what, just to be safe..." thing you did ended up saving your ass later?
Freeform has announced that is picking up a reboot of the classic show Party of Five. The show followed five siblings struggling to make their way through life as a family after the unexpected loss of both of their parents. The show ran for six seasons, won tons of awards, and still has a passionate fanbase even though it's been over for nearly two decades. Freeform announced that the new version will be a "modern reimagining" - and the new plot is bound to make a few people upset.
In the initial series, the Salinger kids lose their parents after an accident with a drunk driver. The show followed the kids through six years of essentially raising each other and fighting their hardest to stay together as a unit.
Original Executive Producers Amy Lippman and Christoper Keyser released a statement saying they will focus on something closer to the heart of the current American political climate.
Twenty-five years ago, we imagined a story about five kids navigating the world after the untimely death of their parents. Today, stories of families being separated, children having to raise themselves in the wake of their parents' deportations, don't require any imagination; they are everywhere. This new iteration of Party of Five isn't a retread of the original; it's a whole new look at kids trying to parent each other in the wake of circumstances beyond their control, yet learning a similar lesson: that families persist no matter how great the obstacles.
Freeform's Executive VP of Programming And Development said the network "just had" to have the series and they were proud to help tell this new story.
News of the reboot is spreading fast on Twitter, and people have a lot to say. Warning: It's not always something good.
@JustJared Yes! I loved that show— KREAM OUT NOW 🇦🇺 (@KREAM OUT NOW 🇦🇺) 1536272870.0
@THR So sad 😞— rarebella (@rarebella) 1536274055.0
@THR Show with a clear political agenda #byebye— jd (@jd) 1536306096.0
@people Cashing in on the real traumatic experiences for some Latino families. Great job ABC 🙄— chelchel (@chelchel) 1536287758.0
@Grateful24x7 @DEADLINE Same here.— Brenda Libby (@Brenda Libby) 1536276599.0
@newsbusters And on the season finale, ICE comes and deports everybody back to the country where they are legally a… https://t.co/fPMgc7mdBt— Dave Cullather (@Dave Cullather) 1536340064.0
(Stoked for the Party of Five reboot in which the parents were deported instead of killed. It's a smart, relevant s… https://t.co/crDu9IXDhz— Carina Adly MacKenzie (@Carina Adly MacKenzie) 1536268515.0
"Reboot, but make it Latino!" streak going on strong: - One Day at a Time - Charmed - Magnum, PI - Roswell, New Me… https://t.co/WG3KTJkRWi— Manuel #LordDámeloTodo Betancourt (@Manuel #LordDámeloTodo Betancourt) 1536267848.0
@THR https://t.co/mxMjqeyhkU— Fraulein Steve (@Fraulein Steve) 1536303685.0
What are your thoughts? Does the retooling strike you as relevant and modern or like a "clear political agenda?" Maybe both? Let us know!