Let's pretend we're 1996.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m heading to Fair Oaks Mall to get some suits for my first job - gonna try Casual Corner, Cache & The Limited (Outback Red). I’ll end up buying button covers for my plain navy suit and several shell tops from Dress Barn.

Got an oxblood briefcase as a grad gift! Hope I can get away with a blazer and skirt rather than an actual suit. I’m pulling my long hair back into a low ponytail clipped with a satiny bow or sometimes I’ll do a satiny headband.

I’ll ruin my new 9West pumps on the Old Town cobblestone first day.

This exactly. Loved my Casual Corner and Limited suits/separates. It was Jones New York and Ann Taylor when my mother was buying. I had a ton of 9 West shoes and when I wanted something more upscale, I would go for Enzo Angiolini’s or Via Spiga’s. Good times!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a stick shift Nissan Sentra with a new teen driver on the road. Watch out 1996!

ha. my first car was a nissan sentra, manual steering. And I'm a very petite female.

I had a stick shift and manual steering nissan as my first car in DC. Parallel parking that thing was a b****.

omg YES.

[Anonymous]

I would give anything! Anything! Miss my kids, my little family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you all wasting your time on this weird thing called the... uh... internet? That's for the dweebs and dorks in the computer lab in the basement. I mean, computers? Come on. I have a real life to live, thank you.

I'm 51, and I feel like by 1996 people my age had fully embraced the internet and did not consider it for dweebs and dorks.

\

I was in high school in 1996, most of us didn't have our own email addresses and computers meant usually the one family computer you shared with your parents and reluctantly typed papers on it. Some guys were playing video games like SimCity but still used nintendo . The school had a computer lab that attracted a certain personality.

Do not doubt adults used computers differently, my father was already emailing extensively due to work and this would be the pre frames so no graphics. I vaguely remember looking at college websites in '96-'97 that had no real photos, just pages of links. Things drastically changed within a few years but if you were a non computer person, like most of us were in school, computers would be somewhat a dorky thing. Not "cool."

I also remember the school deciding it was important to have a computer in every classroom and the day came when it happened and most of the teachers looked around and said, ok, now what do we do with this thing? And we were a high performing school!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you all wasting your time on this weird thing called the... uh... internet? That's for the dweebs and dorks in the computer lab in the basement. I mean, computers? Come on. I have a real life to live, thank you.

I'm 51, and I feel like by 1996 people my age had fully embraced the internet and did not consider it for dweebs and dorks.

\

I was in high school in 1996, most of us didn't have our own email addresses and computers meant usually the one family computer you shared with your parents and reluctantly typed papers on it. Some guys were playing video games like SimCity but still used nintendo . The school had a computer lab that attracted a certain personality.

Do not doubt adults used computers differently, my father was already emailing extensively due to work and this would be the pre frames so no graphics. I vaguely remember looking at college websites in '96-'97 that had no real photos, just pages of links. Things drastically changed within a few years but if you were a non computer person, like most of us were in school, computers would be somewhat a dorky thing. Not "cool."

I also remember the school deciding it was important to have a computer in every classroom and the day came when it happened and most of the teachers looked around and said, ok, now what do we do with this thing? And we were a high performing school!

What??? I was in college from 1990 to 1994 and everyone I knew had a computer. My college had a “subsidies” loan so you could buy one for $2K at 12% interest. We didn’t have emails then but we did have an online college based electronic communication system — I can’t remember what it was called but it was wildly popular. Computers were definitely not for dorks. I started law school in 1996 and most of our exams were take home on a computer. I feel like you are a full decade off on your assessment. We definitely all had school emails.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you all wasting your time on this weird thing called the... uh... internet? That's for the dweebs and dorks in the computer lab in the basement. I mean, computers? Come on. I have a real life to live, thank you.

I'm 51, and I feel like by 1996 people my age had fully embraced the internet and did not consider it for dweebs and dorks.

\

I was in high school in 1996, most of us didn't have our own email addresses and computers meant usually the one family computer you shared with your parents and reluctantly typed papers on it. Some guys were playing video games like SimCity but still used nintendo . The school had a computer lab that attracted a certain personality.

Do not doubt adults used computers differently, my father was already emailing extensively due to work and this would be the pre frames so no graphics. I vaguely remember looking at college websites in '96-'97 that had no real photos, just pages of links. Things drastically changed within a few years but if you were a non computer person, like most of us were in school, computers would be somewhat a dorky thing. Not "cool."

I also remember the school deciding it was important to have a computer in every classroom and the day came when it happened and most of the teachers looked around and said, ok, now what do we do with this thing? And we were a high performing school!

What??? I was in college from 1990 to 1994 and everyone I knew had a computer. My college had a “subsidies” loan so you could buy one for $2K at 12% interest. We didn’t have emails then but we did have an online college based electronic communication system — I can’t remember what it was called but it was wildly popular. Computers were definitely not for dorks. I started law school in 1996 and most of our exams were take home on a computer. I feel like you are a full decade off on your assessment. We definitely all had school emails.

Pine was the accessible email client on a UNIX system. I had to teach every incoming student how to use it. Over a week of 8-10 one hour sessions to get everyone through it. It was easier than the mainframe system. Business and law schools later adopted group wise which would crash whenever someone sent to a large group where several people had vacation messages.

[Anonymous]

A nice two bedroom apartment in Foggy Bottom was around $700-800 a month. One bedrooms around $500-$600. Studios around $400. This included front desk, storage, pool but not parking. Parking was 100-150 a month depending on the building.

[Anonymous]

Cabs with NPR on the radio and the Zone system. Hourly cheap flights out of National to NY and Boston.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shall I play Sim City 2000, Command and Conquer, or DOOM?

No, MYST, Chip’s Challenge, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Duh. And then random downloads of penguin ice skating challenges and the like.

[Anonymous]

I’m in 6th grade, and the bright blue snake print pants and the bright pink snakeskin skirt from GUESS are the coolest thing ever when paired with their baby tees. Also the Delia’s mail order catalogue, the Limited, and the Limited Too all fill my tween heart with joy. During sleepovers we wear Joe Boxer stuff and use weird mood lipstick and the like from Wet and Wild. Next year, my fancy, outrageously-overpriced private all-girls’ school ($28k/yr!) will roll out personal laptops to my grade. Tamagotchi’s and Doc Martens are also poised to make some big appearances next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you all wasting your time on this weird thing called the... uh... internet? That's for the dweebs and dorks in the computer lab in the basement. I mean, computers? Come on. I have a real life to live, thank you.

I'm 51, and I feel like by 1996 people my age had fully embraced the internet and did not consider it for dweebs and dorks.

\

I was in high school in 1996, most of us didn't have our own email addresses and computers meant usually the one family computer you shared with your parents and reluctantly typed papers on it. Some guys were playing video games like SimCity but still used nintendo . The school had a computer lab that attracted a certain personality.

Do not doubt adults used computers differently, my father was already emailing extensively due to work and this would be the pre frames so no graphics. I vaguely remember looking at college websites in '96-'97 that had no real photos, just pages of links. Things drastically changed within a few years but if you were a non computer person, like most of us were in school, computers would be somewhat a dorky thing. Not "cool."

I also remember the school deciding it was important to have a computer in every classroom and the day came when it happened and most of the teachers looked around and said, ok, now what do we do with this thing? And we were a high performing school!

What??? I was in college from 1990 to 1994 and everyone I knew had a computer. My college had a “subsidies” loan so you could buy one for $2K at 12% interest. We didn’t have emails then but we did have an online college based electronic communication system — I can’t remember what it was called but it was wildly popular. Computers were definitely not for dorks. I started law school in 1996 and most of our exams were take home on a computer. I feel like you are a full decade off on your assessment. We definitely all had school emails.

Pine was the accessible email client on a UNIX system. I had to teach every incoming student how to use it. Over a week of 8-10 one hour sessions to get everyone through it. It was easier than the mainframe system. Business and law schools later adopted group wise which would crash whenever someone sent to a large group where several people had vacation messages.

In 1992 I was a grad student, got admitted a week before the semester started and I had a job 24 hrs a week I finished my 2 weeks notice for so I missed a lot of the new student orientation for. I'd been out of school for 2 years and was part time before that as a mom with a baby. I'd done some programming courses on mainframe but that was wall.

So I missed the session where they taught us how to use the email, then could figure it out. I was also one of only 2 women students in my dept (one woman lecturer who was in her 60s, no women professors) and the other was a few years into her doctoral program. I was also older than many of the first year guys and had a young child at home to tend to.

I faked it until Xmas when I vowed I would learn how to use email. Went to the library and called the IT center help. Woman who answered said in a condescending voice "it's a MENU based system" which meant nothing to me. I hung up and called again and got an older man who walked me through it. I remember also doing some stuff on the world wide web before there was a graphic interface. And cautions from a professor about how you had to be careful not to accidentally send an email to the whole world. A couple years later some lawyer in California shocked the internet by sending a solicitation email to, I believe, the entire US and internet users were scandalized about their using the internet for a commercial purpose.

[Anonymous]

I just started my legal career at HHS. Had been using computers with Windows at my prior job and had to relearn all the MS-DOS commands as our computers were at least 5 years old.

Once we finally got Windows and the ability to use the internet on our work computers, I had to teach everyone how to use search engines. My boss was beyond angry that you could get to our agency website using “HHS.gov” (logical!) but if you wanted to find the text of an OMB circular, the address was “https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/“.

I did adore WordPerfect, and think it’s far superior to Word. One of my coworkers was still using it to draft his documents when he retired in 2023.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RPG III on an as/400. You rock, Judy Yaeger!

You poor bastard. You have my sympathies.

Somebody has been around the block before and knows the deal.

[Anonymous]

“I can’t wait for the weekend to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you all wasting your time on this weird thing called the... uh... internet? That's for the dweebs and dorks in the computer lab in the basement. I mean, computers? Come on. I have a real life to live, thank you.

I'm 51, and I feel like by 1996 people my age had fully embraced the internet and did not consider it for dweebs and dorks.

\

I was in high school in 1996, most of us didn't have our own email addresses and computers meant usually the one family computer you shared with your parents and reluctantly typed papers on it. Some guys were playing video games like SimCity but still used nintendo . The school had a computer lab that attracted a certain personality.

Do not doubt adults used computers differently, my father was already emailing extensively due to work and this would be the pre frames so no graphics. I vaguely remember looking at college websites in '96-'97 that had no real photos, just pages of links. Things drastically changed within a few years but if you were a non computer person, like most of us were in school, computers would be somewhat a dorky thing. Not "cool."

I also remember the school deciding it was important to have a computer in every classroom and the day came when it happened and most of the teachers looked around and said, ok, now what do we do with this thing? And we were a high performing school!

What??? I was in college from 1990 to 1994 and everyone I knew had a computer. My college had a “subsidies” loan so you could buy one for $2K at 12% interest. We didn’t have emails then but we did have an online college based electronic communication system — I can’t remember what it was called but it was wildly popular. Computers were definitely not for dorks. I started law school in 1996 and most of our exams were take home on a computer. I feel like you are a full decade off on your assessment. We definitely all had school emails.

I was the HS class of 1998 at an affluent private school. By the mid 90s most families had a family computer at home, but not everyone did. And few students had their own actual computers, it was notable if someone did. When I went to an Ivy in the fall of 1998, like many if not most of my classmates, it marked the first time I had my own computer. And even then not every student had one, there were still students relying on the university computer labs. Come to think of it, it was a bit of a social thing to go down to one of the labs and do homework on the lab computers instead of your machine in your room.

The transition to college put you in a different place with computers but in high schools of the 1990s we were not dependent on computers and the kids who were enamored of computers were seen, unfairly perhaps, in an unflattering light. Which is borne out by the stereotypes of the sitcoms and movies of the time. We have to remember that computers were expensive, much more expensive than they are, I vaguely remember my parents paying $2,000 for a desktop in the mid 1990s and to use as a comparison point, my school fees that year would have been $10,000, the same school is now $42,000 while you would pay $1800 for an Apple desktop. But I do also emphasize that things changed greatly within a few years.