Can we discuss how great the 1990s were?

[Anonymous]

Not all brilliant. AIDS took a lot of good folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age....Yes, they do.

[Anonymous]

Basically, the 90s for me was high school and undergraduate college, and then starting out completely on my own.

It's easy to look back and see it as a time of enormous optimism and potential. But I wrote a lot, and when I read things I wrote from the time, I remember the reality instead of the nostalgia.

I also think whether the 90s was a good time for you or not depends on stage of life. My father had a horrible time in the 90s. It was marked by frequent layoffs and potential strikes. It's pretty much when the industry he worked for was in sharp decline, and there were no bailouts or other government intervention to save the industry.

This thread sounds like my generation's version of the Baby Boomers pining for the 60s. It's kind of ridiculous, especially when people can't seem to realize that it's the stage of life they were in that was great, not necessarily that that decade was so fantastic.

[Anonymous]

I was in my 20s and early 30s in the 1990s. I know a lot of people that age now. I do think things seem different now, they experience the world differently, so I don't know that it was just that time of life for me. I will also say that unless you were an adult living and working here before 9/11, you can have no earthly idea how much life has changed in DC since then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was in my 20s and early 30s in the 1990s. I know a lot of people that age now. I do think things seem different now, they experience the world differently, so I don't know that it was just that time of life for me. I will also say that unless you were an adult living and working here before 9/11, you can have no earthly idea how much life has changed in DC since then.

Me again: Of course, not all of that change is bad. Remember back when the trash didn't get picked up and the streets didn't get plowed? That was DC in the 90s, too.

[Anonymous]

How about pagers and cell phones. I got a pager around 1990 and a bag cell phone about a year later. The phone was about the size of a small shoe box. The cell phone plan only included 15 peak minutes per month. Additional minutes were a $1 per minute. Peak calling was 7am Monday through 7pm Friday. The weekends were free. I never exceeded 15 weekday minutes per month, but would talk for hours on the weekends. I would sometimes get a page from a friend and use a payphone to call them back midweek.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was in my 20s and early 30s in the 1990s. I know a lot of people that age now. I do think things seem different now, they experience the world differently, so I don't know that it was just that time of life for me. I will also say that unless you were an adult living and working here before 9/11, you can have no earthly idea how much life has changed in DC since then.

+1

Moved back to DC after law school in '93. Worked at F and 12th. The whole area was so incredibly seedy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:And there wasn't an Ann Taylor, Potbelly, and Starbucks on every goddamn corner in the world.

Speaking of Ann Taylor, their clothes were actually well made in the 90s

That's another thing missing. Quality has gone to hell in most things.

Oh, come on people, quality had already gone to hell by the 90s!

Maybe compared to some earlier time period, bit relative to now it was the golden ages. My college towels from Kmart were made in the USA - and they're still in great shape 14 years later. Knit shirts weren't all "tissue tees," which meant that they'd last a lot longer than what I can find now. I still have the rare Banana Republic shirts that fit and wear amazingly from 1993. Something has changed with regards to quality and it is not to the consumer's benefit.

That's funny. I have a Hanes T-shirt with a school event log o on it I got the first year I started teaching -- 1993 -- so it has the date on the T-Shirt. I wear that T-short at least a couple times a month because it is so comfortable and have worn it that way for the past 20 years; I wash it in hot water and tumble dry; nothing special about the way I take care of it. It still looks brand new -- no holes, no fading, not stretched out of shape.

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

Reality Bites is on right now, there goes my Saturday!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Miss those days so much - I was an optimist then!

Me too - reality really does suck. Life is so not what I expected it would be. And then it just goes on... Oh for the 90s again.

[Anonymous]

The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland.

[Anonymous]

Love this thread. I'm in my early 40s and I, too, miss the 90s terribly. =(