Do people overrate how different the 90s were from the 80s? (2003, news)
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There was a transition period from about 1995 to 2001 that I tend to use to separate before and after. Yes, we changed greatly after almost everyone got on the Internet.
As someone who lived through it (born in the early-'80s), I have to say that regarding 1983 - 1997, for the MOST part, you're absolutely correct. About 75% of daily life & culture WAS indeed exactly the same between the 2. And if you compare 1997 to 1988, that percentage goes up to 85%-90%, because beginning in 1987-1988, there was the very beginning of elements included that were already setting the stage for what would blossom more beginning in 1995. For instance, R.E.M. had a hit with the GREEN album in 1988, Jane's Addiction hit big in 1988, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians had a Top 10 with "What I Am" in 1988, Nine Inch Nails (NIN) had hits "Head Like a Hole" and "Something I Can Never Have" in 1989, Faith No More had a Top 10 with "Epic" in 1989, so proto-grunge and alternative rock (and aspects of the styles that went with them) were born and successful, and THE SIMPSONS debuted in 1989. And all of that lent to a side of things with a feel similar to now, which is strange considering how long it's been. That said, all of this made up about only 5%-10% of culture as late as throughout 1994, with the overarching culture being extremely different from all that. Indeed the tech boom in 1995 was significant what with the sudden ubiquity of the Internet and coincided with pop culture accelerating to where by late-1998 all the '70s/'80s stuff had been swept under the rug, and even hardcore (pure) grunge had been over since 4 years ago.
To help give a clearer perspective on this multifaceted time in US culture, I'll offer some detailed personal memories of 1994 (in the Greater-LA area in Southern California). I have 3 sisters. One of them was into the grunge/alternative scene. She and her friends wore black ankle-boots, flannel shirts, sometimes ripped jeans or sometimes black blouse down to her ankles, played card games, were into irony, and reading Anne Rice novels. (Some of this is still around in 2018, of course, but it's like it's still in lite-mode, and only in style, not substance.) My other sister, in retrospect, and her circle of friends embodied the fact that the '80s never ended (not that "'80s" was a cultural concept yet because we really were in the same era still). She was the most popular girl in her high school, she was a cheerleader, and she and all her friends were all on homecoming court. She wore very oversized sweaters, acid-washed jeans, and had very big hair always lying to one side over the shoulder. For formal events and dances she wore white suits with shoulder pads. She and her friends were always going on ski trips. The third sister also reflected this -- she wore giant scrunchies, medium hair with a lot of volume either down or in a sideways ponytail, large hats, neon-clashing-design color clothes, and bicycle shorts. The coolest kids had birthday parties at the roller-rink (rollerblading), including her circle of friends. Ditto for their having "slumber parties."
My parents' circle of friends reflected that the US was essentially still in the Reagan era (despite actually being 2 presidents removed from him by then). It was still en-vogue to flaunt one's wealth, so think lunch parties with women in shoulder pads, hats, chain-belts, shiny jewelry, and sunglasses gossiping by the pool or at the country club. But there was also the flipside to all that. Everything people would later associate with the '70s was very much still there, too, so my memories also include things like people having afros, giant eyeglasses, women with very long straight hair parted in the middle, men with very long, shaggy hair and beards, disco-ish fashions and hair, floral print, and the attitudes that went with all this, including that there were very much still hippies even though they didn't live in communes anymore of course. It makes sense, really -- not all hippies became yuppies in the '80s/'90s. I watched the reboot of Schoolhouse Rock, the reboot of Columbo, Murphy Brown, The Price Is Right (Cheers had ended just 2 years ago). The "Just Say No" campaign was still on with the egg-frying commercials ("this is your brain..."). A lot of circles and shows were about environmentalism and learning about nature. And then in a lot of memories, one would swear it was still the '50s/'60s! Which makes sense in that the conservative values were still there contrasting with the other extreme (the Vietnam War had ended just 19 years ago!). There were a lot of bright neon signs on restaurants and stores, girls and young ladies with knee-length skirts and ponytails in hair ribbons, guys with very gelled hair, bubble-tubed neon jukeboxes in restaurants, hanging out at the local burger joint, families dressing up for dinner (in suits even, at medium-priced restaurants), and the conservative values in families that went with all this. Some people still looked what was once called "mod," too (not that it was called that anymore), like women with big hair flips and mini-skirts. So now try to imagine yourself in this world where the '50s were still very much ingrained into everyday life and think of how shocked the nation was with Madonna who'd released THE SEX BOOK (1993 controversy) and then gone live on The Tonight Show with David Letterman dropping f-bombs left and right and of her specific turn-ons (Letterman cut to about 5 commercial breaks during that interview, kept apologizing profusely to the audience, and she wasn't invited back on the show until 2004). I honestly feel that she was the main driving force in the drawn-out movement to end such conservativism in the US that was on much shakier ground in 1995 and was completely dead by 1998. Something largely forgotten about now, her role in all that.
Honestly, what adds to the heavy nostalgia I can't help but feel when typing all this is also the fact that we were blissfully unaware of the tech boom that had yet to happen. Sure, one could point to the '80s as having introduced a lot of gadgets to the US that in 1994 we already took for granted (i.e. cordless house phones, home security surveillance, camcorders, 1-hour photo places), but (and even few people had cable or satellite until 1995, so much fewer channels on TV) technology hadn't consumed our lives at all yet. Kids built forts, played imaginative games, climbed trees. Teenagers and young adults went out different places to socialize, and they (well, we, I'm still a technically [relatively] young adult) still do, but something I miss is that stranger-danger wasn't everywhere, well actually it wasn't anywhere, people weren't on-guard and they were willing to talk and make friends with other people nearby. The overall hostility of today was non-existent, and in fact there was an overall optimism. However, to end on an optimistic note, I know in recent years there's been an increase in interest and popularity of older-pop-culture aspects (like some hair styles, some clothing items, vinyl records) thanks to hipsters, and I admit that some of that optimism and friendliness that went with all that is thankfully coming back slowly but surely, and at a more accelerated rate lately I noticed (hurray for millennials & generation Z!).
Oops forgot to even answer the question I quoted! 1994 was definitely EXTREMELY different from 2008, even though if you scratch the surface the more forward-looking elements of 1994 (setting the stage for what was just around the corner) was indeed quite similar. So 2008 was about 5%-7% similar only to 1994. In fact, 2008 was already remarkably similar to 2018, except for SOCIETAL changes underneath the surface that are VERY significant. An example is definite acceptance of LGBTQ. I feel that homophobic hostility rose in the mid-late-'90s, peaked in the early-mid-2000's, and has thankfully drastically turned around since then. But these things really draw us closer to 2008 (coinciding with the start of Obama's presidency) and further from 2007. The modern era had begun in earnest. (Non-retro) styles are the same as 2008. Technology was already kicking much the same, sure we didn't have IPhones but we had cell phones with text and internet and IPods. Also social media was already big. I feel PC culture has gotten bigger, and there's more tension between anti-PC-people and PC-proponents, which is interesting because PC culture did start during Clinton's presidency (as did a lot of cultural elements that never died) and just got much bigger much later on.
A lot has already been said but as someone born in 1982 I'd say the "80's" went to about 1993 or 1994. The "90's" went from '94-'03-ish. The aughts were just generally terrible in music, TV, and fashion but things started to improve drastically in about 2010 or so.
Ive noticed and remarked about this same thing, Ive said before you could take someone from the mid to late 90s and stick them in a time machine and send them to our current time, they would NOT stick out at all, I doubt anyone would even notice!
A lot has already been said but as someone born in 1982 I'd say the "80's" went to about 1993 or 1994. The "90's" went from '94-'03-ish. The aughts were just generally terrible in music, TV, and fashion but things started to improve drastically in about 2010 or so.
That’s a good breakdown, and I’d add though that every era is going to have things carried over from the previous one, things unique unto itself, and things setting the stage for the one to come. Just how time works. That said, some eras are much longer than others, some are more transitional (thus eclectic), and some much more accelerated. But understanding that those delineating years you posted are a general guideline and not ‘everything before this year stops before this one begins,’ it is accurate. I just keep in mind that nothing comes from nowhere.
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