Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
People always look back at prior generations with rose-colored glasses. Nothing interesting about that. There are people who'll tell you things were better in 1900 (average lifespan: 47), ffs.
That's why it depends on what your point of view is. There are places where things haven't really been good since before the Great Depression because all of the factories and industry dried up and only came back briefly to help supply WW1 and WW2.
Tell that to someone who grew up in Alabama in the 1960's.
People always look back at prior generations with rose-colored glasses. Nothing interesting about that. There are people who'll tell you things were better in 1900 (average lifespan: 47), ffs.
I grew up in PA in the 90's through today so we haven't had those issues as long as I've been around. Like I said, maybe 3 or 4 at best of those things are true today. Its not like the 90's were that long ago.
Tell that to someone who grew up in Alabama in the 1960's.
People always look back at prior generations with rose-colored glasses. Nothing interesting about that. There are people who'll tell you things were better in 1900 (average lifespan: 47), ffs.
I agree symbolically it means something, but the wealth divide between White and Blacks has actually gotten larger and Obama hasn't even talked about it and gave bail out to banks, while cities like Detroit and Gary are dying.
That's because we haven't progressed since the '90s.
There's no reason have nostalgia when Nirvana and Jay-Z and Eminem are still on every radio station, "The Simpsons" are still on and people dress pretty much the same as they did in the '90s. Most people I know do, whereas there's nostalgia about the '80s, because we as a culture, collectively threw all of the crappy hair-metal/disposable pop, ****ty clothes and hairstyles, and overall ridiculousness out of the window around 1991/1992, so there's actually a disconnect.
A movie about the late '90s would pretty much look like today, so there's no point in being nostalgic about it in that way.
I don't think so.
For one thing, the internet did not play nearly as much of a role in most people's lives then as it does today. In 1996, when we first got connected to the internet through AOL, only about one-fifth of the population was connected to the internet. For certain subsets of the population - the working-class, blacks, etc. - this percentage was probably much lower. For computer geeks or participants in niche hobbies, etc., the internet was paradise, but it didn't have much appeal for most people. For most people, few of their friends were online. Online banking nearly didn't exist. Forget about streaming music or video - a "fast" internet connection then was on a 28.8k modem (actually, I tried streaming video in 1997, and it worked - but was very low-resolution and choppy, and the frame rate was low).
Today, 80% have the internet, and most people have it on their phones. The digital divide is not nearly so prominent as it was in 1996 - black or white, college-educated or working class, at least accessing Facebook from your phone and communicating with all your friends has appeal. A lot of things that would seem simply Jetson-esque in even the late 90s are here. Tablet computers. Smart phones that have still cameras, video cameras, NetFlix streaming movies, and GPS rolled into a single device that fits in your pocket and costs $200. Heck, even YouTube was unimaginable for most people fifteen years ago. Not to go into text messaging...
And most people use that stuff, often for several hours every day of their waking lives. Their lives are significantly affected by it. It's a part of our society that simply wasn't there 15 years ago.
Fashion in this day and age is still far worse than the 80's see picture above for a fairly common suburban kid in America today
I disagree. You're just talking about the way people wear their clothes. There's nothing wrong with a baseball hat, a basketball jersey, blue jeans, and t-shirts. That's pretty much the official American working class style of dress.
You may object to the size and the manor of the clothes, but that's not like the '80s where the clothes themselves and the hair itself was the problem
People wore ripped up clothes on purpose in ridiculous colors.
Women wore shoulder pads like linebackers and huge hair.
Grown men wore make up and eyeliner like chicks.
Black people wore jheri curls that dripped all over everything and left grease everywhere.
In comparison to these fashions, basketball jerseys and baseball hats aren't that bad.
For one thing, the internet did not play nearly as much of a role in most people's lives then as it does today. In 1996, when we first got connected to the internet through AOL, only about one-fifth of the population was connected to the internet. For certain subsets of the population - the working-class, blacks, etc. - this percentage was probably much lower. For computer geeks or participants in niche hobbies, etc., the internet was paradise, but it didn't have much appeal for most people. For most people, few of their friends were online. Online banking nearly didn't exist. Forget about streaming music or video - a "fast" internet connection then was on a 28.8k modem (actually, I tried streaming video in 1997, and it worked - but was very low-resolution and choppy, and the frame rate was low).
Today, 80% have the internet, and most people have it on their phones. The digital divide is not nearly so prominent as it was in 1996 - black or white, college-educated or working class, at least accessing Facebook from your phone and communicating with all your friends has appeal. A lot of things that would seem simply Jetson-esque in even the late 90s are here. Tablet computers. Smart phones that have still cameras, video cameras, NetFlix streaming movies, and GPS rolled into a single device that fits in your pocket and costs $200. Heck, even YouTube was unimaginable for most people fifteen years ago. Not to go into text messaging...
And most people use that stuff, often for several hours every day of their waking lives. Their lives are significantly affected by it. It's a part of our society that simply wasn't there 15 years ago.
Yeah, but you're still talking about one facet of life in America.
Yes, the internet and cell phones are a lot more prevalent, but the the way people dress, talk, and act, and the music they listen to isn't dramatically different.
Yes, people tweet and talk on cellphones, but they still listen to a lot of the same bands, wear a lot of the same clothes, and use the same slang.
Like I said, the change over from '80s to '90s was huge.
Look at the people in the pictures I posted up there.
By 1992, those people would be kicked out of society for dressing like that.
Whereas, most people I know wear basically what they were wearing in the '90s and don't look totally out of place.
I disagree. You're just talking about the way people wear their clothes. There's nothing wrong with a baseball hat, a basketball jersey, blue jeans, and t-shirts. That's pretty much the official American working class style of dress.
You may object to the size and the manor of the clothes, but that's not like the '80s where the clothes themselves and the hair itself was the problem
People wore ripped up clothes on purpose in ridiculous colors.
Women wore shoulder pads like linebackers and huge hair.
Grown men wore make up and eyeliner like chicks.
Black people wore jheri curls that dripped all over everything and left grease everywhere.
In comparison to these fashions, basketball jerseys and baseball hats aren't that bad.
Yeah, but you're still talking about one facet of life in America.
Yes, the internet and cell phones are a lot more prevalent, but the the way people dress, talk, and act, and the music they listen to isn't dramatically different.
Yes, people tweet and talk on cellphones, but they still listen to a lot of the same bands, wear a lot of the same clothes, and use the same slang.
Like I said, the change over from '80s to '90s was huge.
Look at the people in the pictures I posted up there.
By 1992, those people would be kicked out of society for dressing like that.
Whereas, most people I know wear basically what they were wearing in the '90s and don't look totally out of place.
A very large facet of life!
People don't dress entirely different (although I can certainly tell when a TV show is from 1998, vs. from 2012 or from 1991, regardless of the video quality), I give you that.
As for bands, according to who? Lady Gaga did not exist in the 1990's. She didn't exist until 2007 or so. Katy Perry was an obscure CHRISTIAN singer in the early 2000's. Adele was unheard of. And let's see the top 10...
1. Katy Perry
2. Adele
3. Whitney Houston - Only because she just died.
4. Kelly Clarkson - Began her career after winning the first or second American Idol - in 2002 or 2003....
5. Adele
6. Gotye feat. Kimbra - Didn't rise to prominence until just lately
7. Adele
8. Rihanna - First time in the charts was with "Pon de Replay" in 2005 IIRC...
9. Nicki Minaj - Didn't hear of her before 2010...
10. Chris Brown - First heard of him in 2007 or so...
11. David Guetta feat. Nicki Minaj - David Guetta has only been known in the U.S. since 2009 or so
12. Flo-Rida - Didn't he debut in the charts with "Right Round" in 2008 or so?
13. LMFAO - Debuted in the charts around 2010
14. Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa (first time I heard of him was in 2008), and Bruno Mars (first time I heard of him was around 2009)
15. Tyga - Never even heard of him...looks like his first activity was mixtape in 2007, according to his Wiki page
16. Bruno Mars
17. Pitbull (rose to popularity in 2009) feat. Chris Brown
18. Jessie J - career began in 2006 according to Wiki
19. Drake (first mixtape released in 2006) feat. Lil' Wayne (first top 40 hit was in 2004, only really broke out in 2008 or so with "Lollipop")
20. Coldplay - First album released in 2000
(Source: Billboard, Wikipedia)
So, out of the 20 or so artists on the Top 20, only two were at all famous in the 1990's, and one of those holds the chart because of her recent death.
Let's see what was popular in the late 1990s: boy bands (totally out today), mellow rock bands like Savage Garden, Our Lady Peace, Matchbox 20, etc. (none of them are popular any more), punk rock bands like Blink 182 (haven't heard of them in a LONG time), "harder" bands like Limp Bizkit, and girl singers like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jennifer Lopez (still somewhat popular, but usually after radical image changes).
Play pop radio to somebody who has been in a coma since 1999 and they will not recognize any of the music. Lots of innovation has taken place since then.
And I would argue that the slang, at least among young people, is different now. Numerous new terms have been popularized to describe things sexual. The construction "get your # on" seems to be more popular than ever. Twitter and FB have done a large part in popularizing other slang expressions.
People don't dress entirely different (although I can certainly tell when a TV show is from 1998, vs. from 2012 or from 1991, regardless of the video quality), I give you that.
As for bands, according to who? Lady Gaga did not exist in the 1990's. She didn't exist until 2007 or so. Katy Perry was an obscure CHRISTIAN singer in the early 2000's. Adele was unheard of. And let's see the top 10...
1. Katy Perry
2. Adele
3. Whitney Houston - Only because she just died.
4. Kelly Clarkson - Began her career after winning the first or second American Idol - in 2002 or 2003....
5. Adele
6. Gotye feat. Kimbra - Didn't rise to prominence until just lately
7. Adele
8. Rihanna - First time in the charts was with "Pon de Replay" in 2005 IIRC...
9. Nicki Minaj - Didn't hear of her before 2010...
10. Chris Brown - First heard of him in 2007 or so...
11. David Guetta feat. Nicki Minaj - David Guetta has only been known in the U.S. since 2009 or so
12. Flo-Rida - Didn't he debut in the charts with "Right Round" in 2008 or so?
13. LMFAO - Debuted in the charts around 2010
14. Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa (first time I heard of him was in 2008), and Bruno Mars (first time I heard of him was around 2009)
15. Tyga - Never even heard of him...looks like his first activity was mixtape in 2007, according to his Wiki page
16. Bruno Mars
17. Pitbull (rose to popularity in 2009) feat. Chris Brown
18. Jessie J - career began in 2006 according to Wiki
19. Drake (first mixtape released in 2006) feat. Lil' Wayne (first top 40 hit was in 2004, only really broke out in 2008 or so with "Lollipop")
20. Coldplay - First album released in 2000
(Source: Billboard, Wikipedia)
So, out of the 20 or so artists on the Top 20, only two were at all famous in the 1990's, and one of those holds the chart because of her recent death.
Let's see what was popular in the late 1990s: boy bands (totally out today), mellow rock bands like Savage Garden, Our Lady Peace, Matchbox 20, etc. (none of them are popular any more), punk rock bands like Blink 182 (haven't heard of them in a LONG time), "harder" bands like Limp Bizkit, and girl singers like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jennifer Lopez (still somewhat popular, but usually after radical image changes).
Play pop radio to somebody who has been in a coma since 1999 and they will not recognize any of the music. Lots of innovation has taken place since then.
And I would argue that the slang, at least among young people, is different now. Numerous new terms have been popularized to describe things sexual. The construction "get your # on" seems to be more popular than ever. Twitter and FB have done a large part in popularizing other slang expressions.
I have to agree... there was nothing similar between the talented grunge and real rap music of the early/mid 90's and this no talent crackhouse pop and hip hop garbage of the 2000's.... same goes for fashion these days.... kids look like clowns nowadays
People dress MUUUUUCCCHH better now than they did in the 80's. Poofy hair, shoulder pads, acid washed jeans?! You're longing for that crap?
Peoples fashion these days screams "I'm a douche" Fashion is horrible these days
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
