The 1990s and 2000s - why are they equal in most people's view? (invaded, origin)

[Bill Hitchcock]

Music diversity-Gotta be the 60's. We're talkin' Pat Boone to Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles to Elvis, Bill Haley and the Comets to the Doors, Lawrence Welk to Janice Joplin.
Yep-'60's music was pretty diverse.
Bill

[bob rulz]

Originally Posted by Bill Hitchcock

Music diversity-Gotta be the 60's. We're talkin' Pat Boone to Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles to Elvis, Bill Haley and the Comets to the Doors, Lawrence Welk to Janice Joplin.
Yep-'60's music was pretty diverse.
Bill

Sure, 60s music was diverse but musical diversity has only increased with time, you just have to look for it. Whether the 60s was better in quality than the 00s is a matter of opinion, there's certainly a lot of crap out now, but I think it would be hard to make the case that 60s music was more diverse than it is now. We have hip-hop, electronic, industrial, metal, and even more varieties of rock, all of which didn't yet exist or were in their infancy in the 60s. The only types of music that are still being widely-produced today that were widely popular in the 60s as well are rock, which has only taken on more subgenres as time has gone on, and country, which hasn't really become any more diverse than it was then.

[Bill Hitchcock]

Let me put it this way-The decade of the 60's, in my opinion is when pop music exploded in all different directions. Not only were molds broken, but created.
For jazz, fusion and funk, in my opinion-It was the 70's.
Just a humble opinion of a 49 year old (and holding) fellow.
Bill

[Eman91]

The 1990s had better quality shows and music than today, but many popular icons, like the family cars, video games, sports, and other pop culture phenomens seem fairly similar. But the '90s didn't have Lost or other TV shows, although it had other shows. And Global Warming gained prominence in both decades.Of course, as a kid in the '90s, I was not allowed to watch some of those shows, like Friends and stuff like that. Like others said, the '90s are like the '20s and '50s, a time of prosperity and fragile peace between two major periods of unrest (although the 2000s are NOTHING like the '60s and especially the '30s).

[Reelcheeper]

This is just from my perspective. I don't have any memories from the early '90s, so I'll have to talk about the middle and end of the decade as compared to the 2000s.

Political opinions
1995-9/11/2001 -- In general, people were not liberal or conservative, but independent. Clinton did a pretty good job, but the majority of Americans wanted to live independently from the government and would have rather had freedom than security.
9/11/2001-2006 -- People were more conservative, but in a stupid way. They gladly sacrificed their freedom for "protection" and "safety" after 9/11 and didn't care about much other than punishing the Arabs.
2006-present -- People became weakly liberal in protest of Bush's policies after 9/11. This is why we have "forward-thinking" hipsters who are concerned about the environment and want the government to help them with every little problem.

Music (I never got into grunge or rap, so these are just the differences in country music)
1995-2001 -- line dancing, freedom, cowboys, love
2001-present -- American pride, trucks, girls, drinking

Cell phones
1995-2000 -- Many people didn't have cell phones, and those who did only used them as much as they would have used a regular landline phone.
2000-2005 -- Cell phones were getting popular, but people still weren't addicted to them.
2006-present -- People can barely survive without checking texts, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. every five seconds. Almost everyone you see is holding an electronic device in their hands.

I know there's a ton of pop culture differences too, but I have never paid much attention to pop culture so I'm not the one to tell you about how it changed between the '90s and '00s.

In my opinion, the '90s was a better, more happy decade to be alive than the 2000s.

[tvdxer]

Just think about life today compared to even 1999:

1. No Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. The majority of Americans weren't even connected to the internet.
2. If you wanted a video, you had to go the video store. Unless you were hip to FTP ratio servers (and later, MP3.com), wanting to buy a new song meant going to the record store, hoping they had it, and plopping down a very dear $15 on a record. Of course, if it was on the radio, you could wait for it to play and then record it onto a cassette tape.
3. Pictures were usually taken by a 35mm or similar film camera and you had to wait for processing. Videos, usually on a camcorder. No sharing either on Facebook, Youtube, or Flickr, because those sites didn't exist then.
4. TV was linear format, except if you recorded the shows to tape. Again, no YouTube, where you can watch somebody's home recording of pretty much any show ever made until a few years ago, or Hulu / similar sites, where you can watch most network TV shows.
5. Smoking was already banned in hospitals and airplanes, but not in many other public spaces. Lighting up a cigarette in a restaurant was the most natural thing ever; only very few "forward-thinking" restaurants completely banned smoking.
6. Only large or tech-savvy companies had websites, and nobody had a Twitter feed or Facebook page.
7. You couldn't see pictures and videos of pretty much any place, aerial photos of pretty much everywhere, etc.
8. You couldn't access the above resources from anywhere at anytime. Cell phones were relatively common but their functionality was limited to that of a house phone.
9. Was the term "personal brand" even invented in the 1990s?
10. The world was a bigger place, even in 1999.
11. The music and entertainment industries were not as "skanky", nor catered as much to such low tastes, in 1999 as today, although this was already changing for the worst. Dressing like a **** was not a pre-requisite to becoming a pop star. Lyrics of popular songs (that were played on the radio, etc.) were generally clean compared to today. Interestingly, many of the current stars - Enrique Iglesias, Britney Spears, etc. - got their start (at least in the U.S.) in the late 1990's - but were cleaner (both in image and lyrics) in the late 90s. This especially goes for female singers. Perfect example, Rihanna. "S&M" probably would have received much less radio play in 1999 than it did in 2011.
12. Environmentalism and accompanying trends such as organic food, etc. got their start before the 1970's, but were not nearly as big in 1999 as today. Few companies displayed their "green mission" or what have you at the forefront of their public relations. Instead, they used the corporate tax exemption on Chevy Suburbans and Ford F-350's for personal use. Nobody suffered from "green fatigue" then.
13. Same-sex marriage was something only possible in theory, and not the "civil rights" issue it has become today. Homosexuality was largely shunned and considered disordered, if not worse. Gay jokes were common. Coming out, or worse, coming out flamboyantly, could get you beat up.
14. Popular indicators of "cultural capital", usually as displayed in consumer behavior, that separated one from the riff raff (such as buying organic food, watching foreign films, listening to the BBC, etc.), seem more important to a broader swath of the population then they did in the 1990's, although I might be wrong about this, as I was still 13 in 1999. Perhaps this is a reaction to the vulgarity and crassness of mainstream popular culture.
15. Technology is "cooler" today than it was in the 1990's. Not in a "gee-whiz" way, but as a "fashion statement". Who could imagine future Apple products receiving such press coverage in the 1990s?
16. The consumer is often the producer today with the internet and all. Who could imagine that photography would become such a popular hobby, with $600 spent on a camera no big deal? Who could imagine that citizen journalists would blog and take videos with their iPhones for free, and have such a big impact? Not to mention that much equipment aimed at consumers can produce results that once were the exclusive domain of major corporations: non-linear editing packages for PCs, easily-pirated Photoshop, video-capable DSLRs, etc.
17. Going along with that, it is much easier to access almost any fringe taste today with online communities. How would somebody in northern Minnesota know about the music of the North African diaspora in Paris or a little punk-and-ska band in Bielystock in 1999? What resources would he have and how easily would they be at his disposal if he were to become interested in infrared photography, operating a low-power LF radio propagation beacon, or spotting planes in the 1990s? Although this mainly applies to the early and mid-1990s, as those with "niche" hobbies were often the first to go on-line. Just search the Google Groups archive from the early-mid 1990s and before and see how many signatures contain an odd four-to-six letter and number combination. That's a ham radio license. Even non-hobby movements like Traditional Catholicism were hard to come by or find out about in the 1990's.

[Darkwolf131]

I don't think anybody can accurately critique the decade that they spent their infancy in. I was born in 1990 as well. I didn't understand the politics or the overall cultural consciousness because I started the decade in a crib and ended it in a fourth-grade classroom.

The 2000s are my "era"-- it was between 2000-2010 that I got my first job, first serious relationship, first presidential election, first car, first decisions about money/politics/education etc. so really, I grew up during the 2000s

[donniedarko]

Originally Posted by Darkwolf131

I don't think anybody can accurately critique the decade that they spent their infancy in. I was born in 1990 as well. I didn't understand the politics or the overall cultural consciousness because I started the decade in a crib and ended it in a fourth-grade classroom.

The 2000s are my "era"-- it was between 2000-2010 that I got my first job, first serious relationship, first presidential election, first car, first decisions about money/politics/education etc. so really, I grew up during the 2000s

A lot of my understanding of the 90's is certainly filled-in, like I didn't even know what rap was then or grunge, but I definitely remember what the decade felt like. It didn't really feel too different from today in my opinion but then again maybe I have too high expectations for how different the past is supposed to feel. For example films from the 1960s look absolutely ancient but maybe if they were filmed in HD and weren't scripted the way they were which was often a relic of a further-off time they'd seem amazingly modern and not too different from now aside from lack of our technology.

[Nolefan34]

The 90's and 2000's were VERY different and the original poster was dead wrong on several main points.

First, Grunge music does not exist anymore. It was invented in the late 80's by bands like REM, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, and was most popular from 1991 to 1997. After '97, Grunge largely faded and ceased to exist at all by 2000. Very few of the original Grunge bands are still around. Nirvana, Sublime, Soundgarten, Alice in Chains, Pantera, STP, Chili Peppers, Oasis, etc have all broken up, died, or retired. Green Day may be a rare exception, but I don't hear any of their music in top 100 charts anymore.

Second, Hip Hop was NOT popular during most of the 90's. Only in the very early 90's from '90 to '91 or so. By 1992, we had Gangsta Rap music dominating MTV. This would include artists such as Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dog, Ice Cube, Notorious B.I.G., and Tupac. Gangsta Rap is very different than Hip Hop. Gangsta Rap is about 187's on cops, ridin around your hood in a '64 Impala on 20 inch rims, and carrying a loaded pistol. Hip Hop is mostly about "The Club", spraying bottles of champaign on women, driving Mercedes Benz's, and wearing fancy jewelry and Italian suits. Gangsta Rap was most popular from 1992-1998, then faded out. By 2000, Hip Hop made a comeback.

Other huge differences between the 90's and 2000's is politics, the economy, 9/11, and the general attitudes of people. Cell phones also were a revolution around 2001 or so. While cell phones had been invented long before, it was around the year 2001 that it hit critical mass and everybody began having cell phones.

[Sol Invictus]

I was born in 1998 and I think you guys could use some perspective. Although I was fairly young, I still remember a lot of the 2000's, from about 2003 onwards (although I do remember select events from before). As I grew up in the 00's, all I know is what it was like then, and honestly, I don't believe my (early) childhood has been extremely different, or worse, than those of who grew up a decade earlier. My mind was not "corrupted" by the internet at a young age, I still hung out with my friends and played video games after school, and played football in the park by my middle school during the summer. The only differences were the details. I wasn't playing Street Fighter, I was playing Halo 3 on my Xbox 360, and watching Drake and Josh and Sponge Bob instead of All That and Are You Afraid of the Dark? I don't believe the political climate or the worse economy really affected my childhood. It obviously would affect adults, but as a kid, I was indifferent. In the past few years, I've become more politically minded and aware of the world, and things are different, and more harsh. But isn't that what its like for everybody? I think that the time after your years of adolescence and content ignorance, everyone wants to go back and experience the stress-free life they had as kids, whether that is in the 90's, 00's, or earlier.