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I'm 60, so just imagine how 'simple' my life was, 50 years ago!!
My take on this, as I've seen it repeat over and over again, is this:
When you're 'little', you want to be 'bigger'.
When you hit your teens, you want to be old enough to drive!!
When you're old enough to drive, you can't wait to be 21!!!
When you make it to 21 -- which is often celebrated by going out drinking, just because you can (and even though you've probably been doing it for years already!) -- you look forward to finally being the only one who's controlling your life and telling you what to do, either at that point or right after you finish college!!
(Until you're in a pretty solid relationship. Then, you each have some give and take on what's allowable and what's not but, basically, you're still pretty much the captain of your own ship.)
Then you settle into being an adult. You probably have a career/job, you might buy a house at this point, get married or at least permanently hooked up with someone, and start a family of your own.
(Although in this economy, that's changed somewhat drastically. More people in this age bracket have been 'reduced' to moving back in with mom and dad. But hopefully, you still have more autonomy than when you were not yet of legal age.)
But it seems as though it's at this age that instead of only looking forward, you start to look back, as well.
I worked at a place that had over 400 employees. There were pretty much people of all ages. There were 16 year olds. There was actually a 101 yr, old, LOL!!!
So when you'd be eating your lunch in the breakroom, there'd be a good mix of ages.
The teens and 20-somethings all talked about what was NOW!!! They're up on everything that's new and cutting edge.
They could give a rat's ass about what they were doing 5 or 10 years ago!!
But then you'd have the 30-somethings and, for them, while they were still pretty much up on whatever the latest buzz was, their conversations would sometimes turn to the things that were no longer an everyday part of their life.
They'd get very animated when talking to each other about stuff like, 'Hey!!! Remember how great Beavis and Butthead was!!!?' or 'Man!!! I really loved Ren and Stimpy!!'
And then they remember their favorite episodes and go into them in great detail!!
And talk about the concerts they attended and make references to songs that were number one with a bullet -- a decade or so earlier.
Or talk about the hit movies that were just the best ever!!! (Movies that the 20-somethings had never seen and some that they'd never even heard of.)
And do you know what the 20-somethings did when these conversations took place?
They'd sneak peeks at each other and roll their eyes, LOLOLOL!!!!!!
For the most part, they weren't even amused by it.
'Nostalgia', at that tender an age, was considered to be quite pathetic!!
But just wait.
When they get into their 30's, they'll start doing the same darn thing! LOL!!!
Once you reach the age where you no longer want to be older than you are, you start gaining a new appreciation for what you had when you were younger -- and busy wanting to be older!!
And just wait until you're 60, like me!!!
(But I'll just leave that horror alone and you can wait until you get there yourselves and find out what it's like, LOL!!!)
I don't think it's weird for you to be obsessed with what your life was filled with when you were 10 - 14!!
I think it's the natural progression of things!
This post reflects the trend in Hollywood of middle-aged film executives making films or series about the time period of their youth some 20 or so years earlier. Examples include
- "Happy Days" - a TV series about the 1950s that was popular in the 1970s
- "That 70s Show" - a TV series about (you guessed it) the 70s that was popular in the late 90s to 2000s.
- "The People vs OJ" - a TV series about the mid 1990s released in 2016
The same goes with films
- "Platoon", "The Doors" - films by middle-aged Oliver Stone, a Vietnam Veteran made in the late 80s and early 90s
- "Detroit Rock City" - a film about the Rock band "KISS"in the late 70s made in the late 90s
- "Buddy Holly Story" - a film about the early Rock N' Roll singer who died in the 50s. It was made in 1979.
So, there is a pattern of middle-aged executives in film and TV making shows set in the time period of their youth some 20+ years or so earlier. That means that in 2039 there will be middle-aged film makers at that time likely making a film or series about 2019 - lol.
Is this weird? I’m not sure if this is because of the decade or if this was because of my childhood, but I’m obsessed with the mid – late 90s (I was between the ages of 10 – 14).
Sometimes I’ll just pick random dates from the 90s that I remember what I was doing, and google them. I’ll watch commercials and clips of events from the 90s on YouTube. I prefer to listen to 90s music over anything else. I like to listen to old radio shows from the 90s, look at photos from the 90s, read about past events and think about what I was doing when they happened.
It seems like such a simpler and happier time. There was good music on the radio, no smart phones, dial up Internet, Simpsons, portable CD players, no digital cameras, etc…
Is this normal to be this obsessed with your childhood memories? Is something wrong with me?
It's not weird at all! In fact, I'm right there with you! I was born in '88, and my sister was born in '82. I have fond memories of my childhood all the time. Whether it be coming home after school to watch Power Rangers and Gargoyles, to going to Blockbuster on a Friday night to rent a movie, or having sleepovers and playing SNES at a friends house. My sister and I had an NES, and we took turns playing Super Mario Bros 1, 2, and 3, and beat them together. I remember when Pokemon first came out and how crazy my friends and I went over it. The classic sound a Gameboy made when you powered it up, the Pizza Hut, BK, and Mc Donald's (or should I say Mickey D's) commercials and how awesome they were.
The music was awesome too. I remember my sister blasting Bigge's first album on cassette in her room and my Dad yelling that the bass was shaking the walls LOL! Friday nights were a lot of fun. My parents would order a pizza, and after dinner, we would all sit together in the living room for ABC's TGIF lineup. We'd all laugh to Family Matters, Step By Step, and Full House. Fresh Prince was another family favorite. Man do I miss those days!
I was born in 87, so most of my childhood was spent in the 90s.
.......Nope. Don't miss it. lol. The music scene in particular in the 90s seemed to be in a bad state of confusion. No artist knew where the trend was going.
I won't miss the 2000s either. And the 2010s......OMG these are the WORST YEARS YET!!! I can't wait to be an adult AND have a good economy to thrive in. I wonder if it will ever happen.
Ummm, what?! How do you figure?! The 90's gave us a lot of great music and artists, and paved the way for how music in the 2000's would be. Hip Hop was in its golden years. You had 2Pac, Biggie, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Wu Tang, Eminem, Nas, Jay-Z, DMX, Redman, and many more blowing up and making amazing albums. Rock started off strong and we had a handful of great bands, although around '99 it began to fizzle out, and was basically deemed dead in the 2000's. A ton of amazing R&B artists emerged on the scene as well. Pop groups became a big hit, and launched successful careers for people like Justin Timberlake. Girls argued over Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Techno blew up and got huge, and artists like Daft Punk were performing on a global scale.
I'm often grateful to have been a teenager in the 90's. I got some really unusual experiences out of it. I've got a few regrets, a little of this and that I wish I'd done differently...but a lot of that stuff shaped who I am, and I still love it.
I listen to a lot of music from the 80's and 90's. I was born in 79, so the 90's were my teenage years. I still love 80's synth pop and new wave, and the 90's goth that evolved from that. I was a pretty decadent young person. I was swooning over the video for Nine Inch Nails' song, "Closer" and watching The Maxx and Space Ghost: Coast to Coast while stoned out of my mind. I had a lot of CDs from bands on the Cleopatra label, with some classic rock and grunge and metal and "what genre even, is this?" like Primus thrown in. Lots of candlelight, sex, drugs & rock n' roll. I made some pretty cool artwork back then, too. I would give much to have my leather trenchcoat back, but I seriously cannot find anything like it now.
First concert I ever went to was in 1995, it was David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails, with a band I also loved (still do) called Prick. Another of those Trent Reznor involved and inspired projects, but one that didn't really make it big. I went with a boy named Scott, who was probably my favorite of the boys I had fun with back then...he had the prettiest hair I'd ever seen. Like 3 feet long, dark golden and silky and thick. And he drove a Camaro. Sadly, last I heard, he'd lost the hair and drives a Frito-Lay truck. Ah, well.
What I find interesting I guess is that, while it took a really long time and some detours, I do feel as though my present day self, is making good on things my teenage self might have wished for. I feel like I am actualizing myself in ways that she had the vaguest of half-cooked hopes and dreams about back then. I had a hazy idea of what I wanted my adult self to look and act and be like...and while it isn't always quite as glamorous as I might have thought it would be, in some ways it's even better. I wonder sometimes, if most people have lived up to whatever it was they hoped or dreamed for in their youth? Do you feel like you let younger you down? Or that they would be proud of who you grew up to be? There are moments where I feel like I am communicating, sending signals back to my own self across the decades of time, with a nod and a wink and a reason to keep going, because we're gonna wind up in some cool places, not to be missed out on.
I'm born in 79 as well, and my childhood nostalgia is the 80s! Kids playing outside, no feeling of danger where I lived, cutting edge technology with Nintendo but that was about it. Great arcade games like 1987 Double Dragon, Ghost n Goblins, Shinobi. WWF Wrestling with Hulk Hogan, Rock n Wrestling. Saturday morning cartoons but also before and after school. Toys toys and more toys! Just look at 80s commercials and it was still that innocent age. The warm fuzzy feelings.
I will say that in my later 20s/earlier 30s, I was very nostalgic of my childhood of the 80s. 1990s when middle school started, it became much more show-offy, etc. The stuff and stress of teens. My teenage years were great too, but there was worry about school, conscious about things that didn't exist before. 90s really was the last definable age IMO progress still occurred. Music really modernized in the latter half as well as tech. It seems we've just been incrementally changing since then. I read somewhere from a music guru that around 1999 saw the change to a fundamental change in recording music (more digital). So every since then, you actually don't get this real music sound as before.
Look into Nostalgia, while it's good and can be a source of happiness, it can actually also reflect unhappiness or uncertainty of your place in the present and where you think it'll go. It can actually induce depression. Having young children now, it has largely reduced that type of nostalgia, and see my 1st being a mirror image of myself as a kid so in that way, I'm living through it but from the outside. Now I'm looking forward to older age where I can get some time to myself again.. but not looking forward to the aging part. C'est la vie.
Ok seriously I am the same way! I loved the 90s. Smart phones killed our creativity.
I loved Windows 95 CD ROM... With the games, music videos, back when MTV and vh1 would play music videos. I loved the toys... Fashion.
Target has been selling 90s style clothes in my area BTW....
I watch commercials from that time on YouTube.
Anyway no you are not weird op.
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