# Are we perpetually stuck in the early 1990s? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 3, 2014, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570 "2014-05-03T08:17:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/21 "2014-05-03T14:14:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I doubt anyone still considers _Friends_ a hip show. The hip shows now are gritty dramas like _Breaking Bad_ and _Game of Thrones_. I recently asked an intern if she ever heard of the sitcom Coach, which began 5 years before Friends started and ended 7 years before it ended. She said that of course she did; she loved watching “classic” sitcoms with her parents. Now obviously Coach was never hip and it’s not a classic now, but I strongly suspect if you asked young people about Friends they’d react similarly. I don’t hear any adults who were around to watch it still talking about it either. ---
**Author:** ![SirGalahad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/71c47a/32.png) [@SirGalahad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirGalahad)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/22 "2014-05-03T14:26:56Z")
Other than notebooks/ tablets and smartphones, I can hardly tell the difference between '94 and 2014. Pop music is just as crappy. 1950 -1970: now that was 20 years with some changes. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/23 "2014-05-03T14:28:41Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > Aside from the boxy cars and porn theatres NYC in 1988 could easily pass for a scene from 2014. So, aside from the things that have changed, everything is the same. How philosophical. Also, regarding fashion, remember grunge? I was talking with some high school friends and saying that the girls that I went to don’t look like high school girls now. Either they look way, um, [different](http://cdn.rsvlts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Yoga-Pants-42-630x631.jpg), or I’m just not remembering things right. To which she responded “No, we did look like that, (minus the eye makeup) we just wore [baggy jeans and flannel shirts](http://bigmada.com/storage/miscpics/grunge.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1269291018311).” ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/24 "2014-05-03T14:42:31Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > We not living like the Jetson’s yet, which is how I had imagined we’d be when I was a kid back in 1990. But we ARE living in a very different milieu. It’s hard for me to figure how 1990 and 1999 were even in the same decade. Well I guess 1990 proper was still more what I’d call “the 80s”. Most of the 90s though resembles the 2000s and 2010s just with some more primitive 1980-esque stuff still lingering around. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/25 "2014-05-03T14:42:51Z")
I grew up in the the 1990’s. It is like a different world. Politically, culturally, technologically, socially. The world is different from 5 years ago, never mind 15. Look at pictures, look at news reports. Not pop culture. That tends to be cyclic and the early nineties are now far away enough to be retro cool again. ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/26 "2014-05-03T14:47:06Z")
> [@j666](#): > > Public support for women’s reproductive and health rights have changed a lot, too. Actually a slightly higher percentage of people in the US were pro-choice in the early 1990s, compared to now. I think that feminism is somewhat less popular than it was in the 90s too. ---
**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/27 "2014-05-03T14:47:49Z")
I’m going to hazard a guess and say that the OP was born in the mid-to-late 1980s. Things don’t seem to different to him because changes come gradually and the fashions, pop culture, etc… of the 1990’s are familiar to him. He sees a “massive difference” between 1966 and 1990 because of the things in 1966 that are unfamiliar. In 1966, I went to school dressed in jeans and a sport shirt. Yesterday, I went to work dressed in jeans and a sport shirt. Of course, the jeans I wore in 66 would have seemed a bit odd today and the shirt I wore yesterday would have stood out in 1966, but these are really minor differences in style. My wife and I just moved into a new house. She “had” to have a land line. Our cordless phones are still packed (somewhere), but she found an old black rotary phone she got in the 1980s- 1990s. Anyway, I made a call on it and to my surprise it worked! Now, it would not surprise me if the OP has never used a rotary phone; perhaps he has, but there are lots of people out there who haven’t. My point is that in 1990, you would be hard-pressed to fine anyone who would think a rotary phone was all that odd. A little unusual in a house, perhaps, but you could take a telephone out of a house in 1966 and put it in a 1990 house and probably the only thing that would look out of place was the jack (where it plugs into the wall) was different. Go the other way and take someone from 1990 and put them in a 1966 house and they won’t have any trouble using the phone. You take a telephone out of a house in 1990 and put it in a house today, and even us old farts will say “where’d you get the old phone. Does it still work?”. Going the other way, take an i-Phone and give it to someone in 1990 and they wouldn’t be able to work it. And, that’s just the telephone. How about: Cameras, TVs, portable music players (boom box vs MP3 player). The list just goes on. But, having lived through the introduction and changes of these items, they don’t seem all that drastic because you are familiar with the before and after. If you are only familiar with the before, the after view can be confusing and unsettling. If you are only familiar with the after, the before view is horribly dated. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/28 "2014-05-03T15:02:31Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > I grew up in the the 1990’s. It is like a different world. Politically, culturally, technologically, socially. > > The world is different from 5 years ago, never mind 15. Look at pictures, look at news reports. Not pop culture. That tends to be cyclic and the early nineties are now far away enough to be retro cool again. Hell, just step out of your door and watch all the pedestrians. Hardly anyone can walk nowadays without looking at their Smartphone at the same time. A 1995 transplant would immediately assume that everyone had been overtaken by the GameBoy overlords. ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/29 "2014-05-03T15:09:32Z")
Yup, the world still looks pretty much the same. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRN0hqlJN4 ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/30 "2014-05-03T15:42:12Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > Actually a slightly higher percentage of people in the US were pro-choice in the early 1990s, compared to now. I think that feminism is somewhat less popular than it was in the 90s too. ?? Slightly? Somewhat? Maybe I just associated with a very different type of person in the '90’s, but I think the difference is significant. People thought The Handmaid’s Tale was ridiculous then. Now … well, the most widely available and publicly supported form of birth control is gay marriage. (That snark needs work - it implies an opposition to SSM, which isn’t the case. I’m just appalled at how women’s options keep eroding.) ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/31 "2014-05-03T16:04:10Z")
God I hope we’re not doomed to a perpetual 1990. There’s only so much Paul Simon w/ Zulu choir a person can stand. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/32 "2014-05-03T16:06:25Z")
Another thing regarding the clothes people wear. If you just take ‘regular’ clothes, they’re mostly going to look the same from decade to decade. Right now, I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I could probably be dropped in the the 90’s the 70’s or the 50’s without being too out of place. It’s not that I’m wearing skinny jeans or bell bottoms or a tight white t-shirt tucked into my jeans and cigarettes rolled into the sleeve. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/33 "2014-05-03T16:12:47Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Another thing regarding the clothes people wear. If you just take ‘regular’ clothes, they’re mostly going to look the same from decade to decade. Right now, I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I could probably be dropped in the the 90’s the 70’s or the 50’s without being too out of place. It’s not that I’m wearing skinny jeans or bell bottoms or a tight white t-shirt tucked into my jeans and cigarettes rolled into the sleeve. Your jeans would likely stick out though, if you have bought jeans in the last decade. How many people are wearing stone-washed or frosted jeans today? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/34 "2014-05-03T16:45:57Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > So you wouldn’t consider Juicy J, Tyler the Creator, BOB etc rap? Paramore and Imagine Dragons isn’t alternative rock? I wouldn’t say it’s the same, I’m just saying if you compare music from 1990 (Vanilla Ice, NWA, Paula Abdul, Bobby Brown, the Beastie Boys, Madonna’s “Vogue”) to circa 1966 music (The Beatles, Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys, Petula Clark, Four Seasons, Grateful Dead) and to the 2014 music forementioned it’s pretty obvious it’s far closer to the latter. The _Beastie Boys_ are pop? Since when? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/35 "2014-05-03T17:19:50Z")
> [@Flywheel](#): > > Kurt Andersen said [as much](http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2012/01/prisoners-of-style-201201) two years ago. _“…the appearance of the world (computers, TVs, telephones, and music players aside) has changed hardly at all…”_ Reminds me of the old “Other than that, how was the parade, Mrs Kennedy?” joke. Yes, if we ignore stunning and massive advancements to technology that has completely revolutionized the way we interact as a society, the ways we entertain ourselves and the way we learn about the world then nothing has changed :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/36 "2014-05-03T18:59:40Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > _“…the appearance of the world (computers, TVs, telephones, and music players aside) has changed hardly at all…”_ > > Reminds me of the old “Other than that, how was the parade, Mrs Kennedy?” joke. Yes, if we ignore stunning and massive advancements to technology that has completely revolutionized the way we interact as a society, the ways we entertain ourselves and the way we learn about the world then nothing has changed :rolleyes: Exactly. People reach this conclusion by handwaving away the most pervasive, fundamental changes in both the appearance and process of modern life. Not only have things changed enormously, the _way things change_ has changed. We’ve moved to a more accretive, niche-rich culture; the monolithic cycles people like Andersen seem to expect are fossils. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/37 "2014-05-03T19:08:40Z")
> [@kellner](#): > > … > My grandmother wore non-iron floral print house dresses in the 21st century and perhaps in your world Nirvana and MC Hammer are as modern as ever. NOT going to try to touch this, it’s way too legit. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/38 "2014-05-03T20:29:54Z")
A few months ago my kid and I watched _Clueless_, which came out either the year he was born or the year after. I noted that, while the girls wore things that are not necessarily fashionable now, the boys looked just exactly like the kids at his school. Low-slung pants etc. Shortly after that, he started wearing skinnier pants and at least trying to keep their waistline around his waist. (Win!) ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/39 "2014-05-03T20:40:28Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > … > I noted that, while the girls wore things that are not necessarily fashionable now, the boys looked just exactly like the kids at his school. Low-slung pants etc. > > Shortly after that, he started wearing skinnier pants and at least trying to keep their waistline around his waist. (Win!) One of the things that I’ve noticed (from casual observation) is that boys are much more into jewelry now. Back in the 90’s, jewelry on boys was very much a subculture thing. Nowadays, it’s pretty typical for boys to wear a necklace for no obvious reason than they like it or that it is special to them in some way (e.g. maybe a girl gave it to them \<3). ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570/40 "2014-05-03T20:44:45Z")
> [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](#): > > I’m going to hazard a guess and say that the OP was born in the mid-to-late 1980s. Things don’t seem to different to him because changes come gradually and the fashions, pop culture, etc… of the 1990’s are familiar to him. He sees a “massive difference” between 1966 and 1990 because of the things in 1966 that are unfamiliar. > > In 1966, I went to school dressed in jeans and a sport shirt. Yesterday, I went to work dressed in jeans and a sport shirt. Of course, the jeans I wore in 66 would have seemed a bit odd today and the shirt I wore yesterday would have stood out in 1966, but these are really minor differences in style. > > My wife and I just moved into a new house. She “had” to have a land line. Our cordless phones are still packed (somewhere), but she found an old black rotary phone she got in the 1980s- 1990s. Anyway, I made a call on it and to my surprise it worked! > > Now, it would not surprise me if the OP has never used a rotary phone; perhaps he has, but there are lots of people out there who haven’t. My point is that in 1990, you would be hard-pressed to fine anyone who would think a rotary phone was all that odd. A little unusual in a house, perhaps, but you could take a telephone out of a house in 1966 and put it in a 1990 house and probably the only thing that would look out of place was the jack (where it plugs into the wall) was different. Go the other way and take someone from 1990 and put them in a 1966 house and they won’t have any trouble using the phone. You take a telephone out of a house in 1990 and put it in a house today, and even us old farts will say “where’d you get the old phone. Does it still work?”. Going the other way, take an i-Phone and give it to someone in 1990 and they wouldn’t be able to work it. > > And, that’s just the telephone. How about: Cameras, TVs, portable music players (boom box vs MP3 player). The list just goes on. But, having lived through the introduction and changes of these items, they don’t seem all that drastic because you are familiar with the before and after. If you are only familiar with the before, the after view can be confusing and unsettling. If you are only familiar with the after, the before view is horribly dated. This, exactly. I was going to say pretty much the same thing. This is an age effect. I came of age at the beginning of the '70s, and even today (let alone the early '90s, which seem like practically yesterday to me), it seems like the world today is the same world that I grew up in…which it is, of course, despite the fact that have been all sorts of little changes, that add up to a lot of change. By contrast, the 1930s and '40s, when my parents grew up, and which I never experienced but only heard about, seems like a different, unfamiliar world. As for music, never mind Nirvana still being listened to, kids today still listen to The Beatles! (I know. I have teenaged daughters.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-perpetually-stuck-in-the-early-1990s/687570.md?page=3)