Y’know who was far more popular than The Cranberries in 1995? Alanis Morissette.
I knew the Internet was coming by 1990, since I was in library school then. 1993 was the year I moved from East Tennessee to Brooklyn. In 1994 I had a girl friend for the first time since 1986. She dumped me before the year was out, but I met Ms. P the next year. I experienced living in a city where a team won the World Series for the first time (and last, until a little over a week ago). I remember some people who were younger than me being into seventies nostalgia, but having lived through it (I was born in 1964) I wasn’t interested. Son number one was conceived, but wouldn’t enter the world until the following year. Overall, this is a time that I look back on with great fondness; my life turned around.
Overall, the 90s were pretty great.
I lived in Vegas most of that time. Garbage jobs, horrible girlfriends. I remember crap music, exactly where I was when the radio said Kurt Cobain was dead, getting propositioned by the ‘Facts of Life’ Girl, and lots of other miserable shit. It sucked, hard.
But the 80’s were better. 
Eighties? Worst freaking decade of my life. Worst decade for music, even considering that disco happened in the seventies.
It’s literally a generation ago. Someone born in 1993 is old enough to be your annoying, know-it-all 26 year-old boss at some tech startup ;).
I was in my mid-thirties and teaching high school. I’ll answer your questions in order, as best I can.
!) There wasn’t anything particularly stand-out about the era. Every era seems stand-out to people later on. At the time, we were finally moving past the Eighties. Bill Clinton was President, and we thought it was about time someone younger took the helm. Technology was changing faster than I could adapt and seemed full of possibilities, but I was not unaware of the drawbacks.
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The Seventies revival vibe came much later. At the time, it was just lame. I mean, disco? gag (I still feel that way.)
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We still thought there was some dignity to the presidency. If we’d known how badly the whole office was going to go downhill in January, 2017, we’d have been appalled, Republicans and Democrats alike. I’d say in general, we were more secure than we are today. The USSR had collapsed, and the economy, while not great in 1993, grew exponentially. But there were staggering issues. Unspeakable genocide in Rwanda. Global climate change and the extinction of species. Healthcare was a huge concern, belief it or not. Newt Gingrich and his immense ego were Speaker of the House and pushed the BS “Contract with America,” the start of the hyper-partisan nastiness today.
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Multi-media itself was a new thing. I recall a teacher inservice in 1993 where we saw that kids would actually be able to include movie clips in projects–AND they’d be able to submit everything online! And we’d be able to collaborate with teachers across the globe! We were amazed. So cool!
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No. It only seems optimistic because we know how it turned out. It’s true that with the USSR in shambles, we were no longer worried about the Cold War and nuclear annihilation, but we had plenty of other things to worry about.
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Sure the US was healthier politically. Since we’re now so politically unhealthy, 1993-1997 seems positively robust. But keep in mind that Newt Gingrich, with his whacko theories, was big.
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I don’t know when Grunge fell off, precisely. I know that in 1993, most of my students were Nirvana fans. In 1994, Kurt Cobain killed himself, which upset my students but didn’t end Grunge. Like most trends, Grunge ended not with a bang but a whimper.
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Oh, geez. Many of my students did like Korn and Limp Bizkit, as well as Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Counting Crows. So were Tupac and the Notorious BIG and a slew of rappers who DIDN’T die, like Dr. Dre. And then there were Boys II Men, Hootie and the Blowfish, Stone Temple Pilots, Blues Traveler, and teen idols like Brandy. It’s not like there was only one musical genre. I’d make the distinction at people over 30, not people over 40. And it depended. Genesis was big. So was Mariah Carey. Annie Lenox. Michael Bolton. And a host of others, some of whom I, an over-30, didn’t like. I’m not into country so can’t help there.
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Neither. My students taught me the Macarena early in the trend. It was fun, if silly. I didn’t hate it.
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You could answer this one by Googling. I liked The Cranberries. Many of my students liked The Cranberries. Huge? Well, huge internationally. Big domestically.
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I was teaching and raising two kids. I was moderately Progressive and living in a conservative area. I remember telling my students that whatever their parents shook their heads at then, their kids would laugh at one day. It’s proven true.
Honestly, it’s hard to characterize an entire era. How would you characterize the 2010’s?
I was a teenager too at least until 97, and I remember it differently. We all swore we wouldn’t wear bell bottoms, and just a few neo-hippies in my dorm decided to make their own bell bottoms by tearing the bottom seams and sewing in panels of patchwork cloth they got from Joann fabrics. Everyone else wore normal jeans still, though a little less straight-legged and no one was pegging them anymore by 96. Boot cut jeans didn’t arrive until the very end of the decade.
You didn’t do it right.
Multimedia was largely defined for the general public by Microsoft Encarta in 1993 which incorporated an entire encyclopedia with audio and video clips. I don’t remember when I got disc (I got my first PC in 1986), but was fascinated by the ability to play (really small, low quality) video from a CD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encarta
The same year, The 7th Guest with its full motion video scenes broke new ground for many also. For me, the fascination with the graphics and videos was overshadowed by the complexity of the puzzles, so I never got very far into the game and soon gave up on it.
Multimedia was a buzzword, but I would say didn’t really take off until the early 2000’s with the rise of the internet. Prior to that, CD-ROM capacity was too small, CD read speed too slow (home DVD burners and readers were still years away) and video compression too large to be feasible.
I got on the internet in 1995 initially with with a 33.6K and AOL, Prodigy, Compuserve and whatever free trials were available, until going with local ISP which posted a 56K connection! Videos were limited to 160x240 max and would take hours to download. Shockwave (then Macromedia, later Adobe) was introduced as a multimedia creation tool, but it was a bear to work with and limited in its capabilities. It was used in a large number of multimedia CD releases, but it required installation from the disc if you didn’t already have it installed.
I am 44 years old and graduated high school in 1993. I was living in northern New England in pretty rural area.
**What do you remember of the mid 90s in general - the period say starting January 1993 to the end of 1997?
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I remember watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Also* The Simpsons* and South Park(which debuted on August 13, 1997). Of course there was The X-Files(one of the defining shows of the 90s). Other Shows I watched include Beavis and Butthead, Law & Order, and ER.
It wasthe height of the “Trash TV” daytime talk shows: Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, Ricki Lake, Jenny Jones among others. Maury seems to be the only one left doing the format.
Also Kevin Smith released his first movie Clerks in 1994 and Quentin Tarantino releases his first movie Reservoir Dogs in 1992. There were the “cool” directors of the period.
Was there a strong 70s revival vibe? If so, when? I don’t remember this at all. Granted I lived out in the country in rural New Hampshire so we really didn’t follow all the latest trends and fads.
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How did the general feeling in the US differ from today?**
I’d say the 9/11 attacks has made the general feeling today a lot more scared and apprehensive. People seem more cautious than were before.
Was the “Multimedia Revolution” actually a huge thing, especially amongst Boomers? I can’t say I noticed anything in regards to this.
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Was it really as optimistic a time as it seems in hindsight?**
I’d say YES. With the collapse of Communism and the rise of the Internet the 90s made everyone fairly optimistic about the future.
Would you say the US was healthier in some ways politically?
I remember the Clinton years and The Republican Revolution in 1994 in which they took over The House and Senate. There was plenty of vitriol back then too. There were right-wing militia groups screaming about how the Clintons were going to confiscate all fire-arms and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 was commited by a former militia member. I am not sure if it is actually worse today but the use of the Internet and Social media by extremists has definitely made it seem that way.
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When did Grunge/Post Grunge/etc fall off? Did people in their early/mid 20s in the 90s like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, etc?
What music did people above 40 in say 1995 listen to? Were the Cranberries a huge band in 1994-1995?**
I’d say grunge fell off in 1994 when Kurt Cobain died and Pearl Jam fought against TicketMaster. It is also when I stopped watching MTV and following popular music closely. As for the bands you mentioned I never really listened to them at all.
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Do you recall the Macarena fondly or with horror?** I found the song annoying then and now.
Just try to give me a snapshot of what the mid 90s seemed like for someone who was between their mid 20s and early/mid 40s in 1993-1997. Am curious to hear different perspectives on the whole era.
The thing I remember most was the beginnings of the modern Internet and the Dot.com bubble. Amazon and Yahoo! was started in 1994. eBay in 1995. Google in 1998. geoCities was a popular place for creating personal web pages. It was a fun place to be.
Also I was big fan of pro wrestling(WWF and WCW) during this period but I won’t go into much detail about that.
This is before the timeline in the OP, but I got my first cell phone 1989. It was a Panasonic and cost $799. Service was ~$70-80/month with NO free minutes. That was charged at $0.90/minute. That same year, I started working for the City and County and was on call to the Mayor’s office. At first they gave me a pager, but when they learned that I was responding to the page with my personal phone, they gave me a Motorola Dynatac Classic II?, about 1/2 as thick as the Zack Morris phone. This was State of the Art, same as what the Mayor had! The bill was paid by the City and County, but now I had no excuse for not answering. Fortunately, I was on call only during regular work hours.
Boring. Music, especially. I was delving into the back catalogue of famous singers/bands for the good stuff : Bowie in particular, and to a lesser extent Elton John and Billy Joel but also New Wave / Cold Wave / Gothic / Industrial acts from 10-15 years earlier. Also discovering the golden age of Jazz (1945-1975) and, without admitting it, starting to make my way back towards Classical Music.
The only new acts that got some of my attention at the time were Björk, Radiohead, Portishead and The Cardigans.
In general, no, I don’t think so.
Not an American. But in Europe, the general vibe was optimistic thanks to the incredibly easy end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
I first heard of the Internet and cell phones while living in London in late 1994. Clearly a turning point for me as far as techonology is concerned though it would be 4-5 more years before I adopted them myself. At the time, I remember cell phones being used mainly by important business people with a hectic life and poseurs who pretended to be important business people with a hectic life. The Internet was a hit with people of my age, but few of us had PCs at the time and connection speed was appaling. Still, the appeal was clear and we were quick to respond to it.
Yes, pretty much compared to the 80s and definitely compared to now.
See above.
It was starting to grow seriously stale by early 1993.
Some metalheads embraced nu-metal, others, like me, didn’t.
Céline Dion was huge. 70s stars who were still around way past their heydays. Some current harmless hits.
Neither. It was annoying at the time, but only because it was everywhere and inescapable. Nowadays, I don’t mind hearing it a couple of times a year but I sure don’t go out of my way to listen to it. It reminds me of a good time in my life, but that’s not directly related to the song itself.
Huge would be an exaggeration but they sure were big, along with a dozen other British bands at the time.
HEY! I’ll have you know that my (about 20 years younger than me) doctor says I’m officially a young woman. Pft.
That I was BUUUUSSSYYYYYY. 1993, finished 5th year of university, sent applications to multiple grad schools in the US, started my Project (undergrad thesis)… 1994 got accepted, finished Project, moved to US, started grad-student life. April of 1997, I found out that my grad advisor had been purposefully sabotaging my career and those of other foreign students, thinking that since we were foreigners and he was American he could do that with impunity. I napalm’d his career: his most important article still is and will forever remain the one which bears my name. Got my “masters without thesis” (that is, my PhD dropout degree), got a job. I had no time and no money but damn was I BUSY!
And I got to work in the US and in Germany (researchers’ exchange, the Germans sent a German and the Americans sent a Spaniard), met a bunch of nice people, some not so nice and some extremely stupid people… was a founding member of a couple of student clubs, had a lot of first dates which felt completely surreal (seriously, any dude who sincerely believes that “a woman must always make less than her husband” simply sholdn’t ask engineers who are in grad school to go on dates :smack:), became a Wench of a Renfair-style group, and generally proved that you can have a damn good time while having no time and no money 
A what de what? There was a mild attempt at bringing bellbottoms back during 2001, but that’s after your period.
I don’t even know what is that question supposed to mean.
I don’t know about your Boomers, but this 1968 vintage was born at the peak of the Spanish Population Boom (our postwar hunger didn’t end until the mid-1960s, so no postwar population boom) and I still remember Brother Librarian so excited, telling me that CAS was now available, not only as books or as CDs, but directly through the phone! There was this new system that let computers call other computers and you could use it to consult the latest CAS, without waiting for the next year’s editions; this would have been in 1993 IIRC.
And I remember my first rlogin (to Harvard) and my first sight of a webpage. The browser was Mozilla and the page included a picture of a molecule along with its topographic matrix. Mind you, the servers my colleagues and I used in our research had less power than my current cellphone, but hey.
Your question sounds as if you think it was an inordinately optimistic period. To me it looks as if THIS is an inordinately pessimistic period. We’re being sold fear and hate, because fear and hate mean more money for the people who give more of a shit about money than about any human other than the one whose company they can’t avoid.
Well, for starters Trump wasn’t president, so yeah.
I don’t know, I managed to skip all that.
The only one of those that I know I’d be able to recognize some of their songs is Limp Bizkit. I know I’ve seen references to Korn, but their songs and my ears just don’t mesh. I can tell you that I discovered Red Hot Chili Peppers in a free concert fronted by Marilyn Manson (who I still can’t stand, but my friends really liked his work; good workmanship in the concert).
But then, I was in my mid-late 20s and made a lot of fun of my “independent”-listening friends when they discovered Shania Twain over one year after I did. I listened to multiple local radio stations including the country one (WKIS); they didn’t.
Which people? I didn’t hear the same things in Calle Ocho and at the university…
I’m from Spain and female. Don’t get me started.
Apparently, but I mainly know them because oldies’ stations like to have that chick wail ZOOOOOOM BIIIIIIII!
I had stopped listening to top 40 radio by 1993. The 90’s music passed me by.
I primarily remember the change in computers. Purchasing Sound Blaster kits from Best Buy. It included a CD ROM drive, sound card, and software. I updated a bunch of 486 PC’s for friends and customers.
I got my first ATI TV Tuner/ video capture board and got very interested in video editing.
My boss made me carry a beeper.
Star Trek TNG, DS9, Jag, Hercules, and Xena were my favorite TV shows.
More on the Multimedia Revolution
Also, regarding the relatively primitive computers of that era…this was a video game sex symbol in 1996. (SFW picture 
)
As long as he stays off my lawn. 
I was 45 in 1993.
Missed the edit window.
The general public may have been aware of the coming Multimedia Revolution, but it would still be years off before it would come to most homes.
I worked for a company that had a small crew working on creating a custom multimedia CD for a realtor that was never completed. Macromedia (later Adobe) Shockwave was capable of mixing text, graphics, video and audio together, but it required installation on the user’s PC. It would have been a snap to use Shockwave, but the customer required that no additional software be required for playback of the CD. Other obstacles were slow CD reader speed (the disc had to be able to run on a 1x reader) and many people didn’t even have a sound card. There were multimedia games like The 7th Guest available, but that was bought and played by people who were willing to buy the expensive faster CD drives and compatible sound card.
Broadband wouldn’t become common until the early mid 2000’s or later, so must websites were designed to the viewable by 56K max modems. Also, webspace, because of high hard drive prices was expensive. I have all the elements of my first website and it’s a whopping 1.37MB! hosted on the 5MB space allotted by my ISP in 1996. I later moved and redid the site at Geocities which offered free webspace, I think 20 or 25MB. This was a whopping 13.1MB which was mostly taken up by video clips up to 2MB each!
I got cable broadband in 1999, but my 10Mb/s down, 2Mbs, but this was faster than what most servers were able to feed to me.
Not much re culture or current events. In '92 I bought a house in the mountains (my first that I still live in and now own). And I got a great job that I still have.
There was no TV reception at my house, I counted on VCHS tapes that my brother recorded for me (yes, I have seen every episode of Seinfeld, and can almost quote entire shows).
I do for sure recall that people where getting much more uptight about shit. In the '80s it was no big deal to fire up some MJ in a park as long as you where at least a little bit discrete about it. Grab a case of beer and throw up a volleyball net and have fun with a dozen friends. Sure you can still do that. But dam near everything seems to need some sort of permit now.
Camping involved a tent a cooler and a way to start a fire. Follow your nose and pick a place. That started to change in the 90’s. Too many people just started to fuck things up and just didn’t do it right. Zero respect. They started leaving trash around and couldn’t seem to make a safe fire. Or figure out how to put it out before they left. A lot of jeep trails have since just been shut down.