One difference I failed to mention in my earlier post is how everything is more open now thanks to the widespread use of camera phones and social media.
For instance, videos of police brutality are spread across social media and become national news. Granted the video of Rodney King’s beating by the LAPD became national news in 1991 but that in part was because, at the time, actual video of such instances were rare. Nowadays such videos are regularly occurence and people have started to become de-sensitized to the violence.
And it’s not just police brutality. Videos of hate crimes and rallies, kids being bullied in school, people having public outburst are spread all over the internet. Stuff that 20 to 40 years would be only covered by local news(if even at all) is now spread online nationally even globally.
So it is hard for me to say the political discourse is worse today than back then because what I have written above has changed the whole landscape. Everything is more open. Every one can express their opinions online through social media and it makes extremists seem more prominent than they actually are.
I’m 54.
What do you remember of the mid 90s in general - the period say starting January 1993 to the end of 1997?
There was this feeling that we had reached the “end of history”: The Cold War was over and the “War on terror” had not begun. It was a hopeful time.
Was there a strong 70s revival vibe? If so, when?
Not really.
How did the general feeling in the US differ from today?
It was more optimistic, I would say.
Was the “Multimedia Revolution” actually a huge thing, especially amongst Boomers?
You mean the internet? Yes, it was exciting to see the beginnings of the World Wide Web. It opened up a whole new world. America Online was fun and completely new. Plus, Seinfeld was “Must See TV”.
Was it really as optimistic a time as it seems in hindsight?
I think so.
Would you say the US was healthier in some ways politically?
Yes! There was obviously competition between Democrats and Republicans. There was an impeachment over Clinton’s trivial lie about sexual relations, and Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America” was launched following the Republican takeover of the House in 1994. But there was more civility and more chance that the parties could compromise and work together.
When did Grunge/Post Grunge/etc fall off?
When Kurt Cobain killed himself.
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?
I suppose some did. I was 30 and listened to R.E.M., Tori Amos, Happy Rhodes. It was a great time musically.
Do you recall the Macarena fondly or with horror?
It was kind of a joke to me.
Were the Cranberries a huge band in 1994-1995?
I was a teenager so a bit younger than your target demographic. I recall the 70s nostalgia being more of a teenage girl thing, at least at my school. This may have been due to the influence of one of the “cool” younger teachers who was born around 1971 and used to rock bell bottoms and 70s shirts. Some of the girls in my class tended to follow the style and started listening to the Grease soundtrack a lot (nostalgia on nostalgia for kids who weren’t even born at the time to be nostalgic about it!). One girl I know had a mood ring, inspired by My Girl.
Flannel was still a big thing around 95 to 97 but not really in a grungy way. It was in a bright, colorful clean-cut kind of way - refer JTT in his prime. Speaking of - the 90s middle part. If you wanted girls to like you, you had to be able to pull it off.
Multimedia to me basically meant CD-ROMs, like Encarta (basically Wikipedia on a CD-ROM with actual reliable encyclopedia-level content) and Cinemania (an interactive movie guide that basically collated the various movie guides that were put out every year in book format by reviewers like Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin and Pauline Kael). It wasn’t really much of a thing until the late 90s and most kids I knew didn’t necessarily have a computer at home. The internet was expensive, crazy slow and primitive by today’s standards. It was mostly blindingly colorful fan pages with little Under Construction icons with the bulldozer and if you were super cool, a counter that would tally how many people visited your page. And forget kids with cell phones! Most kids’ parents didn’t even have one until the late 90s. I didn’t get my Nokia 1610 until I went off to college.
I’ve been really feeling the 90s nostalgia the last few years with all that’s gone on in the world this century. It felt like the last optimistic era in American history before 9/11, the GFC, smartphone zombies and Trump.
What do you remember of the mid 90s in general - the period say starting January 1993 to the end of 1997?
I was born in 1972, so this would have been around my sophomore year in college through me being a few years into my career with a technology consulting firm in Boston. So shows and films like Friends, Singles, Reality Bites and so on were largely targeted at and ostensibly about my demographic (Gen X). Was there a strong 70s revival vibe? If so, when?
Not so much, although class rock acts like Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and so on were popular. How did the general feeling in the US differ from today?
This time period is mostly pre-internet bubble, unless you were specifically in that industry. There was no Fox News, so you didn’t have 24 hour broadcasting of conservative propaganda.
I think there was a general feeling that, with the end of the Cold War, we were in a transitional period. Changes in ideas about employment, family, etc. A lot of Gen-X felt very directionless or unsure about what we would transition to or out place in that. A lot of the pulp culture of the time reflected a sense of apprehension, ambivalence or ennui.
Was the “Multimedia Revolution” actually a huge thing, especially amongst Boomers?
Not with Boomers. More Gen X. It really was a huge an exciting time. Prior to 1995, most of us never used email (even though it was available at school). No one had cell phones. Unless you were a comp-sci guy or hobbyist, most people were not included to fuck around with a modem to connect to bulletin boards or whatever.
To meet people out somewhere, we had to make PLANS ahead of time. Everyone couldn’t just go out and randomly cherry pick where they wanted to go based on whose texts or media postings looked the most enticing.
Even driving directions, you had to carry around a map and written directions.
When I graduated college in 1995, we were sending paper resumes with cover letters through the mail and 90% of the time, received a written response back.
Prior to Napster, we traded in mix tapes/CDs or actually had to buy music.
Was it really as optimistic a time as it seems in hindsight?
It became optimistic around 1995 when Gen-X discovered we had an alternative to working at some stuffy, boring company we hated, eating shit for 30 years, hoping to move up the corporate ladder. There were awesome jobs in tech, lots of them and no sense yet of the potential downsides. Would you say the US was healthier in some ways politically?
It was “healthier” in that without 24 hour news coverage besides CNN or social media, you didn’t have the constant political debates about every fucking thing or the ideological echo chambers. Every local thing didn’t turn into some damn national debate. When did Grunge/Post Grunge/etc fall off?
“Grunge” died with Kurt Cobain around 93 IIRC. From then it became more radio-friendly “post grunge”, which then entered a steady decline in favor of pop and hip hop. Did people in their early/mid 20s in the 90s like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, etc?
Yes, there were douche bags in the mid 90s too.
There was a brief wave of “nu metal” or “rap rock” around the mid to late 90s. This was a more aggressive and perhaps less introspective form of heavy alternative rock that blended elements of grunge, rap/hip hop and industrial music. What music did people above 40 in say 1995 listen to?
Can’t say. Jazz maybe? Shit they listened to in the 60s? Do you recall the Macarena fondly or with horror?
I recall it being played in every Jersey Shore bar and night club the summer of 96. Were the Cranberries a huge band in 1994-1995?
Their big commercially successful albums were released in 1993 and 1995 IIRC. But they were part of the “alt rock” movement of the time, which included a diverse variety of commercially successful acts.
Getting away from the USA-centric trend. Many Hong Kong movies had themes that related directly or indrectly to the uncertainty of what would happen after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Mainland China. Especially topical with the current protests in Hong Kong.
I was a High School age teen then, slightly younger than you are asking for, but I think I can provide some good perspective on the era:
There was a big rapid change in style and mood at that time. If you take a look at shows like “Saved by the Bell” and “Beverly hills 90210” that was basically the early 90’s vibe. Very preppy, name brand, dressy pants, fancy leather belts (sometimes even multiple belts) bright colored shirts, lots of jewelry and accessories, big hair, etc. Jeans, virtually all pants really, had to be tight rolled at the ankle. Grunge music and style was like a giant clap back to all of that and it hit fast and hard. Even kids who didn’t want go full-rebel shifted styles to baggier clothes, flannels, suddenly a sloppy appearance became acceptable.
No 70’s revival that I recall. The 70’s seemed impossible dorky to us.
General feeling in the US seemed a bit more hopeful than today. Economy kept expanding (especially tech) and the feeling was that if you did good work you’d get rewarded, there wasn’t a general feeling that rich corporations are out to screw over their workers.
Not sure what you mean by multimedia revolution exactly, it all kinda happened gradually from my perspective. The internet of the 90’s was not based on social media, it was basically a collection of company websites and some people had personal blogs. Lots of email and email forwards. We shared music over Napster with MP3’s.
Yeah I’d say it was pretty optimistic. Tech seemed to be changing at a mile at a minute and there were good jobs for everyone who had any kind of tech skills. Late 90’s there was a lot of concern and focus on y2k and that created even more tech jobs.
I think we were healthier politically. A lot of the same disagreements were around back then, but the focus was on the issues and policies. Now the two sides don’t even see the facts the same way and there is way more propaganda and conspiracy theory.
Not sure when grunge fell off, because I went to college and it was less grungy there. I think it was just kinda absorbed by normal styles. Clothes stayed generally baggier throughout most of the 90’s even when it wasn’t a specific grunge look.
No idea what older people in the 90’s listened to, but I was into all those punk-alt-rock groups you named for sure.
Macarena was awful.
Cranberries weren’t huge, they were beloved by a select group that was into alt-music but not the heavy stuff. I was a big fan.
What do you remember of the mid 90s in general - the period say starting January 1993 to the end of 1997?
I was in my early 30’s and my son was just starting kindergarten and I was tired of being a broke grad student and the job market was finally picking up again and so I went back to work. I was one of those who did really well under Clinton
Was there a strong 70s revival vibe? If so, when?
Don’t remember anything like that; was never really into fads
How did the general feeling in the US differ from today?
I was thrilled with the election of Clinton and it did feel more optimistic; I don’t remember anything real antagonism toward Bush I (in fact I liked him, just felt we could do economically better under Clinton); things didn’t seem so…extreme. Considering we had the bombings of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City - we were angry but not panicked, there weren’t people pushing things like “the Patriot Act” or we weren’t listening to them. It still felt like we were moving forwards as a group.
Was the “Multimedia Revolution” actually a huge thing, especially amongst Boomers?
I do remember people whining about having to switch their music collections to CDs
Was it really as optimistic a time as it seems in hindsight?
More optimistic than now. College was more affordable, there seemed to be more opportunities, people actually got raises and promotions.
Would you say the US was healthier in some ways politically?
Yes. It was only the start of the crazy that was the right wing - Contract with America, etc.
When did Grunge/Post Grunge/etc fall off?
I was never into the whole grunge thing - I listened to a lot of R&B (Whitney, Boyz II Men, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Madonna, Will Smith) - a pop girl all the way
Did people in their early/mid 20s in the 90s like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, etc?
Not the ones I knew.
What music did people above 40 in say 1995 listen to?
Depends. Oldies or the same stuff I listened too. My friends weren’t into grunge or rock or alt rock.
Do you recall the Macarena fondly or with horror?
Just a dance - no biggie, but I like fun dances. Didn’t kill anybody.
Were the Cranberries a huge band in 1994-1995?
Frankly, I couldn’t name a single Cranberries song.
Short bio: 20-something in Seattle, WA at the time. Single with no kids.
—Was there a strong 70s revival vibe? If so, when?
None.
—Was the “Multimedia Revolution” actually a huge thing, especially amongst Boomers?
It was huge for the young…email, internet, napster, cd burning, gaming. The Boomers were barely managing to fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd: jokes to their friends assuming they even had an internet account. Monetary and technical hurdles were still high.
----Was it really as optimistic a time as it seems in hindsight?
There was an optimism among the left/liberal end that the Clinton era was finally bringing some achievable progressive ideologies and economics into mainstream. However, the conservative/reactionary backlash was very strong.
----When did Grunge/Post Grunge/etc fall off?
'97-ish when grunge’s star was fading, and I saw more electronic/trip-hop-fusion getting the attention, based on concert and festival buzz.
—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?
No. They were pretty much seen universally as riding the coattails of others, popular with teen/tweens searching for their own rebellion banner to fly. “Nu-metal” was a gimmick. Above-40 were Springsteen and Jimmy Buffet fans, plus Dave Mathews and Blues Traveler types.
----Were the Cranberries a huge band in 1994-1995?
They were part of a wave of female-fronted alternative music. Popular yes, but not distinctly huge.
Windows 95 came out in 1995. After about 95, people could use computers without having to learn how to use computers. Before that, either you were a person who had learned, or you weren’t.
It was a gradual thing – there was Mac and Windows 3 before that, and the iPhone came much later – but 1995 is around where I would place the watershed moment. And that meant that computers were everywhere in the media.
This was also a golden era for magazines. Everything that is on the internet now was in magazines then. Advertising in the magazines supported editorial content in the magazines, which put magazines in vast racks in retail outlets. Although the internet had arrived and was coming, even in 2000 most of the content wasn’t there. Magazines had been popular for a very long time, but they got a late boost by the shift of cigarette advertising revenue from TV. Great thick computer magazines were the central medium for content distribution.
Smoking was still common, but in 1995 it was common for offices to be non-smoking. There was an obvious demographic shift by 2000, where upper class men didn’t smoke and lower class women did – so in a office, it was the women who went out to smoke – (in 1980 it was the opposite), (Psartly as a result of the shift of advertising revenue from tv to womens magazines
For me, as I mentioned above, very optimistic and exciting. It was also, from a personal point of view, a great period of change for me as I got married in '91 and I was changing career streams in the military in the late '90s.
I was in college just before January 1993, so graduation meant that my daily computer time went down a lot. I had my first email address in 1989 and got a second one before graduation because the school changed their system. The two letter plus two number (AB22@school.edu) was considered insufficient. Wish I still had that account, but we couldn’t keep them. It wasn’t until the late 90s that the school decided to allow alumni to have email accounts with the school’s address.
During college I could send emails to my boyfriend (now husband) and my father, who worked at a university, but not to my friend, because her school was on another net. My school was on BITNET.
At work my husband did not have a direct telephone line and only had a terminal at his desk, to work with the mainframe. Some years later he got a computer, and for some time, our home computer was his work computer. There were very few rules about using the work computer for home use, and some of his coworkers downloaded all sorts of stuff. I think for a period of time we did not any sort of internet connection and then later we got dial-up.
We were in an apartment and had some sort of cable connection and our phone had a cord and a built-in answering machine with a cassette tape. One day my husband decided to ride his bicycle to his sister’s and we got a cell phone the next weekend. The first one was a Motorola Microtac. We think it was approximately 1995 and it was soon followed by a Motorola Startac. We only had one cell phone for the two of us.
I was in my early 30s living in NYC. I was dating my soon-to-be wife. We were DINK and had steady jobs, our families were healthy, and our cares were simple.
This was before the slaughter of brick and mortar retail so I had my well-trod circuits of bookstore and music store browsing with favorite pizza joints along the way.
The city seemed a bit more scrappy and down to earth and then real estate went totally nuts.
Trendy guys had those stupid Rat-tails and silly little fanny packs brought around to the front like a second scrotum.
I was in a band and cassettes were still the dominant medium. At our level (low) we recorded to tape in the studios.
Pre-Netscape/mosaic internet and making contact with people and then losing interest after the initial rush of this cool internet thing.
Little to no network security- I needed to learn some simple programming (SAS) for the career I was pursuing so after I left the hospital I was working at I would simply log on to their network with my credentials that they never revoked and use their SAS environment.
The musical decline of the Grateful Dead and the rise of so-called ‘jam bands’ Phish, Blues Traveller, the Allman Brothers resurgence, etc.
The deaths of Jerry Garcia and Frank Zappa
Also River Phoenix, Jeff Buckley, Shannon Hoon (Blind Melon)
Excellent Summerstage concerts in Central Park when it was still kind of a small operation.
I confess to listening to Korn, specifically their cover of “Another Brick in the Wall”. Amazon wouldn’t sell just that one track so I had to by the entire CD, which I gave to a friend’s daughter. Who also liked Anti-Flag, Avenged Sevenfold, Cold War Kids, Death Cab for Cutie, Eminem, Fall Out Boy, ICP, Linkin Park, Nickelback, Papa Roach, Simple Plan, Slipknot, Sugarcult, System of a Down, Airborne Toxic Event, All-American Rejects, Trapt, Weezer, etc.
That was pretty much my sophomore year in college through my first year with a full time job after college. It was an interesting time- the internet became a “thing” somewhere in there- it had existed prior to that, but people were starting to actually buy computers and sign up with ISPs to get on the web.
Not that I recall; bell bottoms sort of came back, and there was “That 70s Show”, but outside of that, there’s wasn’t a real wave of nostalgia that I recall. I guess maybe a few things that had been cool in the late 70s/early 80s became cool again- I recall KISS showing up in full makeup again to much acclaim, and David Lee Roth getting back together with Van Halen toward the end of that time, and it seeming proper at the time.
At least for me, it was a time where the sky really did seem to be the limit. The nation and world were doing well economically, I was in an industry that seemed to be on fire, and I was young, single and eager.
In a lot of ways, that was the era when globalization really started to make the world smaller- groceries really stopped being so seasonal around that era, and you started seeing a lot more imported/specialty goods in your average supermarket.
Video gaming was starting to take hold as a major pastime around then, although it was still stigmatized as something geeks and nerds did.
It was; the Russians weren’t the enemy any more, the Chinese weren’t perceived as a threat, and terrorism hadn’t really kicked in yet as a threat- it was something that happened in the Middle East. So in terms of national security, yes, very optimistic. The economy was booming, there was a lot of peace around the world, and things looked promising. Getting a college degree was a sure-fire ticket to some kind of professional job, and not having one wasn’t a huge hindrance either- there were still a lot of jobs that didn’t require it, or that would substitute talent and experience for the degree.
Most of the angst was more about what you wanted to do with your life, not about making ends meet and paying off debt. There was a feeling at least among my cohort that you could try various jobs/careers out of school, and the conventional jobs would still be there a few years later if/when you needed them.
So yes, very optimistic.
Politically it was notable as the beginning of the point when the internet’s ability to report instant news and/or serve as an alternative news channel started to really take shape. Things were no longer mediated by the big 3 media - TV, newspapers and radio- there were alternatives to them, and interesting stuff came out of it.
In retrospect, while things were partisan and contentious, a lot of what we see out of today’s GOP was far-right fringe stuff- they weren’t generally obstructionist or as willing to win at all costs as today’s Republicans.
While it was hugely influential in terms of musical style and as a sort of watershed moment, grunge was a flash in the pan time-wise. It started in the mainstream in late 1991, really flared into prominence in about 1992-1993, and was all but gone by the end of 1996. In college terms, I first heard Nirvana on the radio in the second semester of my freshman year, heard grunge throughout most of college, but by my last year in school (I graduated a year and a half late) it was already gone.
Post grunge (if you can really define it) lasted up through the early 2000s and never really died- it just sort of faded. Lots of the bands are still kicking, although maybe not with as much popularity as before.
All those bands you mention didn’t really hit until the very latest part of that time frame, or even afterward. From 1993-1996, it was Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Boyz 2 Men, Dr. Dre, Toni Braxton, Michael Jackson, Aerosmith (they really hit it big again in 1993-ish), Madonna, Cypress Hill, Weezer, Green Day, etc… It really depended on what time- it was totally different in say… 1993 than 1996, for example.
I remember it being pervasive, but in the same kind of way that a rash is.
Huge? No. But they were reasonably popular.
The era was… a major sea change. It was kind of the initial burst of carbonation after the Cold War era lid was popped off- it was the post 80s as well as a new era, and there were other interesting developments- the internet and the rise of personal computing as a mass-market thing. Combine that with the optimism of that era, and it was (IMO) a unique time.
from 92 through the 95 early 96 time frame my work was largely consumed by the conflict in Bosnia Herzegovina. A war and near genocide which the majority of my friends seemed to be completely ignoring. But then I was working 70-80 hour weeks and had very little contact with anyone outside the office.
I would say that the current political strife was taking root during that time period. The right was becoming far more insulated and self-righteous than it ever had been before. Newt Gingrich became speaker of the house in 1995, I think, or right around that time. He really instituted the “My way or the highway” and “Contract with America” crap that became the marching orders for the GOP going forward. Win or obstruct has been their rallying cry ever since, and it has gotten progressively worse to the point that simply nothing happens unless they initiate it. Gingrich, Rumsfeld, and Cheney are, in my book the triumvirate of evil who caused this nightmare.
As for multi-media, I don’t know, but our Congressional briefings suddenly had to have graphics instead of charts. Harvard Graphics was the program, and you’d set the thing to print before you left in the evening and pray the dang printer didn’t jam on you overnight. Or, like me, you had a bedroll under the desk.
I listened to all music, as I always have, so I’m not the best one to give you that info. There was certainly more country music in DC than there had been before. Clint Black and Garth Brooks were huge and bringing real money back to the country music industry. Wasn’t that also about the time that Kurt Cobain died? The nation was obsessed with his death for a good twelve months. Tracy Chapman brought soul to the fore as well.
I remember changing the station a lot because of Celine Dion, and trying not to like LL Cool J but hoping they played his stuff at the club. Alanis Morrissette, Hootie, Coolio, Sheryl Crow, Seal, even Janet Jackson had a minute. Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Dr. Dre dropping in on this one or that one, and man oh man, Tupac and Biggie.
anyone remember “the 70s preservation society” that was a parody in razor and tie’s mail order/tv record commercials that ran in the op’s time frame?
It became so popular and had so many people wanting to join it that they had to make a real club that’s still going today that’s one of the things that started the 70s kick in the '90s
here’s a bunch on it :70's preservatin society - Search on Bing
