I was a kid during the 90s, so I will readily admit I am victim to the rose-tinted allure of nostalgia, but I can’t help but think that, aside from LGBT people having more rights now, that the 90s were generally a better time than both the 00s and today for this country. My reasoning:
High GDP, better job market
Wider middle class
Less racial division, or at least, less open white supremacy (less black men being killed as brazenly by cops)
Less school shootings and mass shootings in general
Less anti-immigrant sentiment
No open ended, unending wars like Iraq and Afghanistan
More social interaction
No Twitter or Social Media for bigots to gain traction and be as loud as now
The biggest scandal in national politics involved an affair in the White House, not possible treason
Less division in general, less anger between people
Things were more special then because they were less accessible (renting videos vs. streaming for example)
Politics were less extreme on both ends and more centrist.
IMO better pop culture (grunge, 90s rap, industrial, better movies…)
I know this will be a contentious topic, these are just my views, and like I said, I was a kid. I am not damning anyone, nor am I claiming the 90s were perfect (they certainly weren’t if you were gay or trans). Just want to hear from people who experienced the time more than I did (like as teens or adults)
I don’t think racism was better. I think it was worse, and to add insult to injury, victims of racism were overwhelmingly disbelieved when they reported these things–everything from getting gunned down by cops to simply being refused service because of their race (I used to say things like “I’m sure the sales lady just didn’t see you” because defending “my team” against racism was more important than, you know, not being racist. And even when minorities were believed, it was treated very fatalistically: it just was how the world was.
Sexism was also infinitely worse. At 15, in the early 90s, I was uncomfortable with the concept of date rape because it seemed unfair to guys: it was well understood that they could get carried away. I wasn’t 100% sure it was okay for a girl to change her mind if she let a guy get to 3rd base. It boggles my mind that I had that thought–but at 15, in the early 90s, “no means no” was not blatantly obvious. When young teenage girls went to concerts or walked through crowded hallways at school, even, they got groped. It never occurred to any of us that such a thing could be reported. And that’s just the sexual assault. Boys were in charge of everything. Boys got to decide everything. Boys were just more important than girls. It was so understood it was never even talked about. This has gotten much, much better.
Quite a bit lower per capita GDP in the 90s. Median GDP, which helps control for changing income distributions, is up just above peaks at the end of the 90s. The early 90s had slightly lower median GDP than the worst of the trough for the Great Recession. Generally a little bit higher unemployment rate in the 90s as well.
Both Violent crime rates and murder rates are down from the 90s. Do you really care about where and how you are murdered? I personally prefer lower risks of being murdered and lower risks of being the target of other violent crime.
Is that why I see people staring at their phones when out with friends?
Some things were better and some worse. But we did not have a “Kremlin candidate” in the WH. Let’s see how this all plays out, but it could end up much much worse.
I doubt either of these are true. You just didn’t hear about it because there wasn’t constant video, and police departments were and still are notoriously bad about self-reporting suspect shootings so that we can get an idea of how bad the problem is nationally.
The 90s saw the rise of Rush Limbaugh, who poured the foundation for batshit crazy right-wing talk radio, and Newt Gingrich’s divisive ways. The only thing that held back the batshit crazy was the centralization of the means of distribution.
Afghanistan was a MESS in the 90s. In fact, that’s when the Taliban first came to power.
Not to mention all the conflict in Israel and Palestine. And we don’t even want to get into the Balkans.
Don’t get me wrong, I was a teenager during the nineties, so I’m kinda nostalgic about the era. But to say things were necessarily better? No.
(Politics were less extreme? Yeah right. Maybe in the 90s things were more centered, but these things go through cycles. Look at what went on in the 1970s And that’s a cakewalk compared to the 1800s.)
Anytime in U.S. history was arguably better than it is today – in terms of positivism and hope. Heck, even the limb strewn, claret soused fields of Gettysburg were more propitious a place to ponder a fruitful future, than today’s Trumpian dystopia!
Reckon I’m bein’ overly pessimistic / nihilistic…? Nope… That’s just your quintessential human delusion playing mind tricks on you, Mr. / Ms. / non-cisgender Andersons. The U.S. is done for… And there will be blood!
(NB: Permission granted to screen capture this post for posterity / to show it off to the post-apocalyptic world milling around the one working computer, powered by a hamster in an induction coil rigged hamster wheel, that was left to humanity after ‘The Trumpocaust’.)
I will put it this way: The country wasn’t run by a man who:
-Dehumanizes immigrants (“they’re sending rapists and drug dealers”) and who based his campaign on racial hatred
-Encourages misogyny by word and deed
-Has shown marked authoritarian leanings
-Insulted our veterans (“I like soldiers who aren’t captured”)
We’re heading in a dark direction as a country. In 1992 and 1996 a guy with open views like Donnie would’ve been a fringe candidate like Lyndon LaRouche. Whatever you think of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, at least they didn’t seem like wannabe dictators, betraying our allies while cozying up to totalitarians. Bill Clinton having consensual affairs was a big thing against him in 92. Trump on tape admitting to sexual assault, proudly, really didn’t seem to make a difference.
Maybe there was an equal or worse amount of racism and sexism in the country as a whole, but the man in charge wasn’t encouraging both and going out of his way to help the divide America more.
Yeah, some things were worse in the 90s, I even said that in my OP. No decade or era is perfect. When we look back at the present decade we will note how trans people were marginalized until the last few years and how overwhelming support of gay marriage didn’t become a mainstream belief until 2013 or so. We’ll look back and remember all these shootings and all the injustice committed by the police as of late. But it’s my opinion that when the history of America’s decline and fall is written, the beginning of decline will be placed either after 9/11 or in 2016. That, as a whole, America was at the very least, less of a joke, or considered less on the world stage, than today. We’re losing more and more of our respect and hard earned soft power daily. We’re losing the values and ideals our forefathers fought for with this administration.
There’s your issue right there. You weren’t aware of many of the problems of the time. E.g. crime, especially violent crime, had been rising steadily since the 60’s and was reaching panic levels; people were throwing around the term “super predator” and only expected it to get worse. Teen pregnancies were near their all-time high. Our armed forces were rudderless in Somalia and suffered a strategic defeat in Mogadishu to local warlords; meanwhile the Rwandan genocide was in full rage.
The music thing is silly. Boomers think your music sucks. Millennials think your music sucks. Any decade that brought on The Spice Girls has much to answer for.
Today crime is down, drug use is down, teen pregnancies are down. Education levels are up. John Mace already mentioned gay rights; women’s rights are also probably better, too. No, we’re not worse off than the 90’s.
I guess I just wish the good elements of the decade were still around without the bad. Besides, the 90s also gave us Pearl Jam!
But for real, I guess it’s hard for me to take a time’s pop culture apart from the social issues. Like, the wonders of the PC, the Myst hype (something I actually remember), the “multimedia revolution”…All of that seemed exciting. And I guess there is a lot I miss, like renting a movie at the local video store. I am too young to have truly experienced those times, and too old to fully appreciate these times.
Interesting that this was your experience. A decade before that, I was that age, and we were having the very same discussions. In the meantime, AIDS, and to a lesser extent herpes, put a bit of a damper on a lot of that. Plus, MADD and other similar organizations made it much harder for minors to get alcohol, and the penalties nowadays for teens who have it and adults who provide it are stiffer and more likely to be enforced. I’ve read that there isn’t much of a link between chemical impairment and date rape, but that has not been my own personal observation. Never happened to me, but among the people to whom it did, alcohol and drugs were almost always a factor; if they weren’t using, they were in an environment where other people were.
And when it came to “they’re better and get to decide everything”, it wasn’t so much gender as Who You Were. :dubious: Nowadays, it seems that GIRLS are “better and get to decide everything”, which isn’t right either, if you think about it.
Now, for what I came to this thread to say: It may not have been better, but it was a more innocent time for reasons that were rubbed in our faces on 9/11/01.
p.s. And since the OP mentioned LGBT rights and I referenced AIDS in my prior post, the late 90s were DEFINITELY better for AIDS patients than were the early 1990s, because they came out with treatments that were more effective and much less complicated and with fewer and less serious side effects.
A while back, a 20-something record store clerk told me, “I wish I had been alive during the 80s.” I replied, “No, you don’t. Be grateful you missed them. Reagan, Chernobyl, AIDS, the Cold War, etc.” My only memories of the 60s are watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon (I was 5) and a few others scattered things which may or may not have happened, and honestly, I’m glad I can’t remember much about that decade.
