What does / would "1990s nostalgia" include?

Inspired by this thread, I got to thinking that surely enough time has passed that we can wax nostalgic (in either a good or bad way) of the 1990s. What are things / trends / music / movies / events that people associate with that decade?

Obviously -

  1. the O.J. Simpson trial
  2. ‘grunge’ - in both music & fashion
  3. Columbine & other high school massacres
  4. “I did not have sex with that woman!”
  5. the first Gulf War.
  6. Y2K (Hah! Remember that?)
  7. the Oklahoma City bombing
  8. millenial hype (it’s gonna be the year 2000! It’s gonna be a new millenium!)
  9. ecstasy (the drug of the 90s)
  10. Pulp Fiction

What other things do you associate with the 90s?

Lots of melodic, listenable pop music on mainstream radio: Better than Ezra, Gin Blossoms, Cranberries, etc.

Slobodan Milosevic’s face all over the TV.

JNCO jeans.

Guys with the top of their hair dyed blonde, and the bottom part natural.

They may have overlapped a little into other decades, but three of my favorite TV shows:

  1. Frasier
  2. Seinfeld
  3. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Ha! I forgot about that. So many kids at my high school sported that look. I thought it looked strange at the time.

I’ll add The Simpsons, Saved by the Bell, and Michael Jordan’s Bulls.

A stock market where you had to be an idiot not to make money.

Raves.

The “peace dividend.”

Guys with the waist band of their pants on the middle of their butt and baggy boxers.

THE WORLD TRADE TOWERS!!! :frowning:

Barring a smaller bombing attempt on the tower back in '93, weren’t the twin towers by and large fine and dandy?

I always thought of Next Gen as 80s and the other two as 90s.

As you mentioned Seinfeld was the show I think most people will think of when they think 90s.
I would add Simpson’s to the 90s shows.
Northern Exposure would hopefully be part of the collective memory.
NYPD Blue I am sure would.

Movies should include Shawshank Redemption and the hype around The Blair Witch project.
Other top movies from the 90s that stand out. Some are mentioned already.

  1. 9.1 The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 244,856
  2. 8.8 Schindler’s List (1993) 144,357
  3. 8.8 Pulp Fiction (1994) 208,013
  4. 8.6 Goodfellas (1990) 109,445
  5. 8.6 The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 131,948
  6. 8.5 Fight Club (1999) 181,465
  7. 8.4 American History X (1998) 100,260
  8. 8.3 Reservoir Dogs (1992) 106,545
  9. 8.3 Forrest Gump (1994) 141,143
  10. 8.2 Braveheart (1995) 133,756
  11. 8.2 Fargo (1996) 91,218
  12. 8.1 The Sixth Sense (1999) 137,600
  13. 8.0 Groundhog Day (1993) 68,138

Music is tough, the 90s is when music kind of went in every direction. I don’t think there was a strong central sound to the 90s.

40s = Swing, Boogie Woogie
50s = Rock & Roll
60s = Folk Rock and the British Invasion
70s = Stadium Rock and Disco
80s = Punk & New Age
90s = Grunge, Rap, R&B, Strong Woman Singer/Songwriters, Country’s resurgence, etc.
In 1992 Buttafuoco was the big news story. The Teflon Don was put away. John Gotti was ratted out by “Sammy the Bull” Gravano.

The Yankees Dominate Baseball in the 90s after recovery from the Strike year. Ripken breaks Lou Gehrig’s record. Sosa & Big Mac break the HR record.

All the Princess Di & Jean benet ramsey stuff in 1997.

Jim (I know I will think of more later, but this seems like enough for now)

I think that’s her point.

Exactly. The #1 thing from the 1990’s I am nostalgic for is the World Trade Towers.
#2 is everything else.

[ul]
[li]The whole dot.[del]com[/del] bomb craze.[/li][li]The advent of the Internet[/li][li]The birth of DVDs[/li][li]Windows 95 hype[/li][li]The increasing ubiquity of cell phones[/li][/ul]

Beavis & Butthead
Pulp Fiction
europop
murky grunge videos

In the news:

Gulf War I

Somalia

The Atlanta Olympics…and the Olympic Park bombing.

Nutty militia movements and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Bosnia

Kosovo

Mary Kay Letourneau trial

Dot com startups

Sports teams of the decade (by number of titles):

College football: Nebraska
College basketball: Kentucky
Pro basketball: Bulls
Pro baseball: Yankees
Pro football: Cowboys

How about some things left for dead in 1989, but had a giant resurgence (still being felt today)

Macintosh computers
New York City (like Times Square)

Although home computers and the internet had been around in some form for decades, they weren’t really ubiquitous until 1995 (which, IIRC, is the year that AOL hit one million subscribers).

Lilith Faire

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Law & Order

Homicide: Life on the Street

Soon Yi

The meteoric rise and precipitous fall of Macaulay Culkin

VH1 had a miniseries on this topic.

That fugly haircut from Friends.

Damn. I went from 10 to 20 in the 90’s. Why is that the only thing that pops into my head?

As a black urban teenager during this decade, here’s the things I remember:

-Cross Colors
-Skidz (they looked like flannel pajamas bottoms but they were real pants…all the “cool” kids had them but I didn’t)
-Overalls. But you were lame if you didn’t let one suspender hang.
-Women rappers like Queen Latifah, YoYo, The Brat, and Monie Love.
-“Conscious” rappers like Arrested Development and De La Soul.
-Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dog, Tupac, Biggie–they define the era along with grudge music IMHO.
-New Jack swing (groups like Tony, Toni, Tone, Color Me Badd, Tevin Campbell, BBD)
-Afrocentricism. Everyone was reading Malcolm X and sporting Africa medalions.
-The Rodney King riots. School was let out early because of them. The school bus ride home was very…interesting.
-Movies like New Jack City, Jason’s Lyric, Boys in the Hood.
-Shows like In Living Color, Martin, A Different World, Living Single
-Saying crazy things like “Yeeah, boyyyy!” and “That’s da bomb”
-Dancing the Running Man, Roger Rabbit, and Happy Feet
-Girls wearing Daisy Dukes and boys drooping their pants. That’s when it all started…in the 90s!

There’s actually a Facebook group called “If you remember this you grew up in the 90s.” Here’s part of their list: