# What was life in the 1990s like? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 25, 2014, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913 "2014-04-25T00:52:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/101 "2014-04-27T04:24:12Z")
> [@OurLordPeace](#): > > The music was often great. I graduated from HS in 2000, and was born in 1982. I have been thinking a great deal lately about getting ready for school early in 1993/1994, and having time to turn on MTV for a little while in the morning. I remember being riveted by several [songs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1acEVmnVhI) ([and](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT1DdO3SISg) [their](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqPK88PA8aE) [videos](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWmkuH1k7uA)) that were [nothing](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ljHOSqc4A) [like](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyVSKydUxKk) what I thought music was. > > I also listened to my town’s modern rock station a lot as the decade went on, and it was great to encounter [consistently released](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIGMUAMevH0) [new, alternative](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NEoesmnYU4) music that always seemed [credible and serious](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt5EHAqhR1c) to me. It wasn’t totally underground, but it was innately more respectable than the debauched hair-metal types and teenyboppers and boring adult contemporary and whatever else. > > I also loved to encounter [new music](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R2hvKDFLHE) by [veteran musicians](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76zvkhX3x7Y) from the [previous couple](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcz8EkM5nuw) of [decades](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV8IAOojoAA). I noticed the twentysomething DJs would get excited about that sort of thing. It had a certain gravitas, or something like that. > > I found a lot of friends on the airwaves; even if I could not speak to them, their music and lyrics spoke to me. Dude maybe you could have some more links in what you write — like I get that you have nothing to say yourself, but maybe a few better links would make it worth a little. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/102 "2014-04-27T04:32:51Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > And finally, girls were really in to breaking nice guys’ hearts for no fucking reason whatsoever, by doing things like having their moms lie about where they were on, say, a Wednesday night, while they were really at a frat party with some Russian exchange douche, drinking kamakazes and doing who-knows-what with him. And then the nice guys who had their hearts broken would hole up in their sad studio apartments for days on end drinking Busch Beer, smoking Marlboro reds, listening to the Beatles and eating beef pot pies they bought at Kroger for 99 cents. This was mostly in the mid-90s. By the late 90s things were much better. Wow, I forgot how much that used to happen to Nice Guys. Thank goodness that sort of thing went out with loose plaid flannel men’s shirts. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/103 "2014-04-27T05:26:17Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > People were definitely more ignorant, you couldn’t just drop a link to snopes or whatever to dispell the BS of the day. But society is getting less homogenous all the time as media splits up to cater to all the different niches and everyone has a blog to talk about their pet views. It gets more and more homogenous the farther back you go, where everyone was consuming the same TV or radio shows. So much media is being produced nowadays it’d be impossible to watch it all in several lifetimes. It’s hard enough just to watch the supposed best of the best. People have more entertainment options today, but they’re also much more tied into a common societal grid with Facebook, YouTube, online chat rooms, email and smartphones. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/104 "2014-04-27T13:07:24Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > And finally, girls were really in to breaking nice guys’ hearts for no fucking reason whatsoever, by doing things like having their moms lie about where they were on, say, a Wednesday night, while they were really at a frat party with some Russian exchange douche, drinking kamakazes and doing who-knows-what with him. And then the nice guys who had their hearts broken would hole up in their sad studio apartments for days on end drinking Busch Beer, smoking Marlboro reds, listening to the Beatles and eating beef pot pies they bought at Kroger for 99 cents. This was mostly in the mid-90s. By the late 90s things were much better. Easy Dawson. Why don’t you maybe rest for a bit and sit out the next couple of plays? ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/105 "2014-04-27T15:57:39Z")
> [@Vaevictis](#): > > Dude maybe you could have some more links in what you write — like I get that you have nothing to say yourself, but maybe a few better links would make it worth a little. One needs cites/citations. ---
**Author:** ![ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisUsernameIsForbidden)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/106 "2014-04-27T16:41:56Z")
I like girls that break nice guy’s hearts…I like sluts! ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/107 "2014-04-27T17:09:39Z")
Sorry if it’s already been posted, but for me, the 90s is summarised by [this sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0). ---
**Author:** ![ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisUsernameIsForbidden)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/108 "2014-04-27T17:34:21Z")
> [@TheLoadedDog](#): > > Sorry if it’s already been posted, but for me, the 90s is summarised by [this sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0). No way. [THIS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) sound! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/109 "2014-04-27T18:01:59Z")
Heh. Well played.😃 ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/110 "2014-04-27T19:39:32Z")
I played a lot of GoldenEye. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/111 "2014-04-27T19:42:04Z")
> [@ThisUsernameIsForbidden](#): > > No way. [THIS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) sound! > > 😃 A song from the 80s and an internet meme from the 2000s… Hmmm, maybe if you average them together. ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/112 "2014-04-27T20:43:25Z")
I was born in 1976, and started college in 1994. Here’s something that’s changed pretty significantly for today’s high school seniors looking at colleges: the commercialization of college. For me and my generation, the way you chose a college (and this ties in with the fact as other have mentioned that the internet wasn’t a household thing yet) was to go to a bookstore and buy a copy of Peterson’s, the phone-book-sized college guide. You could browse through and look at each college’s tuition, acceptance statistics, student body size, majors offered, etc. For a fee, an institution could pay Peterson’s for the privilege of an entry in another section in the back where they could submit their own blurb giving the reader a more personal feel of what it was like to be a student there. But there were no radio or TV ads for colleges and universities. There were no billboards on the Interstate saying “University of Toledo: Your Future Starts Here” or “Boost Your Career With Our Convenient Night and Weekend Classes!” or whatever. When you drove past a college campus, there was no big banner with the U.S. News logo on it, reading “Top 20 Ranking in Six Majors!” or “2014 Best Value in Higher Education!” or whatever. Colleges and universities were still very much these ivory-tower institutions which, just by tradition, held themselves above the fray of such things. I guess there was still just enough of the vestigial pretense that the purpose of college was to obtain an education for its own sake, not vocational training. It seems strange that it’s changed that much since I graduated. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/113 "2014-04-27T20:55:33Z")
It’s a temporary condition due to the college bubble. It’s the same pattern we saw with the stock market bubble and the real estate bubble. All of a sudden you see a huge increase in ads because everyone is doing it or interested in doing it. I’m 40 years old, yet most of the people I know are taking out loans to go to school. They are utterly screwed, and these are in many cases the same people who got fucked by the previous two bubbles. That’s one reason I refuse to just blame banks or brokerage houses or whoever for these bubbles. I’ve observed too much idiocy from regular people who should know better. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/114 "2014-04-27T23:23:35Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s a temporary condition due to the college bubble. It’s the same pattern we saw with the stock market bubble and the real estate bubble. All of a sudden you see a huge increase in ads because everyone is doing it or interested in doing it. I’m 40 years old, yet most of the people I know are taking out loans to go to school. They are utterly screwed, and these are in many cases the same people who got fucked by the previous two bubbles. > > That’s one reason I refuse to just blame banks or brokerage houses or whoever for these bubbles. I’ve observed too much idiocy from regular people who should know better. When the economics say, overwhelmingly, that a college education typically leads to a much higher salary and much lower unemployment rate, it’s hard to argue against that. ---
**Author:** ![toofs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@toofs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toofs)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/115 "2014-04-29T01:06:03Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#): > > I played a lot of GoldenEye. Heh, I still remember the sound of the body armor. Laptop gun. The sound of the rocket launcher. Putting mines on the ceiling. Yelling _“stop looking at my part of the screen!”_ at your buddy on the couch next to you. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/117 "2014-04-29T01:23:44Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > When the economics say, overwhelmingly, that a college education typically leads to a much higher salary and much lower unemployment rate, it’s hard to argue against that. You also have to take into account the amount of loans you’ll take out along with expected lifetime earnings. “College” does mean higher earnings, but a large portion of the higher earnings college graduates get comes from a few degrees. Plus you also have to take into account the fact that you might not finish, plus how many years of earnings you’ll get out of your degree. The math is different for a 40-year old than for a 20-year old. Taking out loans to pay for college is a huge financial decision that I think most people just consider automatic these days. And that’s why it’s a bubble. The return on the investment is assumed to be a sure thing. It’s just not, and that was a big motivator for the Occupy Wall Street protests. You got all these people with degrees and the salaries turned out to be disappointing, or jobs in their field are simply not available. And they took out massive college loans. Obviously, this state of affairs is someone else’s fault. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/118 "2014-04-29T01:23:50Z")
> [@Jon\_Jones](#): > > I was a kid in the 90’s. I used to watch a lot of Nickelodeon (Kenan and Kel, All That, Rugrats). I remember when Pepsi came in white cans. I had a giga pet and some super soakers. Pepsi didn’t just come in a white can. [It could be see-through!](http://whitsblog.com/failed-soda-crystal-pepsi/) As Homer Simpson observed at the time: “Mmmmm… Invisible cola.” ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/119 "2014-04-29T01:45:56Z")
I was unbeatable on Madden Football on the Sega Genesis as long as I took the 49ers with Jerry Rice. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/120 "2014-04-29T01:46:27Z")
Forget Madden. Tecmo! ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2014, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913/121 "2014-04-29T01:50:23Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Forget Madden. Tecmo! Well I was unbeatable on that game too, except this time with the Roger Craig slant pass over the middle. 11-20 yards each and every time and could not be stopped. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-life-in-the-1990s-like/686913.md?page=7)