Why 2018 Was a Year of Nineties Obsessions

[SolarpunkFan]

Rolling Stone

The hardest-working decade of 2018? That’s easy: the Nineties. The whole concept of the Nineties continues to haunt the pop imagination, epitomizing everything our sorry excuse for a decade fails to be. Let’s face it, the “teens” never became a thing, just like the “zeroes” didn’t. So as we head into the final year of this decade which is bizarrely not one, we look back to the last one that counted. Decades are more popular than ever these days, as a useful shorthand for how culture changes over time. But more than ever, we’re not living in one. As people loved to say back in the Nineties: What’s up with that?

Charli XCX captures this whole cultural malaise brilliantly in her Troye Sivan duet “1999,” which she dropped this fall: “I just wanna go back to 1999 / Sing ‘Hit me baby, one more time.’” In the video, they re-enact Titanic, starring Charli as Kate and Troye as Leo; Charlie turns herself into Left Eye and the Spice Girls, while Troye turns into all five Backstreet Boys. But my favorite scene is when they dress up as Marilyn Manson and Rose McGowan on the VMAs red carpet. Charli was born in 1992 and Troye in 1995, so neither one is reliving their teen memories. Instead, they’re dreaming up a fantasy decade they missed. How did we get here — borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered Nineties?

That Nineties fever is everywhere this year. Country singer Jimmie Allen dropped “21,” pining for the good old days of Matchbox 20. (“If I had a time machine, I’d point it to me and you and Matchbox 20” — that might sound like a crazy way to waste a time machine, but he’s not crazy, he’s just a little unwell.) American Idol runner-up Lauren Alaina took aim at country-radio misogyny with “Ladies in the 90s,” shouting out to Shania, TLC, the Dixie Chicks and the Spice Girls. As she sings, “I was raised on radio waves where the ladies dominated!” (Unlike the Nashville of 2018, to say the least.) Alaina’s currently on tour with Jason Aldean, whose best hit was “1994.”

It’s one thing to hear time-travel trips from veterans like Maxwell (“1990x”) or Redman, in his excellent summer jam “1990 Now,” with his salutes to Deion Sanders, Goodie Mob, El Nino and Living Single. These guys were there; at least they have their memories. But it’s weirder to hear U.K. ingenue Anne-Marie chirp her huge global synth-pop hit “2002,” an ode to feeling nostalgia for everything at the same time. “Oops, I got 99 problems singing ‘Bye Bye Bye’ / If you wanna go and take a ride with me / Hit me baby, one more time” — geez, what a mess. These songs aren’t even from 2002 (depends on whether you hear her “oops” as Britney, Tweet or Blu Cantrell) yet that just makes it more poignant. She really raises the ante on King Princess singing “I love it when we play 1950.”

Decades are big business these days — the “I Love the 90s” revue just opened a permanent Vegas residency. Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath likes to tell the crowd: “Welcome to the Nineties. Some of us never left.” When I asked McGrath about it last year, he lamented how the post-Y2K era never got its own identity. “What would you call it, the Noughties? The 2000s? No one knows what to call it. No one knows when it started or ended.” The collapse of the music business added to the confusion. “There was no Nirvana in the 2000s, no band to come along and usher in the new decade. So they didn’t have a new decade. Nothing replaced the Nineties, even though the decade was over.”

His fellow philosopher Vanilla Ice makes a similar point. As Vanilla told me, “I call it the lost generation, because from 2000 to 2017, nothing really defines that whole generation in pop culture. Like, how would you look back at 2000 to 2017 and remember anything? How would you see somebody wearing some gear and say, ‘Hey, that’s gotta be from 2014?’ There’s no music there, there’s no pop culture, there’s no fashion that defines the generation. I look at the Nineties like it’s the last truly great decade.”

Vanilla makes a good point—people love decades. They just do. “Life’s pretty cheap, it’s sold a decade at a time,” as the great Eighties punk band Flipper sang. They’re a handy way to process the past—the Roaring Twenties, the Depression Thirties, the WW2 Forties, the malt-shop Fifties, the swinging Sixties, the all-cocaine all-the-time Seventies, the big-hair Eighties, the grunge Nineties. You can go to Party City and shop for “Decades Costumes” from “Roaring 20s Gatsby Flapper Headband” to “90s Schoolgirl ‘As If’ Accessory Kit.” Somewhere in your town is a dance club with a “Battle of the Decades” night. No wonder we heart the Nineties: we don’t have a decade of our own. So whatever happened to the 20-teens?

The Seventies, Eighties and Nineties were all into mythologizing themselves—when Neil Young sang “Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s,” he was only a few months past 1969. The Village People, who really were on the run in the 1970s, closed out the decade with their disco anthem “Ready for the ’80s.” Spin magazine waited all the way until March 1990 to proclaim, “The Eighties revival is officially underway,” in an Everything But The Girl review (which I admit I wrote). The Nineties ended in a panic over Y2K—“pre-millennial tension,” as Tricky put it. Pop stars scored hits about the millennium (Robbie Williams’ beat Will Smith’s); every magazine did special millennium issues (which sold big and made a fortune in ad pages, because that’s how magazines rolled then). The A&E Network did a countdown of the millennium’s most influential people (Number One: Gutenberg). On New Year’s Eve 1999, No Doubt played live on MTV — at the stroke of midnight, they did R.E.M.’s “It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”

But the zeroes never gelled into a decade, and — so far — neither have the teens. Ten years ago, a few late-to-the-game editors tried to get people to start calling it the “oughts,” but since nobody actually said that, it never caught on. Like the 1900s and the 1910s, these decades never got a name, because they didn’t end in that amiable suffix “–ies.” You can always start arguments in a bar over the best music or movies or TV of the 1980s or 1990s. It’s a lot harder to argue about the zeroes or teens. You could probably spout a few off-the-dome cliches about the 1890s (the Gay Nineties, twirly mustaches, robber barons) or even the 1880s (Oscar Wilde, gunfights at the O.K. Corral). But not the 1900s or 1910s. Gertrude Stein dismissed those eras as “a lost generation” — a century before Vanilla Ice.

People are still having trouble coping with the math, as witness the bizarre way some people keep saying “two thousand and eighteen,” as if they’re still in denial that we’re in a new century. (You might as well say “two thousand and ten and eight.”) No wonder we don’t want to say “twenty-eighteen”; that would mean conceding the teens are a thing, the 21st Century is a thing, and this decade is not a nightmare we’ll wake up from tomorrow morning.

This year’s Nineties trips got dark, from The Assassination of Gianni Versace to Jonah Hill’s semi-autographical film about troubled skater kids, Mid90s. The Netflix sitcom Everything Sucks masterfully used indie rock like the Softies to evoke a 1996 Oregon high school; it got instantly cancelled, a tres Nineties fate. Andrew Dice Clay showed up in an Oscar-contending movie, 25 years after his film career peaked with Brainsmasher: A Love Story. Hell, 2018 was the year a Roseanne revival blew out of nowhere to become America’s favorite TV show, and then (just as suddenly) crashed and burned. But that’s the crucial role decades play in our cultural memory — they reassure us even the bleakest eras eventually come to an end. These days, that’s a welcome reminder. Maybe we look back to the 1990s because we know we’ll never get nostalgic for 2018. We’re already planning to forget this year and the decade it rode in on. Bring on the Roaring Twenties.

I realize that the 90s were actually horrible for some regions of the globe (Eastern Europe being one of them), so the article has a bit of a bias towards people outside of those regions.

[The Romulan Republic]

I haven't really noticed this, beyond a few '90s shows getting rebooted maybe, but then I've never been the most in-touch with pop culture. It makes sense though. For the West, at least, the '90s were the time where everything was going well. We'd won the cold war, and some of us could even delude ourselves into believing that our victory was permanent. In hindsight, the signs of decay where there- the vicious partisanship of the Clinton era shutdowns and impeachments, the rising conspiracy theorism, the rise of the Right wing/white supremacists militias (ie Waco and Oklahoma City), the beginning of the era of routine school shootings, and the rise in Jihadi terrorism. But to someone not paying close attention, it might seem like the last time that things made sense, before the new decade opened with Bush v Gore, followed it up with 9/11, and then everything went to shit.

[The Romulan Republic]

I would say, though, that its a mistake to look back, to pine for a past "simpler time". That's just conservatism, its never worked, and it never will. Think about what we will build that's new, not how to reclaim what's lost.*


*And I know its very nearly blasphemy to say this, but on a similar note, I hate the term "the Greatest Generation" for the Depression/WWII generation. The moment people started calling them that, it was a sign that our society was in trouble- because we were lowering our aim, and saying as a culture that we could never aspire to be more than what we had been. Its not even a compliment to them, really- because its saying their era marked the beginning of the downturn, and that they raised children and grandchildren who will always be smaller than them.

[Gandalf]

I haven't really noticed this, beyond a few '90s shows getting rebooted maybe, but then I've never been the most in-touch with pop culture. It makes sense though. For the West, at least, the '90s were the time where everything was going well. We'd won the cold war, and some of us could even delude ourselves into believing that our victory was permanent. In hindsight, the signs of decay where there- the vicious partisanship of the Clinton era shutdowns and impeachments, the rising conspiracy theorism, the rise of the Right wing/white supremacists militias (ie Waco and Oklahoma City), the beginning of the era of routine school shootings, and the rise in Jihadi terrorism. But to someone not paying close attention, it might seem like the last time that things made sense, before the new decade opened with Bush v Gore, followed it up with 9/11, and then everything went to shit.

Indeed. It was a time of mass cultural delusion, when everyone lived in a bubble and thought themselves invulnerable. End of history indeed.

A big reason for this sort of nostalgia is because everyone knows how the time period goes. People pined for every decade since the 40s, even though a lot of them were spent under the threat of nuclear war. But since we now know that the world didn't explode, we can look back on it positively. It's like a survivor's bias.

[Tribble]

I haven't really noticed this, beyond a few '90s shows getting rebooted maybe, but then I've never been the most in-touch with pop culture. It makes sense though. For the West, at least, the '90s were the time where everything was going well. We'd won the cold war, and some of us could even delude ourselves into believing that our victory was permanent. In hindsight, the signs of decay where there- the vicious partisanship of the Clinton era shutdowns and impeachments, the rising conspiracy theorism, the rise of the Right wing/white supremacists militias (ie Waco and Oklahoma City), the beginning of the era of routine school shootings, and the rise in Jihadi terrorism. But to someone not paying close attention, it might seem like the last time that things made sense, before the new decade opened with Bush v Gore, followed it up with 9/11, and then everything went to shit.

Indeed. It was a time of mass cultural delusion, when everyone lived in a bubble and thought themselves invulnerable. End of history indeed.

A big reason for this sort of nostalgia is because everyone knows how the time period goes. People pined for every decade since the 40s, even though a lot of them were spent under the threat of nuclear war. But since we now know that the world didn't explode, we can look back on it positively. It's like a survivor's bias.

Seriously, is optimism considered blasphemy on this forum or something?

I don't fault western culture for thinking that with the Cold War over maybe, just maybe, the world had finally reached the point where we could do more than just threaten each other with mutual extinction. Or that we could have things like a European Union (flawed as it turned out to be). Or that we might actually start tackling major issues like the environment before it reaches the point of utter catastrophe.

Yes in hindsight it was largely wishful and delusional thinking, but at least there was hope.

[Gandalf]

Seriously, is optimism considered blasphemy on this forum or something?

I don't fault western culture for thinking that with the Cold War over maybe, just maybe, the world had finally reached the point where we could do more than just threaten each other with mutual extinction. Or that we could have things like a European Union (flawed as it turned out to be). Or that we might actually start tackling major issues like the environment before it reaches the point of utter catastrophe.

Yes in hindsight it was largely wishful and delusional thinking, but at least there was hope.

Hope for whom? Think through your answer.

[Tribble]

Seriously, is optimism considered blasphemy on this forum or something?

I don't fault western culture for thinking that with the Cold War over maybe, just maybe, the world had finally reached the point where we could do more than just threaten each other with mutual extinction. Or that we could have things like a European Union (flawed as it turned out to be). Or that we might actually start tackling major issues like the environment before it reaches the point of utter catastrophe.

Yes in hindsight it was largely wishful and delusional thinking, but at least there was hope.

Hope for whom? Think through your answer.

There was as I remember a genuine hope in western culture in the 1990s that major conflicts were over and that global problems like the environment, world hunger etc would now take more precedence and would be solved. There was an general optimism in western culture that everyone, (not just "Murika!) was going to be working together and doing better than before. As I said, largely wishful and delusional thinking on westerners part. Perhaps arrogance too from a certain perspective.

Still, IMO in some ways the "we have done terrible things but that's over now and we'll strive to do better" mantra of the 1990s is preferable (even if delusional) to today where "we are all FUBAR and there's no chance of us doing ever doing any better" seems to be more and more the general western consensus.

As for non-western cultures I cannot really talk about them as I have not lived in them.

[Gandalf]

There was as I remember a genuine hope in western culture in the 1990s that major conflicts were over and that global problems like the environment, world hunger etc would now take more precedence and would be solved. There was an general optimism in western culture that everyone, (not just "Murika!) was going to be working together and doing better than before. As I said, largely wishful and delusional thinking on westerners part. Perhaps arrogance too from a certain perspective.

Yeah, don't rely on your memory for things like this. I'd point out all of the angry far right guys I remember from the 90s, who rose to prominence and started to shift right wing parties way further right, especially on social issues. Economic downturns and things like outsourcing meant that working classes got fucked, and the support systems that could help them were eroded. That's what I remember.

Still, IMO in some ways that's better than today where "we are FUBAR and there's no chance of us doing ever doing any better" seems to be more and more the general consensus. For some on this board all hope must be crushed instantly, for instance. Which to be fair, is kind of fun in its own way

Why? At least acknowledging that we're probably all fucked is honest.

[Tribble]

Yeah, don't rely on your memory for things like this. I'd point out all of the angry far right guys I remember from the 90s, who rose to prominence and started to shift right wing parties way further right, especially on social issues. Economic downturns and things like outsourcing meant that working classes got fucked, and the support systems that could help them were eroded. That's what I remember.

To which I would counter that in spite of said "angry far right guys" (whom have always been around btw and are nothing new in western politics) said social reforms still happened, and where I live at least have more or less stuck.

Economic downturns and things like outsourcing meant that working classes got fucked, and the support systems that could help them were eroded. That's what I remember.

The economy has always fluctuated, and the economic downturn in the nineties wasn't the first, the last, or the worst by any means.

Why? At least acknowledging that we're probably all fucked is honest.

Because for one thing, it tends to lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. If everyone believes that everything is FUBAR, that nothing will change no matter what we do and there is no point in even trying... that's exactly what will end up happening. Congrats.

Besides, IMO that view is wrong. Yes, we are facing many major issues... as has everyone in the time period they have lived in. Some of the issues we face now are perhaps larger and more difficult to deal with then in the past, but they are certainly not insurmountable if we put the effort in.

It's kind of a glass half full vs empty… only on this board, sometimes I fell that the thinking seems more like "take the glass whether its half full or empty and smash it on someone's head" Again not gonna lie, the last but is kinda fun, but it does show we're exactly a board full of optimism

[The Romulan Republic]

There's nothing wrong with hope, but in hindsight I think that the 90's were a lot like the 50's- a time when everything seemed to be going great (at least compared to the preceding decades), if you didn't scratch the surface- but which were actually just the calm before the clusterfuck, with the beginnings of societal breakdown already evident if you were paying any attention.

[K. A. Pital]

The 90s sucked balls. Self-righteous Westerners everywhere preaching to everyone that they have the ultimate truth.

Fukuyama. End of history.

Fuck that. What was great? Just a bunch of rich fuckers and delusional overfed colonialist populations stuck in illusions of crapitalist paradise.

[Tribble]

There's nothing wrong with hope, but in hindsight I think that the 90's were a lot like the 50's- a time when everything seemed to be going great (at least compared to the preceding decades), if you didn't scratch the surface- but which were actually just the calm before the clusterfuck, with the beginnings of societal breakdown already evident if you were paying any attention.

Well, there is something apparently wrong with hope on this board given the responses I've seen so far. The hope that "maybe even we Westerners might finally start improving ourselves a bit" is apparently blasphemy. Exterminate!

At any rate, you can say that about any decade(s) preceding major crises. For example, the 1920s were a lot like the 1900s- a time when everything seemed to be going great (at least compared to the preceding decades), if you didn't scratch the surface- but which were actually just the calm before the clusterfuck, with the beginnings of societal breakdown already evident if you were paying any attention.

Or you could say that the 1840s were a lot like the 1780s- a time when everything seemed to be going great (at least compared to the preceding decades), if you didn't scratch the surface- but which were actually just the calm before the clusterfuck, with the beginnings of societal breakdown already evident if you were paying any attention.

And so on, and so forth.

Note that in spite of all these crises, we're still here. A hopeful sign for some, an annoyance that pisses the hell out of others. And speaking of which...

The 90s sucked balls. Self-righteous Westerners everywhere preaching to everyone that they have the ultimate truth.

Fukuyama. End of history.

Fuck that. What was great? Just a bunch of rich fuckers and delusional overfed colonialist populations stuck in illusions of crapitalist paradise.

My apologies, I forgot every moment that passes with Westerners still alive is another moment of literal Hell on Earth for you. Now that I think of it the 1990s must have been particularly harsh as without the Soviets there wasn't anyone whom you could hope would say "screw it!" and purge the West with nuclear fire? Maybe in your version of the ideal 1990s every westerner would have committed suicide?

[Gandalf]

Yeah, don't rely on your memory for things like this. I'd point out all of the angry far right guys I remember from the 90s, who rose to prominence and started to shift right wing parties way further right, especially on social issues. Economic downturns and things like outsourcing meant that working classes got fucked, and the support systems that could help them were eroded. That's what I remember.

To which I would counter that in spite of said "angry far right guys" (whom have always been around btw and are nothing new in western politics) said social reforms still happened, and where I live at least have more or less stuck.

So would you contend that maybe appealing to memory isn't the best way to do things?

Because for one thing, it tends to lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. If everyone believes that everything is FUBAR, that nothing will change no matter what we do and there is no point in even trying... that's exactly what will end up happening. Congrats.

Besides, IMO that view is wrong. Yes, we are facing many major issues... as has everyone in the time period they have lived in. Some of the issues we face now are perhaps larger and more difficult to deal with then in the past, but they are certainly not insurmountable if we put the effort in.

It's kind of a glass half full vs empty… only on this board, sometimes I fell that the thinking seems more like "take the glass whether its half full or empty and smash it on someone's head" Again not gonna lie, the last but is kinda fun, but it does show we're exactly a board full of optimism

*looks around for people putting the effort in*

[ray245]

Maybe the main reason for the 90s nostalgia is because the kids who were born/grew up in the 90s are old enough to be earning money and spending it?

[mr friendly guy]

Ah the 90s. Where comic books were foil embosses or use holographic covers as gimmicks. I still have my Avengers #360, #363, #366 and #369 foiled embossed covers. Its funny that I even remember those numbers.

Where Jerry O'Connell and John Rhys Davies were awesome in Sliders.

Where Kevin Sorbo was just an actor playing a Greek God instead of a jerk.

Where Chuck Norris would roundhouse kick the bad guys and actually made Texas look cool, rather than the butt of jokes.

Where Alanis Morisette wowed me with songs like Ironic. Seriously, a few years ago the medical students and the interns had never heard that song before. What blasphemy. Amazingly enough after almost 20 years I still remember the words.

Other great music was Irish band, the Corrs and American pop /country music artist, Shania Twain.

The 90s some nice bits to it, and as a teenager it wasn't half bad.

However growing up in Australia, there are some things which put a dampener on it. The rise of Pauline Hanson and the fuckwit John Howard refusing to actually stand up to her racism. It just harkened back to the 80s where I experienced racism. Hanson is still around, just targeting Muslims instead of Asians, because her fears about Asians never eventuated.

We also had the Port Arthur massacre, AFAIK is still the worse episode of mass killing even with Islamic terrorism affecting us.

And the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee died. Then they made that horrible horrible Doctor Who movie written by some guy who confuses the chameleon circuit with a cloaking device, made the Doctor half human (because it worked well on Star Trek so....), and whose story is worse than the worse of Moffat's run.

To be honest, looking back, the 90s had a decent time, but I didn't have such a strong nostalgia for it aside from occasionally browsing old shows like Sliders, or listening to classic songs. I feel more nostalgia for the 80s with music, even though the 80s was a shit time with racism. Its funny how nostalgia works, by rights the 90s were a better time for me than the 80s.

[Gandalf]

Maybe the main reason for the 90s nostalgia is because the kids who were born/grew up in the 90s are old enough to be earning money and spending it?

That is often a part of it, and why you get a lot of twenty year nostalgia. People like the memories of their childhood era, and do want to re-engage with it as adults. This of course creates market demand. However, people don't want their childhood eras back, but rather a specific childlike interpretation of that point in time.

In this thread for example, people pine for the nineties as though it was some sort of wonderful time. However, it was also the decade which gave us (among other things) the widespread adoption of the term ethnic cleansing, in response to events in the former Yugoslavia.

[Gandalf]

We also had the Port Arthur massacre, AFAIK is still the worse episode of mass killing even with Islamic terrorism affecting us.

That depends on whether or not you include violence against Indigenous Australians in the count.

[ray245]

Maybe the main reason for the 90s nostalgia is because the kids who were born/grew up in the 90s are old enough to be earning money and spending it?

That is often a part of it, and why you get a lot of twenty year nostalgia. People like the memories of their childhood era, and do want to re-engage with it as adults. This of course creates market demand. However, people don't want their childhood eras back, but rather a specific childlike interpretation of that point in time.

In this thread for example, people pine for the nineties as though it was some sort of wonderful time. However, it was also the decade which gave us (among other things) the widespread adoption of the term ethnic cleansing, in response to events in the former Yugoslavia.

Those are also stuff that most children in the western world aren't exposed to. It's easy to look back and see it as a decade of mostly happy memories because you are shielded from most of the nasty stuff. The 2000s are the time where it's harder to shield children from some of the more nasty stuff as it hit closer to home, such as all the terrorist attacks and etc.

Is the 90s a good decade for most people in the world? I won't say so. However, it is a good decade for kids who lived a sheltered life. And there are many, many 90s kids who did live a very sheltered life.

[mr friendly guy]

We also had the Port Arthur massacre, AFAIK is still the worse episode of mass killing even with Islamic terrorism affecting us.

That depends on whether or not you include violence against Indigenous Australians in the count.

Fair enough. I don't recall our history classes going deeply into the history of Indigenous Australians, which is pretty disgraceful considering how the country treated them.

[Tribble]

So would you contend that maybe appealing to memory isn't the best way to do things?

I'm contending that while there are plenty of things wrong with the 1990s, IMO it's a false narrative to assume that everything about it (like every decade) is FUBAR. Also, that at least for the majority of western countries, (which is the area I am focusing on since I don't have enough experience in non-western countries to comment) I think there is a an argument that the end of the Cold War and the de-escalation of hostilities afterwards was better for them than the previous decade. For example the EU, flawed as it is, IMO was still better than the previous status quo in Europe.

*looks around for people putting the effort in*

If you can't be bothered to do a quick google search and see all of the different volunteer groups, movements, political parties and charities that are out there, or even worse, if you believe that nothing that they do matters... that's sad.

That's not to say that all of the above have their own flaws... but there are plenty of people putting the effort in. If you are not one of them that's your choice, but I find it rather sad that you feel compelled to drag everyone down with you.

I guess you're the type where if you encounter someone who volunteers at a hospital / soup kitchen, the first thing that comes to mind is "who cares? They are going to die anyways!"

That is often a part of it, and why you get a lot of twenty year nostalgia. People like the memories of their childhood era, and do want to re-engage with it as adults. This of course creates market demand. However, people don't want their childhood eras back, but rather a specific childlike interpretation of that point in time.

In this thread for example, people pine for the nineties as though it was some sort of wonderful time. However, it was also the decade which gave us (among other things) the widespread adoption of the term ethnic cleansing, in response to events in the former Yugoslavia.

I wasn't saying the 1990s was a wonderful time where everyone had flowery meadows with rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles. I mean really, have you ever heard of such a thing as "nuance'? There are lots of things wrong with the 90s (like what you and others have mentioned) but at least in western countries there were also positive things in the 1990s as well (like the continuing movement towards accepting the LGBT community). And yes, I feel that the general optimism (again in western countries) about the future (as short lived and perhaps naive it was) was a positive thing.

[Tribble]

So would you contend that maybe appealing to memory isn't the best way to do things?

I'm contending that while there are plenty of things wrong with the 1990s, IMO it's a false narrative to assume that everything about it (like every decade) is FUBAR. Also, that at least for the majority of western countries, (which is the area I am focusing on since I don't have enough experience in non-western countries to comment) I think there is a an argument that the end of the Cold War and the de-escalation of hostilities afterwards was better for them than the previous decade. For example the EU, flawed as it is, IMO was still better than the previous status quo in Europe.

*looks around for people putting the effort in*

If you can't be bothered to do a quick google search and see all of the different volunteer groups, movements, political parties and charities that are out there, or even worse, if you believe that nothing that they do matters... that's sad.

That's not to say that all of the above have their own flaws... but there are plenty of people putting the effort in. If you are not one of them that's your choice, but I find it rather sad that you feel compelled to drag everyone down with you.

I guess you're the type where if you encounter someone who volunteers at a hospital / soup kitchen, the first thing that comes to mind is "who cares? They are going to die anyways!"

EDIT:

As for governments, just to use one local environmental example:

Status of our air quality
Our air quality has improved significantly over the past 10 years.
Since 2007, levels of smog-causing pollutants in the air have declined significantly:
53% decrease in carbon monoxide
51% decrease in sulphur dioxide
30% decrease in nitrogen dioxide
12% decrease in fine particulate matter
In 2016, Ontario’s air was rated very good or good for 93% of the year and there was one smog advisory.

https://www.ontario.ca/page/air-quality-ontario

Compared to previous decades, that's a hell of an improvement. Yes, we still have a lot of work to do with greenhouse gas emissions, but we're no longer literally choking on the air we breathe anymore. It's actually been a few years since the last time there was notable smog in Toronto, for instance.

But of course, no one put any effort in, and there was no point in reducing our pollution, and we shouldn't have even bothered trying

That is often a part of it, and why you get a lot of twenty year nostalgia. People like the memories of their childhood era, and do want to re-engage with it as adults. This of course creates market demand. However, people don't want their childhood eras back, but rather a specific childlike interpretation of that point in time.

In this thread for example, people pine for the nineties as though it was some sort of wonderful time. However, it was also the decade which gave us (among other things) the widespread adoption of the term ethnic cleansing, in response to events in the former Yugoslavia.

I wasn't saying the 1990s was a wonderful time where everyone had flowery meadows with rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles. I mean really, have you ever heard of such a thing as "nuance'? There are lots of things wrong with the 90s (like what you and others have mentioned) but at least in western countries there were also positive things in the 1990s as well (like the continuing movement towards accepting the LGBT community). And yes, I feel that the general optimism (again in western countries) about the future (as short lived and perhaps naive it was) was a positive thing.


Sorry, I hit the wrong buttons when trying to edit. Please delete the post above this one.

[Gandalf]

I'm contending that while there are plenty of things wrong with the 1990s, IMO it's a false narrative to assume that everything about it (like every decade) is FUBAR. Also, that at least for the majority of western countries, (which is the area I am focusing on since I don't have enough experience in non-western countries to comment) I think there is a an argument that the end of the Cold War and the de-escalation of hostilities afterwards was better for them than the previous decade. For example the EU, flawed as it is, IMO was still better than the previous status quo in Europe.

I never said that everything was wrong. I can only assume that this is you building a strawman of some sort?

*snip stuff about Ontario

So... things are good in a well off part off a well of country? Goodo. What's that look like when you go worldwide?

I wasn't saying the 1990s was a wonderful time where everyone had flowery meadows with rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles. I mean really, have you ever heard of such a thing as "nuance'? There are lots of things wrong with the 90s (like what you and others have mentioned) but at least in western countries there were also positive things in the 1990s as well (like the continuing movement towards accepting the LGBT community). And yes, I feel that the general optimism (again in western countries) about the future (as short lived and perhaps naive it was) was a positive thing.

Have you any idea of the damage caused by the kind of "naive optimism" that you've been championing? It gets people killed, granted they're outside of your western bubble, so maybe they don't count.

[K. A. Pital]

At any rate, you can say that about any decade(s) preceding major crises. For example, the 1920s were a lot like the 1900s- a time when everything seemed to be going great (at least compared to the preceding decades), if you didn't scratch the surface- but which were actually just the calm before the clusterfuck, with the beginnings of societal breakdown already evident if you were paying any attention. Or you could say that the 1840s were a lot like the 1780s- a time when everything seemed to be going great (at least compared to the preceding decades), if you didn't scratch the surface- but which were actually just the calm before the clusterfuck, with the beginnings of societal breakdown already evident if you were paying any attention. And so on, and so forth.

Good example there. The 1920s preceded the single largest conflict in the history of mankind that also served to decimate a huge number of people.

My apologies, I forgot every moment that passes with Westerners still alive is another moment of literal Hell on Earth for you. Now that I think of it the 1990s must have been particularly harsh as without the Soviets there wasn't anyone whom you could hope would say "screw it!" and purge the West with nuclear fire? Maybe in your version of the ideal 1990s every westerner would have committed suicide?

1990s were really harsh when at lot of people, including my relatives, were suffering from hunger. And people were shot in the streets by mobsters. And there was like total joblessness and poverty around. But sure, in Tribble-world it was particularly harsh just because I could no longer hope for nuclear war to end Westerners. Only that, and not food, must have been the main thing on my mind.

Compared to previous decades, that's a hell of an improvement. Yes, we still have a lot of work to do with greenhouse gas emissions, but we're no longer literally choking on the air we breathe anymore. It's actually been a few years since the last time there was notable smog in Toronto, for instance.

By outsourcing your industrial production and its accompanying pollution to the Third World? Clever capitalist trick. But it only fools... the fools. Indeed, many such fools were fooled by the “ecological improvement” in the First World to create an illusion of cleanliness, which made many foolishly sure that no harm will come to them because their nation ceased polluting. Well, now that global climate change has arrived, all the fake-clean will have to face the consequences of their misplaced optimism as well.

[Zaune]

1990s were really harsh when at lot of people, including my relatives, were suffering from hunger. And people were shot in the streets by mobsters. And there was like total joblessness and poverty around. But sure, in Tribble-world it was particularly harsh just because I could no longer hope for nuclear war to end Westerners. Only that, and not food, must have been the main thing on my mind.

Just out of idle curiosity, which decade do people of our generation talk about as "the good old days" in Russia?

[Tribble]

1990s were really harsh when at lot of people, including my relatives, were suffering from hunger. And people were shot in the streets by mobsters. And there was like total joblessness and poverty around. But sure, in Tribble-world it was particularly harsh just because I could no longer hope for nuclear war to end Westerners. Only that, and not food, must have been the main thing on my mind.

My apologies, I came across way too harsh there. As we are discussing on the other thread, I admit I am part of the problem in derailing threads as well, my earlier comment was overboard.

By outsourcing your industrial production and its accompanying pollution to the Third World? Clever capitalist trick. But it only fools... the fools. Indeed, many such fools were fooled by the “ecological improvement” in the First World to create an illusion of cleanliness, which made many foolishly sure that no harm will come to them because their nation ceased polluting. Well, now that global climate change has arrived, all the fake-clean will have to face the consequences of their misplaced optimism as well.

IIRC in Ontario's case at least it had more to do with tightening environmental regulations and in particular the decision to faze out all of our coal power plants. For CO2 emissions the vast majority comes from vehicles and manufacturing, while the majority of the power grid is nuclear and hydro (with gas plants and wind turbines filling out most of the remainder). Unfortunately the current conversion to renewable energy has been axed by the current government, but it's still a start.

As for other countries, IIRC on other threads it has been mentioned that even major polluters on non-western countries like China are starting to clamp down on pollution.

I never said that everything was wrong. I can only assume that this is you building a strawman of some sort?

Perhaps, though IMO your tone certainly seems to be implying so. All I could say, based on what I know, is that the 1990s seemed to be a better decade to live in than the previous one for western countries... though obviously far from perfect. And were it not for certain things (like Bush becoming president via court decision) who knows? Maybe some of that optimism may have actually been well founded in the long run instead of the shit show we got.

So... things are good in a well off part off a well of country? Goodo. What's that look like when you go worldwide?

If you really want to go into detail as to various positive environmental events world wide, sure, though it's probably better suited to another thread. Unfortunately it's not a linear progression - while some countries (like China) seem to have started a serious clampdown on pollution, others like the US seem to be relapsing.

Again, I must point out that when it comes to non-western countries I have a very limited knowledge. Especially culturally. Hell, even with western countries it varies - I think I have a pretty good grasp of my own country (as I live there and try to pay attention to what's going on), the USA (due to being our immediate and only neighbour) and the UK (due to close historical ties). I may have fairly good understanding of other Commonwealth countries like Australia and New Zealand as well due to historical precedents, though when it comes to culture in particular I'm probably lacking quite a bit. With regards to non-anglo countries, I might understand French culture a bit due to our heritage via Quebec (though as I live in southern Ontario our exposure to French culture is limited). As to the others? Mostly only via studies, conversation and travel. In my experience Western Europe seems to follow along the same guidelines as where I live (all are capitalist democracies) so I don't find it too hard to have at least a general understanding of what's going on. Non-western countries though? Yes, I do try to read up on other countries as much as possible, as history and politics are two of my favourite subjects. But to really understand them? No. I certainly wouldn't be able to without years of study, and more importantly in living in said countries. I might be able to make a couple of observations on things which may have some validity but that's the best I could hope for.