It's a 90s thing, you wouldn't understand.

Before everyone had a phone and wasn't getting the instant memo of judgment on everything. Inquiring and seeking opinions by word of mouth.

The popularity of flannel.

The death of Princess Diana being spread by word of mouth rather than news alerts.

Boxy men's Tommy Hilfiger shirts with too much fabric.

Puffy white sneakers.

Mom jeans and oversized vests for teenaged girls (and lesbian comedians).

"Mind if I smoke?" indoors.

Mashups of clashing fonts in pastel colors in logos.

Pagers (not only for drug dealers)

10,000 different talk shows on TV

Baggy Jeans

Rosie O'Donnell was adored.

Bucket hats and glow sticks.

AOL chatroom M4M hookups

Dial-up internet

Daisy Dukes.

Beneton.

Usenet message boards like alt.celebrities.gossip.

Quiet time. Contemplation time. Thinking time. What made people sane and thoughtful - before constant internet access crippled people, politics and societal function.

Ellen the trailblazing mainstream comedian vs. Ellen the widely despited cuntress.

The frequent use of Comic Sans.

Call 1-800-Go-Ricki if you suspect your man is cheating and want to confront him on the Ricki Lake Show.

Carson Daly

Cheaper long distance if you typed something like 10-10-321 before the phone number you wanted, and the endless TV commercials about it.

For that matter, phone rates going down in the evenings and further still overnight.

AOL "proggies", such as the OG "AOHell". You could totally wreak havoc in the chat rooms, such as the local M4M chat rooms.. You could impersonate people and make it look like they said shit in the room that they didn't say, and you could "punt" them offline just by instant messaging them a specific string of characters. There was also a hack to get an endless free trial so you didn't have to pay for AOL at all.

You could also request/apply to volunteer as a moderator on AOL, which if accepted they would give you a special version of the AOL desktop software which had additional features and privileges that regular users didn't have access to. AOL later got into hot water for this because they weren't compensating any of these people who were essentially working for them for free.

Kurt's olive green cardigan.

Sub7

"Welcome to Sizzler. Smoking or non?"

Monica, Diana, OJ, and JFK, Jr.

Star Search, Blind Date, Jenny Jones/Montel Williams/Maury Povich shows. And let's not forget Geraldo Rivera Show.

Also, "get back that line, dial *69!"

"Veronica's Closet" and "Caroline in the City" staying on for years, yet nobody ever talked about them.

Yo! MTV Raps

Love Line with Dr. Drew

Radiohead's unexpected rise from grunge wannabes to best band in the world.

R28 migrated here from the Beatles thread. 😉

Optimism

Being terrified when he doesn’t pull out and cum’s in your ass.

Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco

Ironic tees and/or janitor shirts that came from Goodwill, not mass-produced.

College rock bands and indie clubs. Miramax films. Thinking that kind of cultural shit was "important."

The rise of trashy TV afternoon talk shows, like Sally Jesse Raphael, Jenny Jones, Geraldo, Ricki, Rolonda, eventually Jerry Springer.

Thinking at the beginning of the decade, upon hearing things like Luscious Jackson's "In Search of Manny" that it was gonna be a GREAT decade for women, only to realize many years later that the 90s were possibly one of the worst decades for women.

Living in a deluded "End of History"-type mindset, in which something like 9/11 or Afghanistan/Iraq or Ukraine was basically inconceivable, and only recognizable in hindsight.

(R29, I don't think I've been on any Beatles thread of late.)

Soprano and SATC watch parties on Sunday nights.

AZT

Kaposi’s sarcoma

The Beastie Boys having a partial hegemony on coolness.

The Delia's catalog look, which was kind of a grunge-meets-Spice-Girl mashup. Grown women in pigtails and ringer tees.

"Bill and Monica" being the biggest political scandal facing the U.S. at that time.

I could go on.

River being the new James Dean.

Then, over night, Leo being the new River.

Luscious Jackson in general seems very much a 90s thing. WEHT?

Atlanta hosted the least regarded Olympic Games in decades

Voicemail. Not answering service. You’d have a number solely for recording messages. You’d pay for it monthly. You would go to pay phones throughout the day and call your number. Hit * and then enter your pin to hear your messages.

Barcelona was still considered a secondary EU city.

Hearing that enthusiastic voice saying "You Have Mail!"

Grunge becoming a big thing, and then suddenly "everybody" (including that guy Jamie Walters from 90210) wanting to act grunge.

And then grunge-fatigue. Being unable to differentiate between faux and authentic talent because *everybody* was wearing cheap-ass plaid flannel, and therefore totally missing the memo on Jeff Buckley because he was a pretty-boy like Jamie Walters. Sad.

California wasn’t yet a reliable blue state

With the posts about smoking I was reminded of whenever certain friends of my parents came over we had to set out ashtrays.

The grunge/rock girls. Liz Phair, Hole, Mazzy Star, L7, Fiona Apple, Jann Arden

Video Rental Stores a lá Blockbuster.

Dionne Warwick's "Psychic Friends Network"

Miss Cleo's "Psychic Readers Network"

Cher's "Lori Davis Hair Products" Commercial

Fax machines

Cat in the Hat stovepipe hats.

CBS sitcoms

Adidas slides

ValuJet

TV/VCR combos

Thinking a horror film about 3 hikers being terrorized in the woods by a centuries old witch is real

Recording songs from the radio onto a blank cassette tape

This is oddly specific, but the attempt to mold Janeane Garofalo into a major star. She started doing alternative comedy at Un-Cabaret and then Hollywood decided she was the Gen-X female comic actor.

"The Truth About Cats and Dogs," "The Ben Stiller Show," "The Larry Sanders Show," a disastrous run on SNL.

Eventually Janeane just went back to performing in small clubs where she felt more comfortable.

Homicide: Life on the Street, Fridays at 10, or later in the week on your VCR.

r54 I used to do that in the 80s too!! That way I could learn the lyrics so I could sing along when the song came on the radio, of course.

WHET to DL’s Janeane Garofolo troll? Was it her hair/wigs that was the focus?

I really liked Janeane.

Swing music. I loved the music, but what brought it on in the ‘90s?

Brian Setzer Orchestra, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies.

NBC's "ER" starring George Clooney

Stomp!

Spice Girls everything.

Blue Man Group; Rent; Phantom

How excited we were when WW2 ended and how sad we were when FDR died. He was the only President for so long during my childhood.

Palm Pilots

R60 you remind me of this club in the 90’s in Bucktown in Chicago on Monday’s that had a Big Band Hip Hop night that I would go to and dance all night. It was so much fun. But I can’t remember the name.

Blue Man Group

Lambada

Peruvian pan pipe music

Collarless/Nehru type shirts (‘95ish)

Goatees on guys, Cinderella chokers on girls

The Macarena

The Information Superhighway

[quote]ValuJet

Oh, God, and the ValuJet crash into the Everglades.

Some twisted drag queens used that for their Halloween costume — stewardess uniforms with green glop all over them, staggering down the street like zombies.

Having to use a landline phone to call for a taxi

[quote]Having to use a landline phone to call for a taxi

And when out at a bar, asking the bartender to call you a taxi.

Riverdance

God I miss bathhouses.

Mike Levey and his Amazing Discoveries infomercials. Ron Popeill and the 'set it and forget it' rotisserie.

MMMBop

Sham-WOW!

The Simpsons being funny and clever

Roseanne not being a right-wing freak

Spiky hair gel tips

Zima

Donald Trump was just a wealthy businessman. Not a TV host or political figure.

Flat-top hair cuts.

Super Kmart

90210 sideburns

Lileth Fair.

We laughed at messy attention whores. We didn’t take them seriously.

These thin, half-moon shaped eyebrows. Drew Barrymore had them.

For the most part people were satisfied with the gender they were born. And the few who weren't usually went on Jerry Springer to be laughed at.

Drew Barrymore was an actress who partied with Courtney Love and showed her titties to David Letterman instead of a kooky talk show host.

Ground turkey

The Caesar hair cut.

The House Party flat top.

Velvet chokers.

Drew Barrymore flashing Letterman.

Encyclopedias

Shoulder pads.

Pagers.

Mullets.

Shoulder pads and mullets were more of '80s things.

I worked at Barnes & Noble in the 90s. We were always packed. Men are from Mars, Celestial Prophecy, and The Green Mile Sold in six parts. I was in charge of calendars at Christmas. We had rows of them.

Elizabeth Wurtzel

You are right R95 Someone should start another exact thread about the 80's. Would be fun. R96 Just the thought of Barns and Noble in the 90's puts the biggest smile on my face. Great times.

^Barnes

Peasant blouses on cubefraus.

Donna Summer's attempt at New Jack music : "Mistaken Identity"

Earth tones on everyone for a few years.

Alanis Morisette

Vests everywhere, man and frau alike.

Long braided leather belts.

Paisley

A lot of brass earrings on cubefeaus.

Wide ties!

Arseeeeeeeennnnnnio Hall Show! Whoop, whoop, whoop!

Pleated floppy-doppy pants, which looked hawt on tall guys, and hawt and dirty on cop types.

Houndstooth on men and women.

Silky-type oversized button down shirts on men.

Brown blush on fraus.

Madonna was in her prime . Sombody looking for susan.

Wardrobe staples for young guys in the ‘90s included puka shell necklaces, Doc Martens, blousy rayon shirts, and the ubiquitous patterned vests.

Cuffed pants.

(At least a few yet) cruise ships that weren't filled with the wrong kind of people.

Longish sideburns.

In Living Color

Lots of ties with no jacket.

Not a fan.

Everyone talking about the big cliffhangers on TV shows:

Who killed Laura Palmer

Who shot Mr Burns.

Towards the middle of the decade, every man, gay and str8, was required to own at least 3 of those tragique electric blue button down shirts that didn’t go with anything.

They were worn everywhere, the office the klerbs, date night, church, the mall.

Sad!

My personal favorites:

Jerry Springer, gay porn stars without tattoos, the Simpsons, and a gay community without trannies and assholes pretending to be “nonbinary.”

Bandanas had a moment.

Hello and Welcome to Moviefone!

A white stain on a blue dress from the Gap.

Paying for music.

Of course the CD was more expensive than the cassette.

In the South, all the sorority girls at good colleges were wearing pea coats. They wore these boot cut stretchy black pants to go out in.

[quote]Everyone talking about the big cliffhangers on TV shows:

Kimberly blowing up Melrose Place

*Down low fraternity ‘Mo

The first run of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" on American TV was a major event with mammoth ratings and had all the networks scrambling to create their own big-money quizzes.

When this guy became the first winner it was a national story. Too bad he was a dick.

Heroin.

Fucking Vera Fucking Bradley

Pop Up Videos

Every guy in my high school was either drenched in Cool Water or Eternity

By Davidoff!

Dusty Le Male bottles

It’s Ralph Lauren hunting lodge or Calvin Klein lavender bamboo

You seem to make friends with people who date Microsoft workers (In Chicago of all places) and you silently promise yourself you won’t bring up money - even once the relationships end. You are a nosy bastard.

Silk boxers.

mIRC

ICQ.

Total Jeopardy winnings of 50K or more was a real achievement

PANTENE!!

Pika shells are much more a70s thing—same for rayon shirts

^puka

Night and Weekend Minutes.

Top one, nice one, get sorted.

Vicks VapoRub sitting on the decks, label facing out.

"I'm 23 and I'm like by far the oldest person at this club."

Spy Magazine

R32, By Jove, you've got it! Quintessential 90s. I mean, JOEY BUTTAFUOCO! The name, the look, the location, the under-age thing, the maimed wife, the boat---the boat! The Made-for-TV movies, plural!

And they all survived!

R138, Because the 5-game limit was still in effect. How do I know? I was on in '92.

“Yes, it’s Paulo’s haircut from AbFab’s “Last Shout”, but I really wanted the Lorenzo Lamas cut. My hair’s texture is too wavy to pull it off.”

“There’s synthetic weed - JW018. It’s sold as Bonsai fertilizer; no smell and it doesn’t even show up on a piss test.” Right…uhuh.

R92, I wore a black velvet choker in the 70s.

On a related Buttafuoco note, I watched a True Crime 45 min YT vid today about how it all went down. They had a much older Mary Jo on throughout the segment, so that was enjoyable to hear her Longeyeland accent. Her face recovered and the droop on one side is almost completely gone.

Doc Martens. Supermodels. Beverly Hills 90210. General Hospital. The normalcy and stability of life under a Democratic president. The Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings. The Nicole Brown/Ron Goldman murders. Grunge Rock. Hip Hop going mainstream. Kerri Strug's vault and the team winning gold. Gangsta Rap. Tupac and Biggie getting shot. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Susan Lucci finally winning that Emmy. The Y2K glitch that never happened.

R149 Mary Jo has been a guest on Howard Stern many times over the years. She seems like a pretty cool lady, and she doesn’t seem to harbor a lot of resentment. She just goes on with life.

Weed was not nearly as strong then as it is now, you could smoke several decent-sized bowls before getting wasted. It also wasn't legal anywhere in the contiguous US states, but in Alaska it was quasi-legal and the state was famous for the weed strains developed there, like Northern Lights. I believe that legalization made the ultra-potent strains we have today possible. I stick to ones with THC percentage levels in the high teens to low twenties, anything more is too much. It certainly is nice being able to consistently get the exact strain you want, and not having to cope with dealers is a blessing.

John Wayne Bobbitt

"Can't we all just get along?" Rodney King, his beating by the cops and the LA riots.

Also, WHITE BRONCO leading several highway patrol/squad cars on a low-speed car chase.

Spandex/luces short shorts, puffy socks, military boots were the universal gay clubbing uniform. Everyone wore pretty much the same thing in different colors. Not unlike middle school girls, with their Alyssa Milano looks.

And speaking of middle school girls, you could always find a mix of them and gay men at Erasure concerts.

550-TOOL (90s), Manhunt (00s), Grindr (10s)

Robyn Bird was everybody’s hag.

Sampras was actually considered the tennis GOAT.

Lol.

Madonna's shocking Sex book, causing a firestorm

Jeneane Garofalo

Melrose Place mania

Sean Patrick Live

Campfire/Hunkvideo Discussion Board

Stop the Insanity! Susan Powter and one of the first mainstream buzzcut (bleached blonde of course).

Tae Bo with Billy Blanks.

Sweatin to the Oldies 2, which came out in 1990. I actually worked out to this in the mid 90s. He was a very positive, encouraging instructor and I actually enjoyed working out.

TLA and Strand releases for gay softcore and sometimes decent movies.

The Real World

The 90’s was an eclectic, so as long as you had some taste, you were fine.

Young actors (even the bad ones) who wanted to be artists just as much, if not more, than they wanted to be famous.

r78, Oh, How I did love Vince's Nutz!

Queer Nation.

“New York celebrities” doing recordings for Yellow Cabs - pre Taxi-TV.

Really really good dance music

compartmentalization

You navigated life by separating as much of it as you could. . . so, you'd have many masques you'd have to wear but you'd have no need of a safe space because you knew what to expect and where the boundaries were. And there was always a niche somewhere to rest. And virtually everyone had multiple lives... secret identities.

Cliques

Most people had a circle of five.. this is the reason later that calling plans were setup to account for the five people you talk to the most in your life. Some had more, some had less.

Some people were part of a specific scene others were part of several or a primary and several subscenes. You might have been a party of one but you carved out a space for yourself, one way or another. For some that would be party lines or the early expanse of the proto-internet such as bbs or greater systems like AO(hel)L and similar services, eventually the net.

It was a lot easier to make new friends than enemies. Although.... they often overlapped or exchanged places.

bullying & the art of social warfare

bullying in my youth was far more violent but with the 90s the violence lessened, however, it became far more vicious. . . imagine having to do damage control or running counter campaigns without social media.

So, your options were often limited to retreat and abandon the scene or scorched earth and thoroughly take down your opponent but without getting your hands dirty.

I had a hag spread a nasty set of lies about me - the art of it was it wasn't anything particularly "bad' but it was believable, something people could pity and they did in a way of trying to be supportive. . . which made it all that much harder to convince them it wasn't true, and when proven not to be true, then they were angry for the lie but not the originating person that told it.

The example of what she did, tho, was perfect.

University / College / Etc.

every pragmatic major was impacted and stilll pretty much are....

for the young adults in this age, most of their parents didn't help or couldn't help, so it wasn't uncommon for students to be homeless while going to school.

Though I knew far too many that were just homeless in genral.

Minesweeper and Mahjong on PC. Modems. AOL email addresses. Lycos search. Writing websites in HTML.

OJ and the Bronco chase

LA riots. There was a tension everywhere. We could smell the fires in the Valley.

The North Hollywood Shootout.

Having to go through the phone line to dial up the internet.

Having time limits on the internet or you'd have to pay HUGE amounts.

Dot matrix printers and the "artwork" people created with letters.

Framed 3D posters where the image was hidden. Some folks could never see them. I had a cool dinosaur one in my room.

The Phantom of the Opera

Kenny G.

Beaches.

R146

Yes, I know why—it’s the very point of the post, thanks.

I was on the show in ‘88/season 4

Ken Ryker, not being able to get hard

Cyberpunk.

excite.com

Laserdiscs

Geena Davis

Dianne Feinstein for Governor!

"Southwestern" cuisine

Dark plum and/or brown lipstick with a darker liner. Everyone wore this, regardless of whether it suited their complexion or what they were actually wearing.

The Friends haircut. Layered cut, volumized at the roots and blown out to Kingdom Come with the ends turned under. It was ubiquitous, cliche, and even though it originated with Friends, it was also observed on the women of Melrose.

Showtime! At the Fabulous Forum!

In the early 90s, there was also a (possibly conscious, but certainly noticeable) separation in the aesthetics of the two dominant youth culture paradigms of the time: grunge and rap.

Grunge became all about the mainstreaming of dark/cheap flannels, ripped jeans and Docs. But there was also a parallel mainstreaming of rap culture that was all about big/bright FUBU polos and bright sneakers and athletic wear.

Gay guys and butch lesbians rocking the hell out of wife beaters

The Oscars red carpet. After Uma showed up in the Prada slip dress in 1994 for "Pulp Fiction," red-carpet couture became a huge thing. It was to the Bob Mackie/Scasi looks of the 80s was the asteroid was to the dinosaurs.

Chrystal Pepsi

A marathon of phone sex commercials playing during the commercial breaks of some low budget 70's flick , when networks still played late night movies, at 2 am on your living room t.v at a very low volume so as not to awake your parents

Also, trying to decipher a dick from the scrambled porn channel, usually done while taking a break from the phone sex commercials

The Snapple Lady and the Pinesol Lady were like our Diana and Fergie.

R178 of course, "The Rachel" haircut.

Imagination! network, one of the first RPG sites where you created an avatar and could go to different lands and encounter other players. You could also chat/DM with others. I was on it every single night.

R172, Well, in 2022 not everyone will get your point, perhaps? In any case, congratulations (really) to you for winning four times! I'm just thankful I knew my FJ!

Sally Jessy Raphael.

Johnny Carson.

Julia Ormond.

Jenny Jones.

Elliott Smith.

That Nirvana was actually quite a distinctive and new sound; that Madonna and Janet could actually produce good music; that singers in general sang live without an electronic echo chambers making it sound like they can sing.

R188 thanks—you get why I posted…so the young ones know how hard we had to work for our $🤠

I’ve dined out out on my Jeopardy stories for 34 years…so I’m not one to really complain. Although, I’ve not watched the show since the TOC for my season (which I *just missed out on*)—for me, the fun was in the doing not the watching.

When white people were relevant. See Kurt Cobain.

in 1990, "Smoking or non-smoking?" was no longer a question asked when you called to make a domestic flight reservation. In February 1990, all US domestic flights under 6 hours became smoke-free by federal mandate.

And nobody--NOBODY--talked about China. Or Russia either, really. People just assumed it was moving toward some democratic ideal. The tragic global hotspots at the time were Bosnia and Rwanda.

Star Trek resurgence. The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. Enterprise in the early oughts, though good, showed they had gone to the well too many times. It needed the rest it was given.

Patrick Stewart, David Caruso, and Dennis Franz(?!) being considered sex symbols. At least looking back I can understand Sir Patrick's status.

Star 69

r180 Ah, the flannel years confused many a young twink and babydyke.

Jeangenie—huh? The USSR dissolved in 1991. No one talked about it or cared…? You’re mistaken.

And a major Taiwan crisis…and the continued fall out from Tienanmen Square..and the return of Hong Kong? Etc., etc.

Tee shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, coffee mugs, framed and unframed art, calendars, dishtowels, dishes, greeting cards, clocks, etc. with angels and cherubs on them. Especially 'The Two Cherubs' by Raphael.

Should say Rafael ^^^^^ Sorry.

R199, as I recall it, once the USSR collapsed in '91, there was a sense that the Cold War was "over," that the U.S. had won it, and that the Russian Federation's move toward democracy was a fait accompli (albeit a sloppy one). For the vast majority of the 1990's, Russia was considered a non-threat.

Bulletin board systems (BBS), where you dialed in and then could chat with people, post messages, and upload and download material. By the early to mid 90s, there were BBS for just about any topic you would want. I met a fair number of guys on the hookup BBS in my area and participated in other ones as well. The arrival of the Internet pretty much made them extinct.

I’m the financial crisis in Asia.

You’re recollection is just that—but the reality was quite different.

^ the reality is that we deal with the collapse of the USSR to this day—from the early 1990s there’s a through line straight to the ongoing land war in Europe. It was a key moment in the history of post WW2 politics.

*Now* we deal with it, but that's largely because the US took its eye off the ball in the 90s.

A/S/L

“We” never stopped dealing with it. You weren’t looking—that’s ok, we all analyze the world through our own prism.

For women, babydoll dresses worn with baby tees and Doc Martens.

Another 90s thing: Sharon Stone as a living fashion icon.

Nancy and Tonya

^ you analyze the world through your own prism

Geo and Saturn: wannabe Japanese style cars put out by American manufacturers.

The last gasp of "Gay Culture"

Gay porn stars who looked like STARS.

Inflatable furniture

Futons and Pier One papasan chairs.

Bolo ties.

Bridget Jones being able to afford an apartment in Notting Hill.

The never-ending Andrew Lloyd Webber backstage saga between Webber and his leading ladies of 'Sunset Boulevard' (1993-97). The firings and subsequent lawsuits ( Patti Lupone, Faye Dunaway), the charges of racism (Diahann Carroll), the threats of quitting the show (Glenn Close) over phony box-office receipts for when a stand-by took over a few weeks (Karen Mason) , the peculiar casting offers (Cher, Diana Ross, Joan Collins) ... all leading to the great Sunset Global Meltdown in March / April 1997.

Geo Tracker (I haven't seen one on the road in years)

Taking a picture to Kinkos to have a GIF made to upload online.

Communal showers in the gym.

Third Wave Ska music.

R111, like a lot of you, seems to confuse the 80s for the 90s.

Pier One Imports is a a 70s thing—keep up with the thread title, lady and gentlemen.

Forget night and weekend minutes, I would use my allowance and part-time job wages to buy a long-distance calling card from Kmart, to talk to my internet boyfriend that lived the next state over. We would talk for hours until the time on the card ran out. For more 90s weirdness, we met on XY.com

I often wonder what happened to him!

Jesus H Christ some of these promo calling cards are still collectable.

The whole thing already mentioned about getting together with friends and no one looking at their phone really hits home. I can remember a grand total of ONE friend had a Nokia in the late 90s, and he would get shit if he spent too long looking at it. And I remember big groups of us from school wanting to do something like ice skating, so we would organise a huge plan of who needed to get to which bus stop at what time so we could all meet up on the same bus and get to the ice rink at the same time.

And everyone did it and it worked out perfectly. No last minute texts saying people couldn't make it, everyone just made it happen and had a great time. This would've been about 98/99? Then, I remember how quickly that changed. In University now, around 2004 and I remember someone wanting to have a Hottest 100 party for Australia Day. I said I would ask people, and it was so clear all of a sudden how uncomfortable people were with taking phone calls. The very same generation who had grown up talking on the phone until late at night, gossiping about nonsense, suddenly couldn't carry a conversation on the phone very well and didn't want to be asked if they wanted to come to an event because it was easier to receive the text and decide later. People pulled out at the last minute or didn't turn up too. It all changed so quickly with the arrival of mobile phones.

Only worrying about exlax being cut into your coke....kmart selling "grunge" clothing...messy Courtney Love...backrooms at bars....what an ordeal it was to coordinate plans with no cells or having a pager...

Heroin chic

"Party of Five," "7th Heaven," "My So-Called Life," and "Dawson's Creek." The advent of earnest teen dramas, I suppose in contradiction to trashy 90210/Melrose.

How about before the internet when "porn" was the underwear page of a clothing catalogue, a book on sports, or a medical book? I know some lucky guys found their dad's porn or something, but a lot of the time we had to make do with very little and our imaginations.

My parents did have a book called "The New Encyclopaedia of Sex" which I discovered one day in my teens and that was at least eye-opening, and probably is why I have a thing for men from the late 70s/early 80s to this day (think the book was published around 1982).

Boxer shorts underwear.

Planet Out.com

Xena Warrior Princess

The Xfiles on Friday nights.

[quote]The Xfiles on Friday nights.

Where I lived this was Thursday night, and my generation all talk about how "big" Thursday night was for television. Dawson's Creek, The X Files and then Law and Order (original, followed by SVU). I feel like Felicity was in there somewhere too, though this may have been more at the beginning of the 00s.

This

Colorful homes. Colorful carpet. No goddam beige.

Gwyneth Paltrow was an academy award winning actress...I know

Britpop and shoegazer bands

Must See TV

Winona Ryder

Automatic For The People.

And the art of the music video

Tossed salads and scrambled eggs.

I remember a lot of extra clunky brogues on str8 guys at the office, with dress pants.

Quite terrible.

This sort of deep blue-green interior paint color was everywhere in the ‘burbs.

Also deep, slightly rusty red. Fraus were obsessed with these two colors.

Plaid/tartan sofas in muted jewel tones.

What was that about? Even the bank lobby had one!

Art Bell

“Mission Oak” furniture suites - creating heavy squares that only work with one another at 90 degree angles

Cats trying to chew on your cordless phone’s antenna

Jerry Springer’s infamous tranny smackdowns.

Pauly Shore

Ask fucking Jeeves

Cowrie shell chokers Dawson’s Creek Geo and Saturn Contempo Casuals The sound of your modem connecting to the web

[quote]Baggy Jeans

Have you seen Gen Z?

r13 You know you can go offline and have all the quiet time you want?

Gay and lesbian bookstores !!!

Angelfire.

Geocities.

CD-ROM encyclopaedias.

Angry girl aesthetic.

Eurodance in the charts (Ace of Base, Real McCoy, Technotronic, Corona...)

Getting your porn through Usenet groups.

Geocities sites

The Simpsons as cultural juggernaut.

River & Keanu.

Calling in to radio stations.

Bookstores period! R255 And shopping in brick and mortar stores before Amazon and online shopping.

Skidz clown pants

Kevyn Aucoin

Gregg Araki.

Chloë Sevigny interning at Sassy.

Green Grand Cherokees everywhere

lipstick lesbians

Neo-noir movies, often with soft erotica.

OP- Yes , it is a 90's thing when I would walk into a gay bar ca. 1995 , stand against the wall and be cruised simultaneously on my right and my left by two good looking guys.

This haircut

R169 this is not personal remembrances thread. Nothing you write means anything to anyone besides you.

r269 Have you seen Gen Z?

The Celestine Prophecy

Hypercolor shirts & mood rings.

Overpriced Reebok Pump sneakers.

Hearing that damn "box of chocolates" Forrest Gump line every minute.

Rush, rush, hurry hurry lover come to me!

r204

r204

Date: 11/21/88. Time: 05:10:02. Read 17 Times.

From : SYSOP

To : NOBODY

Subj : QUANTUM MATHEMATICS

PI DOESN'T EXIST! THIS IS ACCORDING TO MY NEW PHILOSOPHY OF QUANTUM

MATHEMATICS. A NUMBER DOESN'T EXIST UNLESS YOU CAN WRITE IT DOWN. AND RECITE

IT. THEREFORE PI DOESN'T EXIST!C- - -

Message # 37.

Date: 11/21/88. Time: 21:47:16. Read 18 Times.

From : G

To : Our dear mistaken SYSOP

Subj : I disagree!

(I wonder if that entire name got typed out, or if the TO: is cut off?)

If you give an infinite amount of monkeys an infinite amount of time and an

infinite amount of paper, they would still misspell Line 43, Scene 2, Act V

of Hamlet, but they would be able to recite pi, nevertheless. It is primi-

tive thinking to remain in the world of the finite. There are infinites all

around us, no matter what the quantum model states... Sure, maybe Quantum

mechanics tells us that there is a fundamental unit of time, measurement, &

space, but there are an infinite number of ways thesee units can be miscal-

culated. And I happen to gnow a few people who get pretty close to infinity

by miscalculating... You've got to believe in a world of imaginary numbers,

and 1/0. Infinity can be your friend, for if you can control infinite im-

probablities, and calculate them through limits, you can accomplish the im-

possible in an infinitely small amount of time. (Imaginary time) Therefore,

with pi, you can do anything!

(Of course, I never give away the secrets as to HOW to do all this, because that would take out all the fun of discovery for you guys...)

The gay porn industry all in an uproar when Miguel Lopez shot his load on Rob Cryston’s face, because, HIV risk. If only they had known about Treasure Island Media.

Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise

The homophobia.

Brokers and investment bankers without cocaine

Your friends’ one woman/ one man shows

Ersatz Tuscan farmhouse décor.

"Poetry slams" and thinking those were going to be a big thing.

When did finance bros ever do without cocaine?! Never, ‘cause coke was, is and always will be part of the that life.

Pete’s Wicked Ale

SnackWell’s — a frau feeding time favorite

R254 I don't know if it was simply my youth but the world feels more frenetic now. Maybe it's my youth at the time warping my sense of the decade.

Susan Powter

1990's 'Playgirl" - finally accepted the fact that the magazine was not bought by women, but by gay men. They proudly focused on gay porno actors for their models, instead of trying to find straight men like they did in the 70s and 80s. They changed their byline from 'Entertainment for Women' to 'Entertainment for Everybody'. Their masthead was made up of mostly gay men, accept for the photo of the 'editor in chief' where they stuck a female in there (who changed every month). I believe they finally got caught for using a fake name and 'stock photo' for their female editor in chief.

R54- That’s a 1970’s and 1980’s thing.

Easy Spirit shoes and commercials (women playing basketball in pumps). "Looks like a shoe, feels like a sneaker."

There were two Julie Browns on MTV

Nike Pumps

^ My bad, I meant Reebok

Coors was sold only in the West —nada east of the Missouri River.

R169, those were your experiences. They had nothing to do with the 90s and they weren't universal. The 90s coincided with my 20s and early 30s and nothing you wrote is relatable.

Cocaine existed in the 90s. It didn't define the era the way it did the 80s but it did 't disappear overnight, never to be seen again in the 20th century.

That said, the 90s were the first decade I remember widespread acceptance of weed in public. It wasn't just hippies and "burnouts," it seemed like everyone smoked at least a little weed. Definitely the starting point for what led us to today and legal recreational weed.

^ as stated above: on Wall Street (or in the City of London) or in any part of finance—it was then and still is apart of the culture. the end…

* a part of

Columbine was truly shocking...now it would be forgotten by the next news cycle.

Oprah, Martha Stewart, Jfk Jnr and Carolyn Bissett, Princess Diana, Tamagotchi, The Nanny, Seinfeld, Friends, Will and Grace, Titanic, Enya, The Corrs, Clintons, Millenium Bug. Trading cards/basketball cards. POG. The Mirror Has Two Faces, First Wives Club,

I had a thing for satin boxers cause all the guys at school would wear them and sag and it made me so horny

Celine Dion

Joan Rivers on the red carpet,

Mrs Doubtfire,

Zima

I didn't inhale.

Having a balanced budget in the White House for once (Thanks Bill!)

The blue dress

Ellen coming out and what a huge deal that was.

Towanda!

Christina Applegate

Acid Jazz.

Set adrift on memory bliss.

Leprechaun loafer heels

Knee high socks with skirts and said heels

Stovepipe jeans

Overalls on girls with baby T's

Resurgence of Keds

Tendrils and butterfly hair clips

Ramen hair / frosted tips for guys

Brown lipstick & Liner & pencil thin eyebrows

Slimfast and Lose Weight NOW! Ask me how / herbal crack aka Herbalife green and beige pills full of ephedra for the heroin chic look!

Eminem

R288, it was definitely a 90s thing; I spent a lot of that decade glued to the stereo with my finger hovering over the pause button so I missed as little of the songs I wanted to tape off the radio as possible. I still have my collection of cassettes somewhere in my old room at home.

^The thread is less about what any of us might have done individually, and more about the general culture and ideas, actions, etc. identified with that particular time.

Those ugly big CD towers or binders to hold your collection

What are you talking about R310? Everyone at school did this. We'd tape our own cassettes and then record them for each other too. It absolutely was a part of 90s culture.

Actresses really taking their careers seriously and showing dedication and commitment.

Speed limit increases.

Drew Barrymore marrying random bartenders and Tom Green, flashing her tits to Dave Letterman

British actors with floppy hair.

Enough about Drew Barrymore flashing her tits.

Sharon Stone flashing her twat.

Tower Records, the big one on Union Square. When I walk past that building these days, it has an almost mythical quality, like the billboard with the eyes in "The Great Gatsby." A temple of a bygone era, that's for sure.

When I lived in SF in 2007-2009, they used that building for the Halloween store.

IOU Sweaters

Darcey Bussell.

^^r322 who? I've never heard of this person.

R312. Hello, younger person! More simply: what you described was “a 70s thing.” In the 90s, it was just some thing. As far as the title of this thread goes, it is a distinction with a difference.

Are we copacetic? —that’s also “ a 70s thing.”

It's a 90s thing, R323, you wouldn't understand. 😉

She's an English ballerina that had a moment in the 90s. It seemed she was always turning up in comedies of the time, playing herself.

Oh, I understand it now R324: you're disagreeable.

Not I —chill out

r325 I'm 53 and lived through the 90s. I've NEVER heard of her, which is why the fuck I'd be asking "who?"

And I'm a person who is very much into celebrities/tv & movie stars.

But thanks for answering the question.

We taped songs off of the radio in the 80s. Pretty sure it was a 70s thing too. Also: only kids did this, not adults. So it's not specific to one decade and more related to the age of the person who did it. Not a 90s thing at all. A retro thing kids did 70s to 90s.

R327, switch to decaf.

So true R298. Mass shootings were incredibly rare back then. Now they happen every other day.

What a tedious disagreement. People really have pretty charmed lives to worry about this or there is some mass kind of autism going on here.

r329 i don't drink coffee you asshole. She must not have been much of a thing if I didn't hear about her.

In fact, i'm thinking i should start a poll to ask if anyone has heard of Darcey Bussell. Pretty sure what the results would be already though.

Autism—now *that’s* a 90s thing

Slackers

I returned to brokerage from banking in 1992 and I gave hair and urine to get employment. There had been an FBI sting on the CBOT floor and they busted traders.

When i returned, I had a herd of type A asshole traders spouting AA slogans, bragging about prozac, and making everyone suffer. We turned interesting sociopaths into bland bitter bankers.

Having to sell wrapping paper door to door for school.

Book it! Kids read a quantity of books and get a Personal Pan pizza for their efforts.

Mullets - aka business in the front, party in the back - were very much a thing that became popular in the 90s, not the 80s so much.

Deliberately non-scary, white-people accessible television sitcoms from black people.

In fact, we had a wave of deliberately non-scary bland singers as well.

R171 the LA riots was insane. I was about 12 when they occurred and I remember I could see the smoke from house hear Hollywood. Just insane.

My first partner was firefighter during the riots and he was on the scene during the entire ordeal and its aftermath. He never liked talking about it, even years later when we were together, and I knew not to press. I gathered he saw some scary shit.

^^^MY house NEAR Hollywood^^^

r340 i think you meant r154. i was the person who first posted about the LA riots.

R179, the Showtime Lakers were the 80s.

First half of the 90s was post Magic rebuilding. Last half of the 90s was Kobe and Shaq becoming Kobe and Shaq.

Joan Rivers Jewelry Collection on QVC. She started in 1990 to get out of $37 Million in debt she was left with when her husband suicided in 1987.

I meant R171, but I clearly skipped over your earlier post R343. Apologies.

So consider yourself included!

Thanks r345! I love to be included in the inclusivity!

Broadway's much-hyped musical "Victor / Victoria " starring Julie Andrews and an 'egregiously overlooked cast and production' by the Tonys. Best part of the musical was when Andrews told the voting members to shove her nomination (the only Tony bnomination the show got) up their asses.

Why did they interrupt tv to show the OJ Simpson Bronco chase? That was proof right there he did it.

Those giant long computer monitors in the courtroom and Judge Ito. What a spectacle of justice for the rich and famous. OJ Made in America pointed out the link between the history, the riots and the acquittal. Fuck race issues in America. I hate it.

r332, I'm the same age as you and I've never heard of her either.

Filthy dirty whores still caught the aids. Big time.

Goths and riot grrls

Wearing a lot of very toned pancake-makeup, unnaturally overdyed red bush heads of hair, and garishly dark-red lipstick. Oh, and all brown or black clothing. Oh, and big chunky square high heels.

Highly hyped 'boxed sets' of career retrospective CD s. Streisand's "Just for the Record"; Diana Ross' "Forever Diana", Carly Simon's "Clouds In My Coffee", Abba's "Thank You For The Music", etc.

OH!!!!

Natalie Cole Sings With Her Very Dead Dad Nat King Cole And He’s A Fucking Hologram

R348 that one old bitch said she knew he was guilty but voted to acquit as "payback". How TF is she not in jail?

Yea, the riots really hit Hollywood in a bad way.

Try living near Inglewood—and what a 12 year old white drama Queen you were

Beanie Babies.

R343

Showtime, and Magic’s primary career, ended in June 1991–after the Lakers lost to the Bulls in 5 games…🖕🏾

Oakley sunglasses.

I had a few beanie babies, but that was in the 80s. i put them on the dashboard of the car i purchased with my own money from my parents. The money was from a job i actually worked outside of the home, not an allowance.

Oh, and the Sunglass Hut! ^^

Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs

R353, so you're going to stick to calling the 90s Lakers the Showtime Lakers? Because of the one Finals appearance, when Jordan dismantled an overmatched team with an overmatched Magic, a rapidly aging Worthy and Perkins as their third best player? Instead of the 80s, when the moniker originated and when they won 5 titles. Okay. Sounds reasonable.

And congrats on living in Inglewood. Yes, it's where the Forum is! Not sure why that means you'd know more about the Lakers than fans living in other parts of LA. But cool.

Oh and I guess you're also R356? If so, again, congrats on living in Inglewood. Yes, that city was closer to the epicenter of the riots than Hollywood. For sure. I guess living ONLY in Hollywood means I shouldn't comment on the riots. Even if it was one of the most defining moments of my childhood. How dare I do so!

Oh, I have a feeling you are much, much more of a drama queen than I can ever dream of being.

You can do watch wanna do ..... In Living Color.

Supermodels and Super Mario

Tower Records Boston.

At one time it was the absolute hub of Newbury St.’s fashion and cultural universe. A mammoth store covering hundreds of thousands of square feet with books, CD’s, a whole floor of classical and an especially generously extensive porn rental collection- it literally evaporated overnight when the IPod appeared.

My bisexual bad boy ex worked in the video dept. and I met tons of musicians, a porn star or two, we had NOTORIOUS after parties back at our Mass Ave. apartment- and he set every bartender in the city up with free rentals. We didn’t pay for a drink for almost a decade!

Liv and Joaquin. I thought those two were really cute together.

We still had Batboy…

The '90s saw the release of lots of box sets I enjoyed, r353.

First came Back to Mono, the 1991 Phil Spector compilation, which included all the songs the Ronettes, the Crystals, Darlene Love, the Righteous Brothers, among others, recorded on the Philles label, all in one 5-CD, LP-sized package that also included A Christmas Gift for You, the Christmas album that had the bad fortune of being originally released on November 22, 1963.

Then there was the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations in 1993, disc 2 of which gave us the most complete official release of the Smile album that had been released to date.

In 1999, Linda Ronstadt's was released, introducing us—or me, at least—to her great song "Gainesville," from Randy Newman's Faust.

And throughout the decade, there were the Michael Cuscuna-produced Miles Davis box sets for Sony. Beautiful, if impractical, packaging (I wore out the CDs in the '65-'68 Quintet box, playing them so often). But a musical marvel.

Barney and Teletubbies

…smoke went to your head.

R7 Bucket hats are in again.

Running on the beach in red shirts/swimsuit in slow mo.

BIG unexpected celebrity deaths, which took the world by surprise...

Jackie Onassis - we knew she had lymphoma in January, 1994 but didn't know she was refusing treatment for months, knowing it would bring an early death. This was despite her status, her financial fortune and her access to the best treatments around the world. This led to her surprising, early death at the age of 64 on May 19, 1994 - ending her life on 'her terms' and not through suffering and endless years of prolonged treatments. That's not how she wanted to spend the rest of her life - and she ended it on her terms (so we found out later).

Liz Montgomery - the beloved actress was suffering from colon cancer but refused to get medical help. Diagnosed at the end of March, 1995 she was dead six weeks later on May 18 at the age of 62 - shocking fans and the entertainment world (she kept her illness a secret). Suddenly everyone realized how important it was to visit your doctor for the slightest symptoms which could turn deadly - and we all learned the importance of getting a colonoscopy over the age of 50.

Princess Diana - Not much else can be said about the deadly car crash on August 31, 1997 that took her life at 36 and shocked the world.

JFK Jr - America's Prince Charming lost his life in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard at the age of 38 with his wife and sister-in-law. There were hopes for him to enter politics once he hit 40 (2000) and be an eventual Democratic nominee for the Presidency in 2008, before he hit 50. All hopes were dashed due to his young death.

R372 *shorts

All that to do in the Balkans.

R373 You forgot the biggest and most unexpected death of the 90s. Kurt Cobain. But that isn't 90s thing. Generation before had unexpected deaths in Elvis and Lennon. Ten years before, there were MLK, Robert Kennedy, Hendrix, Morrison and Joplin. A couple of years before them Monre and JFK. And so on..

R373, I agree with R376.

If you were young in the 90s? Cobain's death was the biggest and most life changing. People at my high school were openly weeping and walked around in shock for the days following his death! And I was one of them.

(Diana then took over as biggest death a few years later.)

JFK Jr. was too dumb to be president.

R378 So?

I was in elementary/middle school during the 90s and I remember Diana’s death the most vividly. My drama queen mother was SOBBING over it.

MTV was still watchable with Real World, House of Style, 120 Minutes, Daria, etc.

"Alternative" models like Jenny Shimizu, Eve Salvail, plus controversial "waif" Kate Moss. Then of course you had all the standard supermodels at the height of their power.

R381, I was pretty obsessed with Daria! Haha. I'd totally forgotten about that show.

And, yes, 120 Minutes was a staple for me and my friends. I believe it was on Sunday nights, because I remember we'd talk whatever the hot video was from Sonic Youth (or whoever) that next Monday.

The 1993 Equality March on DC, for newly out me, my though the looking glass moment. Never seen anything like it again.

“Urban” youths wearing their pants backwards.

Kurt Cobain? This is Datalounge, where the death of Lawrence Welk was more triggering…

I remember vividly when Cobain died. I was working in a college bookstore at the same, and a DJ announced it over the radio. I called the station to ask if it was really true (this whole scenario is *so* 90s), and the DJ said "That's what we're hearing." It was shocking but not totally surprising, as he was widely rumored to have tried to kill himself some weeks before in Rome.

The song that played on the radio right after I made that call was "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, which I associate with a feeling of "grunge-fatigue." I was just so sick of all those musicians and their fucked-up drug problems. It was just more of the same, day after day, song after song.

(time, not same)

Britpop. People today would be surprised that bands like Oasis, Suede, Blur, Pulp, etc. would be called "Britpop" since they aren't really pop at all. Really, the term Britpop was used to seperate the British alternative acts from grunge bands so that the British ones would be seen as more accessible.

Sarah Brightman's popera style of music. After her success with 'Phantom of the Opera' in 1987-88, she went on to release 'Popera' albums in the 90s - all pretty successful on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sores which opened in the 1990s

Bath and Bodyworks Structure for Men MAC Cosmetics Anthropologie Lush Cosmetics Jimmy Choo She Stores Tommy Hilfiger Stores Hollister

Dean & Deluca. Food Emporium. The shock of paying $4 for a coffee was imported from Seattle to the rest of the country, and (maybe unrelatedly) the beginnings of what became "foodieism" emerged.

Khaki pants and a denim (or chambray) button down shirt on every other guy at the office.

Seeing Marcia Clark's awful hairstyle on TV every day...

People being shocked at Whitney being exposed as a drug addict.

The Arch Deluxe at McDonald’s.

Insane Clown Posse

Meh. Cobain's death wasn't a big deal to those of us who were young but not into grunge.

Instant cameras and one hour photos.

Quarters for the pay phone at the mall.

Only a small percentage of people had crippling social anxiety. The rest of us were used to having to rely on people for our information we got over it. We didn't analyze it to death if someone was snarky or rude, or try to have them cancelled because we couldn't dwell anyway.

THOSE WERE THE DAYS! People were our internet.

The ticking tockers will feel the same way in 2040.

With 'Miss Saigon' and 'Sunset Boulevard' we saw the end of the Bombastic Broadway Musical Spectacle, with chandeliers, mansions and helicopters 'landing' on the stage.

R393 yes and not just Marcia Clark - everyone connected to the OJ trial became a celebrity, and they all seemed to strangely relish it: Kato Kaelin, Judge Lance Ito, Johnnie Cochran, the White Bronco, Mezzaluna Trattoria, Robert Kardashian, pre-eyelift Greta van Susteren, etc. It was a spectacle in/of itself, predating the era of Nancy Grace and shows developed for the purpose of chasing down smarmy court cases.

I don't think there's been a legal/entertainment circus anything like it since. Not "Johnny vs Amber," not "TotMom," nothing.

The glamour photo of the late Ron Goldman that appeared everywhere after the murder is a very 90s thing all the way around.

A 1992 episode of the dating game show "Studs" featuring Ron Goldman.

Dating game shows were a thing in the 90s. Besides "Studs," there was MTV's "Singled Out," another one called "Blind Date," which showed in late-night syndication in the area I grew up in.

^ Don't forget Love Connection, back before Chuck Woolery went full Q nut.

R397 Meh. Diana's death wasn't a big deal to those of us who were young but not into ugly incestuous British monarchy.

Star Jones was discovered by Barbara Walters when she was a correspondent for the OJ trials on 'Court TV'. That led to Walters bringing us 'The View' in 1997 with Jones as a cohost, which led to copy-cat series 'Later Today' starring Florence Henderson, Jodi Applegate , Asha Blake and an alternating fourth female cohost on NBC in the mornings. The show premiered in September, 1999 and flopped within months. CBS also was hoping to launch a copy-cat of 'The View' in early 1999, but never could find the right cast of five female hosts with test audiences. It took them 11 years to debut the awful show 'The Talk'.

OJ lost it.

The X Files, and how hot Mitch Pileggi was (I liked daddies)

If she was on Court TV covering the entire trial, then there was nothing fir Barbara to discover.

That trial was good to a lot of people—law professors from all over did very well as commentators, especially those from the nearby schools (UCLA, USC and Loyola).

[quote]I don't think there's been a legal/entertainment circus anything like it since. Not "Johnny vs Amber," not "TotMom," nothing.

I was a senior in high school, and school literally stopped on the afternoon of the verdict. Lots of kids cut class to listen to the verdict, and the “cool” teachers put in on live in their classrooms.

Paula Abdul was the hottest thing in music for a hot year.

I was in Spanish class when the OJ verdict was read. Señora Weinstein put on a Spanish radio station to let us listen. There were several proto Princess Diana death shrieks.

Johnny Depp was widely respected and envied.

Robert Downey Jr, was a loser.

I was on a treadmill at the gym when the OJ verdict was read. There was a single large-screen TV set up near the cardio equipment and all the other gym rats were huddled around it. People in spandex were shaking their heads. They thought he was guilty as hell but what other verdict did you expect from a circus like that?

Titanic

I see your Darcey Bussell and raise you Darcy Pennell, true 90s goddess.

Feeling that perhaps every single cunting thing in the universe was not going to turn to shit.

Seeing life and the world without a divisive partisan lense

“Hillarycare”

Bottled water.

Surge soda

Airport security was staffed by rent-a-guards.

Arriving at the airport 10 minutes before your flight departs, WITH luggage and a cardboard box of items being moved (it counted as a 2nd piece of luggage). No questions at all on what's in the box. No security screening. Just run in from where the taxi drops you off, hustle your stuff to check-in and run to the gate and hope your stuff makes it. (It did)

MC Hammer. Vanilla Ice. MC Hammer pants and dance.

Movieline Magazine; think SPY Magazine but movie-centric.

(Also, everyone/thing mentioned on this cover)

The Ronco food dehydrator.

Whatever you were in the mood to watch, there was a basic cable channel for it:

A classic film? American Movie Classics

Vintage TV show? TV Land

Kids show ? Nickelodeon

Vintage cartoons? The Cartoon Network

Performing Arts? Arts & Entertainment

Foreign/art house/indie movies? Bravo

In other words, cable wasn't a dumping ground for every television show or movie ever produced. And most were commercial-free.

Nintendo 64. Super Mario 64 was absolutely mind-blowing at the time. Then, in fall 1997, when Goldeneye came out we finally had an amazing four-player multiplayer—what today would be called a "couch co-op" game. Those games, plus Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing for racing, the two Zelda games for epic adventure, Mortal Kombat Trilogy for fighting, and Banjo-Kazooie and its sequel for "collect-athons," were better than most of the games that came after that era.

[quote]Recording songs from the radio onto a blank cassette tape

[quote]I used to do that in the 80s too!! That way I could learn the lyrics so I could sing along when the song came on the radio, of course.

1990-ish was the last time I did that. However, I wasn't recording current, hit songs. I was recording KROQ's "Flashback Weekends" -- when they'd play just their early-80s catalogue. I'd throw a 90-minute cassette in my stereo, press record, and let it go. It was before record companies started releasing 1980's New Wave compilation discs (because it was a little too soon), so those Flashback Weekends were the only way to hear some of the obscure, lesser-known old favorites, one-hit wonders, etc.

I was beyond giddy the first time I saw one at Tower Records in 1993. Snatched that thing right off the shelf. I would go on to buy a dozen more of these (from various collections) over the next several years.

SNES, to add to the list of gaming consoles

That awful screaming of the lambs.

The story of Marcos Z from Real World SF.

^Pedro, not Marcos.

The millennium was both a promise and a threat. I was so disappointed that nothing happened.

WebCrawler, Lycos (go get it, boy!), AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo! -- all fell to the mighty Google.

Popping your Windows 95 CD-ROM into the drawer, clicking the media player icon, seeing this video, and thinking it was the greatest thing in the world.

Showering at least twice in an evening if you got lucky

Extending the closet to the online community

R419 Why wouldn't other generations understand bottled water?

Herpes.

“Think Different.”

[quote]I remember a lot of extra clunky brogues on str8 guys at the office, with dress pants. Quite terrible.

What does this mean?

*dialup modem startup noise*

AOL

Chat rooms

The Spice Girls

Bottled water became ubiquitous in the 90s. The 21st Century saw the rise of the reusable bottle, although disposables are still present and available, R437.

Super-sized items at McDonalds.

[quote][R419] Why wouldn't other generations understand bottled water?[/quote]

Older generations took a while to understand the concept of bottled water. All their lives they drank only tap water - never dreamed of 'buying a bottle of water'. Even at high-end restaurants, when offered 'Perrier' or 'tap water' at the table, most diners opted for 'tap'.

It took clever marketing and branding to convince the Gen Xers to walk around with a plastic bottle of 'Poland Springs', especially at the gym -pushing it as a 'healthier option' to tap water. Slowly, older generations caught on - afraid of 'what' was in the tap water which was so dangerous to drink.

I remember a lot of extra clunky brogues on str8 guys at the office, with dress pants. Quite terrible. What does this mean?

brogues are shoes,hon

Omg, I just remembered encyclopedia Encarta! And it was CD rom, which meant no updating information, how archaic.

Duke Nukem, Age of Empires, Warcraft, Tomb Raider, Need For Speed,

surprised no one has mentioned their favorite 90s porn stars

"Older generations took a while to understand the concept of bottled water" I still don't understand it.

What was that bottled water everyone tried in the 70s. Something green…fizzy…was it foreign i just don’t know 🫥

Brad Hunt was my '90s favorite, r450.

Echt '90s moment: I had just shot a load watching him fuck someone on video the night Princess Di died. When I stopped the tape, the tv showed the entrance to the tunnel on a number of different channels.

r446, that's hilarious and true. I know that right when everything started being locked down for Covid back in 2020, my local stores were out of bottled water and a friend called me freaking out about it. Said she couldn't find bottled water anywhere and my reply was, you know it's perfectly fine to drink tap water, right?

You can even look up the results of tap water testing for your city. Mine is great. I use a Brita filter (which I probably don't really need) but I drink a lot of water and it's free! Bottled water is such a scam.

R454 How do you mean it's free? You don't pay for water in your country?

pure waa

You keep telling yourself that r404.

An NYC with over 2000 murders in 1 year

Those posters are busy, at work stalking them, R450

R446 R454 Eldergays were NEVER worried about what might be in the water. Younger gays are funny, but you could be better informed. We grew up drinking from the tap (often straight from the garden hose!)…lead, chlorine and fluoride included.

R457 What would I need to tell myself that? I was there.

r455, I'm a renter. I don't pay for water so yes, it is free.

R462 But it's included in the rent. If your apartment had no running water, your rent would be lower.

Tap water is "free" when you rent in the same way the roof and the walls are "free". It's part of what you're paying for when you pay the rent. I think you mean you don't pay an extra, separate bill for water based on how much you use? That doesn't make it free, it just makes it part of your rent.

If my apartment had no running water, it would be illegal, r463. Therefore, it could not be rented. In my previous place, I paid for the water and the bills were crazy high since there was a yard. I'll take a bit higher rent with water included any day.

4 Buffalo Bills Superbowl losses

AOL had ACLU hidden boards where anything and everything was discussed ...profanity was allowed, no TOS

R12 ACG was hilarious with Matt Drudge (who went on to doing the Drudge report) always fighting with Judith Reagan (sic). We all had “Spice” names at that group

In the 90s people knew water coming out of their faucets wasn't free. It was measured and charged on their utility bill.

The fluoride chemicals in the water have made people dumb.

In my city, for the longest time we didn't pay for 'water' or 'sewer' - it was taken care of by the city in our property taxes.

Then in the early 2000s, the mayor had the bright idea to charge separately for water and sewer use (yet our taxes weren't lowered). Other cities and towns still have their water and sewage paid by their property taxes - we're the only ones who get billed for each service (not that much for either - I'd spend more moneyon buying bottled water every week than what I use in tap water for the month).

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Whatever.

Losers

Borders Books & Music

Oh the irony in r468's post.

Fluoride is not a chemical. It's a natural mineral.

The joys of an Internet without social media or idiots. Seriously, it was better back then when it comes to communication. Trolls put in effort. Hell, even the bigots were better. Yes, there were downsides. Slow as hell. Not good for vids. But damn.

R475 People would still troll by writing Letters to the Editor of their local paper…they would still call the TV station or the network to complain about last night’s program.

R474 it's a chemical compound, Jesus Christ.

Fluoride, a mineral, is naturally present in many foods and available as a dietary supplement. Fluoride is the ionic form of the element fluorine, and it inhibits or reverses the initiation and progression of dental caries (tooth decay) and stimulates new bone formation.

It's also fucking neurotoxin and you don't have to be a genius to see chemicals are bad in large doses. Yeah, yeah the quantity is small. Of course we're not supposed to be eating like this either, sugars galore and whatnot.

It's bad for brain.

Microsoft Cinemania; think IMDb but with extra bells and whistles like short movie and film score clips.

The THX sound before the movie started.

Mini CDs, and mini CD players - including the Sony D-88 (known as the 'shirt pocket CD player' because of it's size). These were introduced arounf 1990-92, but never really became the popular sensation manufacturers were hoping they would be. (Probably because the standard CD players from the 80s weren't compatible with the 'mini CD', therefore consumers had to invest in the mini CD player - as mentioned above).

Finding that perfect balance between Ketamine and E and being pretty confident you weren’t going to overdose!

The big movie theaters. Before that, they were just a couple of movies per theater. With the Blockbuster in the 80s, the cinemas were in decline. The solution was the multiplex.

Seems like streaming and Covid are killing them again.

[quote]The solution was the multiplex. Seems like streaming and Covid are killing them again.

The multiplex deserves to die. When I go to see—and hear—a film, I only want to hear the sound from that film.

Toyota Previa minivans. They look like jelly beans.

I remember Pontiac’s answer to Chrysler’s minivan.

It had a gigantic dashboard that would be perfect if you delivered pizzas for a living, but not much else.

Ross Perot and the Admiral.

And Perrot's answer to everything: "Now that's a doggone shame !"

The Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager ruled suburban streets for much of the 90s. SUVs began to take over in the late 90s.

Ally McBeal

POGS! (a.k.a. Milkcaps, Slammers). The craze/game originated in Korea/Asia, but it was a big deal in the U.S., too! If you had kids, or dealt with elementary-ages kids in ANY capacity (teacher, summer camp counselor, Chuck E. Cheese birthday party attendant), you knew about fucking Pogs. I never understood what the actual *game* was...but I kinda understood the collector aspect? I collected "Wacky Pack" stickers in the 1970s.

"Pacific Palisades" in which Joan Collins was called on once again by Aaron Spelling to boost ratings - and failed miserably.

She talks all about this in her new book "Unapologetic Diaries" and trash talks EVERYONE involved in the show - especially Spelling.

R490 I loved Sunset Beach and Malibu Shores

I’m surprised the Gap Playlist guy hasn’t made an appearance.

In the meantime, Irish Dancing! I remember all those commercials advertising live performances or DVD/VHS box sets. Then that guy became Lord of the Dance and for years every actor/comedian would put on tight black pants for a cheap laugh.

Sun, stars and moons decoration.

Tribal and barbed wire tattoos

Younger Costner with less hair than today’s Costner.

Amanda Woodward's (Heather Locklear) 'powersuits' on Melrose Place: pastel tight mini skirt and matching suit jacket buttoned below her cleavage. Every women's boutique in the malls carried these 'business' outfits thanks to Locklear.

Actually, business women dressed better then than the 'casual sloppy' way they dress today.

T-shirt over a long sleeve shirt.

Natalie Merchant and all the other folky Lilith Faire types who faded into oblivion.

R496

That goes back way before the 90s, seriously. Try the 70s and even earlier in CALIFORNIA.

CK jeans.

R498 But it became really popular around the world thanks to grunge

It was already popular around the world twenty years earlier, thanks to surfers and skateboarders…where do you think that grunge look evolved from?🤔

R501 From punk rock. Show me just one punk rocker from early 70s that was wearing t-shirt over long sleeve shirt. You can't cause punk rock didn't even existed back then. Even if you said 10 years earlier, it would be false since no one in the punk/hard core scene was dressing like that. And no, it wasn't popular around the world in the early 70s. Maybe if by "around the world" you mean California. P.S. skateboarding wasn't even popular 20 years earlier, so I doubt that "dressing like a skateboarder" was.

Gay male strip joints where the guys finally went 'fully nude' and often 'erect' on stage. In the 80s, "Chippendales" was a thing - for women and gay men - but they would dtrip to their skivvies and reveal nothing. By the time the 90s rolled around, the muscleboys (usually labeled gay-for-pay) took to the stages of gay clubs everywhere and bared all. Lucky for us !

Hey kid—quit while you are behind. You know little or nothing about surfing or skateboarding. You appear to know even less about punk rock or anything about pre90s fashion.

Just because you saw it in the 90s, doesn’t mean it started in the 90s—or that it only became a thing in the 90s, or that no one from an earlier generation understands the difference.

R502 seems more a Brit thing.

This is about what was popular in the 90s, when started is irrelevant. Like tattoos, they are old as humanity, but in the 90s even posh girls wanted a butterfly.

My mother couldn’t stop bugging my sister in her velvet chokers, and baby doll dresses and ribbed shirts how she was stealing the “fashion of her youth”. (70s).

I think my dead mom is trolling DL today.

Thrifting:

Supply of heavier weight dead people clothes dwindled

Great deals on very wide and low-slung furniture

Studio furniture was mistakenly sold as Danish Modern

R505 Who cares when it started? It became popular in the 90s.

R502 What does?

R504 Yeah, you totally showed me, "gramps". And you are right, punk rock and skateboarding were extremely popular in the early seventies and people around the world were wearing t-shirts over long sleeve shirts. My bad.

You’re not bad. You just didn’t understand the points being made…you’ll be OK, I think. But, you should try to read things more closely and do your research. It’s an anonymous forum, but still—you don’t want to come across as a pissant (which you have done through these posts).

"The Bombay Company".

Originally founded in 1978 in New Orleans with one store (and quietly opened a few more stores in the New Orleans area in the 1980s) this furniture store / home accessories company got sold in 1989, and rapidly opened in just about every suburban mall and shopping center throughout the states starting in the early 1990s. At it's peak in the mid-90s, it had over 500 stores in the US and Canada. By the early 2000s, with the housing market bubble bursting, sales dropped drastically causing a major store meltdown. The last store closed in the mid-2000s and the company filed for bankruptcy in 2007. The licensing and branding has been sold and resold over the past 15 years with attempts to bring the company back in some sort of retail operation.

There was a lazy leaning-in to pop culture nostalgia in the 90s that was distinct from other decades (link below to D'Arcy from Smashing Pumpkins wearing a Sesame Street/Grover t-shirt).

Boomers grew up with TV, but there wasn't a mass trend toward Howdy Doody t-shirts or pining away for the world of the Lone Ranger, as far as I know.

In the 90s, I think it was different, in that people sought through ironic imitation to recapture and replay the cultural landscape of youth. I guess that's fine as far as it goes, but if it prevents moving forward, it's no good. Look back but don't stare, you know?

I think it started with the 20th anniversary of Woodstock. There was a huge pop cultural "throwback" industry, and so many trends in the 90s had some analogue in the 60's or 70's.

Well, I went from the wonderful dustiness of “sealed” naked brick walls to glazed /feathered / ragged / textured plaster walls within one decade.

Southwestern Modern was a huge personal failing of mine - specifically getting the perfect raisin color with orange (always gives off a bruised color)

Huge, oversized soup bowl coffee mugs. Maybe this sprang from Friends?

[quote]Supply of heavier weight dead people clothes dwindled

Huh?

[R517] I hate those things - especially with the 'cute sayings' outside the cup. I think they did come from 'Friends'. I believe the 90s was also the explosion of the flavored coffees - I know flavors were introduced in the late 70s / early 80s in those little rectangular coffee tins, but the 90s introduced them everywhere - every restaurant, fast food place and coffee shop. And they are all horrible.

Taking E and dancing the night away

Most replies in this thread are more about specific posters thinking of "things I personally did at the stage of my life that occurred in the 90s" rather than things exclusive to the 90s versus other decades, or universally experienced by everyone who existed in the in the 90s.

Actual 90s things "you wouldn't understand if you weren't there":

The macarena

Dial up internet as cutting edge technology

Fashions that originated in the 90s, like grunge.

Not 90s things/many people "understand" these things outside of the context of the 90s:

Taping songs off the radio -- something only kids did that was also common among kids in the 80s and earlier. People in their 20s and 30s weren't doing this in the 90s but they might have in an earlier decade.

Bottled water -- existed before the 90s and still widely seen today.

Puka shell necklaces, choker necklaces, and layered t-shirts with different sleeve lengths -- popular before and after the 90s, especially within certain subcultures that were likely borrowed from when they reached widespread popularity in or around the 90s.

I also had (and saw a lot of other people had) the screen print t-shirt as pictured at r515. But mine was green with Oscar the Grouch. Popular where I was living in the 90s.

[quote]Huge, oversized soup bowl coffee mugs. Maybe this sprang from Friends?

Yes, it did...

Kristi Yamaguchi Nancy Kerrigan Tonya Harding Michelle Kwan

Wasn’t The Big Cup a 90s era gay café in Chelsea?

Big Cup could have really only have existed in it’s peak ideal in the 90’s and closed in the aughts with little fanfare- likely a victim of rent increases, Grindr, and the change of Chelsea from gayborhood to hipster neighborhood when Google bought their headquarters on 14th & 8th Ave. 90’s guys tended to cruise the street and curbs of 8th Ave. I was one of them!

R521. Thank you! —you made the better argument briefly and accurately. 🤙🏼

I, from the pre-90s, had try to express the same thought, with limited success.

R526 if you post had been written better, I might have accused you of being Andrew Sullivan—a once notorious 8th Ave cruiser and Big Cup habitué.

But you’re history, and your writing style, are both a bit off to = Andy.

Yea—I’m also an idiot due to my own errors/autocorrect failures.

But I stand by the distance of ^the error-filled post.

R523

It was actually from…grunge!

Billy Bragg's "Trust" (1991)

Billy Bragg's "Sexuality" (1991)

[quote]in it’s peak ideal

Oh, dear.

Beef–it’s what’s for dinner!

Oversized jumpers/sweaters

Grunge lingo: wack slacks: old ripped jeans fuzz: heavy wool sweaters plats: platform shoes kickers: heavy boots swingin' on the flippety-flop: hanging out bound-and-hagged: staying home on friday or saturday night score: great harsh realm: bummer cob nobbler: loser dish: desirable guy bloated, big bag of blotation: drunk lamestain: uncool person tom-tom club: uncool outsiders rock on: a happy goodbye

[quote]fuzz: heavy wool sweaters

I remember when it meant the cops.

T-shirt companies based on sexual innuendo. Big Dog. Big Johnson. Coed Naked.

No Fear

The Blackberry.

[quote]wack slacks

I was a teenager in the 90s and even then the only people who used the word slacks were born in the 50s.

R540 That's more of an early 00s thing.

R541 That grunge talk was made with tongue in cheek

safer sex

sex education

condoms

sexually charged lesbians

lesbians with a sense of humour

the lack of nutloafs

Airwalks

I think the safe sex video has music by Coil. As a Coil fan I was excited about this - a hundred or so years ago. Not 100% sure it’s the same video.

No Fear. God that was everywhere!

Stüssy was too.

Thai food. It was such a thing among my social circles. Of course it is still around but it seems played out.

Board shorts away from the beach.

[quote]lesbians with a sense of humour

This. Never. Happened.

R552 I love wearing board shorts in the summer

R552 but you don’t get it. It was a 90s thing!

Some needed context for R536's post:

Netscape

“Lesbians are so hot. But gay men are gross.”

Dopes not realizing that Penthouse isn’t real life, and that most real lesbians are about as hot as Elliot Page.

White boy aggro/delinquent bands like Staind, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park. The music was awful and everywhere. I suspect a lot of the disillusioned young male fans of that subculture ended up being deployed somewhere. My cousin, who died by suicide age 19 in 1999, was a big Staind fan, which was probably an ominous sign, looking back.

Simple brand sneakers.

R559 Linkin Park were a 2000s thing. As were the most of that nu-metal crap

TJ Cinnamons - a bakery which specialized in hot cinnamon rolls. It was actually founded in 1985 by a retired husband and wife, in Kansas City, and gained notoriety for it's delicious rolls and high prices ($1.25 for a cinnamon roll! yikes!) . In 1990-91, the company expanded to over 200 locations - mostly franchised throughout the country. There were many inconsistencies in their rapid growth period which hurt many franchisees, including supplying some grocery chains with a frozen products to sell in their own bakery cafes. In 1996 the company was sold to Arbys, which started pulling franchise locations and closing stores (around 80% by 2000). Today, TJ Cinnamon roll products are still available, but only in select Arby's locations across the country.

I loved my Simple shoes. I switched to bowling style shoes for the new millennium.

Fruitopia

The Atkins diet "look" that became ubiquitous among actresses on shows like "Friends" (especially Jen Aniston) and on "Melrose Place," and became what certain individual actresses (Callista Flockhart, Portia di Rossi) were "known" for.

People deal with disordered eating patterns and impossible beauty standards in every era, but I'm glad that stringy/low-carb aesthetic has (as far as I can tell) been mostly rejected by young people today.

I think the Atkins diet look was almost as oppressive to actresses of the 90s as Harvey's deformed dick was.

Mr. Bean

Um—you are easily 20 years behind re the Atkins Diet

Along with TJ Cinnamons, there was 'Mrs. Powell's Cinnamon Buns' entering the nationwide competition in the 90s. 'Gourmet cinnamon buns' were the trendy food back in the 90s, and Mrs. Powell's were mouth-watering. They got started in the mid-80s with one bakery, and branched out nationwide (like TJC) by 1990-91 with company owned bakeries and franchises. By the mid-90s, the trend was available everywhere - Burger King offered their version of cinnamon buns, as did McDonald's and in-store bakeries at the supermarkets. Mrs. Powell's fell by the late 90s, and since then the name and recipes have been sold and resold over the decades. I believe they are now a dot-com company where you can buy on-line and they will ship it out to you.

I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight.

Paying $50 for a Falcon VHS tape.

Northern Exposure, You Rang, M'Lord?, Dexter's Laboratory

The end of America due to open trade with China in 1990. We lost it all right at that moment where US corps went global and outsourced every blue collar job. 1990s: Bill Clinton brought us to where we are now with NAFTA, derailing GATT with China, allowing big banks to buy out smaller competitors, thus creating 2008’s Too Big To Fail fuckery. Allowing a few large media corps to monopolize so we have only biased, corporate, profit-only corporate news owned by foreign owners (Murdock).

Look it up. I’m not trying to be a troll. Do your diligent research. Come on…

It is not r573’s job to teach you! Do better!

[R572] Big banks buying up little banks happened in Reagan's era - one of the first things he did 'for the benefit of our economy' - was to allow banks to cross state broders. That was never done before until he let hit happen. He called it 'competition' with other banks and the consumer would win (sure). Instead, the big banks took over in every state. Same with credit cards - he let card companies expand into new territories crossing state borders, and they all headquartered into the same states which gave no regulation to them so they could do whatever they wanted (I remember - I was a college student and every CC in the country was at my campus trying to sign everyone up for astronomical interest rates) . This is why Wall St loved Reagan - he let them do as they pleased with little government oversight. "Too big to fail" was born in the 80s under Reagan - it just so happened to crumble in 2006-2012.

^^^Thank you. All of that is true. However, we know Reagan was a RePig. Of course he’s going to screw us. Billy, on the other hand, was a Dem. I enjoyed the 90s. A go-go economy. Gay rights being championed. Good times. Meanwhile that pig Alan Greenspan killed the new economy by raising interest rates. Don’t forget, Andrea Mitchell is married to that Puke.

My friend has glow in the dark moons planets and stars in her bedroom in the 80s r493

REAGAN introduced 'trickle down economics' in the 80s, which is what his eventual running mate George Bush 41 called 'voo doo economics'. And it was 'voo doo economics' - it only benefited the very wealthy. It was the era of 'excess wealth' and the poor would pay for it. Bush was mostly opposite. Clinton was not as bad nor as extreme - which is why he always got along with Bush 41 and his family - while Reagan didn't get along with either one of them.

In the 90s the big debate was over gay marriage also. Gays in the military was highly controversial. Remember Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?

Dawsons creek and the lovely Joshua Jackson

The decade-long subconscious adage we had to live with through the 90’s,

“He’s cute, but does he have HIV?”.

It evaporated when the cocktail meds appeared in the late 90’s but not the mentality, not completely, no matter how forward thinking you were.

This undercurrent of fear really shaped my adolescence and attitude towards intimacy, like so many gay teens that lived through the AIDS crisis. I came out very young (16) and remember working in a gay bar where several older men were ravaged by the disease and never forgot their examples- of dignity, bitterness and fear. Much of it seared into my memory. One man, Kevin, wore his Karposi scars out in the open, I’ll never forget that.

My old boss took care of his dying lover and brought him to work occasionally (with his new lover too). I had orgies a few times and went to jerk off parties and thought I knew “who had it and who didn’t”. This attitude unknowingly really did a lot of damage to me. I recoiled, closed off, and terminated a lot of relationships because of it.

I had a roommate and friends die of it and all the secrecy, lies and pride behind not revealing their HIV status. Waiting two weeks for results. The numerous tests I’ve had, all negative- all these years despite participating in risky behavior years ago. The balance of both guilt and relief. I spent a lot of time repairing those old tapes in my head keeping me from loving others…

The loss. I had an open relationship boyfriend seroconvert and vowed I would never get involved with an HIV+ man. Here I am, a decade or so later. happily married to one for seven years now. When he smiled at me the first time, it was like a door opened inside me and HIV wasn’t going to get int the way of true love. Go figure.

“ It evaporated when the cocktail meds appeared in the late 90’s but not the mentality, not completely, no matter how forward thinking you were.”

Your timing is wrong —the new therapies became available in 1995. You may still have been trapped in your own mentality after that point, but don’t speak for anyone else. For many others that mentality disappeared right along with their viral load.

R582, I’m definitely speaking for myself, my experience and plenty of people living with AIDS at the time simply weren’t good candidates for the cocktail- because their organs were completely ravaged by rounds and rounds of AZT . Many, many friends continued to die well into ‘97 from liver and kidney disease, or immunodeficiency factors. Treatment was still in it’s infancy, not ans precise ans it is today and we didn’t save everyone.

I also lived in a suburb of Boston at the time and that mentality did NOT disappear so quickly among gays OR straights. It’s so easy for younger people to discount HIV stigma- armed with the fount knowledge we have today or look back and ask why it wasn’t fought differently or quicker. It took years for an HIV friend to find a dentist back then willing to treat him. Reagan isn’t entirely to blame. You have more computing power in your pocket than ALL of NASA did in 1981. We have the world at our fingertips- there was no gene sequencing, World Wide , Slack, or consortium of doctors able to share data easily back then.

Again, my husband lives with HIV and I would fight with my last breath for his rights and treatment, but under NO circumstance do I pretend I know what it’s like living with HIV for decades.

Blah, blah, blah. Stop speaking for others, especially for those who were already + back then. Your facts are wrong. Your “experience” from the Boston suburbs are not relevant.

[quote] When he smiled at me the first time, it was like a door opened inside me

You went ankles to ears.

R584 Blah, blah, blah. Stop speaking for others. Your facts are wrong. Your “experience” is not relevant.

R584, you sound like an asshole.

If someone wants to share their experiences as they lived it through their eyes, who the fuck are you to discount it?

You’re a festering boil on the ass of humanity.

His initial post was not limited to his experience. He used “we” as if it was a common thing…hell the name of the thread is “a 90s thing”—it was only *his* thing, so let him start his own thread.

R525 R526

I moved to NYC from the Deep South in the early 2000s. After being told about The Big Cup and how it was gay institution, I went there to do some of my reading for class. Coincidentally, MTV's Boiling Points was filming there and for some god-awful reason they chose me to prank. I had not shed my aw-shucks bumpkinness by then, so I was more terrified & panicked than boiled. I got a free coffee and some money for the ordeal, but I was too scared (or rather embarassed) to step foot inside the Big Cup ever again.

R587

584 here. I responded to a potion of that poster’s comment…well before you piped up. I took the time to identify the quoted part to which I had a comment. I stand by that comment. I made no reference to any other part.

You keep a cat in your boil, r590?

Going out dancing and going home with someone in a cab and walking home (no more cab fare) at dawn to get home to shower and go to work still drunk.

I know this wasn’t invented in the 90s but it’s been since then since I lived that way.

R591

Touchè

I stand corrected

[quote]I responded to a potion of that poster’s comment…well before you piped up. I took the time to identify the quoted part to which I had a comment.

You did all that at r584? Yeah, I don’t think so.

[quote]I made no reference to any other part.

You made no reference to ANY part.

And how the fuck you gonna tell someone their “facts are wrong” when they’re relating a life experience THEY had.

FOH.

^learn how to start at the beginning! Go to R582.

Now, bugger off…

Skeet Ulrich

[bold]Cool Britannia[/bold]: “a name for the period of increased pride in the culture of the United Kingdom throughout the mid and second half of the 1990s, inspired by Swinging London from 1960s pop culture.”

HBO’s Real Sex

R598 HBOs Real Sex: school mom boomers swinging and suburban (straight) cross-dressers. Wow.

Popularity of MTV Real Lives. I mean everybody watched this series back then.