In the 1990s, we lived flippant and searching lives, and it suited us. We are Reagan babies who grew up in the Clinton era. The world was on a collision course with the World Wide Web’s brave new technology that seemed to be both mysterious and exciting. Y2K was still the stuff of Terminator 2 futurism, not staring us in the face as we pounded out our last thoughts on word processors that were about to quietly betray us, HAL-like, and blast us into the naked depths of outer space. Innocence and scandal fought proxy culture wars.
“Beverly Hills 90210” and “My So-Called Life,” The Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam reflected teen angst. Gangsta Rap was at the center of censorship, violence, and cultural concern with the rise and fall of Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur, and Snoop Dogg. MTV gave us the first modern reality TV show “The Real World” in 1992. The NFL was making trades and making waves with era-making rising stars and Dallas-level behind-the-scenes drama. Duke University won back-to-back NCAA basketball championships the same time the Chicago Bulls won NBA championships back-to-back-to-back.
Were we ready to take a Quantum Leap from the solid foundation of the known past of Encyclopedia Britannica and Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers, Franklin planners, and the two-ton weight of CD organizers stuffed in JanSport backpacks coolly slung over one shoulder? It was ready for us with every AOL disk in America’s mailbox and pagers swapped for a flip phone. It was coming. It came with promises of simplicity and speed and interconnectedness. How were we to know this is exactly what would be taken away?
Thirty years later our nostalgia for modern Americana caught up to us — that sliver of a generation between solid GenX and the Millennials. One foot in the “before time” of the 10-foot-long telephone cords wrapped upon itself, VHS rewind machines, and hours spent at Sam Goody rifling through new CD releases. One foot in the excitement (and pain) of “dialing up” the World Wide Web with its siren call mix of dial-tone static and radio “Beeeeeepppppp” just to be kicked off at random or by Mom that she has to make a phone call.
It's incredible to think about the pace of advancement. Have you ever tried to explain a fax machine to someone? The concept isn’t too hard to understand, but you get the puzzled looks by talking about waiting for that long scroll of shiny, curled paper to unroll itself. Or open an old(ish) book and see a sleeve for the card catalog tucked inside?
Here we are. Teens have traded new Nirvana releases for vintage t-shirts. The Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer are back on tour. Not only is Justin Timberlake old enough to drink now, he was arrested for a DUI! MTV has abandoned music videos altogether and we had an actual black president.
Sports dynasties come and go — Coach Krzyzewski, the only Duke coach I had known, finally retired, and the infamous Bobby Knight passed away. People still hate Duke. Deion Sanders is back on the football field, along with his sons and a new kind of college athletic system that, for better or worse, at least takes the mask off the disastrous NCAA autocrats and money-grubbers whose greedy money grabs left college athletes ill-equipped for the futures they were promised. Sanders still sparkles in the spotlight.
Young teen girls are still obsessed with each other and wrap themselves in social contagion of all sorts. They’ve traded eating disorders for gender and sexual identity swapping. We’ll know it’s over when Hollywood deems it safe to “provocatively” and hilariously parody such behavior in a Heathers-esque dark comedy. Speaking of Winona Ryder, did you know Beetlejuice is back?
What’s disconcerting is the stamp we put on an adult world that we never intended to get caught up in. The cynical, innocent, emerging world unfolding before us like a Rand McNally Road Atlas was uncharted territory. But the latchkey kids who grew up on The Simpsons and Beavis and Butthead grew up to be helicopter parents who therapized their kids and indulged silly identities as if their kid's lives depended on it.
After-school snacks were Pizza rolls and a Hi-C Ecto Cooler. Pop-Tarts burned our tongues for breakfast and now the King of 1990s yada-yada comedy made a movie about them, and we can’t have nice things unless the commercial shows the proper family racial mix and a commitment to a “sustainable” future. Somewhere, an Arch Deluxe Styrofoam clam container is crying a little inside.
Ghostbusters was reinvented as a bunch of fierce females before finally getting it right with a reboot starring the guy from Clueless. And Snoop Dogg? He beat the murder conviction and shows off his tennis skills as an NBC Special Correspondent for the Paris Olympics. Tipper Gore, wrong again!
We made the choice to trade the last age of innocence, the tangible and tactile and permanent, for the emptiness of instant satisfaction and convenience. There are myriad awesome advances, the benefits of which are realized only through technology, with medical breakthroughs being the most significant (and you can buy 27 varieties of Cheerios). But what did we get? Everything moves faster yet we have less patience. We are more interconnected yet feel so isolated, the homogenization of experiences but loss of regional quirks and traditions. We’ve smoothed the rough parts so completely that resilience and hardship are sold as outdoorsy guided tours and corporate team-building exercises. It’s even become a genre of “reality” television.
Convenience is king but we still don’t have enough time to enjoy life. Therapists come in smartphone apps, and medicine can be delivered to your doorstep, but we’re sicker and more depressed than ever. Perhaps the generation that looked at the future and signed on the dotted line will be the ones to rip up the contract. Perhaps the reboots and 1990s-era throwbacks signal a cultural shift, not just catering to nostalgia, which is just selective memory daydreaming and reunion fuel for IP-obsessed entertainment conglomerates and parents to relive tube-TV thrills of Michael Jordan tongue-out extra-human athleticism. The J.Crew catalog has been revived. Ben Affleck is single again, again. And Oasis is back on tour. More people are ditching wireless for wired accessories, vinyl is on the turntable, and more schools are banning smartphones. Companies are slowly dialing-back the political rhetoric. Girls just wanna have fun, and dudes are dudes — with mustaches, even! Some things will be a bit more difficult to return — I looked into installing a non-internet landline at our home and struck out — but if something as hideous as JNCO jorts can make a comeback, there’s still hope.
Maybe in our haste to get to the future, we didn’t realize how good we had it. The bad news is that we can’t go back. The good news is we still have a choice about what to do with our future.
“We put a stamp on a world we never intended to get caught up in” stuck out to me, ringing of an uncertainty about our imprint on this dizzying thirty years of time. The narrator’s take feels light, surprised as if, “Gee look at the time!” that’s come and taken something of me along with it. Sigh. There’s such a careening swing in these gathered up cultural tidbits, as if you’re dashing merrily through and snatching them off counters and tables in the kitchen and diningroom, and lightly setting them down. That’s fun to watch, and you include things I’m unaware of as well, certainly TV and pop music and that one coach, my head down churning through school and a new career in teaching. This is a fun piece, and really wide ranging, so hang onto it for the sheer details. Good work!
Great piece of writing!