• The 90s were a time of optimism and immediacy in experience, with a lack of self-consciousness and a sense of possibility for the new millennium.
• People had places to do things, like record stores, and there was a sense of pretension and principles that has since been replaced by cultural consumerism.
• Gen X were the young people of the 90s, and the turn of the millennium was seen as both a new beginning and potentially the end.
• The 90s had a counterculture, with people standing for something else, and a species of young feminist who was not quite a riot grrrl.
• People had to wait for things, and there was mystery and anticipation, which has been replaced by instant access to all of the most depraved material ever made.
• The youth of today are denied the ability to see things as new, and are experiencing an adolescence without adolescence.
• The article reflects on the experience of being a teenager in the 90s, when the internet was still a novelty and cellphones were not yet ubiquitous.
• Socializing was done in person, often in the school parking lot or at parties at houses on the edge of town.
• People would talk on the phone for hours, and collect calls were used to ask for rides home.
• The author reflects on the fashion, music, and culture of the time, and how it was worse than today in some ways, but also better in others.
• They recall going to shows, smoking weed, and drinking coffee, and how they would drop by each other’s places.
• The author also shares a fantasy version of the 90s, where they and a friend move to Seattle and live in a ratty old house with a bunch of other layabouts.
• They recall going to shows, doing drugs, and driving to Mount Ranier, and how they would listen to NPR for news.
• The article ends with a description of closing the coffee shop at dusk, listening to Mazzy Star, and driving to a house party.
Published February 6, 2023
Visit Freddie deBoer’s Substack to read Freddie deBoer’s original post It’s So Sad When Old People Romanticize Their Heydays, Also the 90s Were Objectively the Best Time to Be Alive
