Will It Ever Be as Good as the 90s Again

I was a teen in the mid 90s (born in 1981) and I am so nostalgic over that era that it's having a detrimental effect on my life. I just hate the culture of this day and age, the fashion, music and film. I think this society is so shallow and empty. I have an eleven year old daughter who I only get to see on weekends and I HATE the thought of her watching music channels and seeing people like Lady Gaga and Rihanna gyrating around in leather underwear and making money off that. I'm not saying the 90s were perfect but I feel like I had more to look to. I listened to bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth in their hey day. I admired talent and thought that if I worked hard I could make something of myself.

I'm in a very good job now but I'm doing an OU degree (hence why I'm on here) in order to better myself as I age. I'm just scared my daughter is growing up in a shallow culture that's she'll be unsatisfied with in the long run. She's a clever and strong girl, older than her years, and I think she has her own strong morals but I still worry about the things she sees. Maybe I'm just a dad being stupid.

For myself, like I said I don't like this culture. It's not a case of wishing I was a teen again. I just prefer everything about the 1990s. I remember only having a landline and ringing people from it, knowing they'd almost always be at home waiting by the phone for someone to call. My favourite films and bands are from the 1990s although I have enjoyed a few things since.

I'm just very upset with the way the world is right now. I realise a lot of you guys were only just born in the 90s and may feel you can't comment but at this point I'm just looking for advice from anyone, and students are usually the most intelligent people I speak too!

Happy New Year to you all!

I can empathise, I feel nostalgic for the 90s even though I wasn't conscious of anything until about 1997! It's sad, because if you think about it, it's the last decade we know before everything changed and technology started dictating our lives. It was almost innocent, and more so if you associate it as we do with being young and having no worries. I don't really know what to suggest but to just keep yourself occupied to stop dwelling on the past so much and try to engage with your daughter to nudge her in the right direction. She'll make her own choices, but you can help her make the right ones.

Pretty sure the 90's are renown for being shallow

(Original post by Anonymous)
I listened to bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth in their hey day.

Respect

(Original post by Anonymous)
I was a teen in the mid 90s (born in 1981) and I am so nostalgic over that era that it's having a detrimental effect on my life. I just hate the culture of this day and age, the fashion, music and film. I think this society is so shallow and empty. I have an eleven year old daughter who I only get to see on weekends and I HATE the thought of her watching music channels and seeing people like Lady Gaga and Rihanna gyrating around in leather underwear and making money off that. I'm not saying the 90s were perfect but I feel like I had more to look to. I listened to bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth in their hey day. I admired talent and thought that if I worked hard I could make something of myself.

I'm in a very good job now but I'm doing an OU degree (hence why I'm on here) in order to better myself as I age. I'm just scared my daughter is growing up in a shallow culture that's she'll be unsatisfied with in the long run. She's a clever and strong girl, older than her years, and I think she has her own strong morals but I still worry about the things she sees. Maybe I'm just a dad being stupid.

For myself, like I said I don't like this culture. It's not a case of wishing I was a teen again. I just prefer everything about the 1990s. I remember only having a landline and ringing people from it, knowing they'd almost always be at home waiting by the phone for someone to call. My favourite films and bands are from the 1990s although I have enjoyed a few things since.

I'm just very upset with the way the world is right now. I realise a lot of you guys were only just born in the 90s and may feel you can't comment but at this point I'm just looking for advice from anyone, and students are usually the most intelligent people I speak too!

Happy New Year to you all!

I suspect this isn't really about the 90s at all, but a bit of anxiety about your daughter growing up in a world that's different from the world you grew up in, and you're worried you won't be able to protect her. For what it's worth, kids are pretty adaptable, and nothing lasts for long in parenting. Sit tight and ride it out. Your daughter has the same kind of equipment to deal with life that you had at her age, when your parents were probably saying the same kind of thing, and you're still here. Hang on in there. It'll pass. (My kids are in their 20s, so I've been there.)

(Original post by Anonymous)
I was a teen in the mid 90s (born in 1981) and I am so nostalgic over that era that it's having a detrimental effect on my life. I just hate the culture of this day and age, the fashion, music and film. I think this society is so shallow and empty. I have an eleven year old daughter who I only get to see on weekends and I HATE the thought of her watching music channels and seeing people like Lady Gaga and Rihanna gyrating around in leather underwear and making money off that. I'm not saying the 90s were perfect but I feel like I had more to look to. I listened to bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth in their hey day. I admired talent and thought that if I worked hard I could make something of myself.

Well I can see where you're coming from here.

Amazing.

For myself, like I said I don't like this culture. It's not a case of wishing I was a teen again. I just prefer everything about the 1990s. I remember only having a landline and ringing people from it, knowing they'd almost always be at home waiting by the phone for someone to call. My favourite films and bands are from the 1990s although I have enjoyed a few things since.

I love the nineties too (even though I was just a kid when Pulp et al were dominating the music scene), but I love watching films set in 1990s London as it does remind me of my childhood. Whilst I don't remember all the music, I do think Bripop is by far and away much better than today's music.

But on the other hand, living in 2011...having HD TV, iPhones, broadband internet, iPlayer etc is definitely not something to overlook. Do you remember when most people only had 4 channels on TV? And if you missed TOTP or Grange Hill you were screwed as there was no iPlayer to watch it on later? It's pretty normal to feel nostalgic about stuff like landlines, but please do also retain some perspective and bear in mind that things aren't really that bad nowadays. Swings and roundabouts

(Original post by Anonymous)
I was a teen in the mid 90s (born in 1981) and I am so nostalgic over that era that it's having a detrimental effect on my life. I just hate the culture of this day and age, the fashion, music and film. I think this society is so shallow and empty. I have an eleven year old daughter who I only get to see on weekends and I HATE the thought of her watching music channels and seeing people like Lady Gaga and Rihanna gyrating around in leather underwear and making money off that. I'm not saying the 90s were perfect but I feel like I had more to look to. I listened to bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth in their hey day. I admired talent and thought that if I worked hard I could make something of myself.

I'm in a very good job now but I'm doing an OU degree (hence why I'm on here) in order to better myself as I age. I'm just scared my daughter is growing up in a shallow culture that's she'll be unsatisfied with in the long run. She's a clever and strong girl, older than her years, and I think she has her own strong morals but I still worry about the things she sees. Maybe I'm just a dad being stupid.

For myself, like I said I don't like this culture. It's not a case of wishing I was a teen again. I just prefer everything about the 1990s. I remember only having a landline and ringing people from it, knowing they'd almost always be at home waiting by the phone for someone to call. My favourite films and bands are from the 1990s although I have enjoyed a few things since.

I'm just very upset with the way the world is right now. I realise a lot of you guys were only just born in the 90s and may feel you can't comment but at this point I'm just looking for advice from anyone, and students are usually the most intelligent people I speak too!

Happy New Year to you all!

I can see where you're coming from. Nostalgia can feel really strong sometimes. I once heard somewhere that nostalgia means "a homesickness for the past" and this pretty much sounds like what you could be feeling right now.

I was born in the late 1980s and for what it's worth, my music collection doesn't include much recent stuff unless the song really grabs me. I think the most powerful thing that you and your daughter have here is CHOICE and I highlight that because it's important to remember that you don't have to watch music channels that play stuff you don't like or you can enjoy honouring fashion trends that are inspired from an era that you like (I know a few people who go for the modest, pre1950s pinup girl sort of look).

I think that a lot of people think that modern culture and society has some crappy elements to it (as with all eras) and it' just a case of taking on things that you like and boycotting those that you don't.

(Original post by carnationlilyrose)
I suspect this isn't really about the 90s at all, but a bit of anxiety about your daughter growing up in a world that's different from the world you grew up in, and you're worried you won't be able to protect her. For what it's worth, kids are pretty adaptable, and nothing lasts for long in parenting. Sit tight and ride it out. Your daughter has the same kind of equipment to deal with life that you had at her age, when your parents were probably saying the same kind of thing, and you're still here. Hang on in there. It'll pass. (My kids are in their 20s, so I've been there.)

Do you own any ferrets yourself?

Just to add that I love living in the now because I feel that the internet is a fantastic way to have discussions like this. For example, in the 1990s, it would have been less accessible for a lot of people to get online and say "hey don't you miss the 1970s".

No, I just think they're charming.

90's was alright..i admit I miss the excitement of the next new thing and all the developing technology however the world is an exciting place now and its what you make of it that counts xx

I miss BN smiley biscuits and WWF games on the nintendo 64.

(Original post by carnationlilyrose)
No, I just think they're charming.

Ah, alright. Indeed they are.

Technology has rocketted!

Every era had it's good/bad music imo.

My own predilection is for life before the 1960s sociosexual revolution. Baby boomers and Silent Generation just seemed to have a better approach to life than most people now, not everyone though. People now refuse to recognise certain ways of living as immoral.

You can't stop the march of time but you can resist the spirit of the age in many ways if you're prepared to trade in the shallow "respect" mainstream youth will give you. That is what I do anyway. I'm 18 and want to get married between 24( when I finish my degree) and 30, in church to a virgin who appreciates classical literature, music, etc. and is prepared to sacrifice her career to bring up children if we have them. I don't want any child of mine in some PC nursery where they will be taught not to take any risks, CCTVd and watched over by someone who doesn't touch them in case they're suspected of being a paedophile, but I can't take photos of them without the police being called.

One reason I want to go into medicine is for a six figure consultant salary so I could support a wife and children without her having to work and be able to send them to at least an independent primary (their conscience more likely to be formed by 11, if they've been in a respectable Christian school from 5 and with their mother before that.) Beyond that it would depend on whether they could fit into a state school socially or whether they would be ostracised for being Christians with an actual moral compass. Society can change a lot in 25-30 years.

Technology always improves with time. More important things slip by the wayside... At least for those who view the spiritual, cultural and societal as more important than the material.

Well, yeh, in a lot of ways the 90s was better (I'm not far off you in age OP, born December 1983), and I have kids of my own as well, but they're learning from their mama to appreciate Kiss, Cher, Meatloaf, Michael Jackson, Alice Cooper.....haha need I go on?
My daughter rather irritatingly likes Katy Perry songs, but I don't let any of them watch any music videos without me vetoing them first. I tend to just crack on some good old hair metal videos on youtube instead of letting them watch modern music videos, because I know what you mean about the overly sexual gyrating performance being too much for kids to watch really.

I do feel nostalgic for the way things were when I was younger, I must admit, but then again modern conveniences can also be beneficial. For example, I didn't get the internet until I was 16, but used as a tool and properly parentally monitored, I think it can be really quite handy for kids as it happens. For example, geography-wise, I'm always showing my kids places on google maps, and they can see first hand other countries at the click of a button. You had too sit and read boring atlases when I was a kid, which isn't really as engaging.

Music was most definitely better back in the day, but there are a lot of TV series nowadays that I enjoy watching; though I confess nothing will ever be as good as Xena : Warrior Princess.

So, was the 90s better? Yes and no, depends which aspect you look at, but then again you could say the same about an awful lot of decades. My husband swears blind that the 80s was the best decade ever, but I was too young to fully appreciate it. My mother thinks that the 60s was the best decade. I'd have liked to have experienced the beatlemania I must admit. It really depends when you were born I guess - everybody always ends up with nostalgia and fondness for the time that they grew up in.

(Original post by Subcutaneous)
90's was alright..i admit I miss the excitement of the next new thing and all the developing technology however the world is an exciting place now and its what you make of it that counts xx

There's an worldwide economic recession right now. Youth unemployment is over 20-25%, I doubt this will one of the happier memories for humanity IMO, since everywhere has high unemployment. A lot of european countries are heading for retraction this year.

Nah, the 80s were better. Had I lived in the US, I would've grown long hair and started a hair metal band. Easy way to get rich and get chicks.

I know what you mean, I feel really depressed about how unhealthy the upbringing of children is now, with so much horrific music and the reliance on technology (which of course has its benefits but I think the 90s had the technology balance just right). I know some parents are good and give their kids a strict upbringing but it's all too easy to allow them to slip into consuming what's in the mass media. I mean 12 year olds with Facebook drooling over some X factor gimp, awful!

I was born in 1989 so my memories are patchy but the atmosphere seemed so much more relaxed and nice. The films and music and people were so much better

gengleralowely.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1877973

Share this post