What Were The 1990s Like? - 2000-04-14
How odd??? I’m beginning to get an inkling of how the 1990s will be characterized but I didn’t expect for this kind of hindsight to happen so soon. What I mean about the 90s is the same way the 80s were characterized for certain decade-specific traits after it was over. You know–the pastel clothes, teased hair, yuppies, and whatnot. And how the 70s were about even worse clothes, and disco, and “blaxploitation”, and so on. And on and on with the decades before then.
I don’t think it’s enough to just think back to it. The nuances can only be fully recalled from reading what was written during those years, listening to what the music was about back then, and taking into account what was regarded as entertainment back then. I think what really defines the collective personality of a decade (or any era, for that matter) is what people thought of the future back then. In the 60s it was believed everyone would be flying around or something by the year 2000. Now, no one’s expecting anything like the Jetson’s anytime soon. I’m wondering if computers will have superhuman intelligence in the next 20 years. The fact of the matter is that no one really knows and whatever actually happens usually comes as some sort of surprise.
The 80s were my childhood, and the 90s were my adolescence. Will the teenagers of tomorrow think that it would’ve been so cool to live during those years? Or will the 60s and 70s still be thought of as the coolest decades of the 20th century? How old do you have to be these days to have some sense of nostalgia for the 50s even if you weren’t born then?