Why The 90s Were Just... Better.

Okay, so, being a child of the 90's I am of course slightly bias as to its awesomeness. Everything is up for debate, however, I find that as a rule, this is just fact. Haha. If you need some reminders as to why, here you go...


1. I was recently (well, a few months ago..) watching "The Real World". I had never before in my life actually watched a full episode of this show, but when you are a stay at home mom who has exhausted every other series on Netflix and have no life... Well, things happen. Anyway.. I decided to start, naturally, with Season 1: Episode 1 (1992). My first thought was simply "Holy 90s!" lol. As I watched, I became confused. Isn't the Real World about some 20somethings getting wasted, having sex, and getting into bar fights? Well, no, it did not start out that way. The first episode was a group of young adults, getting together and discussing politics, religion, and gender stereotypes, while sitting around drinking coffee together. The most controversial thing that happened was that one of the house members did a *gasp* underwear commercial! Ha. THAT was a BIG deal, so scandalous. Now, I'm sure that some of the blame lies on the shows producers for letting the show lose it's integrity and become a sloppy mess of vomit, thrusting, and hair pulling (sometimes all at once..) but just the simple fact that these things became the picture of television "mass appeal" shows you a big sign of the times.

  


2. The clothes!!!! I mean, seriously, not only was style back then funky and colorful, but it was comfy! These days it's like the tighter the better. Or if you're a guy, your pants are nearly to your ankles. Blech. Although, sagging pants weren't completely unknown back then, note the (great, wondeful..) Tupac...

other things were acceptable, such as, overalls! (with one strap undone of course..)

Truthfully, lame as it is, I find that more appealing than seeing your entire ass hanging out any day...
Also, scrunchies. A hair accessory AND a bracelet in one? Need I say more? Haha. Not all 90s clothing was super appealing, of course. You can keep your one pant leg rolled up and bicycle shorts for yourself 90s, but as a rule... I mean...  Come on! THIS is awesome!

Anyone else think so??? Just me...?


3. I am a huge fan of music in general. I am an avid listener and lover of 50s music, 80s music, current music, but most of all... 90s OF COURSE! I know, I was a kid, so maybe a lot of this is nostalgia, but you just can't beat 90s music! Boy Bands of that time were far beyond boy bands today. Like it or not, if you were a kid in the 90s, I bet you liked at least one NSync or Backstreet Boys song. You may even have went as far as 98 Degrees, Hanson, or LFO. That was before Christina was "Dirty" and Britney was mentally unstable and desperate. Tupac, Biggy, and Snoop made REAL gangster rap... None of this Soulja Boy, and Lil Wayne bullshit. "P Diddy" was Puff Daddy and actually still had some street cred. Oh, the good times. I will not even speak about this anymore.. I will simply leave you with this (totally worth it) 28 minute compilation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19tQOQFGueA

4. The Fads. I hear so much these days about kids (as young as elementary school!) not being "cool" unless they have the newest game system, or a smart phone, or their own tablet, etc. Seriously? When I was a kid, the "cool" things to have were much simpler, less expensive, and, in my opinion, WAY more fun. Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, Gigapets/Tomogatchis were big hits. I also remember always wanting everything Lisa Frank. Bright and colorful with usually some sort of cute, big-eyed animal on it. I owned AT LEAST 3 Lisa Frank diaries as a kid. I also remember that everyone had a "trapper keeper"... My friends and I had matching cow print trapper keepers for our first year of middle school. Those, and our butterfly hair clips, made us feel super cool. Ha. Instead of getting our cell phones taken away in class, we got our Pokemon cards taken away because we were trying to play and/or trade in class. THIS, was the most "technology" kids carried around...


5. Oh, speaking of cell phones. Thanks to texting, future children will never learn creative ways to pass notes right in front of a teacher without getting caught (mybest friend Autumn and I often had cold with runny nose, butno other symptoms, and had to get a tissue about 50 times during one class, haha) or the feeling of sheer terror when you DID get caught and had to get up and read said note in front of the entire class. *shudder* I was looking through a box of "memories" just yesterday and read a few old notes I had gotten from some friends in middle school, (Okay, technically not 90s anymore as I started middle school in 2000, but the note passing started far before that..) always folded the "right" way, and I want to save those types of things forever just as a look back on simpler times. It's sad to me that most future adults won't have these saved to look back at.



7. Snick and TGIF. Between Friday night TGIF (Full House, Step by Step, Boy Meets World, Family Matters..) Saturday morning cartoons (Captain Planet, The Adams Family, Beetlejuice, Darkwing Duck, Bonkers, Gargoyles, Bobby's World, Animaniacs, etc) and Snick (Clarissa Explains It All, Are You Afraid of The Dark, Ren and Stimpy, All That, Secret World of Alex Mack, Kenan and Kel, etc) and not to mention just plain Nickelodeon cartoons (Doug, Rugrats, Ahh! Real Monsters, Rocko's Modern Life, Hey Arnold, Rocket Power, etc) Oh and the game shows... (Wild and Crazy Kids, Double Dare, GUTS..) your weekend tv schedule was pretty set. Golden age of kids tv... And not every teen show starred little girls in short skirts!



8. Despite the fact that I was (obviously) an avid tv watcher in the 90s, haha, we also did A LOT of playing outside. Riding bikes, play tag (of all variations, regular, freeze, tv, movie..) swimming, jumping on my friends trampoline sometimes from sun up to sun down... So many things to do and see. I feel like kids now get too much screen time and not enough fresh air. We would play the occasional video game, of course, but it was just one of the many options we had in a day filled with a whole variety of adventures. We had a lot of imagination and dang it, we knew how to use it. We built functioning club houses in the woods out of sticks and old fishing line, and we caught frogs in the stream and made colonies for them in shoes boxes. Outside was where anything was possible! I actually know multiple young boys who can navigate a computer or video game better than I can, but do not know how to ride a bike simply because of lack of interest. Poor kids don't know what they're missing... This is how many kids spend play dates now..




Man, do I miss the 90s.... There are many more examples,
I could go on and on, but now I need to sleep.
Feel free to add your opinions, disagreements, trips down memory lane, and so on...
Goodnight all!