I wish we could go back to life in the mid to late 90s. I can say objectively my life is better now professionally, financially, and especially socially. But culturally, I yearn to go back to a time where things were more boring and time passed more slowly. And I can't just go back on my own by doing a digital detox, I am expected to be connected and available at all hours. Society demands it. I yearn for a time when we had shared cultural experiences due to limited entertainment options. A time when we compared ourselves to ours peers down the hall, not across the globe. I didn't want WALL-E to be our inevitable future. I know my brain has been rewired over the last 25 years due to persistent dopamine hits from being chronically online, so I can't go back no matter how hard I want. What do you miss the most about the 90s (Besides watching Hakeem and the Championship Rockets)
I can't disentangle these ideas from simply being much younger and more naive too. I know the nation was culturally different and I didn't have digital interruptions on the regular, but I was also like in grad school for a chunk of the 1990's, DJing still at college radio stations and drinking malt liquor with a disturbing regularity.
For me, I miss reading books. It used to be that I would read physical books all the time, and always had a novel or two on the go that I would work through 1-2 hours every night in bed before falling asleep. That all stopped about 10 years ago and instead I started dicking around on my phone with social media and stupid mobile games. I can honestly say that over the last 10+ years, I have not read a single novel, and that sucks. As someone with a lifelong appreciation of literature and a university degree in English, I am extremely disappointed in myself for letting this happen, and a bit scared of the consequences for myself and especially for youth everywhere. I am posting this now because I got a novel for my birthday recently -- Stephen King's Wind Through the Keyhole which is part of the Dark Tower series -- and have been totally wrapped up in it ever since. I am hopeful that this can be the gateway drug that finally gets me back into the reading addiction again. It is so easy to just frig around aimlessly on mobile devices these days instead of actually doing something productive or mentally stimulating like reading.
This is becoming a common refrain. Missing being bored, missing not 'knowing' everything, missing apolitical life, missing the ability to be forgotten, missing distance from people, work, etc. The new challenge of this era is being your own gatekeeper in all aspects. We went from a life of deprivation and scarcity (food, entertainment, news, etc) to a life of overabundance in all things in less than 30 years. It takes an incredible amount of self-discipline nowdays to not just be the worst possible human.
Besides being 30 years younger and fitter - still not knowing what I was going to do with my life, and generally I would say the mood in the world was more optimistic and hopeful at the time.
Had a girlfriend once tell me, why would anyone ever watch the replay of a game. She was serious. So I dumped her.
I don't know about going back to the 90's because I was barely 14 headed into the 2000s. But I do miss the early 2010's. Agree on the dopamine hit and brain being rewired over the last 20+ years for me. It's really hard to disconnect and I am hopelessly addicted to technology and my phone.
Great encapsulation. But at least we get things like your new avatar, haha. For @fadeaway and anyone else, I have benefitted, at least a little bit, from this little gem of a book, How to Break Up With Your Phone.
90s will be remembered as the peak of the American Empire. It was our unipolar moment and our chance to really invest in ourselves and establish a lasting grip on that role. Instead....
I'm going to Wimberley to a small cabin to detox myself of this internet lifestyle. I always feel very refreshing.
Thinking about this today: I don’t miss much about that era. I can still listen to the music. I don’t miss terrestrial TV or commercials. I don’t miss way more people smoking everywhere or inside at all. I like new tech and new forms of entertainment. I do miss kids being able to play outside without the ever-looming threat of kidnapping and human trafficking and I miss cordial low-key political discussions where you can disagree and someone won't fly off the handle (not that I had many of these) and won't be labeled as 'the other guy' and be some sort of pariah. @fadeaway get a Kindle. You can get eBooks from the library. Old-school books are nice but the medium has nothing to do with the story. My wife is a librarian and she reads 95% of books for recreation on her Kindle. You'll adjust. @Ubiquitin - set some boundaries and unplug. Go talk to random people at the grocery store or park. We have a 'no electronics' rule at our house for Sundays after lunch, which is around 11 because we wake up early. Kids b**** about it but at the end of the day they are so happy. @Haymitch I think most historians would say the 1950's were the pinnacle of US world supremacy. The 1990's were when the Boomers decided to kick personal debt into overdrive and start the nosedive into where we are now and their kids and grandkids have to clean it up. @tinman yeah, rap was better.
