As of 2008 I think the tone is shifting from 80s to 90s nostalgia. Vh1 recently had a 100 greatest songs of the 90s marathon and flannel seems to be popping up more in fashion these days, though it never entirely went out. The bad economy is also probably a reminder of the situation in the early 90s.

We'll probably be able to see it clearer in a few years, but I think 90s nostalgia is starting to bloom.

I agree. It does feel like a little '90s nostalgia is taking off, much more in 2008 than in 2005. This is something that is very pleasing to me.

I love the '90s and I've also noticed this, probably starting just last year or so...but I hope it's not at the expense of the '80s. It's pretty sad to think the '80s are getting too old to even be mainstream nostalgia! :( I do think the old decades will hold on a bit longer though, in the sense of certain things being "eternally cool" - like certain classic rock or new wave songs, and some fashions.

The '80s and '60s I find very similar. They have been overplayed quite a bit, even moreso that the '70s. But, now the '90s are coming in because we got to face the fact that the '90s are lookin' old!  ;D I was just talking about Frank Thomas (as he's back with the A's again) and realizing that I remember when he was a star player way long ago, around 1990. Then I started thinking "Whoa, 1990 was almost 20 years ago!" I really remember that time as if it were yesterday. I have very strong memories from 1990 and onward, so it's going to get very strange when stuff from the '90s become 20 years old, as opposed to things from the '80s. And, then it will get stranger when '80s stuff start turning 30 years old, lol.

Yeah, I think you have started to notice a few signs, in the last few years at least, that '90s nostalgia is beginning. With '90s teens approaching 30, and most '90s kids now into there 20's, the '90s are getting into the range where "decade nostalgia" usually begins. For comparison, it was right around 1997 and 1998 that the earliest traces of '80s nostalgia started to appear.


The '80s and '60s I find very similar. They have been overplayed quite a bit, even moreso that the '70s. But, now the '90s are coming in because we got to face the fact that the '90s are lookin' old!  ;D I was just talking about Frank Thomas (as he's back with the A's again) and realizing that I remember when he was a star player way long ago, around 1990. Then I started thinking "Whoa, 1990 was almost 20 years ago!" I really remember that time as if it were yesterday. I have very strong memories from 1990 and onward, so it's going to get very strange when stuff from the '90s become 20 years old, as opposed to things from the '80s. And, then it will get stranger when '80s stuff start turning 30 years old, lol.



Yeah, it is really weird how the '90s have started to get older all of a sudden. As strange as it is to think about any year in the '90s being 20 years ago, it's even stranger that there's like 10 and 11 year old kids around now that don't remember anything about the '90s.

Almost everybody of middle school age and below don't remember the '90s at all :o

I started junior high/middle school in 1990, so that's almost 20 years ago!  :o

I haven't seen a whole lot of 90's nostalgia pop up yet, but I'm sure we'll see more of it in the next few years.

Meanwhile, I'll still be stuck in 1984.  ;D

I hope to see more 90s nostalgia- that was my decade to grow up in!  Fashions and such do tend to go repeat themselves in 20-yr cycles.  I remember as a kid I got made fun of for wearing hand-me-down bell-bottoms and then they came back in style.  By the time flare pants were the biggest thing I was being made fun of for wearing "high-waters."  LOL Go figure.  Nowadays I see teenagers wearing the miniskirts with leggings and the big jewelry.  Will be interesting to see what the next decade brings.  It's so hard to believe 2010 is almost upon us! This site will have to change its name to "inthe10s"  lol.

To Marty McFly:  I definitely agree with you about the 80s.  I hope it does not become "too old" within the next decade.  I think of what the radio stations will play.  I remember in the 90s the OKC oldies station would play music of the 50's and 60's.  That was the station to listen to for those cute doo-wop songs.  Come the 2000's and that station has gotten rid of 50's music and now does 60's and 70's....mostly 70's.  There are some "classic rock" stations around here and some that play "80's, 90's, and today." I'd hate to think that in the next decade the 80's will be booted from these stations and then the oldies station will get rid of the good mo-town stuff to make way for "the 70's and 80's"  :(

Nah I don't see 90's noglastia taking off right now or starting too for that matter.

I take some of what I said back on my last post yeah the dwindling ecomomy does remind some people of the early 90's reccession. Also can the whole Sean Bell thing be compared with Rodney King?

I take some of what I said back on my last post yeah the dwindling ecomomy does remind some people of the early 90's reccession. Also can the whole Sean Bell thing be compared with Rodney King?


Yeah, one great thing about the '90s (well 1993+ after the recession faded away) was how great the economy was doing. It makes it seem alot more carefree when you compare it with September 11th and the Iraq War.

Yeah, one great thing about the '90s (well 1993+ after the recession faded away) was how great the economy was doing. It makes it seem alot more carefree when you compare it with September 11th and the Iraq War.


"Have you ever stood and stared at it? Marveled at its beauty, its genius? Billions of people just living out their lives, oblivious. Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered? Where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization because as soon as we started thinking for you, it really became our civilization, which is, of course, what this is all about: Evolution, Morpheus, evolution. Like the dinosaur. Look out that window. You had your time. The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time."
  - Agent Smith, The Matrix, 1999 (emphasis added)

"You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?  (--eats steak--)  Ignorance is bliss."
  - Cypher, The Matrix, 1999

The most depressing thing about 2008 is that it's not 1999 anymore, and that nine years later, you've finally to the fifth stage of grief for the future that could have been.  You've accepted that 1999 probably was the peak of Western Civilization, and you start seriously wondering if Cypher didn't make the right call after all.  The dot-com boom was a hell of a lot of fun while it lasted.  For a while, anything was possible.

Look how far down the rabbit hole we've already gone.  In about 10 years, we might be able to see if Cypher was right based on how the 90s nostalgia plays out.  If Cypher was right, 90s nostalgia will be the 60s nostalgia, where aging hippies really tried (and utterly failed) to re-create the atmosphere that surrounded Woodstock -- a vain attempt to recover a past that never really happened.  If Cypher was wrong, it'll be more like 70s nostalgia, where everyone dusted off a polyester suit for Hallowe'en and laughed at their kitschy disco-era selves.  I have no idea how it'll turn out, but it'll be amusing to watch.

It's funny... last week's episode of "How I Met Your Mother" was chock-full of 90's flashback jokes... bands wearing flannel, a reference to Crash Test Dummies, a full-on early 90's teen pop music video with no cliche' left unturned (think Martika's Toy Soldiers,) and even a guest starring role by James Van Der Beek himself.

It occurred to me that this is the time when we're going to start seeing sly little references like those popping up here and there for people like us who will notice these things and laugh.  Kind of what certain Friends episodes did with the 80's flashback jokes (anyone remember Chandler and Ross in their Miami Vice attire?)

I mean aside from, like, Family Guy making the easy Bill Clinton / Monica Lewinsky jabs, I think we'll be seeing gags in some TV show or another where someone will be making references to Gerardo, Color Me Badd, In Living Color, or even Models, Inc or something (or the 90's easiest pop culture targets, Beverly Hills 90210, Vanilla Ice and Crystal Pepsi.)

It's true... the kids like me that graduated high school in the mid-90's are starting to take hold of today's pop culture.  Won't be long before writers start slinging Jay and Silent Bob or Buffy The Vampire Slayer references into the mainstream just for their nostalgia value.

And you know what's really scary?  80's music on radio stations today is the same as 60's music on the radio for those of us who had childhoods in the 80's... remember what they called it then?  OLDIES.

I take some of what I said back on my last post yeah the dwindling economy does remind some people of the early 90's reccession. Also can the whole Sean Bell thing be compared with Rodney King?


Sean Bell is very comparable to Rodney King. I hope it doesn't set off the mass riots that the Rodney King beating did, which killed some 50+ people, but there's a lot of anger simmering over this.

The late 00s have some eerie comparisons to the early 90s and have made me realize that the early 90s were actually sort of a dark and violent time. After Clinton was elected and the economy stabilized 1993+ that period ended, but it still left its mark on the course of the rest of the decade and people realizing "its not the 80s anymore."

I don't think 1999 was the peak of Western Civilization at all. Politically we definitely weren't at our peak, there are still issues from the 90s that we have today such as the lack of comprehensive health care reform.  Remember the future is always better than the past in the long run.

I take some of what I said back on my last post yeah the dwindling ecomomy does remind some people of the early 90's reccession. Also can the whole Sean Bell thing be compared with Rodney King?
Oh yeah I forgot about "Stone Temple Pilots" reuniting just a couple weeks ago and Beverly Hills 90210 is being reborn I think again(a spinoff of it though.) Tori Spelling might be in the spin-off as well(reprising her role as Donna Silver-Martin.)

Oh yeah I forgot about "Stone Temple Pilots" reuniting just a couple weeks ago and Beverly Hills 90210 is being reborn I think again(a spinoff of it though.) Tori Spelling might be in the spin-off as well(reprising her role as Donna Silver-Martin.)


A Kurt Cobain movie is supposed to come out next year, as well as a Notorious B.I.G. movie as well. Alice in Chains also have reunited and are planning an album release this year. Enough is happening about now that 90s nostalgia is definitely starting to come into its own.

Also 90s nostalgia is going to play into the next huge pop culture shift in a few years.

Given how stale and tired out our current pop culture is, as well as the upcoming election, I believe it could happen earlier than most culture shifts in the past. 81' was MTV, 91' grunge 01' 9/11.  However I think the next shift could happen in 2010, or even 2009, especially if a Democrat is elected President. Bill Clinton being elected President was the final event that solidified the 90s.  If a Democrat is elected President this year rather than the slow transition between decades from about 1989-1992 into the next decade, it could be an even quicker, more shocking change.

A Kurt Cobain movie is supposed to come out next year, as well as a Notorious B.I.G. movie as well. Alice in Chains also have reunited and are planning an album release this year. Enough is happening about now that 90s nostalgia is definitely starting to come into its own.


  If you listen very closely you can hear Kurt turning over in his grave...