Both in terms of pop culture (like, the era you feel is the best for pop culture) and your personal life (as in, the happiest time period in the '90s), what was the peak of the '90s for you?

For me, 1994-1996 is the peak of the '90s personally speaking in terms of happiness and good memories.
1991-1996 or so is the best in terms of Pop Culture.

1991-96 was the best for what pop culture? I can't think of any category.

Musically, none of those years is even remotley 1997's league, or even 1999's. Movies and television were pretty consistent throughout the whole decade and video games were better in the second half, especially 1997-99.

Personally, I enjoyed the late 90s.  Gas was under a dollar, the internet was new and exciting, and mainstream music had lots of variety.  I really liked a lot of the pop rock like Lit, Smashmouth, The Offspring, Fastball, etc.

Culturally, I think the middle part of the decade was the peak of the 90s (which is probably the case for most decades).  Before the more 'clean cut' late 90s, but after the initial gangsta rap/grunge wave; music like Boyz II Men, Ace of Base, Coolio, etc.

The peak of the 90s was December 31, 1994 - January 1, 1995

I like the mid 90s' pop culture, before teen stuff really took over and after the last of 80s esque cheese had died off. Also was when the internet was really fresh.

I would say right after 1992 when I graduated High School.

1993
1994
1996
1998

These years stick out the most as my favorite.

Usually the sixth year is when a decade is at its peak, pop culturally.  A little of the early, a lot of the middle, and a little of the late part of the decade.

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I'm peeking at nighties. 

I think I read the category wrong. Let me look again.


The peak of the 90s was December 31, 1994 - January 1, 1995


eeyup.

The peak for me was 1998. It was during my junior year of high school, and I had a great boyfriend. I was still hung up on music that was just a bit older than that (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc), but everything was good. Clinton was in office, the economy was seemingly stable. I didn't like my parents, but I was provided for, and I was never afraid that there would never be enough.

1993-1997 (My elementary school years)

1991-1994: The music, movies, TV and fashion.

Tough to say really as the 90's were split...mid 1991-1994 were the classic 90's to me, completely discarding the 80's and the peak of 90's pop culture

1995, 1996, and 1997 were somewhat quiet years. Especially 1995 that seems especially drab


1998-1999 were when things started to blow up again with technology, movies, music.

1995, 1996, and 1997 were somewhat quiet years. Especially 1995 that seems especially drab


I agree.  That time period after the peak of grunge/gangsta rap, but before the explosion of teen pop was kind of dull.  The Macarena was probably the biggest song from that period, which pretty much says it all.

The Macarena was probably the biggest song from that period, which pretty much says it all.

It was a big dance craze now it's a staple for every occasion.

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There was OJ in 95

The peak for me was 1998. It was during my junior year of high school, and I had a great boyfriend. I was still hung up on music that was just a bit older than that (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc), but everything was good. Clinton was in office, the economy was seemingly stable. I didn't like my parents, but I was provided for, and I was never afraid that there would never be enough.


I was just thinking the same thing. From first becoming politically aware by watching the Clinton impeachment trial, to seeing the McGwire-Sosa home run chase unfold, to seeing Titanic in theaters at the height of it's popularity, to entering the realm of 3D gaming with the groundbreaking LOZ: Ocarina of Time, to getting online for the first time and really beginning to come into my own musically and go beyond just the stuff my parents liked, 1998 was really an awesome year for me both from a personal and pop cultural standpoint.

Actually, '98 isn't just my choice as a personal "peak" year of the 90's, but it would probably be one of my choices for the favorite individual year of my entire life so far.

There was OJ in 95


When he was accused for murder.

1996.

I started high school in August 1990 and finished grad school in August 2000, so the entire decade neatly brackets my adolescence - early adulthood and schooling. In some ways the 1990s were like 2 different decades, differentiated by pre-Internet explosion (1990-1994) and Internet explosion (1995-2000). The Internet really changed the culture of our country.

Musically, the early 90s, 1991-1994, were probably the highlight. The explosion of alternative, independent rock like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, as well as acoustic music (Think Eric Clapton's album "Unplugged" and MTV's "Unplugged" TV series) was such a breath of fresh air after the New Wave synth-pop and metal hair bands of the 80s. It was soulful, authentic, and artistic. By the mid 90s, hiphop had started to take over. Don't get me wrong, I like some rap, but to me a little goes a long way, and it taking over from more traditional pop and rock as a dominant musical style, and even heavily infiltrating pop and rock, was not the best thing. Another unfortunate development, in the mid-late 90s, was the surge of what I like to call "manufactured" or "synthetic" acts - really commercialized acts put together by a producer to have a slick image, rather than the authentic singer-songwriters paying their dues. These commercialized acts include The Spice Girls, Brittany Spears, Backstreet Boys, etc. The rise of techno - Chemical Brothers, Moby, Fatboy Slim - was an all-too-brief highpoint during that period.

Personally for me there were three peaks - coming out of junior high in 1990 I felt pretty good about things, I had done really well in jr high and was excited about high school. High school itself was a bit of a low point - lots of turmoil at home due to a parent struggling with a mental illness, and this affecting my school work, extracurriculars, and social life really sucked. So 1994 was a high point, getting to escape all that, going off to college. But the real peak of that decade for me was grad school (1998-2000) - did very well in grad school while having a job I really enjoyed, and a great social life of guys and girls in a new city, I finally got the life I had wanted that entire decade.

Some additional comments on general pop culture:

Lots of great movies in the early 90s, and mid 90s, but late 90s is when action movies really started to rely way too much on CGI and really outlandish action sequences. Also the rise of grossout humor in movies sucks.

TV was better in the early 90s. Seasons 3-8 were pretty much the best years of the Simpsons (before Homer got so ridiculously buffoonish and they started relying on celebrity guest voices playing themselves), the first few years of the X-Files were great, there were well-written shows like Northern Exposure, etc. Two overlapping reasons for this: 1 - broadcast network TV was still dominant. You'd think that the greater competition of cable in the mid-late 90s would have made both broadcast and cable TV better, but it didn't, it just dragged down broadcast TV. As broadcast TV lost market share, it looked for ways to produce cheaper shows, which led to the second reason TV quality declined - 2. the rise of reality TV.

Fashion - clothes kind of sucked in the early 90s - things like Zubaz pants, Z. Cavaricci pants, Cross Colors, etc in the very early 90s were basically a hangover (and yes, I mean that in the alcoholic sense) from the late 80s - outlandish cuts, bright colors and quasi-tribal patterns. That was scarcely over when Grunge took over. I did like a fashion of the mid 90s - seeing girls in short skirts with mid-thigh black stockings. The late 90s saw fashion that I think generally still looks good today, and is better than what we have had since - for men the boring striped longsleeve dress shirts left untucked of the early 2000s, and the hipster outfits of today - sorry guys, no man looks good in skinny pants.

As far as zeitgeists go, the early 90s definitely had a "We won the Gulf War," and "We won the Cold War" resurgence of national pride, but there was still a lot of economic uncertainty, as well as a lot of concern about urban crime, which peaked about 1992 (with the influence of crack cocaine on it),  racial tension, and of course everyone was still terrified of AIDS and the risk to the drug-free heterosexual population was still being vastly overstated. It created some neopuritan attitudes that really sucked for a guy who turned 16 in 1992. The late 1990s were a lot better, ignorance of the looming post-9/11 period really was bliss, because there did not seem to be a lot of threats to American national security, and the economy was booming (on dot.com, creative accounting, and housing bubble foundations of quicksand, as it would turn out).