I've noticed a lot of myths about the 90s lately. Like I'm sure a lot of teenagers probably think that MC Hammer and Britney were popular at the same time.  ;D Or the idea that the Internet was widespread throughout the whole decade, most people hadn't even heard of the Internet until 1995 give or take a year, let alone used it. And some people conversely think that nobody had the Internet until 2000 which is equally untrue, it was a very "hot" technology in the late 90s though many people did not use it yet.

Basically it seems like younger people either have a 1999-centric view or they focus on the cheesy pop culture from the early 90s. Either that or they think the 90s was dominated by grunge and gangster rap when really those were only prominent genres for a couple of years. Most people in the 90s listened to slow R&B jams, bubblegum pop, rock music (NOT just grunge or even alternative, metal was still huge and there were still a lot of classic rock bands making albums that sold very well) and house/dance music.

What other 90s misconceptions do you notice/hear a lot?

Teenagers of the early and mid 2000's would not have thought MC Hammer and Britney were popular at the same time. When I first used the internet it was the late years and at school. It varies depending where people lived, but my jr. high years was when kids I knew began their fascination with the internet and email and chatting. Of course 13 is the age you have to be to use it, or at least sign up with accounts to do so.

I know the middle of the decade to have been dominated alot by Lilith Fair female singers, female R&B groups, and dance music. Bubblegum pop hadn't become popular yet.

I'm not sure what misconceptions I've heard personally because I don't really hear them. The only thing I can think of is some people believe the entire decade was Generation X centered and their heyday.  :o

What I also notice: A lot of young people don't care about the 90s at all. Why should they? The 90s are over, they haven't experienced them and we are living in the now!

I care more about my teenage years of the early-mid 2000s, and I am personally interested in the 70s and 80s, but not for nostalgic reasons. It was just a magical era to me, probably it was so close to my birth... (even the 70s...) and I like watching movies or old shows from that time.

I've noticed a lot of myths about the 90s lately. Like I'm sure a lot of teenagers probably think that MC Hammer and Britney were popular at the same time.  ;D Or the idea that the Internet was widespread throughout the whole decade, most people hadn't even heard of the Internet until 1995 give or take a year, let alone used it. And some people conversely think that nobody had the Internet until 2000 which is equally untrue, it was a very "hot" technology in the late 90s though many people did not use it yet.


I saw on a sitcom (forget which one) not long ago that had a flash back to the early '90s that included the Internet.  The characters didn't just have an Internet that looked a little too much like today's Internet, but it was broadband as well.  As a tech geek this bothered me because for one, very few people had broadband Internet in the '90s.  It was mostly dial-up and if you are going to do a flashback to the '90s Internet it needs to be dial-up.

Where I work they play a lot of '90s music during the day time (as well as from earlier decades), switching to current music at night. I even see a lot of my co-workers singing along or jamming to it. One girl that I enjoy talking to was singing along to "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)", and two others were singing along to "Don't Speak" by No Doubt about an hour later.

Another instance was when I was walking my dog one evening, and I saw a truck pass by and it parked in the driveway that I just passed. I caught a glimpse of the driver who looked about my age, and on the stereo he was playing "Twisted" by Keith Sweat!

At the outdoor mall I go to a lot they play '90s music and early '00s music. They play older and newer songs too (particularly '70s, '80s, and songs from 2012-present), but the '90s tunes are the ones that always grab my attention.

I think most people tend to have an interest in the decade that they were born in. Kind of like how people born in the '70s brought back '70s culture in the mid-late '90s. Same with '80s babies in the '00s.

What I also notice: A lot of young people don't care about the 90s at all. Why should they? The 90s are over, they haven't experienced them and we are living in the now!

I wasn't crazy for the 90's, the 80's was my time.

Any year or decade is good when you are blessed with God's Gracious Gift of being alive.

What I also notice: A lot of young people don't care about the 90s at all. Why should they? The 90s are over, they haven't experienced them and we are living in the now!

I care more about my teenage years of the early-mid 2000s, and I am personally interested in the 70s and 80s, but not for nostalgic reasons. It was just a magical era to me, probably it was so close to my birth... (even the 70s...) and I like watching movies or old shows from that time.


I'm starting to feel more nostalgia for the early and mid 2000s too. I was a preteen and younger teenager then and I miss hanging out with my best friend and I'm starting to feel nostalgia for the music and fashion. Especially since I just recently moved back to the city I lived in between '01 and '05 ... it feels like rewinding the clock 10 years in a way.

Here's one:

"The acid washed denim fad of the late 1980s ended in 1990." 

This isn't exclusive to the 90s, but there is a lot of misinformation and vandalism on the net about the original airdates for various shows.

This isn't exclusive to the 90s, but there is a lot of misinformation and vandalism on the net about the original airdates for various shows.


That's very true, sometimes it's hard to find the correct dates.

I'm starting to feel more nostalgia for the early and mid 2000s too. I was a preteen and younger teenager then and I miss hanging out with my best friend and I'm starting to feel nostalgia for the music and fashion. Especially since I just recently moved back to the city I lived in between '01 and '05 ... it feels like rewinding the clock 10 years in a way.


I moved back to the small town I lived in from '98-02 back in 2012.  It was like setting the clock back 10 years.  Initially I was overloaded with nostalgia but it didn't take me very long for it to be replaced by the realization that you cannot rewind the clock no matter how much you wish you could.  I've changed, my friends have changed, and this town has changed. 

I moved back to the small town I lived in from '98-02 back in 2012.  It was like setting the clock back 10 years.  Initially I was overloaded with nostalgia but it didn't take me very long for it to be replaced by the realization that you cannot rewind the clock no matter how much you wish you could.  I've changed, my friends have changed, and this town has changed.


I too, moved back to the town I lived in from 2001-2005 and I feel exactly the same. I visited my old apartment complex and it looks much older and much smaller than it did when I lived there. Also my best friend at the time doesn't seem interested in seeing me again, and I was really interested in hitting him up. :(

I had a discussion with my dad a few weeks ago. I asked him when did he started not to like music. He said once rap started to become popular around the late 1980's. He has this fascination sometimes that the 90's were all about rap. Now if he said I hate the 00's because of rap I could understand this because rap was all over the place in the 00's. I don't know where he gets this from that the 90's was all about rap. He also has this opinion whenever I we talk about the 1970's he says disco and he has this hatred for the decade because of disco. I said to him once Dad the first half of the 1970's wasn't very disco at all it was last half of the 1970's that was about disco or the late 1970's.

I've heard a lot of people say that Nirvana's basically killed hair metal overnight, yet Def Leppard, Extreme, Van Halen, Guns N' Roses, and FireHouse were all still extremely successful throughout 1992 and early 1993; in fact, FireHouse beat out Alice in Chains and Nirvana for best new rock group in 1992.  Actually, hair metal was already starting to decline somewhat during the several months preceding Smell's Like Teen Spirit's chart breakthrough around December of 1991.  I'd argue that R.E.M.'s Out of Time and Metallica's Black Album were just as pivotal as Nirvana's Nevermind, if not even more so, in the shift away from glam rock and towards fresh rock subgenera in the mainstream.  The Black Album, being a radio-friendly metal record, was really a more direct replacement to the hair bands of the 80s than the Seattle grunge albums, which were influenced by punk and garage bands like the Pixies.  The Metallica album is frankly much darker in its subject matter than most grunge songs, which talked about rebellion and drug abuse but certainly weren't laden with references to satan or unforgiven whipping boys.  The contrast to the carefree tone of mainstream metal is thus even starker.  A lot of people would respond that Nirvana didn't just replace hair metal, but catapulted alternative rock into the mainstream.  However, the R.E.M. album was already selling millions before it, and that was no less alternative than Nevermind was.

I think the major reason people perceive grunge as the crux of hair metal's decline was because of the way it was promoted, through MTV airplay and fashion.  Much of hair metal's appeal during its peak was its image.  Michael Stipe and James Hetfield weren't quite as attractive on camera as were Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder, even if they were reshaping popular music beforehand.

Of course the biggest one is still about the '90s were all about the Internet, when in reality, the first half of the decade had the fledging medium mostly popular in an underground sense (colleges, research organizations, nerds) and even then the Web wasn't that popular until around 1995. While a bit better understood with the slow dial-up and hourly trials, the second half of the '90s had culture still created mostly offline (Teen Pop, Harry Potter, Pokemon, Furbys) and despite the rise of video games, mainly people still spent a good portion of the '90s outside compared to the 21st century.

That said, I found an article that showed that during the '90s itself, people had misconeptions about various cultural norms, such as Saved By The Bell being what high school should be all about, LA Gear shoes would stay lit forever, having a Tamagotchi reproduce meant that s/he would be ready to do so, people feeling that the Dark Ages would return after Y2K (the presidential recount turned out to be the real glitch), marrying Topagna, and much more.

There are plenty. The first one is that Gangsta rap was the most form of rap in the 90s; however, it wasn't. A majority of 90s rappers actually stuck with another style of rap that gave them a positive image.

The second is flannel. I read an article about that and it stated that the garment was actually worn to keep people warm during the winter months. It did not represent people being grunge slackers. http://cookiesandsangria.com/2013/10/08/90s-fashion-myths-vs-realities/

A third one is the entire grunge scene. Here is a question about the topic and someone gave a great answer.

http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-myths-surrounding-the-grunge-scene-of-the-90s

I've heard a lot of people say that Nirvana's basically killed hair metal overnight, yet Def Leppard, Extreme, Van Halen, Guns N' Roses, and FireHouse were all still extremely successful throughout 1992 and early 1993; in fact, FireHouse beat out Alice in Chains and Nirvana for best new rock group in 1992.  Actually, hair metal was already starting to decline somewhat during the several months preceding Smell's Like Teen Spirit's chart breakthrough around December of 1991.  I'd argue that R.E.M.'s Out of Time and Metallica's Black Album were just as pivotal as Nirvana's Nevermind, if not even more so, in the shift away from glam rock and towards fresh rock subgenera in the mainstream.  The Black Album, being a radio-friendly metal record, was really a more direct replacement to the hair bands of the 80s than the Seattle grunge albums, which were influenced by punk and garage bands like the Pixies.  The Metallica album is frankly much darker in its subject matter than most grunge songs, which talked about rebellion and drug abuse but certainly weren't laden with references to satan or unforgiven whipping boys.  The contrast to the carefree tone of mainstream metal is thus even starker.  A lot of people would respond that Nirvana didn't just replace hair metal, but catapulted alternative rock into the mainstream.  However, the R.E.M. album was already selling millions before it, and that was no less alternative than Nevermind was.

I think the major reason people perceive grunge as the crux of hair metal's decline was because of the way it was promoted, through MTV airplay and fashion.  Much of hair metal's appeal during its peak was its image.  Michael Stipe and James Hetfield weren't quite as attractive on camera as were Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder, even if they were reshaping popular music beforehand.


Also, the success of the Cure and Depeche Mode in the late 80s (and early New Wave before it) was really the true beginning of Alternative music.

I don't think grunge is as much of a break from previous rock music as much as people think either. Pearl Jam and Nirvana still had solos, and there are many 70s and 80s bands with a fairly similar sound. If anything it was more of a return to "raw" 60s and 70s rock.

I've noticed a lot of myths about the 90s lately. Like I'm sure a lot of teenagers probably think that MC Hammer and Britney were popular at the same time.  ;D Or the idea that the Internet was widespread throughout the whole decade, most people hadn't even heard of the Internet until 1995 give or take a year, let alone used it. And some people conversely think that nobody had the Internet until 2000 which is equally untrue, it was a very "hot" technology in the late 90s though many people did not use it yet.

Basically it seems like younger people either have a 1999-centric view or they focus on the cheesy pop culture from the early 90s. Either that or they think the 90s was dominated by grunge and gangster rap when really those were only prominent genres for a couple of years. Most people in the 90s listened to slow R&B jams, bubblegum pop, rock music (NOT just grunge or even alternative, metal was still huge and there were still a lot of classic rock bands making albums that sold very well) and house/dance music.

What other 90s misconceptions do you notice/hear a lot?



"Nirvana found major success with the release of their second album 'Nevermind' in 1991, and all the kids in junior high started wearing flannel."


People (skaters, artsy kids, and heavy/hair metal fans) were ALREADY sporting flannel before 1991.

Look at the cover to this made for TV movie from 1990: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2580580864/tt0100660