For me:

1997-1999: Fairly Old

1995-1996: Old

1993-1994: Very old

1990-1992: Feels like another world

Old me was fine during the 90's  ;D

1998 and 1999 feel old.  1997 and before feel like another world.

It actually feels 'outdated' for me finally.

1997-1999: slightly old

1995-1996: old

1990-1994: another world

Between 1990-1995 feels quite old now.

1990-1992: VERY old school, a COMPLETELY different world
1993-1996: old school
1997:old
1998-1999:kinda old/Dated!!

1997-1999 is quite dated.
1996-1994 is old.
1993-1990 is a different world.

1990-92: Vintage old, parent's generation to today's teens
1993-95: Very old, vintage to some
1996-98: Just plain old, modernish in a few ways (Internet/early cellphones/social manners), but you can't deny its another time from now and like 1993-95, is destined to be vintage before long. If you encounter some old Internet web pages, that dial-up start up sound, and the polygon graphics on fifth generation games, you'll see what I mean.
1999: Noticeably dated and back in the day, but still contemporary enough despite some indisputable differences in technology. Socially, 1999 isn't too different from today however minus the social media, though someone who went forward in time from 1999 probably wouldn't want to go past 2007 in terms of still being truly in style (think Britney Spears, bling bling rap, post-grunge, Web 1.0, DVD as the hot video format). We still have Spongebob, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and numerous fashion styles from that year that are still around today. And no, that "1999" dance is actually from Prince's 1982 song/album, and even at the time felt a little old school. 1999 will likely become vintage when most of the '00s does in this sense.

The 1999 dance seems so old now! Long time ago for me.

The 1999 dance seems so old now! Long time ago for me.

Being preschoolers it does seem long ago!! :o  lifestyle wise, of course ;) !!

1990-1995: Retro old/Old school

1996-1999: Almost retro

1990-1995: Retro old/Old school

1996-1999: Almost retro

Call me crazy, but I actually considered 96 to be retro last year!

Call me crazy, but I actually considered 96 to be retro last year!


and next year it will be 20 years. :o

and next year it will be 20 years. :o

Yeah and i'll also officially be old enough to drink next year too! :o  Even though I won't! ;) 

I don't know about anybody else but the '90s just don't seem dated in the same way the 1970s looked in the '90s(or heck even the '80s), that's why I find the idea of "90s nostlagia" so ridiculous.

Heck many TV commercials STILL potray the '80s as the last decade that is noticably dated when it should be the '00s.

I don't know about anybody else but the '90s just don't seem dated in the same way the 1970s looked in the '90s(or heck even the '80s), that's why I find the idea of "90s nostlagia" so ridiculous.

Heck many TV commercials STILL potray the '80s as the last decade that is noticably dated when it should be the '00s.


Why do you always reference the 1970s? I can tell that's your favorite decade. And the 1990s are just as dated now as the '70s were then. I have a couple authentic '90s clothing items in my closet, and while they are back in style, they look very different from the modern versions of today.

Also, '90s music definitely sounds old in comparison to current music. Back in the '90s, music was both melody and beat driven. There were many styles of music in style at once. Pop culture in general was extremely fragmented. Now, most modern music sounds the same. You know how you say the internet has shattered cultural tastes? Well, that has only worked on television. If anything, music is more "Mass Culture" now than it was in the '90s.

The reason why '90s nostalgia exists (and does not seem ridiculous) is because people miss having diversity in music, television, video games, and movies. There was something out there for everyone. Don't like rock? You had hip-hop. Don't like dance? Here's your R&B. Now, when people mean "diversity" they mean social diversity (particularly that LGBT bogus) all the while not tolerating others for having different opinions and views from them. If you don't like present-day mainstream trends, there's not much else out there to suit your tastes.

I don't see television commercials even reference the '80s anymore, it all takes place in present day. It seems to me that you just don't like the '90s.

I agree that the 70s looked WAY more old school in the 90s than the 90s do now. Maybe it's also because we didn't live the 70s and early 80s, but clearly remember the 90s, but generally, some 90s aesthetics would still not look too far off today. Our early 80s house was renovated in the mid 90s and the furniture did not look too old until the first few years of the 2010s; unlike the late 70s/early 80s stuff we threw out when it was only 15-18 years old.

90's Television is especially dated.

Why do you always reference the 1970s? I can tell that's your favorite decade.

I do like the 1970s but I also like  the 1960s and lots of 1980s things too.

And the 1990s are just as dated now as the '70s were then. I have a couple authentic '90s clothing items in my closet, and while they are back in style, they look very different from the modern versions of today.


Maybe it was because '70s fashion was so far out so it stood in greater contrast to the more casual, homely '90s, it's not that things haven't changed since the '90s but it feels like it's changed in smaller variations.

Also, '90s music definitely sounds old in comparison to current music. Back in the '90s, music was both melody and beat driven. There were many styles of music in style at once. Pop culture in general was extremely fragmented. Now, most modern music sounds the same. You know how you say the internet has shattered cultural tastes? Well, that has only worked on television. If anything, music is more "Mass Culture" now than it was in the '90s.

I don't know, it would depend on the style in question, like early '90s house music sounds pretty dated but late '90s trance synths are still being used in EDM, it just doesn't feel like music has evolved a whole lot during the past 20 years. Music critic Simon Reynolds calls this "atemorality", the sense that a popular song in 2015 could have easily been made in 2005, 1995, 1985, or even 1975. I mean look at one of the biggest hits of this year "Uptown Funk", it sounds like it was made in 1982, the producer of that song didn't add a "modern" twist, it is just straight up imitation. What I do notice more often in the 2010s is more cross genre musical collabarations, like imagine Celine Dion making a song with Tupac, that might be contributing to the feeling of a emerging monoculture.

Yeah and i'll also officially be old enough to drink next year too! :o  Even though I won't! ;)


So you're going to be 21? ???

So you're going to be 21? ???

next year!

As a kid twelve or so years ago, I used to see all of the 90s up through 1997 as extremely antiquated, but now I see 1990-1992 as being somewhat recent, and 1993-1999 as being very modern.  I have trouble believing that things like Nirvana's Nevermind, The Legend of Zelda:  A Link to the Past, Beauty and the Beast, and the first Sonic game all came out closer to the 1960s than to present day.

As a kid twelve or so years ago, I used to see all of the 90s up through 1997 as extremely antiquated, but now I see 1990-1992 as being somewhat recent, and 1993-1999 as being very modern.  I have trouble believing that things like Nirvana's Nevermind, The Legend of Zelda:  A Link to the Past, Beauty and the Beast, and the first Sonic game all came out closer to the 1960s than to present day.


Not closer to the 60's, but still very dated.

Not closer to the 60's, but still very dated.


In fact, they are.  They all came out in 1991 (LTTP was released in America in 1992), which was 24 years ago.  24 years before 1991 was 1967.  As of right now, everything from about September 1992 and earlier is chronologically closer to the 1960s than present day.

Very old! I recently posted a picture of myself from 1994. It looks very dated. But I still like it!

If it's 1990, That would be 25 years ago. :o

As a kid twelve or so years ago, I used to see all of the 90s up through 1997 as extremely antiquated, but now I see 1990-1992 as being somewhat recent, and 1993-1999 as being very modern.  I have trouble believing that things like Nirvana's Nevermind, The Legend of Zelda:  A Link to the Past, Beauty and the Beast, and the first Sonic game all came out closer to the 1960s than to present day.

The late 90's was modern in terms of how it didn't feel like a decade when the technology wasn't as advanced. You know, CD's, DVD's, the types of video games out. Plus internet and stuff like that. The early 90's isn't recent at all, it's another world to me as I remember some of the equipment I'd seen out or at school.

The late 90's was modern in terms of how it didn't feel like a decade when the technology wasn't as advanced. You know, CD's, DVD's, the types of video games out. Plus internet and stuff like that. The early 90's isn't recent at all, it's another world to me as I remember some of the equipment I'd seen out or at school.


The 90s in general still feel very recent to me because the whole post-Cold War, living room technology-centric culture of the time continues to feel relevant to me today.  The entire decade felt like it was setting up the world we have now, whereas the 60s and 70s were still wrestling with conflicts and developments strictly confined to the 20th century.  Also, the 90s definitely had its own distinct look (Rachel cuts, bowl cuts, flannel shirts, etc.), but it still doesn't look nearly as outlandish as the sleek, rounded fashion of the 60s or even the hairy look of the 70s.

Another aspect that makes the 90s feel closer to today than the 60s or 70s to me is sound quality in movies and television - the low-fidelity audio in film from the 60s and 70s makes it easier for me to lump those decades with the 50s than with the 80s or 90s in that regard.  Having relatively high-quality picture and sound causes plenty of 90s movies to feel as though they could have been made today, whereas I always feel like I'm watching something vintage if it's from the early 70s or older.

Another aspect that makes the 90s feel closer to today than the 60s or 70s to me is sound quality in movies and television - the low-fidelity audio in film from the 60s and 70s makes it easier for me to lump those decades with the 50s than with the 80s or 90s in that regard.  Having relatively high-quality picture and sound causes plenty of 90s movies to feel as though they could have been made today, whereas I always feel like I'm watching something vintage if it's from the early 70s or older.


That's because you're watching it on a modern television. Plenty of '70s and '80s films are remastered today. Watching "Scream" on a modern television may make the film appear as if it could be made today, but if someone were to watch "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" on a Cathode ray tube television in 2001, who's to say they wouldn't say the same thing? That it was the '70s that brought the modern world of the '90s? After all, the '70s were the decade that introduced us to video games. I would actually say it's the '80s that brought us the living room technology-centric lifestyle we dwell in today.

Being preschoolers it does seem long ago!! :o  lifestyle wise, of course ;) !!


You make me feel a bit old, and I'm only 26! LOL.

Strange to see people born in 1995.  :o

You make me feel a bit old, and I'm only 26! LOL.

Strange to see people born in 1995.  :o

A six year age difference can be quite a difference

That's because you're watching it on a modern television. Plenty of '70s and '80s films are remastered today. Watching "Scream" on a modern television may make the film appear as if it could be made today, but if someone were to watch "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" on a Cathode ray tube television in 2001, who's to say they wouldn't say the same thing? That it was the '70s that brought the modern world of the '90s? After all, the '70s were the decade that introduced us to video games. I would actually say it's the '80s that brought us the living room technology-centric lifestyle we dwell in today.


I've watched remastered versions of movies like Disney's Robin Hood, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Patton, and they all still have sound quality that's virtually on par with vintage black & white stuff, despite being as close to the 90s as present day (just listen to that Oo De Lally commercial that YouTube keeps forcing you to watch these days; that muffled recording may as well have been from the 40s).  Most films don't get quite the same special treatment that the Star Wars trilogy had.  On the other hand, the last time I saw Pulp Fiction, the English Patient, and the Birdcage, they pretty much looked and sounded like HD films.

Also, video games were hardly a thing in the 70s until maybe the very end.  Other than Pong and the dozens of home ports it inspired throughout the decade, video games were not a prominent entertainment industry until about 1979, when Space Invaders grew popular in the United States.  The Atari 2600 may have been introduced in September 1977, but it wasn't a pop cultural phenomenon until 1980, the year Pac-Man and several other arcade classics diversified the industry.  Another good point of comparison is between the Legend of Zelda:  A Link to the Past and its sequel, A Link Between Worlds.  The former came out in 1991, and the latter was released exactly 22 years later.  The second game is very similar in its gameplay style, but both still feel fresh today.  However, if Link Between Worlds came out in 1991, then Link to the Past would have been released in 1969, before Pong even existed and hippies were still protesting the Vietnam War.

To be fair, I don't really see the late 1970s as being that old (it's more the early part of the decade that seems particularly distant to me, before the advent of punk/new wave and Star Wars and still in the midst of the Vietnam War), but I definitely don't see the 70s as the materialistic, technology-driven, living room world that you seem to imply it was.  This trend, in my opinion, really started in the 80s, and drastically expanded during the 90s.

The '70s was really the last decade where social life and happenings was the essential experience in that matter. If you happen to come across old newspapers, you'll notice that from around the turn of the 20th century up through the 1970s, the social section was a signifcant part of the paper and seeing the real world was definitely the central focus of life before all of the home entertainment boomed. Yes, there was radio and later stereo systems/televisions, but the diversity of what you could afford at home was much more limited than what you could attain today. Most people could count the number of TV channels they could receive on their hands, and if you don't like what was on, you moved on to something else. Records/music were expensive at the time to obtain unless if by the '70s you knew how to bootleg off of the radio like my father once did. The '80s brought an improved economy and by decade's end, vast libraries of home video, cable TV channels, and PC/video games. The '80s were truly the beginning of the information age even if it lacked the conviences of the '90s and beyond (Internet/cellphones, etc.). You still had CNN being a 24-hour news channel, ham radio, and usenet to show that the world has gotten considerably smaller. That said, the technological explosion and boom of electronic information in the '90s and beyond distanced the '80s fairly rapidly starting around 1996 or so, and nowadays the '80s are seen as a truly bygone, Iron Curtain, low-tech decade even if was very high-tech during the actual decade itself. Like I've posted above, the '90s are on the fence and gradually progressing away, but will always feel a bit more recent than the '80s, however when I recall that in the actual '90s that digital billboards/monitors were hardly around (and if even if they did, with primitive graphics) like you've seen since the beginning of the new century, very few people with a cellphone around (except for very late in the decade and even then, they were basically just super cordless phones), Internet access that was very restrictive, clunky, and slow along with a much different amount of content, using photo frames and real albums to store pictures, and an attitude of being somewhat less surreal, less entitled and more rigid, there's definitely a reason to see the '90s going the way of other decades.

I think even if decades such as the 80s and 90s start to age more as time progresses (even the 2000s is starting to seem outdated, at least in terms of technology), there will always be decades several years prior that cause the 80s and 90s to feel so modern by comparison.  The world transformed so dramatically throughout the entire course of the 20th century, it's really pretty appalling.  1900, for example, seems way closer, in my opinion, to 1800 than even 1930, by which point talkies, jazz music, automobiles, and airplanes were widespread, not to mention fashion wash much more stripped down (1900 fashion is extremely different than 1800 fashion, but they both at least share that pre-modern extravagance that separates them from modern decades).  1930, of course, seems extremely vintage even from the standpoint of early 1973, the halfway point between that year and present day.

By the 50s, we had the big 3: Movies, music, and television.

You make me feel a bit old, and I'm only 26! LOL.

Strange to see people born in 1995.  :o

Well, seeing kids born in 2001 walking around makes me feel old as well!! That's freakin crazy!!

Well, seeing kids born in 2001 walking around makes me feel old as well!! That's freakin crazy!!

My cousin's oldest was born in the year of Y2K.  :) So gosh I was in my early 20s when he was born.  And now he's 15 so yeah I feel pretty old.  Her youngest one will be double digits in the same year that I turn 40.  :P

My cousin's oldest was born in the year of Y2K.  :) So gosh I was in my early 20s when he was born.  And now he's 15 so yeah I feel pretty old.  Her youngest one will be double digits in the same year that I turn 40.  :P

That right there shows you how times flies by soooooo fast!!! Especially as you get older!!

It feels old up until 97 I think, and dated to 2000. Seeing videos from that time it has a certain atmosphere I cannot describe;
like it is stormy today, but windless back then.

By the 50s, we had the big 3: Movies, music, and television.


and by the 60's 70's and 80's they all evolved.

That right there shows you how times flies by soooooo fast!!! Especially as you get older!!


I can't believe I've been out of High School 23 years. :o

Yes,

But I haven't listened to Grunge music or any 90s related music in a long time though.

1994 seems ancient to me now, even though I was 9 and starting to realize the world for what it was.

and by the 60's 70's and 80's they all evolved.


More colored tv.

More colored tv.


colored TV meant more brighter screens.

1997-1999 are kind of old to me - but from a pop culture perspective, still somewhat familiar, and at least I have some memories from this time, albeit fleeting.

1994-1996, we're getting into the 'seems like another world' territory. Some aspects are familiar, but it's pretty alien to me.

1990-1993 - well, it might as well be the 80s as far as I'm concerned. I cannot relate to the early 90s at all.

Pretty ancient since I was a toddler lol. But looking back as an adult at what I can remember, the pop culture  climate remained the same till 2003. 1999 wasn't the final fabled magical era hardcore 90s kidz make it out to be to younger generation, but it was...there, and had some pretty nice video games & tunes.

When I see photos of myself from the 90s....they look so dated. My hair, my clothes. But I still love it!

1990-1993: Everything from that era has elements of the late 80s, so it's completely retro and super outdated

1994-1997: It's old and very outdated although I have some memories from that time period.

1998-1999: Very dated, but they still feel like yesterday to me. I can remember so much from that time.

Oh Shadowcookie and Mxcrashxm, 1993 WAS NOT an early 90s year.

'92 was the very last year of the early '90s because the pop culture introduced at that time (Beavis and Butthead, Melrose Place and the first Batman film to have two villains in it) all helped to make up the mid '90s atmosphere. All of the new pop culture institutions of 1993 (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Pinky and the Brain and the Leprechaun) lived well into the late 90s and early 2000s. The same could not be said for Batman, Beavis, Butthead and the original  characters of Melrose Place.

1990/91 = retro
1992 = slightly retro
1993-94 = very old school
1995-97 = kind of old school
1998-99 = the modern 90s, but old for today's standards

Oh Shadowcookie and Mxcrashxm, 1993 WAS NOT an early 90s year.


Actually, it is. I've seen plenty of 80s elements in videos from that year. Most of the things you say began that year happened in the fall. It has 20-30% of an 80s vibe especially the first half. If we went by the 1992-1993 school year, it's definitely early 90s right there. Even if Clinton was inaugurated in January of that year, that doesn't mean the core portion began. Culture doesn't change overnight. 

Actually, it is. I've seen plenty of 80s elements in videos from that year. Most of the things you say began that year happened in the fall. It has 20-30% of an 80s vibe especially the first half. If we went by the 1992-1993 school year, it's definitely early 90s right there. Even if Clinton was inaugurated in January of that year, that doesn't mean the core portion began. Culture doesn't change overnight.


No, you want it to be, but it isn't. Look at my post again, I modified it.

1993 was the first year which had a core 90s feel to it. I say that because I remember that year and it was the first year I actually listened to popular music.

1993 was the first year which had a core 90s feel to it. I say that because I remember that year and it was the first year I actually listened to popular music.


1993 was so good to me! I have listened to popular music since I was a year old I think. That's a long time! :o

Oh Shadowcookie and Mxcrashxm, 1993 WAS NOT an early 90s year.

'92 was the very last year of the early '90s because the pop culture introduced at that time (Beavis and Butthead, Melrose Place and the first Batman film to have two villains in it) all helped to make up the mid '90s atmosphere. All of the new pop culture institutions of 1993 (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Pinky and the Brain and the Leprechaun) lived well into the late 90s and early 2000s. The same could not be said for Batman, Beavis, Butthead and the original  characters of Melrose Place.



No, you want it to be, but it isn't. Look at my post again, I modified it.
You do know there's more than that. Not just prime-time shows, but in general. BTW, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers only defines the late portion of the year, not the rest.

Actually, it is. I've seen plenty of 80s elements in videos from that year. Most of the things you say began that year happened in the fall. It has 20-30% of an 80s vibe especially the first half. If we went by the 1992-1993 school year, it's definitely early 90s right there. Even if Clinton was inaugurated in January of that year, that doesn't mean the core portion began. Culture doesn't change overnight.


You can look at the 1989-1990 seasons and still tell '90 wasn't a late '80s year. Sure, ALF may have been around, but only children were watching the show by that point. Once those Bart Simpson shirts showed up in stores, we were obviously in the early '90s. The only cartoon character shirts worn in the 80s were Mickey Mouse tops because we were all nostalgic for the '50s who missed the 1930s. The '90s were a decade of wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the newest cartoon characters on them.

The same can be said for the 1992-1993 school year. The only Jurassic Park we knew of in the early 90s was the novel from 1990. The first movie and the sequel to the first novel (The Lost World) both belong to the mid '90s. You see, the  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles found their popularity in the early '90s and everything Jurassic Park was a hit in the mid '90s. The mid '90s were well in place from the very start of 1993 because screenwriters and creators were building upon prior knowledge of the pop culture from 1990 to the fall of 1992 and applying their knowledge and creativity to invent new projects that would go on to either flop in the 1993 to 1996 timeframe (Poetic Justice) or define the first Clinton term (Jurassic Park).

1993 was the first year which had a core 90s feel to it. I say that because I remember that year and it was the first year I actually listened to popular music.


Exactly! Thank you!

You do know there's more than that. Not just prime-time shows, but in general. BTW, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers only defines the late portion of the year, not the rest.


Leprechaun was the first film to hit theaters in January of 1993. The series jumped the shark with Leprechaun 4: In Space from 1996 (the first year of the late 90s). Things introduced in 1990 jumped the shark in 1993 like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film series with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3. The Beavis and Butthead TV show premiered on March 8th of 1993 and seeped in the late 90s (1996-1999) with its 7th season. Pop culturally, all of those events are what made 1993 the first year of the mid 1990s.

Actually, it is. I've seen plenty of 80s elements in videos from that year. Most of the things you say began that year happened in the fall. It has 20-30% of an 80s vibe especially the first half. If we went by the 1992-1993 school year, it's definitely early 90s right there. Even if Clinton was inaugurated in January of that year, that doesn't mean the core portion began. Culture doesn't change overnight. 

First half if 1993 was early 90s but not the second half particularly the fall. Fall of 93 I consider mid 90s

You do know there's more than that. Not just prime-time shows, but in general. BTW, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers only defines the late portion of the year, not the rest.

I think the summer-fall of 1993 best represents the year to be honest

There should be a 1993 cultural debate thread!! ;)

First half if 1993 was early 90s but not the second half particularly the fall.


I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. I do find it fascinating how people, born in the '90s, find the winter to spring seasons of 1993 to be a part of the early '90s just because those months closely followed the last seasons of 1992.

I think the summer-fall of 1993 best represents the year to be honest


My sentiments exactly!

The spring of 1993 had its moments like when Donna Martin graduated, but that's it. All of my favorite shows (Quantum Leap, The Wonder Years and A Different World) all went off the air with crappy series finales. A full circle was completed by the time all 1993 calendars went up. Americans started 1993 knowing the last full Elder Bush year was behind us. It felt like a new time, just about everything introduced from 1987 to 1989 (if they weren't gone already) was on its way out, obviously. All of the new pop cultural figures of 1992 were on our radar in the spring of 1993. Parents were buying Barney dolls made in 1992, young adults had "Melrose Place" on and teens were sporting t-shirts with Bugs and Daffy dressed like Kris Kross on them. None of what was going on at that time was as earth-shattering to historians (nowadays) like the pilot episode of "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" airing, "Free Willy" hitting theaters and the Mariah Carey single "Hero" being released.

There should be a 1993 cultural debate thread!! ;)


Everyone born in the '90s would think of the earliest seasons of 1993 as the very last portion to the early '90s. It would be me versus the world in that thread.  ;D

You see, all of the new events of the actual early '90s years (1990, 1991 and 1992)  lead to all of 1993, 1994 and 1995.

Everyone born in the '90s


Like yourself?  ;D

Like yourself?  ;D


How could a person born in the '90s know the '90s from start to finish?  Try harder!

I consider 1993 an early 90s year from a chronological point of view - like I consider 2003 to be the early 00s and 1983 the early 80s. I am unfamiliar with the culture. All I can say is that I can easily relate to the late 90s from a culture perspective but 1993 is totally alien, very retro to me and extremely dated. Nothing familiar about it.

Clearly as a person with direct experience, your opinions are different, but you're going to find yourself in an ever increasing minority as people your age  get older and your experiences become irrelevant (if they aren't already).

There should be a 1993 cultural debate thread!! ;)


There should be a 1996 cultural debate thread considering Early '90s Guy considers 1996 a late '90s year when technically speaking, the majority of it is mid-'90s just like 1993 is. Sorry, but this was before Hanson, King Of The HIll, South Park, CatDog starting classic Nickelodeon's decline, gangsta rap's sudden decline with two famous rappers' death, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the Electronica fad on MTV, Teletubbies, and Pokemon (I'm referring to the swelling popularity that was being reported in 1997 itself). Before the hysteria of Y2K and the dot-com craze. Beanie Babies, a very late '90s thing, didn't really start to become popular until early 1997.

The final season of the original TMNT aired in 1996, and Power Rangers didn't jump the shark for the first time until Turbo in 1997. Goosebumps was arguably as popular as ever before its late '90s decline. No DVDs on the market outside of trade shows. We also had the final Aladdin movie (a very mid-90s Disney brand) and Animaniacs was still on the air. By calling 1996 late '90s, it suddenly makes that year not seem as old as if it were mid-90s, since we associate the late '90s as being the first time that a digitally connected world 24/7 has been made mainstream. A better statement would be 1997 being the first FULL year of the late '90s.

Proof that the summer of 1996 was still mid-90s:
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-08-16/entertainment/ca-34650_1_world-music

There should be a 1996 cultural debate thread considering Early '90s Guy considers 1996 a late '90s year when technically speaking, the majority of it is mid-'90s just like 1993 is. Sorry, but this was before Hanson, King Of The HIll, South Park, CatDog starting classic Nickelodeon's decline, gangsta rap's sudden decline with two famous rappers' death, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the Electronica fad on MTV, Teletubbies, and Pokemon (I'm referring to the swelling popularity that was being reported in 1997 itself). Before the hysteria of Y2K and the dot-com craze. Beanie Babies, a very late '90s thing, didn't really start to become popular until early 1997.

The final season of the original TMNT aired in 1996, and Power Rangers didn't jump the shark for the first time until Turbo in 1997. Goosebumps was arguably as popular as ever before its late '90s decline. No DVDs on the market outside of trade shows. We also had the final Aladdin movie (a very mid-90s Disney brand) and Animaniacs was still on the air. By calling 1996 late '90s, it suddenly makes that year not seem as old as if it were mid-90s, since we associate the late '90s as being the first time that a digitally connected world 24/7 has been made mainstream. A better statement would be 1997 being the first FULL year of the late '90s.

Proof that the summer of 1996 was still mid-90s:
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-08-16/entertainment/ca-34650_1_world-music

There are already is one!  ;D

How could a person born in the '90s know the '90s from start to finish?  Try harder!


They would be way too young to remember anything so it's not even possible.

I can't believe 1990 was 25 years ago.  :o

You can look at the 1989-1990 seasons and still tell '90 wasn't a late '80s year. Sure, ALF may have been around, but only children were watching the show by that point. Once those Bart Simpson shirts showed up in stores, we were obviously in the early '90s. The only cartoon character shirts worn in the 80s were Mickey Mouse tops because we were all nostalgic for the '50s who missed the 1930s. The '90s were a decade of wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the newest cartoon characters on them.

The same can be said for the 1992-1993 school year. The only Jurassic Park we knew of in the early 90s was the novel from 1990. The first movie and the sequel to the first novel (The Lost World) both belong to the mid '90s. You see, the  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles found their popularity in the early '90s and everything Jurassic Park was a hit in the mid '90s. The mid '90s were well in place from the very start of 1993 because screenwriters and creators were building upon prior knowledge of the pop culture from 1990 to the fall of 1992 and applying their knowledge and creativity to invent new projects that would go on to either flop in the 1993 to 1996 timeframe (Poetic Justice) or define the first Clinton term (Jurassic Park).


ALF wasn't the only show airing. What about Full House, Roseanne, SBTB, Cheers, The Cosby Show, and others? They existed during that era as well.

What I bold in your statement is how do you know that? Did you go around the city witnessing everyone wearing those shirts? 

There was only one film and a book, so how does that even define the entire period? You should understand there was more than JP that defined the mid 90s.


Leprechaun was the first film to hit theaters in January of 1993. The series jumped the shark with Leprechaun 4: In Space from 1996 (the first year of the late 90s). Things introduced in 1990 jumped the shark in 1993 like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film series with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3. The Beavis and Butthead TV show premiered on March 8th of 1993 and seeped in the late 90s (1996-1999) with its 7th season. Pop culturally, all of those events are what made 1993 the first year of the mid 1990s.


Actually, B&B aired only one year in the late 90s which was 1997. 1996 is still mid 90s regardless.

Leprechaun 4: In Space was released in 1997, which is late 90s.

That's not the only year. There were things that began in 1991 and '92 which blew up in the following year as well.

BTW, there were some things from the late 80s that were still popular in 1993.


Everyone born in the '90s would think of the earliest seasons of 1993 as the very last portion to the early '90s. It would be me versus the world in that thread.  ;D

You see, all of the new events of the actual early '90s years (1990, 1991 and 1992)  lead to all of 1993, 1994 and 1995.


http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2011/10/facepalm.jpg

That's not even close to being true. Some do, but not all of them


First half if 1993 was early 90s but not the second half particularly the fall. Fall of 93 I consider mid 90s
I think the summer-fall of 1993 best represents the year to be honest


That means 1992-93 school year is early 90s while the 1993-94 school year is mid 90s. As for the Summer of that year, it's more of a mix. Most of the stuff from the fall of the former either didn't exist or wasn't popular.

There should be a 1996 cultural debate thread considering Early '90s Guy considers 1996 a late '90s year when technically speaking, the majority of it is mid-'90s just like 1993 is. Sorry, but this was before Hanson, King Of The HIll, South Park, CatDog starting classic Nickelodeon's decline, gangsta rap's sudden decline with two famous rappers' death, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the Electronica fad on MTV, Teletubbies, and Pokemon (I'm referring to the swelling popularity that was being reported in 1997 itself). Before the hysteria of Y2K and the dot-com craze. Beanie Babies, a very late '90s thing, didn't really start to become popular until early 1997.

The final season of the original TMNT aired in 1996, and Power Rangers didn't jump the shark for the first time until Turbo in 1997. Goosebumps was arguably as popular as ever before its late '90s decline. No DVDs on the market outside of trade shows. We also had the final Aladdin movie (a very mid-90s Disney brand) and Animaniacs was still on the air. By calling 1996 late '90s, it suddenly makes that year not seem as old as if it were mid-90s, since we associate the late '90s as being the first time that a digitally connected world 24/7 has been made mainstream. A better statement would be 1997 being the first FULL year of the late '90s.

Proof that the summer of 1996 was still mid-90s:
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-08-16/entertainment/ca-34650_1_world-music


I totally agree with everything you just said. As much as a lot of late 90s culture is just a more glamorized continuation of core 90s trends (even teen pop groups like the Backstreet Boys compared themselves to Boyz II Men, only white), there were just so many significant changes in popular culture in 1997 and surprisingly little from 1998-2000 (which were really just the peak years of the millennial culture 1997 started).

In addition to the examples you gave, you can also mention things like Seattle grunge' full disappearance from the mainstream after the disbandments of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, giving more room for post-grunge and pop punk to dominate the rock charts. Following up on the death of gangsta rap, Puffy's Bad Boy label suddenly become the overwhelmingly dominant bastion of top 40 hip hop, ushering in the shinning suit era that would continue to have influence into the early 2000s. Master P also released Ghetto D, which eventually made the South the new powerhouse rival for East Coast rap; though the album didn't produce many hit singles until 1998, it still marked a new phase in hip hop as it gained more and more airplay.

I consider 1993 an early 90s year from a chronological point of view - like I consider 2003 to be the early 00s and 1983 the early 80s. I am unfamiliar with the culture. All I can say is that I can easily relate to the late 90s from a culture perspective but 1993 is totally alien, very retro to me and extremely dated. Nothing familiar about it.

Clearly as a person with direct experience, your opinions are different, but you're going to find yourself in an ever increasing minority as people your age  get older and your experiences become irrelevant (if they aren't already).


The mid '90s were a time of bad live action movies based off video game franchises. The first one out all of the titles was Super Mario Brothers the Movie from May 28th of 1993.  That alone renders your opinion irrelevant, I'm sorry.

ALF wasn't the only show airing. What about Full House, Roseanne, SBTB, Cheers, The Cosby Show, and others? They existed during that era as well.

I know that, but ALF and the 21 Jump Street episodes with Johnny Depp stick out like a sore thumb whenever someone starts discussing the late '80s. Both came to end in 1990.

What I bold in your statement is how do you know that? Did you go around the city witnessing everyone wearing those shirts?

How do I know that? I was there to witness the African-American Mickey Mouse shirt trend in 1987 and the Steamboat Mickey Mouse shirts worn in 1989.

There was only one film and a book, so how does that even define the entire period? You should understand there was more than JP that defined the mid 90s.

Well obviously, there was more to the mid '90s than "The Lost World" novel and the first movie. More people were buying the merchandise (produced in 1992) in the mid '90s than they did in the late '90s and early '00s.

Actually, B&B aired only one year in the late 90s which was 1997. 1996 is still mid 90s regardless.

You're right about when the seventh season of Beavis and Butthead aired, but I disagree with you on '96 being a part of the mid '90s.

Leprechaun 4: In Space was released in 1997, which is late 90s.

Exactly, everything introduced from '93 to '95 was for the late '90s.

That's not the only year. There were things that began in 1991 and '92 which blew up in the following year as well.

BTW, there were some things from the late 80s that were still popular in 1993.

I know, the events of 1990, 1991 and 1992 lead to the ones in '93 to '95. People of the the early '90s helped to set up the atmosphere of the mid '90s.

http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2011/10/facepalm.jpg

That's not even close to being true. Some do, but not all of them

Where is your proof of this?

I know that, but ALF and the 21 Jump Street episodes with Johnny Depp stick out like a sore thumb whenever someone starts discussing the late '80s. Both came to end in 1990.

How do I know that? I was there to witness the African-American Mickey Mouse shirt trend in 1987 and the Steamboat Mickey Mouse shirts worn in 1989.

Well obviously, there was more to the mid '90s than "The Lost World" novel and the first movie. More people were buying the merchandise (produced in 1992) in the mid '90s than they did in the late '90s and early '00s.

You're right about when the seventh season of Beavis and Butthead aired, but I disagree with you on '96 being a part of the mid '90s.

Exactly, everything introduced from '93 to '95 was for the late '90s.

I know, the events of 1990, 1991 and 1992 lead to the ones in '93 to '95. People of the the early '90s helped to set up the atmosphere of the mid '90s.

Where is your proof of this?


TV shows aren't the only factors. What about music, games, movies, fashion etc? Some things didn't end in 1990.

That doesn't mean it was everywhere around the country. Some states have bigger trends than others.

I'm talking about in general. JP stuff weren't the only products people were buying.

1996 is part of the mid 90s. I agree with the other users on that point.

Not everything. Some things actually stay within a certain portion and disappear on the next one.

Why do you keep using the "it was all about getting to (insert year/decade) statement? The one you said seems similar to the one you always say. That seems like some people are not appreciating the value within an era while it's happening.

My proof is that some events barely change culture while some significantly do. Using "all" can come off as a generalization.

I agree with mxcrashxm; 1996 is as mid 90s as you could POSSIBLY get!

TV shows aren't the only factors. What about music, games, movies, fashion etc? Some things didn't end in 1990.

Mxcrashxm, I know where you are coming from. Most '80s pop culture staples like ALF and the Smurfs were gone by the end of 1990.

That doesn't mean it was everywhere around the country. Some states have bigger trends than others.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/223715570/80s-mexican-mickey-mouse-vintage-t-shirt?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=vintage&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=80s%20t%20shirt&ref=sr_gallery_6

I'm talking about in general. JP stuff weren't the only products people were buying.

That much is true, but there was a flood of licensed tie-in merchandise for Jurassic Park in those days. Some items (made in 1995) were on store shelves from 1996 to the end of the 1990s. I remember there being a second series of Topps trading cards at my video rental store in 1994.

1996 is part of the mid 90s. I agree with the other users on that point.

That's where you're wrong on all accounts. The first Scream came out in 1996, followed by the second in '97, but the third installment (which was originally meant to be the last one) was released in the early 2000s (that 1999 to 2002 era).

The Clueless television series was a fine example of late '90s entertainment. It was based on the popular film from the last year of the mid '90s (1995) and it came to an abrupt end in the spring of 1999. I know the show began in the fall of 1996, but the movie had to be popular enough with the video rental audience in the spring of '96 to be green-lighted as a TV series in the fall of that year. The spring of '96 was similar to the spring of '93, in that aspect. American creators and screenwriters were looking over what seemed to work with people from 1993 to 1995 in the winter and spring seasons of 1996. I think of the start of '93 and '96 as the periods when the dominant pop culture of former eras met their graves. Without the notable television events of early '93 (the Bayside gang graduating twice) , there could never be any fall TV season premieres (Saved by the Bell: The College Years and Saved by the Bell: The New Class).

Not everything. Some things actually stay within a certain portion and disappear on the next one.

I see that now after doing some research on-line. Most programs, video game franchises and movie series introduced in that time-frame were for the late '90s crowd.

Why do you keep using the "it was all about getting to (insert year/decade) statement? The one you said seems similar to the one you always say. That seems like some people are not appreciating the value within an era while it's happening.

I know I sound like wack-job whenever I make those statements, but I know what I'm talking about. Here is a better question, why do you believe that everyone appreciates the value of new pop culture characters in an era while it's happening? As a child of the 1980s and teen of the 1990s, it feels like just yesterday when Turtlemania hit in the April (coincidence, I think not) of 1990. There was even a 60 minutes special on it in July of 1990. Look at this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3856666/ Do you know when the syndicated television show first ran on television? It was in December of 1987, according to my sources. When anyone introduces a new product, it rarely catches on right away.

My proof is that some events barely change culture while some significantly do. Using "all" can come off as a generalization.


I'll swallow my pride and admit that I make too many generalizations on this board. In that regard, you're correct; I have come across quite a few Yers online who think of 1993 as the first core '90s year. A good number of people tend to think of 1993 as an early '90s year because the number,itself, appears too soon on the number line. I measure a year by everything happening around me. '93 was the year when some of my peers became cynical and sarcastic slackers. I hate 1993. 

I agree with mxcrashxm; 1996 is as mid 90s as you could POSSIBLY get!


If you don't mind me asking, how old were you at the time?

There should be a 1996 cultural debate thread considering Early '90s Guy considers 1996 a late '90s year when technically speaking, the majority of it is mid-'90s just like 1993 is. Sorry, but this was before Hanson, King Of The HIll, South Park, CatDog starting classic Nickelodeon's decline, gangsta rap's sudden decline with two famous rappers' death, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the Electronica fad on MTV, Teletubbies, and Pokemon (I'm referring to the swelling popularity that was being reported in 1997 itself). Before the hysteria of Y2K and the dot-com craze. Beanie Babies, a very late '90s thing, didn't really start to become popular until early 1997.

The final season of the original TMNT aired in 1996, and Power Rangers didn't jump the shark for the first time until Turbo in 1997. Goosebumps was arguably as popular as ever before its late '90s decline. No DVDs on the market outside of trade shows. We also had the final Aladdin movie (a very mid-90s Disney brand) and Animaniacs was still on the air. By calling 1996 late '90s, it suddenly makes that year not seem as old as if it were mid-90s, since we associate the late '90s as being the first time that a digitally connected world 24/7 has been made mainstream. A better statement would be 1997 being the first FULL year of the late '90s.

Proof that the summer of 1996 was still mid-90s:
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-08-16/entertainment/ca-34650_1_world-music


The series finale to the Red Sky TMNT aired in 1996, not the original. My nephew always believed that Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers jumped the shark once the original Red, Black and Yellow Rangers parted from the rest. Some Goosebumps fans think of Night of the Living Dummy 3 (1996) as a wretched sequel to the first two : http://channelawesome.com/shameful-sequels-goosebumps-night-of-the-living-dummy-3/ (the episode was based off the book). From what I've heard, the final Aladdin film did tie up all of the loose ends that were dangling around from the sequels and TV series of the mid '90s, so I do not think of it as a mid '90s movie. Animaniacs survived well into the late '90s because they were only introduced in the mid '90s. I'm sorry, yelimsexa, but 1996 was the most significant year of the late '90s. "3rd Rock from the Sun", "Nintendo 64" and the first "Scream" were introduced in that year alone. All of them lasted well into the early '00s. To me, that's what makes 1996 the first year of the late '90s.

Journalists rarely (if ever) seem to know what era they are in, so you cannot go by that link. To them, 1996 was a mid '90s year because the number six falls in the middle of the number line.

Only the last few months (Sep-Dec) of the 6-year belong technically to the late part of a decade.

That's where you're wrong on all accounts. The first Scream came out in 1996, followed by the second in '97, but the third installment (which was originally meant to be the last one) was released in the early 2000s (that 1999 to 2002 era).

Yeah, Scream came in December of 1996, which I'd personally consider part of the transitional period that lasted into early 1997, as gangsta rap was dead, grunge was taking its last breath, teen pop already exploded in the UK and was about to hit North American shores, and games like Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider revolutionized 3D gaming, while the last significant SNES title (Donkey Kong Country 3) came out in November that year.  The majority of '96, however, was pretty hardcore mid-90s.

The Clueless television series was a fine example of late '90s entertainment. It was based on the popular film from the last year of the mid '90s (1995) and it came to an abrupt end in the spring of 1999. I know the show began in the fall of 1996, but the movie had to be popular enough with the video rental audience in the spring of '96 to be green-lighted as a TV series in the fall of that year. The spring of '96 was similar to the spring of '93, in that aspect. American creators and screenwriters were looking over what seemed to work with people from 1993 to 1995 in the winter and spring seasons of 1996. I think of the start of '93 and '96 as the periods when the dominant pop culture of former eras met their graves. Without the notable television events of early '93 (the Bayside gang graduating twice) , there could never be any fall TV season premieres (Saved by the Bell: The College Years and Saved by the Bell: The New Class).

I'm not sure if this is entirely true, as whether or not dominant trends survive depends on how well they adapt to an evolving social climate.  A lot of late 90s stuff had its roots in the mid-90s (for example, plenty of 3D video games existed as early as 1993, despite not becoming the accepted standard until late '96), but only by the late 90s did these things become truly relevant.  You could similarly call grunge an 80s genre of music because it was prominent in Seattle's underground rock scene for most of the decade, but people only refer to it as a 90s thing because it wasn't a mainstream force until Smells Like Teen Spirit blew up.

Not to mention, just because something from one era is based off of another thing from a few years prior does not mean the translation will be exact.  The mere fact that Alicia Silverstone was no longer Cher in the television adaptation of Clueless is enough to point to evolving trends; Silverstone was a hallmark actress of the mid-90s, beginning with the Cryin' video, but her career was completely destroyed after she starred as Batgirl in the notorious Batman & Robin (though that came out after the Clueless television series premiere).

Often, too, things that try to capitalize on the success of their predecessors end up in a sophomore slump, as very much occurred to Snoop Dogg with his Doggfather album which came out at the end of the gangsta rap era and produced no hit singles.  The disc was not nearly as unapologetic as Snoop's earlier work, when Dr. Dre was his major producer and gangsta rap was first surfacing its angst to a wider audience.  Death Row needed the album to succeed after its long streak of unfortunate events in 1996, so promoting the new album of one of its earlier heavyweights was the perfect idea, but the changing climate ultimately led it to flop, forcing Snoop to sign with No Limit (eventually the new fad in the hip hop world) in order to keep his career relevant.

I know I sound like wack-job whenever I make those statements, but I know what I'm talking about. Here is a better question, why do you believe that everyone appreciates the value of new pop culture characters in an era while it's happening? As a child of the 1980s and teen of the 1990s, it feels like just yesterday when Turtlemania hit in the April (coincidence, I think not) of 1990. There was even a 60 minutes special on it in July of 1990. Look at this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3856666/ Do you know when the syndicated television show first ran on television? It was in December of 1987, according to my sources. When anyone introduces a new product, it rarely catches on right away.

From what I've heard, the Ninja Turtles became huge as soon as the 1987 television series made its premiere.  The successful arcade game, plus the NES title, were released in 1989, little over a year since the television series first premiered.  The first movie was made in response to the franchise's dizzying popularity, and its success helped prolong what was already a pop culture phenomenon with America's (mostly male) youth.

Yeah, Scream came in December of 1996, which I'd personally consider part of the transitional period that lasted into early 1997, as gangsta rap was dead, grunge was taking its last breath, teen pop already exploded in the UK and was about to hit North American shores, and games like Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider revolutionized 3D gaming, while the last significant SNES title (Donkey Kong Country 3) came out in November that year.  The majority of '96, however, was pretty hardcore mid-90s.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Not to mention, just because something from one era is based off of another thing from a few years prior does not mean the translation will be exact.  The mere fact that Alicia Silverstone was no longer Cher in the television adaptation of Clueless is enough to point to evolving trends; Silverstone was a hallmark actress of the mid-90s, beginning with the Cryin' video, but her career was completely destroyed after she starred as Batgirl in the notorious Batman & Robin (though that came out after the Clueless television series premiere).

Exactly, Alicia's heyday was in 1993,1994 and 1995. Once we reached 1996, most producers and creators were looking over the most successful movie titles of 1993, 1994 and 1995 to make TV show adaptions, sequels or rip-offs from them.

From what I've heard, the Ninja Turtles became huge as soon as the 1987 television series made its premiere.  The successful arcade game, plus the NES title, were released in 1989, little over a year since the television series first premiered.  The first movie was made in response to the franchise's dizzying popularity, and its success helped prolong what was already a pop culture phenomenon with America's (mostly male) youth.


You heard incorrectly, the Turtles did not blow up until April of 1990 after the movie was in theaters. The arcade game was not successful at first and most people did not know of the NES game until after The Wizard came out. The first movie was made because Kevin Eastman wanted to see a live-action adaption of his early work, it had nothing to do with how well the TV series or action figure line was doing at the time. Turtles action figures were the third best selling toy in 1989 and the first in 1990.

Only the last few months (Sep-Dec) of the 6-year belong technically to the late part of a decade.


You're the only person I'ver ever heard say that about a decade, but to each it's own.

ALF wasn't the only show airing. What about Full House, Roseanne, SBTB, Cheers, The Cosby Show, and others? They existed during that era as well.

These shows existed before the 90's.

You're the only person I'ver ever heard say that about a decade, but to each it's own.


I have learned this on this forum, and it's true. Each part (early, mid, late) spans 3.33 years of a decade, so the last 3.33 years of a decade is the late part, and not 4 full years.

You heard incorrectly, the Turtles did not blow up until April of 1990 after the movie was in theaters. The arcade game was not successful at first and most people did not know of the NES game until after The Wizard came out. The first movie was made because Kevin Eastman wanted to see a live-action adaption of his early work, it had nothing to do with how well the TV series or action figure line was doing at the time. Turtles action figures were the third best selling toy in 1989 and the first in 1990.


I didn't mean to imply the Turtles were more popular before the movie than after, but they were definitely a mainstream force in the late 80s, as well as the beginning of the 90s.  The movie itself would not have been produced, especially not with the help of Jim Henson's special effects, had the television show and line of toys not been popular.

I think this video sums up the progression of TMNT's popularity in the late 80s and early 90s, coming from somebody who was a hardcore fan growing up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ginpah8iGEE


You're the only person I'ver ever heard say that about a decade, but to each it's own.


It's debatable whether or not those last few months of 1996, plus the first few months in 1997 are part of the late 90s or core 90s.  A lot occurred during that period that transitioned the earlier parts of the 90s into the millennial era, from the deaths of 2Pac and Biggie, the mainstream decline of both gangsta rap and grunge, the rise of teen pop, the reelection of Bill Clinton against Bob Dole, the progressive rise of the Internet, and the transition away in the gaming world from the SNES towards the PlayStation and N64.  I personally point to February 1997 as the cutoff date for when it began to feel more like the late 90s than the mid-90s, since that was when both the Spice Girls' Wannabe, as well as Puff Daddy's Can't Nobody Hold Me Down were dominating the charts, and Soundgarden's Blow Up the Outside World was the #1 rock song in January.  Also, Mario Kart 64 arrived in North America in February, finally giving the N64 its first multiplayer phenomenon and making it worth purchasing for more than just Super Mario 64.

I didn't mean to imply the Turtles were more popular before the movie than after, but they were definitely a mainstream force in the late 80s, as well as the beginning of the 90s. The movie itself would not have been produced, especially not with the help of Jim Henson's special effects, had the television show and line of toys not been popular.

I think this video sums up the progression of TMNT's popularity in the late 80s and early 90s, coming from somebody who was a hardcore fan growing up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ginpah8iGEE

No, they were more of a mainstream force in 1990 than they were in 1989. The Turtles made the covers of five magazines in 1989, but over fifteen in 1990. The first movie was produced because of the popularity of the comic books in 1986, not the television show and toyline. 

Here are some newspaper articles from 1990:

http://tmnt-ninjaturtles.com/assets/TMNT-Scrapbook_Page_08.jpg

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1990-05-26/lifestyle/9005241007_1_mutant-ninja-teenage-mutant-turtles-video-game

Not to mention, the 60 Minutes special from July of 1990:

http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8538854

It even happened in the UK:

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/nostalgia/remember-when-teenage-mutant-ninja-7945347

I would not go by what Angry Video Game Nerd remembers, because he isn't an actual source.

No, they were more of a mainstream force in 1990 than they were in 1989. The Turtles made the covers of five magazines in 1989, but over fifteen in 1990. The first movie was produced because of the popularity of the comic books in 1986, not the television show and toyline.

You missed the point I was making.  I agree that Turtlemania was in full swing particularly after the movie came out in April of 1990 (that's even what AVGN claims, more on that soon), but it wasn't like the series was underground in the late 80s.  It was just one of many popular cartoons of the time, along with things like Duck Tales (which also got a movie in 1990).  Whether the comics or the toys launched the series into the mainstream, anyways, is irrelevant, since it still means Turtlemania was still building upon something from the past (ironically your major argument elsewhere), though it was really with the cartoon that the franchise truly became an emblem of late 80s/early 90s "dude" culture.

I would not go by what Angry Video Game Nerd remembers, because he isn't an actual source.

Considering James Rolfe has been very vocal about how significant the Ninja Turtles were to him as a kid, in his comedy videos as well as personal ones, I think he's a pretty legit source of input, even if he's talking about the franchise in one of his Nerd videos.

If you don't mind me asking, how old were you at the time?

I was only a toddler; I may have been very young that year, but I based my opinion on the events that took place that year!

You missed the point I was making.  I agree that Turtlemania was in full swing particularly after the movie came out in April of 1990 (that's even what AVGN claims, more on that soon), but it wasn't like the series was underground in the late 80s.  It was just one of many popular cartoons of the time, along with things like Duck Tales (which also got a movie in 1990).  Whether the comics or the toys launched the series into the mainstream, anyways, is irrelevant, since it still means Turtlemania was still building upon something from the past (ironically your major argument elsewhere), though it was really with the cartoon that the franchise truly became an emblem of late 80s/early 90s "dude" culture.

Considering James Rolfe has been very vocal about how significant the Ninja Turtles were to him as a kid, in his comedy videos as well as personal ones, I think he's a pretty legit source of input, even if he's talking about the franchise in one of his Nerd videos.


Oh, my apologies for that. I would not say it was popular for each and every year of the late '80s. As you know the miniseries started in 1987, but it wasn't until the spring of 1989 that my cousin and others like him discovered the original toon. Like you stated, they became a sensation to all of America in 1990.

Mxcrashxm, I know where you are coming from. Most '80s pop culture staples like ALF and the Smurfs were gone by the end of 1990.

While that does happen, some still linger over into a new decade.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/223715570/80s-mexican-mickey-mouse-vintage-t-shirt?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=vintage&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=80s%20t%20shirt&ref=sr_gallery_6


Once again, while that trend was popular, some were huge than that one in other states. Not all areas are up to current during a decade.

That much is true, but there was a flood of licensed tie-in merchandise for Jurassic Park in those days. Some items (made in 1995) were on store shelves from 1996 to the end of the 1990s. I remember there being a second series of Topps trading cards at my video rental store in 1994.


It seems like JP was battling PR in terms of sales as both were tremendously popular during that period.

The Clueless television series was a fine example of late '90s entertainment. It was based on the popular film from the last year of the mid '90s (1995) and it came to an abrupt end in the spring of 1999. I know the show began in the fall of 1996, but the movie had to be popular enough with the video rental audience in the spring of '96 to be green-lighted as a TV series in the fall of that year. The spring of '96 was similar to the spring of '93, in that aspect. American creators and screenwriters were looking over what seemed to work with people from 1993 to 1995 in the winter and spring seasons of 1996. I think of the start of '93 and '96 as the periods when the dominant pop culture of former eras met their graves. Without the notable television events of early '93 (the Bayside gang graduating twice) , there could never be any fall TV season premieres (Saved by the Bell: The College Years and Saved by the Bell: The New Class).


Those were either spin-offs or TV adaptions which can succeed or fail. Some of them were less popular than their predecessors.

That's where you're wrong on all accounts. The first Scream came out in 1996, followed by the second in '97, but the third installment (which was originally meant to be the last one) was released in the early 2000s (that 1999 to 2002 era).

1996 will always be part of the mid 90s no matter what. In fact, some of the trends that were popular in the late 90s were not there during the core portion. Moreover, the reasons why are that the SNES/Genesis was still all the rage as the 5th generation barely began the year prior; certain music genres were still in full effect; fashion was still very 90s especially overalls.

I know I sound like wack-job whenever I make those statements, but I know what I'm talking about. Here is a better question, why do you believe that everyone appreciates the value of new pop culture characters in an era while it's happening? As a child of the 1980s and teen of the 1990s, it feels like just yesterday when Turtlemania hit in the April (coincidence, I think not) of 1990. There was even a 60 minutes special on it in July of 1990. Look at this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3856666/ Do you know when the syndicated television show first ran on television? It was in December of 1987, according to my sources. When anyone introduces a new product, it rarely catches on right away.


That depends. Some products could actually catch on after a few days, weeks etc.

I'll swallow my pride and admit that I make too many generalizations on this board. In that regard, you're correct; I have come across quite a few Yers online who think of 1993 as the first core '90s year. A good number of people tend to think of 1993 as an early '90s year because the number,itself, appears too soon on the number line. I measure a year by everything happening around me. '93 was the year when some of my peers became cynical and sarcastic slackers. I hate 1993.


Well for that year, you have to think of many factors. People have their reasons why it's early while some have on why it's in the middle. Even if some trends began in 1993, there were some others that started years before and stayed in that year and ended later on. For example, although the SNES was in high demand in 1993, the NES was still making games and even made a smaller version of the console.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/NES-101-Console-Set.jpg

While that does happen, some still linger over into a new decade.

Pop culturally, from January to July of 1990, the late 80s were dying. End of story. You can look at the way Jaleel White as Urkel is treated in his first ever episode, Laura's First Date, and compare that to family's interaction with Steve Urkel in the episode, The Big Fix (Jaleel's favorite episode filmed because he had a much larger part in it), and see the difference between 1989 and 1990 already.   

Once again, while that trend was popular, some were huge than that one in other states. Not all areas are up to current during a decade.

It's safe to say that pretty much everyone loved Mickey Mouse in the 1980s.

http://www.tshirtsonscreen.com/friday-the-13th-part-2-mickey-mouse/

http://www.tshirtsonscreen.com/whos-the-boss-mickey-mouse/

http://www.tshirtsonscreen.com/the-outsiders-mickey-mouse/

It seems like JP was battling PR in terms of sales as both were tremendously popular during that period.

1993 was the year of dinosaurs from Barney mania to We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story.

http://kryptoknight-85.deviantart.com/art/Jurassic-Park-Power-Rangers-380866115

Those were either spin-offs or TV adaptions which can succeed or fail. Some of them were less popular than their predecessors.

The '90s were full of those, but the TV programs based on hit films usually appeared on the small screen one to four years after the movies were in theaters. To me, the pilots to some of those shows aren't always proof that we are in a new time. The popularity of both the 1995 movie and first season of the TV show Clueless spawned a slew of merchandise until sometime in 1999, so I do not see what's wrong with thinking of 1996 to 1999 as the late '90s. I can understand where other posters on here are coming from. Still, 1997 was the first post-1996 and pre-1999 year. '97 did not start out with a clean slate, so to say; shows like Clueless and 3rd Rock from the Sun were on months before then. At most, I could accept the beginning of 1996 as the end of the mid '90s, but not a mid '90s year entirely.

1996 will always be part of the mid 90s no matter what. In fact, some of the trends that were popular in the late 90s were not there during the core portion. Moreover, the reasons why are that the SNES/Genesis was still all the rage as the 5th generation barely began the year prior; certain music genres were still in full effect; fashion was still very 90s especially overalls.

What trends are you referring to? Please elaborate.

This was released in 1995: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nintendo-Power-Magazine-71-1995-STARGATE-SECRET-OF-EVERMORE-N64-64-SPIDER-MAN-/311379666039?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item487faca477

I'm pretty sure most young gamers at that time were anticipating the launch of the N64 by September of 1996.

That depends. Some products could actually catch on after a few days, weeks etc.

Please name one pop culture character that caught on immediately after they were introduced.

People have their reasons why it's early while some have on why it's in the middle.

Most of the people, with reasons for why it is 'early' to them, don't give much thought to what the early '90s were. They see that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 (the worst one in the series, even the '07 film was better, IMO) was in theaters, Roseanne ranked at number 2 on the Nielsen ratings for the week and the 12 Inches of Snow CD was in our Discman. In other words, to them, 1991-1994 were the early '90s because they don't see the connection 1990 had to "the Nevermind year or the ones that shortly came after it". 1990 DID have EVERYTHING from the actual 1980s in it and that's why people tack it onto the actual '80s years or mistake some personal events of theirs from that year for one in 1987 to 1989.

Properties like Twin Peaks are what strings 1990 to 1992. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me may not have been as great as the first season of Twin Peaks, but it can still be viewed as an epilogue to the series. By the start of 1993, all things Twin Peaks were behind us and the series was being converted to a home video format. In other words, Twin Peaks was "so yesterday" to us in 1993. All of 1993 was the storm that came after the calm breeze (1990,1991 and 1992) and that's that.


Even if some trends began in 1993, there were some others that started years before and stayed in that year and ended later on. For example, although the SNES was in high demand in 1993, the NES was still making games and even made a smaller version of the console.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/NES-101-Console-Set.jpg


Mxcrashxm, even '80s fans will tell you that 1993  is when the party came to an end. With the Cowboys being everybody's new favorite team, teal and purple (the colors of '88, '89, '90, '91 and '92) were on everybody's "not list". Sure, Ducktales 2 for the NES and Robocop 3 (another movie I wish I could remove from my memory completely) were present for the first time in '93, but only the new stuff introduced from 1990 to 1992 (i.e. - slap bracelets, Starter pullover puffer jackets, X-Men action figures and Karl Kani gear, if you are into rap then) were on our radar at that time. Please believe me, it was a new day from January of 1993 forward! Bill being sworn into office was one defining core '90s event that stuck out like a sore thumb to us back then. HW Bush era pop culture (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, A Different World without Denise Huxtable and Doogie Howser, M.D. ) had every last nail in it's coffin by the March of 1993. Pop cultural icons of shows that first ran in '87,'88 or '89 were all around from  winter to fall of '93, but only the devoted fans were watching them (not the general public). New TV characters like Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor were being referenced and shown in movies for the first time in 1993. '93 is not an early '90s year, any way you cut it. 

I'm sorry, Mxcrashxm, but the NES era was from 1986 to 1991. The NES cartridges may have been in stores past 1991, but the heyday of the NES was from 1986 to 1991. 

Maybe it was because '70s fashion was so far out so it stood in greater contrast to the more casual, homely '90s, it's not that things haven't changed since the '90s but it feels like it's changed in smaller variations.


Look at these pictures:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_MFnOErZjpCk/S2nXjZ_3-mI/AAAAAAAAA4U/NKBq6HIcuDA/s1600/JonDarrenBuschGarden.jpg

http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/22400000/Buffy-Giles-buffy-giles-22406548-1280-960.jpg

http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz968sKqR61rpu47po1_500.jpg
http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/6900000/nightmares-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-6924054-640-480.jpg

http://everythingintime.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/AnG0_7tCEAA0HMW.jpg

http://www.stayvocal.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/alex-311-dorm.jpg

http://www.movpins.com/big/MV5BMTM0Njg5OTYzM15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwNDcyNzE2._V1/sugar-ray-leonard-at-event-of-2-days-in-the-valley-(1996)-large-picture.jpg

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/heardmentality/cake.jpg

http://www.legacyrecordings.com/media/cache/31/85/3185cd3e65c410c3d649991f68306c23.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RCRbfqCPBPo/UgyQY-_a54I/AAAAAAAAGiw/YJ977-i5y9I/s640/TheCardigans.jpg

https://espngrantland.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/montell-jordan-how-we-do-it.jpg?w=750

http://oscar.ofm.co.za/img/ce-uploads/blogs/a-slice-of-life/no-mercy_huge.jpg

http://www.whedon.info/IMG/jpg/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-season-1-promo-hq-01-0750.jpg

http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35400000/Buffy-Summers-Season-1-Promos-buffy-summers-35482078-452-640.jpg

All of these were taken in the mid 1990s. How is this "homely"? Do you even know what that word means? If anything, 1990's fashion is more like the '70s than it is like the 2010s. I don't see anything dowdy with this at all.


I don't know, it would depend on the style in question, like early '90s house music sounds pretty dated but late '90s trance synths are still being used in EDM, it just doesn't feel like music has evolved a whole lot during the past 20 years. Music critic Simon Reynolds calls this "atemorality", the sense that a popular song in 2015 could have easily been made in 2005, 1995, 1985, or even 1975. I mean look at one of the biggest hits of this year "Uptown Funk", it sounds like it was made in 1982, the producer of that song didn't add a "modern" twist, it is just straight up imitation. What I do notice more often in the 2010s is more cross genre musical collabarations, like imagine Celine Dion making a song with Tupac, that might be contributing to the feeling of a emerging monoculture.


These songs definitely sound dated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZPQdZLyHYE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwU32Fa_Mko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryDOy3AosBw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3vOeCkeCNA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJoBWii2lNM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um99r6sgspY

All of these songs are within the 1995-1997 range. I would actually say these songs are straight up retro. They definitely have that "It was a very different time" vibe.

These songs definitely sound dated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZPQdZLyHYE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwU32Fa_Mko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryDOy3AosBw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3vOeCkeCNA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJoBWii2lNM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um99r6sgspY

All of these songs are within the 1995-1997 range. I would actually say these songs are straight up retro. They definitely have that "It was a very different time" vibe.


I really get the impression you're looking for the most direct examples of things that could only have been produced in the 90s as opposed to today, as opposed to what trends were popular as a whole.  It varies by thing, but usually, there are some elements of culture that reinforce the times more directly, while others strive to be more neutral or timeless, and this is where I think the 90s, for the most part, were starting to lean towards the latter, even with the inevitable presence of the former.

Some fashions of the 90s seem pretty outlandish by today's standards, but at the same time, they were probably the first decade in which plain, non-conformist styles were becoming more accepted, perhaps reflective of the world's increasingly fragmented culture.  You'd be very hard-pressed to find many photos from the 70s or 80s that look like they're from today, whereas the 90s had plenty of looks that would still look pretty neutral today, even with more obviously dated things like the male bowl cut or the female bob cut.  The same ordeal is going to be the case with the 2010s; within several years, I can easily imagine trends like the shaved side cut and Urban Outfitter-manufactured clothing seeming like a perfect representation of the contrived nature of the era's youth culture.

Musically, it's no coincidence that every single song you used as an example is pop rap.  Those songs are mostly very commercial and thus extremely dependent to the social climate, which inevitably evolves overtime and never remains completely stagnant.  By contrast, other albums from the era, like Outkast's ATLiens and Mobb Deep's The Infamous, are still heavily circulated today and don't stick out as blatantly retro.  They just tell their stories as they are, limited by what influences were at their disposal at the time, but repacked in a way that can still be relevant several years down the line.  I'm sure most 00s pop urban songs like Usher's Yeah! and Flo Rida's Low sound corny and dated today in the same way as the tracks you linked to.

In all honesty, a lot of guitar rock especially from the mid-90s period years haven't really aged at all, much of it blending in with either 2000s pop rock or occasionally the indie bands of the present.  You still hear Oasis' Wonderwall, Blues Travelers' Run-Around, and the Smashing Pumpkins' 1979 on mainstream radio pretty frequently, because they have a more timeless style that isn't obviously caving into the MTV-fueled fad of the day like Will Smith's Men in Black or the like.  Maybe I'm stretching this a bit, since Wonderwall was just the definitive song of a very mid-90s musical movement, while Run-Around came out of the acoustic jam band craze (also very mid-90s), but I just guess some styles of music simply age better than others, and britpop, acoustic rock, and alternative rock just age better that pop rap because they don't have as much a need to change as technology and attitudes evolve.  A lot of these songs I couldn't even immediately tell were from the 90s until I looked them up, unlike the synthetically produced 80s or influentially distant 70s.

Pop culturally, from January to July of 1990, the late 80s were dying. End of story. You can look at the way Jaleel White as Urkel is treated in his first ever episode, Laura's First Date, and compare that to family's interaction with Steve Urkel in the episode, The Big Fix (Jaleel's favorite episode filmed because he had a much larger part in it), and see the difference between 1989 and 1990 already.

Family Matters is NOT the only show. What about the others I stated? Just because the late 80s died in one show doesn't mean it died in the rest of them. It might not have been 80-90% late 80s, but there was definitely 30-40% left.     


It's safe to say that pretty much everyone loved Mickey Mouse in the 1980s.

http://www.tshirtsonscreen.com/friday-the-13th-part-2-mickey-mouse/

http://www.tshirtsonscreen.com/whos-the-boss-mickey-mouse/

http://www.tshirtsonscreen.com/the-outsiders-mickey-mouse/


Most people did, but not everyone. Some already had another favorite Disney character.

1993 was the year of dinosaurs from Barney mania to We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story.

http://kryptoknight-85.deviantart.com/art/Jurassic-Park-Power-Rangers-380866115


So they combined both PR and JP together? That art came out well.

The '90s were full of those, but the TV programs based on hit films usually appeared on the small screen one to four years after the movies were in theaters. To me, the pilots to some of those shows aren't always proof that we are in a new time. The popularity of both the 1995 movie and first season of the TV show Clueless spawned a slew of merchandise until sometime in 1999, so I do not see what's wrong with thinking of 1996 to 1999 as the late '90s. I can understand where other posters on here are coming from. Still, 1997 was the first post-1996 and pre-1999 year. '97 did not start out with a clean slate, so to say; shows like Clueless and 3rd Rock from the Sun were on months before then. At most, I could accept the beginning of 1996 as the end of the mid '90s, but not a mid '90s year entirely.

You're still missing some elements. I'm talking about in general. Once again, Gangsta rap was still popular; the SNES/Genesis were in high demand; certain fashion was worn; no one had internet except certain people.
 
What trends are you referring to? Please elaborate.

This was released in 1995: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nintendo-Power-Magazine-71-1995-STARGATE-SECRET-OF-EVERMORE-N64-64-SPIDER-MAN-/311379666039?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item487faca477

I'm pretty sure most young gamers at that time were anticipating the launch of the N64 by September of 1996.

Grunge was still popular; the SNES/Genesis were in high demand; certain fashion was worn; PR still had products from the series.

Please name one pop culture character that caught on immediately after they were introduced.

Ren & Stimpy, Sonic, PR, and Spongebob.

Most of the people, with reasons for why it is 'early' to them, don't give much thought to what the early '90s were. They see that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 (the worst one in the series, even the '07 film was better, IMO) was in theaters, Roseanne ranked at number 2 on the Nielsen ratings for the week and the 12 Inches of Snow CD was in our Discman. In other words, to them, 1991-1994 were the early '90s because they don't see the connection 1990 had to "the Nevermind year or the ones that shortly came after it". 1990 DID have EVERYTHING from the actual 1980s in it and that's why people tack it onto the actual '80s years or mistake some personal events of theirs from that year for one in 1987 to 1989.

Properties like Twin Peaks are what strings 1990 to 1992. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me may not have been as great as the first season of Twin Peaks, but it can still be viewed as an epilogue to the series. By the start of 1993, all things Twin Peaks were behind us and the series was being converted to a home video format. In other words, Twin Peaks was "so yesterday" to us in 1993. All of 1993 was the storm that came after the calm breeze (1990,1991 and 1992) and that's that.

Well it depends on the person. Kids, adolescents and adults have different viewpoints regarding the early 90s. Also, there are plenty of other details that tie the early 90s altogether, not just one TV show.

Mxcrashxm, even '80s fans will tell you that 1993  is when the party came to an end. With the Cowboys being everybody's new favorite team, teal and purple (the colors of '88, '89, '90, '91 and '92) were on everybody's "not list". Sure, Ducktales 2 for the NES and Robocop 3 (another movie I wish I could remove from my memory completely) were present for the first time in '93, but only the new stuff introduced from 1990 to 1992 (i.e. - slap bracelets, Starter pullover puffer jackets, X-Men action figures and Karl Kani gear, if you are into rap then) were on our radar at that time. Please believe me, it was a new day from January of 1993 forward! Bill being sworn into office was one defining core '90s event that stuck out like a sore thumb to us back then. HW Bush era pop culture (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, A Different World without Denise Huxtable and Doogie Howser, M.D. ) had every last nail in it's coffin by the March of 1993. Pop cultural icons of shows that first ran in '87,'88 or '89 were all around from  winter to fall of '93, but only the devoted fans were watching them (not the general public). New TV characters like Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor were being referenced and shown in movies for the first time in 1993. '93 is not an early '90s year, any way you cut it. 

I'm sorry, Mxcrashxm, but the NES era was from 1986 to 1991. The NES cartridges may have been in stores past 1991, but the heyday of the NES was from 1986 to 1991.


Not even close. There are people who don't care about being laughed at or even criticized for wearing certain colors or outdated fashion.

How do you know that? I'm sure the general public were watching them, not just the fans. It was just you who despised them after certain seasons began. It's not like you went into other people's homes and witnessed that they hated those shows now.

So what you're saying is that the 1992-1993 school year is not early 90s? Oh and another thing, just because the heyday was over doesn't mean people immediately stopped playing NES and moved on to the SNES.

Family Matters is NOT the only show. What about the others I stated? Just because the late 80s died in one show doesn't mean it died in the rest of them. It might not have been 80-90% late 80s, but there was definitely 30-40% left.     

How can the late '80s die in a TV show? My apologies, but that does not make any sense. The late '80s were gone once January 14th of 1990 arrived. That is the date when The Simpsons opening was revealed to any American who had the FOX Network on that Sunday. Look at how long that theme song has been with us. Remember, just about everything introduced in the '90s was for the 2000s and beyond. 1990 tied up the '80s decade while being the first year of the 1990s!!!! 

Most people did, but not everyone. Some already had another favorite Disney character.

I was a Donald fan then like I am now, but you had to have the classic Mickey t-shirt or the ones with Mickey and Minnie dressed like teenagers in the 1980s, back in the 1980s.

So they combined both PR and JP together? That art came out well.

I agree, the pop art of this time is fantastic and well-thought-out.

You're still missing some elements. I'm talking about in general. Once again, Gangsta rap was still popular; the SNES/Genesis were in high demand; certain fashion was worn; no one had internet except certain people.

I think you may need to read this: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-12-01/news/9612010254_1_dr-dre-hard-core-aftermath-entertainment

Like I said before, hardcore Nintendo gamers were anticipating the release of the N64 by the summer of 1996. Sega gamers were purchasing their Sega Saturns at the start of '96.

The grunge look of 1996 differed a bit from the way it was in 1993 to the summer of 1995.

I can attest to minimal usage of the internet in 1996 because I did not discover it until 1998, myself.
 
Grunge was still popular; the SNES/Genesis were in high demand; certain fashion was worn; PR still had products from the series.

Post-Grunge effectively took over after Cobain died in '94. The SNES and Genesis were starting to look dated after 1995.

The preppy look was starting to resurface after Cobain died, also. You can compare the DVD cover of Saved By The Bell: The New Class season 3 to that of the fourth season and tell that my generation moved on from the plaid look that was so dominant from 1993 to 1995. The first few episodes of the fourth season of The New Class were filmed in the summer of 1996, so that solves that.

You're correct about merchandise for the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers being in stores, but children were not having their parents snap up every little trinket in the spring of 1996 like they did in '94.

Ren & Stimpy, Sonic, PR, and Spongebob.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-03-21/entertainment/9201260305_1_ren-and-stimpy-stimpy-show-robin-hood

Sonic the hedgehog?! The best selling toy for the Christmas season of 1991 was not a Sonic the Hedgehog video game cartridge, but the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers were on every child's Christmas list in 1994, not 1993.

As for Mr. Squarepants, can you name one item of his that was rushed to stores immediately while one of the twenty nine episodes to the first season of the show was on the air? Spongebob did not find his following until 2002.

Also, there are plenty of other details that tie the early 90s altogether, not just one TV show.

I'm well aware of that, Mxcrashxm. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to unload a good chunk of them on here for every user, reading this, to see.

Not even close. There are people who don't care about being laughed at or even criticized for wearing certain colors or outdated fashion.

That much is true, but the Cowboys were everyone's (figuratively, of course) favorite team after they won the Super Bowl of '93 (Super Bowl XXVII). Charlotte Hornets gear was passed over for Miami Dolphins memorabilia in 1993, also. '93 was indeed a new time.

How do you know that? I'm sure the general public were watching them, not just the fans. It was just you who despised them after certain seasons began. It's not like you went into other people's homes and witnessed that they hated those shows now.

Mxcrashxm, you can look at the Nielsen ratings of 1990 to 1993 and see the drop of interest that Americans had for some TV shows. In the '90s, TV creators did not seem to know how to stop flogging a dead horse. Shows like Roseanne stayed on forever until the ridiculous plots of some episodes ("Into That Good Night") sealed their fate.

So what you're saying is that the 1992-1993 school year is not early 90s?

The '92 portion of the 1992-1993 school year was the last part to the early '90s era. Think about it, Mxcrashxm, without Disney's Aladdin being in theaters around November 26 of 1992, there could never be a TV series in 1994. Take away any episode of Raw Toonage from 1992 and you do not have the 1993 Bonkers (TV series) in the Disney Afternoon lineup. While we were in 1993, people were producing the pop cultural institutions for the late '90s and not the mid '90s. 1993 was the first year of the mid '90s, period.

Oh and another thing, just because the heyday was over doesn't mean people immediately stopped playing NES and moved on to the SNES.

Many young Yers were playing with a hand-me-down version of the NES in the mid and late 1990s.

Members of my generation and yours were not picking up new cartridges for the NES so much anymore in the rest of the early '90s or mid '90s like they were before the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was in stores.

Like I said before, hardcore Nintendo gamers were anticipating the release of the N64 by the summer of 1996.

That's sort of stretching the argument to focus on when people were anticipating something that wasn't yet out, versus what they already had.  The SNES still produced a lot of very popular games around late 1995 to early 1996, including Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country 2, Super Mario RPG, and Kirby Superstar.  All hype shifted very quickly towards 3D gaming during the last third of the year when Super Mario 64 was finally released, but for the most part, 1996 was still a fourth generation gaming year.

Sega gamers were purchasing their Sega Saturns at the start of '96.

The Sega Saturn was not a late 90s cultural object.  It competed more against later SNES titles like Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi's Island and was immediately insignificant by the end of 1996, when the Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation were industry standards.  The Dreamcast is a more appropriate example of late 90s culture.
 
Post-Grunge effectively took over after Cobain died in '94.

Not quite.  Soundgarden broke into mainstream success in 1994, while Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam continued to release popular songs throughout the mid-90s as well.  Grunge didn't officially die until 1997, when Soundgarden disbanded and Alice in Chains stopped touring due to Layne Staley's drug addiction.

Sonic the hedgehog?! The best selling toy for the Christmas season of 1991 was not a Sonic the Hedgehog video game cartridge, but the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

Sonic was released earlier than the SNES in North America, and the Genesis had already been around for two years.  By the time the much-acclaimed Sonic 2 came out, Sega was winning the console wars in North America and wouldn't fall behind until their numerous marketing blunders in the mid-90s.

The '92 portion of the 1992-1993 school year was the last part to the early '90s era. Think about it, Mxcrashxm, without Disney's Aladdin being in theaters around November 26 of 1992, there could never be a TV series in 1994. Take away any episode of Raw Toonage from 1992 and you do not have the 1993 Bonkers (TV series) in the Disney Afternoon lineup. While we were in 1993, people were producing the pop cultural institutions for the late '90s and not the mid '90s. 1993 was the first year of the mid '90s, period.

Debatable again, depending on whether you go by what things were based off of or when they actually peaked.  1993 was when the last of 80s culture died out, but mid-90s culture wouldn't truly take off until 1994, when things like post-grunge, pop punk, britpop, Friends, and the East Coast/West Coast hip hop rivalry appeared.

     
How can the late '80s die in a TV show? My apologies, but that does not make any sense. The late '80s were gone once January 14th of 1990 arrived. That is the date when The Simpsons opening was revealed to any American who had the FOX Network on that Sunday. Look at how long that theme song has been with us. Remember, just about everything introduced in the '90s was for the 2000s and beyond. 1990 tied up the '80s decade while being the first year of the 1990s!!!!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Paris_Tuileries_Garden_Facepalm_statue.jpg

You're still not getting it. Just the Simpsons began that day doesn't mean the late 80s immediately ended. A show does not dictate an era ending; it's much more than that. It may have ended calendar wise, but not at all culturally.

Oh and not everything introduced in the 90s continued into the 2000s. A majority of trends died before the decade was even over.

I was a Donald fan then like I am now, but you had to have the classic Mickey t-shirt or the ones with Mickey and Minnie dressed like teenagers in the 1980s, back in the 1980s.

Was it required to wear one or else you wouldn't be served nothing?

I think you may need to read this: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-12-01/news/9612010254_1_dr-dre-hard-core-aftermath-entertainment

Like I said before, hardcore Nintendo gamers were anticipating the release of the N64 by the summer of 1996. Sega gamers were purchasing their Sega Saturns at the start of '96.

The grunge look of 1996 differed a bit from the way it was in 1993 to the summer of 1995.

I can attest to minimal usage of the internet in 1996 because I did not discover it until 1998, myself.


I already did. Oh and I wanted to confirm that while gangsta rap was popular, it wasn't the only form of rap during the mid 90s. There were plenty of rappers that didn't conform to that style of rap, and instead went the alternative way.

That's because the band that made the genre well favored weren't making songs by then as Kurt had already committed suicide in 1994. However, that was not the only Grunge band and some people didn't even like them at first when they rose to stardom. Others were fans to under appreciated bands such as Sound-garden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam. Moreover, some bands were even still together until Teen pop emerged in late 1998 effectively making the genre diminish.

As for the internet, most people still didn't even have it or used it during those days. The only ones who had it were nerds, businesses, schools, and those who were up to date with tech.

Post-Grunge effectively took over after Cobain died in '94. The SNES and Genesis were starting to look dated after 1995.

The preppy look was starting to resurface after Cobain died, also. You can compare the DVD cover of Saved By The Bell: The New Class season 3 to that of the fourth season and tell that my generation moved on from the plaid look that was so dominant from 1993 to 1995. The first few episodes of the fourth season of The New Class were filmed in the summer of 1996, so that solves that.

You're correct about merchandise for the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers being in stores, but children were not having their parents snap up every little trinket in the spring of 1996 like they did in '94.


Not exactly. Post Grunge was not the only form of Rock music during the 90s. There was alternative and metal and as well which both are very different from the former.

If the SNES and Genesis were beginning to look dated, then why were more games being released in 1996 and few more in 1997? Additionally just like the NES, the SNES even got a smaller version of the console which lasted until 1999.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-03-21/entertainment/9201260305_1_ren-and-stimpy-stimpy-show-robin-hood

Sonic the hedgehog?! The best selling toy for the Christmas season of 1991 was not a Sonic the Hedgehog video game cartridge, but the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers were on every child's Christmas list in 1994, not 1993.

As for Mr. Squarepants, can you name one item of his that was rushed to stores immediately while one of the twenty nine episodes to the first season of the show was on the air? Spongebob did not find his following until 2002.


That's because the SNES offered more its library than what the Genesis was offering.

I wouldn't be sure about that. MMPR began way before the 1993 Christmas season, so that's enough time for many kids to wish for the toys and other products of that show.

The character himself. He was way more popular than the other characters, so he definitely had a toy line; however, the reason why he wasn't in demand when the show premiered was because Spongebob was pushed aside by Pokemon in 1999 as the latter franchise released a movie that year.

That much is true, but the Cowboys were everyone's (figuratively, of course) favorite team after they won the Super Bowl of '93 (Super Bowl XXVII). Charlotte Hornets gear was passed over for Miami Dolphins memorabilia in 1993, also. '93 was indeed a new time.

You might see it that way, but there were still some current things from years before within that year.

Mxcrashxm, you can look at the Nielsen ratings of 1990 to 1993 and see the drop of interest that Americans had for some TV shows. In the '90s, TV creators did not seem to know how to stop flogging a dead horse. Shows like Roseanne stayed on forever until the ridiculous plots of some episodes ("Into That Good Night") sealed their fate.


But that doesn't mean all of the prime-time shows declined overtime not all TV producers were using that same tactic. Some were better than others.

The '92 portion of the 1992-1993 school year was the last part to the early '90s era. Think about it, Mxcrashxm, without Disney's Aladdin being in theaters around November 26 of 1992, there could never be a TV series in 1994. Take away any episode of Raw Toonage from 1992 and you do not have the 1993 Bonkers (TV series) in the Disney Afternoon lineup. While we were in 1993, people were producing the pop cultural institutions for the late '90s and not the mid '90s. 1993 was the first year of the mid '90s, period.


I see the 1992-1993 school year much different than the 1993-1994 one. There were still certain elements of the early portion people can recall when looking back. So from your statement, that would mean that the 1996-1997 school year is between the mid 90s and late 90s to you.

Not even close to being true. Once again, not all trends continue into another portion of an time-frame. Some died even before the late 90s was approached. 

Many young Yers were playing with a hand-me-down version of the NES in the mid and late 1990s.

Members of my generation and yours were not picking up new cartridges for the NES so much anymore in the rest of the early '90s or mid '90s like they were before the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was in stores.


I don't think so. Some young Yers got one from the stores as they were still available in the shop after the heyday. Consoles don't just disappear overnight. It takes a few years after the popularity for older consoles to be removed for good.

In addition, some people didn't even buy the SNES as they were more a Sega person than Nintendo.

I consider the late 90's 97-99 pretty dated but I don't find them old.

93-96- old school

90-93 super old school

I don't think so. Some young Yers got one from the stores as they were still available in the shop after the heyday. Consoles don't just disappear overnight. It takes a few years after the popularity for older consoles to be removed for good.


I actually didn't get an NES until 1995. My cousin had one growing up, so I'd usually just play his, but I saw one bundled with Super Mario Bros. 3 on sale for just $50.00 at a Wal-Mart that July around my birthday and got my parents to buy it for me as a present. According to Wikipedia, the NES was discontinued in North America in August of 1995, so that means I was probably one of the very last people in the Western Hemisphere to get an NES.

I actually didn't get an NES until 1995. My cousin had one growing up, so I'd usually just play his, but I saw one bundled with Super Mario Bros. 3 on sale for just $50.00 at a Wal-Mart that July around my birthday and got my parents to buy it for me as a present. According to Wikipedia, the NES was discontinued in North America in August of 1995, so that means I was probably one of the very last people in the Western Hemisphere to get an NES.
You definitely would be. I see people your age range being the last to have a NES before it was discontinued. I was just telling Early90sGuy that just because the heyday of a game console ends, doesn't mean that the run is completely over.

You definitely would be. I see people your age range being the last to have a NES before it was discontinued. I was just telling Early90sGuy that just because the heyday of a game console ends, doesn't mean that the run is completely over.


Yeah, even though the popularity of the NES took a pretty big hit after 1991 (when the 16-bit era really kicked off with the release of the SNES in America, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc.) it still had a pretty impressively long shelf life for a video game console. Whenever I went over to my cousins house, the NES was still the predominant system that we played all the way up to 1997, when he got a PlayStation.

I was 20 years old and next year I'll be 40 years old next year.  Gosh I feel old! :P

Yeah, even though the popularity of the NES took a pretty big hit after 1991 (when the 16-bit era really kicked off with the release of the SNES in America, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc.) it still had a pretty impressively long shelf life for a video game console. Whenever I went over to my cousins house, the NES was still the predominant system that we played all the way up to 1997, when he got a PlayStation.
That's awesome. And not only did the NES do that, so did some other consoles. For example, the SNES was in production until 1999, so that would have been enough time for most kids to play that console. Hell, even the Genesis lasted for a long time until about the same time as the SNES despite the 5th generation already in popularity. For me, my sister and I played the SNES from the time it was bought all the way to 1999 as that's when we got a N64. Those consoles were fantastic. All of them have classics that are replayable to this day.

The 90's are pretty old. I would say the 1994-2004 period is on the extremely dated side while pre 94' is very retro.

Pre 85' is vintage.

Post 04' & pre 10' is dated but nothing extreme.

Like you could probably get away with wearing something from circa 2005 today. However try wearing flared jeans from the 90's early 00's and you'd probably have a few tossing heads

A part of me feels like its been so long since I miss them so much.  It has been almost 16 already so that's hard to believe.  It also feels like just yesterday when House music was all over the place, Scream premiered and platform heels were a thing.  The whole computers stopping end of days stuff has really been that long ago.  So I have different opinions but I lean more toward the later because I have so many memories from entertainment to my personal life from the great decade I grew up.  Its like they're fresh.  To relive the decade would be amazing.  Even just 24hrs per year.  But as the age I am now versus being a kid.  Looking back there were things I couldn't have done.  I had to be accompanied to the cinema, begged my mom to buy me the cds and clothes I wanted.  I couldn't go to any cool concerts or dance night clubs.  Now clubs are trash and I refuse to go.  They mostly play a bunch of crap anyway. 

The 90's are 20-25 years old so it doesn't feel old to me.

I don't even think the 80's are that old even if they happened 30 years ago. But when it comes down to it:

1990-1992: Vintage at this point.
1993-2003: Pretty old. Dated but not necessarily super old.


Like you could probably get away with wearing something from circa 2005 today. However try wearing flared jeans from the 90's early 00's and you'd probably have a few tossing heads


I've been dressing the same way since 1995 and I get weird looks all the time. Anything from before 2004/2005 looks pretty dated to some people I guess because the styles were a lot more colorful and less bland.

I've dressed the same for years.  My style is a mixture of years.  And I still love flares!

It genuinely scares me that people these days classify the 80s as "vintage."  Retro/old-school?  Definitely.  But not vintage - that would be the early 70s and before, pre-1963 if you want to stretch it.

The 90's are 20-25 years old so it doesn't feel old to me.


You do realize that people were still wearing rattails and hi-top fades (not the flattop, but the hi-top fade that was over 7 inches tall) in the spring of 1991, right?

It literally still feels like 10 years ago to me. Like, I completely forget its twice as long and then I go "damn" when I'm reminded of it. Especially with the 90s styles coming back--I carry a backpack purse for crying out loud--it's hard to forget it really is so long ago. Like 2/3 of my life ago! Because I was looking at a video last night of this band doing a cover of an Oasis song and I looked up the song and I was like wow it came out in 1995, and the tour was in 1997 and then I was like, man, that was 20 years go.

Where has the time gone?  :o

You do realize that people were still wearing rattails and hi-top fades (not the flattop, but the hi-top fade that was over 7 inches tall) in the spring of 1991, right?


I sported a rat tail in the back 25 years ago but no more as I'm starting to lose my hair. ;D

1990- Vintage
1991- Vintage
1992- Vintage
1993- Vintage
1994- Old
1995- Old
1996- Old
1997- Old
1998- Old
1999- Outdated

1990- Vintage
1991- Vintage
1992- Vintage
1993- Vintage
1994- Old
1995- Old
1996- Old
1997- Old
1998- Old
1999- Outdated


Winter to Summer of 1993 - Vintage
Summer to Fall of 1993 - Old

Winter to Summer of 1993 - Vintage
Summer to Fall of 1993 - Old

Now you're just splitting hairs now.

Winter to Summer of 1993 - Vintage
Summer to Fall of 1993 - Old


That's crazy.  :D  :D

That's crazy.  :D  :D


Not really. The Power Rangers, Magic the Gathering, Airheads, and Beanie Babies have all been in stores since the fall of 1993.

1992 was the last vintage year from beginning to end before the world wide web exploded onto the scene.

I think that 1998 and 1999 both feel just as old as each other (and they both feel exactly as old 2000-2002 do). They slightly (very slightly) newer than the core 90's 1993-1997 era but not by much. I also agree that 1992 is the last true vintage year. Everything after March 8, 1993 isn't very vintage.

The mid '90s feel older than you think they do when you try to watch a movie, TV, or commercials from that era.

The mid '90s feel older than you think they do when you try to watch a movie, TV, or commercials from that era.


The mid '90s were never too far off from the very early '00s (1999-2002), either.

Dilbert comic strip from 1993:

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_v2UcN31xTCU/Svf_hTn_VNI/AAAAAAAADKo/A17yCwW3dxo/dilbert19930102%5B7%5D.gif?imgmax=800

The 90s and 2015 I lump together as "the new era", its all the same to me.
Because I am older and was 30 when the 90s began. Its all the same to me. But I understand for you young fellers and young gals that the 90s would appear to be long ago because you are relatively still young.
If you'd ask me in 1985 about the 60s, I's say it's a long time ago. Whereas someone born in the 1920s would not think that way.
The older you are, the less "long ago" you think the 90s are.

I think that 1998 and 1999 both feel just as old as each other (and they both feel exactly as old 2000-2002 do). They slightly (very slightly) newer than the core 90's 1993-1997 era but not by much. I also agree that 1992 is the last true vintage year. Everything after March 8, 1993 isn't very vintage.


Vintage:

http://www.inspirehuahin.com/wp-content/uploads/vintage-cars.jpg

http://cdn2.retrowaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/1942-Chevrolet-Convertible.jpg

http://img.izismile.com//img/img2/20090317/bonus/10/tv_01.jpg

http://www.smfpl.org/files/images/30s%20reproduction%20vintage%20clothing%20fashions.jpg

Is this seriously the same category as the early 90s?  Vintage is like what your grandparents grew up with, not your parents or older siblings!

Vintage:


Is this seriously the same category as the early 90s?  Vintage is like what your grandparents grew up with, not your parents or older siblings!


I'm pretty sure vintage is actually used to describe wine or whatever so even that meaning is wrong. I wasn't using the term to be ultra specific to one meaning when it also means stuff from the 70's and 80's. Most people use it to describe things that were "classic" and a "long time ago." I'm also sure it's used for things older than 20-25 years. I don't consider the 80's up until 1992 to be a long time ago but they've got their fair share of classics at this point. Plus, they're over 20 years ago (1993-1995 are over 20 but they don't feel as old).


The mid '90s feel older than you think they do when you try to watch a movie, TV, or commercials from that era.


I watch movies and TV shows from that era all the time. It's dated but it's really that much older.


The mid '90s were never too far off from the very early '00s (1999-2002), either.

Dilbert comic strip from 1993:



Yeah, this is honestly why I still consider the Y2K era (1998-2003) to still be apart of the true 90's even if it isn't exactly the core years.

The 1990s definitely are outdated. Ancient? Not a chance. Retro? At least the first half.

I'm pretty sure vintage is actually used to describe wine or whatever so even that meaning is wrong. I wasn't using the term to be ultra specific to one meaning when it also means stuff from the 70's and 80's. Most people use it to describe things that were "classic" and a "long time ago." I'm also sure it's used for things older than 20-25 years. I don't consider the 80's up until 1992 to be a long time ago but they've got their fair share of classics at this point. Plus, they're over 20 years ago (1993-1995 are over 20 but they don't feel as old).

I've just always thought of the word 'vintage' as one step beyond 'retro,' meaning it's not just several years old, but hardly even recognizable.  Sure, people don't use large portable cameras, cable television sets, Apple II's, or NES's anymore, but they're at least close enough that they have some semblance of familiarity today.  They still have a strong nostalgic appeal, hence why they're treated as retro.  Heck, I still feel pretty stuck in the 90s as far as many things go.

On the other hand, stuff from the early 60s and earlier, from the incredibly simplistic music, standardly formal clothing, antiquated cars, black & white low-fidelity television, and aggressively backwards social world views (i.e., Jim Crow still official, homosexuality not even legal) makes me feel like I'm reading a history textbook or educational video for school and is hard to appreciate unless you're into history or antiques, or are just old enough now that you remember them from generations ago.

Here is how I see it terms oldness of each year from the 90s
1990-1991- Very Old School
Late 1991-1994-Old School
1995-1997- and maybe even the first half of 1998- slightly old school
late 1998-1999-Simply dated and old but not "old school"

I've just always thought of the word 'vintage' as one step beyond 'retro,' meaning it's not just several years old, but hardly even recognizable.  Sure, people don't use large portable cameras, cable television sets, Apple II's, or NES's anymore, but they're at least close enough that they have some semblance of familiarity today.  They still have a strong nostalgic appeal, hence why they're treated as retro.  Heck, I still feel pretty stuck in the 90s as far as many things go.

On the other hand, stuff from the early 60s and earlier, from the incredibly simplistic music, standardly formal clothing, antiquated cars, black & white low-fidelity television, and aggressively backwards social world views (i.e., Jim Crow still official, homosexuality not even legal) makes me feel like I'm reading a history textbook or educational video for school and is hard to appreciate unless you're into history or antiques, or are just old enough now that you remember them from generations ago.


Fair point. Every experience with the word vintage has always been dealing with things over 20 years old. When I look at things from 1975 onward, it doesn't seem totally different from today. Old, yes. Is it different? Of course it is but a lot of the basics are there. I've seen photos of my mom and dad in the 70's and they're dressed very casual. Especially, my dad. He was always wearing really loose un-tucked shirts, short hair and jeans. The technology around them looks very 70's and so did some of the other people in the photos but he's pretty ambiguous in terms of what era he's from. I also agree with the 80's because they definitely are not ancient history at all. I don't think the 80's get much credit for being as modern as they actually were (also, I'd still play the NES if I had it but all that stuff was my brothers and he took it with him when he moved). I just feel that vintage is a good word for that era because it's what I'm used to calling it. I consider it synonymous with retro, personally. 

Since there's so much debate on trivial dates here, I thought I'd post a random long commercial block from the same part of each year of the 1990s so people can get a sense of how things actually looked in each year. Hint: they all feel pretty flippin' old now.

May 1999

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9f7XhuzzcE

May 1998

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUYqzfNrfCU

May 1997

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax1kSX488a4

May 1996

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQtCk0eAPto

May 1995

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKSqeJSCSsw

May 1994

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2zfqKkyjxg

May 1993

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UcsSTEs9r4

May 1992

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqf-PJn6fv0

May 1991

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd8Po5sy9p4

May 1990

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvzkld3-EvQ

Still not that old.

BTW, I myself posted the 1990, 1994, 1995, and 1997 blocks you see here. That said, all of the 90's are dated TV wise since of course virtually everything today is in HD, while even in 1999, it was used only for a very few special occassions. Subsitute 50's, black & white, 70's, color, and 90's, SD, and 10's, HD and you get the picture. You'll see that the 1997 one mentions the series finale for Coach (a very early '90s show that faded as the mid-'90s progressed), Ellen (a very "core '90s" show), and The Drew Carey Show (peaked in the late '90s). There tends to be a lot less EDM and Hip Hop of course in '90s commercials (even late '90s ones) than you find in 21st century ones. Of course, the Buick of today is a lot different the the Buick of 1999 which still appealed to an older audience and I remember a Consumer Reports description about the Century about how it still feels like "a vintage 1970s sedan". That said, the '90s had a lot more New Age music in commercials compared to '80s ones, and while there is still quite a bit of New Age in commercials today, it seems to share more with classics, EDM, and Hip Hop. There also isn't as much R&B/soul in commercials these days. You also don't get as many "tribute TV specials" these days like you used to in the '90s and earlier it seems, such as the Three Stooges that you see in the 1997 one. TV of course at the time had the sitcom as the top genre for most of the decade, followed by drama, real reality like Rescue 911, COPS, and a side of animation and teen/young adult drama/adventure series on FOX. Since 2000, we've had reality, talent/competition, single camera sitcom, and more adventure series.

Still not that old.


The Bush '90s are retro, but the Clinton '90s were not much different from the 1999-2002 era (last of the Clinton age) so they're still pretty recent.

I think that 1998 and 1999 both feel just as old as each other (and they both feel exactly as old 2000-2002 do). They slightly (very slightly) newer than the core 90's 1993-1997 era but not by much. I also agree that 1992 is the last true vintage year. Everything after March 8, 1993 isn't very vintage.


I agree with this, although I think 1998 feels somewhat older than 2002. I agree they're both part of the same general era, but they're at opposite ends of the spectrum; 98 still had some core 90s holdovers whereas 02 had some core 00s precursors.

The whole decade is dated already. Feels old, sorry guys lol.

In the next decade, the 90s would be 30 years old!

In the next decade, the 90s would be 30 years old!


But right now, the 90's are 20-25 years old.

It saddens me a bit to hear about even the entire decade, especially considering when I look at old media I can still notice how modern the late '90s are compared with even the early '90s (Internet, cellphone proliferation, more diversity in entertainment, more features in cars, DVD players, 3D video games, and I could name more). I can remember when people were probably saying the same about how modern the '80s still seem compared to the early-mid '70s in addition. Its just a sad reality of how everything moves on and as time marches on, we lose details about a time period that get increasingly pigeonholed. Plus you have the fact that the majority of people born in 1998 will graduate high school at the end of this school year, and some people born in the early '90s are now parents. Still, this decade seems to age less compared to the '70s and '80s due to its more organic, free-thinking attitudes and ideals (Political correctness becomes mainstream, globalization in a (mostly) post-communist era, and of course the data explosion). This is sort of like how the '50s aged faster than the '60s did because the former was very whitebread and conformal while the later was very progressive, and nostalgia for the '60s started much later (around 1986) in comparison to the '50s (around 1971).

Early/mid 90s: Almost like I'm watching people from another planet.

Late 90s: Like a primitive version of today.

Early/mid 90s: Almost like I'm watching people from another planet.

Late 90s: Like a primitive version of today.
   

I think the exact same thing.  8)

I honestly don't think that the  mid 90s are all that different from the late 90s from a technological perspective. The early 90s were actually a different world from both if we are talking in regards to technology.

I honestly don't think that the  mid 90s are all that different from the late 90s from a technological perspective. The early 90s were actually a different world from both if we are talking in regards to technology.


In a lot of ways, the late 90s were just the peak of technology that was mostly introduced in the mid-90s, particularly fifth generation 3D video games, cell phones, and the Internet.  However, the actual atmosphere between the two periods is pretty night and day considering they're part of the same decade, especially if you're from North America instead of the more consistent European 90s culture.

In a lot of ways, the late 90s were just the peak of technology that was mostly introduced in the mid-90s, particularly fifth generation 3D video games, cell phones, and the Internet. However, the actual atmosphere between the two periods is pretty night and day considering they're part of the same decade, especially if you're from North America instead of the more consistent European 90s culture.
Well aol and Windows 95 were already big by 1995 somI don't know if you can say that 1995 was worlds different from say 1997. I think it would be more accurate to say that 1994 and back were vastly different from the late 90s especially any year preceding 1993 which was still pretty much entirely a world of old school technology.

I'll tell you when my birthday comes up in 9 more months.  LOL! ;D

1995 was the first year that had hints of the millennium era. Release of the first PlayStation and the internet starting to become a big deal.

I guess it was like the nineties version of 1986.

Well aol and Windows 95 were already big by 1995 somI don't know if you can say that 1995 was worlds different from say 1997. I think it would be more accurate to say that 1994 and back were vastly different from the late 90s especially any year preceding 1993 which was still pretty much entirely a world of old school technology.


Windows '95 and Internet Explorer broke into the mainstream in 1995, but they still weren't nearly as popular as they would be in the millennial era, not to mention it would still take a few years before the Dot Com bubble was really evident.  Most people in 1995 and 1996 were still not used to doing things online, even if they owned a personal computer.

1995 was the first year that had hints of the millennium era. Release of the first PlayStation and the internet starting to become a big deal.

I guess it was like the nineties version of 1986.
Well I always thought that the first year to hint the millenium era was late in 1996, but I guess you do have a point when you say 1995 was the first to hint it, especially with the release of Windows 95 in August of that year.

Windows '95 and Internet Explorer broke into the mainstream in 1995, but they still weren't nearly as popular as they would be in the millennial era, not to mention it would still take a few years before the Dot Com bubble was really evident.  Most people in 1995 and 1996 were still not used to doing things online, even if they owned a personal computer.
Most people weren't buying things online in 1997 either and in 1997 only a significant minority of the population had the internet in the households.

I know a surprising amount of people that think the 90's ended in 1995 and while I disagree, I think they could make a point for it. You had the Windows 95, the internet growing in popularity, WinPlay3 and the growth of the MP3 (it's also argued that in 1995, the first MP3 groups started leaking albums for free) and the creation of eBay (though Amazon started way back in 1994!). You could make a stronger case for 1996 and 1997 (when, in my opinion, the transition to the Y2K era began) but I think 1995-1997 are core 90's years. The internet wasn't something that everybody had until the end of the 90's but even as early as 1995, those numbers were slowly but surely growing.

I know a surprising amount of people that think the 90's ended in 1995 and while I disagree, I think they could make a point for it. You had the Windows 95, the internet growing in popularity, WinPlay3 and the growth of the MP3 (it's also argued that in 1995, the first MP3 groups started leaking albums for free) and the creation of eBay (though Amazon started way back in 1994!). You could make a stronger case for 1996 and 1997 (when, in my opinion, the transition to the Y2K era began) but I think 1995-1997 are core 90's years. The internet wasn't something that everybody had until the end of the 90's but even as early as 1995, those numbers were slowly but surely growing.


It's kind of odd that they think that. If anything, that stuff should be what defined the '90s, not ended it.

It's kind of odd that they think that. If anything, that stuff should be what defined the '90s, not ended it.


Yeah, 1995 is like the quintessential year of the 90s, tied with 1994.  People's view of the decade should extend beyond just grunge and Sega Genesis, both of which began their decline in 1995 but weren't even completely dead until 1997.  The rebellious, gloomy spirit of the pre-Y2K 90s was still very much alive and well in 1995 and 1996, especially with 2Pac and Biggie in their prime.  Also, as stated earlier, the Internet was nowhere near as developed or popular upon the debut of Internet Explorer as it would be by the end of the decade.

Yeah, it's weird. 1995, 1996 and 1997 are still core 90's. You still had Grunge despite Kurt's death, Flannel was the in Rocker look, the mid-90's Hip Hop sound was still the dominate form of Hip Hop that was listened to, Beavis and Butthead were still the big cultural phenomenon of the time etc., etc.

1990-1996 and the first half of 1997 is retro. The second half of 1997-1999 is close to retro but not there yet (until we reach summer 2017). 2001 is the last year that feels completely disconnected from the present.

1990-1996 and the first half of 1997 is retro. The second half of 1997-1999 is close to retro but not there yet (until we reach summer 2017). 2001 is the last year that feels completely disconnected from the present.


I'd extend that to 2002. 2002 feels closer to the 20th century and ancient compared to today.

How I categorize the decade:

1990-1999: The 1990's
1991-1998: Classic '90s
1993-1997: Core '90s
January 1990-April 1993: The Calendar Early '90s
1991-1993: The Pop Cultural Early '90s
May 1993-August 1996: The Calendar Mid '90s
1994-1997: The Pop Cultural Mid '90s
September 1996-December 1999: The Calendar Late '90s
1998-2001: The Pop Cultural Late '90s/The Y2K Era

1990 to 1996 is retro now. I can't believe I'm saying this. 1997 is starting to look outdated. So 1998 and 1999 are still somewhat newer to me!

The early 90s are classic at this point. The mid 90s are retro. The late 90s are very dated.

I've got 7 more months before I can tell you the answer to that question.

I've got 7 more months before I can tell you the answer to that question.


Why 7 more months?

Why 7 more months?

I'll be 40 in September and then I can tell you how I feel about the 90s in all 40 years of my life.  LOL! ;D

I'll be 40 in September and then I can tell you how I feel about the 90s in all 40 years of my life.  LOL! ;D


LOL  ;D But the 90s ended 16 years ago! You're waiting 17 years to rate the 90s, but there are people here who're rating the 2010s 6 years in  ;D

LOL  ;D But the 90s ended 16 years ago! You're waiting 17 years to rate the 90s, but there are people here who're rating the 2010s 6 years in  ;D


Um, no. I'm pretty sure the 90's ended 13 years ago, not 16. Thank you.

http://images.yuku.com/image/gif/c621695140d611de061cabf0ff76257c515aee9b.jpg

Um, no. I'm pretty sure the 90's ended 13 years ago, not 16. Thank you.

http://images.yuku.com/image/gif/c621695140d611de061cabf0ff76257c515aee9b.jpg


The 90s will always be "2 or 3 years ago" in my head.

The 90s will always be "2 or 3 years ago" in my head.


Good to know you're stuck in 2005.

Good to know you're stuck in 2005.


;D No way!

My mechanics prof was trying to explain something related to angular motion to me, and he used his watch as an example, he bragged about how he bought his watch in the 1990s. Anyway, I was not impressed, the 90s were like a couple of years ago in my head. Only later did I realize that he could've bought his watch 25 years ago  ;D

;D No way!

My mechanics prof was trying to explain something related to angular motion to me, and he used his watch as an example, he bragged about how he bought his watch in the 1990s. Anyway, I was not impressed, the 90s were like a couple of years ago in my head. Only later did I realize that he could've bought his watch 25 years ago  ;D


Pretty sucky, huh? I'd rather be stuck anywhere between 1981 and 2003! Those sucky real 00's... 8-P

Your professor sounds like a true 90's kid! Did his watch have the Rugrats on it, too?

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ab/d3/02/abd302e3707b479a18bccaf34c79f876.jpg

I bet you he bought it in 2000-2002 or something. ;D

Pretty sucky, huh? I'd rather be stuck anywhere between 1981 and 2003! Those sucky real 00's... 8-P

Your professor sounds like a true 90's kid! Did his watch have the Rugrats on it, too?

I bet you he bought it in 2000-2002 or something. ;D


LOL he's in his 50s or 60s. It was some brand-name watch, one that can actually work 20 years later  ;D

My first watch was a Power Rangers watch. I bought it in 1997, I even have a picture of me being the ultimate Power Rangers kid  8) I lost it a long time ago though.  :(

LOL he's in his 50s or 60s. It was some brand-name watch, one that can actually work 20 years later  ;D

My first watch was a Power Rangers watch. I bought it in 1997, I even have a picture of me being the ultimate Power Rangers kid  8) I lost it a long time ago though.  :(


Geez, never mind then! I guess he isn't much of a 90's kid after all... :o

My first watch was... Man, I don't even know. It was probably a Swatch or something. I think I lost it, too. My pictures show me being the ultimate... child of the 80's? I remember I had two shirts I really liked as a kid. One was a Mickey Mouse shirt and another was a Nintendo shirt with Super Mario on it. I wore both quite often. That's pretty 80's.

Geez, never mind then! I guess he isn't much of a 90's kid after all... :o

My first watch was... Man, I don't even know. It was probably a Swatch or something. I think I lost it, too. My pictures show me being the ultimate... child of the 80's? I remember I had two shirts I really liked as a kid. One was a Mickey Mouse shirt and another was a Nintendo shirt with Super Mario on it. I wore both quite often. That's pretty 80's.


Do they still sell that Super Mario shirt?  :D

I don't want to brag.  I just want to wait until I'm 40 to tell you how old the 90s feel to me.  ;)

I don't want to brag.  I just want to wait until I'm 40 to tell you how old the 90s feel to me.  ;)


The 90s were your teen/twenties decade right? Will be interesting to hear  8)

The 90s were your teen/twenties decade right? Will be interesting to hear  8)


Yes.  I was 14 in 1990 and I was 23 in 1999.  ;D

Do they still sell that Super Mario shirt?  :D


If I find it on the net, I'll let you know. ;D

The 90s are like this to me.

1990-1992: At least more than 20 years old
1993-1996: Slightly like 20 years old, but not entirely to me
1997-1999: Everyone born at this time are either college freshmen or high school seniors  :P

How the 90s feel to me?

It was interesting but trying at the same time.  In 1990 I was starting highschool.  Not at all what I expected because there were lots of different peer groups in my school.  There were the popular crowds, the jocks, the nerdy kids, the kids whose parents were "well to do," and then there was my group of friends called "The Outcasts" or the "worldly different kids."

Needless to say I made it through my highschool days a bit traumatized but I did pretty well for myself.  I took a year off school to decide what exactly I wanted to do next?
I just kept upgrading my academia.  I just wanted to do the things that I needed to do in order to get ahead. 
Now I really am interested in going to complete a college or university degree maybe writting or photo journalism I'm not even sure if I can afford to do what I want to do?  But I'm not going to stop until I can get to where I want and need to go.

Sometimes I like to go through old photo albums and look through my photos from the 80s and 90s. They look sooo dated. It feels very old to me, even 1999.

It feels like about 12 years ago!

It feels like about 12 years ago!


It feels like over 20 years ago.

It feels like over 20 years ago.


That feels like a long time.  :o

Sometimes I like to go through old photo albums and look through my photos from the 80s and 90s. They look sooo dated. It feels very old to me, even 1999.


I look at my High School yearbook from 25 years ago and I can remember when I had a crewcut compared to now when I am losing my hair. ;D

Even as far back as 2002, 1990 - 1997 always felt ancient to me.

Well, after hearing that "losing my hair" comment about being in high school, it just adds to the morbidity of the decade, and it only increases as time passes. I gave my original post (#8 in this thread) two years ago, but quite naturally, since we're now starting hear Jennifer Lopez and N*SYNC pop up on the format that we called "oldies" in the 90's itself, you can't deny that even 1999 is vintage to some, given that people born that year are the domain of the HS Class of 2017.

Since I had vague memories of 1989 as a little kid being in preschool, I used a similar barometer around 2006-07 and noticed how distant 1989 felt, even if not quite as vintagey as the rest of the '80s, thanks to the then-new YouTube checking out all those old commercials and TV promos I hadn't seen since I was a kid, and gave me a "wow" effect. That said, I recently watched a tape recorded in November 1999, and although technically it feels more "hip and young" compared to the earlier '90s, it was when commercials in widescreen were still just a novelty and most were still filmed in HD, and many typefaces that are common nowadays were just getting invented or weren't even around, and things like truck-based SUVs that peaked around then, most newspapers still using black & white photos, and more, not to mention a noticeable "spike" in early 2000s nostalgia on these boards proves that the "flashback favorites" keep chugging along towards the "lagging future".

That said, I still remember how the early '90s were fasted to become old (i.e. 1991 felt "old" in 1997 even due to the Internet), while 1999 still seemed like yesterday in 2006, at least until that "shift" as that one thread described mentioned, and even afterwards taking a second glance at the year, had that "dated, but still contemporary" feel until a couple years ago, when the establishment of all 2010s advancements were in full force, and part of this has to do with that many people were were little kids in 1999 are now old enough to get married or even have kids on their own.

Well, after hearing that "losing my hair" comment about being in high school, it just adds to the morbidity of the decade, and it only increases as time passes. I gave my original post (#8 in this thread) two years ago, but quite naturally, since we're now starting hear Jennifer Lopez and N*SYNC pop up on the format that we called "oldies" in the 90's itself, you can't deny that even 1999 is vintage to some, given that people born that year are the domain of the HS Class of 2017.

Since I had vague memories of 1989 as a little kid being in preschool, I used a similar barometer around 2006-07 and noticed how distant 1989 felt, even if not quite as vintagey as the rest of the '80s, thanks to the then-new YouTube checking out all those old commercials and TV promos I hadn't seen since I was a kid, and gave me a "wow" effect. That said, I recently watched a tape recorded in November 1999, and although technically it feels more "hip and young" compared to the earlier '90s, it was when commercials in widescreen were still just a novelty and most were still filmed in HD, and many typefaces that are common nowadays were just getting invented or weren't even around, and things like truck-based SUVs that peaked around then, most newspapers still using black & white photos, and more, not to mention a noticeable "spike" in early 2000s nostalgia on these boards proves that the "flashback favorites" keep chugging along towards the "lagging future".

That said, I still remember how the early '90s were fasted to become old (i.e. 1991 felt "old" in 1997 even due to the Internet), while 1999 still seemed like yesterday in 2006, at least until that "shift" as that one thread described mentioned, and even afterwards taking a second glance at the year, had that "dated, but still contemporary" feel until a couple years ago, when the establishment of all 2010s advancements were in full force, and part of this has to do with that many people were were little kids in 1999 are now old enough to get married or even have kids on their own.


I kind of have a similar experience. My interest in historical pop culture dates back to early 2005 when I found a tape of some cartoons I had recorded back in 1994, something that kickstarted my '80s and '90s nostalgia faze (and would ultimately lead me to this very website later that year). At that time, the commercials, bumpers and promos on that '94 tape already seemed ancient, and the fact that I was still in elementary school in '94 likely only added to how old the tape felt in '05.

Because of how big I was into "nostalgia" back then, though, my perceptions about the passage of time are still somewhat "stuck" in 2005 in many ways. To me, 1985 still kind of instinctively feels like it was 20 years ago, while I often still think of 1994 as being just 11 years ago. Now I also realize just how short a period of time 11 years is. Back when I was a teenager, 11 years seemed like an eternity, but now it seems like an instant ago.

I agree that I was reluctant to see the late '90s as "old" for quite some time. The memories all just seemed too fresh. But, I recently saw some YouTube videos of commercials from 1998, and there's no doubt that time period has gotten dated as hell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Lv-B-Aj4w

I kind of have a similar experience. My interest in historical pop culture dates back to early 2005 when I found a tape of some cartoons I had recorded back in 1994, something that kickstarted my '80s and '90s nostalgia faze (and would ultimately lead me to this very website later that year). At that time, the commercials, bumpers and promos on that '94 tape already seemed ancient, and the fact that I was still in elementary school in '94 likely only added to how old the tape felt in '05.

Because of how big I was into "nostalgia" back then, though, my perceptions about the passage of time are still somewhat "stuck" in 2005 in many ways. To me, 1985 still kind of instinctively feels like it was 20 years ago, while I often still think of 1994 as being just 11 years ago. Now I also realize just how short a period of time 11 years is. Back when I was a teenager, 11 years seemed like an eternity, but now it seems like an instant ago.

I agree that I was reluctant to see the late '90s as "old" for quite some time. The memories all just seemed too fresh. But, I recently saw some YouTube videos of commercials from 1998, and there's no doubt that time period has gotten dated as hell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Lv-B-Aj4w
Oh man, you're not even joking. I have felt the same way. I still can't believe the late 90s is not only about 20 years ago, but they are also very outdated. I actually watched some commercials from that time and I couldn't believe how much has changed since then. I remember the era like it was yesterday. It's so bizarre :o.

I also have had a feeling of being stuck in the 2000s in some ways as well. I'm still thinking they are recent, but in reality they're not :-[. Damn, it's amazing how 2000 will be 20 years old in less than 3 years.

I think this picture of a Bill Clinton presidential motorcade from 1994 makes the '90s look pretty damn old. Look at that boxy looking limo, and that $1.11 a gallon gasoline! 8)

http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2545/3809093813_2b78dfbcc2_b.jpg

At this point, anything pre-9/11 is extremely dated; that includes the year 1999. From a 2017 perspective, 1999 feels very 90s to me... even on its own merits, not just relative to 1997-98, much less 1993-96. Many people brand that year as "00s culture" (or something to that effect), but I just don't see it. I suppose that it was nearly identical to the year 2000, but that's something different. There's a very distinctive aura about 1999 that immediately became too kitschy once we hit 2002, the first year of the real 00s. I always point to the cheesy movie "Jawbreaker;" that movie could've only come out in 1999.

feels forever ago but then again I was only 0-4 years old. I can remember things from the ages of 2 to 4 but it really does feel like a long time ago as it was the very start of my life! I remember 1998 and 1999 maybe 1997 but not sure

feels forever ago but then again I was only 0-4 years old. I can remember things from the ages of 2 to 4 but it really does feel like a long time ago as it was the very start of my life! I remember 1998 and 1999 maybe 1997 but not sure


Remembering something when you were just a year old seems impossible. Especially to myself, since I never had a memory before 2002.

1999 feels like ten years ago to me.  8)

OLD, very old. I was what 3-12 in the '90s now I'm freaking 30 in a month.  :o

OLD, very old. I was what 3-12 in the '90s now I'm freaking 30 in a month.  :o

I only existed in the 1990s for 5 months (well, just over a year if you count conception). The '90s feel old but not as old as the 1980s/1970s those are looking like the times of the dinosaurs right now. Before the 1970s, it was the time of Pangea  ;D ;D ;D

Depends. Early 1990s feels quite old. Same for the mid 1990s. But years like 1998/1999 feel about as old as years from the early 2000s (although I consider these years to feel old as well). A

It's going to make me sound young to the older members, but 1999 feels like forever ago to me. It's sort of the first year I fully remember rather clearly. 1999 feels A LOT older than 2000 in my mind even though it's only one year apart. And 1998 feels way older than 1999. It's exponential. ;D

I think time moves faster and shrinks as you grow older. 1999 is more like 10% of my life.  :-X

It's going to make me sound young to the older members, but 1999 feels like forever ago to me. It's sort of the first year I fully remember rather clearly. 1999 feels A LOT older than 2000 in my mind even though it's only one year apart. And 1998 feels way older than 1999. It's exponential. ;D

I think time moves faster and shrinks as you grow older. 1999 is more like 10% of my life.  :-X


Yeah I mean you were what only 5/6 then. So that's like 1993 for me! Even to me 1999 seems really old tbh and I was 11/12. Being 5/6 in 1993 feels like another lifetime ago for me, I almost can't even believe I was alive then it seems so old LOL.

Yeah I mean you were what only 5/6 then. So that's like 1993 for me! Even to me 1999 seems really old tbh and I was 11/12. Being 5/6 in 1993 feels like another lifetime ago for me, I almost can't even believe I was alive then it seems so old LOL.

Since I was born in 1999, do you think that I'm old?  ;)  ;D ;D

Since I was born in 1999, do you think that I'm old?  ;)  ;D ;D


If born in 1999 is old then I'm prehistoric.  :D But yeah for me it is weird to watch footage from 1987 and think that I was around then though a baby, 1987 seems like scary old now. Or looking at a 1987 car man it's weird I was around when that was new.  ;D Compared to someone born in 2009 however, you probably seem old to them but they're only like 7/8 years old now. ;D

If born in 1999 is old then I'm prehistoric.  :D But yeah for me it is weird to watch footage from 1987 and think that I was around then though a baby, 1987 seems like scary old now. Or looking at a 1987 car man it's weird I was around when that was new.  ;D Compared to someone born in 2009 however, you probably seem old to them but they're only like 7/8 years old now. ;D

I actually helped babysit a 2009 born and yeah, they think of me as old which is weird and in turn makes me feel old :o.

BTW, 1987 was during the times of the dinosaurs and it's a proven fact  :).

BTW, 1987 was during the times of the dinosaurs and it's a proven fact  :).


I think I remember actually seeing dinosaurs roaming the earth when I was a toddler.  ;D

I think I remember actually seeing dinosaurs roaming the earth when I was a toddler.  ;D

There's a reason why The Land Before Time came out in 1988  ;). Sorry, I didn't get to ride to T-Rex to school unlike you :P.

The 1990s have always felt somewhat old to me, because I have no memories of the decade. After all, I was only alive in the 90s for 9.5 months, although if you also include the time in the womb, I was alive during the 90s for 18 months. :P When I was 7 years old (in 2006), I used to view anything before the year 2000 as "old", because it was released in a year starting with "19**". I don't have the same viewpoint now, but anything that occurred or was released before 2003 naturally feels a little bit "old" for me.

Old, but five years younger than they really are, at least from the perspective of eras when previous cultural periods felt five years older than they really were.

It's going to make me sound young to the older members, but 1999 feels like forever ago to me. It's sort of the first year I fully remember rather clearly. 1999 feels A LOT older than 2000 in my mind even though it's only one year apart. And 1998 feels way older than 1999. It's exponential. ;D

I think time moves faster and shrinks as you grow older. 1999 is more like 10% of my life.  :-X


and other parts of your body shrink too. ;)  ;D

I think I remember actually seeing dinosaurs roaming the earth when I was a toddler.  ;D


Not when I was growing up.

There's a reason why The Land Before Time came out in 1988  ;). Sorry, I didn't get to ride to T-Rex to school unlike you :P.


The T-Rex was too dangerous for kids to ride and only rugged cowboy types could tame them. School buses were brachiosaurs with big cabins on their backs that could seat a hundred kids each.

The T-Rex was too dangerous for kids to ride and only rugged cowboy types could tame them. School buses were brachiosaurs with big cabins on their backs that could seat a hundred kids each.

You guys also rode triceratops. Here's proof:
http://www.thegreenhead.com/imgs/playskool-kota-robotic-triceratops-dinosaur-1.jpg
Photo taken circa 1988  ;)

Yeah I mean you were what only 5/6 then. So that's like 1993 for me! Even to me 1999 seems really old tbh and I was 11/12. Being 5/6 in 1993 feels like another lifetime ago for me, I almost can't even believe I was alive then it seems so old LOL.


My birthday's in February so I was 6 for most the year. But yes, 1993 is ancient! Back when dinosaurs didn't have feathers and and life was more simple.  :-X

It's going to make me sound young to the older members, but 1999 feels like forever ago to me. It's sort of the first year I fully remember rather clearly. 1999 feels A LOT older than 2000 in my mind even though it's only one year apart. And 1998 feels way older than 1999. It's exponential. ;D

I think time moves faster and shrinks as you grow older. 1999 is more like 10% of my life.  :-X


Actually, 1999 has started seeming pretty old to me recently as well. A few days ago I was watching some show about the JFK Jr. plane crash that happened in July 1999, and even though I still remember watching that on the news like it was yesterday, my memories of that event seem very old to me now. Same with other events from that year like Columbine and Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.

To be honest, even the early '00s have started to seem older and older to me lately. My parents moved into their current house in February 2002, and I was just pointing out recently how it's hard to believe it's been 15 years. Then I got to thinking about it and, even though I was already in high school at the time, the fact that we still hadn't yet moved out of our old house makes the beginning of 2002 seem ancient.


If born in 1999 is old then I'm prehistoric.  :D But yeah for me it is weird to watch footage from 1987 and think that I was around then though a baby, 1987 seems like scary old now. Or looking at a 1987 car man it's weird I was around when that was new.  ;D Compared to someone born in 2009 however, you probably seem old to them but they're only like 7/8 years old now. ;D


I totally get how you feel about that. The late '80s and early '90s seem so ancient now that it is kind of hard to believe that I was even alive back then. Even though I was just a young kid, the fact that I was actually alive in a time when Ronald Reagan was President, it was still mostly taboo to show gay characters on television, less than 1% of the U.S. population had internet access, and Dan Quayle actually gave a speech criticizing Murphy Brown for having a child out of wedlock is stunning.

Actually, 1999 has started seeming pretty old to me recently as well. A few days ago I was watching some show about the JFK Jr. plane crash that happened in July 1999, and even though I still remember watching that on the news like it was yesterday, my memories of that event seem very old to me now. Same with other events from that year like Columbine and Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.

To be honest, even the early '00s have started to seem older and older to me lately. My parents moved into their current house in February 2002, and I was just pointing out recently how it's hard to believe it's been 15 years. Then I got to thinking about it and, even though I was already in high school at the time, the fact that we still hadn't yet moved out of our old house makes the beginning of 2002 seem ancient.

I totally get how you feel about that. The late '80s and early '90s seem so ancient now that it is kind of hard to believe that I was even alive back then. Even though I was just a young kid, the fact that I was actually alive in a time when Ronald Reagan was President, it was still mostly taboo to show gay characters on television, less than 1% of the U.S. population had internet access, and Dan Quayle actually gave a speech criticizing Murphy Brown for having a child out of wedlock is stunning.

I have exact same feeling knowing that when I was born Bill Clinton was still President and he hasn't been President in 16 years. Also, it blows my mind to know that I was born 2 years BEFORE 9/11/01 because it's such an infamous tragedy that it's weird to think that when I was born the Twin Towers were still standing (I was born in NYC, btw).  :o

With Nickelback still continuing their releases of true bare-bones quality grunge in the spirit of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, the 90's feel like yesterday.

Everything before 1999 feels retro to me. 1999 is very old school borderline retro.

With Nickelback still continuing their releases of true bare-bones quality grunge in the spirit of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, the 90's feel like yesterday.


Idk their last song was surprisingly decent.

Idk their last song was surprisingly decent.


Most of Nickelback's music is great stuff along with Puddle of Mudd.

How much is fake journalism paying these days.  :o

How much is fake journalism paying these days.  :o

Where is the lie?  ;)

Where is the lie?  ;)


;D Touché.

https://abload.de/img/2016-06-1713_32_22-th5xjqb.png

;D Touché.

https://abload.de/img/2016-06-1713_32_22-th5xjqb.png


I like everyone of those bands. Real rock lives!!!!

Anything pre-9/11 should feel dated to every American. Or at least that's how my brain works. A film or song released in early 2001 feels vastly older to me than a film or song released in early 2002, even though it's only a 1-year difference.

;D Touché.

https://abload.de/img/2016-06-1713_32_22-th5xjqb.png


I didn't think Godsmack was still going?

1994 is officially 'old' to me. 1995 is borderline, kind of half and half!

I like everyone of those bands. Real rock lives!!!!


Literally fake news, fake opinions, fake enthusiasm.


I didn't think Godsmack was still going?


I think all those bands are still going.

Literally fake news, fake opinions, fake enthusiasm.

I think all those bands are still going.

http://www.robi27.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/where-is-the-lie-b0782.png

http://www.robi27.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/where-is-the-lie-b0782.png


My lie detector is off the charts.

I like everyone of those bands.
Real rock lives!!!!

My lie detector is off the charts.

https://m.popkey.co/8858fc/7zYXa_f-thumbnail-100-0_s-600x0.jpg

None of that is lies. I love all those bands. Nickelback, Creed, Puddle of Mudd, KoRn, Godsmack, Disturbed, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Daughtry. Those are all quality rock n roll bands.

https://m.popkey.co/8858fc/7zYXa_f-thumbnail-100-0_s-600x0.jpg


No wonder you voted Trump. Your lie detector is broken!

None of that is lies. I love all those bands. Nickelback, Creed, Puddle of Mudd, KoRn, Godsmack, Disturbed, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Daughtry. Those are all quality rock n roll bands.


http://static.politifact.com.s3.amazonaws.com/rulings/tom-pantsonfire.gif

No wonder you voted Trump. Your lie detector is broken!

http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/tumblr_md42dow0sv1r5x5zu-300x198.gif

http://static.politifact.com.s3.amazonaws.com/rulings/tom-pantsonfire.gif


Right. ::) You Hilary supporters don't even know. Good thing I voted Trump so the oppressed white man will finally have his day in the sun.

1994 is officially 'old' to me. 1995 is borderline, kind of half and half!


1994 was 23 years ago.  :o

Right. ::) You Hilary supporters don't even know. Good thing I voted Trump so the oppressed white man will finally have his day in the sun.


https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/47/6c/bd/476cbddbbed2f72e2c50aab9d3437cc6.jpg

Bruh!

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/47/6c/bd/476cbddbbed2f72e2c50aab9d3437cc6.jpg

Bruh!

I mean....he's right  ::).

Right. ::) You Hilary supporters don't even know. Good thing I voted Trump so the oppressed white man will finally have his day in the sun.


If the white man stays out in the sun too long his skin colour is gonna be like Trump's.  :-X

Right. ::) You Hilary supporters don't even know. Good thing I voted Trump so the oppressed white man will finally have his day in the sun.


::)

http://memecrunch.com/meme/4UIDE/if-it-smells-like-bullsheesh/image.jpg

None of that is lies. I love all those bands. Nickelback, Creed, Puddle of Mudd, KoRn, Godsmack, Disturbed, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Daughtry. Those are all quality rock n roll bands.


My favorite Korn album is Issues.

1990-early 1993? Extreme forever as in other universe
1993-1996? Very old
1997-1998, technologically getting closer but socially like another universe
1999? Modern

1990-early 1993? Extreme forever as in other universe
1993-1996? Very old
1997-1998, technologically getting closer but socially like another universe
1999? Modern


2008 and before doesn't really seem that modern. 2009 and after is another story.

2008 and before doesn't really seem that modern. 2009 and after is another story.

Well technically any year since about 1960 is considered "modern".

Well technically any year since about 1960 is considered "modern".


Technologically, I would probably disagree with that statement. Socially though, that seems to make some sense.

Technologically, I would probably disagree with that statement. Socially though, that seems to make some sense.

Obviously. 1960-present is when most historians look at as the modern age.

Obviously. 1960-present is when most historians look at as the modern age.


The modern period began with the Renaissance in the 1400s. Humanism was starting to displace a strictly God-centered worldview, rational inquiry was coming back into style, the Greek and Latin classics were being widely published and read, and even pagan imagery was making its way into European art. The feudal system was being replaced with the modern state (bureaucratic and rule based, rather than based on personal relationships like in the medieval period), with absolute monarchs being the center of the state, who differed from feudal monarchs because they were seen as more than just the mightiest noble in the land. Commerce and urbanization were picking up, too, along with exploration of India and then the Americas, China, Japan, Indonesia, Ethiopia etc.

The Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution etc. are just subdivisions of the modern period.

Obviously. 1960-present is when most historians look at as the modern age.


Well to me (and other people that aren't over 100 years old), I don't really consider the 1960s as the modern age.

The modern period began with the Renaissance in the 1400s. Humanism was starting to displace a strictly God-centered worldview, rational inquiry was coming back into style, the Greek and Latin classics were being widely published and read, and even pagan imagery was making its way into European art. The feudal system was being replaced with the modern state (bureaucratic and rule based, rather than based on personal relationships like in the medieval period), with absolute monarchs being the center of the state, who differed from feudal monarchs because they were seen as more than just the mightiest noble in the land. Commerce and urbanization were picking up, too, along with exploration of India and then the Americas, China, Japan, Indonesia, Ethiopia etc.

The Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution etc. are just subdivisions of the modern period.

I'm taking about the contemporary era. Most historians consider the contemporary era to start after WWII.


Well to me (and other people that aren't over 100 years old), I don't really consider the 1960s as the modern age.

You're looking at the cultural/societal view of modern. You think that modern = newer tech, better medicine, newer music but that's not what historians consider to be modern or contemporary.

You're looking at the cultural/societal view of modern. You think that modern = newer tech, better medicine, newer music but that's not what historians consider to be modern or contemporary.


So, what do historians believe is modern?

So, what do historians believe is modern?

For historians, Modern history can be further broken down into periods:

The early modern period began approximately in the early 16th century; notable historical milestones included the European Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.

The late modern period began approximately in the mid-18th century; notable historical milestones included the French Revolution, American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Divergence. It took all of human history up to 1804 for the world's population to reach 1 billion; the next billion came just over a century later, in 1927.

Contemporary history is the span of historic events from approximately 1945 that are immediately relevant to the present time.

For historians, Modern history can be further broken down into periods:

The early modern period began approximately in the early 16th century; notable historical milestones included the European Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.

The late modern period began approximately in the mid-18th century; notable historical milestones included the French Revolution, American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Divergence. It took all of human history up to 1804 for the world's population to reach 1 billion; the next billion came just over a century later, in 1927.

Contemporary history is the span of historic events from approximately 1945 that are immediately relevant to the present time.



That's a pretty good breakdown of the broader divisions of modernity.

I dunno why you guys don't believe me. Donald Trump is making America great again by liberating the oppressed white man and taking down those meanie minorities. Men's rights and white rights! The time has come!

I dunno why you guys don't believe me. Donald Trump is making America great again by liberating the oppressed white man and taking down those meanie minorities. Men's rights and white rights! The time has come!


Crazy Republican!!! It isn't 1963 anymore!  ;D  :D  :D  :D

1994 was 23 years ago.  :o


Yes!!

Obviously. 1960-present is when most historians look at as the modern age.


For me the modern age began in 1964 with the Civil Rights Movement.

For historians, Modern history can be further broken down into periods:

The early modern period began approximately in the early 16th century; notable historical milestones included the European Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.

The late modern period began approximately in the mid-18th century; notable historical milestones included the French Revolution, American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Divergence. It took all of human history up to 1804 for the world's population to reach 1 billion; the next billion came just over a century later, in 1927.

Contemporary history is the span of historic events from approximately 1945 that are immediately relevant to the present time.


That's a good starting point. To me, 1945, or 1964 is a great one!  :)

That's a pretty good breakdown of the broader divisions of modernity.


That's a good starting point. To me, 1945, or 1964 is a great one!  :)

Thanks  :).

I dunno why you guys don't believe me. Donald Trump is making America great again by liberating the oppressed white man and taking down those meanie minorities. Men's rights and white rights! The time has come!


1400s - 2015 = modern
2016+ = post-truth. (and not in the post-modernist sense!)

1400s - 2015 = modern
2016+ = post-truth. (and not in the post-modernist sense!)


Donald Trump is the personification of the truth. Because us alt-righters used the powers of pepe to elect him, truth prevailed over the evil meanie liberal lies.

Donald Trump is the personification of the truth. Because us alt-righters used the powers of pepe to elect him, truth prevailed over the evil meanie liberal lies.


I'd play this game with you, but it all starts of ironic, then you go post-ironic and before you know it you're a real Nazi.  :-X

I'd play this game with you, but it all starts of ironic, then you go post-ironic and before you know it you're a real Nazi.  :-X


I'm already post-ironic, fam. 8)

I'd play this game with you, but it all starts of ironic, then you go post-ironic and before you know it you're a real Nazi.  :-X


Those right wingers are sooooooooooo dramatic! Idiots, they are!  ::)  ::)  :-X

I'm already post-ironic, fam. 8)


So did you buy your skinnies and v-neck yet?


Those right wingers are sooooooooooo dramatic! Idiots, they are!  ::)  ::)  :-X


Who you calling an idiot?!  >:(

So did you buy your skinnies and v-neck yet?


I told you I already did a long time ago. I even bought the vicks to rub on my chest too.


Who you calling an idiot?!  >:(


You, you right wing scum bag! >:(

So did you buy your skinnies and v-neck yet?

Who you calling an idiot?! >:(


Uh oh.  :(

I told you I already did a long time ago. I even bought the vicks to rub on my chest too.

You, you right wing scum bag! >:(


Try oil, it makes it even shinier! And tell us what your wife thinks.

Try oil, it makes it even shinier! And tell us what your wife thinks.


I told her about it my plan to buy some tight v-necks and she threw a pillow at me. :-\\

I told her about it my plan to buy some tight v-necks and she threw a pillow at me. :-\\


She has to see it to believe!!

I told you I already did a long time ago. I even bought the vicks to rub on my chest too.

You, you right wing scum bag! >:(


Hey Hey, watch your language.

She has to see it to believe!!


I agree! 8)


Hey Hey, watch your language.


The truth hurts.

I agree! 8)

The truth hurts.


Good thing you're only capable of telling lies!

Trump and the alt-righters are JOKES!!!!  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Trump and the alt-righters are JOKES!!!!  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D


I could probably tell that racial supremacists are a joke. A lot of people tend to take them seriously, even though they never posed a threat since the 80s (at least).

I could probably tell that racial supremacists are a joke. A lot of people tend to take them seriously, even though they never posed a threat since the 80s (at least).

I've never gotten racial supremacy. Silly thought to me.

I could probably tell that racial supremacists are a joke. A lot of people tend to take them seriously, even though they never posed a threat since the 80s (at least).
Well they still are because they are a vocal minority. I bet they wouldn't dare pull that sh*t off again, and think others will find it acceptable.

Well they still are because they are a vocal minority. I bet they wouldn't dare pull that sh*t off again, and think others will find it acceptable.


Even though they're still a vocal minority, they aren't taken as seriously as they were before Southern minorities finally got civil rights in the mid 1960s

Even though they're still a vocal minority, they aren't taken as seriously as they were before Southern minorities finally got civil rights in the mid 1960s


I take that back. They could pose a criminal threat to somebody innocent (e.g. an interracial couple), but luckily the FBI could arrest them for hate crimes.

well i was born in the early 90s, so anything from the 90s seems old to me.

I dare anybody to watch this Crest ad from 1991 and tell me that the '90s aren't ancient.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxYEB3mdDvM

I dare anybody to watch this Crest ad from 1991 and tell me that the '90s aren't ancient.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxYEB3mdDvM

1991 was just before the dinosaurs went extinct....;D.

The late 1990s were the earliest years in my life, so yes, anything I remember definitely feels ancient. :)