Describe your memories of 1996 pop culture (specifically, music, movies, fashion, trends, TV, just the general 'vibe') by season. IE, how did say, January-March 1996 ("Winter 1996") differ in terms of pop culture from September - December 1996 ("Fall 1996")? Was 1996 the year when the 'feel good' pop culture of the 90s began? What were clothes, music and pop culture trends like in adult, teen and kid culture over the course of the year?

Spicy from summer onwards!

Would anyone (who doesn't keep a detailed diary) recall this kind of detail from 20 years ago?  :o  I couldn't even detail last year... :-\\

I only have kiddie memories from 1996, but I'll give a rundown of wha the year was like, based on what I've read and heard about it:

Winter - People are becoming familiar with the Internet for the first time and Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest is the biggest video game of the era.  Not really any different from autumn 1995.

Spring - Alternative music reaches a peak with the height of Oasis, No Doubt, Alanis Morissette, and the Fugees.  The PS1 is just starting to catch everybody's attention with Resident Evil, while Cartoon Network premieres Dexter's Laboratory.

Summer - The Macarena is pretty much inescapable, and hype is building up to the upcoming Nintendo 64.  Independence Day is the most talked about summer blockbuster.  This period comes to a tragic end with the murder of 2Pac in Las Vegas.

Autumn - Pop culture suddenly begins heading in a new direction, though these changes would not be complete for about another year - Alanis Morissette and No Doubt are still gigantic, for example.  However, urban music quickly begins developing a 21st century sound, with No Diggity being the prime example of this progression.  3D fifth generation video games are rapidly becoming the new hottest thing, thanks to the explosive success of Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, and Tomb Raider.  The late 90s wave of teen pop explodes in Europe, pioneered by the Spice Girls and accompanied by the Backstreet Boys, Peter Andre, 911, and Damage.  Hey Arnold! and Kablam! premiere on Nickelodeon.  Bill Clinton is elected to his second term as President of the United States.

Would anyone (who doesn't keep a detailed diary) recall this kind of detail from 20 years ago?  :o  I couldn't even detail last year... :-\\
Oh so true!

Would anyone (who doesn't keep a detailed diary) recall this kind of detail from 20 years ago?  :o  I couldn't even detail last year... :-\\

http://m.reveal.co.uk/real-life-stories/news/a672503/the-girl-who-can-remember-everything.html

Lady remembers what she at for lunch on May 23, 1996 if you asked her lol.

Weird thing is though, she can only remember things that are related to her, not other places where memory would be useful like learning a language.

Jeff (Nally) has good memory of dates

http://m.reveal.co.uk/real-life-stories/news/a672503/the-girl-who-can-remember-everything.html

Lady remembers what she at for lunch on May 23, 1996 if you asked her lol.

Weird thing is though, she can only remember things that are related to her, not other places where memory would be useful like learning a language.


Now that is amazing!  :o :)

Fall/Autumn 1996 is part of the late 90s, while the earlier seasons are part of the mid-90s. The fall gave us the premieres of Everybody Loves Raymond, the release of the Nintendo 64, Steve Harvey Show (was in late August, but close enough), the dramas Millennium (the source of where the Y2K hysteria began), The Pretender and The Profiler, the New York Yankees first of four World Series championships in five years led by Derek Jeter, and a big rise in Internet users and in essence the beginning of when the Web became "here to stay" (The Internet Archive starts in the fall of '96 and many copies added Internet addresses that season in comparison to a few in late 1995/early-mid 1996). In away however, late 1996 had some of the last holdouts from the early-mid '90s (and even late '80s): The original TMNT series, En Vogue's last top 5 hit "Don't Let Go (Love)", Keith Sweat's "Nobody", the SNES game Donkey Kong Country 3, Tetris Attack for the original Game Boy (along with the Pocket update), along with the final relevant Sonic game for the Genesis: Sonic 3D Blast (even if not nearly as good as the previous games).