The Big Picture: The 90's Didn't Suck

[Jandau]

Being from one of the countries of the former Yugoslavia (which broke up around 1990 in one big "civil" war clusterfuck), the 90ies did suck. What with the bombings, the refugees, the massacres and the ethnic cleansings and all that...

 

[Ukomba]

Professor Hubert Farnsworth: "Boring? Wasn't that the period when they cracked the human genome, and boy bands roamed the earth?"

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I was born in the tail end of the 80's, and grew up in the 90's, so I didn't notice anything wrong with the decade.

(Except perhaps the comics, but I didn't get into those until the late 90's/early new millennium, so, yeah.)

I do enjoy the cartoons, though, especially how much they get away with in term of jokes...

 

[Falseprophet]

The 1990s was the decade that revealed assigning moods and personalities to decades is arbitrary and contrived. Really. For the last century or so, any "movement" that dominates a decade has its roots in the decade previous.

The 90s are especially weird in how you can basically break the decade into two:

1) The early 90s, a time of economic depression, Generation X malaise, general cultural malaise--i.e., "The Cold War defined our society for almost half a century, what do we do now?", moody grunge and goth-industrial music and cynical gangsta rap (and New Country), and pop culture shaped by disaffected 20-somethings (the indie film scene led by Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith and their friends had a huge influence on the early half of the decade).

2) The late 90s, a time of economic prosperity, the dot-com boom and the affiliated growing acceptance of geek culture--including anime, and gaming via the PS1 and the rise of PC FPSes--by the mainstream, and bubblegum pop music made mostly by former Mouseketeers (and whiny pop-punk and ragey nu-metal), and pop culture shaped largely by catering to adolescent Generation Y (the American Pie and Scream franchises and all those other teen movies were late-90s).

 

[47_Ronin]

In the 90's I listened to Grunge and Tecno, I saw Terminator 2, Starship Troopers and Trainspotting (all of which I weren't allowed to see) and traded Dragonball collectible cards. I lived in a country with infinitely better weather then the country I live in now and all I had to care about (getting closer to the 00s) was were to party after school.

How dare you tell me the 90s sucked?

 

[Chrono212]

-snip-

Ah! But what about the 1900s and the 1910s? Where are they in popular American culture?

Because that time has, more or less, grown in the popular consciousness due to shows like Downton Abby and Mr Selfridge.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

I would say that the 90s were the first decade that the global gate was opened. With only one major global superpower willing to act beyond its region, things that would normally had been restrained and suppressed by cultural norms and military superpowers were allowed to run free.

In the US, this meant the rise of anime as more than a small nitch geek culture, and children's television that finally wasn't about moralizing and pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable. Disney animation, having been in the woods for decades despite some cult hits, finally came roaring back with some of the most viewed movies in history such as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Computers, cell phones, and the internet went from rich-guy toys to mainstream America.

Elsewhere, that lack of restraint had far reaching consequences. Hong Kong was back in Chinese hands after 150 years with Macau soon afterwords. Apartheid South Africa finally collapsed and a more inclusive country was formed in its place. Germany was unified for the first time since WWII. Not all was good: Genocides in the ex-Soviet Block and Africa, Taliban seizing control of Afghanistan, and the military dictatorship of Musarraf in Packistan would all set the stage for the 2000s.

Most notably would be the economy: The shortsightedness of the deregulation wave brought the rise and fall of the Asian Tigers and Japan's Lost Decade, Enron, the tech bubble, solidifying the foundations of the 2008 financial crisis that were first poured in the 1980s.

So I would have a phrase to describe the 1990s: the decade of no restraint.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

So the 90's can be defined as having an identity crisis.

 

[ASnogarD]

To me the 90's was a decade where we waited for the promised future of the 20 th Century... we were waiting for our flying cars, and Mars water farm plots to happen, to get jacked into cyberspace and get augmented.

... in short we skipped the 90's in anticipation of 2000, and boy was it a let down

 

[axlryder]

To me the 90's was sort of about the rise of nihilistic apathy/angst and suburban dysfunction, whereas the 80's was more about materialistic hedonism where yuppies were the focus.

 

[axlryder]

The 90's is when anime peaked - It slowly tilted downhill come the new millenium.

I remember quite loving the 90's. Looking back at it most of it was superficial as hell, but then I was a teenager so I didn't notice most of it. Except for Power Rangers. I never got the popularity of that show and I was it's target audience.

Bullshit, give me a list of 90's great animes and I'll double that list of animes from the 00's.

Though, the 90's didn't suck, in terms of videogames was awesome, Super Mario 64 and Zelda Oot ftw.

And bob didn't talk about the awesome WWII movies that came out in the 90's. Nor Fight Club or American History X.
The 90's and 00's are the best decades for movies. Way better than the slow movies of the 70's and 80's.

Anime was probably at its financial peak in the late 90's as a cultural export, though I'd say 90's-early 00's is probably more accurate. There were a lot of great anime from the 90's though, and it definitely hit its stride in the states during that time.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Ah! But what about the 1900s and the 1910s? Where are they in popular American culture?

1900s: The new century and the rise of a new empire and economics in the US.

1910s: The debut of the new empire on the global stage and the horrors of war (WWI).

 

[Casual Shinji]

The 90's is when anime peaked - It slowly tilted downhill come the new millenium.

I remember quite loving the 90's. Looking back at it most of it was superficial as hell, but then I was a teenager so I didn't notice most of it. Except for Power Rangers. I never got the popularity of that show and I was it's target audience.

Bullshit, give me a list of 90's great animes and I'll double that list of animes from the 00's.

Did I say all anime from the 00's sucked? No. But on a whole the medium slumped into complacency with the turn of the century.

 

[Crimson_Dragoon]

I was born in the early 90s (93, to be precise) and if i was asked what that decade was all about, experiencing it as a child growing up i'd say... well, i suppose i will be considerered the rise of the information age. And the birth of a generation that grew up with the internet, viewing it as less of a tool and more of a second reality that allows us to communicate with people we'd have otherwise never known. I like to believe that some day people will remember this generation... well, my generation for being among the first people who reached a level of global understanding that none of our ancestors were able to. And maybe that's what the 90s werde. The beginning of an era of communication and understanding that started with the end of the Cold War.

Now, for a better question: What were the 00s all about?

I'd make the argument that in the U.S. (since we're mainly talking about American culture here), the 00s were about us collectively realizing that America is not as great or invincible as we once thought. Obviously 9/11 and the paranoia that came with it were a big part of that, but not all.

 

[Ashley Blalock]

So the 90's were a vacuum. We create a vacuum in a machine called a vacuum cleaner to suck up dirt. Thus by being a vacuum the 90's sucked compared to the other decades.

Sure there were some gems to be found in the mediocrity of the 90's but a few good cartoons and a few good songs just isn't enough to give personality to a decade without a personality.

 

[Trishbot]

The 90's was the rise of the information age and online social networking. Bob glosses over it like it's not a big deal, but look at how much online internet has revolutionized the entire modern world, not just in the United States (where most of these "trends" of decades were exclusive to us alone).

Every last facet of our lives basically stems from the boom of 90's era online information being integrated into our homes and business, and now it's practically essential to have an online identity or email of some sort to do even the most basic and rudimentary things. You can pay your taxes online, go to college online, shop for whatever you what and find and buy it online, reconnect with lost friends from decades ago online, find relationships online, get all your news online, visit entire libraries online, have entire online jobs, watch movies online, read comics online, play games online, and find the entire back-catalog of Playboy porn online.

The very fact that Bob has a show on a gaming website where he talks about movies is directly because of the 90's online boom and the spread of the information age. When something is THAT powerful and that actively integrated in your very lifestyles as to become inseparable, the decade that spawned it definitely has its "theme". But, unlike the other themes of prior decades, this seems to be a theme that is enduring and thriving and lasting, unlike disco...

And I'm sure the infinite pictures of LOLcats will do us proud far into the future.

 

[Chrono212]

Ah! But what about the 1900s and the 1910s? Where are they in popular American culture?

1900s: The new century and the rise of a new empire and economics in the US.

1910s: The debut of the new empire on the global stage and the horrors of war (WWI).

Spoiler: Don't forget the Colombia Incident!

But going back to my amended point: here in the UK that period in history, for all it's warped interpenetration, has been revitalised because of soap opera level historical dramas. This gives it a rose-tinted view in the collective consensus.
How does it stand in the States?

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

Bob, have you tried watching stuff from the 80's? Cartoons like He-Man, Thundercats, GI Joe and Transformers? There almost embarrassing. I'll take any of the 90's cartoon's you mentioned over that.

 

[TheMadJayWoman]

I can't believe people actually get worked up over Bob's frequent quote of that line, but then this is the interwebs...

Anywho... as someone who actually experience through the 90's (was in jr high in 1990, graduated university in 2000) I couldn't help but join in. Yes, kiddies, 'Animaniacs' et al were fun, but there was more to the decade than that...

I remember the 90's as being a lot about "It's the end of the Century!" and so there was a redux of almost everything. I recall that the culture celebrated was excellent, but upon further retrospection it really was largely Gen-Xers rediscovering past [and largely forgotten] classics. Still there was some great works of art and pop culture in the 1990's, if only because independent and fringe elements of nearly every part of the media started to gain ground.


AV Club had a great list of 1990's film:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-50-best-films-of-the-90s-1-of-3,86304/
http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-50-best-films-of-the-90s-2-of-3,86361/
http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-50-best-films-of-the-90s-3-of-3,86467/
http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-best-films-of-the-90s-orphans-outliers-and-per,86534/

 

[TheSchaef]

Another example of Batman being artistically retro-minded: the use of dirigibles.

Another example of 90's retro-ism: the most attention The Offspring ever got was when they were accused of ripping off Agent Orange, which ironically is also the most public attention Agent Orange ever got.

We're talking about a decade that began with war and recession and ended with apocalyptic paranoia. That tends to color things a bit, in addition to being the time when the people who were kids in the saccharine 80s and are currently the chief opinionmongers of Western culture, were going through the hellacious adolescence to which Bob was referring, and to which I can relate.