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9 things from the ’90s that we don’t miss

9 things from the ’90s that we don’t miss

  • 9 things from the ’90s that we don’t miss

    things from the 90s

    andrewrendell, Flickr

    We've already took a nostalgia-tinged look at what we missed from the ‘90s, so now it’s time to take a look at the darker half of that decade. Yes, for as wistful as the ‘90s makes us we can’t deny that it was largely a decade devoid of taste, filled with terrible fads and ridiculous neon… everything. It is with that in mind that we bring you this, nine things from the ‘90s that we don’t miss.

    Photo credit: andrewrendell, Flickr -Neil Bulson

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  • 9 Ridiculous Fashion

    90s fashion

    CastawayVintage, Flickr

    Sure, we miss the belly-shirts, but let’s not forget about the Hammer Pants, the brightly colored spandex, the neon sunglasses and all the rest. I’m going to embarrass myself here and admit that as a child I used to go to school clad in a pair of red and black checkered pants. I also wore a pair of pants that had some weird purple and green swirly pattern on them. Yes, that’s right, for one ridiculous and shameful year I both owned and wore Zubaz pants. It was horrifying, but in my defense I was just a child. If anything my parents should have been arrested for child abuse for buying them for me. But it’s not like anyone mocked me or anything because for a brief time in the ‘90s that’s what everyone was wearing. Thankfully by the time I hit my teenage years, things had settled down and we were back to wearing jeans like reasonable, sane people. Good god, that shit was awful.

    Photo credit: CastawayVintage, Flickr

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  • 8 The Macarena

    Tostie14, Flickr

    Remember the Macarena? What in the hell was that? Thankfully, we’ve moved past such idiotic nonsense and as a people we aren’t enslaved by ridiculous fad dance crazes and… sorry, I just got distracted for a moment by the Gangnam Style video. Anyway, thank the almighty that we don’t do stupid shit like the Macarena anymore, right? Right???

    Photo credit: Tostie14, Flickr

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  • 7 Dial-Up

    andrewrendell, Flickr

    It’s kind of a miracle that this whole Internet thing ever got off the ground considering how long it took to do, well, virtually anything online back in the ‘90s. It speaks to how slothful we are as a people that we would willingly sit there and wait an hour just for a single song to download, or stare, mouths agape, while a picture loaded one hideously long kilobyte at a time. These days we throw our laptops in the trash and write letters to our Congressmen if a YouTube video of a midget with two heads getting hit in the nuts by a cat doesn’t load at the speed of light. But what we really don’t miss is having to choose between talking on the phone or surfing ye olde web because thanks to the wonders of dial-up you couldn’t do both. And let’s not forget about – actually let’s all try to forget – that incredibly annoying sound of your crappy phone modem trying to connect. It sounded like a robot having either a seizure or an orgasm.

    Photo credit: andrewrendell, Flickr

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  • 6 Boy Bands

    YouTube/Backstreet Boys

    The ‘90s were ushered in by a little band known as New Kids on the Block aka Patient Zero for the Boy Band epidemic and were closed out by a proliferation of embarrassing boy bands, led by ‘N Sync and The Backstreet Boys. Terrible, terrible…

    Again, just like with the Macarena, let’s just be thankful that we have advanced culturally and no longer get caught up in the hysteria of… OMG JUSTIN I LOVE YOU WILL YOU GO THE PROM WITH ME??? Ahem, sorry. I was briefly overwhelmed by a gang of teenage girls who beat me senseless and took control of my computer. I regained control by tossing a lock of hair out the window and claiming it belonged to one of the members of One Direction. Those poor girls should have known better than to jump from a seventh story window but my life was in danger. Anyway, as I was saying, thank God we don’t have to put up with that awful Boy Band hysteria anymore. Or that embarrassing Justin Timberlake character. What ever happened to him?

    Photo credit: YouTube/Backstreet Boys

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  • 5 Saddam Hussein

    dyobmit, Flickr

    Look, regardless of what you think about the Iraq war I think we can all agree that this dude was an asshole. A major asshole. I mean, come on, the dude gassed his own people and he even seduced and then browbeat Satan, nearly triggering a brutal war between Canada and the United States. Sure, that last part may have actually just been the plot to the South Park movie, but then again maybe not. I get confused. After all, the ‘90s were a long time ago and maybe it did happen. The actual details of his monstrous reign aside, the one thing I think is indisputable is that we don’t miss Saddam. The ‘90s can have him.

    Photo credit: dyobmit, Flickr

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  • 4 Pauly Shore

    YouTube/Buena Vista

    Read everything I just wrote about Saddam and then multiply times a thousand. I still can’t believe Pauly Shore gassed all those theater-goers. I’m just glad the army finally found him hiding in a Spider Hole behind the Laugh Factory and then hanged him for his crimes. I think we can all agree that we’re a lot better off now that he’s no longer around to terrorize the American people and also innocent weasels.

    Photo credit: YouTube/Buena Vista

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  • 3 Swing Music

    flawedartist, Flickr

    Oh Jesus, remember when swing music made an inexplicable comeback in the late ‘90s? What in the hell was that all about? How did this happen? One day we all woke up and every band on the planet had dudes playing the trumpet and trombone and everyone was jumping around like it was 1942 and a new Glenn Miller track had just dropped on the Armed Forces Network. It got so bad that it was even showing up in commercials. Remember all those horrible Gap ads? This is what happens when a society gets too comfortable. You stop worrying about the economy and nagging things like gas prices or how you’re going to pay the rent without a job and the next thing you know you’re high on life and dancing like a goon while some freak in a fedora follows you around playing the trumpet. See, now I understand why Republicans hated Bill Clinton. His era of prosperity bred this terrible monster. That is why they hated him, right? Swing music?

    Photo credit: flawedartist, Flickr

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  • 2 Raves

    VictoriA, Flickr

    Look, no one appreciates a good party as much as I do. Hell, I majored in party planning in college. Actually, I minored in party planning. My major was in party execution with an emphasis on getting bombed every night. So hey, I get it. Sometimes you just want to go wild. But raves were just stupid, okay? If you even try to argue this with me I only have to say one thing: glow sticks. Friggin’ glow sticks. Nothing is more ‘90s than a bunch of neon-bedecked idiots spazzing out, dancing like they’re having a seizure, and waving glow sticks around. Raves were sweat-soaked, incoherent messes with music that gives me a headache to this day if I so much as think of it. They weren’t parties so much as an excuse to look as stupid as humanly possible before having a stroke because you had too much ecstasy, leaving your friends to spend the rest of the night watching after you while you convulsed in a bathtub filled with ice. Fun!

    Photo credit: VictoriA, Flickr

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  • 1 Everything Was Serious Business

    foshie, Flickr

    Man, the ‘90s could be exhausting and that’s because you were supposed to care about literally everything. Even the music was a serious brood-fest. Hell, the decade’s most iconic star was Kurt Cobain, a dude who spent most of his time bitching and moaning and hating everything before he blew his own head off. Everything had to mean something. Everything had to be in the service of a mighty cause. Hell, sex wasn’t even allowed to be fun because everyone was so terrified of AIDS. You practically had to buy a condom for each one of your fingers if you even wanted to shake hands. The ‘90s saw the rise of the earnest artist, the sensitive soul who just wanted to sip coffee and play the acoustic guitar before going home and railing against the Patriarchy in his journal. And while there is merit in the ideals that fueled that dude, what was lost was a sense of balance. Being a serious person was valued above all else, and having senseless, sloppy fun was seen as almost a betrayal of that. You had to pick one side or the other and that kinda sucked, and I for one really, really don’t miss that.

    Photo credit: foshie, Flickr

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