Can someone best describe to me the essence of the 1990s?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

And in asking that question to me, I'm looking for more than just rattling off pop-culture items or prominent figures from that decade. I'm looking for more of a feel or an overall mindset that was most prevalent during the decade.

For example, if one asked about the essence of the 1950s, one might describe it as "post war conformity". The 1960s might be "revolutionary" or "mind opening." And the 1980s might be "greed and excess" or "jarring modernity."

I'm actually looking for more than just a couple of words. Maybe a sentence or two.

But the 1990s were my formative decade, the decade I most associate with growing up. And I have to admit I liked the 1990s a lot as a decade (good music, economic prosperity, absence of major conflicts, decent president), but it's sometimes hard to get a feel for them.

[bamademo]

1. Vast relief that Clinton was in the White House and anger at those that tried to bring him down.

[NV Whino]

2. they came after the 80s and before the zeros.

[Xyzse]

3. Well, to me it was the start of open-mindedness.

It is nowhere as accepting as the 2000s, but that was the decade I moved to America, and felt welcome.

There was some homophobia, but hell, even then I have a lifelong friend that got married in 1999 with her wife.

So, it was casual, until 2001 hit and Bush started a decline through fear. Which only grew this decade.

The 90s was also the start where accepting the past era's styles and music became popular.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

4. Good response.

I agree.

[Ron Obvious]

5. It was the start of the internet and cell phones.

Which would change our lives in ways we couldn't even begin to see.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. That was definitely a factor throughout the decade.

I think perhaps as it relates to the internet, there was a lot of optimism as to its potential (much of which has been realized) without much thought given as to the downsides that those technologies would bring in terms of loss of personal interaction.

Heck, I remember in 1995-96 writing letters to my first love (who lived out of state) and just the excitement opening up the mailbox and seeing that letter would bring. This was just as email was coming into its own and still long before the days of texting and ubiquitous cellphone use. And I'll have to admit had our written communications been by email or by text, a lot of the magic would have been gone. So I'm glad I had a chance to experience the written letter before it more or less vanished as a communication tool.

Overall when it came to the 1990s there was a good sense of optimism and moving on from the old. The Cold War had ended and we had moved on from Reagan (thankfully). And with that extra time on our hands where we otherwise would have been worried about the Soviets, there was a fair amount of social awareness and increasingly open thinking.

Also, 90s culture had a certain quirkiness about it. It was different from the blaring, in your face, image driven narcissism that seemed to dominate the 1980s. People seemed to embrace their inner oddities a bit more and weren't nearly as much as afraid of being labeled. But it wasn't over the top, either. If you look at 90s fashion (once you get past the early 90s) it was pretty subued, yet distinctive.

[angstlessk]

11. "You've Got Mail" AOL announced back in the day...in fact you had to install AOL from a disk

Not sure about all the other browsers...AOL was simple for us simple folk.

[DebJ]

17. What it should have said is "You've Got Porn".

Massive amounts of not requested links to porn sites in the mail box all the time.
Revolting.

[Orrex]

6. Shoe gaze.

[angstlessk]

7. In the early 90's my cmputer was an 8088 purchased from Montgomery Wards

on time, cause it cost about $2,000

Search engines were in the dozens (or more), and as one DU'er recently recalled Alta Vista was the most popular.

There was one website that predicted, because of the internet and private computing, and technology, we would go to 3 day a week workweek and the rest would be leisure....I could barely wait...only it was just naive/hopeful thinking.

Went to a auction of a local savings & loan and met a geek who declared he had a computer with 154mg (not gb) of RAM..and me, being such a great futurist, thought who would ever need 154 mg of ram?

[Tom Ripley]

9. The eighties with better technology

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. Early nineties, maybe.

1990 to 1992 was essentially slowly weaning ourselves off the 1980s. But by the time Clinton took the oath of office, the 1990s were in full bloom.

Peak 90s culture was probably 1993-1997. By 1998, there were some disturbing signs of decline....such as the rise of boy bands.

[Boom Sound 416]

10. Meh?

[rurallib]

13. Greed

at least the people I knew

[laundry_queen]

14. For me, it was a decade of everyone coming together

My decade went like this: learning about war, graduating from high school, grunge!, spending a year at university, moving in with my boyfriend (now ex-h), getting online and being totally addicted to the internet, having a baby, meeting likeminded people online and organizing meet ups, everyone hopeful, enjoying peace and prosperity (in comparison to now, of course).

Even though a lot of political junkies remember the whole Clinton thing (republican attacks on him), for those of us who weren't political (I wasn't at the time - with regards to American politics anyway since I'm Canadian) it seemed like everyone was happy with Clinton, everyone felt like the countries 'got along' for the most part and I just remember a lot less stress and outrage.

As I said, getting online was a HUGE change in my life - I'm not someone who is super-social (I tend to lean on the 'nerdy' side and have a hard time finding friends that 'get' me...as a result most friends I had were fairweather friends) so finding likeminded people online to talk to and meet was a turning point in my life. It was amazing how people with specific interests were able to come together and form friendships in ways that would have NEVER happened without the internet. And as a total bookworm, I had a medium in which I could keep my brain busy for hours and hours on end and LEARN things...the beginning of the 'information' age. It felt like the whole world opened up and that everyone in the world was beginning to come together.

Maybe I'm just romanticizing because I was also young back then...

[TBF]

15. I was just out of college -

Internet, Prosperity, Grunge Music, Clintons

The 90s were the best.

[Tribalceltic]

20. And jobs

That paid a living wage.

[nomorenomore08]

16. I wasn't born till '84, but the 80's strike me as odd - new-fangled technology plus regressive

social attitudes. Seems like a bit of a contradiction.

I was a child during the 90's - wasn't eligible to vote till October 2002 - so I guess the relative openness (in some respects at least) of our current society is all I've ever known. I grew up listening to grunge and pseudo-gangsta rap on the radio - the popular music of my childhood wasn't exactly "You Are My Sunshine." So if the 90's means anything to me, it probably has something to do with Kurt Cobain blowing his brains out and President Clinton getting a BJ.

[DebJ]

18. We still had hope for a better future. Corporations were just beginning

to squeeze down. But overall, there was the sense you could work and get ahead.

[Sanity Claws]

19. Busy, wired, and lots of changes, particularly in technology

The PC entered the office in the 80s but in 1990, professionals started having their own PCs and doing their own typing. PCs were getting better, 386, then 486, then Intel processors. Prices came down a lot. As the prices fell, stores that used to specialize in computers went under and the big box stores began selling the computers.
Secretaries and support staff work in the office changed. Fewer were needed.
Microsoft began taking over software. WordPerfect used to be the standard word processing software (at least in my industry) but offices changed over to Word in order to be read email messages and open documents more easily. They also took over the spreadsheets with Excel.
By the late 1990s, PowerPoint presentations became de rigueur.
Everything Microsoft did was big news.

I also recall the 1990s being a very busy time. People were trying to keep up with the changes in technology. The economy was booming. Folks who had not been employed in a while were finding jobs.

I hope that gives you a flavor of the times.