I miss the 90s because in 1999 I was 14, the Matrix and System Shock 2 had just come out, and the radio was nothing but optimistic pop and dance music. It was a time of high optimism, there was a real feeling that the new millennium was ours, that we were going to make the world better. Life was never going to feel like that again.
Then Bush, then 9/11. In 2 years I went from starry eyed high-school naif to being a politically engaged college student. It’s hard after that to separate my feeling about whether the world (USA society specifically) really did get worse or if I was just old and politically aware enough then to notice.
It certainly feels like things declined pretty steadily. I think a lot of us were lured into comforting nostalgia by Obama. A nice little warm dose of return to the good days of before Bush! It put us to sleep like warm milk. Then waking up to realize that Bush-ism never ended.
I mean most of that tends to be peak childhood period nostalgia. I still have a sweet spot for the late 2000s for similar reasons, swap the music genres around, change the games and shows and it all applies.
I miss the 90s because in 1999 I was 14, the Matrix and System Shock 2 had just come out, and the radio was nothing but optimistic pop and dance music. It was a time of high optimism, there was a real feeling that the new millennium was ours, that we were going to make the world better. Life was never going to feel like that again.
Then Bush, then 9/11. In 2 years I went from starry eyed high-school naif to being a politically engaged college student. It’s hard after that to separate my feeling about whether the world (USA society specifically) really did get worse or if I was just old and politically aware enough then to notice.
It certainly feels like things declined pretty steadily. I think a lot of us were lured into comforting nostalgia by Obama. A nice little warm dose of return to the good days of before Bush! It put us to sleep like warm milk. Then waking up to realize that Bush-ism never ended.
I mean most of that tends to be peak childhood period nostalgia. I still have a sweet spot for the late 2000s for similar reasons, swap the music genres around, change the games and shows and it all applies.