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Did '90s Culture Ever Really End? [View All]

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liberalpragmatist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-08-07 09:44 PM
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Did '90s Culture Ever Really End?
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I was born in the middle of the 1980s, which means that I most of my childhood memories come from the 1990s.

Now, we're already in the "late '00s". Yet it seems that, aside from the political sphere, the decade remains pretty undefined. Surely, there have been changes. Among them, the explosion of social networking online, the growth of online video and music, greater political involvement and SOME increased cultural permeation from Asia into the West. Overall, however, the '00s seem awfully like a continuation of the '90s.

For one thing, what the hell are we even calling this decade? It seems awfully late for this decade to lack an easy nickname. The "oughts"? In Europe, they're calling it "the Noughties".

Culturally, not a whole lot seems different from the mid-to-late 1990s. Sure, stuff from the early 1990s often looks dated, but ook at fashions, music, movies, aesthetics, design, and humor from the mid to late '90s (say, 1994 through 1999). I could be wrong, but it seems to me that a man or woman could wear contemporary, mainstream clothes from 1996 or early 1997 today, at the start of 2007, and nobody would bat an eye. Their hairstyles wouldn't look out of place, and most likely their clothes wouldn't either.

Now imagine someone wearing contemporary fashions and hairstyles from 1986 or 1987 in early 1997 - it seems to me that person would be glaringly out-of-place.

Even music hasn't changed much after 1994. Yes, there have been mini-trends (massive increase in popularity of rap through the late '90s, horrible teen pop in the late '90s, resurgence of retro rock in American indie music (the Brits already went through their retro-rock phase in the '90s)), but by-and-large popular music from 1996 doesn't sound dated at all. Popular music from 1986 or 1987 sure sounded old in 1997. Hell, even music videos from 1996 or 1997 don't look different from music videos on TV right now.

Has anybody else noticed this? Or are my perceptions wrong and there have in fact been dramatic changes and they've occurred too subtly for me to notice?

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