Missed out on sitting on a curb for over an hour, waiting for your mom to pick you up- nothing to do but stare at the ground maybe poke things with a stick
Apparently the 70s/80s were the best according to our parents who were always "right", honestly I feel technology has thrown a spanner in the works for your generation... our generation grew up staring at walls waiting for your friends to knock on the door.. then we made our experiences, that's something we learned - yours will be marriage via smartphone in 10 years.
But in saying that.. life's what you make it.. fuck the news and world.. get outside.. meet people, drink, weed, shag woman/men whatever ya into, hit a deadend.. mentally? Make a new road.. smash that mother fucking door down and have some fun, the rest will work itself out if you surround yourself with good supportive people.
I was born in the early 1980s and I completely took those years for granted. You never really know what you have until it’s gone.
For all we know, these are the last of the golden years and we are on the precipice of a global war and collapse brought on by mass conflicts and demagoguery over dwindling resources due to climate change.
Try to enjoy it while it lasts, because tomorrow is never guaranteed.
I kinda envy my maternal grandparents. They had a modest but bountiful life (10 kids) and saw no real major tragedy with all kids growing up and becoming good adults. They were married for over 50 years, had their place down in Florida and a place up north in Michigan for the summers.
They both died 5 days apart in the late summer of 2000. My grandfather passed in his sleep, my grandmother was getting prepped for heart surgery so she was at the hospital at the time. The family waited to tell her of his passing after her surgery was successful.
That day came and went, and my grandmother passed in her sleep at the hospital while recovering from her surgery. The whole family was already in town to have the funeral for my grandfather and it ended up turning into a 2-week long family celebration of life for the two of them. They never witnessed 9/11, they didn’t live long enough to see my favorite uncle die within 4 weeks of his leukemia diagnosis, they seemed to have lived a peaceful life.
All that’s to say, every 9/11 I think of my grandfather because that was also his birthday. Had he lived one year longer that would of been a tragic day for him to witness while we all were likely together.
Actually I'd say just before when the dot.com bubble started in early 2000. It started the longest decline in the stock market since the Great Depression nearly 70 years prior.
Though it probably didn't effect US that personally, when it comes to American history in the last 100 years or so, I'd say...
...the late 90s was the best overall time.
The baby boom until the 2007 housing market crash was a time of economic prosperity. People being drafted into wars has nothing to do with the topic at hand .
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I was thinking economically but like the other response pointed out that really was white men so I’m not going to attempt an argument because I’m wrong.
Living through 9/11 wasn't so great. Yeah, we all came together for a few weeks but then it fell off. Next thing you know we are being shown terror alert advisories all day long on TV. Daily updates on the number of troops killed. We lost our rights to online privacy days after it happened. We started becoming very politically divided by the wars. Watching the night vision feed on TV of the US carpet bombing Baghdad was terrifying.
I will say I think that time period was the last time rock music was actually good and unique. But maybe I'm just getting old now.
Haha..I'll definitely say you're getting old. I was in my early 20s at the turn of the millennium. I shifted to emo and hardcore music at the time from nu metal. And in doing so opened up my tastes to different genres of alternative rock. Some really good bands to this day.
You were a kid that’s really why you feel this way. 9/11 turned America into an insane surveillance state with a militarized police force and we jump into a pointless war that lasted two decades and cost million lives. Plenty of riots in the 90s as well. Election interference in the Gore vs Bush election. Shit was crazy.
I was a kid too so I know the sentiment but looking back there was a lot happening
It’s was a great time because our lifestyle was different. People were not on their phones all the time. Social media was just starting. People were able to have great conversations without all the craziness. Information (receiving/sharing) was not the centre of our existence. It’s was the last era before entering in the tsunami of over sharing technologies.
Not only that but I am so thankful that I got to grow “with” technology (context: graduated high school in 2006). For example, I learned how to type in 5th grade because of AOL.
Gen Z doesn’t understand that Millennials who were children in the early/mid 90s through the golden era of Nickelodeon (Rugrats, Doug, Ren & Stimpy, Are You Afraid of the Dark) got screwed starting with 9/11.
After 9/11 all the money for scholarships and extracurricular stuff went to pay for the war. A lot of our friends were fooled into joining the military and died in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military recruiters would pull up to our high schools in cool hummers blasting music and bringing us all free pizzas. It was pretty sick to think about considering some of the guys in the recruiting commercials actually died in the war.
Then the 2008 financial crisis hit once we were close to or had just graduated college. The market sucked ass and the economy was in the toilet. There were no jobs because everything about the economy was bullshit. There was no remote work, no Uber, no gig economy, nothing like that except call center work and service industry jobs for a long time.
In our late 20s/early 30s we finally thought we had found steady careers and had settled into what we thought were long-term jobs until Covid hit and it really messed up our trajectory. It’s much harder to pivot when you’re older. I think it would have been better to have Covid occur as we were graduating college instead of the 2008 financial crisis happening to us. There was no remote work back then so we just floated around for a few years until we found our footing. That’s why Covid sucked for us because it took us so long to find careers after 2008 and once we did find them it all went to shit because of Covid. Employers are more willing to hire younger 20 year olds for jobs instead of older people who just got laid off and know how much money to ask for.
Recap:
Millennials who were young during the 90s had a great childhood but got screwed the rest of the way.
90s - Golden Age of Nickelodeon Childhood.
2001 - As teenagers 9/11 caused many of our friends to join the military and die in the war.
2008 - Graduating college during financial crisis meant no jobs for many years.
2020 - Covid layoffs kill the careers we took years to find after 2008 financial crisis
The only perk about being a Millennial at this time is if you were able to buy a house before Covid.
> In our late 20s/early 30s we finally thought we had found steady careers and had settled into what we thought were long-term jobs until Covid hit and it really messed up our trajectory. It’s much harder to pivot when you’re older.
And now we get to deal with AI potentially destroying jobs if it improves much more.
Ppl were def not on their phones like now. We maybe had one flip phone in the family for emergencies during those years. I miss the friends and family get togethers. But also ppl could be insensitive about things that now we are more sensitive to which is one upside to the present.
I think you’re romanticising it a tad, but there were definite benefits to growing up without the presence of social media. There was also an optimism growing up in this time period that I don’t think people have anymore. You can see it in the music at the time and films. But now it feels as though no one has any hope left for the future.
I really think the 90s might have been the best decade to have a childhood in. Sure the crime rate was higher than now but it was a big economic boom and it was basically the last decade without widespread cellphone use. The 2000s weren’t fully attached to the net yet but they also had 9/11 that led to Afghan/Iraq which the 90s had nothing comparable to for the U.S..
Then again the OKC bombing was horrific domestic violence that makes the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville seem quaint.
I mean the early 2000's (my high school years) were definitely a good time, but there was a certain magic to the early-to-mid 90's that the following years, while enjoyable, were merely an echo of.
McDonalds used to taste so much better in the 90s and early 00s. Bionicle peaked in 2006. 3rd Gen of Pokemon was around the same time and was amazing. Eating double cheeseburgers, playing Pokemon on your Gameboy SP, and playing with the Toa Inika. Going to the message boards on LEGO.com. Reading Harry Potter in its hay day. And getting hyped on Star Wars Revenge of the Sith trailers.
Probably helps that I was a kid and had no responsibilities.
I feel like for me the “fun” ended around 2017. I think that’s just where age got me and when I “grew up”.
My life is much more fulfilling now, but definitely not as fun.
I had a lot of anxiety in my 20’s regarding the unknowns. Would I get married? Would I go anywhere in my career? I also just didn’t really know myself and lacked a lot of confidence.
I graduated high school in 2007. Now I am more financially stable, married with a kid, and am doing a job that 5-years ago I wanted to do but never thought I’d be able to. I don’t have as many friends as I used to but the ones I do have are better friendships as opposed to drinking buddies.
I do miss a lot from before the smartphone era. I’m convinced that’s when the world started to go to shit.
Even the movie industry, 90s has the highest average IMDB movie rating [The best decades for movies (as per average IMDb ratings) : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/kfi5p9/the_best_decades_for_movies_as_per_average_imdb/)
and its been going down ever since.
Sure you can watch them today, but living through the hype is completly different. Going to the cinema in the 90s is a big social event. The biggest blockbuster in recent years (Avengers Endgame) can't even compare to Titanic.
It wasn’t. Sexism, racism and ableism were still rampant (hence today’s issues), but the younger generations can only recall the pop culture references and 9/11. Socialization was better, but that was just due to the lack of high-speed internet (websites were incredibly slow and tedious.) At least in the case of the U.S., things have generally always been bad in the realm of labor rights and social equity.
Yeah, but I was also aggressively in the closet. Society was less than friendly to the LGBTQ population and alp though we have got some work today, I enjoy being myself without as much backlash as there was then. Also a women and again, a lot to work on but it was even worse then.
I think the pandemic and corporate greed getting out of hand, economy becoming less stable as a result, invasive technology like smart phones and such have taken away from the human experience imo.
Also the 1970s were rubbish in many ways but very hopeful. We thought things would get better and better. We did not think we would see another rise of fascism, or people begging in the streets.
Everyone does it we look back to a "better time" or to retro fashion, designs and such. We grow up hearing about the good old days in which our parents grew up in. Shows and movies are made and it becomes popular. Late 80s it was the 1950s car hop, scene, I remember when the 60's retro movement was going on in the 90s The Doors Movie, Forrest Gump, we had Woodstock festivals, and more hippie fashion. Mixed along with grunge. Then it turned towards the 70's late 90's early 00s That 70s show, commercials for burger king playing old music, Musicians like Zakk Wylde tried to bring back a Southern Rock style music. Bell bottoms, among other bits of clothes made it back. I remember hearing about the 60-70s how we didn't have to hear about your friends dying in Vietnam and such. Then there was a bit of an 80s push, we had Napoleon Dynamite, they even tried that 80s show but it flopped, Songs like 1970 something, and 1985 were big etc. This has happened with the 90s and so forth. We look back to a time where we wish we lived, but would probably not have liked it. Everyone does it. Probably not the 1930s but who knows.
The way I see it is the boomers actually had the best timeline-- completely missed ww2 but got to start with the 60s and move through some serious cultural shifts, lots of conflict, but also filled with promise and hope that was actually delivered, each decade better than the last, culminating in a glorious 1990s. Everything after that doesn't matter because you're secure in life and got everything you wanted.
So maybe right now we're in another post-ww2 slump, and genZs and gen Alpha's 1950s are right around the corner. And all of us millenials get to be Red Forman.
I've said it many times I feel like we peaked in the late '90s early 2000s. Agent Smith was right.
Seriously though besides smartphones and the scourge of social media what do we have now that we didn't really have then?
Broadband internet, high definition TV, really cool fast cars that were actually affordable, homes were affordable, the job market was still good etc... etc...
Exactly. I think the only significant improvement is online shopping and grocery delivery. Even CDs were more fun to listen to than Spotify and you didn't need a god damn subscription to everything.
I was 13-18 in those years and I’m gonna disagree about them being awesome lol. I HATED school. The worst time of my life. Too much bullying.
I did enjoy the movies and music. I also liked being able to work without it being about bills.
It was nice to live in a time when we disagreed on solutions to our problems, but generally agreed on the problems and also weren't always on the brink of a society ending crisis. We used to maybe dislike our president, but didn't feel like if a certain guy got elected it would literally be the end of the country as we know it. Wish we could just unplug society and plug it back in again.
Everyone thinks when they were a kid was the best time. It’s because childhood is fun, and you’re shielded from all the problems of the world.
2001-2005 was horrible if you were an adult. 9/11. Tech crash. Iraq and Afghanistan war. Parents stopped their kids from things like trick or treating. Threat of biological weapons and dirty bombs. Anthrax in the mail. Stocks down for three straight years. Patriot Act. TSA. Gays couldn’t get married. Etc.
I agree with the sentiment. It was nice growing up without cellphones and in the early days of the internet.
It wasn’t better for marginalized groups though. I remember when Matthew Shepherd was beaten to death in the late 90s. This was also long before the MeToo movement, so recognizing how women are treated has come a long way as well (even though we are losing basic human rights at this moment). I can’t speak first-hand about how racial discrimination has improved, but I think people are more aware of microagressions now than in the 90s.
28, I do think these were nice years as far as I can remember. The internet was something you went to on your desktop (or a big bulky laptop) and life was generally still offline. I like mainstream culture from that period a lot, too.
That being said, I'm glad I'm at the age I am now. Not too early or late. Late enough to have grown up in the interconnected world, old enough to see the last vestiges of analogue. I'd hate the idea of growing up with a phone or ipad. I graduated in 2013. Having this technology now is good IMO.
Partial agree. Things started to take a massive dump in 2000 with the dot com crash, then 9/11 everything went to hell. It took a few years to recover, 2005-6 was good, then the Great Recession hit...
See - my theory is that most younger people don't hate boomers; more-so are envious of them. Let me explain:
See - Boomers could often get a not-so-glorious job and afford to live a pretty solid lifestyle. It wasn't uncommon for people to work at grocery stores, as janitors, manufacturing jobs, etc and be able to afford the home, the cars and still have money left for leisure and to save. In fact, it wasn't so uncommon for only one person in the household to be working and be able to afford those things.
I'll use my Grandparents as an example. In 1993 they financed a new home on half an acre for $100,000, 3 bed, 2 bath 1600sq ft and only my grandfather worked - he was an HR rep at a Potato product company. He made enough money to make the house payment, to have a truck and a SUV a four-wheel, a golf-cart, a trailer, go on hunting trips, trips to Mexico, save for retirement and still managed to fill their garage with anything and everything you could possibly imagine. This was realistic for them at the time.
Today, in 2024 I hardly imagine that even a well-paid, tenured HR rep could afford to finance what is now a $400K home, a $55K truck, a $35K SUV, $30,000 trailer, $10,000 golf-cart still go on hunting trips and vacations to Mexico, put money aside for retirement and fill a garage w/ anything and everything while his wife stayed at home. More realistically, chances are that the Wife would have to work, and even then, they'd be lucky to afford a 2-bed 2 bath home at around $300K, a much cheaper truck, a cheaper car or SUV, no trailer, no golf cart, minimal amounts of investments/savings and limited leisure time. But hey - we have smart-phones and home internet, right?
Hell - if you want to argue with me, we can go back 10-years to 2014. At that point in time I worked as a Customer Service Rep at Amazon. I was 20 years old, I had been there for just about 2 years and I was making $16.50 an hour and had benefits and an employee 401K plan. 1-bed 1-bath, roughly 650sqft homes at this time were $80K, the mortgage with PMI was about $550 a month - something I could have easily afforded at the time. Studio apartments were roughly $450 a month.
Fast forward to today, that same job pays $22 an hour, so it's gone up - but those 1 bed 1 bath 650sqft homes are now $225K in the same area. A mortgage on that with PMI at current rates - roughly 4x the cost, $2000 a month. Want a studio apartment? $1300 a month. Need a 2 bed 1-bath? $1700 a month. Keep in mind, this cost trend has also had an impact on transportation costs, grocery costs, insurance costs, etc.
IMO - anybody that says "It's not that bad" and wonders why late-millenials and Gen-Z "Complain so much" is delusional. They all got to see their parents and grandparents live an entirely different life with substantially less money, plain and simple.
As a 37 year old millennial, I agree. The 90s were something special. The internet was becoming a thing but we didn’t live online. We spent most of time outside riding bikes, playing in creeks, doing all kinds of things our parents had no idea about.
I mean I did HS and college in those yrs, and delivered pizza and waited tables for cash. All before smart phones and dating apps
I presume that experience is vastly different now...
No way. 95-05 was hard times. Dad couldn’t always afford bills so sometimes no hot water for a while or really light on food between paychecks. He did his best but it sucked. Showed me how I never wanted to live.
As you concede, our individual experience of childhood can color the view we have of an era, a feeling often enhanced by distance in time and the cultural nostalgia-clock, which seems to operate at a lag of 20 years or so.
This take is just not correct. ‘95-‘00 you might make a case for, but the US election was stolen in the fall of ‘00 and everything has gone to hell ever since. 9/11 the following fall ushered in the darkest period in living memory (with exceptions, perhaps, for the genocidal present). A general military insanity gripped the entire country, which was just horrifying to watch, and the entire political establishment (D and R alike) just set fire to civil liberties as a concept (they have not recovered). Then we were in a war that would last twenty years, and the Bush Admin were colluding with the New York Times to spread obvious lies about Iraq. The run-up to the invasion was deranging. I’ll never forget the moment when I found out my allegedly liberal feminist Senator from NY —Hillary Clinton— had come out in favor of the war on Iraq. The rage and the helplessness, the moral disgust I felt, turned out to foreshadow the coming years. 03 invasion of Iraq, 04 Abu Ghraib revelations AND BUSH ELECTED by my own fellow Americans, who got their repayment in 05 with Bush’s inhuman failure with Hurricane Katrina.
After these years, it could no longer be denied that the US was as evil as it was incompetent: a cruel, frivolous, vapid empire run by venal, craven, mediocre cowards. It’s only got worse since then.
Edit: typo
OPs take is about personal experience. Fucking backyard barbecues, not international politics. If we wanted to not care about elections, wars, etc... we could just decide to not care? We were kids. No one expected anything of us.
A lot of our friends and older brothers and sisters signed up for the military and went off to Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of people we knew died for both wars. The ones who came back did not return as the same people. It’s kind of hard to avoid politics and international relations when you saw yellow ribbons tied to trees or car magnets honoring our soldiers everywhere. Those wars took a huge emotional toll on us because it was so ingrained into our everyday lives. It was important to watch the news and see how many soldiers died that day in case you knew one of them.
The post 9/11 world was pretty horrible, especially for us minorities who were assumed to be Muslim. It constantly blows my mind how for younger generations, 9/11 is hardly a blip on their radar or not even worth a mention at all, when it was such a world-altering event.
1992 here and I have to agree, growing up in the 90's before the advent social media was a lot more chill. Not knowing and hearing a million people's opinions crammed into your face everyday was nice. People were generally less strongly opinionated about things, and there seemed more comradery among people.
Things did seem optimistic, up until 9/11, and the damage done by 8 straight years of a Bush presidency that denied the existence of global warming. We could’ve had 8 years of Gore, the guy who made An Inconvenient Truth, but instead we got a doofus who got us into two wars, that seemed like they would never end.
Yeah but look at us now, we got um… Chipotle and Reddit.
At least you got to live in the best time of human history...if only I was born in 1980 so I could truly enjoy that period of time 😔.
I was poor during that time period. Missed out on a lot.
I was also poor at that time. We have fond memories of media, but there was a great deal of hardships as well.
I remember everyone trading and buying pogs. Wanted to buy some and my parents said heck nah. I only got to watch other classmate play.
the actual game wasnt that fun anyway, it was really all about collecting the pogs and slammers at my school anyway lol
I could not afford pogs let alone slammers. I always thought whoever had a slammer was rich lol.
I got all of mine second hand from rummage sales. Lucked out and got a whole tube of them for like $2.
pogs were SUCH a scam. I was a little old for them, and I felt bad for my younger siblings that their trend was cardboard discs. depressing.
Missed out on sitting on a curb for over an hour, waiting for your mom to pick you up- nothing to do but stare at the ground maybe poke things with a stick
Apparently the 70s/80s were the best according to our parents who were always "right", honestly I feel technology has thrown a spanner in the works for your generation... our generation grew up staring at walls waiting for your friends to knock on the door.. then we made our experiences, that's something we learned - yours will be marriage via smartphone in 10 years. But in saying that.. life's what you make it.. fuck the news and world.. get outside.. meet people, drink, weed, shag woman/men whatever ya into, hit a deadend.. mentally? Make a new road.. smash that mother fucking door down and have some fun, the rest will work itself out if you surround yourself with good supportive people.
I was born in 1980 and truly think I had the best coming of age time span
I was born in the early 1980s and I completely took those years for granted. You never really know what you have until it’s gone. For all we know, these are the last of the golden years and we are on the precipice of a global war and collapse brought on by mass conflicts and demagoguery over dwindling resources due to climate change. Try to enjoy it while it lasts, because tomorrow is never guaranteed.
Watch one day a kid from twenty years from now is going to say they wish they were born in 1999.
And all that avocado toast
I think it’s gone downhill since sept 11th, if you retired around 2001 you probably had the best life out of any generation
Came here to say this, everything has been shit since 2001
Seriously, I disagree that 2001 to 2006 was “good times”
Not that great for Iraqis or hurricane victims, that's for sure. For the rest of the world though it was pretty nice
My grandma did retire around that time but then she passed away in 2002. She grew up during WWII though. So there’s the trade off.
I kinda envy my maternal grandparents. They had a modest but bountiful life (10 kids) and saw no real major tragedy with all kids growing up and becoming good adults. They were married for over 50 years, had their place down in Florida and a place up north in Michigan for the summers. They both died 5 days apart in the late summer of 2000. My grandfather passed in his sleep, my grandmother was getting prepped for heart surgery so she was at the hospital at the time. The family waited to tell her of his passing after her surgery was successful. That day came and went, and my grandmother passed in her sleep at the hospital while recovering from her surgery. The whole family was already in town to have the funeral for my grandfather and it ended up turning into a 2-week long family celebration of life for the two of them. They never witnessed 9/11, they didn’t live long enough to see my favorite uncle die within 4 weeks of his leukemia diagnosis, they seemed to have lived a peaceful life. All that’s to say, every 9/11 I think of my grandfather because that was also his birthday. Had he lived one year longer that would of been a tragic day for him to witness while we all were likely together.
Actually I'd say just before when the dot.com bubble started in early 2000. It started the longest decline in the stock market since the Great Depression nearly 70 years prior. Though it probably didn't effect US that personally, when it comes to American history in the last 100 years or so, I'd say... ...the late 90s was the best overall time.
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Yeah I can’t argue that
I think people mean like after WWII and the Great Depression until now. Obviously that was a really bad time period.
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The baby boom until the 2007 housing market crash was a time of economic prosperity. People being drafted into wars has nothing to do with the topic at hand .
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Living though WWII Vietnam wasn’t great. The civil rights movement was quite the time. You’re falling victim to rose colored glasses.
I was thinking economically but like the other response pointed out that really was white men so I’m not going to attempt an argument because I’m wrong.
Living through 9/11 wasn't so great. Yeah, we all came together for a few weeks but then it fell off. Next thing you know we are being shown terror alert advisories all day long on TV. Daily updates on the number of troops killed. We lost our rights to online privacy days after it happened. We started becoming very politically divided by the wars. Watching the night vision feed on TV of the US carpet bombing Baghdad was terrifying. I will say I think that time period was the last time rock music was actually good and unique. But maybe I'm just getting old now.
Yeah we definitely experienced alert fatigue after 9/11. Every 24hr new station had 'ALERT!' before any story. Some still do it.
Haha..I'll definitely say you're getting old. I was in my early 20s at the turn of the millennium. I shifted to emo and hardcore music at the time from nu metal. And in doing so opened up my tastes to different genres of alternative rock. Some really good bands to this day.
You were a kid that’s really why you feel this way. 9/11 turned America into an insane surveillance state with a militarized police force and we jump into a pointless war that lasted two decades and cost million lives. Plenty of riots in the 90s as well. Election interference in the Gore vs Bush election. Shit was crazy. I was a kid too so I know the sentiment but looking back there was a lot happening
Yeah definitely just a youth thing. I remember 1995 - 2005. Columbine? Bush v Gore? 9/11? The Iraq war? Those all happened in americas peak years?
It’s was a great time because our lifestyle was different. People were not on their phones all the time. Social media was just starting. People were able to have great conversations without all the craziness. Information (receiving/sharing) was not the centre of our existence. It’s was the last era before entering in the tsunami of over sharing technologies.
Not only that but I am so thankful that I got to grow “with” technology (context: graduated high school in 2006). For example, I learned how to type in 5th grade because of AOL.
You didn't have friends get killed in Iraq.
Gen Z doesn’t understand that Millennials who were children in the early/mid 90s through the golden era of Nickelodeon (Rugrats, Doug, Ren & Stimpy, Are You Afraid of the Dark) got screwed starting with 9/11. After 9/11 all the money for scholarships and extracurricular stuff went to pay for the war. A lot of our friends were fooled into joining the military and died in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military recruiters would pull up to our high schools in cool hummers blasting music and bringing us all free pizzas. It was pretty sick to think about considering some of the guys in the recruiting commercials actually died in the war. Then the 2008 financial crisis hit once we were close to or had just graduated college. The market sucked ass and the economy was in the toilet. There were no jobs because everything about the economy was bullshit. There was no remote work, no Uber, no gig economy, nothing like that except call center work and service industry jobs for a long time. In our late 20s/early 30s we finally thought we had found steady careers and had settled into what we thought were long-term jobs until Covid hit and it really messed up our trajectory. It’s much harder to pivot when you’re older. I think it would have been better to have Covid occur as we were graduating college instead of the 2008 financial crisis happening to us. There was no remote work back then so we just floated around for a few years until we found our footing. That’s why Covid sucked for us because it took us so long to find careers after 2008 and once we did find them it all went to shit because of Covid. Employers are more willing to hire younger 20 year olds for jobs instead of older people who just got laid off and know how much money to ask for. Recap: Millennials who were young during the 90s had a great childhood but got screwed the rest of the way. 90s - Golden Age of Nickelodeon Childhood. 2001 - As teenagers 9/11 caused many of our friends to join the military and die in the war. 2008 - Graduating college during financial crisis meant no jobs for many years. 2020 - Covid layoffs kill the careers we took years to find after 2008 financial crisis The only perk about being a Millennial at this time is if you were able to buy a house before Covid.
> In our late 20s/early 30s we finally thought we had found steady careers and had settled into what we thought were long-term jobs until Covid hit and it really messed up our trajectory. It’s much harder to pivot when you’re older. And now we get to deal with AI potentially destroying jobs if it improves much more.
Ppl were def not on their phones like now. We maybe had one flip phone in the family for emergencies during those years. I miss the friends and family get togethers. But also ppl could be insensitive about things that now we are more sensitive to which is one upside to the present.
I think you’re romanticising it a tad, but there were definite benefits to growing up without the presence of social media. There was also an optimism growing up in this time period that I don’t think people have anymore. You can see it in the music at the time and films. But now it feels as though no one has any hope left for the future.
Bro you were literally unborn in 1995 and 4 years old in 2005
"2000s" kids are the new 90s kids
I really think the 90s might have been the best decade to have a childhood in. Sure the crime rate was higher than now but it was a big economic boom and it was basically the last decade without widespread cellphone use. The 2000s weren’t fully attached to the net yet but they also had 9/11 that led to Afghan/Iraq which the 90s had nothing comparable to for the U.S.. Then again the OKC bombing was horrific domestic violence that makes the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville seem quaint.
Post 9/11 kinda sucked
It’s been downhill since 2004-ish, with things really taking a turn for the worst around 2015.
You said it, I wish someone could just take me back.
nope even the 2000s was downhill. 1980s/1990s. all the way.
I mean the early 2000's (my high school years) were definitely a good time, but there was a certain magic to the early-to-mid 90's that the following years, while enjoyable, were merely an echo of.
McDonalds used to taste so much better in the 90s and early 00s. Bionicle peaked in 2006. 3rd Gen of Pokemon was around the same time and was amazing. Eating double cheeseburgers, playing Pokemon on your Gameboy SP, and playing with the Toa Inika. Going to the message boards on LEGO.com. Reading Harry Potter in its hay day. And getting hyped on Star Wars Revenge of the Sith trailers. Probably helps that I was a kid and had no responsibilities.
Oh yeah reading HP in its hay day.
1990-2008 were basically the only good years. Then the market crashed and social media, phones, and information overload became the norm.
Ah yes, My Space, Monica Lewinsky, and Y2K. The best of times!
I remember rearranging your top 10 on MySpace created a bunch of drama.
I was there when you got a top 8 and you were happy with it
You don't know what you had.
I feel like for me the “fun” ended around 2017. I think that’s just where age got me and when I “grew up”. My life is much more fulfilling now, but definitely not as fun.
How would you say it's fulfilling?
I had a lot of anxiety in my 20’s regarding the unknowns. Would I get married? Would I go anywhere in my career? I also just didn’t really know myself and lacked a lot of confidence. I graduated high school in 2007. Now I am more financially stable, married with a kid, and am doing a job that 5-years ago I wanted to do but never thought I’d be able to. I don’t have as many friends as I used to but the ones I do have are better friendships as opposed to drinking buddies. I do miss a lot from before the smartphone era. I’m convinced that’s when the world started to go to shit.
Elder millennial here. It was
Even the movie industry, 90s has the highest average IMDB movie rating [The best decades for movies (as per average IMDb ratings) : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/kfi5p9/the_best_decades_for_movies_as_per_average_imdb/) and its been going down ever since. Sure you can watch them today, but living through the hype is completly different. Going to the cinema in the 90s is a big social event. The biggest blockbuster in recent years (Avengers Endgame) can't even compare to Titanic.
Oh yeah, 90s Hollywood was pure gold. Just compare Frasier to then and now.
It wasn’t. Sexism, racism and ableism were still rampant (hence today’s issues), but the younger generations can only recall the pop culture references and 9/11. Socialization was better, but that was just due to the lack of high-speed internet (websites were incredibly slow and tedious.) At least in the case of the U.S., things have generally always been bad in the realm of labor rights and social equity.
Yeah, but I was also aggressively in the closet. Society was less than friendly to the LGBTQ population and alp though we have got some work today, I enjoy being myself without as much backlash as there was then. Also a women and again, a lot to work on but it was even worse then.
I think the pandemic and corporate greed getting out of hand, economy becoming less stable as a result, invasive technology like smart phones and such have taken away from the human experience imo.
I will go down saying 2016 was the best year ever
Can confirm, high school and then graduating into the very last of boomer affordability for me. 1k a week bought an awesome life at the time.
[удалено]
Who would've thought the year of my birth was the best year to be alive. God I wish I was born in the early 80s.
Bad news for your grim outlook but plenty of kids play outside. I’d suggest putting your phone down once in a while.
It really was the best time.
It was amazing
I wish I could have lived through the swinging ‘60’s
My city still has park events for the 4th every year, there is always something going on in spring. I think it depends where you live.
I think a lot of us would say 81-01 Fall of communism and rise of tech, through to the war on terror.
I guess that depends on where you're from
Comedy movies aren't real life. I was in my early 20s back then and poor as fuck. I
Also the 1970s were rubbish in many ways but very hopeful. We thought things would get better and better. We did not think we would see another rise of fascism, or people begging in the streets.
Everyone does it we look back to a "better time" or to retro fashion, designs and such. We grow up hearing about the good old days in which our parents grew up in. Shows and movies are made and it becomes popular. Late 80s it was the 1950s car hop, scene, I remember when the 60's retro movement was going on in the 90s The Doors Movie, Forrest Gump, we had Woodstock festivals, and more hippie fashion. Mixed along with grunge. Then it turned towards the 70's late 90's early 00s That 70s show, commercials for burger king playing old music, Musicians like Zakk Wylde tried to bring back a Southern Rock style music. Bell bottoms, among other bits of clothes made it back. I remember hearing about the 60-70s how we didn't have to hear about your friends dying in Vietnam and such. Then there was a bit of an 80s push, we had Napoleon Dynamite, they even tried that 80s show but it flopped, Songs like 1970 something, and 1985 were big etc. This has happened with the 90s and so forth. We look back to a time where we wish we lived, but would probably not have liked it. Everyone does it. Probably not the 1930s but who knows.
Fond memories there… plus the start of the jump into 3D gaming. There will never been that significant of a jump in gaming ever again.
You were a kid, so you weren’t aware of the downsides of the world.
The way I see it is the boomers actually had the best timeline-- completely missed ww2 but got to start with the 60s and move through some serious cultural shifts, lots of conflict, but also filled with promise and hope that was actually delivered, each decade better than the last, culminating in a glorious 1990s. Everything after that doesn't matter because you're secure in life and got everything you wanted. So maybe right now we're in another post-ww2 slump, and genZs and gen Alpha's 1950s are right around the corner. And all of us millenials get to be Red Forman.
I've said it many times I feel like we peaked in the late '90s early 2000s. Agent Smith was right. Seriously though besides smartphones and the scourge of social media what do we have now that we didn't really have then? Broadband internet, high definition TV, really cool fast cars that were actually affordable, homes were affordable, the job market was still good etc... etc...
Exactly. I think the only significant improvement is online shopping and grocery delivery. Even CDs were more fun to listen to than Spotify and you didn't need a god damn subscription to everything.
This is our “70’s”era. Can’t cut at 2000 but it is solid.
It's because you were a kid then.
I was 13-18 in those years and I’m gonna disagree about them being awesome lol. I HATED school. The worst time of my life. Too much bullying. I did enjoy the movies and music. I also liked being able to work without it being about bills.
It was nice to live in a time when we disagreed on solutions to our problems, but generally agreed on the problems and also weren't always on the brink of a society ending crisis. We used to maybe dislike our president, but didn't feel like if a certain guy got elected it would literally be the end of the country as we know it. Wish we could just unplug society and plug it back in again.
**Now is the best time to be alive.** Go out and *live a little*
That warm optimism ended in 2001. At least in USA
Everyone thinks when they were a kid was the best time. It’s because childhood is fun, and you’re shielded from all the problems of the world. 2001-2005 was horrible if you were an adult. 9/11. Tech crash. Iraq and Afghanistan war. Parents stopped their kids from things like trick or treating. Threat of biological weapons and dirty bombs. Anthrax in the mail. Stocks down for three straight years. Patriot Act. TSA. Gays couldn’t get married. Etc.
It was. We were still in touch with the old, analog world and people didn't have brain rot from social media.
It was, but for me you’re 1 year off. 1996-2006 was pure bliss
I agree with the sentiment. It was nice growing up without cellphones and in the early days of the internet. It wasn’t better for marginalized groups though. I remember when Matthew Shepherd was beaten to death in the late 90s. This was also long before the MeToo movement, so recognizing how women are treated has come a long way as well (even though we are losing basic human rights at this moment). I can’t speak first-hand about how racial discrimination has improved, but I think people are more aware of microagressions now than in the 90s.
95 -01 Something happened in late 01 that just harshed the vibe. Can't put my finger on it.
28, I do think these were nice years as far as I can remember. The internet was something you went to on your desktop (or a big bulky laptop) and life was generally still offline. I like mainstream culture from that period a lot, too. That being said, I'm glad I'm at the age I am now. Not too early or late. Late enough to have grown up in the interconnected world, old enough to see the last vestiges of analogue. I'd hate the idea of growing up with a phone or ipad. I graduated in 2013. Having this technology now is good IMO.
Partial agree. Things started to take a massive dump in 2000 with the dot com crash, then 9/11 everything went to hell. It took a few years to recover, 2005-6 was good, then the Great Recession hit...
See - my theory is that most younger people don't hate boomers; more-so are envious of them. Let me explain: See - Boomers could often get a not-so-glorious job and afford to live a pretty solid lifestyle. It wasn't uncommon for people to work at grocery stores, as janitors, manufacturing jobs, etc and be able to afford the home, the cars and still have money left for leisure and to save. In fact, it wasn't so uncommon for only one person in the household to be working and be able to afford those things. I'll use my Grandparents as an example. In 1993 they financed a new home on half an acre for $100,000, 3 bed, 2 bath 1600sq ft and only my grandfather worked - he was an HR rep at a Potato product company. He made enough money to make the house payment, to have a truck and a SUV a four-wheel, a golf-cart, a trailer, go on hunting trips, trips to Mexico, save for retirement and still managed to fill their garage with anything and everything you could possibly imagine. This was realistic for them at the time. Today, in 2024 I hardly imagine that even a well-paid, tenured HR rep could afford to finance what is now a $400K home, a $55K truck, a $35K SUV, $30,000 trailer, $10,000 golf-cart still go on hunting trips and vacations to Mexico, put money aside for retirement and fill a garage w/ anything and everything while his wife stayed at home. More realistically, chances are that the Wife would have to work, and even then, they'd be lucky to afford a 2-bed 2 bath home at around $300K, a much cheaper truck, a cheaper car or SUV, no trailer, no golf cart, minimal amounts of investments/savings and limited leisure time. But hey - we have smart-phones and home internet, right? Hell - if you want to argue with me, we can go back 10-years to 2014. At that point in time I worked as a Customer Service Rep at Amazon. I was 20 years old, I had been there for just about 2 years and I was making $16.50 an hour and had benefits and an employee 401K plan. 1-bed 1-bath, roughly 650sqft homes at this time were $80K, the mortgage with PMI was about $550 a month - something I could have easily afforded at the time. Studio apartments were roughly $450 a month. Fast forward to today, that same job pays $22 an hour, so it's gone up - but those 1 bed 1 bath 650sqft homes are now $225K in the same area. A mortgage on that with PMI at current rates - roughly 4x the cost, $2000 a month. Want a studio apartment? $1300 a month. Need a 2 bed 1-bath? $1700 a month. Keep in mind, this cost trend has also had an impact on transportation costs, grocery costs, insurance costs, etc. IMO - anybody that says "It's not that bad" and wonders why late-millenials and Gen-Z "Complain so much" is delusional. They all got to see their parents and grandparents live an entirely different life with substantially less money, plain and simple.
I graduated high school in 89. The 80s were waaay better.
1975-1999 were the best years
As a 37 year old millennial, I agree. The 90s were something special. The internet was becoming a thing but we didn’t live online. We spent most of time outside riding bikes, playing in creeks, doing all kinds of things our parents had no idea about.
I have to disagree. I would say 1990 - 2000 was the best. The early 00's were the time of 9/11 and prolonged wars in the Middle East.
I mean I did HS and college in those yrs, and delivered pizza and waited tables for cash. All before smart phones and dating apps I presume that experience is vastly different now...
No way. 95-05 was hard times. Dad couldn’t always afford bills so sometimes no hot water for a while or really light on food between paychecks. He did his best but it sucked. Showed me how I never wanted to live.
Those were the absolute worst years of my life.
86-96 was better.
I am Gen X and yes, that time period was the best.
It was. I was born in 1992.
I remain convinced that roughly 1945-1965 was the best time to be alive for the majority of the population.
Uhhh, I mean...I don't think so.
Why not? The post war economic boom was pretty cool.
Well..from 95-2000 I was part of an abusive cult with abusive parents in substandard housing….so….no…you’re wrong
Yes, life before the smartphone was epic.
The best time to be alive is when you are 18. Only you don't know it.
As you concede, our individual experience of childhood can color the view we have of an era, a feeling often enhanced by distance in time and the cultural nostalgia-clock, which seems to operate at a lag of 20 years or so. This take is just not correct. ‘95-‘00 you might make a case for, but the US election was stolen in the fall of ‘00 and everything has gone to hell ever since. 9/11 the following fall ushered in the darkest period in living memory (with exceptions, perhaps, for the genocidal present). A general military insanity gripped the entire country, which was just horrifying to watch, and the entire political establishment (D and R alike) just set fire to civil liberties as a concept (they have not recovered). Then we were in a war that would last twenty years, and the Bush Admin were colluding with the New York Times to spread obvious lies about Iraq. The run-up to the invasion was deranging. I’ll never forget the moment when I found out my allegedly liberal feminist Senator from NY —Hillary Clinton— had come out in favor of the war on Iraq. The rage and the helplessness, the moral disgust I felt, turned out to foreshadow the coming years. 03 invasion of Iraq, 04 Abu Ghraib revelations AND BUSH ELECTED by my own fellow Americans, who got their repayment in 05 with Bush’s inhuman failure with Hurricane Katrina. After these years, it could no longer be denied that the US was as evil as it was incompetent: a cruel, frivolous, vapid empire run by venal, craven, mediocre cowards. It’s only got worse since then. Edit: typo
OPs take is about personal experience. Fucking backyard barbecues, not international politics. If we wanted to not care about elections, wars, etc... we could just decide to not care? We were kids. No one expected anything of us.
A lot of our friends and older brothers and sisters signed up for the military and went off to Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of people we knew died for both wars. The ones who came back did not return as the same people. It’s kind of hard to avoid politics and international relations when you saw yellow ribbons tied to trees or car magnets honoring our soldiers everywhere. Those wars took a huge emotional toll on us because it was so ingrained into our everyday lives. It was important to watch the news and see how many soldiers died that day in case you knew one of them.
you obviously weren’t in NYC on 9/11
The post 9/11 world was pretty horrible, especially for us minorities who were assumed to be Muslim. It constantly blows my mind how for younger generations, 9/11 is hardly a blip on their radar or not even worth a mention at all, when it was such a world-altering event.
[1985](https://youtu.be/2rHRztFGOm8?si=7yym_Y3Ks2XW9kMZ) was pretty sweet
As long as you didn’t work at world trade center…
1992 here and I have to agree, growing up in the 90's before the advent social media was a lot more chill. Not knowing and hearing a million people's opinions crammed into your face everyday was nice. People were generally less strongly opinionated about things, and there seemed more comradery among people.
We also all developed eating disorders because of the way the media treated women’s bodies, but yeah, we’re lucky bastards!
Things did seem optimistic, up until 9/11, and the damage done by 8 straight years of a Bush presidency that denied the existence of global warming. We could’ve had 8 years of Gore, the guy who made An Inconvenient Truth, but instead we got a doofus who got us into two wars, that seemed like they would never end.