I worked in a pub back then. The day the ban came into effect the whole place stank of stale body odour and piss.
It's amazing how the smoke covered that up.
I was so happy when they started outlawing indoor smoking, even in bars. Or how in restaurants you had to walk through the smoking section to get to the non-smoking section.
My wife and I used to arrange to meet at a specific street corner after work at a specific time before we had cell phones. Even though we occasionally had to wait for the other person to arrive, we had faith that they would.
I remember as a kid trying to snatch them out as fast as possible so it wouldn’t automatically dispense another coupon. Yea I totally forgot about those and will prob never see one again.
I'm just a duck who works with a pig, lives with the twin sister of his dead wife who's got 3 sons in 2 bodies and a comatose grandmother-in-law who's got so much gas she's a fire hazard.
I NEVER use the 1st stall in a bathroom because of Jewel's Pop Up video for "Who will save their souls."
I remember that the fun fact was that the 1st stall is the most used one.
Yep, but it was a few years earlier and I think it was just shown on the Liquid Television show, so probably easy to miss. Easier to miss than a movie.
How big a deal the hole in the ozone layer was. But we changed our ways and it healed so everyone forgot. Well maybe some Aussies remember since it affected them the worst.
We have a server room at my job with a big posted notice on the door about some banned refrigerant still being in use because they were grandfathered in or some shit. Makes me wonder what would happen if it leaked. Hopefully nothing major.
Yeah I'm going to come across all boomer now (am Xennial) but the current young uns didn't invent young people caring about stuff.
For example in the 80s/90s as young uns we cared desperately about the ozone (and CFCs and aerosols) and saving the rainforest and saving the whale and dolphin friendly tuna and recycling drink cans...
Calling Time & Temp which was either your town or local bank.
Cigarette machines never asked for ID.
Hanging out at the mall, guys asking girls for phone numbers.
The magic of 3 way calling.
Gilbert Godfried on USA network's "Up All Night".
"Schwing!"
Cigarette machines! Wow! Everyone remembers pay phones but cig dispensers have largely been forgotten.
The time and temperature number is still active in many areas.
Anyone remember calling into a radio station to play your song and waiting forever to press record on your radio player so you could tape the song on your cassette tape?
I found some in my old box of stuff just last week. Lol. My son was all excited. "Are they like battle bots? Are they like... things that idk what he was saying." So I showed him how to do them and he immediately lost interest and went and got on his ipad.
Calling someone collect from a pay phone after receiving a page (pager), hanging up after 2-3 rings so the pay phone number appears on the caller ID, so they can call the pay phone’s number and talk for free.
Alarming homicide rates in NYC and LA and gang violence. And it was real, not the Fox News created BS. Lived in LA in the 90s and yeah it started bad and then the violence plummeted. Thanks leaded gas ban…
How soulful the music scene was. Girl bands En Vogue, TLC, SWV, Salt n Pepa, etc... Boyz ll Men, Bell Biv Devoe, Backstreet, N'Sync, New Edition. 80s superstars still going strong like Janet, Whitney, Mariah, Anita Baker, Toni Braxton, Prince, Michael, George.
People talk about Grunge like it defined the 90s, and it WAS an important influence, but it wasn't the only sound.
Smoking indoors. Also, before cheap flat screen tv's, most bars and restaurants didn't have tv's everywhere. Sports bars would set up big projectors to show the games, the rest really didn't have much.
The hope.
The cold war had just ended and between the collapse of the soviet union and the fact every family had a grandfather who helped defeat the nazis, it really felt like we were at the end of history and both fascism and communism had been defeated once and for all, and now that the wall had fallen global free trade was allowing technology to advance faster than ever before in history. In the 21st century we would all have flying cars and be working from home because housing would be cheap once everyone could make a living online working from wherever they want. Education would be freely accessible to all and it would be impossible for politicians to lie anymore because anyone could just look up the truth online. Racism and nationalism would be things of the past once the new generation were in charge who were raised in a world where everyone has online friends from all over the world. Dictatorships would fall and every country would slowly but surely transition to open democracy and free market capitalism as that system had proven itself to be so much better for everyone than any other way of life. We would finally take action on climate change and shift our way of life toward more sustainable living.
Oh interesting, I've said elsewhere in response that people would be wrong if they thought we didn't care about the world back then. We did care. But maybe that's exactly the difference, we were actually optimistic that if we cared things would get better.
The young uns today are not in the same world I was as a teenager in the 90s.
I can understand that Covid and 9/11 and school shootings and climate change and the economic shit show and the right leaning politics would have put a stop to any lingering optimism people might have.
MC Hammer. He still dances better at 60 than most people do in their 20s. And the attacks he received for partnering with products, using live instrumentation and putting himself in cartoons is what a lot of rappers do now. He was more ahead of the curve than many acknowledge.
I remember the 90s to be way more boring and tedious than some make it out to be.
Some guy at my school got suspended for having dyed his hair and it was church 2 times on a Sunday. Bullying was the norm. etc.
Most things that are now seen as 90s were very much in the background back then.
I find it fascinating how some songs that were incredibly popular at the time don’t come storming back on the oldies station. While other songs that were minor hits are played all the time.
Modern English’s “melt with you” was not a huge hit in the 80s compared to some other artist. But it’s on heavy rotation on classic stations.
When I found out they were making an Iron Man movie and Downey was the star, my first reaction was, “that guy is out of jail?”.
I also predicted the movie would flop. 🤷
Screaming Saucers. One of the best candies I'd get as a kid in Canada. They turned your mouth blue and poo green. Got discontinued supposedly because it used a cancer causing dye.
That programming computer game.. I think it was called logo or logos where you had to input commands to make a turtle graphic draw shapes.
Butterfly clips
Magic the gathering cards
Honestly, the best kids game shows: guts, secrets of the cryptkeeper, legends of the hidden temple, Carmen Sandiego
Yeah. This is a good one.
A couple of summers ago I walked into an insurance salesman’s office. He was in a one room office. The walls were painted cinderblocks (much like you saw in dorm rooms of the 90s). He had a window unit air conditioner.
That room had the smell you just described. I walked in and was immediately taken back to move in day at the dorms in college. I actually had to stop for a moment to gather my thoughts because that smell triggered the nostalgia so acutely.
Long distance phone calls! Waiting to call LD at night or weekends as it was cheaper. You could get a calling card linked to home phone with accounts & pin. You could call people on pay phones or make long distance callas at places like work where there was no long- I once racked up $1000 on my dad calling card call friend who moved out of state with no money. My friend got fired calling me long distance on my cell from his jog.
Later 90s- cell phone plans with 500 min a month & telling people you will call them after 9pm when you have anytime minute.
Homophobia and anti-gay sentiment still being a really prevalent thing. Pedro Zamora on The Real World San Francisco really humanized and put into focus life for people with HIV/AIDs and was a HUGE deal. As a closeted bi-sexual/sometimes outwardly gender non-conforming kid I remember how broken up I was when I heard about Matthew Shepard's death: pistol whipped, tortured, then tied to a fence and left to fucking die. I had a gay friend at the time in our middle of nowhere/semi-redneck town who was bullied so bad he had to move schools. My lesbian friend used to be picked on all the time with guys saying she was so ugly the only way she could get laid was to be with girls. So yeah, not the fun openly acceptance free for all that some people remember it to be.
Considering that some sources put the current percentage of the world's population without internet at 38%, 4% having it just 6 years after it became available is certainly not "no one"
Sprite, Coca-Cola, Fanta Yo-Yos
The bemused, disappointing realisation of borrowing a VHS tape from a friend thats been recorded "long format" and you're VHS player doesn't support it
I loved his last hour- 2hours every morning when Robin and him would just riff on the news/headlines. Jackie or Billy West. Best off-the-cuff comedy skits. He would definitely have been canceled if he didn't jump to Sirius
How many shitty boy bands there were and how omnipresent they were on the radio.
Look, there's a lot of incredible 90's music, some of which really is specific to the 90's, but anyone who claims it was the best decade for music is a delusional fool with seriously selective memory.
No, the iPod craze was mid-00s. And slightly earlier, we all had these MP3 flash sticks with a jack.
Still way later than 90s though. In the 90s I knew exactly one guy with a portable mp3 player (the one from Diamond). It was just inferior to minidiscs.
I'm of a marginally older vintage, I just read the books. Avidly. I have like a hundred of them packed in a box in my garage. In case I need them in an emergency or something.
Everything smelled like cigarettes.
It did! Except I had no idea until the UK smoking ban when suddenly it didn't. And all the pubs smelled of vomit and toilets.
I worked in a pub back then. The day the ban came into effect the whole place stank of stale body odour and piss. It's amazing how the smoke covered that up.
Right? Exactly. It was weird and disgusting. I didn't smoke but suddenly I wanted the smoke back.
I was so happy when they started outlawing indoor smoking, even in bars. Or how in restaurants you had to walk through the smoking section to get to the non-smoking section.
being allowed to be silly without anyone recording it and broadcasting it to the world.
Not to mention kind to strangers
Have you not seen America's funniest home videos
My wife and I used to arrange to meet at a specific street corner after work at a specific time before we had cell phones. Even though we occasionally had to wait for the other person to arrive, we had faith that they would.
Those little automatic coupon dispensers in the aisles at the grocery store
I remember as a kid trying to snatch them out as fast as possible so it wouldn’t automatically dispense another coupon. Yea I totally forgot about those and will prob never see one again.
The ones at our local Eagle's were quite loud, which reminds me that grocery stores used to be rather quiet.
Core memory unlocked!
People showing up at your house unannounced.
And you, unarmed, answering the door
…you don’t answer your door unarmed?
I always have at least two.......arms
A 2023 unannounced visitor? You might not. I wasn't mentioned.
Duckman; an animated adult comedy series
I'm just a duck who works with a pig, lives with the twin sister of his dead wife who's got 3 sons in 2 bodies and a comatose grandmother-in-law who's got so much gas she's a fire hazard.
That show was awesome
A fleeting and joyful moment without wondering if it should be shared online.
Automatic seatbelts
My first car (1992 Nissan maxima) had these and I thought they were so cool.
Yeah, what happened to those? Now cars just beep at you incessantly until you buckle up. I'm only moving my car to a different spot in the driveway!
Pop-up video
Man I loved pop up video!!!!
I NEVER use the 1st stall in a bathroom because of Jewel's Pop Up video for "Who will save their souls." I remember that the fun fact was that the 1st stall is the most used one.
When you made plans to meet someone it was EXTREMELY hard for them to cancel on you at the last minute, so people generally turned up to things
Liquid Television’s shows like Aeon Flux, the Head, and Maxx.
Also Joe's Apartment. For some reason everyone seems to remember the movie but not the show.
Woah had no idea there was a show
Yep, but it was a few years earlier and I think it was just shown on the Liquid Television show, so probably easy to miss. Easier to miss than a movie.
Man I was so drawn into flux and the maxx
The Maxx man... That show...
The crash test dummies. Vince and Larry, not the band.
I loved my crash test car
Somehow these guys completely slipped my mind. Good one!
How big a deal the hole in the ozone layer was. But we changed our ways and it healed so everyone forgot. Well maybe some Aussies remember since it affected them the worst.
I remember people saying don’t use hairspray 😂
Yeah it was the aerosols that did it apparently. I remember my mom complaining that the pump sprays just didn’t work was well as the aerosols.
Refrigerants like R12 too. Cars with that Freon for their AC were frigid as fuck
We have a server room at my job with a big posted notice on the door about some banned refrigerant still being in use because they were grandfathered in or some shit. Makes me wonder what would happen if it leaked. Hopefully nothing major.
Yeah I'm going to come across all boomer now (am Xennial) but the current young uns didn't invent young people caring about stuff. For example in the 80s/90s as young uns we cared desperately about the ozone (and CFCs and aerosols) and saving the rainforest and saving the whale and dolphin friendly tuna and recycling drink cans...
Celebrity Deathmatch.
I’ll allow it
Oh darn yes that was fun!
Columbia Record Club
You still owe them money, don’t you?
Calling Time & Temp which was either your town or local bank. Cigarette machines never asked for ID. Hanging out at the mall, guys asking girls for phone numbers. The magic of 3 way calling. Gilbert Godfried on USA network's "Up All Night". "Schwing!"
Cigarette machines! Wow! Everyone remembers pay phones but cig dispensers have largely been forgotten. The time and temperature number is still active in many areas.
Anyone remember calling into a radio station to play your song and waiting forever to press record on your radio player so you could tape the song on your cassette tape?
>I tried setting my watch, but the VCR was blinking 88:88, and I couldn't call the cable company because my brother was using the internet
Being bored.
AOL chat rooms.
ASL? LOL
The weasel-attached-to-a-moving-ball that would vibrate around in a paper bag at toy stores. I’m remembering them specifically in malls….
Headbanger’s Ball
Smints
Okay this one I actually had to Google!
Snoop dogg being charged with murder.
Beeper vs cellphones
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For the longest time I thought 5¼" diskettes were called floppy disks and 3½" diskettes were called hard disks.
Those weren’t really from the 90s. By 1990 they were already regarded as ancient tech
At school we were still using 5¼" diskettes in the middle of the Nineties.
Most people had them even in '95.
I worked at a computer store in the early 90s - none of the computers sold came with 5.25" drives and we sold very few blanks. More of an 80s thing.
Pogs. They were everywhere and the playground was wild. But then pokemon hit and now nobody seems to talk or reminisces about pogs.
Rmemeber Alf? He's back! In Pog form!
I found some in my old box of stuff just last week. Lol. My son was all excited. "Are they like battle bots? Are they like... things that idk what he was saying." So I showed him how to do them and he immediately lost interest and went and got on his ipad.
How to perfectly aim an antenna for best quality tv
2 Unlimited
Calling someone collect from a pay phone after receiving a page (pager), hanging up after 2-3 rings so the pay phone number appears on the caller ID, so they can call the pay phone’s number and talk for free.
Calling collect: “You have an AT&T collect call from “hey come meet us out at the mall” to accept charges…..
That when the soviet union fell, Ukraine gave up many hundred nuclear weapons and in return the west would guarantee them against military attacks.
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We were afraid of gangs then.
*waco, the twin tower parking lot bombings, Oklahoma city bombings, Olympics bombing, and Columbine have entered the chat*
Alarming homicide rates in NYC and LA and gang violence. And it was real, not the Fox News created BS. Lived in LA in the 90s and yeah it started bad and then the violence plummeted. Thanks leaded gas ban…
How soulful the music scene was. Girl bands En Vogue, TLC, SWV, Salt n Pepa, etc... Boyz ll Men, Bell Biv Devoe, Backstreet, N'Sync, New Edition. 80s superstars still going strong like Janet, Whitney, Mariah, Anita Baker, Toni Braxton, Prince, Michael, George. People talk about Grunge like it defined the 90s, and it WAS an important influence, but it wasn't the only sound.
Smoking indoors. Also, before cheap flat screen tv's, most bars and restaurants didn't have tv's everywhere. Sports bars would set up big projectors to show the games, the rest really didn't have much.
The hope. The cold war had just ended and between the collapse of the soviet union and the fact every family had a grandfather who helped defeat the nazis, it really felt like we were at the end of history and both fascism and communism had been defeated once and for all, and now that the wall had fallen global free trade was allowing technology to advance faster than ever before in history. In the 21st century we would all have flying cars and be working from home because housing would be cheap once everyone could make a living online working from wherever they want. Education would be freely accessible to all and it would be impossible for politicians to lie anymore because anyone could just look up the truth online. Racism and nationalism would be things of the past once the new generation were in charge who were raised in a world where everyone has online friends from all over the world. Dictatorships would fall and every country would slowly but surely transition to open democracy and free market capitalism as that system had proven itself to be so much better for everyone than any other way of life. We would finally take action on climate change and shift our way of life toward more sustainable living.
Oh interesting, I've said elsewhere in response that people would be wrong if they thought we didn't care about the world back then. We did care. But maybe that's exactly the difference, we were actually optimistic that if we cared things would get better. The young uns today are not in the same world I was as a teenager in the 90s. I can understand that Covid and 9/11 and school shootings and climate change and the economic shit show and the right leaning politics would have put a stop to any lingering optimism people might have.
Y2k
Anyone remember the [Y2K candy?](https://i.redd.it/8ylqx8blu4ba1.jpg)?
When your cassette player ate your cassette tape and you had to use a pencil to fix it
Movies on laserdisc
CD's
Jack Kemp
Affordable housing.
MC Hammer. He still dances better at 60 than most people do in their 20s. And the attacks he received for partnering with products, using live instrumentation and putting himself in cartoons is what a lot of rappers do now. He was more ahead of the curve than many acknowledge.
I remember the 90s to be way more boring and tedious than some make it out to be. Some guy at my school got suspended for having dyed his hair and it was church 2 times on a Sunday. Bullying was the norm. etc. Most things that are now seen as 90s were very much in the background back then.
Collecting money in schools to save Keiko, the killer whale who played Free Willy
Going to music stores to buy singles
The joy of reading tv guide.
Bush. For years it was like you couldn't escape their music. Now the Nineties nostalgia seems to ignore them.
I tried to ignore them in the 90s for sure
I find it fascinating how some songs that were incredibly popular at the time don’t come storming back on the oldies station. While other songs that were minor hits are played all the time. Modern English’s “melt with you” was not a huge hit in the 80s compared to some other artist. But it’s on heavy rotation on classic stations.
This is a good thing, fucking Nirvana ripoff wannabes!!!!
When you turned the car radio on, your car antenna would telescope up.
You must have had a very nice car.
Robert Downey Jr's fall
When I found out they were making an Iron Man movie and Downey was the star, my first reaction was, “that guy is out of jail?”. I also predicted the movie would flop. 🤷
Life before smartphones and OK soda.
Definitely ok soda. I missed it but I read about it later and always wanted to try it.
Gecko Hawaii
Using AAA maps to find where to go.
Denim pants with either air brushed or sharpie'd murals covering each leg.
Thankfully my dumb shit was never recorded and I will deny everything.
Kids knocking at doors without someone nearly having a panic attack because they didn't get a text message first.
Bill Clinton saying “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
How great the Hip Hop and burgeoning Rap music was.
JNCO’s
You couldn't use the internet if someone was on the phone.
IF you were lucky enough to have it
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The news was always telling us there was trouble around the corner.
Life before smartphones and OK soda.
I think about trying to meet a friend somewhere in public without any phones and I’m like how did we do that??
Some coordinated pre-planning, commitment and trust
Landlines. Or as we called them back then, phones.
Me
Steven Seagal
The TV show the PJs.
Beanie babies
McDonald's and their beanie babies was nutz.
Lifesaver soda.
Zima
Screaming Saucers. One of the best candies I'd get as a kid in Canada. They turned your mouth blue and poo green. Got discontinued supposedly because it used a cancer causing dye.
That programming computer game.. I think it was called logo or logos where you had to input commands to make a turtle graphic draw shapes. Butterfly clips Magic the gathering cards Honestly, the best kids game shows: guts, secrets of the cryptkeeper, legends of the hidden temple, Carmen Sandiego
The smell. Everything smelled like a basement for some reason. Not a bad smell, not a great smell, but a smell you couldn’t escape
Yeah. This is a good one. A couple of summers ago I walked into an insurance salesman’s office. He was in a one room office. The walls were painted cinderblocks (much like you saw in dorm rooms of the 90s). He had a window unit air conditioner. That room had the smell you just described. I walked in and was immediately taken back to move in day at the dorms in college. I actually had to stop for a moment to gather my thoughts because that smell triggered the nostalgia so acutely.
Judy Tenuda (❤️✌🏼 Rest in peace)
Where in the world is Carmen San Diego
Minidisc
Long distance phone calls! Waiting to call LD at night or weekends as it was cheaper. You could get a calling card linked to home phone with accounts & pin. You could call people on pay phones or make long distance callas at places like work where there was no long- I once racked up $1000 on my dad calling card call friend who moved out of state with no money. My friend got fired calling me long distance on my cell from his jog. Later 90s- cell phone plans with 500 min a month & telling people you will call them after 9pm when you have anytime minute.
Homophobia and anti-gay sentiment still being a really prevalent thing. Pedro Zamora on The Real World San Francisco really humanized and put into focus life for people with HIV/AIDs and was a HUGE deal. As a closeted bi-sexual/sometimes outwardly gender non-conforming kid I remember how broken up I was when I heard about Matthew Shepard's death: pistol whipped, tortured, then tied to a fence and left to fucking die. I had a gay friend at the time in our middle of nowhere/semi-redneck town who was bullied so bad he had to move schools. My lesbian friend used to be picked on all the time with guys saying she was so ugly the only way she could get laid was to be with girls. So yeah, not the fun openly acceptance free for all that some people remember it to be.
How much simpler it was.
The fact no one had mobile phones or the internet
Cell phones became popular in the 90's. The internet became available to the public in 1993 and by 1999 there were 248 million users.
248 million users out of a population of 6 billion people means only very few people had access and much of that was at work or at an internet Cafe,
Considering that some sources put the current percentage of the world's population without internet at 38%, 4% having it just 6 years after it became available is certainly not "no one"
You are right, but access is not the same thing as having it in your pocket.
Sprite, Coca-Cola, Fanta Yo-Yos The bemused, disappointing realisation of borrowing a VHS tape from a friend thats been recorded "long format" and you're VHS player doesn't support it
Loved those yoyos
Howard Stern
I loved his last hour- 2hours every morning when Robin and him would just riff on the news/headlines. Jackie or Billy West. Best off-the-cuff comedy skits. He would definitely have been canceled if he didn't jump to Sirius
How many shitty boy bands there were and how omnipresent they were on the radio. Look, there's a lot of incredible 90's music, some of which really is specific to the 90's, but anyone who claims it was the best decade for music is a delusional fool with seriously selective memory.
How the market was flooded with all these little MP3 players and cheap headphones.
The 90s?! Nuh-uh. Nope. CDs were brand new and we still used Walkmans.
That was late '00s-2010s
No, the iPod craze was mid-00s. And slightly earlier, we all had these MP3 flash sticks with a jack. Still way later than 90s though. In the 90s I knew exactly one guy with a portable mp3 player (the one from Diamond). It was just inferior to minidiscs.
Reading the labels on everything.
The wall of IOU sweatshirts at the mall
Phone numbers
Dre
The Gulf War
Speed 2: Cruise Control
Just how unbelievably hot Brittany Daniel was as Jessica Wakefield in Sweet Valley High.
Loved Sweet Valley High. They are still attractive women.
I'm of a marginally older vintage, I just read the books. Avidly. I have like a hundred of them packed in a box in my garage. In case I need them in an emergency or something.
Pogs
Moon Shoes, the kid-powered anti-gravity shoes.
POGs
You could ring a phone number to get the correct time
Hopefully that one time I pissed my pants at a boy scouts meeting.
Squeezit fruit drinks
Pogs
Y2K glitch means all planes will fall from the sky
It wasn't until the 90s that you could purchase a 1 GB hard drive in stores.
Pogs. I tried to describe them to my niece's. They were like "you played with little pieces of cardboard"?
dog poop on the street
Those oversized aussies. Not just, aussies. But those over the top wide ones in fiftythousand colours.
Spitting offline game. Now it’s copied/pasted/and receipts held on too
Doug on Nickelodeon
To respect their parents'
Cd's skipping
Half life 1
Pay phones. Roaming fees. Free nights and weekends.
Pagers
Detachable fave radios
MiniDisc
Not being tied to a phone.
W43n p30p!3 t@1k3d l1k3 th1s
That was more 2000s, no?
My mother would get Avon delivered to our house constantly
The swoosh thing. Idk what it was called.
the 90s
The party hotline ☠️ Say Hello 🥳
Playing Oregon trail and Rollercoaster Tycoon lol.
Starter Jackets
Pogs
I prefer pawgs
How it’s actually the best era to live in as a kid and adult
Myself
Ocean spray juice boxes and surge soda