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Remember How Sick The 90s Were? I Don't. So Why Does Everyone Else?

Remember How Sick The 90s Were? I Don't. So Why Does Everyone Else?

The 90s weren't that great.

James Dawson

James Dawson

Featured image credit: PA Images

Wow - I'm really into your Facebook posts about how much of a nineties kid you are. Just like I'm into those pictures of your food you post whenever you eat out any place that isn't Maccies, and the statuses you're still posting about Brexit. It's really interesting to me, honestly. In no way does the relentless beat of nineties nostalgia on my Facebook timeline make me long for death's sweet embrace.

In case you haven't all noticed, pretty much everything from the 90s has been making a comeback recently - whether it's quite literally the return of Robot Wars and Pokémon, or millennials taking to social media to profess how much they wish they were back in the 90s. If there's one thing everyone seems to agree on, it is that the 1990s were lit.

Call me a killjoy, but I just can't get on board the 90s nostalgia bus. Whether I have a point or whether I'm just into disagreeing with everyone for the sake of it is up to you to decide, but to me it just looks like a classic case of golden age syndrome - a decade being gloried by people who were just that bit too young to experience it, or by people who don't remember it properly.

Sure a few good things went on in the 90s. We had a football team that was at least capable of getting into the semis of the Euros, beer was cheaper and there's no denying Geri Halliwell in that Union Jack dress was pretty fit, but I can't help but feel the main reason people are looking into the past is to try and forget about what's going on right now.

Friends isn't all it's cracked up to be. Featured image credit: PA Images

2016 has been a pretty shit year. There seems to be a terrorist attack every other day, if not every day. Brexit probably means we're heading for a recession. It's been a terrible year for legends too: Prince died, Muhammad Ali died, David Bowie died.

But it's not as if there were no horrors in the 90s either - instead of ISIS we had the threat of the IRA; Kosovo and Bosnia were dark marks on history that rival anything going on today and England's football team was still, ultimately, shit.

It's not that there was nothing good going on, it's just that the rose-tinted glasses forget all the bad stuff. Oasis were great, sure, but what about Travis and Moby - it was a decade that birthed Coldplay, and saw the introduction of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which ultimately helped to kill off the rave scene.

In terms of sports, there's more going on now than ever before. At the moment we have two of the all-time great footballers in Messi and Ronaldo. Who was better than them from 20 years earlier? Sure Zidane, Figo and the 'real' Ronaldo are up there, but it's hard to argue they were the same class.

Oasis had two good albums, if you don't include The Masterplan. Featured image credit: PA Images

As a decade the 90s fizzled into nothingness. Tupac and Biggie were dead by the summer of 1997 - the early promise of Oasis ended up in Be Here Now, one of the best examples of the ability of cocaine to kill talent and send a musician up their own arse.

Everyone was popping when Tony Blair became Prime Minister - but you only need to look at how he's perceived now to see what a disaster that all was. Like other 90s legends such as Johnny Depp and Noel Edmonds, the present has shown them up for who they really are. If the 90s was a colour, it would be turquoise.

I'll admit that, like everyone else, I'm excited to see a reboot of Trainspotting and the Blair Witch Project, but to me it all feels s bit like we're playing it safe. Rather than looking for new, fresh ideas and looking forward, it's about looking backwards.

Really, it's a sorry state of affairs, too much of the time nostalgia is about sticking your head in the sand because you're depressed about the present. Nostalgia's fundamentally about playing it safe rather than having a bet of adventure - we all have that mate who no longer takes in new music, preferring to listen to the 'classics' - it's not that old stuff's necessarily bad but the present always has more to offer because it's new and you never know what's going to happen.

As fair as I'm concerned, the 90s were alright, but the rest of 2016 that could be fucking sick - so lets stop banging on about the past and start looking forward.

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Topics: 90s, Nostalgia

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