People share funny "negative" things about living in the '90s.
Nostalgia for the simpler times of the 1990s is having a renaissance lately. It was a unique decade defined by many a cultural phenomenon: parachutes in gym class, analog devices and technology, snack foods like Push Pops and Dunkaroos, and epic mall hangouts. And who can forget the iconic teal and purple color combo that popped up everywhere?
Of course, it's easy to look back at the '90s with rose-colored glasses, which is why Gen Xers and Boomers who lived through the '90s shared some of the seemingly "worst" things about life back then on Reddit.
These are 17 humorous things that they thought were downers about the decade.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
"Getting locked out of your house after school and having no way to contact your parents to tell them to come home. So you just sat on your porch for 4 hours until they got off work." - Dsteeleman
"Calling someone you wanted to ask on a date, but their parents pick up the phone..." - Bionic_Push
"Late fees at Blockbuster so you had to wait till your parents got paid or had to got to a different video shop that was not as good." - deeljay77
"If you stayed at school late and didn’t have a ride home (or were out) you better pray that someone was home or at work so they could come get you." - Ph886
"We didn't have GPS, so you'd get lost or feel uncertain every time you drove to a new location." - silverlakekaren
"Dial-up internet connection. Eeeee errrrrrr krrrshhhhhhhhh wee a wooo ping pingping ping errrrrkkkkkk." - 1osq1, Pickle_ninja
Dial Up The Struggle GIF Giphy
"$1300 486 computer. $400 17” television...17 inch television that weighed 100 pounds. 😆" - three-sense, TotalEgg143
"The movie or game you wanted to rent being unavailable at the video store." - RODjij
"I think for where I grew up (not the middle of nowhere, but also not NYC or LA) it was probably lack of global exposure and cultural exchange that really spread everywhere by the 2000s. Sushi was still considered exotic." - CyberpunkSunrise
"The insincerity of it all. Everything was ironic. Even joy. We really dunked on 'nerds' who 'liked things.'" - tmorg5
"If you have an interest now, you google it, find videos, shopping supplies, sub reddits and groups, etc. In the 90s that wasn't a thing for most of the world. Like if you found an interest, you went to the library or bookstore and got a book about it. Hopefully a good book, but you weren't always that lucky. Then you asked around if anyone else did said interest, often no one did. You found a store that would possibly carry supplies for it, they might have something, but could probably order what you wanted, just give it 3-5 weeks. Video instruction was sometimes available, hopefully on tape, so you could go at your own speed. The one big save-all was magazines and catalogs. Almost every hobby had at least two magazines about it, and often people were divided on which was better. And catalogs allowed you to order niche things by mail, it usually took a month or two, but you eventually got it." - weedtrek
"All the singers that died! Kurt Cobain, Bradley Nowell, Tupac, Biggie, and I think Stevie Ray Vaughn, oh and Freddie Mercury." - colbydrex
kurt cobain nirvana GIF Giphy
"Rewinding VHS tapes." - Remote_Newspaper554
"CD Players skipping when going over bumps in cars or while walking." - SlimWorthy
"Cigarette butts were E V E R Y W H E R E." - WasteOfBerries
"Frosted tips." - LordSnarfington
"So if you were going to meet up with your friends at the movie theater or whatever you’d show up and just wait for them. But if someone was really late everybody just had to kind of wait around and there was definitely this dilemma about whether you should just leave them to it and go into the movie or just keep waiting it out. Someone might try to find a pay phone and call their house but 99% of the time it’s just their parent and none of our parents ever knew where we were. With no cell phones this could go on for quite a while before you gave up on someone and it was a big fat waste of everybody’s time. And some people were especially known for being flaky like this and it was really annoying. Much worse than being ghosted in text messages nowadays because you couldn’t really leave the meeting point. You were stuck there till you gave up." - MasterGrok