upworthy

1990s nostalgia

A woman gets angry on an episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

On an old episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in July 1992, Oprah put her audience through a social experiment that puts racism in a new light. Despite being over three decades old, it's as relevant today as ever. She split the audience members into two groups based on their eye color. Those with brown eyes were given preferential treatment by getting to cut the line and offered refreshments while they waited to be seated. Those with blue eyes were made to put on a green collar and wait in a crowd for two hours.

Staff were instructed to be extra polite to brown-eyed people and to discriminate against blue-eyed people. Her guest for that day's show was diversity expert Jane Elliott, who helped set up the experiment and played along, explaining that brown-eyed people were smarter than blue-eyed people.

Elliott is an internationally known teacher, lecturer, and diversity trainer who, in 1968, after the assignation of Martin Luther King, Jr., performed the controversial and startling "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise" in her third-grade classroom.

What is the Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes Exercise?

Watch the video to see how this experiment plays out.

oprah, racism, oprah wingrey, blue eyed/brown eye, jane elliott, oprah controversywww.youtube.com


One of the most interesting parts of the video is when, even though the blue- and brown-eyed people were segregated by Oprah's staff, they became angry with one another. One woman with brown eyes began to chastise the blue-eyed people, remembering the blue-eyed friend she had in the past. "I had a girlfriend in school who was blue-eyed," the brown-eyed audience member said. "She was so stupid. She was always copying off of my papers. These people were so rude and so noisy today. We couldn't hear any ourselves, not even talk; it was ridiculous."

From the stage, Eliott, pretending to be a brown-eyed supremacist, sternly talked about how brown-eyed people were superior but were called out for having blue eyes. She defended her position by saying she's learned to act like a brown-eyed person. "I've learned to act brown-eyed. I have a brownie husband and three brown-eyed children," Eliott told the audience. "Why did you get the message in this room is? It's to act brown-eyed, and you, too, can take off your collar. Act intelligently, and you, too, won't need your collar. None of you have acted intelligently yet."


Eventually, the audience realized that the experiment was about race, and Eliott stopped the brown-eyed supremacist posturing and began explaining how this experiment plays out in everyday America, but it's about skin, not eye color. That didn't stop one of the audience members from trotting out an old racist trope. "We can see where this is going. She's saying that everybody has racism in them. It's not really about the eye. She's trying to teach about racism," the male audience member said. "But she can't get away from the fact that God created the races, and you are going to be different. You can't help it."

Elliott had the perfect retort to the man who claimed that racism was divinely internet: "God created one race, the human race, and human beings created racism."

Watch the entire segment here:


- YouTubewww.youtube.com


This article originally appeared six years ago.

Boyz II Men sing an updated version of "I'll Make Love to You."

Boyz II Men’s classic 1994 love song “I’ll Make Love to You” was one of the most popular make-out songs of the ‘90s. But now, the Gen Xers who got down to it back then are a bit older and have probably settled down.

Life in your 40s and 50s has more to do with handling household chores and parenting responsibilities than making love “all through the night,” as Boyz II Men originally sang nearly 30 years ago. Studies show that the average married couple in their 40s and 50s has sex around once a week, whereas those in their 20s and 30s have it twice as often.

The threesome had some fun with the passing of time on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Valentine’s Day when they debuted an updated version of “I’ll Make Love to You” that reframes the song for couples who’ve been married for the past 15 years. “I’ll Make Love to You (But We Don’t Have To)” features three members of the Philadelphia group’s classic lineup, Nathan Morris, Shawn Stockman, Wanyá Morris and a cameo from Colbert himself.


Back in the group's heyday in the ‘90s, it had four members, but unfortunately, bass singer Michael McCary left the group in 2003 after being diagnosed with muscular sclerosis.

Here are the lyrics to “I’ll Make Love to You (But We Don’t Have To)”:

Close the door, wash this dish

I'll put all the forks away

It's our 15th Valentine's Day

We're gonna celebrate once this house is clean

Pour some wine in my favorite coffee mug

Are the kids finally asleep?

Said we'd do it once a week

But we don't have to, babe

Let's see what's on TV

I’ll make love to you if you want me to

Unless you’re too tired, because I’m tired, too

I’ll make love to you, or we can just watch YouTube and

I'll text you some memes while I'm next to you

Girl, relax; there's no rush

Let's just go to Puzzle-town

You need help with 19-down

Oh, a female sheep

Baby, you know that's ewe

Pick up clothes from the floor

I'll be sure to check Brooklyn's math

Then we'll both get in the bath

But not at the same time; it's very uncomfortable

I’ll make love to you in a day or two

How 'bout a raincheck

Last time I threw out my neck

Do you want me to paint the living room?

I keep saying I will, but I never do

I know your job got you stressed

And this whole house is a mess

Still, tonight, let's say yes

To doing it or we could watch "NCIS"

I’ll make love to you, coz my love is true

I'll make sure you know, ok, your eyes are closed

Alright, that's some drool, and you're snoring, too

Maybe let's try again in a week or two


This article originally appeared on 2.15.23

Culture

17 things we all used in the year 2000 but never do today

When was the last time you used your Blockbuster card?

Blockbuster video sign and pagers.

In “Back to the Future,” teenager Marty McFly goes back in time 30 years, from 1985 to 1955. But what if the film were made today and he went back from 2021 to 1991? I think the culture shock of a modern teenager going from a post-to-pre internet world would be much greater than the one that Marty experienced in the original film.

Would a kid from today be able to dial a payphone? Read a clock with actual hands? Look up directions on a Thomas Guide map?

A lot has changed since the dawn of the new millennium so a group of Redditors marked the changes in a post entitled: “What is something that was used heavily in the year 2000, but it's almost never used today?”

Here are 17 of the best posts.


1.

"Geocities, neopets, livejournal, kazaa," — PapaWeir

GeoCities is definitely one of those things that was everywhere and then suddenly disappeared. At its peak, GeoCities hosted millions of websites, but its popularity declined after it was purchased by Yahoo and web hosting became cheaper.

2.

"If you had a big screen TV it was probably a ridiculously thick rear projection TV," — ParoxysmAttack

Before plasma TVs came around, if you had a big screen it was also a seriously deep-screen TV.

3.

"Re-writable CDs. I used to burn so many mix cds after downloading from napster, bearshare, limewire, frostwire," — Shittinwithmykitten

Napster created a music revolution overnight, but where were we going to save all of that new, stolen music? Rewriteable CDs were all the rage before the iPod came along and put 'em in the palm of your hand.

4.

"Payphones. (Yes I know payphones still exist. Also, I am now very aware payphones are free in Australia, thank you for informing me.)" — Adreeisadyno

Kids these days have never had to walk five blocks to make a phone call.

5.

"Dial-Up.

weeeeeeeee WOOOOOO_OOOOOO_
E E E E E E E EEEEEeeeeee
eee
eee URRRRRRRRRBEDULUDOLEDULUDOLEEPEEPEEP
R R R R R R R R R R R R RUMMMMMMMMMMMM,"
— Martini_Man_

Those of us who lived in the dial-up era will never, ever forget the whizzing, belching sound that we had to sit through to experience the World Wide Web.

7.

"Indoor smoking. My young-ish kids marvel at the fact that people used to sit in restaurants and smoke," — TurdFergDSF

People used to smoke on airplanes, in hospitals, at restaurants ... pretty much everywhere.

8.

"Blockbuster card," — larrythetarry

It wasn't Friday night in the '90s without a two-liter of Pepsi, a large pizza and a stack of VHS tapes from Blockbuster video.

9.

"VCRs," — Murtamatt

Want to feel old? In 2016, Funai, which manufacturers the VCRs in China for Sanyo, announced it would produce its final VHS player, making it the last one ever produced.

10.


"AOL," — PacMan8112

"Welcome!" "You've got mail!" AOL was the leading internet provider in the late '90s but soon lost its relevance after merging with Time Warner, Inc. in 2000.

11.

"Calculators; teachers kept saying 'you won’t have one with you all the time,' look who’s stupid now?! Both of us…" — elika007

A calculator was a luxury item in the '80s. In the '90s, a Texas Instruments graphing calculator could cost you $90. Now, it's all on your phone along with a million other apps.

12.

"A/S/L" — Smart_North_3374

Anyone who's a proud member of Gen X knows the "age/sex/location" question. It's the first thing you asked in an AOL chatroom when people used to try to hook up online. Of course, nobody answered it honestly, but that was half the fun.

13.

​"JNCO jeans," — ccherry124

In the 2000s everyone wore skinny jeans. But in the 1990s, people wore the baggiest jeans possible. The award for baggiest jeans goes to JNCO, the manufacturers of raver pants that fit two legs and a few kilos worth of MDMA.

14.

"Pagers," — skaote

The pager was one of the most popular status symbols of the '90s. Nothing said "cool" like having a pager that was constantly blowing up. (Does anyone under the age of 40 know what it means for a pager to "blow up"?)

15.

"'Wanna Cyber?'" God . We were awful," — icanbeafrick

Back in the AOL days, the closest you could come to getting it on while online was through cyber sex. There were no pictures or video so you just exchanged dirty messages until the other person logged off. The typical cyber session began with, "What are you wearing?"

16.

"Limp Bizkit," — Timmah_1984

Unfortunately, they're back.

17.

"Travel agencies. Now I can do everything on my phone," — whatdoineedaname4

If you can belive it, before there was Priceline, there was a person sitting at a desk with a rotary phone who booked your seven-day trip to Europe.


This article originally appeared on 12.28.21

via Pexels

If you know how to fix this tape, you grew up in the 1990s.

There are a lot of reasons to feel a twinge of nostalgia for the final days of the 20th century. Rampant inflation, the aftermath of a global pandemic and continued political unrest have created a sense of uneasiness about the future that has everyone feeling a bit down.

There’s also a feeling that the current state of pop culture is lacking as well. Nobody listens to new music anymore and unless you’re into superheroes, it seems like creativity is seriously missing from the silver screen.



But, you gotta admit, that TV is still pretty damn good.

A lot of folks feel Americans have become a lot harsher to one another due to political divides, which seem to be widening by the day due to the power of the internet and partisan media.

Given today's feeling of malaise, there are a lot of people who miss the 1990s or, as some call it, “the best decade ever.” Why? The 1990s was economically prosperous, crime was on its way down after the violent ’70s and ’80s, and pop culture was soaring with indie films, grunge rock and hip-hop all in their golden eras.

The rest of the world was feeling hopeful as globalization brought prosperity and Communism fell in Europe and Asia.

The mood in America would swiftly change at the turn of the century when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 and the 2001 9/11 attacks would lead to the never-ending "war on terror."

A Reddit user by the name purplekat20 was clearly feeling some ’90s nostalgia on May 16 when they asked the online forum to share “What ’90s trend would you bring back?” A lot of people noted that it was a lot cheaper to get by in the ’90s, especially considering gas and rent prices. Others missed living in the real world instead of having one foot in reality and the other online.

Here are 17 things people would love to bring back from the 1990s.

1. 

"Inflatable furniture and transparent electronics." — Dabbles-In-Irony

2.

"Hope." — DeadOnBalllsaccurate

To which HowardMoo responded: "I hate this despair thing that's all the rage these days. I miss optimism."

3. 

"The '90s web was the best web. People actually made their own home pages. Now it's all social media." — IBeTrippin

4. 

"Affordable housing." — Amiramaha

5. 

"Ninety nine cent per gallon gas." — Maxwyfe

6. 

"The 'mean people suck' statement everywhere. People seemed generally a lot happier and kinder back then. It was a nice reminder to be kind." — simplyintentional

7. 

"Being detached. Not being attached to an electronic gadget every minute of every day." — SuperArppis

8. 

"Calling fake-ass people 'poser.' The state of social media and 'reality' tv demands that this word be taken out of retirement." — rumpusbutnotwild

9. 

"Grunge music." — ofsquire

10. 

"I want movies to be the same caliber as '90s." — waqasnaseem07

Cremmitquada nailed it on the head with their response, "Everything has been redone. It's all recycled ideas now."

11. 

"Pants that didn't have to be super-tight to be in style." — chad-beer-316

12. 

"People really expressing themselves. Very few people take any risks with style anymore, or they do something 'different' that's just enough to still conform. In the '80s and '90s there were people doing crazy things with hair and piercing and just didn't give a fuck. I don't think I'll ever see that come back." — FewWill

13. 

"Great animated TV. Spongebob started in the 90s (99 but it counts), Hey Arnold, X-Men, Batman, Justice League, Dexter's Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Boomerang cartoons... the list goes on." — Phreedom Phighter

14. 

"Fast food restaurant interiors." — Glum-Leg-1886

15. 

"Hypercolor shirts and neon puff paint designs on t-shirts. But here in a few months, that'll be changed to abortion and voting rights, probably." — TheDoctorisen

16. 

"News that was news instead of rage bait." — nmj95123

17. 

"We had a stable country with a vigorous economy. In fact, we drew a budget surplus some of those years." — jeremyxt


This article originally appeared on 05.17.22