What was it like living in the 1990's?

It was a very different time. Breathing in and out was an absolute requirement. This prevented the current popular activity of doing it with your head up your ass. Other than that, only the cars look different.

tri-therapie. changed everything.

PS: This is meant to make you chuckle, it is not a personal attack or meant in meanness.

Print often makes them look the same.

If you were a gay teenager growing up in the South, it was hell on Earth.

seems like yesterday to some of us, pumpkin

Just like today but with more money and sex.

No internet, no cell phones, no FB no twitter. It was heaven. People actually got together for coffee or meals and talked. And while doing so weren't answering texts or taking selfies of them and their food.

er we had internet in the 90s

The cars looked very similar, actually.

The music was fucking amazing.

R8 yes it was available but most people didn't start getting internet in their homes until the late 1990s. And seriously there was AOL maybe a dozen Geocities pages at the time.

The 1990's what?

Back then we knew when not to use apostrophes.

It was a little bit of this...

10x

Cars were bigger, boxy and they needed more fuel. Only some households had computers, even fewer had access to the internet. The computers were slow and crashed more frequently. Flatscreen TVs were rare and didn't have HD resolution. Usually only rich people had those if they had them. If you wanted a bigger picture rear-projection TVs were quite common.

The biggest change was that jobs were abundant so you could move anywhere you wanted to, just on a whim, and find employment there.

We went out to pubs, cafés and clubs and flirted our eye-lashes off, to get some, instead of just looking at our mobile, to see who is close by.

Aleppo was cool and Beirut was rebuilding and groovy.

Prague was the "it city" in Europe.

Consumer electronics were still quite expensive and not as affordable as today. Vacuum robots weren't commercialy available, even though the first prototypes were created in the 90s. However lawn mower robots did exist since the mid-90s. Cell phones were larger and heavier, but also sturdy. You could drop them plenty of times without breaking. They had almost no additional features and didn't have reception in thinly populated areas.

I could travel back and forth between Toronto and Buffalo without needing a passport, being interrogated, or being treated like I'm smuggling plutonium.

The WWW was born.

R21 Very often children were shown the cockpit, could talk to the pilots and even touch a few buttons before take-off.

While in high school, my stocks were earning me 33%. HTH

Tom Ford rocketed to the top at Gucci

Your stocks went to school, R24?

From 1990 to 1996, the shadow of HIV hung over everything. You were living, even enjoying life, but without much hope for the community for the future. But then came the cocktail and from 1997-2000 everything was suddenly getting better, gays were starting to appear on television, and slowly straight people started to stop being terrified of us, although this process was still in its infancy in 2000.

Everyone carried at least one beeper.

ISPs charged by the minute over phone lines until 1994. Porn pictures took 14 minutes to download at 14k baud, 28k, then 56k was blazing fast.

Drug use fell apart in1987 with the crash, but came back in 1992.

In the early 90s you could get away with twee house on the prairie decor, or Victorian lite. Towards 1993, your decorating style looked like a cabin in the Western woods or a Starbucks.

You knew glazing, sponging, feathering, and faux suede finishes for your house. Your sheets were Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren. Your tables could involve brass&glass, but not smoked glass.

You bathed before and after getting laid and you were allowed to bathe in Le Male, but not Drakar Noir.

90s black guys

R24 There were lots of paper millionaires before the dotcom bubble burst. Lots of internet startups, which continue to exist to this day like eBay, Amazon, Yahoo! and many failures like WorldCom or Pets.com were created.

We lost a generation of American men's asses to the insidious trend of sagging.

Oh, to be young and desirable again with money, freedom, vitality, a good job, a great body and an excellent soundtrack playing in the background (I was a huge STP fan in those days).

PS: cell phones were starting to be a problem already by the mid 90s, and I was very vocal about how I'd walk out on anyone who answered their phone when out with me!

People actually looked forward to new [italic]Simpsons[/italic] episodes.

[quote]And seriously there was AOL maybe a dozen Geocities pages at the time.

Err. You do realize this VERY website has been around since 1995? Yes, the internet was a thing in the 90s even though obviously it wasn't the same as today.

kind of sad, as the fun, hip, underground of the 80's was commercialized in the 90's. in the 80's you bought your torn stockings at a thriftstore, in teh 90s you bought them at hot topic. marc jacobs took fun vintage street ware and sold it back to us. it was profitiable and it was genius, but it was also the end of an era.

in the 80's "greed is good" was said with irony; in the 90's it became a valid lifestyle choice. cornelia guest's image as a socilaite was i'm rich, but that doesn't mean i cant still be cool and hang with downtown artists; the 90's were paris hilton who said she was cool because she was rich- no other qualifications, and would say of downtown artists, "not hot".

I do not remember the 1990's that well. I was too busy dancing the night away, having a different boyfriend every month, and just living life to the fullest. It was a fun, if hazy, decade for me.

35 about sums it up

It was still a very homophobic time, even though it wasn't that long ago. Not one place on earth had gay marriage yet.

It was a great, great relief that the God-awful fashions and hairstyles of the 80s were over.

There was some homophobia (Ellen's coming out) but gays learned if they were Good, they would allowed to be Hetereonormative.

So Good Gays were the most viscous towards normal gays starting in the 1990s and getting far worse in the 2000s.

People were more individualistic, rather than copying each other's stuff off of social media. When you said you were going to meet up with someone, you actually DID. It wasn't the norm to bail on people. There was only ONE arrogant self-obsessed noob per group, whereas now they are the majority.

[quote]So Good Gays were the most viscous towards normal gays starting in the 1990s and getting far worse in the 2000s.

Someone else take this one.

[quote]It was still a very homophobic time, even though it wasn't that long ago

Indeed.

In the mid-90s around half of America still thought gay relations themselves should be ILLEGAL, forget even bringing up the idea of marriage.

Even through the 2000s public opinion was still pretty mixed.

It is really in this current decade that gay has finally gone mainstream. Really can't overstate how much progress we have made.

It is truly stunning how much public opinion has changed in two decades.

The sky would be so blue that day. We were all counting the weeks!

The drugs were better and the clubs were huge.

[quote]You do realize this VERY website has been around since 1995?

That's a lie. Everyone knows Datalounge only appeared as clay tablets until 2000. And when it went digital you can't begin to imagine the anger over the new format.

[quote]So Good Gays were the most viscous towards normal gays starting in the 1990s and getting far worse in the 2000s.

What the hell are you babbling about, Francis?

I looked fine in my Helmut Lang distressed silver leather jeans and retro-punk t-shirts.

The most interesting thing in that data series of increasing gay acceptance was the sudden drop in 2003-2004, presumably associated with the hysteria of the Iraq War and the republican 2004 election. I remember having a temp job in 2003 and my co-worker acting like it was my fault her husband was off in Iraq, as I as an unpatriotic gay, lounged around at home.

Work was easier to find and paid better.

Womens's fashions were squarer, dowdier, and more masculine and monochrome. Far more feminine and fussy today.

It was the era of Mom jeans, so that had a lot to do with it:

I watched porn on VHS tapes and still bought porno mags. Internet was still too slow for high quality video. People were more shame based and conservative back then. I remember being utterly shocked when I got the internet at the bizarre porn I seen. Fisting, bestiality, weird fetishes. Back then people could go their whole lives with out seeing weirdo porn.

I would meet men to fuck from the Advocate newspaper personal ads without seeing what they looked like. Most of the men that I fucked were closeted. People were not staring at cell phones in public. There were no social justice warriors. People actually lived life not live vicariously through the internet.

Kids were playing outside unattended, people would usually meet in person to do business. People talked on the phone instead of emailing and texting. There wasn't the attention whoring social media scene. Much more information is available about people and celebrities. I remember searching through hundreds of porn videos in an adult video store for over an hour looking for anything that had a scene with this male porn star that I had a huge crush on. When I found an older video that he was in I was soooo excited like I found a long lost treasure.

People move around more these days and have more minimalist homes. The stock market was booming in the late 90's everybody was making money. Anybody could easily get a decent job and live a middle class lifestyle with a house and a couple of cars.

Thanks to the internet, I discovered the wonders of computer porn. And means from hiding it from mom and dad and my sisters, since we only had one home computer

No war.

I thought it was a thing of the past, based on the endless bitching about Vietnam.

Kids joined the national guard to pay for college...with no real concern of seeing battle.

Bush fought and won a war in a weekend. I thought that's how we'd fight all future wars...remotely, like a video game.

Hard work, low wages.

My first computer, an IBM cost $3,000 in 1994. I also had to buy a separate phone line to connect to the internet, and $21.95 for AOL.

I miss being unassaulted by texts, and FB, and some expectation of ALWAYS being available to people, which is not the life I had or want now. My texts are 80% "I'm running late", which doesn't really add to my life.

Violent crime peaked in NYC, and America in 1991. AIDS was untreatable, and there were at least five more years after that year when people like so many of my friends were dropping like flies. It gave me the mild PTSD I enjoy today, frankly.

I remember the first time they televised highlights from the gay pride parade on local t.v. It was 1995 and what amazed me was that EVERYBODY in my office watched it even though none of them would be caught dead at the thing in person. I was stunned by the prurient interest. And I remember when one of my coworkers went to a gay day at Six Flags in 2000 and was amazed at how "well-behaved" the gays were. I guess she expected to see naked men fisting in line for the roller coasters or something.

In 1994 a co-worker was so sure I'd be dead in 20 years he wanted to take out a $2 million life insurance policy on me with himself as a beneficiary. He'd pay the premiums for twenty years and if I was still alive at the end of it, assign it to me. I said, "sure" but he never did it and today I'm sad because I don't have a $2 million life insurance policy all paid up to the present.

R59, was you co-worker serious?!

You could fly without having to strip first. In those days, there was a lot of news coverage about "air rage". The airlines were trying to squeeze as many people in as they could on every route, customers were getting testy, and flight attendants were getting ruder. That all changed with 9-11, and now flight attendants can assert that their occasional sadism is only because they're "concerned for our safety". Patriotism is the last refuge of the cuntiest. I thought we were near the point where there would be passenger right's legislation, but 9-11 trumped all that.

The US had relative peace and prosperity. The stock market had "irrational exuberance". The Internet was changing everything. Lots of people were losing their jobs, like travel agents, telephone operators, and others, but they were finding other jobs. Inflation was low, interest rates were low, unemployment was low.

Gas was cheap

Lots of AOL commercials

[quote]the 90's were paris hilton who said she was cool because she was rich- no other qualifications, and would say of downtown artists, "not hot".

Paris Hilton wasn't famous in the '90s. She's a strictly 2000s phenomenon.

1990s: MTV was still considered cool and had great original programming like Beavis & Butthead, Daria, the early Real World seasons, etc. In the beginning of the decade, I was still in high school. My buddy used to shoplift tons of porn magazines (I was too chicken), and we would share them. I kept them in the trunk of my car so my mom wouldn't find them. Acid and weed were the most common drugs where I lived. I first heard about ectsasy around '93 or '94 (though I didn't try it until quite a bit later). RuPaul hit the scene and "the club kids" were on all the daytime talk shows. Supermodels were a big deal (ironically, most of the fashion was terrible). Rave and house music became somewhat mainstream, but at the same time you also had the grunge, alternative, riot grrl scenes and all kinds of good music. There was something for everyone.

1999-2001 is when everything good about the 90s began to fade. As Joni Mitchell would say, "Britney Spears was like Nero".

We had a hard time keeping our caves and animal clothes clean but we had our dreams of the day when fire and the wheel would be invented.

Entertainment-wise - Early 90s was great - New Jack Swing, Madonna, Janet Jackson, En Vogue. On TV was 90210, Melrose Place, Roseanne, Fresh Prince, Saved by the Bell. Movies had Terminator 2, Single White Female, Die Hard 2, League of Their Own.

Then Alanis Morisette came along. Madonna and Janet had peaked, En Vogue lost a girl, Brenda left for London, Kimberly blew up Melrose, Roseanne wasn't funny anymore, Julia Robert's film choices were horrible. TONS of shark-jumping

tl;dr Lots and lots of great things happened in politics. We'd be lucky to see that again in this generation.

President Clinton intervened in the Serbian civil war and managed to get the fighting to stop. Sarajevo had sponsored the 1984 Winter Olympics, but by the 1990s, it was the scene of ethnic cleansing and snipers, and NATO eventually put a stop to it.

In 1993, the US lost the first battle of Mogadishu. The expression "black hawk down" comes from that battle. Clinton was beat-up over it because he pulled our troops out without immediately retaliating. I think we eventually found and killed the opposing rebel, though.

In Rwanda, the Hutus and Tutsis were massacring each other. Clinton has said his greatest regret was not intervening there sooner, to stop the fighting. The movie "Hotel Rwanda" was set in this time period.

South Africa started the decade with a system of Apartheid, and most Western countries had some kind of economic embargo on the country because of it. Nelson Mandela had served 27 years as a political prisoner, but became the first black President of the country in 1994.

But wait, there's more!

The Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. It was a huge deal and it was hoped to be the beginning of a lasting peace and two-state solution in Palestine. Last week, after years without progress, the Palestinian leader withdrew from the agreement.

Saddam marched into Kuwait, leading to the First Gulf War. In retrospect, President George H. W. Bush did an excellent job, as evidenced by the contrast with the disastrous job his son George W. Bush did a decade later. Although - President Bush implied that the Shia in the South of Iraq, and Kurds in the North, would be supported if they rose up against Saddam. Some did, and Saddam had them massacred, while the US did nothing.

1n 1998, the Good Friday Accords brought a relative peace to Ireland.

The USSR's collapse was complete in 1991. The Berlin Wall "fell" in 1989, but demolition wasn't really started until the next year. The Cold War was a much more dangerous time than I think people realize. It's amazing we didn't lose millions of lives to it, and destroyed the environment in a nuclear winter. The concept of a nuclear Winter was not a new one, but it got traction in the 1990s.

Seemingly, every Communist country that USSR President Gorbachev visited overthrew their communist leaders shortly thereafter, when their populous realized that the Russians were not going to prop-up their leaders any longer. It was mostly bloodless excerpt for some protesters in Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia; and in Romania where there were some armed conflicts, including the lynching of the Romanian tyrant-President and his wife. It was hard to follow because so so much was happening seemingly overnight all over Europe. It would make a great movie.

Protests in China started during a state visit by Gorbachev in 1989. The Chinese delayed their crackdown until after Gorbachev left for Moscow. The end of the Cold War without armageddon was a miracle, and unprecedented in human history, to my knowledge. As for events that occurred within my life, the relatively peaceful end of the Cold War ranks up there with the moon landing; and the election of a black man as President, as among the things of which p I am most proud.

More counties swore-off nuclear weapons for good, including Ukraine, South Africa, and Brazil. Brazil? Yes, Brazil. It is my understanding that South Africa worked with Is.rael on their atomic programs. I recall Dan Rather once reporting on something vague about an unknown explosion off the coast of South Africa, and I've read other reports that were more specific.

Aside from the auto-destruct by the Communists, other tyrants were falling from power the world over. Much like the Arab Spring was contagious, so was the spread of Democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, at least, for a time.

The 1990 changes to the Clean Air Act introduced a nationwide approach to reducing acid rain pollution that has worked well. I can't find the date that the US agreed to the regulations necessary to combat the obliteration of the ozone layer; however, the actions taken to combat ozone depletion has been very effective and the seasonal changes to the ozone layer are returning to historical norms.

Europe officially adopted the Euro at the end of the decade, but delayed the introduction of banknotes until after the 1999-2000 Y2K event, for fear of the second coming,

Clinton was impeached.

And that, as they say, is that.

Bedhead was an acceptable hairstyle...and long hair on men.

REI and hiking/outdoor stuff was worn even by lazy asses.

Plainer clothes and chunky shoes/boots on women were the norm.

Music seemed less corporate, but who knows.

Coffee shops, cafes, diners were hangouts...and you could smoke in them.

Oh, Lordie, I might have to surrender my Gay card.

Princess Di died, followed later by Mother Theresa.

I don't know...good TV like Roseanne, Melrose Place, My So-Called Life for a season. Beavis and Butthead were hilarious. The Real World meant something...Road Rules was a neat spin-off...Kennedy was a cool VJ...I looked forward to MTV Spring Break with all of the VJs and Downtown Julie Brown...General Hospital was great. No social media which was a huge plus. Music was depressing with Radiohead, Alanis, Pearl Jam... I wore corduroy. Weed was "in"....but I think it may have always been. Goth was "in". Depression was "in"...girls dyed their hair black and wore black Doc Martin boots. Chains on pants were in. Hacky sacks were bouncing around...same with bowl cuts. Pants sagged...but not in a gangsta way...in an alternative way, the depressed and angsty Seattle scene took over the early to mid-90s.

Yes, he was serious R60. And I was 33 at the time.

OP, it was great. I had just retired at 65 back in 1990 so I could fully enjoy that decade without hassles of work or stress. It was a very stress-free decade for me!

All of the posts here pretty much sum it up nicely. The 90s were decent. Jobs were plentiful which was a relief for my kids.

R 76 does that mean you're really 90? That's pretty cool:-)

Elders have stories and wisdom:-)

I worked so long and hard throughout the 1990s the entire decade barely registered with me. Though I did appreciate how technology slowly but surely eased many aspects of my work.

We trusted Hillary Clinton.

We couldn't talk about how 9/11 changed everything, and that really hurt.

Internet was new and exciting, not a health hazard. Gay.com in the late 90s was quite booming. Cellphones didn't have apps that completely destroyed socialization...

Apparently nothing happened in Oz, New Zeland, or Japan over the decade.

Coachella hadn't started yet so beautiful wealthy privileged people had to work harder to show the world how perfect they are.

I'm 34, so I was in my late elementary school/middle school/high school years for most of the 90s. When I was 15-16, I used a creaky old dial-up connection on the Prodigy service and joined a young gay men chat room. I think it was supposed to be for guys 18-25, but most of us in there were teens. This is how primitive it was: you couldn't even choose your own handle, but were just assigned a name composed of a random sequence of letters and numbers. There was no way to share your photo with anyone and even if you could, no one had digital/scanned photos of themselves. I was only out to a few friends and met this guy in the Prodigy chat room who was a senior at an elite high school about 30 mins from me. We had very similar interests and personalities, but he was experienced and I wasn't. We chatted for nearly a year online and even had secret code words we'd type if we had to change the subject of the conversation quickly in case one of our parents came home. One day in July he wanted to meet up. He had his own car and his parents were out of town for the weekend. For some reason, the big county summer fair in our area had a section where all of the county's high schools displayed a copy of their yearbooks. The summer after we started talking, I found his high school's yearbook at the fair and then found his senior picture. He was ridiculously handsome, so I agreed to meet him, but was so nervous that I convinced a friend of mine to join me. Dumb move. We went to a movie, then went back to his place and swam in his pool and hung out in the hot tub. My nervousness overcame me so I ended up going home. My friend wanted to say and my Prodigy romance said he'd give my friend a ride home, so I left and then my friend and Prodigy romance hooked up and I never saw Prodigy boy again. So, the 90s sucked.

I'm confused; how fucking young is OP? If you were born in 2000, the only way you "missed" the 1990's ALLtogether, you'd only be 15. Isn't that a bit young to be posting with the adults here, dear? Do you mean, what was it like to be an adult? or growing up? in the 1990's??

The world was abuzz anticipating the long awaited birth of DataLounge !🎂

We gleefully bid adieu to the Bushes in January of 1993 thinking it would be forever. After all, the Republicans would never nominate a moron like Dan Quayle to actually be our President, would they?

AIDS was still pretty fucking scary.

I came of age in the early 80s and refrained from having sex because I wasn't convinced that 'safer' sex was all that safe.

I remember thinking: this is the tail end of your youth and you're missing out because you're afraid of meeting some asshole who will lie to you and infect you.

We had between 10 and 11 soaps.

Aunt Liz still popped up on Another World. Steve and Audrey were on GH. Phillip came back to Guiding Light.

Y&R and DAYS were unstoppable.

Till early 1993 Doug Marland was still alive.

By the end of the decade Doug was gone, Bill Bell had stepped down, OJ had done a number on the soaps, AW went off the air, and we had PASSIONS, which was not good.

Our thumbs got a lot less exercise.

As a kid, I programmed our VCR to tape early afternoon soap operas like Another World and Days of Our Lives, which featured lots of handsome men in various states of undress, so that I had ample JO material when I got home from school. I'm kind of glad I didn't come of age with Tumblr Porn. I'd probably have gotten a wrist injury.

Betty White was just one more old lady.

[quote]Lots of AOL commercials

Lots of AOL [bold]CDs[/bold], too.

I, too, am wondering how young the OP could possibly be. What were the NINETIES like? Really?

Lots of great responses here, but R28 is so absolutely full of shit, or just nuts. None of that is remotely representative of the 90s in any broad sense, and I deeply resent the use of the second person pronoun.

A bit off topic, but a question to R88, do you imagine that the day will come when one doesn't have to trust the good word of a partner? Could there ome a day when an app and something akin to a litmus strip will reveal one's status on the spot? I mean, who could have imagined some of the convenient breakthroughs which occur every few years years in this day and time?

To our esteemed senior DL member upthread, I am approaching early retirement myself, and it gives me hope to know that you are still active and "with it" 20 years after the fact. I sometimes feel like a human version of AOL these days. ..but I'm trying !

[quote]No internet

I was on the internet constantly in the 1990s. Loved it. R28 exaggerates some about the download times of pictures and I never had an ISP that charged by the minute, just monthly.

The '90s was the last great era, before everything turned to poo.

Have men's ponytails been mentioned?

I had a man ponytail in the 90s. It was the man bun of the day.

The idiot saying there was no internet is, well, an idiot. The internet started in the 90s and it was a lot more than aol, but nothing like today. Still, we had it and it defined the decade in many ways. Saying it didn't exist or was only a handful of useless sites is nonsense. Chat rooms were the precursors of instant messaging and social media.

My house had Internet in 1993. Actually, people had the Internet starting in 1981, but it didn't get big until the early 1990s.

The 'net in the 1990s was Usenet, IRC, home-made webpages, and websites like AOL and Prodigy which often were isolated and didn't actually connect to the internet proper. (BBSes were the same way but I stopped using them in about 1992.)

The first big change on the internet was in 1993 and the "Eternal September" happened. Every year in September, the 'net would get thousands of newbies thanks to colleges offering internet access for free. In 1993, though, that September influx of newbies never ended, thanks to AOL. Amazon showed up a year or so later, and I seem to recall the IMDb did, too. amazon. com was a porn site before Amazon bought it, something you won't hear in any official history.

Mosaic was a pretty good browser and Altavista was a good search engine, but most search engines (or maybe all of them?) had advertisements and Google was considered revolutionary by being just a blank white page. Once Google arrived, everything changed again.

CompuServe

The internet was first developed in the '60s, but the world wide web wasn't invented until 1989.

What year was it that Al Gore invented the internet?

Chicago's gay radio station (AM station shared with Spanish) announced the cocktail. Gay men were no longer shriveling into dust.

It sounded too good to be true.

Movie subjects changed from Philadelphia to Jeffrey to Object of my Affection to Trick. It was wonderful.

[quote]As Joni Mitchell would say, "Britney Spears was like Nero".

Nero had more musical talent. Britney is more like the fire that burned around him as he fiddled.

Rosie O'Donnell was the Queen of Nice and frequently showed Broadway shows on her TV show.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned (possibly not known/cared about by Americans) was that America was very well liked and generally well respected by the rest of the world during the nineties.

Not by all nations, but certainly by the other western nations and peoples. This was carried by both Bush senior and then Clinton who was very well liked worldwide. There was interest in the good and great parts of your culture and you were well treated and thought of when you visited abroad.

This good feeling towards America and Americans changed dramatically with the election debacle of GW Bush and then 9/11 and consequent responses, lies, blatant mistruths, nastiness, and Iraq.

The western world began to take a really close look at America and the way the country worked for perhaps the first time en masse. We suddenly noticed the way you treated each other, the poor, the homeless, your health system, Wall Street corruption, gun culture, fundamental christians, poor education system and corporate skulduggery. I can't stress how incredibly dramatic the feeling changed towards America was after those two things. It was like black and white. There was suddenly a barrage of distrust and actual hatred towards Americans. What had been an interest in your culture suddenly turned to revulsion and disinterest then downright rejection and vilification. People often discussed all of the above very vocally with strong feeling.

When GW Bush was elected for a second turn the world was incredulous. This was when we all finally noticed and started talking how stupid Americans had become, how your Christian element was so out of hand and how corrupted your democracy had become. Americans living or visiting overseas often reported being abused or being disliked (hated), being treated differently and some Americans started saying they were Canadian because of this or apologised up front and distanced themselves from the political mess of the times. I knew several Americans who did this.

America has never really recovered from the corrupt democracy (corporate lobbyists owning government) and claims of stupidity and seems to be getting worse - but in the nineties you were very well liked.

Chi-Chi's for birthday dinners.

No prescription drug commercials until the late 90's.

You could still smoke everywhere.

The Simpsons was great TV.

Everyone was just nicer and in a better mood. Nobody would have ever anticipated how truly awful the 2000's would be.

r108 The American system was mocked throughout the rest of the world going back to them electing Ronald Reagan as President; and political corruption goes back to Nixon and before. None of that is new and the way the US was perceived by Europe hasn't really changed in 30 years. It's the same as the UK: thought as a joke by the rest of Europe.

That should read "thought of as a joke by the rest of Europe".

Anti-Americanism is as old as the United States itself, and even then was a malady of entitled, envious Eurotrash:

[quote]political corruption goes back to Nixon and before

Jeez, people, doesn't anyone learn about the Teapot Dome scandal anymore?

There were scandals going back to the very first administration, anyway. The "rest of the world" -- by which R108 surely means just Europe, because he sounds like the kind of guy who thinks Europe is the sum total of the rest of the world -- has regarded the U.S. coolly for most of the country's existence. Articles in European papers about our Wild West and Civil War were frequently contemptuous, for instance.

If Europe liked the U.S. in the 1990s, it was only because they'd briefly forgotten the Watergate scandal.

Madonna and Janet's best decade in terms of music.

Country music became huge on the pop charts with Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, and Faith Hill selling millions of albums.

CDs were still big physical sellers and there were still music stores in the '90s.

Music was much more diverse on the charts, not as homogenized as it is now.

Lauryn Hill seemed destined to be one of the biggest female artists as the '90s winded down... and then she wasn't.

[quote]good TV like Roseanne, Melrose Place

Melrose Place "good"? Please.

[quote]The '90s was the last great era, before everything turned to poo.

Grownups didn't say "poo" in the '90s. The prissy way of saying "shit" was "poop."

[quote]Grownups didn't say "poo" in the '90s.

They did in England.

R116. That's "Pooh," you ninny. And it wasn't a synonym for "shit."

It was less egalitarian. The baby boomers were gainfully employed, with asset to debt ratios working in their favor, being cruel to Gen X women(remember how terrified of sex harassment lawsuits everyone was) , and obsessed with making money. Gen X'ers were underemployed, unmarried and childless trying to deal with existential angst hoping the baby boomers would eventually retire so they could be obsessed with making money drinking coffee and igniting the music festival mega-business. . Millennials were fat and generally being horribly misbehaved. (remember all the signs on restaurant telling Baby boom parents to mind their damn kids).

[quote]Grownups didn't say "poo" in the '90s. The prissy way of saying "shit" was "poop."

Yes, because someone who feels the need to rank synonyms for "shit" can in no way be described as "prissy".

We had a heterosexual sex offender in the White House who voted for DADT and DOMA and bought ad time on Christian radio bragging about it.

You want "what a bore," R119? Put your goddamn punctuation INSIDE the right quotation mark. Now that's PRISSY.

R119 don't know nothin' 'bout no punctuation marks.

I recall I was being sexually harassed by an autistic bear of a boss who slobered as he spoke. It was a large progressive corporation with domestic partner benefits and which prided itself on being liberal, so I don't think they knew what to make of this emotionally stunted man. I wondered if they all thought that all Gays were like this guy, so that diversity required that his behavior be tolerated,

It was during the time when Anita Hill was testifying during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, which raised an important subject. I complained to management about the boss, and they moved me to another boss. I should have had him fired, but I though all the hubbub would derail my career.

r122 Actually, dearie, it's acceptable in proper English to place the punctuation outside the quotation marks. I'm guessing you're an Amurkan?

I think R119 is correct. I do wonder, however, if it's a regional thing, like with "soda", "pop", 'tonic", and "Coke".

O.J. Simpson

Seriously, bastardiZed British vagino R124, you think I didn't know that's how you people do it?

And I'm from the northeast, R124, you sack of feminine cleanser, so there is not a way in the world I have ever said "Amurkan."

I agree for the most part with R108. In the 90s, much of the world respected the Clinton administration, but thought that the Starr Chamber investigations of Clinton's sexual conduct was ridiculous.

Immediately after 9-11, America had the goodwill of world, excluding some Mideast countries and a few others. Some countries that had always distanced themselves from the US were sympathetic, including France and Russia. I seem to recall that even lesser US adversaries, like Cuba and Venezuela, offered assistance. I once saw an online montage of the faces of world leaders as they learned or spoke about the 9-11 events, and the pain on their faces was clearly evident. I wish I had saved it, it was moving.

George Bush squandered all that goodwill. We could have done a lot of good with it, but the Bush administration badly mishandled the response to 9-11. It will take a generation to repair all the damage for which Bush was responsible. Sometimes a leader will have to buck the opinions of foreign leaders or popular foreign opinion; however, popular support does mean greater and easier influence on world events. Much of the world today thinks of Bush/Cheney as war criminals, and the US as an outlaw nation. That can't be a good thing.

A lot of those same countries that hate us also hate gay people and women, R129.

[quote]bastardiZed British

Oh, the irony.

Condoms inporn were more opaque so you knew they were practicing safer sex. Also, more cum shots away from the face and more on the belly.

I hate sounding like a curmudgeonly luddite but it really was beautiful not being inundated with all this technology. People really did hang out in cafés and just talk, or dance, or read, or listen to music. Felt like we had more time, maybe because there wasn’t as much online stuff to check? Event television was still a thing, if you missed something you missed out on the water cooler talk the next day. There seemed to be tonnes of jobs available all the time. More mature blockbusters and more endearing indie films (remember all those Parker Posey and Christina Ricci comedies?). Magazines still had models on them and fashion was a bit more adventurous.

Music was better. That’s subjective, but even being objective there was more variety. Top 40 radio played pop divas, mainstream rock, hip hop, R&B, house, country, neo soul, folky singer songwriter stuff, dance / electronica, alternative, grunge, eurodisco, occasionally a jazz, reggae or latin hit would break through. Something for everyone. Also the era of the music video in in its prime. The clubs were better, the drugs were better, the political scandals more exciting, and everyone’s interior design was a bit more colourful.

I wonder what my dead people would have been like if we'd all had smartphones when we got together every Sunday night.

I wonder what R134 is trying to say.

I wonder how many digits there are in R135's IQ.

I was a shop boy at Barney's. I had a 6 floor walk up studio with sleeping loft in the far west Chelsea with a gas range, mini fridge and ice box, and a folding rattan screen in the corner. Sometimes I fried up a pork chop for my gentleman callers. I never let them stick just the tip in, without a condom, not once. I often stayed in on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, to do my hair and nails and balls and ass, and let my puffy eyes deflate.

R137 would then venture out to the fire escape to strum a guitar and sing folk songs while his hair dried.

There was a web site that collected the broadcasts of not only US network television on 9/11, but a whole bunch of cable stations and foreign broadcasts. Most of the foreign broadcasts were professional and realistic but the Russian reporting was astounding -- the towers were shown burning and then falling on screens behind the anchors, who were openly weeping as they covered the news...

The WTC attack was in 2001 so this has exactly what to do with the 90s?

R140 signs on to the net to step on others comments.

We won't forget what you did.

Make-up was horrible. In the 90s all you could get were fifty shades of grey, beige and taupe. In matte. Same for the lipsticks. Even Chanel's Rouge Noir was modified with some beige gloss from Lancome, juicy tube in 'marilyn'.

Remember the choke collars that women started wearing in the 90s? And all that velvet they wore?

[quote]Remember the choke collars that women started wearing in the 90s? And all that velvet they wore?

That was 70s retro

But it was very popular. People only remember the sleek Calvin Klein look, kate moss and that carolyn kennedy style. But the majority of women walked around in cropped tops, mom jeans, platform sneakers, those long open crochet vests, velvet ribbons around their neck, brown liner around their lips and lanky hair. Horrible. Even the 80s were better.

Well done, R141!

In science:

Detection of extrasolar planets orbiting stars other than the sun.

Dolly the sheep is cloned.

Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990; revolutionizes astronomy.

Protease inhibitors introduced allowing HAART therapy against HIV; drastically reduces AIDS mortality.

NASA's spacecraft Pathfinder lands on Mars and deploys a small roving vehicle, Sojourner, which analyzes the planet's geology and atmosphere.

The Hale–Bopp comet swings past the sun for the first time in 4,300 years in April 1997.

Genetically engineered crops are developed for commercial use.

Discovery of dark matter, dark energy, brown dwarfs, and first confirmation of black holes.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) becomes fully operational.

Proof of Fermat's last theorem is discovered by Andrew Wiles.

Construction starts on the International Space Station – 1996 .

Bin Laden's organization was behind the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Also for the bombing of two US embassy's in Africa in 1998.

In August 1991, Sandia and the GAO completed their reports on the 1989 explosion on the USS Iowa, concluding that the explosion was likely caused by an accidental overram of powder bags into the breech of the 16-inch gun. The U.S. Navy, however, disagreed with Sandia's opinion and concluded that the cause of the explosion could not be determined. The U.S. Navy had originally blamed the explosion on a lovers quarrel between two male sailors.

To add to what others have said about the commercial aviation industry pre-9/11....in the '90s, I could still whimsically take the train down to the airport, walk into the airport, and wander around somewhat aimlessly...even going all the way to a gate if I wanted to (even though I had absolutely no good reason for being at the airport at all - much less at a concourse/gate). No one would look at me twice.

I miss those days! In 1994 - upon flying home from California - I walked off the flight practically straight into my family's arms. On other occasions, I would walk all the way to the gate to "greet" family members who had just flown home.

About a year before 9/11, I ventured to the airport to meet in person someone with whom I had developed an online acquaintance. He was in the ATL on business - and I agreed to hang out with him for a bit a couple of hours before his flight took off. He was a black-American Muslim, and was dressed in a very-Muslim way. We chatted for a while in the relative seclusion of an inter-faith chapel that was in the airport at the time, then ventured out to the bustling plaza area and got some Starbucks. No one seemed to look at him (or me) twice. There was no surveillance, and I would bet that he boarded his flight without facing any harassment or extra scrutiny. I lost touch with him shortly after 9/11 - so I never did get any insights from him about how much more difficult his life became post-9/11.

In the '90s, clothes had considerably more quality - and had more of an ability to last for years without looking like shit after a year. I walk into stores these days and get depressed by the deterioration of quality from the way clothes were made in the '80s and '90s.

When a movie came out in the '90s, people were MUCH more likely to go to the movie theater to see it. Movie releases were a thing, and you made plans to go out to the movies. Now, people seem much more oriented toward Netflix - and the 9 different HBOs and 6 different Cinemaxes they have on their cable packages.

I liked the nostalgia for the 1970s.

I started getting hip to the Internet just before it started to resemble the Internet we use today. I "discovered" email in 1994 - when the Internet was still all words on a blank screen - a very basic font, no graphics or graphical interface. The browsers (i.e. Mosaic, Netscape) that fostered the development and the accessibility of the Internet were still about a year away. I remember when the Internet browser as we know it today was still an "idea" that was in development - the "nerds" in the universities still talked of these browsers in somewhat theoretical terms.

Back then, the Internet seemed to be used only by university students and intellectuals. If you read some of the old Usenet discussion groups - you can clearly sense that it was a more "elite", exclusive domain back then - long before the average person started using the Internet.

In the '90s, cities weren't so contrived and Disneyfied. There was more grit, more unpredictability, more genuine bizarreness and seediness. For example - here in Atlanta, Midtown is a gentrified, sanitized, price-inflated shell of what it used to be. Where have all the gay hustlers and "underground" clubs gone?

[quote] In the '90s, cities weren't so contrived and Disneyfied.

Are you shitting me?

My family was alive then. That was both a good and a bad thing.

Yes R153 - I remember that. For example, VH1 (which was much more watchable back then) had a nice little show called "8-Track Flashback" - in which music videos/performance clips of '70s songs were shown. VH1 also showed "Midnight Special" reruns.

R156, the Disneyfication of certain cities started in the 1990s - but the process wasn't so hopelessly complete yet. Yes, I know they started scrubbing Times Square in the late-'80s/early-'90s.

My favorite decade. My career was at its peak, everyone I knew was employed and doing fine and you'd wake up to a phone call every morning from a friend instead of checking in with Facebook, texts, etc. Lots of flannel but that was every decade for me. It's also when cigarettes went out of fashion and everything changed in terms of flights, buildings, restaurants, etc. It was the beginning of smoker as pariah.

And, of course, it was pre-9/11. Everyone I know got a little lost, a little off track after that. Including me. Starting with airplanes; I used to fly to South Africa and back, no problem, could rest a bit and do it again the next week. Now I don't want to get near an airport. Pure anxiety.

Back in the old pre-Netscape, pre-AOL days - this passed for Internet graphics; people with a little time on their hands built images out of commas and parentheses:

Drove through Midtown in the misty rain yesterday, R155, and wanted to vomit. Half built condo megaplexes springing up every block all the way down Piedmont and the shopping center at Monroe and Va Highlands a Yuppie nightmare. Even landmarks that were still there when I moved back a couple of years ago are gone. Forget Backstreet, Armory, a million other landmarks from my youth; they became parking lots years and years ago.

I miss the days of the hustlers that fascinated me hanging on corners of Cypress Street; I was their same age and they fascinated me. The Gallos bar and later Metro. Getting a little drunk and then sitting in some dive coffee shop watching people walk by outside. It was just dirty enough but relatively safe and I always knew I was going on an adventure if I ventured out at night. Now I only wonder where I will park.

I turned 20 in 1990. I loved the '90s. Fucking LOVED them. Realistically, there was a lot of heartache, but that stuff I don't really think about, you know? I moved to LA in 1992 and had the time of my life.

As someone said upthread, it was easy as fuck to get a job. After finding my day job at LA Cellular to be too boring, I started working at a famous record store on the Sunset Strip. I lived in an apartment complex RIGHT on Sunset Blvd and LaCienega (it's being torn down now which breaks my heart). I had tons of sex, hanging out at Rage on KROQ night (Monday) or hanging in "Valseline Alley" behind the Gold Coast. I would get tons of hot dick at the UCLA bathrooms in Westwood, too.

And the music. The biggest band would come to LA and play small venues like The Palace and The Palladium. I saw Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Faith No More, Nine Inch Nails- one night Stone Temple Pilots played a surprise show at Viper Room and I got tipped off. I could go on and on about the great concerts I saw.

I loved hanging with lots of broke, poor, young wannabe actors. Lots of fun memories of getting together with them for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The '90s was a very special time. When the millennials came of age and started moving to LA, things changed.

Our paths definitely crossed, R163. Was living right on Harper and Santa Monica and lived at that record store where you worked. Driving around with the top down while scores of wasted folks emerged from the Whiskey and passed by all smiles; it was wild but the opposite of scary. Maybe the kids today are having the same kind of fun somewhere but I sure as shit don't see it. I just see them on their goddam phones 24/7, walking with their heads down.

R164 Go down to Echo Park some Saturday night. It is teeming with kids in their 20s. It's just that I find millennials so uninteresting.

But yeah, the Strip in the '90s was the place to be. Also, Boy's Town, back when it was all guys. When I go down there now it's 50/50 men and women. Very very strange to me.

R108 is so right.

Yep, the 90s were still Revolver to me. My default choice and favorite bar. And then, once I got sober, my AA meetings were on the strip too so kept going to same block but different address. Miss that park with the swings for drunk fun after Gold Coast too. Oddest thing is I never once felt scared, even if I was walking through there alone (since we never were really alone there, tons of people in the periphery).

I'm not in L.A. now and the 20s kids don't interest me either. Guess the mind and body protects itself; I'd hate to still be trying to score with them at my age which is not even that advanced but sure feels like it when I think of that combination. Unless it's a bordelo boy in Amsterdam, that won't happen again.

I hear you, R162. I was a bit too young and green-of-thumb to have strong memories of some of those old delights you mentioned, but I've heard about some things since - and have an awareness/appreciation for all of the gritty treasures that lurked in Midtown back then.

Cypress St. has seen more exciting days - that's for sure. That millennial trust-fund baby I saw walking her poodle along Cypress St. a few months ago probably has no idea...

R119 was correct to put the quotation marks inside the punctuation.

Hey 90s LA Gays - I'm curious about what the cost of living was like in LA back then. LA is now reported to be the worst / least affordable rental market in the country when you compare median income to median rent. Worse than San Francisco, worse than NY. I got laid off earlier this year and had to relocate to more affordable suburbs, but I'd spent 2009-2014 in LA and even in that period saw the cost of living rise dramatically. What were Silverlake and Echo Park like back then? Did any white people live there? What was downtown like? I lived in dtla and loved the urban walkable experience I had, but it's my impression that in the 90s, living in downtown was affordable and not exactly desirable. Overall, what do you think was better - if at all - in LA in the 90s? What's better now? It does seem that, overall, LAPD has made progress since the 90s on reducing police brutality and corruption, increasing community outreach and securing a reduction in violent crime.

I always tell the story of a drunk night in Midtown at the Gallos and other bars on a trip home from L.A., a stop at a well-lighted gas station that was there on Cypress somehow, drove all the way home a good half hour -- and realize my wallet is not in my pocket nor the car. Realize I drunkenly threw it into the car door and it must have bounced out. So drive all the way back down there, another half hour, pull up to the pump -- and a chorus of angels, there is my wallet with the credit cards laid out like a deck of cards, waiting for someone to pick it up. On that dingy street! I could not believe my luck, what a nightmare that would've been otherwise especially since I lived out of town. (I did quit drinking shortly afterwards, fyi.)

The butt cut was to the 1990s as the mullet was to the 1980s:

You won't like it, R170, I sure don't since I'd love to live there again. I never paid more than $450 a month rent in thirteen years of living in L.A. and that includes Redondo Beach, Burbank, West Hollywood, and Toluca Lake -- and those weren't dives either. One was a beautiful guest house with a pool. Now I look on craigslist and even the dumps in Glendale want $2000 a month. Sickening.

R173 - $450/mo?? Ugh. Jealous. Was that studios, 1 br, or sharing with other roommates? According to the CPI inflation calculator, $450 in 1995 is the equivalent of $703.69 in 2015.

Yeah my first rent in LA was $325 a month, but that was in North Hollywood.

Once I moved to the Sunset Strip in 1993, I never paid more than $500 and never had to live east of LaBrea. THAT has certainly changed.

R163, what happened when the millenials started moving to L.A.?

Never shared with roommates after the age of 22. Rest ran the gamut from two bedrooms in North Hollywood/Colfax area to studio above pool in Burbank to two bedroom in rent controlled West Hollywood (how'd THAT get away? It and Santa Monica were the only places that had it). And then that gorgeous but not huge guesthouse in movie star filled Toluca Lake; Denzel Washington lived across the street. Even a two bedroom walking to the beach that I shared with a roomie was probably $600 split two ways.

I have no idea how people are surviving anymore. 12 to an apartment?

R176 I guess I would say that Boy's Town (Santa Monica Blvd between LaCienenga and Doheny) is a good example. It was ALL GUYS. I mean, not a female in sight. *Maybe* one once in a while. You were among your own kind, maybe for the very first time in your life.

Now, you go down there and its gay guys and their hags. I hate it. The Boy's Town I knew is lost and gone forever.

And to others points about being gay in the '90s. I don't know what it was like other places, but it was COOL to be gay in LA. It made you special. I never felt odd or out of place or unwanted because of it. Now, it's become just normal and boring.

It's tough, R177. I'm - barely - a millennial at age 34 and it's why I find all these negative comments about millennials so off-putting. It wasn't millennials who ruined everything for younger generations.

R179 I didn't mean to denigrate anyone personally. Sorry if I offended you.

I know, R178, it might've been a conceit but there was something about the outlaw element I loved especially once I got to L.A. and could do whatever I fucking wanted -- and, by then, I had enough good judgement not to get killed and enough luck not to get sick. I was there a little earlier and younger so I was part of the Smiths and Bronski Beat and actually loved being gay, the opposite of shame. It was a blast, a cool secret club that of course wasn't secret anymore. And we were more militant too, especially when AIDS came along. I remember seeing the Pink Panthers, a bunch of gay guys patrolling West Hollywood and Silverlake after some gay bashing attacks and thinking it was the coolest thing ever.

Now, it's far from bad but yeah... normal. Painfully normal.

Wait, a 34-year-old in 2015 is considered a millenial?

Millennial is really 1982 onwards. But I guess it's the 1981-2 academic year? In which case a 34 year old might just be a millenial.

R180 - wasn't targeted at you. And being born in late 1981 I don't really consider myself a millennial, though that's technically where I'm usually classified. I think it's the younger millennials (who are still in their 20s) who are facing the worst economic prospects and so while I think it may be true that these fabled "millennials" might be a little self-obsessed - which young person isn't? - I think it's also fair to remember how much the baby boomers and, even generation x'ers have done to stack the deck against young college grads these days.

R181 Right. I would openly tell my straight guy friends about my experiences in the UCLA bathrooms, and they wouldnt be grossed out at all. They'd say they wished there was such a place to get girls so easy.

There was this sex club called The Zone on Sycamore and... Waring I think. I always tried to be safe, but... I'm sure I slipped up a few times. I was lucky not to get sick.

I recently found out The Zone is still there. I'm curious, but not curious enough. haha.

I miss it. I really miss it.

I heard the Spotlight Bar on Selma off of Hollywood Blvd. recently closed. That was a scary one from the outside and I had to take a deep breath to get up the gumption -- but once inside it was just another cool dive bar with peanut shells on the floor. Where do all the drunks and hustlers hang out now, even Numbers is gone. Everyone just sit at home and plays online? Jesus...

Numbers was always fun. When it was up on Sunset by the Laugh Factory. Used to see Jerry Herman there all the time.

Was midtown spa around in your day, 90s LA gays?

I went to Numbers at age 21 in search of John Schneider whom I'd heard had been seen there. :) Had no idea it was a hustler bar, even took me a while to figure it out once inside. This is when it was next door to the deli. Later finally met said John Schneider and did not mention my attempt at stalking before the word was invented -- but I sure as hell remembered it and fondly.

R7 That does sound like paradise :(

Lots of flannel and Doc Martens.

Seinfeldian.

The first memory I have from the 90’s is going to the movie theatre to see Home Alone. I was 7. Best time ever!

I attended high school, went to college, and started grad school. I earned scholarships, held down two part time jobs all through and graduated with no debt.

Yes on baggy jeans, cargo pants, hoodies, “club” wear. I still have more of those clothes than I should, and still wear them.

I miss my 1995 YJ, the last year before the return of rounded headlights and a redesigned cushier cabin with air conditioning - the “mall Jeep.” The YJ was impractical in every way and I loved it.

I do long for the relative simplicity of life back then. If I could I would haunt my former self to deliver a stern warning: stay away from him.

Boring.

Sorry, but I LIKE how technology has changed things.

The dramatic change from 1998-2000 made it feel like the90s were THE breakthrough - the gay 90s. After fighting the whole decade for gay rights and AIDS treatment, it seemed like we got both.

The cocktail wasn’t considered a sure thing in the broader community until the end of the decade. While it saved lives, I think most of us weren’t sure it would last and be effective for a long time. By late 90s, it was becoming clear that it was really effective and there was a slow release of the terror of AIDS.

Gay recognition on TV also was a huge deal in spreading gay rights beyond the big cities. The acceptance that AIDS wasn’t a punishment for being gay slowly sunk in for America. By 2000, when I turned 30, it felt like being gay was truly mainstream. Never dreamt of - or desired - gay marriage. Shocked at how much father we’ve come - beyond where I ever imagined in the 90s.

R163 Our music tastes vary, but your Weho/LA in the 90s is not too far from my own experience.

It felt like such an age of exploration and discovery In the real world and not in the curated Insta manner.

That Weho/LA was gone by the time I left in 2008 and is nowhere to be found now.

Exactly the same. But fatter televisions and smaller cell phones.

It was a lot like living in the late 1980s. And early 2000s. The music was starting to suck...except for that great disco revival in the mid-90s that was a lot of fun because I was too young to enjoy it in the 70s.

It was the Clinton/Gore decade (and Newt Gingrich was the Evil Republican foil.) Monica Lewinsky, BJs in the Oval Office and the blue dress. Booming stock market until the tech bubble burst. Overall prosperous times. Then Bush Jr. stole the election and 9/11 happened and everything changed.

I loved it. Best decade of my life. I lived in NYC and I sex a lot in that city. Had a great apartment and job.

It was an age of innocence, of sun-dappled cheeks and bright dancing eyes. LOL. Birkenstocks, flannels, grunge, "Friends" and Monica Lewinsky

Music and clubs were better.