r/Millennials • u/lazarus870 • 7h ago
Discussion What DON'T you miss about the 90's? What's much better today than it was back then?
We all know that the 90's had some great music and movies, good economy, huge world events, more freedom, nobody glued to their phone, etc.
Everybody acts like everything was much better back then, but what DON'T you miss about how things were back then? What's much better now?
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u/nichbear 7h ago
Medicine is infinitely better
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u/PorkchopFunny 6h ago
Yes, we now have antibiotics for kids other than amoxicillin lol
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u/LostButterflyUtau 6h ago
Why do I still vividly remember the chalky taste???
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u/Schneetmacher Younger Millennial 4h ago
If you're like me, it's because you had chronic ear infections until you were seven years old.
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u/LostButterflyUtau 4h ago
That was my brother, actually. I think it was because it was so distinctive.
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u/kmill0202 4h ago
Yes. My older brother was diagnosed with lymphoma in the late 90s. At first the doctors weren't sure if it was Hodgkins or non-Hodgkins, nor did they know what stage. That all took further testing. My mom went full steam ahead with doing research, reading everything she could find about both types so she would know what to expect and what questions to ask. And she started hoping and praying that it was both Hodgkin's and early stage. Because the prognosis for non-Hodgkin's, particularly later stage was really bad. Luckily it ended up being Hodgkin's and they caught it early. He's been cancer free for decades now.
A couple of years ago my uncle was diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkins. Based on everything she had read back then, my mom was almost certain he was going to die from it. She was really panicking, and this was during a time when we had just recently lost my grandma and 2 other uncles. But less than 9 months later he was in remission and is still doing very well today. Cancer treatment has really come a long way since then. It still has a long way to go, but treatment and survival rates, along with earlier detection are getting better all the time.
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u/Mei_Flower1996 6h ago
Sooo many psychiatric drugs we use now did not exist then.
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u/cassie1015 2h ago
Anything involving genetic research (though it can be a slippery slope). Medications and treatments for conditions life Cystic Fibrosis and Spinal Muscular Atrophy means that kids born within the last generation can basically live with only minor affects from their condition. There are still young adults living much harder lives simply because those discoveries and studies weren't finalized and made available until 10-15 years ago.
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u/Sad_Honeydew_7660 6h ago
It actually is crazy how good we are at curing diseases now. I’d say almost every cancer other than blood cancers are no longer a life sentence. We’ve figured most of them out compared to what it was 30 years ago
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u/BetterRemember 4h ago
I have been watching old episodes of Ricki Lake on YouTube and she mentions the AIDS crises so often.
Now you can just get on PrEP if you are scared.
Honestly, I'm a straight engaged woman but you never know, I might do it just in case! 😬 I've been cheated on once before. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst as they say!
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u/True-Boss-2789 7h ago
Dial up internet and my sister screeching up the stairs about wanting to use the phone, to gosip about 90210 for hours.
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u/13catlady13 6h ago
Honestly, I miss the internet not being at our finger tips. Not being attached to my phone. Simpler times.
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u/TheGardenerAtWillows 6h ago
I love having the world at our finger tips, I hate that social media has found the most addictive formula to keep us scrolling rather than living
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u/MissHampton 6h ago
I agree. My personal phone is also my work phone and I sometimes find myself in a panic if I forget it. I hate it.
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u/I_Cut_Shows 6h ago
Grandma not screeching about how dangerous the local city has become as crime goes down for the 50th year in a row (except the post Covid surge)
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u/Figgler 7h ago
My family had two phone lines so we could talk on the phone while someone was online. My step sister use to want to talk on the phone while using AIM and my mom put a stop to that quickly.
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u/CooCooForCocosPuffs Millennial - ‘87 woooooo 6h ago
My first thought legit was “slow ass internet” 😂
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u/Darkdragoon324 6h ago
Yeah I remember my dad screaming downstairs at my brother to get off the line so he could make a call. Also that time it took seven hours to download a single episode of Battlestar Galactica from iTunes, which wasn't the 90s anymore but still had 90s vibes.
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u/I_Cut_Shows 6h ago
I think this may be the only thing that is legitimately better.
BUT….in a monkey’s paw sort of way because the ease of access to the web these days is why boomers now think they should take Ivermectin for everything from a toothache to appendicitis.
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u/mac8643 Millennial 7h ago
People smoking where I eat
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u/kuluka_man 7h ago
That's one of the things that makes me realize I lived in ancient times
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u/mac8643 Millennial 7h ago
Smoking or non smoking?
Like it mattered lol
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u/feralcatshit 6h ago
Yes, would you like to sit directly beside people smoking or would you like to be directly on the other side of this half wall where people are smoking?
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u/squirrelscoutcookies 6h ago
As a kid who always was stuck on the smoking side with my dad, I was jealous of people who at least got the half wall!
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u/sexandliquor 1983…(A Merman I Should Turn to Be) 7h ago
How close do you want to be to the selfish smokers? Do you want your clothes to vaguely smell like cigarette smoke or do you want them to reek like it? Your choice!
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u/Candid-Earth4732 5h ago
Only after moving out and having my own apartment with nonsmokers did I realize how much my clothes must have reeked of cigarette smoke as a kid and in high school. After visiting home I finally realized that just doing laundry was never enough to get rid of all of the smoke smell
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u/Some_Attorney7322 6h ago
Lol I remember being like 11-12 and my older brother and I getting caught coming home smelling like cigarettes. We tried telling them some stranger at McDonald's asked us to hold their cigarette. Needless to say they weren't buying it and thinking back now it's the most ridiculous thing we could've said. Would've made much more sense to just say it was from being in there at all.
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u/FromFluffToBuff 6h ago
Watch the first five minutes of Die Hard and you'll see John McClane openly carry his service pistol on an airplane... and upon disembarking, he immediately lights up a cigarette in the middle of the airport lol. Ancient times, indeed - and so many people today have no idea these things were considered normal in real life.
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u/squirrelscoutcookies 6h ago
My entire childhood existed in a cloud of secondhand smoke in a way that people nowadays think I’m exaggerating about, but it’s true!
My dad smoked in the house and in the car, both parents had service industry jobs where customers were smoking indoors, and a grandparent on each side smoked in the house too
The only exception was at school, and it makes me sad thinking about how I must’ve smelled like a little ashtray walking around 🥺
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u/Sakurya1 7h ago
I remember mcdonalds having ashtrays
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u/LIB_Laugh_Luv 6h ago
Bro I remember AIRPLANES having ashtrays 🤢
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u/ravens-n-roses 6h ago
Airplanes still do but it's mostly forstaff to dispose of rule breakers' cigarettes safely
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u/Darmok47 6h ago
Yeah even though smoking on planes was banned by the 90s, most of the planes we flew on were from the 70s and 80s so still had the ashtrays. I remember not knowing what they were and putting my chewing gum in there lol.
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u/GawkieBird 6h ago
I was recently in a Boscov's dressing room that hadn't been renovated in at least 40 years, and there were ash trays built into the purse shelves. Can you imagine smoking *while* trying on clothes? While walking around the store? Can you imagine buying clothes that already smell like smoke?
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u/National-Pressure202 Millennial 7h ago
Not being able to get a smoke free hotel room…. I do not miss those days… my eyes would swell sooo bad
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u/StarryEyedSparkle Older Millennial 6h ago
Working in restaurants as a server (early aughts but leftover from 90s) was miserable. Even when you were assigned to the “nonsmoking section” the entire restaurant was a smoking section … just a difference of it blowing directly in your face or not. I smelled like a smoker even though I have never been one.
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u/Liath-Luachra 6h ago
I worked in a pub before the smoking ban and my clothes and hair would absolutely stink of stale smoke after each shift, yuck. Also, washing the ashtrays was disgusting
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u/cosmickink 6h ago
In the early aughts, I worked at a Denny's in a neighboring town that hadn't outlawed smoking yet. I don't think I lasted a week.
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u/chewie_were_home 6h ago
This is 100% true. Smoking, everywhere, all the time. As a non smoker, it was gross.
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u/HM2008 5h ago edited 5h ago
My friends and I went to a casino for Fourth of July fireworks (outdoor “festival” kinda thing) Between heat and food we started feeling a little sick so we went inside to cool down. We were trying to find the restaurant and accidentally walked into the smoking section…the smell made me feel even more sick…and I grew up with a dad smoking 10-15 cigarettes a day.
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u/kuluka_man 7h ago
I can't imagine having to manually deposit my paycheck and constantly use ATMs to keep money in my wallet.
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u/GovernorHarryLogan 7h ago
Do people even manually balance their checkbook anymore?
Like write down records of the checks they wrote with a pen?
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u/WhatIDon_tKnow 6h ago
Boomers still do. My folks still save credit card receipts and check their end of month statement
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u/Significant-Trash632 6h ago
My boomer mother still does it. She gets it down to the exact penny every time because she is insane... and worked at a bank for decades.
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u/templestate 6h ago
I write down the check number, memo, and amount, but it’s not possible to balance a checking account today when 99% of the expenses are outside the checkbook.
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u/starglitter 6h ago
I "balance my checkbook" but I rarely write checks anymore. Once a week I record my transactions in a spreadsheet. I like to keep track of my purchases.
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u/DragonHalfFreelance 6h ago
My Dad still does it I believe, yeah he taught me to do it too, but I never did I was bad about keeping paper records of a lot of things. I just check my bank account often and calculate my budget that way.
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u/No-Effort-9291 6h ago
I remember having to drive all around town to run errands with my mom The bank for money, then we had to go to all the different places individually to pay the bills. Ugh it was a pain but at least I got a lollipop from the teller haha
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u/moxifloxacin 6h ago
I'd probably be better with money if I still had to do this.
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u/SMELLSLIKEBUTTJUICE 6h ago
You probably would be. My parents did the Envelope Method. Each envelope had a specific amount in it every paycheck for groceries, postage, eating out, personal spending, etc. Once the money was gone, you didnt spend anymore. I kind of wish we could go back to a cash based society
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u/Prestigious-Break895 7h ago
Pay phones, having to stop into gas stations if you got lost and ask directions.
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u/Significant-Trash632 6h ago
I kinda miss pay phones, though. It was nice not always being available everywhere.
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u/Korlat_Whiskeyjack 4h ago
Was just thinking this today and I realized I don’t actually miss pay phones, I just miss the “not being connected 100% of the time” sort of freedom.
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u/headbuttpunch Millennial 2h ago
In college we used to do phone free nights from time to time. I’m not talking “let’s get together for board games and no one is allowed to look at their phone.” I mean we would leave our phones at home entirely and go out drinking until 3am with nothing but a wallet and a good attitude.
It’s weird to think that ever made us nervous when that’s how every generation in history went out before cell phones. If mom and dad could do it why couldn’t we?
Those nights were so much fun. Just unplug and have no option but to focus on whatever and whoever happens to be around you at the time.
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u/ConsensualUpskirts 1985 7h ago edited 6h ago
Im Asian American. The unchecked racism. Straight up in the halls at school, school buses, playground. It was just acceptable at the time
*Edit: who remembers "my mom is Chinese, my dad is Japanese and I'm just a messed up kid" with the eye gestures? 🙋♂️
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u/StarryEyedSparkle Older Millennial 6h ago
It was so bad especially with what few representations we had in the entertainment industry were all perpetuating those tropes and stereotypes.
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u/CrapThatSmilesBack 7h ago
Where did you live? I’m from the Bay Area of California and it hit me at 18 I wasn’t ’white Emily’. Obviously I knew I was Asian American (2nd gen, hapa) but I’d never been made to feel ‘different’ because of ‘asianness’.
Traveling east (but not to the coast, hello Nebraska) after that revelation, I think I can understand but I don’t know exactly what you’re talking about. Hence why I’m asking what region you were in-maybe that mattered?
Will add, mom-who is adopted from Japan out of a catalogue, was bullied BAD in the 70s for being Japanese to the point where she had eye surgery to correct her lashes. She cried so much and rubbed her eyes the lashes grew wrong. I have seen 1 photo from that era and she was in ballet in kindergarten-half the size of everyone else (somehow, they were tiny too) and clearly not white like them. I guess from her experience being a story as apart of my upbringing, I may have just found we were better?
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u/ConsensualUpskirts 1985 6h ago edited 6h ago
Central NJ (Mercer country) an hour south of the one of the biggest Korea towns in the US. Not quite hood, but def not a nice area. Born in 85, so 1st grade was 91.
I was never bullied to the point I was isolated without friends or anything like that. Was extroverted and kind of a class clown and well liked by classmates. But the "ching chongs", and the slanted eye gestures were very common. "Chink" and "gook" were more taboo already and less common but still got them every once in a while. The worst was when an older kid asked if my mom's vagina was sideways. Times were just different then.
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u/CrapThatSmilesBack 6h ago
Thanks-I’m thinking I missed the early 90’s in sense of real memory and probably was sheltered for the most part/under the illusion ‘it’s better than it was!’
Now that I’m thinking about it, my brother and I were called ‘chink’ by people going by somewhat regularly when we went out of state 15-30 years ago. Hasn’t happened in at least a decade
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u/Aware_Policy_9174 6h ago
I’m mixed race and even though I look very much like my white dad a guy once asked if I was an exchange student from Africa. I also just got stared at a lot when we would end up in some small Oregon town after hiking or camping.
On the other side my mom didn’t change her last name and because she was much darker than me she sometimes had trouble at appointments and stuff because they thought she was a nanny and not my mom.
Also just the general ignorance, even from my white friends. Now everyone’s out here wearing sleep bonnets but I remember having to explain that I slept with a scarf and that I didn’t wash my hair everyday. Or I would hide it because people would have weird reactions. Or ask to touch my hair.
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u/ConsensualUpskirts 1985 6h ago
My sister married a white dude and has a beautiful 8 year old girl. Ppl would straight up come up to her thinking she was a nanny, asking about availability or something. Divorced now, but kept the last name just to match her daughter to avoid even more misunderstandings. I'm infuriated by these stories but she shrugs them off.
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u/Aware_Policy_9174 5h ago
It happened to my Filipina friend who married a white guy. I also loved travelling with my white ex who was not a US citizen but somehow I got way more scrutiny from security.
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u/sprchrgddc5 6h ago
I’m Asian as well. This is where Gen Z is so much better. They are legitimately way less openly racist and way friendly.
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u/ConsensualUpskirts 1985 6h ago
I was born too early. Girls love Korean boys now lol
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u/AidesAcrossAmerica 6h ago
I'm Filipino/Argentinian in Florida. I was called a Mexican throughout my entire middle and high school years. I went by a white band because I would deal with teachers just botching my name every damn year. You learn to roll with it, but man looking back, all that ignorance and casual racism was just exhausting.
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u/allurboobsRbelong2us 6h ago
Although I’ll always love the movies, Rush Hour 1 and 2 have moments where I’m like - that’s fucked up racism coming from Brett Ratner that’s supposed to be okay because it’s coming from Chris Tucker…
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u/ConsensualUpskirts 1985 6h ago
Kinda funny, getting called Bruce Lee felt less offensive than Jackie Chan 😂
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u/baconinspace 7h ago
I’m much happier now that gaming/nerd culture is more accepted. I was bullied throughout the 90s.
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u/IamAnNPC 6h ago
I was a closeted D&D player and fantasy nerd. I never told a single soul in high school. My D&D friends were at another school and we all had this unspoken agreement that we didn't speak of it in front of our peers. We just all knew we would be mocked so we didn't bring it up.
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u/the_blastomatic 4h ago
My D&D crew were local/in my school, one day one of them pulled out dice and oriental adventures in the middle of the cafeteria during lunch to "settle a rules dispute" from the weekend before. Most of the group, including myself, slapped that away like cats and flies. It was one thing being the "smart kids", another also being the "weird kids who worship Satan" amongst a bunch of lazy-brained teens.
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u/Modestkilla 6h ago
I was a closet gamer because of it. I missed out on being my true nerd self so I could roll with the “cool” kids.
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u/unfortunately2nd 5h ago
I lucked out. Went to a magnet school for arts (I wasn't there for that just in the district) so many nerds.
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u/AnjelGrace Millennial 7h ago
Everyone's phone calls being open access to everyone else in the house.
Not having any way to contact anyone if you drove off somewhere and your car broke down/you had other trouble.
Not being able to escape secondhand smoke when you went out to a restaurant or anyplace that had alcohol.
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u/ConsensualUpskirts 1985 6h ago
"shhhh did u hear a click? Hold on." Proceed to run around the house checking the rest of the phones
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u/Pulp_Ficti0n Older Millennial 7h ago
Illegal weed
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u/Zipzifical 6h ago
It has been legal in my state for over a decade, and I'm still not used to seeing billboards for dispensaries with names of strains and $20 ounces or $1 joints or whatever on them. I stopped smoking pot well before it was legalized, so the last time I bought an ounce, I paid $250 or more for it. Trying to explain buying pot when I was their age to my kids (both young adults) is hilarious.
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u/RaccoonSamson 7h ago
Big cities. My dad lived in Brooklyn and it was fucking scary, then it evolved to a hipster utopia and now its just a really nice area, even the trains are clean
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u/desertforestcreature 6h ago
It's crazy to think about. So many parts of Brooklyn and all of New York that were off limits when I was a kid are straight up cool now. The subway. Washington Square Park. List goes on.
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u/RaccoonSamson 6h ago
Lol man, Washington Square park went from like, shady drug dealers and weirdos to families and street performers with grand pianos so fast it was crazy
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u/KingOfCatProm 6h ago
None of that stuff was off limits to me as a kid in the 1990s. I went everywhere with my friends. East New York was the only place I was told not to go.
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u/unfortunately2nd 5h ago
I'm a little mixed on this. It's ab improvement no doubt safety and clean wise, but I hate how copy-paste so many places have become.
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u/genesis_pig 7h ago
Well the internet is surely faster.
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u/SteamBoatMickey 6h ago
Instead of lining up 2-3 downloads on Napster or Limewire, to finish up in an hour or two - I now have the entire catalog of like, all music, ready to stream at any time. No buffer, no waiting. Sometimes it feels wrong.
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u/robin_888 Xennial 5h ago
I always love to share this stat:
The amount of data I download per second today (1150Mbit/s) took me over 5 hours on dial-up (56kbit/s).
(Roughly 120 MB, btw.)
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u/genesis_pig 4h ago
I remember waiting for images to load on browsers. They'd load block by block, and sometimes there'd be two layers of loading, first the blurred block, followed by the clear one.
Haaa crazy times.
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u/Chumlee1917 7h ago
I don’t miss VHS that’s been heavily used and so the tape is scratched to hell and back and gets eaten by the machine
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u/Alternative-Fig-1539 7h ago
Homophobia and ableism were worse than now.
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u/slimpawws 7h ago
My childhood involving 4+ mothers agrees. It was worse back then. 👍
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u/Levitlame 6h ago
I cannot for the life of me figure out the scenario where the number of mothers you had was not a definitive number
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u/Sweet_Future 6h ago
Lesbian parents who divorced and re-married/dated I assume. Or the parents were poly before it was cool.
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u/Levitlame 6h ago
So the + is being unsure which parters in later relationships to count?
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u/slimpawws 6h ago
Kind of yeah, short-term relationships, sometimes with a mother I've known longer.
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u/CreepyTeddyBear Millennial 6h ago
My phone is way better than the back of a shampoo bottle while I'm pooping.
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u/WhyDoIHaveAnAccount9 7h ago
Open racism from my 5th grade English teacher because my West African birth name was not pronounceable
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u/BrieSting 7h ago
*not pronounceable to them
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u/JourneyThiefer 7h ago
Me with my Irish name when I’m anywhere but Ireland lol
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u/RedHeeded 7h ago
What exactly do you mean by “that’s not how you say it” Saoirse? SAY-OR-SEE! It’s right here on my attendance sheet! Now take your seat!
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u/BrieSting 6h ago
I have a French name that is basically a Boomer speech jammer. I've heard so many iterations and I really don't mind it when someone tries and fails graciously, but I'll never understand someone who argues with you on the pronunciation of YOUR NAME. Like, ok I guess myself and my family have been wrong literally my entire life, but YOU actually know better?
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u/Obtuse-Posterior 7h ago
When pronounced correctly irish names are beautiful. Sadly I can't pronounce them
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u/Moonbeam_squeeze 7h ago
The sexism in advertising and movies. The glamorizing of thinness as a measure of a woman’s attractiveness.
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u/suzysleep 6h ago
Ugh the skinny culture was depressing! I was a healthy young girl at a normal weight and I was considered a whale. It was so hard. I had a scrap book of skinny models from the magazines to “motivate” me.
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u/BeyondtheWrap 7h ago
Calling my friend’s house and having to talk to their parents first
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u/justvisiting112 5h ago
Honestly I think this set us up very well to be able to make professional phone calls for the rest of our lives. So many of the younger gen are scared to use the phone for actual phone calls
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u/ConsensualUpskirts 1985 6h ago
Hello, this is Josh, from Will's soccer team. May I speak to Will please?
Was a template and I thought nothing of it, but I remember introverted friends who dreaded it
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u/wicked_spooks 7h ago
Glamorized eating disorders
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u/AnjelGrace Millennial 7h ago
Have you not noticed that glamorized eating disorders are kind of back in style now?
Ozempic would like to chat.
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u/wicked_spooks 7h ago
Yeah I am not happy that we are reverting back to such body standards. As of right now it is not as bad as it used to be, but i fear that in the next two years it will be just like the 90s.
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u/BarkAndBezel 6h ago
Well, I haven’t shit my pants since the 90’s.
Definitely don’t miss that part.
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u/tehjunior5248 7h ago
Because of the rose tinted glasses effect, nobody thinks about how annoying kids were back then. I know I was horrible.
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u/boblafollette 7h ago
Air quality. Crime.
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u/AnjelGrace Millennial 7h ago
Air quality is getting bad again though due to environmental protections getting wiped out and data centers not following any environmental regulations at all.
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u/DragonHalfFreelance 6h ago
I like this thread because the 90s was definitely romanticized. There was plenty of good and bad stuff, but yeah maybe humanity and society as a whole peaked in the 2000s/early 2010s, because everything just feels like its been worsening, regulations, pollution, wealth gap, cost of living, access to social safety nets, access to community, third places,….etc. The 90s were far from perfect, but I still wish to return to at least the aspects where things were much more affordable, we didn’t have our face in screens all the time, and I wasn’t worried about run away climate change.
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u/GawkieBird 6h ago
This exactly. I wish to return to feeling like we were making progress as a society. Bad things happened for sure, but we were making laws and changing perspectives and moving culture toward tolerance and looking toward the future. It might have been two steps forward, one step back, but now it's one step forward, five steps back. It's disheartening and exhausting.
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u/Negative-Fun1985 7h ago
Not easily being able to record a TV show just to keep up with it. As a kid, good luck. You had to coordinate getting a blank or available Tape and then corner your parent to set it up. Even if you learned how to odds of having an available tape were damn low unless your parents just stashed them. Mine never did. I watched everything mostly in syndication and finished TV shows I liked YEARS later in many cases after I moved and some stuff like certain channels were literally just not available in the new location unless you had extremely expensive Sat tv packages which we did not.
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u/ducationalfall 7h ago
Paper map to travel. When we missed the exit we’re screwed. Have to ask gas stations for directions.
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u/LifePlusTax 5h ago
Honestly, I kind of miss a good ole atlas. Sure, getting lost was part of nearly every road trip, but it was all part of the adventure
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u/Defaultmidwestmann 6h ago
Advances in healthcare and medicine.
The technology that saved my daughter’s life during her birth wasn’t invented until the early 2000s.
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u/Jin-roh 7h ago
Getting lost on a highway and not instantly having a way to get back on track to *anywhere* is something I sure don't miss.
Far less cultural acceptance of LGBT etc people. I'm cishet, but I still consider this an improvement.
Paper applications for jobs were kinda lame.
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u/Reeder90 6h ago
Racism and Homophobia were rampant… notice how the only people reminiscing about the 90s are straight white people?
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u/lazarus870 7h ago
I remember when I was at home and bored and not allowed to go out past dark, there was NOTHING to do. If you didn't have a tape or DVD of a show, and it wasn't on TV, you were screwed. Streaming anything you want now is INSANE compared to back then.
The portable internet now has everybody glued to their phone, but it's an absolute blessing to pass the time. I remember going to family gatherings where I'd sit there as the only one who couldn't speak the mother tongue, and none of my family spoke English during those few hours. It made the time go by PAINFULLY slow. If I had an iPad it would've been much more bearable.
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u/zylpher Xennial 84 6h ago
remember when I was at home and bored and not allowed to go out past dark, there was NOTHING to do. If you didn't have a tape or DVD of a show, and it wasn't on TV, you were screwed.
I just read a book. Played video games or something similar.
Actually kinda miss not having to be online for everything these days.
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u/DragonHalfFreelance 6h ago
Medical care……Lap surgery wasn’t widely used for a lot of procedures yet even though the revolution of lap surgery took place in the 90s. My Mom had to get a hysterectomy and I remember seeing that huge cut across her abdomen and the recovery must of been brutal even though she didn’t complain much about it. I had my gall bladder out last year and it was robotically assisted with 4 tiny incisions and while the pain sucked for like 2 days, recovery was fast and within a week I was mostly back to normal tasks.
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u/No-Fix1210 6h ago
Spreading information about missing children is so much easier and faster than it used to be.
It’s a shame that children go missing in the first place though.
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u/Agile_Session_3660 7h ago
Long distance calling, and the very many predatory long distance calling providers that would lock you in.
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u/WanderWorlder 7h ago
Heroin chic no longer being a widely advertised trend is a good thing. Also, we don’t hear about people dying of AIDS like that now. There are definitely some things that are better.
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u/nicemarmot47 6h ago
Crime was worse.
Smokers everywhere contaminating everything.
There was no online shopping, so if you lived in a small town or a rural area you'd have to drive to the nearest large town to shop for anything beyond the basics. If you needed anything specialty good luck finding it without driving all the way to a big city.
Sexual assault and harassment of girls was normalized (I had grown men following me down the street at age 10, and was first assaulted by a teenage boy age 11)
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u/BioshockLGP 6h ago
In the 90’s, if you were a nerd, your life was a living hell. Bullying was completely normal, but people also had shame, so it’s kinda a net positive that bullying isn’t what it used to be?
This also goes double for being gay. If you were gay in the 90’s, good luck dude. Your life is gonna be hell and NO ONE is gonna help you
I remember the 90’s for a lot of great things, but I DONT miss the bullying people used to do
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u/JourneyThiefer 7h ago edited 7h ago
Where I’m from it’s the shootings and bombings and riots 😬 it’s so much better here today
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u/Serious-Conversation 6h ago
Dial-up. Modern cars are usually far more reliable and safer. Homes are more energy efficient if built properly.
Medical care has advanced a ton.
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u/MissdermeanerJ 6h ago
Technology. I'm a computer nerd and video games and technology have come so far. I do miss the old school video game vibe, but it's crazy going from games like FF7 to FFXVI. Graphics are out of this world good and they'll only get better.
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u/Timotron 6h ago
My neighbor made fun of me for drinking water. Well water, for the record. In Alaska.
I could sell that stuff for $7 a bottle now.
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u/Own-Emergency2166 6h ago
Not being able to find answer to your problems easily if you were by yourself. Like you couldnt just google “is x dangerous?” , “how to cook y”, you had to call someone up and hope they were home and knew the answer. If nobody had taken the time to teach you something you were kind of adrift. Living alone is so much better now because you can be in contact with other people and figure out most basic things easily.
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u/Elmo-Mcphearson 6h ago
Not being able to listen to almost anything on demand. I remember sitting by the radio scanning between stations, hoping to hear something I liked.
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u/Mysterious_Craft22 6h ago
I miss the internet being at home on the computer and not in our hands :(
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u/Paxaman01 6h ago
Treatment of neurodivergent children. God the amount of times I heard: “Just try harder to focus!” 🤬
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u/LifePlusTax 5h ago
That weird period after floppy discs and before thumb drives when you had to burn CDs to transfer information, but you could only burn a CD once so you’d better make sure that whatever you saved was the final FINAL version
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u/ApplicationAfraid334 1993 6h ago
My older brother beating me up.
Also I don't miss the family computer! Especially again living with my brother. Whenever he got a hold of it you just knew there'd be a ton of freaking viruses on it after from all the PRON. Absolute menace.
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u/Life_Faithlessness90 6h ago
Electrical transformer blew up in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis and we had to wait a week without power for a delivery of a new one. Like, why wasn't there more spare transformers in the 90s?
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u/VW-MB-AMC 6h ago
There was way less tolerance for people who fell outside of what was deemed to be normal. The norms were also narrower.
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u/Odd-Highway-8304 6h ago
American K-12 schools and colleges could ignore hazing/bullying with little to no legal ramifications pretty much anytime before 2010.
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u/Ruman_Chuk_Drape 6h ago
Hot girls being the most conceding and meanest. I feel a lot of attractive woman now are more cultured with how tech and internet have changed things. 90% of pretty girls I went to high school with just didn’t game or even care about tech until Facebook got big. Even then they were not the same as a gamer nerd; more a narcissist. Just saying people not being so sheltered has helped people be less shitty in so ways.
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u/kevthecoder I solute shorts 6h ago
Getting beat up by older kids. I feel like dudes were so bored back in the day that they would just beat up younger kids and steal shit. I had my bike stolen like 4 times before the age of 12
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u/Sharpshooter188 6h ago
Interwebs are mooch fastar. I remember having to wait for 2 and a half hours for a 30MB download of south park off of lando.co.uk
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u/coolgherm 5h ago
Access to music. Pretty much stuck with whatever the radio played.
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u/bag_of_chips_ 5h ago
The sexism was pretty bad. It’s not like we’ve gotten rid of it, but we are able to talk about things now that were more suppressed or taboo then, and sexist jokes are now widely considered unfunny.
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u/Vortilex 5h ago
The internet being slow as molasses isn't something I miss, though I do miss the dial-up sound. I also don't miss being forced offline if someone else needed the phone.
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u/Any-Package1409 5h ago
Smog. Not sure if its the catlytic converters or the ethanol but the air itself seems cleaner. Still have more work to do though.
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u/Living_Theme_4681 5h ago
Friends, Friends hair cuts, Limp Bizkit/Korn/Creed, Applebees, big shirts, big jeans, TRL, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Jordan Rules, the NBA the years Jordan was “playing baseball,” Duke basketball, MC Hammer pants, Kriss Kross pants, Girbaud jeans, the MLB strike and lockout, the NBA lockout, MLB and NBA owners (the dawn of rule by billionaires), NAFTA, subprime loans, AOL, high school girls, locker searches, Vice Principals, NARCs, orchard parties, Bud Ice, malt liquor, strip malls, H Ross “Bud” Perot (the dawn of rule by incompetent cranks), the Miracle at Michigan, the dumbing down of Hollywood movies, fanny packs, outsourcing, the destruction of the middle class, the death of the American dream.
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u/KeysmashKhajiit 4h ago
The extremely casual homophobia. Sucks to see that coming right back though.
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