Did 90s nostalgia become a thing on or shortly after 9/11?

[darklordoftech]

9/11 seems like a point that divided “the 90s” and “the 00s”.

[HillGoose]

I can't imagine being nostalgic for the 90s, back then everyone smoked in restaurants and offices and such. Ugh the whole world must have smelled like garbage.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I can't imagine being nostalgic for the 90s, back then everyone smoked in restaurants and offices and such. Ugh the whole world must have smelled like garbage.

You are probably more nostalgic for 2002-2006 America

[HillGoose]

I can't imagine being nostalgic for the 90s, back then everyone smoked in restaurants and offices and such. Ugh the whole world must have smelled like garbage.

You are probably more nostalgic for 2002-2006 America

oh most definitely. Less people were smoking by that time + height of the neocons

[Mr. Reactionary]

The nostalgia waves tend to happen 20 years later, as that is when the young of that era tend to be entering the workforce and have disposable income while pining for simpler times. Its why the 50s became a 70s phenomenon, the 60s were everywhere in the 80s, 70s nostalgia took off in the 90s, 80s culture was big in the aughts and the 90s conquered the 2010s.

[darklordoftech]

I can't imagine being nostalgic for the 90s, back then everyone smoked in restaurants and offices and such. Ugh the whole world must have smelled like garbage.

You are probably more nostalgic for 2002-2006 America

oh most definitely. Less people were smoking by that time + height of the neocons

At least in New Jersey, the smoking ban didn’t take effect until the summer of 2006.

The nostalgia waves tend to happen 20 years later, as that is when the young of that era tend to be entering the workforce and have disposable income while pining for simpler times. Its why the 50s became a 70s phenomenon, the 60s were everywhere in the 80s, 70s nostalgia took off in the 90s, 80s culture was big in the aughts and the 90s conquered the 2010s.

I’m struggling to think of examples of 90s nostalgia that was exclusive to the 2010s.

[Crumpets]

I don't remember 90s nostalgia beginning until probably around 2008-2009ish.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

The nostalgia waves tend to happen 20 years later, as that is when the young of that era tend to be entering the workforce and have disposable income while pining for simpler times. Its why the 50s became a 70s phenomenon, the 60s were everywhere in the 80s, 70s nostalgia took off in the 90s, 80s culture was big in the aughts and the 90s conquered the 2010s.

Agree with the 20 year-cycle, though I've haven't heard of the 60s being big in the 80s. The rest all ring true to me.

[Reaganfan]

The nostalgia waves tend to happen 20 years later, as that is when the young of that era tend to be entering the workforce and have disposable income while pining for simpler times. Its why the 50s became a 70s phenomenon, the 60s were everywhere in the 80s, 70s nostalgia took off in the 90s, 80s culture was big in the aughts and the 90s conquered the 2010s.

Agree with the 20 year-cycle, though I've haven't heard of the 60s being big in the 80s. The rest all ring true to me.

The 50s and 60s were big retro nostalgia things in the 80s. Think "Dirty Dancing", "Back to the Future","The Outsiders".

[Antonio the Sixth]

I can't imagine being nostalgic for the 90s, back then everyone smoked in restaurants and offices and such. Ugh the whole world must have smelled like garbage.

We don't agree on much, but this x1000.

[courts]

no

[Del Tachi]

The twenty-year cycle is true.  1990s nostalgia probably peaked a few years ago (2015/16 or such), and since then we've been sliding ever more toward early-2000s nostalgia (which should peak sometime in the early 2020s).

I’m struggling to think of examples of 90s nostalgia that was exclusive to the 2010s.

All the Disney, Full House, and Jurassic Park remakes.  Friends goes on Nick-at-Nite/Netflix.  Alternative music/bubble-gum pop gaining on the AT40 compared to hip-hop/R&B throughout most of the 2010s.  Keith Herring-esque pop art.  I mean c'mon, even jelly flops are popular among college girls these days.  Of course its not going to be a complete rehash, but the similarities are striking enough.   


Somewhat off-topic, but does anyone agree that "cultural decadal" transitions tend to occur at around the half-way point of the calendar decade?  For example, what we consider the art/music/fads of "the 1980s" (i.e., yuppies, car phones, Michael Bolton, shoulder pads, Art Deco/Cubist revival) really didn't start until the mid-80s and were still definitely hanging around until 1993/94.  The early 1980s were nothing like that and more resemble what most people remember as "the 1970s" of disco, classic rock, bell bottoms, and almond-colored kitchen appliances.  It seems like what we really observe is: 

"The Forties" - really c. 1945 to c. 1955,
"The Fiftes" - really c. 1955 to c. 1965,
"The Sixties"  - really c. 1965 to c. 1975,
"The Seventies" - really c. 1975 to c. 1985,
"The Eighties" - really c. 1985 to c. 1995,
"The Nineties" - relly c. 1995 to c. 2005,
"The Aughties" - really c. 2005 to 2015,
"The Twenty-Tens" - really c. 2015 to present. 

To me, it appears like there are pretty pronounced "cultural" transitions around these decadal midpoints, and that whatever came before the transition eventually ends-up getting conflated with the previous decade.  I think these "cultural decades" become more solidified as time goes on; "the 1960s" of 1965-75 seem a lot more coherent than "the 1990s" of 1995-2005 just because we're further removed, but I don't expect that to last.

There does seem to be a pretty significant cultural shift around 2015/16, and another one around 2005.  The more recent one I think can be pretty succiently described as the end of hipster culture as Generation Y (Gen X/Millennial cuspers, born 1976 to 1985) aged-out of prime young adulthood were replaced by '90s babies.  In 2005/06 you definietly see a transition towards cultural "malaise" due to the Iraq quagmire, Kartina response, rising energy prices, and the beginnings of the housing crisis.  This all occurred pretty simultaneously with the apogee of reality TV and changes in popular music/technology that are probably going to get remembered as "the 2000s".   

[OSR stands with Israel]

If I had to cultural decades they would be more like this


40s: 1945-1953
50s: 1953-1962
60s : 1962-1969
70s: 1969-1979
80: 1979-1991
90: 1991-2001
2000s : 2001-2008
2010s : 2008 to Present

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

The nostalgia waves tend to happen 20 years later, as that is when the young of that era tend to be entering the workforce and have disposable income while pining for simpler times. Its why the 50s became a 70s phenomenon, the 60s were everywhere in the 80s, 70s nostalgia took off in the 90s, 80s culture was big in the aughts and the 90s conquered the 2010s.

Agree with the 20 year-cycle, though I've haven't heard of the 60s being big in the 80s. The rest all ring true to me.

I love 80's movies, and I have noticed a ton of 50's nostalgia in 80's movies. I have not noticed any 60's nostalgia in 80's movies either. Look at Back to the Future.

[kcguy]

I love 80's movies, and I have noticed a ton of 50's nostalgia in 80's movies. I have not noticed any 60's nostalgia in 80's movies either. Look at Back to the Future.

Now that I think of it, I can come up with two 1980's TV shows set in the 1960's--The Wonder Years and China Beach.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Any version of "the 40s" that doesn't include the only historical event most younger people remember about the 40s (i.e. the war) is specious, especially since "the 30s" and the Great Depression are synonymous in popular memory. I agree that American material and media culture didn't really transition into what we think of as "the 50s" until 1953 or so, but all that means is that "the 40s" were longer than a calendar decade (as actually were "the 50s" in that the counterculture didn't really burst into the mainstream until the Vietnam escalation in LBJ's second/full term).

If I had to periodize a hypothetical multi-volume social history of twentieth-century America, it would look something like this:

The Rise of the Progressives to the Great War
The Return to Normalcy to the Great Crash
Hoovervilles to Lend-Lease
Pearl Harbor to the Rise of the Suburbs
The Fall of McCarthy to Vietnam
The Flower Children to Watergate
Stagflation to Morning in America
The Reagan Tsunami to the Waco Siege
Triangulation to the Dot-Com Crash

Then something called something like The Spring and Autumn of the Neocons by way of epilogue.

Not all of these titles are meant to imply that I think the events named were equally epochal (in particular the "60s" counterculture seems to have accomplished less and less as time goes on), but these are roughly the time periods in which I conceptualize recent American history.