Why I Wished I Lived in the 90s (Sometimes)
Ah, the 90s: the era of brown lipstick, plaid flannel shirts, curtained hair, high top sneakers, chokers, scrunchies, denim on denim…
… okay, so clearly, I’m starting this out by saying that I still wear 75% of the fashion trends that the nineties left us with.
Maybe it’s the old soul in me speaking, but I’ve always had an affinity for an era that wasn’t my own.
Growing up, Full House was one of my favorite shows, and then as a teenager, I found Boy Meets World.
That show teaches some of the greatest life lessons…
… and, some of the most obvious ones.
To this day, you can still catch me playing Friends on a loop.
There’s something about the 90s, besides the clothes, that I’ve always been so drawn to.
For starters, the lack of obsessive technology intrigues me. I mean, when you were waiting for the bus, it means you actually had to wait for the bus – not goof off on your phone for twenty minutes.
When you were making your plans with friends, didn’t they have to be more concrete? Because there was no way to send them a text message 20 minutes before when you were already on your way to the movies that you were, “feeling sick, can’t make it tonight, sorry.”
When someone sat down next to you on the subway, weren’t they more likely to talk to you?
What about in the doctor’s office?
Wasn’t it a world before we were so immersed in the digital world, that we had no choice but to be more present in the tangible one?
I mean, if a boy liked me in the 90s and wanted to talk to me, he would have to call me – and if I wasn’t old enough to have my own phone number (which was the coolest back then), then he’d have to go through my parents first on the land line and preface his desire to speak with me with,
“Hello Mrs. Safdie, is Stephanie home?”
Ugh. Doesn’t that sound like the greatest?
The thing about the 2010s, and now, almost the 2020s, is that we will never go back to the way we once were. Cell phones are now, for some reason, an imperative part of our lives – even though there was a time when we existed without them.
I may be a 2000s kid, but I still remember that my mom had a Nokia phone and I would play that frivolous snake game on her phone whenever we were out and about and I was bored.
My mom would still buy me movies on Video Cassette. In the fifth grade, I took a disposable camera with me to our overnight field trip to Walker Creek and had to wait for my photos to be developed.
And today, in 2019, even though I have a laptop with a keyboard and an infinite amount of space – I still prefer to write about the experiences I encounter abroad and the emotions I feel by hand.
Hell, I’ve handwritten letters to people in the past few years. That’s definitely not something that people nowadays are doing, and in a few years – postal service may not even exist… and that scares me.
Isn’t there something more meaningful and gratifying about reading the same piece of paper that I touched and physically created for you?
Once a text message is sent, it’s out in the digital world for good – but that letter can never be replaced.
Not only was the world seemingly more personable, but the world was so much simpler back then.
Mass shootings weren’t considered a cultural norm. 9/11 hadn’t happened. We didn’t have presidents that looked like oompa-loompas.
The people I know never deny that I would’ve blended right in. The values I have to the core are seen by my peers as, “traditional” – and in the 90s, they would’ve been considered contemporary.
So, why do I wish I lived in the 90s… sometimes?
Well, not only do I have the opportunity to wear a denim vest when I want, but I can pair them with some floral boots and a high low skirt, which wasn’t a thing in the nineties.
If I’m sitting for the bus and wondering why it’s so late, I can pull out my phone and check the bus schedule… and let my friends know that I’m going to be late without having to call the restaurant.
Also, I don’t have to make sure that I have the restaurant’s phone number when I leave the house.
I can take as many pictures around the world as I want because iCloud is a thing, and I don’t have to take them to a store to get them developed.
I don’t have to have shelves of Video Cassette tapes because I can stream things online.
Grocery stores not only have soy chicken tenders, but fake cheese, eggs, burgers…more and more places are making plant based eating an accessible lifestyle, whereas in the 90s, I probably would’ve been living off of straight-up tofu.
I romanticize letter writing, but even in the 90s, if I had made a friend in Spain, without means of digital communication, that friendship would’ve dwindled.
I love a good letter, but writing them wouldn’t have been feasible forever.
The fact is, many of the friendships I have made around the world… let’s face it, probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as they have if it weren’t for things like Facebook and FaceTime.
And while nothing beats a good journal…
…I wouldn’t have been able to type up my perspective on a word document, share it with the world, and have the incredible chance to connect with so many minds as I do right now.
I still think that growing up in the 90s must’ve been awesome, and I still wish that I could’ve gone to high school with Eric, Cory, & Mr. Feeny all the time…
… but, I also know that my life is here and now for good reason.
Travel blogging didn’t exist in the 90s to the extent that it does here in the present day. There’s no denying, that sharing my adventures around the world with the world would’ve been much more difficult if all of my stories had no other way of spreading besides through word of mouth.
I’m meant to create. I’m meant to write. I’m meant to share my introspective thoughts with the world.
And there is no better or place or time to do that, than right here.