Was life better in the late 90s?

I feel like we can enjoy life at any point. We don't have to think we only need to go to a certain time or place to enjoy life. But, we can enjoy life here and now. Though, I also think life was better in the '90s and especially late '90s.

I was born in 1986. I have memories from the '90s. One thing that is common to hear is that people prefer the kids shows from the '90s, but don't care so much for them now. IN the '90s, a big T.V. show they made a movie out of in the late '90s was Rugrats. Garfield also seemed bigger in the '90s. I still have a lot of Garfield comic books my nephews read which I got in 1998-1999. I don't think I've bought any since the late '90s.

Seinfeld was also a bigger show in the late '90s. I've heard it ranked as the greatest T.V. show of all time. It ended in the late '90s in 1998. I still remember that episode.

I also started to watch DragonBall Z in the late '90s. That is when the show really seemed to make it's debut into the U.S. and it is still very popular today.

Harry Potter was also knew in the late '90s. I remember my mom trying to get me into Harry Potter by reading me that book in 1999. The first school dance of the 1999/2000 school year was Harry Potter themed.

The Simpsons was a bigger TV show in the late '90s, and now it seems like almost everybody is tired of the show and prefers the episodes up until the late '90s, like not since 1998. I once saw a post on YouTube from a Simpsons clip which said, R.I.P. The Simpsons 1989-1998.

One PBS show that was big in the late '90s, but almost seems forgotten today was Teletubbies. I think they once had them as Happy Meals, and I remember my teacher talking about getting them, along with Winnie The Pooh Happy meals during the 1998/1999 school year.

My Millennial Generation was younger back then. So were our parents, the Baby Booming Generation. The Baby Booming generation still seems like the dominant generation, and a lot of people don't trust my Millennial Generation in having jobs from our parents and previous generations passed down to us.

The economy was like at it's best from the mid-late '90s than it has ever been before or since. I'm not an economist, but that seems more like the ideal time to be alive. Bill Clinton was also our president back then, and he seems more favored than the two presidents we've had since.

We frequently hear about shootings in the news, and I've heard they've gone up even over the past 10-years. It seemed like we didn't think much about mass shootings/school shootings until the Colombine High School Shooting, which happened in 1999. Even though it wasn't the first school shooting, or most deadly it seems like it's the most infamous and remembered shooting in the U.S. and it changed security.

After these incidents, it seemed like security increased at schools and high schools. Like schools used to not have lockdown drills. Also, parents and visitors used to be able to walk into schools more freely than they can now. The school doors used to remain open during the day where a parent could come in if they needed to hand something to their child. Also, I think a lot of high school students used to be able to leave during lunch to go out for lunch, at least in the schools in my district. But, it's changed since the late '90s.

Electronic entertainment and computers games were already pretty big in the late '90s. I wasted a lot of time even back then playing those games. In the early '90s, Super Nintendo was the main consul, and I guess by the late '90s Nintendo 64 and Playstation were the main consuls. The games weren't played online back then like they are now. I remember games I played in the late '90s for Nintendo 64: Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye, Duke Nukem, Zelda and the Ocarina Of Time, and Super Smash Brothers.

We didn't have smartphones. Though, while we have long since accustomed to using them, from what I read on the internet, they've only been around since 2007. So, not quite a decade old. We had palm pilots in the late '90s, but they were rare. People knew how to live without texting and constantly staring at your cellphone. Only using computers that weren't flat-screen and that were like CD rom. I still used a floppy disk in my computer class during the 1998/1999 school year. It wasn't until the 2000/2001 school year that we started to use the internet in school. Before that, the computers in school were mostly used for typing lessons, and writing projects. We were even allowed to play a few games, I remember playing Super Munchers back then.

We still used videos to watch movies. My Dad got a DVD player in the Christmas of 1999, and I didn't even know what a DVD player was? VHS and VCRs seem so old nowadays.

It was harder to stream videos on the internet back then, so when we had a new Star Wars movie come out last month, that reminded me of the excitement when Episode 1 came out in 1999. Since it was harder to stream videos, a lot of people paid the full-price for a movie just to see the Star Wars trailer play, and leave after the trailer not even staying to watch the movie they paid for before Star Wars Episode 1 came out.

Songs that seemed to be popular in the late '90s was Slim Shady. I remember kids at my school constantly repeating, "My Name Is What." Britney Spears was also popular in the late '90s. Another popular song was You Get What You Give by New Radicals.

Rita's Water Ice was also new and popular in the late '90s. McFlurries were a new addition at McDonalds. I remember a friend of mine wanting to stop and get those.

By the late '90s one thing people were constantly talking about was the dawning of the New Millennium, year 2000 Y2K. Would computers crash for starting with 20 instead of 19. Was it going to be the end of the world. But, that was the hype as the '90s were winding down knowing that it would soon be 2000. There were so many countdowns and that was like the biggest New Year ever. I seriously can't believe that happened 16-years ago.

Well, thanks this was a fun post to write about.

It's all subjective really. There were no shortage of miserable, lonely, broke, drug addicted people 20+ years ago. Today there are probably more. One thing that's clearly obvious is how sensitive and offended people are today, especially people under 30. The average teenager today is like the mix between a petulant crying baby, and an uptight crotchety old person. Most of kids have no personality or sense of humor. They can't even go a day with out those stupid smartphones.

Generally speaking I do agree with you. Late 90's and early 2000's had some great music, movies, and life generally seemed more carefree.