The 1990s were a simpler time. It was a decade when NFT meant Newfoundland Time, a time before the news was fake, before phones were smart, before media was social, and before our televisions and waistlines went widescreen. Today, we’re going to look back at some of the fashions, activities, and gadgets from our favorite decade. Join us for a wild trip down the most bizarre and awkward memory lane there is!
Three-Step Plan To Rockin’ The 90s
Here’s our handy three-step plan for every little kid to rock the 90s. Step 1. Find the brightest neon T-shirt, Bermuda shorts, and sneakers possible. Yellows, purples, and cyan colors contrasted with black stripes, swirls, and spots are like totally rad! If your chosen apparel hurts innocent onlookers’ eyes, you’re on the right path. Step 2. Offset clothing with an even brighter backpack. If passersby run screaming to the E.R., then you can be sure you’re rockin’ that look!
Step 3: Complete outfit with a hideously colored Simpsons, Dinosaurs, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lunchbox. Now give yourself a high-five because you are officially doing the Bart Man!
The Dopest, Freshest Fashions
We actually forgot how cool fashion was back in the day. With those flared, baggy jeans and tie-dye colors, as kids sat down to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they got their swag on dressed as happy little emos. This young model sure looks like Buffy’s younger sister, Dawn, but then again, every girl from the 90s looked like this. If this advert is from 1995 and the model was 18, she’s now around 45 years old!
And what’s up with that mixture of UppEr aNd LoWer cAse LeTteRs? In the 90s, pre-schoolers were seemingly given jobs in advertising straight outta kindergarten. And those kids who didn’t become advertising execs became surgeons like Doogie Houser, M.D.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Now, this is a story all about how The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air catapulted Will Smith from the basketball courts of Philly to his aunt and uncle’s pad in Bel-Air and took over our living rooms once a week. In addition to its heartwarming comedy and neon fashions, Aunt Viv and Uncle Phil became surrogate parents to us all, and Will, Carlton, Hilary, Ashley, Geoffrey, and Jazzy Jeff, taught us valuable life lessons.
This photo of Will Smith comes from the actual Philadelphia playground where he spent most of his days. Speaking of which, we bet everyone on the planet aged between 35 and 50 can recite every single line of the theme tune.
Read It And Weep, Teachers!
As recently as 25 years ago, every math teacher in the world would spout some variation of “You aren’t always gonna have a calculator in your pocket.” Well, newsflash, Mr. Simmonds, nowadays everyone has a calculator, watch, camera, calendar, translator, gramophone, food delivery service, dating app, and a million more things in their pocket. Nowadays, the older generation must think we all have Star Trek communicators in our pockets.
Similarly, we won’t mention how teachers wasted billions of manhours teaching unnecessary things like algebra and trigonometry that we’d never use! Students 1 Teachers 0.
Three For The Price Of One
This VHS tape captures three of the most ’90s thing ever. First, while DVDs were widely available in the latter part of the decade, someone found this rel-life dinosaur––a VHS tape––in their attic! Next up, it happens to be a guide on how to install Microsoft 95 onto your computer. If you weren’t around at the time, computers back then were towers almost as high as the Nakatomi Building from Die Hard.
Last but not least, those two stars on the cover are Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry from the decades most popular TV show, Friends. In the words of Chandler Bing, Could you be any more 90s?
Let’s Drive To The Video Library
1990s appreciation posts have been doing the rounds in recent years, and anyone who grew up during that decade will surely cite Blockbuster Video as a huge part of their life. Before Netflix and YouTube, we’d actually have to drive to the video store, peruse the aisles as if it were a chewing gum-littered library, and choose one of the 74 copies of Titanic that hadn’t already been physically rented out.
Fifteen hundred people died aboard the Titanic in 1912, but thanks to their sacrifice, millions of teenage boys got to pause the video on Kate Winslet’s boobies. Thanks, Blockbuster.
Before The Government Banned Sleepovers
When was the last time you had a sleepover? That’s right – it was probably in the 1990s! Those endless summer nights when you and your teenage friends would dance around your room listening to the latest NSYNC compact disc in your pajamas, watch scary movies, play Mario Kart or Goldeneye, eat mountains of pizza, and make prank calls from transparent phones, all washed down with gallons of Capri Sun or Sunny D!
Sadly, kids were having so much fun that the government was forced to ban sleepovers circa 2001 as part of the Patriot Act. That’s the only explanation.
The Scientific Reason Time Speeds Up
How can 1990 be more than 30 years ago when wearing M.C. Hammer pants feels like yesterday? And how has more time has passed between now and 1990 than between 1990 and The Beatles first taking the world by storm? Well, if you want a scientific answer, the neurotransmitter dopamine governs our perception of time, and as we get older, dopamine levels drop, making time appear to run faster.
This drop in dopamine levels explains why school summer breaks stretched before you like a lifetime when you were seven years old, but New Kids On The Block hanging tough seems like last week!
Keep On Rollin’
This dude deserves props for rocking that Fred Durst look across three decades. Discovering his old 90s get-up in his wardrobe, fake Fred strapped his olive green cargo pants halfway down his thighs just above his knees, put on an old T-shirt, and turned his baseball cap backwards. Then he went to his mom’s room to check himself out in the full-length mirror. Just like back in the old days.
We can only presume the next thing he did was find his old skateboard in his dad’s garage before rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ along some streets and carving up some sidewalks.
Some Things Will Never Be Obsolete
Some things will never be obsolete. This is not one of them! The common-all-garden PC tower would take an hour to boot up, and then you’d have to dial in via a modem to connect to the internet, which––in some cases––could take up to a week! Here’s one such dinosaur, and rather hilariously, it even features a sticker reading “Never Obsolete.” Never has a falser word been spoken.
That “Never Obsolete” statement might have been true when this photo came back from the One Hour Photo Store. Yes, kids, back in the old days, we used to have to drive to a strip mall to get our rolls of photographic film processed.
Here, Take Our Money
Some bright spark came up with the idea of a nostalgic 1990s bowling alley called Memory Lanes, and our response is… Here, take our money! The only way this idea could be bettered is if the shopping mall also had a movie theater showing movies like Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Seven, Goodfellas, and Jumanji. In fact, it’s such a good idea; we’re heading straight to the patent office before anyone else does!
Then, if there were a Laser Quest and video game arcade on either side, it would make wearing other people’s smelly bowling shoes almost worthwhile!
In Awe Of This VHS Cartoon Collection
Firstly, take a look at that old TV. Though it was no bigger than a human head, it weighed almost as much as the sun. It sits atop a VCR machine and is surrounded by hundreds of classic 1990s animation tapes and toys. We can spot Pikachu, Mario, a tiny Luigi, and a dinosaur, but it’s the cartoons on offer in this collector’s home that impress us the most.
Take your choice from classic X-Men, Rugrats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the wonderful Ren and Stimpy. Put some popcorn in the microwave and pull up a chair, we’re coming over.
Who’s A Good Robo-Boy?
Among the decade’s millions of dead Tamagotchis came another loveable pet. This is Tiger Electronics’ robo-pet, Poo-Chi––the worst named toy of 1999, which had children across the globe asking, “Who put the poo in Poo-Chi?” Looking like Apple had redesigned Spike the dog from Tom and Jerry cartoons, he could nod and bark and wag his tail and walk. Who’s a good robot boy, then?
At least Poo-Chi didn’t go to the restroom, so owners weren’t left reaching for the carpet shampoo and asking… who put the poo in sham-poo?
Blockbuster Sleepover
Remember not so long ago, there was an online petition to bring back Blockbusters? Well, the petition creators clearly missed the irony that it was e-commerce that put the video store franchise out of business. But did you know that the last Blockbuster store never actually closed down? This one in Bend, Oregon, stays up and running thanks to 4,000 active members who rent Titanic over and over again, but that’s not all.
In 2020, this store also became an Airbnb and hosted sleepovers for movie buffs. Great idea, but many 40-year-old male visitors got upset at hordes of customers blocking the view to a topless Kate Winslet on the TV.
Pretty Fly For A Young Guy
This cool kid starter pack shows us how to be the flyest kid in your school in 1996. First, you’d need a hairstyle with a middle-parting. Then, you’d connect a wallet on a chain to your baggy jeans, wear a fresh No Fear T-shirt, and some Airwalk or Vans sneakers. Next, in your Jansport backpack, you’d carry a Sony Discman with a couple of Rage Against The Machine or Green Day CDs.
And the coolest kids in school impressed their friends with a Yomega Fireball yoyo… or performing tricks on one of those tiny, finger-sized skateboards.
In Da Cheese Grater Club
Here’s Homer Simpson inside a cheese grater. But why? Well, three decades ago, the background of just about every hip hop video on MTV featured a cheese grater doubling up as a futuristic, industrial club. Well, it was certainly cheaper and easier than filming blinged-up rappers in fur coats––and their scantily clad entourage––emerging from Humvees on their way into real clubs.
All you needed was a stills camera and, you guessed it, a cheese grater, and you got yourself a 1990s rap video. Just make sure you wash it before you put it back in the drawer.
Friday Night Lights
Long before Netflix and Chill entered our lives, the freshest Friday night activity was roaming the aisles of the nearest Blockbuster store in search of the latest movie, which was usually at least six months old. Then you’d spend the evening chillaxing with your bae on the couch with some good food. Not that the words chillaxing or bae were used in the 1990s, but Blockbuster and chill don’t have the same ring.
No, back in the day, there wasn’t really a term for Netflix and Chill, so people would ask, “Would you like to snuggle up on the couch, babycakes?”
All The Colors Of The Rainbow
For a while, iMacs came in just one color called Bondi Blue. But then, towards the end of the 1990s, in an effort to be down with the kidz, Apple launched the iMac in Blueberry, Strawberry, Lime, Tangerine, and Grape hues. This colorful line made sitting down at your elementary school’s computer lab feel like you were a grown-up interior designer being blasted off into a new millennium.
Instead of a separate computer in a tower, the iMac incorporated all its hard drives and memory inside a colorful yet bulky monitor the size of the TV in your mom’s kitchen.
Screensavers That Were Too Legit To Quit
Did you know that many people spent the early part of the 1990s being hypnotized against their will? Yep, when they weren’t staring blankly at Magic Eye posters trying to find hidden images, computer screensavers were turning people into mindless automatons. Some of the most memorable ones included elaborate pipe-building structures, 3D mazes, starscapes, and flying toasters for some bizarre unknown reason.
Then, later in the decade after the success of The Matrix (1999), everyone’s computer screensavers dripped with vertical green numbers and letters.
The Original Insta Filters
Nowadays, cameras and apps provide a never-ending stream of Insta and Snapchat filters and lenses to make it look sunnier, make you look more attractive, or turn you into a kitten. But rewind a quarter-century, and there was no such thing as selfies, so the only time you saw pictures of yourself or your friends was on actual paper photographs… or in police mugshots.
All we had was a sharpie and our hilarious senses of humor, and––every time, without fail when you saw your friend’s face in a photo––this is what you’d do…
Long Movies Needed Two VHS Tapes!
Before data was stored on servers and in the cloud, it was stored on magnetic tape or on a disc. A CD could generally hold 74 minutes, 33 seconds of music (because Sony’s vice president Norio Ohga insisted they could hold Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony) and a VHS tape usually came in at 120 or 160 minutes. But what happened when James Cameron’s 3 hour, 14 minute-long Titanic hit the shelves?
The answer was incredibly straightforward. You wanna buy Titanic? Well, you’ve got to shell out for two VHS tapes… probably at twice the price. So now we know how James Cameron can afford all those undersea adventures!