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With the end of the Cold War and the spread of the internet, the 1990s is often remembered as a time of peace and prosperity. However, the decade was not without violence and tragedy, including the Rodney King beating and subsequent L.A. Riots, and the bombing of the World Trade Center.

So to get a more accurate view of this iconic era, Reddit user IndieSyndicate made a post on the subreddit 'Gen X,' asking it's members to share the common misconceptions about it. Born between 1965 and 1980, the cohort stepped up to the task and shared their diverse perspectives and experiences, shedding light on the often oversimplified mainstream narratives.

Image credits: IndieSyndicate

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#1

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong Money was tight then, too. People were happy with fewer luxuries, because we could get by. And the very idea of giving a child a device worth hundreds of dollars was ludicrous! I still feel this way.

supermaja , Ahsanjaya / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#2

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong The 90s was a lot more analog than it’s presented. People still read newspapers and magazines. Cell phones were not ubiquitous. Cassette tapes and VHS tapes still dominated.

4reddityo , Lina Kivaka / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Corvus
Corvus
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My folks had a pretty big collection of audio and VHS tapes at home... lots of hours spent with them.

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#3

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong There’s a HUGE difference between the early 90’s and late 90’s. After 1996 it was more millennial, pokémon, Britney Spears vs the early 90’s which was more grunge smooth RnB.

taez555 , Kübra / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#4

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong Internet being widely available, so many tv shows and movies showing teenagers in supposedly early and mid 90s sitting in their bedrooms chatting online on their personal computers or being "hackers" and I'm like "b*tch in 1994 I didn't even know what the internet was" and I didn't really get home internet until 1999 (in the one and only computer of the house), and neither did anyone I knew, even the rich kids at school didn't care or knew about it, you were either out of the house or watching tv.

nothingexceptfor , MART PRODUCTION / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Little Wonder
Little Wonder
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had a BBS account in 93, got proper internet in 95. My dad paid for 10 hours a month. A MONTH.

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#5

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong The 90s was the dial up era and transition from dot matrix printers to ink jet. That modem squealing sound sums it up. We had technology, but it required patience and we were so grateful to have it, nobody complained. You lose the Internet for 10 minutes these days and people act like they're going to lose their minds.

peonyseahorse , MART PRODUCTION / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#6

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong The early 90s and late 90s were two very different times culturally.

I can't stand it when I see a picture of the spice girls with a "So 90s!" caption.

anon , Vika Glitter / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Nerenahd Dhaneren
Nerenahd Dhaneren
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I think the watershed moment was the advent of the Internet in the mid-90s.

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#7

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong That mom Jeans were cool. No one under 35 wore them. They looked like s**t.

palmveach1972 , Ann Bugaichuk / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Susan Bosse
Susan Bosse
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They still do. I'm a mom now and I wouldn't wear them unless you paid me a ridiculous amount of money.

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#8

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong That the 90s were some kind of utopia. There was a lot of good things, but the 90s were violent and there were way more ism’s on display.

MiltownKBs , cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Rodney King Riots, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Columbine, just to name a few. Oh and with Nix Benedict in the news right now, how can I forget Matthew Shepard?

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#9

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong I will describe the usage of computers on university campuses in 1996.

"checking your email" meant walking across campus *in the snow* and sitting down in front of a gigantic metal box and starting up an email program. "notifications" did not exist at this time. Even medical doctors used pagers.

vwibrasivat , Changhee Kim / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Upstaged75
Upstaged75
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually 1996 was the first year we had internet in our rooms at my college. I didn't have an internet ready computer so I either had use it in someone else's room or over to the computer lab.

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#10

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong Nobody seems to talk about all the maroon and hunter-green wallpaper strips that were added to the top of the walls in houses.

Maroon and hunter-green everywhere. From cars to vacuums and beyond.

Oh, and the prevalence of People magazine. I see stuff about Readers Digest, but People magazine is not really talked about.

I also don't think people really understand just how much people smoked then either. Smoking in the car with your kids in it, at McDonalds, at school, etc.

Ok-Film-2436 , Alina Vilchenko / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#11

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong The Rave scene was bigger and better than anyone seems to remember. PLUR.

Creamyspud , ELEVATE / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#12

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong That everyone loved Curt Cobain and/or Nirvana or that he/they even “spoke” for a generation.

Rettorica , Adam Jones Report

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James016
James016
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I still hear Nirvana on the radio and their songs still sound fresh. What they did was kill off c**k rock for which we should be thankful.

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#13

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong I loved the 90’s so much. But people do forget that 1/4 oz. Of weed could get you a serious sentence, and homophobia was even worse then i think.

Left_Percentage_527 , cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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arthbach
arthbach
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The homophobia was deeply tied in with AIDS. At that point it was called 'the Gay Plague'.

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#14

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong Grunge always seems to get the spotlight, but an overwhelming number of people were pretty preppy actually. We did, after all, make household names out of the Gap, Banana Republic, J Crew, etc.

Hurley002 , OG Productionz / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Real grunge came from thrift stores and discount stores. I used to have a route I'd make about once a month. Always had to check out the local Army Surplus too. Never know what you're gonna find.

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#15

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong A comment I heard years ago and don't remember the source: "1997 was the year it stopped being weird to have email.".

AntheaBrainhooke , MART PRODUCTION / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Rob D
Rob D
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Within a few years, it became weird not to have email.

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#16

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong Not all GenXers were disinterested slackers in the 90s.

JackTrippin , Elena Rubtsova / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#17

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong The 90s were NOT represented in the film SINGLES or the TV show “Friends”. But the music represented the 90s well.

JuicyApple2023 , Warner Bros Report

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Nerenahd Dhaneren
Nerenahd Dhaneren
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I beg to differ. Friends and Singles do capture a lot of what was going on in the 90s. The music does it even better though.

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#18

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong That Nirvana ruled the 90s, and brought an end to all other forms of hard rock. They hit hard for about two and a half years, and then we were stuck with Tonic and the goddamn Spin Doctors.

emmiblakk , Tobby Holzinger Report

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#19

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong Some of the most popular music artists of the ‘90s were also the most popular music artists of the ‘80s, like: Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, LL Cool J, Aerosmith, Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi, George Michael, Paula Abdul, and Salt N Pepa.

FlingbatMagoo , cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#20

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong That the early 1990’s were really bleak economically. Nearly everyone I knew, including people with Ivy League degrees, were working good service or retail just trying to get by. The Information Age felt so distant in 1992 - it wouldn’t explode until another five years. Rodney King, the LA riots, OJ Simpson trial - these were big signs that we were a long way from racial harmony. Everyone older than us was screaming about family values, while we elected a known womanizer president, and a Speaker of the House who was impeaching the president while getting blow jobs from a woman who would become his third wife. We now had a known sexual harasser on the Supreme Court - gender equality wasn’t that great, either. The Balkans were destroying themselves. Rwanda genocide barely made the papers. Yitzak Rabin is assassinated. Middle East terrorism starts. There was a lot of global uncertainty. At home, Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine, the Olympic bomber - these show deep divides brewing. Matthew Shepherd, whole communities still dying of AIDS, Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell - we have a long way to go for gay rights. But by 1995, the economy starts to heat up. By 1998 it’s exploding. Then the dot com bubble burst. All of these things set into motion the new and continuing problems that continue to dominate our lives today. Don’t get me wrong - the 1990’s were an amazing decade. Despite all of these things, there was a lot of hope, and the feeling that we could be part of a world that could still do amazing things and we were going to get to see them, participate in them, prosper under it. GenXers were, more than anything, YOUNG. That feeling of youth is what a lot of people miss when they remember the 90’s. Just as there was neon in the 1980’s, there was prosperity and feelings of possibility in the 90’s. But it wasn’t the norm, and it wasn’t for everyone. We felt great, sleeping on futons at 25, but little we know we were destined to back problems in our 40’s because of them.

Normal-Philosopher-8 , MART PRODUCTION / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Little Wonder
Little Wonder
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah, my father was laid off in the early 90s during recession. We had a tough time of it, financially.

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#21

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong I think one idea that's misrepresented is that we were already online, all the time.

I mean, I was STOKED when I got into the dorm with LAN connections in 1993, but I was an outlier. Lots of kids at my college barely understood using computers, much less anything internet-related beyond maybe an AOL/AIM. Obviously this was an evolution of ten very fast moving years.

HillbillyEulogy , Viktorya Sergeeva / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#22

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong That life was GREAT before the internet and cell phones made us all into anxious, isolated zombies.

LovesRainstorms , cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So I was a teen in the 90s. I grew up in a rural stripmall of a town. What does a teenager in a town like that do to spend time with other teens? There's no social media and you're too young to go to bars so it can be a pretty lonely existence. When I got a job at 16 that let me spend time with people NOT from my school it was amazing. BTW I hated my school, if you can't tell.

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#23

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong A lot of people mention grunge and gangsta rap, but country was very hot too. Country line dancing became a big thing, Branson, Missouri became a big tourist destination with its theaters, and artists like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain made tons of money. My grandfather always had the country station on. Alan Jackson and George Strait were his favorites. The country influence made its way into homes, with cow, geese, and rooster decor.

thisgirlnamedbree , Negative Space / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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LooseSeal's $10 Banana
LooseSeal's $10 Banana
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

90s country is so good. It got upbeat and fun before it turned into bro country.

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#24

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong Lots of smoking.

najing_ftw , Darya Sannikova / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Rose
Rose
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yep! I'm not gen x but I remember going to restaurants as a kid with my family and the hostess would ask if you want to sit in the smoking or non-smoking section

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#25

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong Cellphones were considered tacky and unnecessary unless you were a doctor.

iguessijustgoonthen , Vika Glitter / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Ace
Ace
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I worked in the City (meaning in London, but also meaning in finance) for several periods though the 90s, and they were always seen as essential by the yuppies, tacky and showy by outsiders.

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#26

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong Please don’t bring 90’s fashion back. It died on the vine for a reason, it sucked. Run if you start seeing turtlenecks, multi color sweaters, buckle shoes and mullets.

terrapinone , Polina Tankilevitch / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#27

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong Us older Gen Xers we're full fledged, college educated working adults with careers in the 90s. Some of us even had kids and houses.

The advantage was that we had plenty of money for concert tix and Doc Martins.

JudyLyonz , KoolShooters / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Peppy
Peppy
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

To be fair Dr Martens were much more reasonable priced then, as were concert tickets.

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#28

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong The ‘80s never really went away. There were a lot of people who hated the new directions in music, fashion, TV and movies the ‘90s brought and held onto their butt rock, Aquanet and mullets with a righteous fervour.

OccamsYoyo , Ron Lach / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Melissa Sawicki
Melissa Sawicki
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why is that person holding the Boom Box like it was so light???? B***h please.... those Boom boxes were heavy

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#29

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong “H****n chic” comes to mind.

rescuemutts369 , Bruno Thethe / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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Me
Me
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8 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I always felt too fat in that time.... compared to Kate Moss I was, but looking back at pictures I was completely okay and healthy.

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#30

30 People Like To Romanticize The '90s, Gen X'ers Share What They Get Wrong I think one of the most interesting transitions from the 90’s into the 00’s can be observed through The Sopranos. It starts with phone booths and pagers and ends with iPhones (Sopranos ran until 2007*, there was definitely overlap. It’s featured prominently in the final season, used by Anthony Jr.) so the cell phone evolution represented there is just one aspect of tech and culture changes at the turn of the century that can be seen in the series. The inclusion of the iPhone in the final season was some prime product placement marketing for the new product. If you think of the 80’s as “grey” you may have missed the the obsession with “neon” (uv) colors that began in the 80’s and proliferated in the 90’s. The 80’s were hyper saturated with a wholly different palette from the 70’s, and laid a foundation for 90’s design. 

ellimayhem , HBO Report

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