The 90's Were Better

I want you to drop what you are doing right now, put down your # 2 pencil, close your eyes, and spend the next minute thinking about the 1990s.

A dollar bets 10 that when that minute is up, you’ll (1) have a giant smile on your face (2) feel a strong sense of swagger (2) experience a surge in testosterone.

No doubt about it

Better Entertainment:

I pressed ONE button and my giant boxy CRT TV provided me with hours of world class entertainment: Al Bundy: An aging high school football star and shoe salesman who just wanted to avoid getting nagged (at work and at home), take a dump in peace, and sneak out to The Jiggly Room. Martin Lawerence transcended race – he had people of all races and religions laughing. “Tommy ain’t got no job!” (RIP). The Simpsons had such an enormous bench of creative and hilarious characters. From Moe Szyslak jerking off to department store catalogs to the corrupt, fat, lazy Chief Wiggum, to the sociopathic town billionaire and his closet gay assistant.

Now…. For starters. I pay 7 different streaming platforms all with unique logins for maybe one or two good series a year. Even then they are a whopping 7 episodes. Every day I have to re log-in to update some app. Worse yet, now they too have Ads. I am paying a fortune in subscriptions and still watching Tide commercials. This is way worse than Cable.

The movie industry was thriving. Do you remember how pumped people were for Independence Day and Jurassic Park? How much of a classic is the Lion King? Titanic! Not my jam but I swear the 8^th grade girls in my class went to see it in theatre 7 times.

Now… Maybe once a year I will hear about a movie that people are actually attending and enjoying. The rest of it is a disgrace. The 55^th Avenger’s movie, Scream 7!?!? Jason Statham is still pumping out one action movie a quarter. The guy is five years away from Medicare! Who keeps funding this?

Less Connectivity but More Connection:

This one is a double whammy.

When was the last time someone called you to see how you are doing and you had an enriching conversation? If you’re under 35, you’re going to have to think long and hard about that.

When someone called you in 1996, it was a meaningful event. You’d run over to the landline hoping to make it in time to pick up the call. Kids would often race to see who got there first; excitement and anticipation around who was calling.

“Who is it, Billy!?”

“Dad, dad, it’s Uncle Nigel! Can I talk to him first?”

“Of course!”

The pleasant surprise permeated the conversation. You’d pace back and forth stretching the coiled cord as far as it would go in each direction. Attentive and engaged, you really got to catch up. Get the down low. Be in the moment.

Now when someone calls you…. it’s an unwelcome interruption to your worthless life. “Why the fuck is he calling me right now!?”. Most calls get declined. Even when people do answer they immediately start dicking around on their phone checking the news or scrolling Instagram or texting somebody else. The distraction is obvious and obnoxious. Nobody learns anything, no connection is forged. Why actually talk to someone when you can send group texts about bullshit or watch 10 second videos of some stranger engaged in cheap, attention-seeking behavior.

Then there is the lack of privacy

The teenager today who leaves the house to go somewhere: Always a phone call away, location tracking, everything recorded and likely to make it onto the internet, any false move would be communicated far and wide within seconds. Suffocating and stifling.

That teenager’s dad, when he left the house in 1998……… You know what grandpa and grandma used to think:

“Man, I hope that kid comes back and doesn’t do anything to stupid.”

When you barfed your brains out by the 7-11 dumpster cause you drank 9 shots of Popov Vodka…. Shit wasn’t on video and something that could be used against you for the next 20 years. When you egged some douchebag’s house, there weren’t four sets of spying devices that traced you to the “crime”. When you went out to some house party – you approached women face to face and struck out IN PERSON. Possibly cause you’re ugly, perhaps due to a dearth of wit and charm, or probably cause you reek of cheap weed and even cheaper vodka. Either way you approached things efficiently and like a man. You didn’t hedge for months with ambiguous Instagram DMs, text messages, social media hearts and thumbs up … just to get a sense of where things stand. Whatever happened to “Just go to talk to her you Pussy!”

A More Masculine Society

Even the way people got arrested back in the 1990s was more masculine. It was all documented on COPS. Your redneck neighbor Dale would get into multiple bar fights in one evening, flee the scene in his Chevy S-10, drive it through some schmuck’s fence 5 minutes later, and try and escape again on foot. Despite being hammered, bloody, heavily concussed and inexplicably shirtless, the cops could still barely take him down. Tasing him over and over again, 3 jacked officers trying to pin him down. The man wouldn’t give in to the injustice:

“I’ve only had 3 beers!”

Now…… some soft, pasty, blue-haired fat-ass gives lip to the police cause they “make me feel unsafe”. When the police tell HIM to buzz off he/she/them starts shrieking “You’re misgendering me. Stop MISGENDERING me!” Ends up crying in handcuffs. Dude didn’t even feel the adrenaline rush of committing a crime, he’s just that much of a bitch.

Back in the 90s school also shaped you into at least somewhat of a man. You start dressing and acting a fool, brown-nosing, ratting people out….. it was only a matter of time until Nelson Muntz, Jimbo Jones and Kearney paid you a knuckle-filled visit. Sometimes their knuckles said hello merely out of boredom. Gotta learn to navigate that shit.

Now you get quote-tweeted or someone uses AI to make a meme out of you and posts it online. Honestly, I don’t even understand half of this shit, but it sounds sissy and weak. Luckily for these Gen Z / Zoomer kids there is a way to get swift revenge that blends both generations.

Call Dale’s landline and tell him you are coming over with a case of MGD. After he’s drained 7 of them tell him about your woes. By beer 10 he’ll be demanding to know where your enemy lives. Beer 11 he’ll take his shirt off. Beers 12 and 13 he’ll drink in the Chevy with you riding shotgun. By beer 14 he’ll be smashing down the door and demanding satisfaction on your behalf. Once you’ve live-streamed Dale drunkenly wrestling with your rival’s father as your pansy foe cries hysterically in the background – nobody will fuck with you again AND you’ll become a YouTube millionaire.