I was born in the 80s, and although I have a lot of nostalgia for that decade now, my memory of it is very vague. As a millennial (the generation born between 1981 and 1996), the 90s were the most impactful years of my life. So, what was going on in the 90s?

Well, for one thing, technology was just starting to take off. In my family, we bought our first computer in the early 90s. Personal computers were outrageously expensive back then, costing $2000-$3000 for a decent home system (high-end computers were much more). That would be like paying $4000-$7000 for a computer today - yikes! 

And by the end of the 90s, when I was a high school student, we finally got access to the magic of the Internet. For teenagers like me, it was a golden age of online games and downloading music. However, we couldn’t use the Internet and (home) phone at the same time, and I remember being told many times by my parents “Get off the Internet! I need to make a phone call!”

Speaking of music, the airwaves of the 90s were defined by the grunge genre (like Nirvana and Pearl Jam) going mainstream, a boom in teen pop (like Britney Spears) and girl and boy bands (like Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys), and a golden age of hip-hop artists (like Dr. Dre and 2Pac). A couple of my favourite 90s bands were No Doubt and The Offspring, and I often stayed up late at night recording songs from the radio onto cassette tapes.

While people my age were busy playing Super Nintendo games, having water gun fights with Super Soakers, drinking Kool-Aid, and renting VHS tapes from Blockbuster, some major events were changing the world around us. As children, millennials rarely noticed the Cold War or felt the same kind of fear that our parents, the Baby Boomers, did. When the Cold War ended in 1991, I was completely oblivious, but it was likely the most significant event of the entire decade. 

Although this brought a great wave of relief, the 90s introduced North Americans to the threat of terrorist bombings, and the deaths of well-known figures such as Princess Diana and singer Kurt Cobain captured headlines. Here in Canada, the province of Quebec came very close to voting for independence in 1995, with the "no" side winning by just 50.58% to 49.42%. 

Overall, even though it was such a defining period in my life, I can’t say that I have much nostalgia for the 90s, and I still look back more fondly on the 80s and perhaps even the early 2000s. The 90s were years of transition to a new world order and from an analog world to a digital world. It was a time of great change with many bumps along the way. Perhaps that’s why it felt a little uncomfortable and why I have mixed feelings about it. How about you? How were the 90s in your country?

vague - uncertain, indefinite, or unclear

yikes - expressing shock and alarm, often for humorous effect

golden age - the period when a specified art, skill, or activity is at its peak

airwaves - the radio waves used for broadcasting radio and television programmes, or, more generally, radio or television broadcasting time

Blockbuster (Video) - a dominant American home movie rental chain

oblivious - not aware of or not concerned about what is happening around one

to capture headlines - to receive widespread media attention and become a major topic of discussion

new world order - a shift in the global balance of power, international relations, and political thought