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Abstract

800">My 90s do not align with a lot of pop culture though. Sure, I remember looking longingly at the displays of chokers and tattoo bracelets in Claire’s. I really wanted a pair of Candie’s shoes too.</p><p id="51b4">The Delia’s catalog would arrive in the mail and I’d pour over its glossy pages, skinny Bic pen in hand, circling each item that appealed to me. I’d stow it under my pillow, long past its expiration date, pining for the spaghetti straps and halter tops that I had no power to purchase.</p><h2 id="2a00">Poor Kids Nostalgia</h2><p id="fb83">My 90s were filled with straight-leg hand-me-down Levi’s passed on from my boy cousin. I was not a fashionable kid, partly due to my own introversion, but mostly due to circumstances.</p><p id="a8fe">Big K Cola was served with every meal. It was twenty-five cents for a two-liter bottle and tasted better (and was probably healthier) than the well water in our trailer park. This habit died hard and fast when I was soda-shamed in college for my bad habits.</p><p id="246b">Meals in my 90s mostly consisted of Walmart brand mac-n-cheese, a can of green beans and the cheapest hamburger available for purchase all mixed together in one pot. My mother claimed it hit all the food groups and we shouldn’t complain. Lunchables and Doritos were delicacies that were only purchased for the most special of occasions.</p><p id="a881">And who remembers TV dinner night? Kid Cuisine was arguably the best dinner ever. It came in the telltale blue cardboard box with the adorable Penguin/duck creature on it, containing a half-melted tray loaded with any beige food one could desire. We’d watch TGIF or Star Trek or X-files reruns (two out of these three shows are still in my current rotation much to my husband’s and children’s chagrin).</p><p id="bae6">Another staple of the 90s was the bin of bargain books at Walmart. Walmart was really my second home for that decade. I built up my book collection with buy-two-for-a-dollar classics. The local bookstore could not meet this price point, so Walmart it was.</p><p id="300c">Even poor kids enjoyed a plethora of crap in the 90s.</p><p id="2c10">The 90s were not just about things and entertainment. Sure, I sang along to Britney whenever she came on the radio. I hovered with my finger above the record button, yelling for my family to be quiet when my jams came on the radio.</p><figure id="3a65"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*-rXFr7orQirrPBx-"><figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@orlandogp?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral">Orlando García</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure><p id="4e60">But the glitzy, glittery glimmer of pop was not for me. The trailer park gang went for something edgier, darker, and less hopeful. We were the students of Beck, ThirdEye Blind, Bad Religion, Everclear, and Sublime. We understood our lot in life, we fought against it in our way, pretending to rule the town with our pallet parties and shitty weed, looking down on all the “popular” kids for being sellouts. I felt seen when Eminem released Without Me including the intro lyrics about the “two trailer park girls go round the outside”. Yes, I know this was an early aughts release, but time is relative and we could argue about the merits of the base ten system another time.</p><p id="49b7">Technology was booming and we struggled to keep up. My father, at least in the early days of the decade, was able to wire together massive desktops with bulking monitors from parts he foraged from the trash or bartered for with eggs from our two sad chickens.</p><p id="32f8">I’d sit at the kitchen table for hours on that thing, looking up everything I could on David Duchovny and sneaking into chat rooms while my dad was outside drinking the evening away and my mom was smoking and watching TV.</p><p id="2ca5">The ubiquitous request to a naive teenager of <b>“ASL?”</b> was met with the accidentally alluring “old enough/I think you know/somewhere hot”. Yeah, I’m sure some 30-year-old dudes enjoyed those answers.</p><h2 id="5f17">The Harsh Reality

Options

</h2><p id="7336">The 90s- for me- were not all sunshine and roses. I think about the orange lunch tickets given to kids with free lunch as a way to publicly shame us. About hiding it in the palm of my hand until the last possible second so that my peers would not notice.</p><p id="afa5">The shaming of the poor (a problem that has not gone away and is perhaps even worse now) via the doctrine of the prosperity gospel. The parents of my friends who couldn’t help but point out the disparities in the homelife they provided to their children compared to my own upbringing.</p><p id="571a">I think about the<i> True Love Waits </i>campaigns and the push for abstinence-only education. About how dating and love and sex were sullied for a lot of my peers because of this, and how women and girls were conditioned especially hard for domestic labor and purity.</p><p id="176e">I think about Columbine. And how scary it was to be a teenager in Colorado at the time. The suspicion on all the goth kids after that. The hailing of martyrs who<i> weren’t </i>to bolster up evangelicals and reap more souls for their harvest. I hate that Columbine was just the first.</p><p id="60d5">And of course, let us not forget about AIDs, Rodney King, Rwanda, overdoses, Princess Diana… the list goes on and on.</p><p id="b413">Sure, being young was fun. Having a future unencumbered by reality when all things were still possible is something I still miss. I yearn for the resilience of my youth- of knowing how unfair life could be but still having hope that I could change the world. I don’t really care so much about the details, even if I listen to a <i>lot </i>of 90s music. The young adults and teens of today will figure it out and they don’t need our grungy baggage to weigh them down.</p><p id="fe68">I’m not sure why 90s nostalgia feels so good right now. It seems like my generation is yearning for relevance as Gen Z and the younger Millenials begin to take over the world. We are doing exactly what our parents did, and theirs before that, lecturing the youth about the good old days of dial-up internet while lamenting how easy they have it compared to us.</p><p id="6023">Honestly, some things, like Full House, racism, homophobia, and low-rise jeans, are all better left in the 90s. And… shit! After all that, the Tamagotchi died.</p><figure id="9b51"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*NWw-9J_GxniLwyAfYuDmAg.jpeg"><figcaption>Actual image of dead/flying away Tamagotchi. By author.</figcaption></figure><p id="148b"><b>If you enjoy this article and want to support me and other writers, please consider <a href="https://medium.com/@naleen.mitchell/membership">using my link to purchase a membership</a>. For $5 a month you will be able to read unlimited Medium articles, and connect with an awesome community of readers and writers!</b></p><p id="bf23">You might also enjoy:</p><div id="812d" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/bored-children-indoor-playspaces-and-the-evangelical-church-36d94a1b1bbf"> <div> <div> <h2>Bored Children, Indoor Playspaces, and the Evangelical Church</h2> <div><h3>Escaping boredom without selling our souls</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*Nz8p8wje0giMCOQ-)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="6a25" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-sad-tale-of-fickle-death-and-three-young-men-9d6ccd53d49a"> <div> <div> <h2>The Sad Tale of Fickle Death and Three Young Men</h2> <div><h3>With a dash of social inequality mixed in.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*I_muTky1sp8ltSXY)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

90s Nostalgia For the Uncool Kids

Growing up Poor in a Decade of Prosperity

A blank slate! Endless possibilities for the best mix tape ever!Photo by Fernando Lavin on Unsplash

The Tamagotchi next to me is yelling at me. It has already been fed, cleaned, and played with this morning. I don’t know what else it wants. I suppose I could discipline it, one of the only actions I haven’t attempted yet.

It seems draconian though, and I hesitate to punish this digital being without being able to rationalize with it first. But I have been tasked with keeping it alive- or at least from flying back to space by my 8-year-old who considers this whole experiment adorable and can’t imagine living in a world where this technology was considered good.

I am a little jealous of her if I am honest. Tamagotchis were all the rage when I was growing up in the bubble gum decade known as the 90s. I craved one with the intensity of a parent reaching for a cup of coffee in the morning, only to realize that the Folgers can is empty sans a few little grains rattling on the bottom, creating a maelstrom of frustration, yearning, and despair.

My best friend and I had to scrounge up all our change and babysitting money (because trusting 11-year-olds with children was the norm back then) to procure Giga-pets instead. These were essentially the same thing as Tamogtochis, though not quite as cool, more abundant, and cheaper than their brand-name counterparts.

I’m pretty sure my koala ran away after a day or two. And then I promptly lost the damn thing somewhere in the pile of beanie baby knock-offs and discarded McDonald’s toys that resided under my bed.

Stuff, Stuff, and More Stuff

The 90s were a lot messier. Clutter and tchotchkes were normal. Yellowed wallpaper from constant smoking was not necessarily a mark of unhealthy housekeeping and habits.

My childhood was filled with stuff. Cheap stuff. Stuff overflowing the walls of our trailer home and flowing into the yard. Stuff stored in the broken down camper and the broken down boat my father purchased or won or found abandoned.

The whole decade reeked of decadence and plastic. Jelly shoes hardened and crumbled after too much sun. Toys served with every fast food meal. Collectibles. Infomercials selling more shit- authenticated, one-of-a-kind gold coins, jewelry, angel figurines… and people bought it.

Even families struggling to make ends meet, somehow accumulated enough plastic to form their own trash islands in the sea and live off of them for the rest of their lives.

Even now, looking back at that decade, it’s shopping malls, brand names, commercials, and specific toys that are prominent in my memory. Listicles abound bulleting everything from the Kool-Aid man to slap bracelets to body shimmer to Jencos.

We have become obsessed with the trends of our youth and the low-tech electronics sitting on the edge of tomorrow. The future was bright and hopeful and we were having fun. But must we bring it all back for the youth of today to revel in?

Hell, there is even a reboot of Full House starring the ever-problematic Candace Cameron. Spoiler- it’s not very good. But I only watched one episode so what do I know?

Laugh tracks do not need to be brought back. No matter what anyone says.

My 90s do not align with a lot of pop culture though. Sure, I remember looking longingly at the displays of chokers and tattoo bracelets in Claire’s. I really wanted a pair of Candie’s shoes too.

The Delia’s catalog would arrive in the mail and I’d pour over its glossy pages, skinny Bic pen in hand, circling each item that appealed to me. I’d stow it under my pillow, long past its expiration date, pining for the spaghetti straps and halter tops that I had no power to purchase.

Poor Kids Nostalgia

My 90s were filled with straight-leg hand-me-down Levi’s passed on from my boy cousin. I was not a fashionable kid, partly due to my own introversion, but mostly due to circumstances.

Big K Cola was served with every meal. It was twenty-five cents for a two-liter bottle and tasted better (and was probably healthier) than the well water in our trailer park. This habit died hard and fast when I was soda-shamed in college for my bad habits.

Meals in my 90s mostly consisted of Walmart brand mac-n-cheese, a can of green beans and the cheapest hamburger available for purchase all mixed together in one pot. My mother claimed it hit all the food groups and we shouldn’t complain. Lunchables and Doritos were delicacies that were only purchased for the most special of occasions.

And who remembers TV dinner night? Kid Cuisine was arguably the best dinner ever. It came in the telltale blue cardboard box with the adorable Penguin/duck creature on it, containing a half-melted tray loaded with any beige food one could desire. We’d watch TGIF or Star Trek or X-files reruns (two out of these three shows are still in my current rotation much to my husband’s and children’s chagrin).

Another staple of the 90s was the bin of bargain books at Walmart. Walmart was really my second home for that decade. I built up my book collection with buy-two-for-a-dollar classics. The local bookstore could not meet this price point, so Walmart it was.

Even poor kids enjoyed a plethora of crap in the 90s.

The 90s were not just about things and entertainment. Sure, I sang along to Britney whenever she came on the radio. I hovered with my finger above the record button, yelling for my family to be quiet when my jams came on the radio.

But the glitzy, glittery glimmer of pop was not for me. The trailer park gang went for something edgier, darker, and less hopeful. We were the students of Beck, ThirdEye Blind, Bad Religion, Everclear, and Sublime. We understood our lot in life, we fought against it in our way, pretending to rule the town with our pallet parties and shitty weed, looking down on all the “popular” kids for being sellouts. I felt seen when Eminem released Without Me including the intro lyrics about the “two trailer park girls go round the outside”. Yes, I know this was an early aughts release, but time is relative and we could argue about the merits of the base ten system another time.

Technology was booming and we struggled to keep up. My father, at least in the early days of the decade, was able to wire together massive desktops with bulking monitors from parts he foraged from the trash or bartered for with eggs from our two sad chickens.

I’d sit at the kitchen table for hours on that thing, looking up everything I could on David Duchovny and sneaking into chat rooms while my dad was outside drinking the evening away and my mom was smoking and watching TV.

The ubiquitous request to a naive teenager of “ASL?” was met with the accidentally alluring “old enough/I think you know/somewhere hot”. Yeah, I’m sure some 30-year-old dudes enjoyed those answers.

The Harsh Reality

The 90s- for me- were not all sunshine and roses. I think about the orange lunch tickets given to kids with free lunch as a way to publicly shame us. About hiding it in the palm of my hand until the last possible second so that my peers would not notice.

The shaming of the poor (a problem that has not gone away and is perhaps even worse now) via the doctrine of the prosperity gospel. The parents of my friends who couldn’t help but point out the disparities in the homelife they provided to their children compared to my own upbringing.

I think about the True Love Waits campaigns and the push for abstinence-only education. About how dating and love and sex were sullied for a lot of my peers because of this, and how women and girls were conditioned especially hard for domestic labor and purity.

I think about Columbine. And how scary it was to be a teenager in Colorado at the time. The suspicion on all the goth kids after that. The hailing of martyrs who weren’t to bolster up evangelicals and reap more souls for their harvest. I hate that Columbine was just the first.

And of course, let us not forget about AIDs, Rodney King, Rwanda, overdoses, Princess Diana… the list goes on and on.

Sure, being young was fun. Having a future unencumbered by reality when all things were still possible is something I still miss. I yearn for the resilience of my youth- of knowing how unfair life could be but still having hope that I could change the world. I don’t really care so much about the details, even if I listen to a lot of 90s music. The young adults and teens of today will figure it out and they don’t need our grungy baggage to weigh them down.

I’m not sure why 90s nostalgia feels so good right now. It seems like my generation is yearning for relevance as Gen Z and the younger Millenials begin to take over the world. We are doing exactly what our parents did, and theirs before that, lecturing the youth about the good old days of dial-up internet while lamenting how easy they have it compared to us.

Honestly, some things, like Full House, racism, homophobia, and low-rise jeans, are all better left in the 90s. And… shit! After all that, the Tamagotchi died.

Actual image of dead/flying away Tamagotchi. By author.

If you enjoy this article and want to support me and other writers, please consider using my link to purchase a membership. For $5 a month you will be able to read unlimited Medium articles, and connect with an awesome community of readers and writers!