There was once a time when baby pictures were taken with Polaroids and disposable cameras. There was once a time when Saturday mornings meant new episodes of your favorite cartoons on television. There was once a time when getting on the internet meant using dial-up and halting any phone calls to or from the house. These significant moments probably bring back a sentimental nostalgic feeling from your childhood because you're probably a 90's kid and a member of the greatest generation to date.
Nowadays, baby pictures are stored on cell phones and posted to Facebook, the majority of new cartoons are substance-less garbage, and you can connect a video chat with your best friend in Tokyo within twelve seconds of reading this sentence. These kinds of changes really raise the question: what happened between now and then?
You grew up in a time when playing outdoors was the norm, but you better have gone straight home once the streetlights turned on or else there were consequences to pay. You rode bikes with your neighborhood friends and became a proficient tree climber and explorer of your local plot of woods. You had a cool secret handshake with all your best friends.
You grew up with celebrity icons like Tony Hawk, Kobe Bryant, the Spice Girls, and of course the Backstreet Boys. You grew up knowing iconic songs like "Mister Brightside" by The Killers, "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes, and "Dani California" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and singing them at the top of your lungs every time they came on the radio.
You remember a time before iPods took over, when portable CD players were a must-have. Before DVD and Blu-Ray players, you had to wait for a VHS tape to rewind (or even rewind it yourself using a pencil). There was a time when you were required to buy a floppy disk for storing all your digital files and Microsoft Paint masterpieces.
At school, you were the coolest kid around if you had light up Sketchers until the new kid rode up on his Heelys and stole your girl! The best day in gym class was when the gym teacher broke out the butt scooters until someone ran over your fingers. You learned how to do math using base-ten shorthand pieces and learned science from a Science Guy named Bill. When you woke up in the morning for school, you could substitute cookies or french toast for cereal and hatch dinosaur eggs in your oatmeal.
You traded Pokemon cards and basketball cards with your friends, vying for a sought after Ancient Mew or an autographed card from your favorite athlete every time you tore the wrapper off of a fresh pack of cards. The 90's and early 2000's were a golden age for cartoons a well. You learned valuable lessons from your favorite cartoon characters like Ash Ketchum (Pokemon), Yugi Moto (Yu-Gi-Oh), Courage the Cowardly Dog, and Doug (Doug). You learned how to be creatively absurd from whackadoo television characters like Steve Erkel (Family Matters), Rocko (Rocko's Modern Life), Cow and Chicken, and Catdog. You wanted a tree-house like the Kids Next Door had and a secret laboratory hidden from your parents and annoying older sister like Dexter did.
The coolest new gadget around was a handheld Gameboy Color, and you learned what a struggle it was to play that device at nighttime without a light. You learned responsibility by taking care of a virtual pet you carried on a key chain. Everyone wanted to be your best friend if you had a tin of Fruit Stripe Gum. You learned how to bake using an Easy-Bake Oven and you became an engineer with all the crazy structures you built using Legos (and a crybaby when you stepped on one).
It was definitely a simpler time back then. It feels as though time has progressed and you have grown older while making the transition to adult life. Like the world has become a much stranger and hostile place to live.
You remember when the September 11th attacks happened in New York, but could never imagine the consequences and uncertainties that would carry into modern times. You grew up during the aftermath of the Clinton sex scandal, the questionable foreign policies of the Bush Administration, and personally witnessed the United States economy tank shortly before the 2008 presidential elections.
You saw the rise of technological giants like Apple and social media developments like Facebook and Twitter that would become staples in your everyday life. You survived the end of the world that never came on December 21st, 2012. You were around to see the historic legalization of same-sex weddings in all fifty states.
You grew up and experienced life in a time much less complicated, more truthful, and more friendly than how things seem to be today allows you to obtain a perspective that is unique to you and our generation alone. You’ve learned to question credibility, authority, and to skeptically take all information you’ve been given with a grain of salt. You’ve learned to color outside the lines and try unconventional solutions because you’re tired of the traditional approaches failing time and time again.
The generations older than yours will shake their heads at the technological advancements and questionable political scandals. The generation younger than yours grows up not knowing any better with Barrack Obama as president, iPhones and androids in pocket, and social media readily accessible. As cliché as it is, none of them will ever understand what it was like to grow up being you.
Your generation truly is the greatest in the country--in a sense that you greatly outnumber any generation born previously before you, including the baby-boomers, as well as your parents. What the older generations fail to realize is that one day you will be holding the reigns and commandeering society.
As your parents begin to step down and we begin to step up as doctors, politicians, and business executives, you and your generation will be bringing your unique perspective to reign and the world will never be the same. Whether the world is ready or not, you are a living embodiment of the 90’s kid difference and it’s (almost) your time to shine.
