I've been drinking Crystal Pepsi for the past two days and gleefully informing everyone who comments on it that the 90's are back. There are countless articles about 90's nostalgia, of course, and even academic papers that discuss the rapid development of technology we true 90's kids have seen in our lifetimes. And by “true” 90's kids, I mean those who are actually old enough to remember any of the 1990's. I'm not going to quiz a person who claims to be a 90's kid, but there are totally different experiences of that decade for someone born in 1983 vs 1997.
Crystal Pepsi did not disappoint me, like a lot of nostalgia products have. Some things are best left in the past – I'm looking at you, Snackwells cookies. Actually, I don't think those ever actually went off the market; most of us just forgot they existed. There are other things from the 90's, though, that I'm not going to get back, and I've just accepted it. Like my metabolism...
Like all nostalgia, I have to temper it. Humanity in general has a tendency to romanticize the past and overlook the ugly parts. See also: those who want to bring the 1950's back. Sure, I fondly remember summer mornings, watching cartoons with my best friend after a sleepover while eating pickles from the jar (we were odd children)...but also, there's high school and I wouldn't do that over if you paid me. For every memory of playing “lawyer” - a game my neighbor pal and I invented where we were lawyers on high-profile cases – there's also the other side of the coin, high school. I might have rocked my experience the best I could, but it was a definite lesson in rising above one's circumstances. So as much as pop culture rocked when I was growing up, I don't think I'd actually use a hypothetical time machine to stop back in the 90's for anything...except perhaps a case of Ecto Cooler, because that stuff was awesome.
It does make me think, though – how will we look back on the decade we're in now, twenty years on? Sure, we all agree that 2016 was a mess, but I want to believe it was an outlier. There's a lot of trouble in the world, but there are some great things, too. And, for some of the troublesome things, it's up to use to fight them. I want my five year old niece to be able to look at the first decade she existed in and think it was a pretty good time. And, so, I go back to one of my favorite quotes, from Dr. Suess' The Lorax - “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
In 2017, I'm going to try to make some of the change I want to see in the world happen. It's easy to say that, but the real challenge is doing it. Good intentions are only the start. I encourage you to join me, though. Donate to the causes you hold dear if you can – not just money, but time and effort. Fight hatred. Do it for the world we're leaving for future generations, sure, but mostly do it for yourself. Rock this year.
