I was only fortunate enough to spend five and a half years of my life in the '90s. But I have a wealth of knowledge on the era, in part because my sister is seven years older and in part because we, as a generation, have been reminiscing ever since. The '90s were great—I get it. But we’ve grown so much as a society, and we don’t give enough credit to our current and most recent decade.
Growing up, I would always hear grown folks talk about the fact that they don’t make real music anymore. There are certainly some trap queen-esque songs here and there, but I’ve found pop music to become more and more political recently. Meghan Trainor’s "No" is music to my ears. #LEMONADE. Need I say more? Beyonce went from catering 2 u to demanding a little more.
On the topic of music, the '90s were infamous for those heartthrob boy bands. And One Direction beats them all. Let’s face it—NSYNC is nothing without Justin Timberlake, and this generation gave him a run for his money.
We are certainly reliving some '90s fashion with the immortal biker jacket, combat boots, cropped tops, and so on. But if you think of all the staple products we are taking from the '90s, we utilize them in a very simplistic manner. Whereas, if you do a quick Google search of '90s fashion, you see images of too many colors pieced together that simply cannot be identified as color blocking.
Nickelodeon was especially close to our hearts in the '90s era. But I also can’t imagine a time without Drake Bell and Josh Peck. "iCarly" is also really funny and "Zoey101" is classic. Not to mention all the shows that were carried into the 2000s: "Hey Arnold!", "Rugrats," and "All That."
Aside from all that, I truly believe this generation of high school and college students are more educated, opinionated, and outspoken. I haven’t seen more people comfortable coming out for their LGBTQ rights, wearing their natural hair, becoming aware during a presidential election, and overall, being unapologetically themselves.
I am proud to have experienced some of the '90s, and to be able to understand references made to that generation, but I am even more proud of everything that has happened since. It is easy to miss the past, but it is important to recognize the present.
