The 90S - Gawker

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Youth Still Totally Against Fascism: Sonic Youth's Most Adorable Record Release Party
I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
In Which Tonya Harding Is Still Around, And Mad at Barack Obama
Seinfeld Returns To NBC
Documentary Welcomes Back The Bi 90s

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Sheila
05/26/09

In reply to Youth Still Totally Against Fascism: Sonic Youth's Most Adorable Record Release Party
That's my boyfriend up at #14. Melissa, glad he's "important" enough for you to have finally learned his name.
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ginger rant
05/26/09

In reply to Youth Still Totally Against Fascism: Sonic Youth's Most Adorable Record Release Party
I just love how the older Thurston Moore gets, the more he looks like Mick Jagger. Who would have predicted this?
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BookishLookish
05/26/09

@ginger rant: Thurston is a nice example of how getting older can cause you to become better looking. I love when that happens. He is also a sweetheart, so good on him.
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ginger rant
05/26/09

@BookishLookish: Agreed. And just think: he might've done a Paul McCartney!

[jezebel.com]
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belltolls
05/26/09

In reply to Youth Still Totally Against Fascism: Sonic Youth's Most Adorable Record Release Party
Looks cool and not a single picture of Julia Allison...or a whale.
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610Dean
05/17/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
Lame. Hootie and the Blowfish dont get any love?????
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Phyllis Nefler
05/17/09

@610Dean: GOOD CALL.
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contains_hot_liquid
05/17/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
I hooked up with Emily during college, but it was not, alas, to "Say Goodbye". It was to silence. And the snores of the boy sleeping the room next door.
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Solomon Grundy
05/17/09

@contains_hot_liquid: Would you describe yourself as a male or a female?
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contains_hot_liquid
05/17/09

@Solomon Grundy: Yes I would.
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contains_hot_liquid
05/17/09

@contains_hot_liquid: Oh. Male.
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labyrinthine IS DOING THIS
05/17/09

@contains_hot_liquid: even though I KNEW the DMB clip was posted above, I still thought "to silence" meant "to shut her up".
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contains_hot_liquid
05/17/09

@labyrinthine: Ha. I should have left off that last sentence.
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phlox✔
05/17/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
I did get my first computer in the 90s. Kind of a touchstone for me at least.
Also, Foster, if you got caught/ejected for putting your own booze in a bar drink, I'm not sure that your alcoholic skillz are up to snuff.
Practice at home for best results.
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ContactAllergy
05/16/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
Fine, I'll play the race card. That is the whitest list of pop-cultural touchstones. No Tupac/Biggie? No OJ Simpson? Nothing about the mainstreaming of hip hop culture? Give me a break. Maybe its because I spent a hefty chunk of the 90s at a black college where "Friends" was more likely to conjure up the classic hit by Whodini than Must See TV, but the 90s described above sounds nothing like the 90s I knew.
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skahammer
05/16/09

@ContactAllergy: Excellent point, this.

I doubt anyone would seriously argue that was a major -- perhaps the major -- feature of the decade in pop culture. I wonder what individual artifacts one would point to as illustrations. Some good discussions there, I'll bet.
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Foster Kamer
05/17/09

@ContactAllergy: Okay, concession - Biggie was talked about, but Tupac (and both Biggie and Tupac's shootings!) were generally glazed over. A little Public Enemy here, a little Wu-Tang there. But Grief did say that he once went to a Wu-Tang concert, though he ended up there only because he was going to see Rage Against The Machine. In retrospect, there might've been no greater thrill and worse moment than hearing Grief talk about the 36 Chambers. @HamiltonNolan would've had a coronary.
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Phyllis Nefler
05/17/09

@ContactAllergy: They talked about Public Enemy and the Wu Tang Clan, if that makes you feel any better. Oh, and Emily Gould referenced those oversized t-shirts with Tweety Bird dressed like a rapper, so.
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Phyllis Nefler
05/17/09

@Foster Kamer: Also there was no Snoop. :(
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contains_hot_liquid
05/17/09

@Foster Kamer: I went to that concert too! It was one of my first disappointments...
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T.A.N.
05/17/09

@ContactAllergy: Yeah, this can't be overstated in the context of this post. From the reality show television, to advertising, to pop music, ignoring hip hop is sort of criminal. criminally annoying, at least.

i wasn't there though.
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southernbitch
05/17/09

@T.A.N.: maybe because im sort of a social worker who studied political science, i tend to look at the 90s and the culture therein as a reflection of the politics. so i find it strange that there are some glaring omissions- namely rodney king, welfare reform, and the rise of the christian right. not to mention seattle 1999. im just bored by people sitting around talking about sassy magazine as a huge cultural touchstone while ignoring some much larger things- waco, anyone? timothy mcveigh? the unabomber? far more interesting in retrospect than nirvana, sorry. and im saying that from the point of someone who still plays nirvana records on a regular basis.
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skahammer
05/17/09

@southernbitch: I'll see your Rodney King, welfare reform, and Christian right and raise you an OJ, a Lewinsky, and a Perot.

While I agree this one-upmanship is kind of fun, I don't think prescriptivism is the name of the game here. I suggest that inclusivity and descriptivism are probably better approaches to an amorphous, artificial topic like a decade.

So if Nirvana and Sassy are what you remember first from the Nineties, I'm interested enough to hear your explanation as to why. Same for Rodney King and welfare reform.

(Although descriptivism or no, the omission of the mainstreaming of hip-hop is pretty glaring, no doubt about that.)
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southernbitch
05/17/09

@skahammer: i think rodney king and welfare reform weigh heavily on my mind most likely because i work in lower income black communities, where the conversations tend to be mostly about racism, violence, and poverty. so ive started to view american culture through that lens.
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Roithamer
05/17/09

@skahammer: Rodney King, OJ, Lewinsky, Perot (and welfare reform due to an audience question): THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT THEY TALKED ABOUT. You just wouldn't know it from this post....
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Pope John Peeps II
05/18/09

@ContactAllergy: Wasn't the panel comprised of white people? Wouldn't it therefore be inappropriate to talk about black cultural touchstones?

What are you complaining about, exactly?
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skahammer
05/18/09

@Roithamer: Ah! Noted.
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Melissa Gira Grant
05/16/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
I say we wander from bar to bar demanding recourse from one bar one time kicking you out! Take our rage to the streets against the machines of loving grace! My friend Goo says PU!
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Baroness
05/16/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
The thing that strikes me, is that the 90's started by being intensely self-aware- Douglas Coupland's Generation X came out in 1991, and was chock-full of mockery for the age that was fresh at the time. I remember everyone I knew rolling their eyes at the term "grunge", and as great as Nirvana was, anyone who constantly refers to them as a cultural lodestone of the 90's - well, I guess they got their credentials via subscription to Rolling Stone. They were a respected , interesting band when Cobain had an intact skull, but it took his suicide to make people misremember in retrospect how Nirvana was Beatlesque in cultural influence. Uh, no, they absolutely weren't. It's dumb VH1 retrospection to say they were.

The 90's was already constantly mocking itself in real time, I don't know how this dumb panel gets to condescend (n+1!-duh) to an entire decade. Did anyone mention how electronic music became dominant in Europe? Or Britpop? It sounds like the people on the panel feel qualified to judge because they were alive then, or something. But what idiotic tropes they're discussing- mostly it seems, what was on US television then, that they remember.

And no 25 year-old should be discussing the 90's, sit down, son.
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jasonelias
05/16/09

@Baroness: The 90s don't bare much reflection now. So much of the decade is still with us, it's not like it's 1993 and we're thinking about 1979. The times haven't changed all that much. Plus, I thought we covered this stuff while the '90s were going on. I'm thinking it was VH1, Molly Culver, something...

Now the '80s? I'd love to examine why that decade was so weird. Not all that interested in the '90s.
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Awesome X
05/17/09

@Baroness: Azerrad is an odd choice for a 90s panel. I can't recall a single relevant word he's written on a topic that existed beyond the year 1994. He's much more of an 80s expert, "Our Band Could Be Your Life" topical stuff. What does he know of Neutral Milk Hotel, Flaming Lips, Wu Tang Clan, ect.? Nirvana was great for dislodging tasteless pop and hair metal from mainstream charts, but that's its legacy. If anything, Nirvana ended the 80s, but it hardly encapsulates the 90s.

Also, Nirvana's music was mostly awful. Simple punk guitar riffs with punks' funny/fun/thoughtful lyrics substituted for complete gibberish. What bullshit.
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Steve Holt's Mother Part Deux
05/16/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
U.S. Dept. Of Retro Warns: 'We May Be Running Out Of Past'

[www.theonion.com]
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HiredGoons
05/16/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
Everything one might need to know about the '90s can be found at any Spencer's Gifts.
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belltolls
05/16/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
Well you know what they say about the 90s, "If you can remember it, you were likely there." It's also interesting NOBODY claims to have been at Woodstock II.
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ADismalScience
05/16/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
It used to be that scribes and chronologists would have similar (though less douchey) panel discussions. Ultimately, they would come to some form of consensus on the relevant highlights of an era and go write a history. For this act, they would be revered.

I'm kind of glad we've changed our minds on that.
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Dickdogfood
05/16/09

@ADismalScience: Dis, I can't even tell if you're kidding.
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labyrinthine IS DOING THIS
05/16/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
@Foster Kamer: and next year, these same dickbags will do the same thing for the first decade of the 2000s, and they'll be even less relevant. if anyone even goes, it'll be the speakers droning on about SARS and fucking Coldplay and some twat twenty-something will maybe look up from their texting long enough to say "dude, Eddie Vedder called from the '90s and he still wants his fucking flannel back".
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nathanst
05/16/09

@labyrinthine: The 90's condemned the 80's, the 80's the 70's and etc.

It's like they're giving the fashionistas a handjob with their doodoo holes. Only after a decade is condemned can it then be reintroduced as retro.
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labyrinthine IS DOING THIS
05/16/09

@nathanst: hmm. regarding fashion: did this decade have any standout fashion that will be regurgitated in thirty years, or was it all just the bell bottoms/Hypercolor trash of the '70s and '80s?

I don't know; hell, I'm not into fashion at all, which to some people is ZOMGSHOCKING for a female, I'm sure. but it's just interesting. it's like the world has run out of ideas, so we have to rerun everything with a new hat a la Malibu Stacey instead.
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Dickdogfood
05/16/09

@labyrinthine: Perhaps the most important 90s contribution to prêt-à-porter fashion: corporate casual.
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Lizawithazee
05/17/09

@labyrinthine: To me, the '90s fashion gestalt was minimalism (Jill Sanders, Helmut Lang, all those Dutch designers, Prada to a degree) to counter the over-the-top vibe of Versace and Gucci once Tom Ford joined them.

They didn't talk about email? That was the "killer app" of '90s, wasn't it? Actually, perhaps "killer app" sums up the '90s.
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nathanst
05/16/09

In reply to I Hate Your 90s: N+1 Discussion Panel Ruins My Favorite Decade
Your 90's can suck my 90's dick for all I care.

also Fight Club

also the Matrix and American Beauty and hundred more cultural items. Don't make me whip out video games because I will.
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labyrinthine IS DOING THIS
05/16/09

@nathanst: do it, do it! I love me some video games.
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nathanst
05/16/09

@labyrinthine:

Birth of the Warcraft, Command and Conquer, Smash Bros and Mariokart series to start.

All of which have dominant places in the 00's marketplace.
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
05/17/09

@nathanst: Starcraft too!
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