Kids today have it so easy. Facts. And yes, I realise that I sound approximately 87 years old but I’m ok with that.
Life in the 1990s were full of some truly glorious times like getting tired from playing instead of getting tired from adulting or pulling a back muscle from ‘sitting down wrong’! But also, in hindsight the 90s had its fair share of really frustratingly awkward times. Times when looking back now either makes zero sense or were just a struggle.
Looking at how easy my young niece and nephew have it now with their fancy tech, sophisticated toys and sassy attitudes, often makes me want to launch a floppy disk at them in a jealous rage! Like just when they’re about to throw their heads back and scream with impatience at the mere 3 seconds it takes for their Netflix shows to load and knowing that they would never be equipped for a life with dial up internet!
So, I silently contemplate and confirm to myself that children today would just not be able to handle life in the 90s. And here are 13 reasons why!
1. So you’ve taking 1800 selfies and deleted all the shocking ones where you blinked. We did not have such luxury! If you wanted to take a photograph of you and your mates, then you brought a physical camera out with you that had a film inside. You then would wait for a few days to have it developed in a shop, to then be told that your finger was over the lens and your entire roll is ruined. Oh, and no refunds because… feck you that’s why!
2. Cartoons back in the 90s had no chill! We were never shielded from Mufasa dying or Johnny Bravo who basically spent the entire episode sexually harassing women! Today there would be an online petition demanding such shows to be cancelled, but back in the 90s we simply nervously laughed at the emotional trauma.
3. Having to deal with your favourite movie or TV show on a VHS tape being churned up and spat out by a dodgy VCR player was a constant struggle. And when this happened, that was it. There was no Sky+ or Netflix as a back up. You would just have to wait until Christmas when it might be played again.
4. Do kids today not realise the time and effort it took to compose the perfect mix tape?! Now anyone can knock together a Spotify playlist by dragging tunes from a giant catalogue of genres into a perfect little folder named “Slow Jams” or teenage angst ridden “Sad Songs To Play In The Rain.” But back in the 90s a mixtape required a double cassette deck and the patience of the sweet baby Jesus!
5. There was no texting or calling when you were on holidays away in the Costa Del Something. No bundle packages of calls and texts for you fine friend, and certainly no jumping on the internet to browse Tik Tok videos. You would buy a phone card to call your parents from a phone box to tell them you were alive, and then you’d speak to them again when you were home.
6. Playing video games in the 90s simply meant it got harder and faster until you died. Much like life! You couldn’t save a game and come back to it, and you couldn’t Google cheats and walkthroughs. You worked it out and if you got to the last boss and failed miserably, then you start again buddy!
7. Being the cool, popular kid at school in the 90s meant you had all the latest collectable fads for that week. Whether you had POGs, or an array of colourful dummies around your neck (like why?!) or Merlin football stickers, you were royalty on the playground because you were a dedicated hobbyist. You couldn’t just jump onto eBay and buy the missing ‘cool thing’ so your mates would like you.
8. There was no such thing as a balanced healthy lunch for kids endorsed by a celebrity chef. In the 90s we could get away with eating 5 packets of crisps, a Highland Toffee bar (that would rip out your teeth!) and microwave chips. Granted us 90s kids will probably be dead by 40 BUT at least the diabetes was worth it!
9. Social media in the 1990s meant logging onto MSN messenger where you agonised over your crush’s status of ‘Busy’ (which conveniently showed every time you were online.) Or involving yourself in teen chat rooms (Age, Sex, Location) with 55-year-old paedophiles pretending to be your friend and sending you pixelated, grainy dick pics.
10. Do you think that the youths of today have to endure the internet dial up tone that may or may not connect and THEN have to deal with their mum yelling at them to get off the line because they have to call Auntie Mary? No. Kids today will never know the struggle because the privileged little schmucks have broadband.
11. Art projects now consist of highly talented kids knowing how to manipulate images in Photoshop or a complex 3D model created by impeccable arty materials from Paperchase. A 90s arts and crafts project involved a cardboard toilet roll, PVA glue, felt tip pens that didn’t work and a shit load of glitter!
12. Mastering dance routines like the Macarena and Saturday Night allowed for only one shot of getting it right at the school disco. There was no stopping, starting or editing dance crazes so they looked polished before uploading them onto Instagram. In the 90s you had to get your steps down and hope for the best, whilst clutching a lukewarm Panda Pop with no fizz.
13. As a true 90s kid, we were accustomed to our audio technology letting us down or simply lying! Every child today seems to have some sort of smartphone that doubles up as a Walkman which fits seamlessly into their pocket. Us 90s kids had to carry around a giant portable CD Discman that told us it had a ‘anti-skip technology’. But the distorted Ace of Base lyrics which occurred every time you moved, suggested otherwise.
