What do you remember about life in the 1990s?

In December 1995 as a sophomore in college, I got into a dispute with a friend as to whether Katharine Hepburn was alive or not (I said she was). Since I had a phase of writing to celebrities for autographs in high school, when I went home for Christmas I found my book with various celebrities' addresses (no need for that today) to find contact information for Ms. Hepburn. Essentially, I wrote to her to ask if she was living (without such tacky phrasing of course). I received something back from an agent/publicist a few weeks later that she indeed was living. I still have the letter.

I actually caused a “policy change” in the town where I lived. When I moved to a rural community to start a new job in 1995, I was the first person in the town to have a “cellular” phone, and the exchange for my phone number was in the town my parents lived. Whenever I would get groceries or food and needed to write a check, they always wanted you to write your phone number on the check. One time, at the local grocery store, I presented them a check, and they wouldn’t accept because my phone number was not on the check. I showed them that it was, and they asked me if I lived in the community, and I told them yes. And they asked, how can you live in the local community and not have a number in the local exchange? That is when I showed them my cellular phone, and they just stared at it. They would ask, how do you hang it up, and how far can you be away from the phone base, etc. People were actually freaked out seeing a cellular phone. SO much so, they passed a local ordinance at the next city council meeting that in order to write a check, the phone number must be the same exchange as the town listed on the check. So, I actually had to get a landline (it was a party line) just so I could write checks within the community.

As someone in my mid 30s, I've always found that I had more in common with someone in their 60s than someone just 10-15 years younger than I am.

In about 1990 my uncle worked in an office. When it was someone’s lunch break in the office they’d get a folder out of the filing cabinet which had all the funny pictures inside. If there was a picture they liked then they’d use the fax machine to send the picture to all the other offices. My uncle and his coworkers were pioneers of memes.

I like this, it's like an old man sitting around the fire telling the kids about the "good old days" through rose tinted glasses, except the old man is a millenial who isn't even 40, the fire is the internet, and the "good old days" is the time in which The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was still being taped

As someone born in 97, I and many people my age have such a weird relationship with 90s culture. We were the awkward transition phase where the VCR and iPhone co-existed. When the internet was still seen as only a supplement to the then current forms of entertainment. Iconic remnants of 90s culture, like brick and mortar rental stores, were still very much relevant to us but quickly grew obsolete and didn't proceed with us into adulthood or even our teenage years. By highschool, many of us had ultimately developed this awkward nostalgia for these 90s remnants in spite of not being fully incorporated with the time period.

Your comment about how older generations couldn’t fact check things really struck a cord with me. I definitely see this with my dad. When I’m unsure about something I immediately google it but for my dad that never seems to even cross his mind as an option. He’s always shocked at how quickly I can find something out and I’m always confused at how he can not know something and not immediately try and look up the answer

the 90s were magic and none can convince me otherwise. I was a teen but being a teen in the 90s was pretty perfect. Technology grew up with me.

I think the 90s generation is in a profoundly privileged position of actually being adept at technology in both ends of the spectrum - not fumbling with “those dang gadgets” like our parents, and neither being completely bamboozled with the sensory overload today. No other generation can claim to have lived and not only survived, but thrived, in both worlds.

Hey JJ, I'm the guy who ran into you on Thursday evening. I'm very grateful that you were willing to talk as long as you did. Talking about your channel and videos was a super fascinating privilege. You must be a pro at these encounters at this point -- even I, someone who had semi-thought of what I would want to say if I ever encountered you, was braindead and didn't know what to say, but you are versed and empathetic enough with your fans to lead the conversation and ask questions yourself. Even though I'm sure it was a routine encounter for you, it absolutely made my week and will be a moment I won't forget! Hit me up if you ever need half off at a JOEY or LOCAL next time. 😂

Anyone that was born in the 1980s and lived there childhood the 1990s was blessed in my eyes.. I was born in 1981 and enjoyed so so many awesome things as a child- I Feel Blessed.. Very interesting video ✊🏼

I was born in 92 and I agree with everything about memories of the 90s being a dividing line between generations. Of course I obviously was not an adult during these years but I still feel like I can understand and recall the differences in daily life, although to a lesser extent.

While I am a decade younger than you, I was growing up in a post-Soviet country and I can totally relate to everything you mentioned. We had computer literacy classes at school as late as the early 2010s. I remember using a payphone at school to call my grandma. I remember how kinds would share pirated DVDs (the only means to access any digital product in Eastern Europe up until the mid-2000s) and spread rumours about video games that only a couple of us could actually play. I never used computer to do any of my school assignments though, besides the ones for the computer literacy class. I remember pagers and fax machines, I remember taking off our landline phone while chatting online so nobody would be able to call my apartment and cut off the Internet. It is so strange how we got to live through similar experiences in different centuries

I think one of my most missed gaming memories from 90’s/early 00’s was getting the PlayStation Mags and getting the new demo discs. It’s such an odd thing to think of now that was how we actually tried games before being able to look up trailers and gameplay now. Also the music on those discs were so good!

I was born in '87 and this is literally my whole childhood right here. From, "Word Munchers" to "Mario Run", the only thing he forgot was "Oregon Trail".

Growing up in the 90s, just watching tech evolve has been really interesting. We grew alongside it. So when I look at something like a Switch I remember everything that came before it to the NES and Gameboy.

In 2001, I was still carrying a pager so that I could respond to issues with my company's database. This was a "cool" pager because it had four little lines of text that could show you little "news drops". There'd be the four most recent news stories to choose from usually with just a "---News Update---" shown on the line. Every once in a while, there'd be a big news story, and one of the news drops would show "**Breaking News**" instead. You always knew that was a big one. One Tuesday morning, I woke up and saw all four lines showed "**Breaking News**". That's odd, I thought. Turned out, it was September 11th, 2001. That's literally how I found out before turning on my television.

JJ, I love your content. I'm in my 70's so I can strangely relate to your cultural translations, while finding others incomprehensible. I didn't have a computer/word processor until I was a professor in a community college. I never saw a gaming magazine, but I got hooked on the omnipresent card game before moving on to RR Tycoon ,etc. Adjusting to rapid social and tech change has always been an issue, but has become exceptionally rapid in the recent past! Keep up the excellent content.

it's wild to me how my experience with computers in education ended up so vastly different to yours, only 5 years later. still, i remember the novelty of computers as well as the computer rooms, and eventually using the school library to access the internet and print out assignments. but i also remember using an "Alphabeta" typing gadget in the 4th grade, and only a select few of us were allowed to take them home because of our advanced skill in typing. i remember how magical Microsoft Paint was at that time, and I remember how insane it was to finally get my own computer in maybe sophomore year of high school. wild. thanks for this JJ, a pleasure as always :)

Being a Canadian myself, this is the strongest Canadian accent I’ve ever heard. Good lord.