I remember watching this makeshift Buzzfeed video about millennials a couple weeks back — and it hit me hard in the chest. Why are millennials obsessed with the nineties? I never quite understood my obsession with it personally, especially if I was only alive to see a couple of years of it. The fashion, the music, the language, etc. Some may say that it was a simpler time, in comparison to now, but do we really want to revert back to the old days?
In all seriousness, I am more than delighted to live in this era. Though, people are dropping like flies left from right, and it’s starting to look like Trump will be our next President, I oppose to regressing back to the 1990s. Yes, without the music then, we wouldn’t be here (the same goes for fashion), but that’s just it! We wouldn’t be where we are now.
I admire how far we have come ever since the Recession back in 2008, and even the September 11, 2001. It’s a factual statement when someone says that this generation has seen it all. There might be more to come in the upcoming years, but right now we are in a golden era. Technological advancements have reached its peak, where innovators and inventors are trying to come up with new ideas to further our intelligence. If we already gotten this far, how much further do we need to go?
Ever since Obama ran for his first term as President, we should have realized where life was heading. I’m speaking to my millennial counterparts here. We were alive to see the first Black president of the United States. Something like that was unheard of several centuries ago. Of course, there were notable individuals who ran for office, such as Jesse Jackson, but they never won.
Maybe us millennials aren’t necessarily looking to go back to the nineties, but just looking back at it. Similar to how our parents and grandparents talk about the time when they were our age, we’re just reminiscing in the good ol’ days. We’re living in this age of nostalgia where capitalist are living off our demand for Walkmans and cassette tapes — so they’re giving it to us. Surprisingly enough, because of how far we have gotten with technology and the Internet, we’re able to enjoy those old television shows we loved so dearly. It wouldn’t be a terrible idea to enjoy the things that remind us of a simpler time in our lives, especially when we live with the trauma of having the things we did care about were taken away from under our feet. The 2008 Recession and 9/11 are just two examples. Today, African American mother’s are losing their sons, and students are having to deal with the idea that education is the most important thing you could ever have in life, but you can’t even afford to go. Living with this realization is terrorizing, and a headache, all at the same time.
There’s nothing wrong about growing in the twenty-first century, or being a millennial. Being able to discover new ideas, and educate yourself on things your parents couldn’t teach you, is a blessing. We as millennials do take things for granted, but it’s only because the resources are there in front of us. Without the Internet, we couldn’t express our thoughts, or even find that episode of All That. The nineties was dope, but I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of 2016. If it means pulling out my windbreaker and vinyl records hip-hop collection, so be it!