comments:
I actually agree with you. I was born in December 1972, so I was a kid, teenager, and young adult through that whole stretch, and it really did feel like a strange little window in time. The Cold War was over, the internet was showing up but had not yet swallowed everyday life, people were a lot less connected and a lot less anxious in that constant online way, and 9/11 had not yet slammed the door on that whole mood. Obviously it was not perfect, and I do not want to romanticize every part of it, but there was a real sense of openness and normalcy that is hard to explain if you did not live through it. I also think people can feel nostalgia for a time they did not personally experience because they are reacting to the vibe of it, not just the calendar dates. Music, movies, TV, mall culture, early internet, even the way people talked and dressed all carry a feeling. Sometimes you are really mourning the loss of a culture you only know secondhand, because it seems more human, less filtered, and less exhausting than the one we live in now. If you want a really good book on that era, I would recommend The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman. It does a great job capturing not just the events, but the feeling of living through that pre 9/11 world when America still felt a certain way culturally. It is one of the better books I have read for explaining why that period sticks in people’s minds so strongly.