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What was The Best Decade?

Started by Noodle Lizard, December 27, 2021, 07:34:34 PM

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Noodle Lizard

As is customary on Christmas, I got into a bit of a discussion with my folks, both of whom were born in the early 50s, as they bemoaned the "way things are right now". Which is fair enough, by the way - I don't think anyone sees this as a particularly "good time". I asked them, then, what had been the "best" era they'd lived in. I fully expected them to say the 50s or 60s, since the answer to this question does tend to be relative to how good your life was rather than the world in general.

Surprisingly, though, they both offered the 90s - which would've been my answer as well. I was in single digits throughout the 90s, but when I look at the things I don't especially like about the world now, the 90s appears (at least in hazy hindsight) like a time where things were more or less "alright". Not perfect, but alright. So it was odd to discover that my parents, who would've been in their 40s during that decade, came to the same conclusion.

I know a lot of you experienced the 90s as either adults, or at least sentient adolescents, so I'd be interested to hear what you reckon about that. Furthermore, what do you think the best decades were? I find it difficult to believe anyone would offer the 2010s, despite all the "amazing technology", but I'm open to hearing all about it.

Paul Calf

The 90s were fucking brilliant. The Wall had fallen and the towers were yet to fall, the drugs were good and happy and everyone got to dive in if they wanted to.

I was in my 20s for most of the 90s, which probably helped colour my opinion of it.

Noodle Lizard

Yeah, I think I would've loved being "a grown-up" in the 90s. For trivial and purely selfish reasons, of course. I like smoking in pubs (I don't smoke anymore), I don't like social media, I like CDs and I didn't mind the charts. Even airport security was a doddle.

In a wider scheme, it seems to have been as decent a confluence of a more-or-less tolerant status quo (i.e. far less oppressive than other "golden ages" like the 50s), along with "just enough" technology and affordable fun as we've managed. Every advance of subsequent decades seems to have come at a considerable cost.

The 90s. It wasn't "the best" of any one thing, but it was solid all-round. Perhaps.

Icehaven

This is weird as I was a teenager in the 90s and back then I can remember people writing exactly the same sort of thing about the 70s, as if that was the best decade. Is it just a twenty year itch thing or something?

Crenners

Only 90s kids will understand
XD XD XD

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: icehaven on December 27, 2021, 08:38:33 PMThis is weird as I was a teenager in the 90s and back then I can remember people writing exactly the same sort of thing about the 70s, as if that was the best decade. Is it just a twenty year itch thing or something?

Quite possibly, I'm not old or wise enough to have an answer to that. But out of the three decades I've lived, the first one does seem to come out on top, pen to paper. Of course the chances of humanity or civilization having "peaked" in my lifetime are incredibly remote, but I can't comment from any experience at all on any decades prior, and the 2000s and 2010s were largely miserable save for the odd year or two. The 2020s are fixing to be the worst yet, though I hope there's something of a turnaround. Good times often tend to rise out of the ashes of the shit ones.

Dex Sawash



mjwilson


flotemysost

Quote from: Paul Calf on December 27, 2021, 07:41:17 PMThe 90s were fucking brilliant. The Wall had fallen and the towers were yet to fall, the drugs were good and happy and everyone got to dive in if they wanted to.

I was in my 20s for most of the 90s, which probably helped colour my opinion of it.

I was born in 1989, and my mum (who was 40 at the time with a young child already, so probably not out on the razzle much at that point) said it felt like being on the brink of an optimistic sea change - the Wall was about to fall, as you say; the Tories were being pushed out; increased support for Greenpeace and political activism, etc.

I probably scuppered her chances of being able to enjoy the decade itself very much (although she did used to stay up watching Twin Peaks when I wouldn't go to sleep, apparently), but I can understand why it would have felt that way. One of my colleagues, who's about a decade older than me and grew up under the Iron Curtain, said it was just about the most exciting time imaginable to be growing up.

Certainly there's a huge amount of music, comedy, TV, theatre and popular culture in general from that decade that I'd dearly love to have been able to enjoy at the time. However there's also been a huge amount of progress since then in what's deemed acceptable with sexism, racism, homophobia etc. - although in a way it feels like people of my age are still sort of shouldering the legacy of those views and messages, as it's what a lot of us grew up with and absorbed, even as very young children. I'm definitely a bit envious of Gen Z and how many of them are seemingly far less damaged by sexism and toxic heteronormativity than my generation are.

But then, that's probably nothing compared to the changes and progress that my parents' generation would have witnessed within their lifetimes, so I dunno.

touchingcloth

Nineties had all of the royals getting divorced and smashed to bits in car accidents, so it gets my vote provisionally and I'm hoping the Tens might be the decade in which Andy is jailed as a nonce and Bants crashes his helicopter into the sea while dressed as Andy dressed as a nonce dressed as a Nazi, with the Cunt of Death buying the farm in the same decade, hopefully in as degrading a manner as possible. Maybe Charles will end up needing to have one of his sausage fingers removed or deflated.

ZoyzaSorris

80s (as a young kid) and 2000s (my twenties essentially) were my faves so far from a personal perspective. I had a bit of a shit 90s to be honest. But yes was a much more hopeful time overall. The 2010s shaped up to be a personal, British and global nightmare and the 2020s are looking to be worse.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: Paul Calf on December 27, 2021, 07:41:17 PMThe 90s were fucking brilliant. The Wall had fallen and the towers were yet to fall, the drugs were good and happy and everyone got to dive in if they wanted to.

The Gulf War (the first)
War in Afghanistan (the first)
Bosnian War
Kosovo War and Genocide
Rwandan Civil War and Genocide
East Timor War and Genocide
Congolese Civl War and Gnocide
Sierra Leone Civil War

Underground scene was good music wise and popular scene was tolerable but it was already building the soulessness of the 00s even by mid decade.


Buelligan

I really love the internet, for me, selfishly, any time when there was less internet is shitter.  Disregarding that, I think there's good and bad all the time.  Covid's shit, global warming's shit (and lots of other stuff) now but there always seem to be shit things (wars, terrible illnesses, awful things) going on in all the decades.  And there are wonderful ones too, like the internet.

There are loads of periods in history I'd go back to (even if I'd never been there before) but in all of them, the reason I'd go back is to push for change or fight for it, which says something about how I should spend my time now.

Butchers Blind

For me, the 90's. Drugs, war, dead royals, music, Euro 96 and the internet had yet to clog up the system.

Captain Z

Quote from: touchingcloth on December 27, 2021, 09:54:40 PMI'm hoping the Tens might be the decade in which...

I have some bad news, and some worse news...

Generally, decades without large scale wars are incremental improvements on the previous one.

The later you're born, the better.  The accrued works of art and entertainment is deeper and richer with each decade (who cares when something debuted?  What usually survives is a lot of the better material).  Society generally becomes more, not less, tolerant with each passing decade - rights which previously had to be fought for and argued over become status quo.  Education levels improve, worldwide poverty decreases pretty rapidly, and improvements in technology make life increasingly comfortably for more and more people.  The average citizen of earth has a far, far better life today than in any decade previous.

I enjoyed the '90s because I was young, was able to drink alcohol cheaply and without restraint despite not turning 18 until 2000, and had zero cares to give.  But that's rose-tinted and personal.  The world is a better place now, despite COVID (and we were aware of climate change in the '80s and '90s and barely a shite was given).

Avril Lavigne

2000 to 2010.

'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days'

Doc Martin series 1 to 4.

Lady Sovereign.

Amazing times

Gurke and Hare

Buncha John Major fans in here.

Although the 90s were pretty good for me - I think it's probably true for most people that the decade you're in your twenties is probably the best, as you possibly have a bit of money for the first time, and you're still young enough to feel you can enjoy spending it without having to worry too much about the future.

Edit: also, the 2010s was the decade when I got to have more sex than any other, so they were alright. The first half of them, anyway.


Crenners

Hey guys get ready for my fuckin lecture

#21
I was still at primary school at the start of the 90s and halfway through my undergraduate degree by the end of the decade, so my experiences of the earlier part and latter part of the decade were so different that it's difficult to rate it overall. Generally, the music and comedy scene made it quite an exciting time to be a teenager, but the end of the decade seems a bit colourless, culturally, compared to the earlier parts, so I was probably too young to fully participate in the most exciting bits.

This might just be a product of growing up in an old industrial area in Scotland at the fag-end of the era of heavy industry, but the early 90s seemed quite a grim time to me, overall. I enjoyed them well enough on a childish level, but most of the adults I knew at the time didn't seem to be having much fun. The country was in recession and everything seemed to be shutting down, with redundancies right left and centre and the local area seemed to be falling apart before our eyes. I suppose it was just a continuation of what had been happening in the 80s, but I was becoming old enough to notice and understand it a bit. I doubt many of the people I grew up around at that time would have much affection for the earlier part of the 90s. It was easy enough to believe them then when they said the 60s and 70s were better and happier times. There might have been some optimism over getting rid of the Tories, and there had been the victory over the poll tax but, lest we forget, the Tories lasted until 1997 - most of the decade.

The appearance of the internet (or, should I say, the World Wide Web) in the latter part of the decade seemed quite exciting, but its overall effects have, I think its it's fair to say, been mixed.

TrenterPercenter

1980s Cold, poor seemed the norm where I was but I was a child for most of this
1990s Cold, poor, surrounded by annoying middle class cunts trying to be much poorer than they actually were.
2000s poor, working and studying surrounded by annoying middle class cunts trying to be much richer than they actually were.
2010s no longer poor, towards the end bought a house, surrounded by annoying middle class cunts again trying to be much poorer than they actually were yet appear to have travelled to most of the countries in the world.

I'm prime "I'm alright jack" working class Tory fodder now, decades of striving and building resentment to now have finally converted into homeownership.  Capitalism works, pull up the ladder, get on yer bike and kick out the forrins, I've done my bit and the kids today don't know how lucky they are!

Not a chance in hell.

ZoyzaSorris

Quote from: TheBrownBottle on December 27, 2021, 10:37:36 PMGenerally, decades without large scale wars are incremental improvements on the previous one.

The later you're born, the better.  The accrued works of art and entertainment is deeper and richer with each decade (who cares when something debuted?  What usually survives is a lot of the better material).  Society generally becomes more, not less, tolerant with each passing decade - rights which previously had to be fought for and argued over become status quo.  Education levels improve, worldwide poverty decreases pretty rapidly, and improvements in technology make life increasingly comfortably for more and more people.  The average citizen of earth has a far, far better life today than in any decade previous.

I enjoyed the '90s because I was young, was able to drink alcohol cheaply and without restraint despite not turning 18 until 2000, and had zero cares to give.  But that's rose-tinted and personal.  The world is a better place now, despite COVID (and we were aware of climate change in the '80s and '90s and barely a shite was given).

Wow - that's some proper complacent centrist dad shite right there. No wonder you come out with some of the bobbins you do in the politics threads.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: flotemysost on December 27, 2021, 09:49:44 PMI'm definitely a bit envious of Gen Z and how many of them are seemingly far less damaged by sexism and toxic heteronormativity than my generation are.

On the other hand, I can already see that generation becoming a bit disillusioned and directionless. There's no real mainstream to join or challenge, everything they want to see/read/hear can be clicked up in a matter of seconds (less "discovery") and everything's generally a bit more disparate and fragmented. It's hard to say what will become of that in the long-term, since I think even the eldest Zoomer isn't much older than 20, but it doesn't surprise me that they're reporting significantly higher levels of attention disorders and other mental health problems. While I remember a pre-internet society, they've grown up in a world where these revolutions in socialising and access to pretty much everything (good or bad) are not only normal, but essential, and are somewhat unnatural replacements for some important "human" things we might have taken for granted.

Do we have any Zoomers on here? Even my friends in their 30s look at me like a bit of a weird old fogey when I mention I'm on "a world wide web forum".

chveik

Quote from: flotemysost on December 27, 2021, 09:49:44 PMI'm definitely a bit envious of Gen Z and how many of them are seemingly far less damaged by sexism and toxic heteronormativity than my generation are.

you shouldn't, environmental collapse is probably going to erase those social improvements.

Billy

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on December 27, 2021, 10:50:44 PMI think it's probably true for most people that the decade you're in your twenties is probably the best, as you possibly have a bit of money for the first time, and you're still young enough to feel you can enjoy spending it without having to worry too much about the future.

That for me would be the 2010s and no fucking way am I picking that, although I get the idea of the post.

I want to say the 1990s, as already mentioned above it seems a bit offensive for anyone who suffered through Bosnia/Sierra Leone/Candle In The Wind '97 etc, but from a UK perspective it was certainly bloody good. Biased as it's my childhood but I don't remember thinking that the world had gone to shit until the Iraq war the following decade, by which time I was a moody 14 year old who dressed in black and blasted Bring Me To Life out my PC speakers whenever my folks weren't home.

bgmnts

Yeah things didnt become irreversibly shit until around 12 so best decade is mostly 90s. 9/11 obviously marked the big change globally, but the west has been dicking half the world for centuries before that so unsure what it changed.

TrenterPercenter

QuoteI'm definitely a bit envious of Gen Z and how many of them are seemingly far less damaged by sexism and toxic heteronormativity than my generation are.

Hmmm not damaged in the same way perhaps, they seem pretty disinterested in sexism or heteronormativity but in an "arsed cigs" kind of way.

Cold Meat Platter