More rad discussion boards?

[Froggychum]

take the flaxpill
invest in e-textiles

[gh0st]

1. There is no internet, only this “website”
2. If there was no culture in the 90s then how do you explain the beanie babies
3. the greatest film ever created, shrek?
4. Hot dogs, and we’re eating them
5. Kids bop

[Froggychum]

*embarrasses myself publicly, in front of my children*
THEY CAN'T HEAR ME BECAUSE THEY'RE LISTENING TO KIDZ BOP

[atomtengeralattjaro]

I'll do anything to live in the 2000s era

The 90s and 2000s honestly were pretty culturally void. At least, when compared to the 60s, 70s and 80s.
People are starting to feel nostalgia for them now, of course - now that enough time has passed for the young of that generation to become adults.
But, despite how people feel, they inarguably haven't had as much of a broad cultural impact as the earlier generations.

I'm just talking about the Western World, obviously. The situation may be different in other parts of the world.

Basically, I'm saying you shouldn't give up the chance to live in the present. The present may not be particularly interesting either, but it's better to live in your own generation if you can bear doing so. Which you should, if few better options are available.

I would say there was a pretty vibrant music-centered counterculture in the 90's/00's but that it wasn't front and center like the counterculture of prior decades, or is at least misattributed to an earlier time.

Grunge and the foundations of a lot of the modern punk scene have their roots tied pretty tightly in the 90's. There's a very solid throughline marking the split between the Cobain/Nirvana-style crowd and the dad-rock/Guns N Roses crowd (which stemmed from GNR using some pretty rough racial slurs and racist rhetoric in a few of their songs) and the formation of a lot of more progressive, subversive bands in the early 2000's. Green Day, for example, was heavily influenced by that musical subculture and went on to produce some of the most memorable anti-war songs from the Iraq war era. In parallel to this, there was an entire underground Emo scene challenging post-9/11 hypermasculinity being driven by media outlets as a way of encouraging the war effort overseas, very reminiscent of the way the hippies of the 60's and 70's challenged media- and government-pushed narratives about gender conformity during the Vietnam/Korean wars. That was also the height of the goth subculture, which sought to use extreme aesthetics to challenge authority in an era where homogeneity (i.e. national unity during wartime) was considered desirable, and also helped fuel the resurgence of the progressive anarchist-punk movement.

These splintered sub-genres eventually came back together in the 2010's to create a MASSIVE wave for the genre of pop-punk that was extremely pro-gay, anti-racist, anti-authoritarian, and anti-war. Right up until iHeart completely monopolized the US radio market, this was a massive progressive push and has had lasting cultural impact that is going to continue playing out for decades. It's not a coincidence that a lot of people active in progressive movements (at least in the US) listened to a lot of the same music when they were younger, if you listen to American Idiot roughly 1000 times you're bound to pick up some of the message.

The only reason we don't talk about the impact of music culture in the 90's and 2000's the same way we talk about the counterculture of the 60's/70's is because the big social issue of the old counterculture (the Vietnam/Korean wars) ended while the big issue of the 90's/2000's (direct and proxy wars in the middle east) have not. Taking a retrospective of a culture whose central conflict(s) is/are still happening is perceived by many as a political editorial rather than as a modern historical examination of culture and subculture.

ok I've finally read Prof. Mlsomenumber's essay here (I've had this open in a tab for a while now, I guess ever since timestamp 1718650507), and I wanted to thank him for the history lesson.
It was good.
It makes me wonder about new subcultures that may exist today that I just don't know about.

[Froggychum]

It makes me wonder about new subcultures that may exist today that I just don't know about.

... Careful what you wish for ... internet subcultures ... the things I've seen ... oh god

But on a serious note, I totally agree. It's weird to think we're "living in history", yunno?

[atomtengeralattjaro]

speak for yourself, I live in the ocean

[Froggychum]

ocean man
take me by the hand
lead me to the land
...