It's seems quite fashionable to romanticise the '90s these days, because it's that generation of kids who are now the dominant force on the internet. Sure, the decade had some great aspects, but it also had a lot of downsides which people tend to ignore.
Children of the noughties, you lucky bastards, you will never know the hardships '90s kids had to endure.
1) Changing plans was an altogether bigger deal since mobile phones weren't exactly common, when you arranged to meet someone at a certain time it was much harder to bail with random excuses.
2) Digital TV and Netflix were the stuff of science fiction, if you really wanted to catch up on something, you had to record that shit on the VCR and pray you had enough tape to hold the entirety of Titanic.
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3) You had to play a computer game all the way to the very end because you couldn't save your progress... damn you Sega Mega Drive!
4) You lived in constant suspicion of your housephone because you never knew who was calling, it was like a very low stakes game of Russian roulette.
5) If you wanted to listen to your new favourite song on repeat you had to wait patiently for it to appear on the radio, ready to record it, and you needed cat-like reflexes to make sure you didn't miss the beginning.
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6) If you did use the internet it took approximately 50 years to dial up, you also pissed off the entire household because no one could use the phone (their only lifeline). It also meant...
7) ... that porn was so inaccessible it was ridiculous. You practically needed a dealer.
8) Social media and instant messaging didn't exist, and people had a ludicrous expectation that you should socialise in real life.
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9) Avoiding awkward conversations via text was impossible.
10) Snailmail was just called post and you actually had to use it occasionally, a process which risked both paper cuts and dry tongue.
11) If you wanted to do a project you had to do to the library, or worse still, consult your parents' collection of encyclopedias.
12) The hardest part was surely the fact that copy and paste didn't exist... Let's take a moment to appreciate all those brave students who managed to survive those tough times.
