September 9, 2022

"The ’90s are infectious. The decade was so colorful with neon colors. Nothing was that serious."

"It was, 'Let’s enjoy life, let’s make friends.' We had Beavis and Butt-Head, we had block parties, we had fanny packs.... The ’90s was the last of the great decades, because after that, computers killed the world. We were excited about things like floppy disks. Now there are so many channels that divide everybody and try to control your thoughts. In the ’90s they reported the news. It wasn’t this side or that side. I have fans on every side of everything...."

Said Vanilla Ice, quoted in "Ice, Ice Baby/The 1990s rapper known as Vanilla Ice is back, performing concerts, opening a museum and hawking a namesake energy drink" (NYT).

The Times interviewer pokes him with: "You performed at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve in 2020, to a maskless crowd during a height of the pandemic. How is that not political?"

He says: "I live in Palm Beach, that place is legendary. The architecture was unbelievable. You should have seen Mayor Giuliani dancing. And Don Jr., he was going bananas. He knows every word to every song."

Of course, the Times interviewer thinks that to perform at Mar-a-Lago is to take a side politically, but he says, "Heck no. The people who get it, just get it. We are all neighbors here, man."

I like his attitude toward politics. It reminds me of Elvis.

74 comments:

Temujin said...

"You performed at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve in 2020, to a maskless crowd during a height of the pandemic. How is that not political?"

I love that inference that to make a conscious, rational decision based on the information at the time- in hindsight- was clearly political. Except that it wasn't. Do you remember where we all were in January of 2020? We had not yet realized what covid was or would become. I, personally, was still taking business trips in January of 2020, still giving presentations to groups of people in small conference rooms, still flying, staying in hotels, eating out. January of 2020 was still normal life. With...an eye on what was happening in China and starting to happen around the world.

The Kirkland nursing home outside of Seattle had not yet had their covid hit in January. At least it was not realized to be covid yet in January of 2020. So the premise of the question was wrong. It was not the height of the pandemic in January of 2020.

The 90's was the last decade before we turned in our human cards for iPhones and computers. In bars, bartenders still worked the bar, introducing people to each other and creating cross conversations up and down the bars. Today? Everyone at the bar is reading their phones, not looking up at anyone, including the bartender who you have to flag down to join the present. In the 90s when an event happened, you watched it happen. Or when someone needed help, you ran to help them. Today- everyone just holds up their phone as if they are not part of humanity, but an outside observer from another planet.

Here's a sentence I never thought would come out of me: Vanilla Ice is right.

Lilly, a dog said...

He's absolutely right. I graduated HS in '91, college in '95. 90s music and pop culture was stupid and delightfully apolitical. That's why it's so charming. Now excuse me while I fire up some Color Me Badd.

GatorNavy said...

Robbie is the consummate American story. Endless reinventing of his persona, check out his home remake show, very entrepreneurial, still loves his mom. Of course he fits in at Mar-go-la. He isn’t a coveting Bolshevik, like our media and our current political parties.

Joe Smith said...

There is a lot to this.

People talk about social media changing everything for the worst, but there's an argument that it began with computers everywhere.

And if he thought the '90s were great, he should have seen the '80s, '70s, and '60s.

In California, the '70s were magic...

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

He stole a song from Queen/Bowie.

So lame.

rehajm said...

He’s an interesting fellow. There’s something admirable about staying in your lane and doing what you do and doing it well. I loved what Dennis Miller had to say about him:

“I used to start ‘Weekend Update’ with a rock-and-roll song that would try to hit the ground running. So one time Vanilla Ice was on, and that night he played his Vanilla Ice song [hums opening of “Ice Ice Baby”] and I was just sitting there apoplectic, since I’m a Bowie fan, watching this guy with a fade, you know, of ancient Aztec cave-wall drawings on his sideburns do this. So I opened the news — which happened two minutes later — with Bowie’s song [“Under Pressure”]. And then the crowd went crazy because they knew what I was doing. Then I said, ‘That is a great Bowie song. I bet you somebody copies that one day.’ [Laughs.] I don’t know the kid’s name — Chris, maybe? [Editor’s note: It’s Rob Van Winkle.] — but at the end of the show, when we’re all standing onstage, he came up and shook my hand and said, ‘You got me.’ So he was at least cool about it.”

Mr. T. said...

The author at the NYT is a moron:

He is focusing on the early 90s which culturally, aesthetically, and socially were a de facto extension of the Reagan economic boon 80s. The mid to late 90s were much different.

MadTownGuy said...

I thought he was hilarious in the Bob's Furniture commercial as a store salesman when the customers made a remark about the '90s and he cringed a bit and said, 'hey, they weren't so bad, were they?'

Gusty Winds said...

It is like Elvis and that interview prior to his 1972 Madison Square Garden concerts was perfect.

He knew he was and entertainer, and his concerts were supposed to be an escape. Fun for everyone just like Johnny Carson and late night TV used to be. Music should unite us.

Now it sucks. Even Woodstock hippies have turned fascist. Springsteen is the WORST. What a hypocrite. $4000.00 tickets to see him. Made his millions signing about the "working class". Now he's just a class-hole.

My brother and his girlfriend went to see Roger Waters from Pink Floyd a few weeks ago when he was in Milwaukee. Waters is a raging political left with lunatic railing against Israel, Trump...blah blah blah. My brother said during the show Waters wouldn't shut up about his politics.

Buckwheathikes said...

"In the ’90s they reported the news. It wasn’t this side or that side."

He's very, very wrong about this (but, I mean, come on, it's Vanilla Ice. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer).

The media has always controlled the narrative and reported the "news" in a slanted way. You just couldn't tell, because they were all doing it. And they were pretty much all on the same page. If the New York Times and CBC News reported a story essentially the same way, you just assumed it must be correct. You'd never think they were having meetings to decide how the coverage was going to be presented. You'd never think they were doing Journo-list. But they always were.

The people who ran Journo-list didn't think they were doing anything wrong, because that's how it's always been done. They just got caught. And outed to an aghast public.

It really wasn't until Fox News came along that you'd see the same story handled two entirely different ways that you could see the bias inherent in what say, CNN, was doing.

Now you have Jeff Bezos just publicly owning the Washington Post and having his minions write stories about why we don't want to tax Jeff Bezos.

Buckwheathikes said...

"In the ’90s they reported the news. It wasn’t this side or that side."

He's very, very wrong about this (but, I mean, come on, it's Vanilla Ice. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer).

The media has always controlled the narrative and reported the "news" in a slanted way. You just couldn't tell, because they were all doing it. And they were pretty much all on the same page. If the New York Times and CBC News reported a story essentially the same way, you just assumed it must be correct. You'd never think they were having meetings to decide how the coverage was going to be presented. You'd never think they were doing Journo-list. But they always were.

The people who ran Journo-list didn't think they were doing anything wrong, because that's how it's always been done. They just got caught. And outed to an aghast public.

It really wasn't until Fox News came along that you'd see the same story handled two entirely different ways that you could see the bias inherent in what say, CNN, was doing.

Now you have Jeff Bezos just publicly owning the Washington Post and having his minions write stories about why we don't want to tax Jeff Bezos.

Bob Boyd said...

"You performed at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve in 2020, to a maskless crowd during a height of the pandemic. How is that not political?"

It's counter-revolutionary.

Jamie said...

He stole a song from Queen/Bowie.

So lame.


And now everyone just says, "I reimagined that song/riff/whatever."

It was like when Cher came out and proud with the AutoTune in "Life After Love" - scandal at the time, now de riguer.

[shrug] Vanilla seems ok. Can I call him Vanilla?

Gusty Winds said...

My daughter was born in 1999 and my son in 2002. They have no idea what life was like prior to the digital age. The digital age certainly didn't make Generation Z's emotional life easier.

The smart phone made everyone dumber. Sad really.

John henry said...

Blogger Temujin said...

I, personally, was still taking business trips in January of 2020, still giving presentations to groups of people in small conference rooms, still flying, staying in hotels, eating out. January of 2020 was still normal life.

I was still traveling a lot throughout 2020 and 2021. I racked up enough miles just on United to get silver status (50,000 miles) in 2021 as well as flights on Jet Blue and American.

I was living as normal a life as possible. Refusing to mask unless required. Resisting where required. Actually wearing one only as a last resort.

Resisting the so-called vaccine for 6 months until it looked like I might get stranded if I did not have it. I still identify as unvaccinated. I took the single J&J jab and refuse to take any boosters. I do not take any unapproved drugs.

Fuck Kung-Flu. I ignore it and it ignores me.

John Stop fascism, vote republican Henry

John henry said...

Blogger Temujin said...

I, personally, was still taking business trips in January of 2020, still giving presentations to groups of people in small conference rooms, still flying, staying in hotels, eating out. January of 2020 was still normal life.

I was still traveling a lot throughout 2020 and 2021. I racked up enough miles just on United to get silver status (50,000 miles) in 2021 as well as flights on Jet Blue and American.

I was living as normal a life as possible. Refusing to mask unless required. Resisting where required. Actually wearing one only as a last resort.

Resisting the so-called vaccine for 6 months until it looked like I might get stranded if I did not have it. I still identify as unvaccinated. I took the single J&J jab and refuse to take any boosters. I do not take any unapproved drugs.

Fuck Kung-Flu. I ignore it and it ignores me.

John Stop fascism, vote republican Henry

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

That’s another thing about the nineties that you don’t see anymore. You used to be able to perform your art for pay without having to worry about somebody later coming back and condemning you for it.

TreeJoe said...

"You performed at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve in 2020, to a maskless crowd during a height of the pandemic. How is that not political"

That question is inherently political and biased. In early 2022 we had a near-equal level of COVID deaths in the U.S. as in late 2020, despite vaccinations. Were maskless crowds banned from events then? No? Did Vanilla Ice violate any local regulations? Was his event linked to a large outbreak, like Obama's birthday party was?

No?

Idiots.

John henry said...

When was New Years Eve 2020?

Was it December 31, 2019, leading us into 2020? Or was it December 31, 2020, leading into 2021?

If the former, nobody had even heard of the Chines plague by that time.

John Stop fascism, vote republican Henry

William said...

He doesn't actually support Republicans. He just tolerates them. I wonder if he will get cancelled.....It's very rare for a famous singer--outside of the C&W world--to express such tolerance. I'd like to encourage such tolerance, but I'm not prepared to become a Vanilla Ice fan....If you were young, rich, and famous in the nineties, it was probably a very good time to be alive. As I remember them, the nineties were actually pretty good for most people, but they most have been especially good for young, rich, famous people.....I thought the sixties were more interesting. I wasn't rich and famous, but I was young. Lots of poignant memories from that era. Pleasant memories from the nineties, but life lacked the topspin of youth.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

You never know who will emerge the hero over time. I have one quibble with the wording: Vanilla Ice never went away. The NYT might have lost track but Ice hasn’t “returned” from some mysterious place; he’s been here all along doing his thing as evidenced in their awkwardly judgmental MAL reference.

Michael K said...

And if he thought the '90s were great, he should have seen the '80s, '70s, and '60s.

Yup. I feel so sorry for these kids who have grown up in a declining society. In the 50s we worried about nuclear war but at least it was a rational worry, unlike global warming. Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam seems to have been the turning point.

gahrie said...

I watch a lot of reaction videos on Youtube, and some of the more interesting videos are people watching Ice Ice Baby without knowing they're supposed to hate on Vanilla Ice. Almost invariably people enjoy the video and rock out to the song. Part of the shade thrown at him was because of the sampling, but today this is a regular and accepted process in rap.

Sebastian said...

"I like his attitude toward politics."

Figures. In a better world, more Ice would be nice. It's better for neighbors to be neighbors, for there to be spaces outside and beyond politics. In this world, the plain Vanilla attitude just means one side fights in a one-sided war. Resisting the prog politicization of everything and the prog vilification of every heretic takes more--more awareness, more conscious resistance.

Of course, I view our hostess now as part of the #Resistance.

Lurker21 said...

When I was young, kids had 50s dances. That was when their parents were young and when they were conceived. As time moved on it was 60s dances, 70s dances, 80s dances, and 90s dances. I don't know what the young are doing now. Probably staying at home and having skype dances.

The nineties seemed to me to be the end of the 20th century fascination with decades. They don't seem to me to have much of a separate identity or style, much as the 2000s and 2010s don't. What were the 90s? Computers, Clinton, Bosnia, Nirvana and grunge (for a while), Alanis Morissette. Just the space between the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the GWOT, or between our wars in the Middle East. But if that's when your parents met and when you were born they might be a big deal for you.

Carol said...

New Years Eve 2020 was at the END of the year, no?

12/31/2020.

The height of the pandemic.

Anthony said...

It's not as wonderful as he makes it out to be. "The News" was anything but straight; remember "The voters had a temper tantrum" (Peter Jennings) when said voters dared to give congress to Republicans? Without the blue dress the press would still be calling Monica Lewinsky a conspiracy theory (not much has changed, eh?). And grunge was anything but colorful (which may be why I adore it).

Still, I had a great '90s for the most part.

tim in vermont said...

I just watched Roadhouse, made in 1989, I think it was the last gasp of the seventies.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Temujin, "New Year's Eve, 2020" is December 31, 2020, not 2019. By the end of 2020 we were indeed well into the pandemic. Just sayin'.

Tom T. said...

I think this may just be a function of "life was better when I was younger."

Kevin said...

Shorter NYT: Everything is political. Pick a side so we know how to write the article.

If you won't, we'll go with "political but too stupid to know it's political".

Kevin said...

If Vanilla Ice had never performed at MAL:

Reporter: "Some of the letters in Vanilla Ice are also in the words "Donald" and "Trump". Just how racist and homophobic will you admit to being?"

PM said...

The '60s gave us the Pill and that made every decade after it the greatest decade.

Kevin said...

Ice, Ice Baby: "Hey, wait. None of the letters in Vanilla Ice are in "Trump".

NYT Reporter: So you admit you're at least as racist and homophobic as "The Donald".

Jefferson's Revenge said...

Temujin- I did not read the article but I took the headline to mean New Years Eve 2020 which is December 2020. That would be on the tail end of COVID insanity not before it began.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

FBI-Pelosi KGB + devout(D) hack press to make Mar-A-Lago illegal.

Randomizer said...

I graduated high school in 1978, and am certain that everything started going to shit when The Clash broke up in 1986.

That is the natural order of things, music gets worse as we get older. The world around us changes as somethings get better and some get worse. When the World Trade Center came down, everything took a turn for the worse. Covid was the same kind of epic change.

tim maguire said...

The decision to play Mar-a-Lago is political? This reporter would probably claim the decision to cut the grass at Mar-a-Lago is political, to fix a leaky faucet at Mar-a-Lago is political, to wave good morning to Trump if you pass him on the sidewalk is political.

"The personal is political" is the most destructive phrase since "workers of the world, unite!"

chuck said...

Masks are definitely political, not science. Glad to see that recognized.

Laslo Spatula said...

"The ’90s are infectious. The decade was so colorful with neon colors. Nothing was that serious."

Kurt Cobain death: April 5, 1994

Of course, the morose are with us despite any generation's general vibe.

But maybe Kurt just needed more neon, like a sunlamp. Perhaps some brightly-colored parachute pants.

Anyway, I think the very early Nineties were really just the late Late Eighties' last years.

Artist: Vanilla Ice
Album: To the Extreme
Released: 1990

U Can't Touch This (MC Hammer)
Released: May 28, 1990

Then grunge started taking root in the decade in 1991 (Smells Like Teen Spirit, of course) but it took awhile before it saturated the culture.

Of course, Vanilla Ice probably had himself a decade worth of living in the year 1990, so I forgive him for telescoping the decade.

So -- of note: The Mustang he namechecks in his song had over a decade of its own: Third Generation Ford Mustang: 1979 – 1993. ("Rollin' in my 5.0 / With my rag-top down so my hair can blow...")

So maybe the Nineties truly got started when the new Mustang came out in 1994, and Ice's ride became a thing of the past.

Let's see how Mustang decades work out:

First Generation (1964-1973) Kinda Beatles, approximately.
Second Generation (1974-1978) Fleetwood Mac and ELO, various shag-carpet bands.
Third Generation (1979-1993) Punk and post-punk. Clash and college rock. Pop Rap.
Fourth Generation (1994-2004) Grunge and alternative.
Fifth Generation (2005-2014) Ubiquitous hip hop and the prevalence of rap genres.
Sixth Generation (2015-Present) Whatever the kids listen to today. Maybe the Autotune Era.

Yep: those tie into time periods better than arbitrary round-number decades.

It's a theory.

I am Laslo.

MB said...

Does the NYT sell subscriptions to Republicans? To Trump? How is that not political?

Ann Althouse said...

"Do you remember where we all were in January of 2020? We had not yet realized what covid was or would become. I, personally, was still taking business trips in January of 2020...."

But New Year's *Eve* is December 31st. Here's an article from January 1, 2021 about the performance the night before.

Joe Smith said...

'First Generation (1964-1973) Kinda Beatles, approximately.'

My neighbor's dad drove one of these.

Me and my friend would sit in the back seat (we were young and could fit) and his dad would drive us everywhere with a 6-pack of Olympia beer (Oly in the can) on the front passenger seat.

He was a police captain...

Rt41Rebel said...

Bravo, Laslo. And I say that as the previous owner of an '83 5.0 with T-Tops, an '88 5.0 Vert, and as the current owner of an '06 GT. I'll give you another data point, I only listen to talk radio in the '06.

JAORE said...

"You performed at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve in 2020, to a maskless crowd during a height of the pandemic. How is that not political?"

It's OK, John Lewis was there....

cassandra lite said...

"Holiday from history." -Krauthammer

walter said...

Blogger Hunter Biden's tax payer funded Hooker said...
He stole a song from Queen/Bowie.
--
Wow. She really did have a full life.

gilbar said...

back in January 2020 no one had heard of covid (or, it was some asian thing)
back in February 2020 Nancy P was telling us all to "go to china town, and hug a chinaman!"
[around this time, gilbar got a mild cold, that wouldn't go away; and then, after about 10 days, he lost ALL energy, and his lungs filled up with gunk.. He could barely breath.. Then, he got better]
back in March 2020 they shut down the world.. "For 5 days, to stop the spread"
back in Sept 2022, school teachers insisted on masks for toddlers

JaimeRoberto said...

It's only political if you want to make it political. Otherwise, it's just a party.

As for the masks, I missed the news about this being a super spreader event.

Dave said...

Here is the first link I could find searching for CORONAVIRUS at Instapundit:
===================
I HOPE THIS FIZZLES, BUT WHO KNOWS: China reports new virus cases, raising concern globally before key holiday. “China reported four more cases of pneumonia believed to be caused by a new coronavirus strain, causing rising concern globally that a disease health officials do not yet fully understand could spread during a key holiday period. . . . Though experts say the new virus does not appear to be as lethal as SARS, there is little known about its origins and how easily it can spread. Thailand and Japan have confirmed new cases of the virus earlier this week, stoking worries globally as many of the 1.4 billion Chinese people will travel abroad during the Lunar New Year holidays that begin next week.”

Related: Q&A: Will I be screened for coronavirus at the airport?

Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jan 18, 2020 at 2:17 pm

https://instapundit.com/355171/
=================

You can see from his tone that virus is not a thing. In late March they are talking about Amazon running out of toilet paper.

Dave said...

Slightly off topic, but I found this while searching through 39 pages of posts on coronavirus. It would certainly of be of interest to commenters here:

Time Magazine Interview of Eric Holder
Eric Holder: Here’s How the Coronavirus Crisis Should Change U.S. Elections—For Good
https://time.com/5820622/elections-coronavirus-eric-holder/

Dave said...

Yes in Ann's link to Billboard, there is no mention of social distancing or masking or any of that, because no one was even aware of the virus.

The first and only thing I read about it prior to the link I just sent through, was in October when Reynolds create a post about a new "virus" in China. Then there was nothing until January 18. In February I am telling a receptionist at JBS headquarters in Greeley, that she might consider bleach as a disinfectant for her area, but she rolls her eyes and says it would be too hard on her skin. JBS is the largest meat producing company in the world. Pilgrim's is one of it's subsidiaries.

I am going to try to find that link from October. Oh boy.

Dave said...

Only thing I could find was a pig virus threatening the bacon supply. That was in October and might have been what registered with me. Bacon scarcity gets my attention.

In any case, that last search for China and Virus was a very scary one. They have NO ethical considerations about any research they do. How much suffering will the world have to endure from these two mad (insane) governments.

Vanilla is suffering from a virus he doesn't even have.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

By New Year's Eve 2020 most rational people understood that masking was useless in slowing or preventing the spread of the Wu Flu. So there was a party a Mar-A-Lago without masks. So what? There were lots of parties without masks that night. Many, many people didn't give a squat.

To even answer the question on the political activist's terms is to agree with the premise that somehow masking was a magic amulet to keep away the dreaded Chines Lung Pox and to gather without masks was somehow "dangerous" or "political" in a way that gathering with masks wasn't.

Heywood Rice said...

Music should unite us. - Gusty Winds

It doesn't and it never has.

Are you completely unaware of how controversial and "divisive" Elvis originally was?

Do you want price controls on concert ticket prices?

Do you want the FBI to get on Roger Waters case and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to try and deport him like they did with John Lennon? You don't really understand what the word freedom means do you, Gusty Winds.

Temujin said...

Michelle Dulak Thomson...

You are, of course, correct. NYE 2020 is Dec. 31, 2020. My error. I ran past it too quickly.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Nice contributions today. I’m going to gently disagree with Gahrie’s timeline. Early Rap Hip Hop was thieving whole songs like Freak by Le Chic. Rappers Delight lifted all but the vocal tracks from it shamelessly. Finally the mid-90’s pushback for attribution/compensation really reined it in.

Freeman Hunt said...

We had real free speech in the 90s. Discussions were great. You could argue about anything. People would throw out all kinds of crazy ideas. Most couldn't be supported and fell when people argued against them.

We had no idea at the time how lucky we were.

n.n said...

From the age of tranquil redundancy to the age of raucous regret to the age of social Uranus.

Jupiter said...

"You performed at Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Eve in 2020, to a maskless crowd during a height of the pandemic."

Yep. While you were hiding out in the bathroom of your studio apartment with a diaper wrapped around your face. Sucks to be you, but my agent says I need to go along with this shit.

Christopher B said...

Remember who was President during most of the 1990s? Of course nothing was political for those 8 years.

gadfly said...

The 1990s wrought Donald's wildest illegalities. He built the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City using junk bonds he said he wouldn't use, then filed bankruptcy in the early '90s on two casinos and to the detriment of everybody that he owed debt. Along the way, he was convicted of money laundering through the casinos and paid large fines of $200K for keeping black employees away from mafioso Robert LiButti’s gambling table. In 1991, the Casino Control Commission fined Trump’s company another $450,000 for buying LiButti nine luxury cars. And Trump was fined $250,000 for breaking New York state law in lobbying to prevent an Indian casino from opening in the Catskills.

Meanwhile, in order to construct Trump Tower, he had to demolish the Bonwit Teller store before any could object to tearing down an Art Deco edifice. So he hired 200 undocumented Polish workers to rip it down, paying them substandard wages of $5/hour for backbreaking work when they were paid at all. The workers didn’t wear hard hats and often slept at the site. When the workers complained about their back pay, they were allegedly threatened with deportation. Trump said he was unaware of illegal immigrants but his testimony under oath shows that he was.

Then there was Trump Tower on 5th Avenue, built of concrete supplied by the Gambino Crime Family, and some of its finest suites filled with Mafia tenants.

tim in vermont said...

That was when Fauci, who funded the research and knew what it was, was saying that it would blow over quickly.

tim in vermont said...

Sounds like gadfly has outlined an open and shut case to imprison Trump on an "accessory to murder" charge. Should be child's play to get a warrant to search through all of the concrete of Trump Tower and the deny the family any permits to rebuild while he rots in prison for who knows how many counts!

How is that stolen property grand jury going? It's my understanding that he took a bathrobe from Air Force One which would sell for many thousands of dollars!

iowan2 said...

Now there are so many channels that divide everybody and try to control your thoughts. In the ’90s they reported the news.

Isn't he cute and naive.

The media learned they could make anything real, or make believe, just by setting the narrative. Not sure when it happened. Maybe with the media take down of Nixon, reinforced by scripted televising of the Viet Nam War, to end it. It didn't matter what happened. Only what was reported to have happened. It has morphed into, the DOJ and CIA, feeding the media lies to advance government propaganda...no investigative reporting required.

Dave said...

I blew it completely. I only slept 3 hours last night, but still I should have read more closely before commenting. I am glad I made the mistake; one key theme here at althouse is to read carefully.

Mikey NTH said...

IIRC the 1980s had a lot of neon colors and lots of 1950-1960s color explosions. Hawaiian shirts came back along with the enthusiastic fun.

The 1990s always seemed like a drag compared to the 1980s. Girls Wanna Have Fun opposed to If God was One of Us.

The nihilism of the 1990s music was gag with a spoon.

Howard said...

Everybody likes the Nineties because our country was so cool, we had a young president getting blown in the Oval.

The Crack Emcee said...

"Nothing was that serious."

Bullshit: 1995 was the year my wife returned from a day in Silicon Valley to declare she can walk through walls. Her inability to show me proof of this talent made her start too hate me with a passion - a position most of our friends in San Francisco and elsewhere agreed with. Needless to say, divorce was in our future.

People who "think" like her still have a firm grip on this nation and I still despise them all.

Saint Croix said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
takirks said...

Nostalgia for the supposed lost glory days of youth is the last refuge of the irreparably stupid.

The 1990s were the years of hubris and denial; the Clintons led the way in damaging long-term American interests selling off key assets like Loral to the Chinese, destroying the intelligence community and packing it with their corrupt fellow-travelers. Look at who we have running the intel/justice agencies right now: They were mostly recruited and put on the track for high office during that era, and they're all corrupt assholes.

All of this went on under the radar, with no attention paid except by a very few of us. The foundations for 9/11 were laid under the Clintons, with their feckless approach to all things national security. The 1990s were the years when our supposed "victory" over the totalitarian states of the former Soviet Union were pissed away and the underpinnings of our security sold off to the highest bidder.

I've got zero empathy for anyone longing for the 1990s. If you are, you're an oblivious idiot who had no idea what was really going on, and you deserve everything you have happening to you today, because that was when it all went wrong without you ever noticing, mostly because you never bothered to read past the lede paragraph of whatever left-wing propaganda rag you thought was informing you about the world and its events.

boatbuilder said...

Wasn't there a big party at Obama's Martha's Vineyard mansion at the "height of the pandemic"--at which the little people/servants and staff all had to wear masks, but the beautiful people didn't?

boatbuilder said...

Yes. Yes, there was.

https://www.boston.com/news/entertainment/2021/08/08/what-happened-barack-obama-birthday-party-marthas-vineyard/

When the dreaded "Delta Variant" was ravaging the country. (This is sarcasm, sort of. Those people were in fact claiming that Delta was going to kill us all).

Unknown said...

We'd ALL be better-off had computers not been invented. We were friendlier, closer within our communities, socialized with other human beings more, talked-through differences. I LOATHE computers. I've been in tech my entire career - and would've had much more fun on a horse in the middle of nowhere.