I can see that. One of the things that’s interesting to me is how different aspects of the time are highlighted to different people and how difficult it is to look at a period with an overall perspective.
As a kid, the grunge & industrial waves mostly escaped my attention. My sister and I were mostly listening to pop music radio in the car, singing along to Cher - Believe, TLC - No Scrubs, Third Eye Blind - Jumper, K-Ci & JoJo - All My life, Biggie - Mo Money Mo Problems… Watching Disney movies: Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, Hercules, Mulan… Jackie Chan (esp. Rush Hour!), Pokemon, Jurassic Park, Titanic, etc. We both took karate, we both did ballet, I played soccer, she did cheerleading, etc.
Things got rough in the 2000s. Middle school. High school. This is where all that 90s alt rock and grunge was a godsend, and I shifted from pop to rock. Some of my favorite parts of the 2000s were just 90s replays.
Even though things got a little gritty, digital, and chaotic - even the “not giving a fuck” dudes from the 90s still seemed naive in a way that people weren’t after the 2000s got underway. The 90s were definitely not wholesome. That’s true. (Although I’m not sure if the 80s really were much more wholesome either.)
Not wholesome, but kind of like first lust - still kind of innocent. I don’t know, it didn’t really seem like anyone knew what was going on and it seemed like people were headed in a bunch of different cultural directions. But taken altogether, I could have swore there was something in the air. Common feelings, some convergent thinking and attitudes about life and the world. Or it could just be in my imagination, but that is what I’ve tried to extract from the music and media I consumed (and continue to consume) from that time. And it’s like I said, the 90s culture that I was aware of at the time and that I pay attention to now isn’t going to be the full picture. So I wonder what I’m missing about that time and how it compares to what come after, the 2000s.