tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post3891155152534897475..comments2024-03-14T13:06:38.883+00:00Comments on cultural snow: Christy Wampole and the decade that perhaps never happenedTim Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-6394873539171166822012-11-23T02:25:30.569+00:002012-11-23T02:25:30.569+00:00Well, no surprise there; it was different for all ...Well, no surprise there; it was different for all of us, which explains why there's no cheap and easy film-makers' cliché that sums up the decade. But by the same token, the 60s, 70s and 80s were different for everyone, yet we know what's meant when we see the pat images that represent them. How did the 90s - and subsequent decades - break free of that?Tim Fhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14681067872556519250noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-76663832099131840952012-11-22T16:56:28.679+00:002012-11-22T16:56:28.679+00:00A very interesting post. For me, the 90s was a joy...A very interesting post. For me, the 90s was a joyful irony-fest, so I can only assume that Wampole was just too young to get it.<br /><br />As far as pop postmodernism goes, the advent of punk was accompanied by a generally forgotten 1950s revival in the late 70s - Showaddywaddy,<i> Happy Days</i> and (of course) <i>Grease</i> - but it was crushed by Thatcher's electro-pop era. (If that argument sounds shaky, you should here my one about <i>Funky Gibbon</i> and the birth of rap in the UK)<br /><br />Re: an earlier comment, my teen years straddled the 70s and 80s (mostly in the latter), but my musical and popular culture tastes were formed earlier, during the long evenings spent watching tv when I was too young to go out. I liked the 90s because it seemed to be a celebration of those childhood years - I could even come clean about liking Burt Bacharach!<br /><br />For me, the enduring images of the 90s would include <i>ladettes</i> (maybe Louise Wenner), Mike Flowers, the film poster for <i>Singles</i>, the dial-up modem, <i>The Word</i>, Blur vs Oasis, Bill Clinton, Vic Reeves, <i>Friends</i> and the CD-Rom.<br /><br />Steerforthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07627936539372313828noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-65380447230078281182012-11-21T17:57:25.025+00:002012-11-21T17:57:25.025+00:00In 1990 I was 36 years old.
The nineties for me:
...In 1990 I was 36 years old.<br /><br />The nineties for me:<br /><br />Divorcing from a 13 year marriage [good thing all around]<br /><br />Leaving university theatre program in Cleveland, to support my mother in Florida. Culture Crash.<br /><br />To earn $$ I waited tables in a comedy club, bartended in a biker pub, sold motorcycles [British and Italian], sang at blues jams, recovered from a motorcycle crash, went on to ride for six more years into the next millenium.<br /><br />The nineties for me were painful, enlightening and full of new characters to explore.<br /><br /><br /><br />Michele R. Strüb https://www.blogger.com/profile/00463816728591334836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-18681450292774638922012-11-21T12:20:03.022+00:002012-11-21T12:20:03.022+00:00Oops - keyboard getting old - spelt.
Oops - keyboard getting old - spelt. <br />Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01313387849115278988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-26341261650060934332012-11-21T11:35:05.725+00:002012-11-21T11:35:05.725+00:00Well, I'm virtually the same age as Prof Wampo...Well, I'm virtually the same age as Prof Wampole, and I remember a slightly less earnest decade than she does: Drop the Dead Donkey, American Psycho, Trainspotting...<br /><br />A generic 'look' of the era might be Renton in Trainspotting (jeans, skinny t-shirt, converse) or Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction (black trousers, white shirt) - neither of which exactly screams "1990s!!"Spinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-47179979420972385202012-11-21T10:32:49.779+00:002012-11-21T10:32:49.779+00:00I think everyone's marker decade is their teen...I think everyone's marker decade is their teenage one, hence mine is the 70s. It had so much wrong with it but I remember it exceedingly fondly. The 90s, I turned 30 in 90, just after Thatcher was deposed, were odd. It was just about technology and consumerism, wasn't it, and how they supplanted engineering as the great social measure: before, we all had some kind of connection with engineering either working in it or relying on it somehow. Now it's whether we can afford technology. At the start of the 90s we had to run to our dictionaries to check what "paradigm" meant. At the end of the 90s our phones would tell us whether we'd spellt it correctly.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01313387849115278988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-75103143135284068592012-11-21T09:36:01.696+00:002012-11-21T09:36:01.696+00:00Isn't everyone's decade of sincerity the f...Isn't everyone's decade of sincerity the first ten years they start living as an adult? The stardust of adolescence still in their eyes mixed with heady release of being your own boss at last. <br /><br />And then you notice reality.Catofstripeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08626451503696948747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-87654139916899430322012-11-21T07:29:31.937+00:002012-11-21T07:29:31.937+00:00Catching the tail end of Glam rock and fully punk,...Catching the tail end of Glam rock and fully punk, I remember the 1990s with my first professional jobs, my first mortgage, my first redundancy (remember the housing crisis in the early 1990s?). So for me it was work hard, go to concerts (Garbage, the Levellers, Fun Loving Criminals), pub quizzes, rock climbing and watching spitting Image. I achieved yuppie-dom (a bit late). It was an intense, if financially anxious, time.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00757043386749543250noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-83295503493744751232012-11-21T05:59:26.731+00:002012-11-21T05:59:26.731+00:00The 90s and how it was for me? I suspect I'm e...The 90s and how it was for me? I suspect I'm even older than you and so grew up during Glam Rock and then Punk. The 80s started OK, with more New Wave, but I tuned my radio irrevocably into Radio 4 when The Smiths broke up. The 90s did sound like a bit of a revival of genuineness, as the lady suggested, with Oasis and Co. bawling at us earnestly, but I wasn't really listening and by then I'd started Living Abroad and so the new experience for me was What the Foreigners Had Been Listening to All That Time. A bit of a cop out, I know, by highly recommended.Gadjo Dilohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08998278830936531990noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18775356.post-91559267180539996792012-11-20T09:18:27.977+00:002012-11-20T09:18:27.977+00:00I keep thinking of sulky old Ethan Hawke in Realit...I keep thinking of sulky old Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites drawling, "I'm bursting with fruit flavor." We were so pure then.aronbluehttp://aronblue.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com