Nineties and Noughties Nostalgia
I didn’t think I was particularly nostalgic - I’m a fan of looking ahead and moving forwards, to see what life hurls at me next. But then I clocked that I’m following a range of 90s/2000s nostalgia accounts on my social media accounts and realised that, yes, of course I’m nostalgic.
As you get older, it makes sense that you start to look back. To think about the people, places, music, styles and experiences that shaped you, and how they compare to where you’re at today. It’s a common feeling that seems to apply whether you're 82 or 32 that things were somehow better - and very different - when you were younger.’ But, I’m going to throw it out there - I feel like when I was a young teen, things were very very different. I think it’s because being a kid of the mid-80s, I was a teenager when all-things-digital were starting to creep into people’s lives for the first time.
I got my first phone at 15 - it was a Motorola the weight of a small bag of sugar. There was a stubby bit that pretended to be an aerial, and tough squishy buttons. I loved it.
The internet was a toddler. First up, dial up. That crackly-bleepy-unpredictable sound meant you were crossing through the white noise void into the limitless WORLD WIDE WEB. MSN Messenger was the closest thing we had to a social network and I’d be messaging friends from school, people I’d met at house parties, and potentially people I didn’t know (I know - eeshk). Could you make phone calls whilst you were surfing the net’? Course you couldn’t, which was why my mum would regularly yell up the stairs countless times to get off the internet so she could make a phone call.
What about popular culture? Tabloids and celebrities had the most intense love-hate relationship going. Most of the time magazines like Heat would follow celebrities around and take endless photos of them sliding out of clubs, eating their lunch or putting the bins out. Next to those pages were celebrity interviews and profiles, which would be giving those celebs a platform they needed. Mainly though, it was trash and the sort of trash people lapped up.
Fashion was interesting. In my early teens it was baggy jeans, small tops, hair mascara, lots of plastic bracelets on one arm, strange squiggly stretchy chokers, platform trainers, pearly eye shadow. In my late teens it was weird tight/drapey tops, slim fit jeans sometimes with a slight flare, midriffs, very pointy flats, very pointy kitten heels. Pearly eye shadow. Everything felt mixed up - very occasionally it worked, but most of the time it absolutely didn’t.
Fast forward two more decades and here I am, looking back so fondly at those times, cracking up at how simple it all felt and thinking how far away it feels. That’s the funny thing about nostalgia, it’s bound up with the feeling of loss but is also so familiar and comforting, So, how do I get that comforting hit of times gone by? Through today’s version of MSN Messenger with photos - Instagram!
It turns out I’m definitely not alone in wanting to connect with the 90s and 2000s, there are tonnes of Instagram accounts dedicated to these two decades, each offering up different things. For example, if you need your fix of straight up 90s celebrity culture then ‘90s Milk’ and ‘90s Anxiety’ will sort you out. Whether it’s Gwen Stefani rocking pink hair in ‘99, Liam Gallagher smoking a cigarette in ‘96 in a Kangol bucket hat or Keanu Reeves looking cute holding two oranges in a desert for an I-D shoot in ‘93, they’ve got them all. The combined number of followers for these two accounts is almost 2.4 million. If 2000s are more your thing, then you can hit follow for the ‘You’re so 2008’ or ‘2000 Anxiety’ accounts. On these you’ll find a mix of stills or clips from 2000s films like ‘Mean Girls’ or TVs shows such as ‘Gossip Girl’ or ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ (the original). Or, you know, just Paris Hilton in a range of Juicy Couture tracksuits.
The comments people leave are telling of how much these accounts resonate with a whole generation: ‘I lived for this when I was younger’ (Spice World), ‘She was my style icon at 13 and I never had anything that remotely looked like she’d wear it, it was maddening (Christina Aguilera in a gigantic denim skirt), ‘This was my local McDonald’s when I was growing up!’ (photo of an insane looking McDonald’s shaped like a spaceship in 1993). Each post has hundreds of comments full of people reminiscing.
The more chic style and aesthetic of eras gone by is also hugely popular. Accounts like ‘Neon Talk’, ‘VHS fruit’, ‘90s celeb vibes’, ‘The 80s Interior’ all focus on the stylish aspects of the 80s and 90s. The bright clashing colours, the make-up, the sci-fi interior design. For many people, it all just looks alluring.
There is another type of nostalgia Instagram account, which is all about the comedy. My number one is ‘Love of Huns’. If you don’t know it, it’s quite hard to explain. It basically celebrates the pop culture specifically of the early 2000s in Britain, focusing on - amongst loads of other things - the fashion, the attitudes to celebrities (and celebrity attitudes), popular culture - with love for reality TV shows and the early days of e.g. Girls Aloud. Katie Price and Gemma Collins feature a lot and it worships the ground Alison Hammond walks on (rightly). In a recent article, - asked what a ‘hun’ actually is, the anonymous founder said, “...[it] could be a HOT PINK Katie Price Range Rover. It could be oysters at the shard - could be a boots meal deal.” When asked why they think it’s struck such a huge chord with so many, they said “People can relate and idolise the iconic huns that we have grown up with. It’s relatable with a hint of self-deprecation British humour.” The posts can sometimes seem like they’re taking the mick out of the celebrities, but there is always a kindness to it. The ‘love’ in ‘Love of Huns’ is palpable.
A mix then of the humour, aesthetics, lifestyle, music and celebrity culture of past decades has built a strong and adoring fanbase. The world is a strange place - Trump was President, climate change is a wrecking ball, babies know how to work iPads, (I’m not mentioning the pandemic). So, what better time to bath in some sweet nostalgia, full of denim, clunky tech and pearly eyeshadow?
Written by Charlotte Livingstone
Charlotte is a music obsessed south Londoner who loves dancing, crosswords, The Chase (too much) and getting out and about. She writes for a living as a Digital Content Editor and is loving being able to write for fun with The Everyday.
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