Reflecting on the simpler days of growing up in the 1990s, the author explores how retreating into past pop culture and memories has transformed from mere nostalgia into a vital coping mechanism for surviving the overwhelming anxieties, conflicts, and complexities of the modern world

Reflecting on the simpler days of growing up in the 1990s, the author explores how retreating into past pop culture and memories has transformed from mere nostalgia into a vital coping mechanism for surviving the overwhelming anxieties, conflicts, and complexities of the modern world

Reflecting on the simpler days of growing up in the 1990s, the author explores how retreating into past pop culture and memories has transformed from mere nostalgia into a vital coping mechanism for surviving the overwhelming anxieties, conflicts, and complexities of the modern world

Sometimes I feel like I’m still stuck in the 1990s, during my growing-up years in a small town in Kerala, when friendships were still face-to-face, insecurities couldn’t be masked through social media filters, globalisation was simply a chapter in our civics textbooks, typewriters were actually a thing, the internet could be accessed only in a ‘cafe’, and was accompanied by a screeching sound resembling nails scratching a blackboard. 

FRIENDS can still make me laugh like no other sitcom of today. I still have songs by Backstreet Boys and Boyzone on my Spotify playlist. All my childhood crushes, like Dr McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy, have grown old. I don’t miss them as much as the fissure of excitement they brought when they appeared on TV. The McDreamys of today somehow don’t have the same quality of dreaminess. I can’t watch movies today, no matter how great they are, more than once, but I can binge-watch ’90s films and still feel like I’m watching them for the first time. When Alicia Silverstone says in Clueless that she “totally paused” at a red light, it still cracks me up. Scenes like Bill Pullman sliding a wedding ring instead of a token at the fare collection booth of the train station where Sandra Bullock works in While You Were Still Sleeping has turned me into a mixed breed—a romantic at heart and a cynic in outlook. Life has not cured me of this fatal condition. 

The world of today confuses me. I don’t ‘get’ Taylor Swift or Katy Perry, and have stopped trying to. I don’t see the point of race-twisting and gender-switching in our movies and shows (Bridgerton’s Queen Charlotte as black and Narnia’s Aslan as female). I also don’t understand Gen-Z lingo; if you told me someone was ‘drippy’, I would offer an umbrella. If you asked me the meaning of ‘swole’, I would guess it is the past tense of ‘swill’. And if you asked me where a ‘bussin’ person was, I would say inside a bus. I don’t even like social media that much. I’m not envious of people who post pictures of partying in yachts, climbing mountains, attending high-profile events or trekking on scenic trails. Frankly, as someone with more FOS (fear of socialising) than FOMO (fear of missing out), I’m just glad they didn’t ask me to join them.

There was a time when I used to feel outdated, so I tried to make up for it by forcing myself to keep up with current pop culture. Do you have any idea how much effort it takes to look effortlessly cool? I watched Squid Game, Succession and The Queen’s Gambit just enough to sound intelligent. And then I realised I could sound even more intelligent and counter-cultural by dissing them. “I don’t see what was so great about it,” became my standard line, delivered with just the right balance of disdain and faux confidence.

Today, I don’t feel bad about not belonging to the world as it is, because we are not in a good place. Wars in Ukraine and Israel, wildfires in California, landslides in Nepal, rising authoritarianism and intolerance, job insecurity and AI-fuelled unemployment—we weren’t meant to live like this.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released last month found that in 2024, 71.5 per cent of American adults reported experiencing fatigue, defined as “physical or mental tiredness or exhaustion that does not improve with additional sleep or rest” at least some days in the past three months, with frequent fatigue reported by 16.6 per cent of adults. In fact, Gen Z is called the “anxious generation”, with only 44 per cent of them saying they feel prepared for the future, according to a study by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation.

Morality is increasingly being sidelined into a grey area—with 66 per cent of US adults doubting the existence of absolute truth—leading to the rise of megalomaniac leaders who believe might is right, empathy is a weakness, and love is an illusion. In India, intolerance is getting deeply embedded in our DNA and more of us are looking each day at our brothers and sisters from other religions with distrust and suspicion. Depression might be a condition, but sadness is a state of mind that we are increasingly getting trapped in. So much so that for people like me, taking refuge in the 1990s is no longer escapism; it is survival. 

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.

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