Why Are Millennials So Obsessed With The 90s?

The trend of the moment is actually a trend of the past: the 90s are so back, baby.

We’ve seen this throughout pop culture: the “Fuller House” reboot, the incredible return of “Friends,” and video after compilation video of all the theme songs from 90s Saturday morning cartoons, just to name a few.

We’ve also seen this trend in the fashion world as well. The top trend of the fall season is the 90s, featuring black chokers, distressed-hem jeans, and grungy band tees. Grunge has taken over the runway once again, and strangely only two decades out from its original debut.

One Google search of the infamous phrase “things only 90s kids know” yields more than 20 million results. That’s a lot of 90s kid knowledge.

Sheer Bliss: A 90s childhood

So why are millennials so obsessed with the 90s? Millennials are the generation born from 1980-1996, so for many millennials, the 90s were our childhood, where our worldviews were shaped. Millennial website Blavity states it well: “the 90s were for us millennials a time of sheer bliss.” We can reflect on the 90s as a time without “adulting” issues, when tech was novel but not all-consuming, when we played outside without fear, and when life just seemed simpler.

Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Robin Givhan for Elle UK magazine delves into our 90s obsession, asking the same question: why is this trend coming back now? He comes to the conclusion that it’s due to both the character of millennials as a generation and the character of our society at present.

“Grunge is the perfect middle ground,” Givhan says of the disparity between the millennial desire for authenticity and luxury, “It speaks to all those young tech billionaires who grew up on jeans and hoodies, and have no interest in suddenly suiting up just because they’re now the boss.”

These people are longing for simplicity and genuine spirit, while the world around us is apparently crumbling so quickly. During the 90s, grunge fashion and the general spirit of the era was “naively pessimistic,” allowing for people (especially young people) to be authentically themselves; they were given the space to be angry and confused and scared about the future.

As the 90s turned into the 00s, that authentic and edgy “it look” was traded for name brands and too many pastels. But as time has gone on, the glamor of the aughts fashions couldn’t hide the national and international problems that were coming to light with increasing intensity. As Givhan puts it, “Now the world’s problems aren’t just dark, they’re pitch black […] This time around, we’re recovering from a recession, an Ebola plague, the latest terrorism horror. Our fears are both real and existential.”

Millennials are clamoring for a feeling of safety, longing to return to that simplicity, a pre-September 11th kind of bliss. We’re also wanting that authenticity, to lean into these world problems and not brush them under the rug like the previous decade. Cue the return to our childhood, to that “naive pessimism” that seems to suit our emotional needs so well.

While the notion of returning to our golden past is understandable, the jury is still out on whether or not this upward revival trend is helpful to the millennial community.

One group found its research, “indicates that nostalgia can have many positive effects: it increases a sense of social connectedness, it boosts self-esteem, it imbues life with meaning, it fosters a sense of continuity across time. These are all important psychological functions.” And with the rise of social media, feeding into this nostalgia becomes ever more feasible.

Is Nostalgia the New Addiction?

On the other hand, however, nostalgia can become addictive: the desire to live in a “better” past rather than to move forward is understandably desirable. But what happens when millennials, a generation brimming with ingenuity and hearts for social justice, get stuck in decades past rather than creating a new future?

The resurgence of the 90s could also mean a return to 90s ideals, which according to journalist Givhan can be detrimental: “Heroin chic glorified the devastation of drug abuse. The waifs ushered in an era of homogeneity on the runway – the world of modelling got a white-washing.” With all the progress that’s been made, specifically in the fashion world, in terms of body size and racial diversity celebration, how problematic it would be to settle back into the blanched, paper-thin ideals of the 90s?

For Millennials today, the 90s represent a golden age of simplicity that, in our increasingly frightening world, is a welcome return; but we must learn to balance appreciating the past while still doing our duty to create the future.