32 ’90s Trends That, In Retrospect, Maybe Weren’t Such A Great Idea

More like WHOOPS THERE IT WENT

1. Serial killing!

Aileen Wuornos was arrested in 1991 after killing seven men who attempted to rape her while she worked as a prostitute! Totes bummer!

2. The war on drugs!

The number of Americans imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses went from 50,000 in 1980 to more than 400,000 by 1997. Puff, puff, pass me the toilet paper cellmate!

3. Homophobia!

Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered in 1998 for being gay and I can't keep this bit up anymore. Sorry to harsh your mellow.

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Look, you know that cultural trends are just random things that happen, right? And that attempting to attach a meaning to a particular 10-year span is both unavoidable (because people need to narrativize their lives to give sense to chaos) and pointless (because the chaos always comes back)? You do realize that we were all kids once, in the '90s or '80s or 1940s, and that the easiest way to distract ourselves from what we can do for each other is to wall ourselves off into self-imposed ghettos of age, class, and style?

You do know that there's more out there, right?

Because it's pretty damn beautiful. I mean, it sucks a lot — sometimes it just won't stop sucking — but you start to figure out that that's part of it. It doesn't make the bad less bad, but it does make it make sense. It's so blindingly hard to be out there, to be a person just trying to get through a day without splitting your head open, and there's no sense beating yourself up for any "trends" or choices or things that happened to or around you 20 years ago.

We all wore bad shoes and listened to pop music.

We all saw the same movies and TV shows.

We all remember that song.

If this sounds familiar, it's only because it's a lesson that has to be learned again every day. This is what we have to do.

What's next?