Since the turnaround time for “retro” and nostalgia seems to be approaching about five years lately, I figured this might be a good time to begin compiling some official “90’s retro” items which will soon seem as quaint and dated as acid-washed jeans, Cold War propaganda, or avocado appliances.
Here’s my list so far:
- Simple Shoes
- Twin Peaks
- The Macarena
- Queer Nation
- Jesse Ventura
- Conan O’Brien
- Ridiculously exaggerated baggy pants
- Emoticons
- Melrose Place
- Martha Stewart
- Boston Market
- Real Stories of the Highway Patrol
- Cigars and cigar bars
- Boy bands
- “Extreme” sports
- “Extreme” anything
- High-tech stock boom
- George Magazine
- Olestra
- Leonardo DiCaprio
- Modems
- Windows 95
- Jokes about stained dresses and oral sex
- Star Trek spinoffs
- Y2K paranoia
A couple more things for your soon-to-be-retro-kitch list:
- Girls smoking (very big) cigars
- Jesse Camp, the “people’s choice” host of MTV
- All of MTV, especially Loveline
- Jesse Ventura, the other “people’s choice”
- The Blair Witch Project
- Blair Witch Project send-ups (like the Scooby-Doo commercial)
- Giant talking M&M’s
- Ralph Reed
- Newt Gingrich
- Non-genetically-altered food
- Campaign finance reform
- Any Internet-related service not dominated by phone companies
- Phones with cords
- Personal comfort, privacy and dignity for airline passengers
