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The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

midnightmurmurations.substack.com

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Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#31

Post by moregrist »

detribaby wrote: post #12

There are still lots of us alive who have experienced this. And to us, X-files felt high tech for the time. This was a time period when I think people were just waking up to powers of computers and technology, in particular alien tech, due to the incalculable complexities of ideating and creating magical electrical boxes - microprocessors. How could humans be capable of doing this, after all? One poster already menti…

What I remember most about the 90s was the overwhelming optimism. Technology was going to make our lives better and unlock opportunity, not take all our jobs and render us irrelevant.

To me, the weirdest thing about the AI hype cycle is the inherent nihilism of it all. If there's one thing I miss, it's the optimism. I used to be enthusiastic about what the tech industry was doing and where it was going.

> The larger thing we lost is the internet. There’s no “90s internet” that someone can do without doing some stupid geocities/angel fire meme site. I don’t have an answer to this.

How about this: Back in the late 90s, after Google appeared, search actually worked, worked well, and was not yet deeply tied into creepy tracking and ad tech.

I would wade through thousands of geocities memed sites to have that experience again.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#32

Post by travelalberta »

To anyone with this kind of nostalgia I'd recommend watch 'Perfect Days'. You can live however you want.

While it is impossible to not have a smart phone at this point you get to decide how you use it. Want to feel like you are in the 90's? Stop using your phone. Consume only old or physical media if you want, get rid of streaming services. Go buy an old car if you feel like it. Go read a book. Anything you could do in the 80's and 90's you can do now just as easy. You just have to curate such a life.

I think the only place you have to compromise is work. You can't roleplay like it's the 90's if you work in tech. But hey when you clock out of work turn your laptop off and go do whatever you want. Again, there is nothing stopping you from doing anything you could have done back then now (except maybe buy a house).

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#33

Post by autotune »

travelalberta wrote: post #32

To anyone with this kind of nostalgia I'd recommend watch 'Perfect Days'. You can live however you want. While it is impossible to not have a smart phone at this point you get to decide how you use it. Want to feel like you are in the 90's? Stop using your phone. Consume only old or physical media if you want, get rid of streaming services. Go buy an old car if you feel like it. Go read a book. Anything you could do…

Books have been replaced by DVDs at my library. I spent almost all my time at a book store for a year in Austin and can count the number of active readers I saw in there on one hand. It's depressing.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#34

Post by cestith »

ramesh31 wrote: post #14
saltyoldman wrote: post #4

The 90s were incredible. The Matrix had it right when it mentioned in 1999 "peak of human civilization". * Music was incredible * Movies were amazing, enough to go to the theater 12 times a year at least * Homelessness was pretty much non-existent * People were friendly and had time for strangers * Employment was 10x better than today, and not by today's way of counting (which don't count group x y and z) * Jobs actu…

>Music was incredible Ehhh, the post-grunge world was a bit of a musical wasteland. Rock died as a culturally relevant force with Cobain, but hip-hop hadn't ascended yet, so we were stuck in this weird doldrum that gave us things like the swing revival, ska, nu metal, and boybands. I mean Counting Crows were the big megastars at the time. Really hard to name a timeless album from '96-'99 the way you easily could on e…

Here’s a list of albums just from 1998.

Mezzanine from Massive Attack, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Big Pun’s Capital Punishment, You’ve Come a Long Way Baby from Fatboy Slim, and Hello Nasty from the Beastie Boys. The K&D Sessions from Kruder and Dorfmeister. Stunt by Barenaked Ladies. Then there’s one of my personal favorites, Mermaid Avenue from Billy Bragg and Wilco.

You mentioned rock. How about Hellbilly Deluxe from Rob Zombie? Follow the Leader by Korn. The New Radicals released Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too. Garbage’s Version 2.0, and Lenny Kravitz 5, and Van Halen III. What’s more rock than Walking into Clarksville by Page & Plant?

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#35

Post by dustfinger »

NoSalt wrote: post #24

The X-Files was the right show at the right time; a "bubble" of the '90s, if you will. The internet and mobile technology was nascent. The world was getting bigger, but was still quite "small". I definitely feel quite privileged to have lived through this time, and enjoy all things '90s quite a bit. Any, and I mean any, attempt to remake this show is doomed to failure, and I wish they would just stop. Now, if you wil…

> Any, and I mean any, attempt to remake this show is doomed to failure

I second that. Please, for the love of all good things, do not remake the X-Files, or Firefly.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#37

Post by criddell »

nickphx wrote: post #7
saltyoldman wrote: post #4

The 90s were incredible. The Matrix had it right when it mentioned in 1999 "peak of human civilization". * Music was incredible * Movies were amazing, enough to go to the theater 12 times a year at least * Homelessness was pretty much non-existent * People were friendly and had time for strangers * Employment was 10x better than today, and not by today's way of counting (which don't count group x y and z) * Jobs actu…

I am not sure where you experienced the 90s or at what age, but your experience is the opposite of mine.

I agree with a lot of that person wrote. I'm a healthy white guy born in 1970 into a very supportive family in a middle-class town in Canada. I basically won the lottery.

I was a kid in the 1970s, a teenager through the 80's and turned 20 in 1990. I had everything I needed and most things I wanted (eventually). High school was easy and actually fun. University was cheap (compared to now) and I had a blast. Graduating with a degree in comp. sci. in 1995 was bonkers. Opportunities were everywhere.

There have been some ups and downs, but I really don't think I would have wanted to be born any other time or place.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#38

Post by uncircle »

moregrist wrote: post #31
detribaby wrote: post #12

There are still lots of us alive who have experienced this. And to us, X-files felt high tech for the time. This was a time period when I think people were just waking up to powers of computers and technology, in particular alien tech, due to the incalculable complexities of ideating and creating magical electrical boxes - microprocessors. How could humans be capable of doing this, after all? One poster already menti…

What I remember most about the 90s was the overwhelming optimism. Technology was going to make our lives better and unlock opportunity, not take all our jobs and render us irrelevant. To me, the weirdest thing about the AI hype cycle is the inherent nihilism of it all. If there's one thing I miss, it's the optimism. I used to be enthusiastic about what the tech industry was doing and where it was going. > The larger…

The optimism died a long time ago. I’m a Millennial, the 90s flew by as I was growing up, but one of my formative experiences was playing Deus Ex in 2001, after 9/11. It gave me healthy distrust of technology, governments, big corp, and what the world is going through today only reinforces this vision of the world. Of course I am nihilistic about AI: when I read about Altman and Karp, I see Bob Page. These are NOT the type of people I want to create a new world order. Yet these are exactly the people positioned to create a new world order.

I feel the older generations still believe that technology will set us free.

Re: The X-Files has made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced

#40

Post by c-hendricks »

travelalberta wrote: post #17
stackghost wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a lot of nostalgia for the pre-9/11 world too but be careful with the rose tint. It wasn't so wonderful if you were gay, for example. AIDS was still new and scary in 1990, and society was not so accepting of that lifestyle. I remember when I was a teen it wasn't uncommon to go to a Boston Pizza-tier restaurant and have the waiter make a quip about "not wanting to look like a fag" by ordering the same thing as…

It's interesting to me that many of the comments about not romanticizing the 80's and 90's across all forums reference 'it wasn't that good if you were gay' which would be like 3-5% of the population at the time? We had a society that 95% of people would say was ideal and the only knock is that it wasn't great for a small minority versus now we have a lifestyle that is universally panned...

Different strokes and all that but I'm pretty happy it's much less socially acceptable to beat the shit out of 5-10% of the population for no reason.
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