If there’s one thing we definitely have no control over, it’s the inexorable forward march of time .
Sometimes it feels like time is speeding up, because there’s no way the ’90s were more than two decades ago.
These pics might make you feel young again, or they may make you feel very old.
“See-through electronics.”
You still see stuff like this from time to time, but the trend definitely reached its zenith in the ’90s. Seeing the circuitry inside your electronics was just a rush for some reason. I can’t explain it, even now.
“Turning markers into swords.”
Depending on how strict or lax your teachers were growing up, this was either a beloved activity or a forbidden one. In either case, I can’t imagine anyone who grew up with Crayola markers not doing this.
“A divorcing couple dividing beanie babies under the supervision of a judge circa 1999.”
Dividing Beanie Babies as part of a divorce settlement might not be relatable to too many of us, but anyone who lived through the late ’90s understands what a big deal these dumb little beanbags truly were.
“The crinkly feeling of opening these VHS cases.”
As a kid, you always knew that the movies in these crinkly plastic cases were a cut above the rest. There’s a reason that Disney gave all of its bangers the full plastic case treatment.
“Checking for movie times in the newspaper.”
This pic transports me back to the time when my friends and I would have to coordinate stuff via landline. If our preferred movie wasn’t playing at a convenient time, we’d be totally out of luck.
“This velcro toss and catch game.”
These things were great fun, even if they became less effective as time went on and the tennis ball became bald. Still, for the price they sold for, it was definitely money well spent.
“Remember when laptops used to have that little rubber nub for a mouse?”
![Image credit: [deleted]](https://static.diply.com/msz6dU5OxkmX0C2wVnxW.jpg)
If you’re still on team Thinkpad, you know that laptops still have these little red nubbins. I still mostly use the trackpad on my laptop, but somehow it’s comforting to know that the red nubbin is still there.
“Anybody old enough to remember being taught with an overhead projector and writing on these transparencies?”
Back in grade school, there were two big things the teacher might roll into the room: the first was the TV cart, which was awesome. The second was the overhead projector, which was less so.
“Having to manually turn off your computer.”
Messages like this are the reason I feel anxiety to this day over turning off any electronic device. I mean, at least back in the day they’d tell you when it was safe to do so.
“Rear door ashtrays; playing with these as a kid on car rides.”
It’s hard to believe it now, but it wasn’t long ago that smoking was so commonplace that ashtrays were literally built into cars. Anyone remember playing with the built-in cigarette lighter and badly burning themselves?
“You could always predict your incoming calls with this ’90s speaker.”
Nowadays, we can literally tell a speaker to play us music and it’ll do so. But back in the day, you needed fancy sound cards and computer applications and these big honkin’ ugly speakers.
As an added bonus, they would crackle loudly if you had wireless landline phones and a call came in.
“Who remembers these switchblade combs?”
Whoever invented this device must have been a big-time troll. I mean, the target audience was basically school-age kids who wanted to have something that looked like a knife, but couldn’t get them into trouble.
“I would like my old Taco Bell back please, thank you.”
The ’80s aesthetic was all browns, yellows and oranges. The ’90s rejected this with an essentially opposite color scheme of blues, turquoises and pinks. I still remember a time when this color scheme looked sleek and modern.
“Remember watching the pipes screensaver?”
Back in the days of Windows 3.1 and later Windows 95, screensavers were a big deal. You could literally go into a computer store and spend money on a disk full of screensavers. For my money, though, nothing beats this one.
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“JNCO jeans.”
Early millennials remember when there was nothing cooler than these pants. They were the absolute peak of fashion, and it was hard to imagine a future in which they’d be seen as anything other than extremely stylish.
“Those red pebbled cups from the pizza joint with the arcade when you were a kid.”
I don’t know about you, but to me, a glass of icy Coke has never tasted as good as it did coming out of one of these distinctive red glasses.
“The living room, 1996.”
This picture is a whole mood: the clunky tube TV, the wall to wall carpeting, and the vestiges of dark ’80s aesthetics in the furniture. If you lived through this decade, you probably remember something like this.
“This movie theater carpeting.”
When you saw carpeting like this, you knew you were in for a good time. It wasn’t just movie theaters, either. I remember it in laser tag lobbies and at Chuck E. Cheese-type birthday parties.
“This electric piano at my high school is so old that it has a floppy disk slot.”
It’s kind of weird when technology is still perfectly functional in the 21st Century, but has vestiges of something that’s totally obsolete. This keyboard is an excellent example.
“A machine at my work was tested OK against the Y2K bug.”
The Y2K problem is something that feels harder and harder to explain as time passes. For those who didn’t live through it, it must feel like the whole world freaked out over a completely quaint problem.
