Growing up in the 90s was more than just a decade of neon windbreakers and cheesy sitcom theme songs. It was a time when waiting felt normal, physical media dominated our shelves, and the internet was a fresh novelty instead of the seamless necessity it is now.
That era shaped a whole generation of us in ways that can be hard to explain to anyone who didn’t experience it. Today, I want to take you on a nostalgic journey through seven things that instantly take me—and probably many of you—back to those simpler days.
Let’s dive in.
1. The glory of Saturday morning cartoons
For me, Saturday mornings in the 90s meant one thing: waking up before my parents, grabbing a bowl of overly sweet cereal, and planting myself in front of the TV for a marathon of colorful cartoons.
It was pure bliss.
No streaming services. No binge-watching. No on-demand anything.
You caught the shows when they aired, or you missed out until reruns much later—if you were lucky. That sense of anticipation is practically unheard of now.
Sometimes, I wonder if today’s kids, who can instantly queue up an entire season of the latest animated series, realize just how special it was to spend the whole week waiting for a 30-minute episode.
Sure—we can’t live in the past. But I also think there’s something valuable in remembering an era when waiting made the payoff sweeter and taught us to savor each moment.
2. Renting VHS tapes (and hoping they were rewound)
Did walking into a Blockbuster (or your favorite local video store) on a Friday night feel like the world’s greatest treasure hunt?
It did for me. I can still picture those rows of VHS tapes with their worn-out covers. I’d walk the aisles like they were museum exhibits, trying to pick the perfect movie for the weekend.
Sometimes, a new release would already be rented out, so I’d either have to try something else or come back later in the hope that a copy had been returned.
There was also that unwritten courtesy rule: Always rewind the tape before bringing it back. I’ll never forget the “Be Kind, Rewind” stickers plastered on every cassette.
Gen Z might raise an eyebrow at the thought of physically traveling somewhere just to rent a movie that you’d have to physically return. But for us 90s kids, that ritual was half the fun.
It taught us patience, spontaneity (if your favorite title was out, you had to improvise!), and the small joy of discovering hidden gems.
3. The agonizing scream of dial-up internet
It’s impossible to forget the sound of connecting to the internet over dial-up: that bizarre sequence of beeps and static that promised a glacially slow but thrilling journey onto the World Wide Web.
If someone else in the house picked up the phone, your connection dropped.
And if a website had large images (which was anything more than a single small JPEG), you might as well make a snack run while you waited.
The internet was new and mysterious, full of chat rooms, early email, and weird fan sites.
Nowadays, if an app takes more than a couple of seconds to load, we get frustrated. But back then, this was cutting-edge technology.
I’ve mentioned this in a previous post: we often forget that limitations can spur creativity. Dial-up made us resourceful. We’d learn to click “send” on an email, then go do something else while it processed.
It was an era of delayed gratification that shaped our approach to technology. In the 90s, we embraced that spirit, fumbling through new tech because even the missteps felt exciting.
4. Mixtapes and burned CDs
Before curated playlists on Spotify or Apple Music, there were mixtapes—and later, carefully burned CDs for your crush or best friend.
Crafting a perfect mixtape took a delicate blend of commitment, timing, and a well-honed sense of musical storytelling. You had to wait by your cassette radio, fingers on the record button, ready to pounce when a favorite song came on air.
Eventually, the tech advanced a bit, and you could queue up songs on your computer to burn onto a CD. That technology, though, still felt like magic.
Giving a mixtape (or a burned CD) was an intimate form of communication. You invested real effort into it, from choosing the perfect songs to scribbling personal notes on the case insert.
The process taught us a lot about patience, creativity, and the way music can bring people together.
And let’s be honest: nothing beats the excitement of popping a new CD into your Discman, hoping it wouldn’t skip with every step.
5. Collecting pogs, trading cards, and everything in between
If there was one thing we loved in the 90s, it was collecting stuff—pogs, baseball cards, Pokémon cards, Beanie Babies. You name it, we wanted to trade it.
It wasn’t just about accumulating toys. It was about forging connections.
Those moments at recess, furiously flipping pogs on the blacktop or trading cards on the bus ride home, felt like mini-economies.
They also taught me basic negotiation skills, which (looking back) probably set the foundation for my early career in digital marketing.
In a weird way, those small trades were an introduction to the idea that value is subjective—what I cherished might have been something you considered expendable.
To this day, I can’t help but think about how these little exchanges shaped our sense of community. We learned early on that shared interests create instant camaraderie, a lesson that’s equally relevant in business and life.
6. The landline life (and memorizing phone numbers)
Growing up, we didn’t have personal smartphones welded to our hands. Instead, we had a single landline in the kitchen, often with a tangled cord that let you wander only so far while talking.
If you wanted privacy, you stretched that curly cord around the corner, hoping nobody would listen in.
Memorizing phone numbers was a survival skill.
You learned your best friend’s number by heart, your grandma’s, your own home phone, and a few others.
And let’s not forget the awkward experience of calling your friend, only for their mom or dad to pick up, requiring you to politely ask if they were home.
It was a slower time, but it taught us to connect more directly. You couldn’t hide behind a text. You just picked up the phone and talked—often stumbling through clumsy attempts at conversation.
Yes, texting is more convenient. But some days, I miss those nerve-wracking moments when you had to dial someone’s home number and hope you had the courage to say what you called to say.
7. The pre-social media socializing
Finally, let’s talk about hanging out in person—without notifications, group chats, or the highlight reels of social media.
If you wanted to see your friends, you organized it face-to-face or made a phone call.
Meet-ups happened in malls, arcades, skating rinks, or just at someone’s house, unplanned and unscripted.
And if you didn’t see someone for a week, you caught up the next time you hung out—there was no scrolling through their latest “story” to keep tabs.
In the 90s, socializing was all about genuine quality time. We weren’t flooding each other with notifications or likes. Our schedules felt less “busy” because we didn’t juggle a digital life on top of our real one.
It was less about posting every waking moment and more about living those moments.
That sense of true, direct connection might be the biggest thing that sets the 90s kid experience apart.
Putting it all together
Memory lane can be a powerful place.
For those of us who grew up in the 90s, these experiences were part of our day-to-day reality. We learned patience from dial-up, nurtured creativity with mixtapes, developed negotiation skills trading pogs, and built resilience waiting for the next Saturday cartoon lineup.
Gen Z has its own unique culture and experiences—some of which are enviable in their own right. But there’s no denying the 90s left an indelible mark on how we view technology, friendships, and the pace of life.
I find comfort in remembering that era for what it was: a time of waiting, simplicity, and tangible connection. It doesn’t mean I want to give up modern conveniences. But there’s something special about how those experiences shaped us—making us just a bit more appreciative of the present and reminding us that the best memories often come from the simplest moments.
If you ever find yourself missing the days of “Be Kind, Rewind,” well, you’re not alone. We had something worth cherishing, and in reflecting on that, we might just gain a clearer perspective on how to balance the fast-paced world we live in now.
