I was most definitely a 1990s teenager; I turned 8 in 1990, 18 in 2000 and spent all of year 7 to year 11 right in the middle of the decade.
1. Inflatable chairs, inflatable backpacks, inflatable aliens, in fact, inflatable anything.
2. Mood rings.
3. Scatman
4. Collecting Pogs.
5. The relaunch of Spangles sweets (they were so good!).
6. Troll dolls.
7. Crying over 'Jack and Sarah'.
8. Smith's Tuba Loops crisps.
9. Shag bands and snog bands.
10. Morrisons supermarket being a novelty when we went on holiday up north.
11. 'The Crystal Maze' (the Richard O'Brien era of course).
12. 'Vindaloo' (the song, not the food).
13. Zig zag partings in your hair.
14. Flat Eric
15. Learning every line to Baz Luhrmann's 'Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen' and thinking how profound the song was.
16. All the anti-Ecstasy campaigns featuring Leah Betts.
17. Buying magazines in John Menzies rather than WH Smith.
18. Secretly watching 'TFI Friday' with the sound turned down so the parents couldn't hear.
19. Shopping in Safeway (and feeling so grown up when they let you sign up for an ABC loyalty card).
20. Dawson's Creek - were you a Pacey girl or a Dawson girl? (Pacey for me)
21. Playing Dreamphone at birthday parties and pretending that the boys on the game board were boys in our class.
22. Following Ellie and Dallas' relationship with baited breath in 'Sex, Chips and Rock & Roll'.
23. If you wanted a toy from Argos, always checking the Index catalogue to see if it was cheaper there.
24. Making your bedroom into some kind of hippy den with windchimes, incense sticks and dreamcatchers.
25. Findus Crispy Pancakes (can you still buy these?)
26. The Orange Man adverts for Tango (You've been Tango'd!) and then them getting banned after kids copied it in the playground.
27. Black trousers with skirts attached around the top.
28. Going on school coach trips and waving at everyone just to see how many waves or thumbs up we could get.
29. Being put off drugs for life by reading Tar and Gemma's relationship in Melvin Burgess' 'Junk'.
30. Kickers shoes (preferably platforms).
31. Watching 'The Big Breakfast' before school and then walking out of the house singing "Egg on your face!"
32. Hair mascara in all the colours of the rainbow.
33. Making your own compilation cassette by taping all your favourite songs from the Top 40 on Sunday afternoon.
34. Buying clothes from Etam, Select, Miss Selfridge and Asda's George range.
35. And not forgetting Clockhouse at C&A!
36. Feeling very grown up watching 'The Girlie Show'
37. Buying new school stationery from Partners the Stationer.
38. Lots of mini bulldog clips all over your hair.
39. Being obsessed by 'The Craft' and ever girl in my school wanting to be a witch.
40. The news that Princess Diana had died and the fact that they cancelled Radio 1's Top 40 that day.
41. Visiting Shoe Express for new school shoes.
42. Miners nail polish.
43. Reading 'More!' magazine (when we had the guts to buy it) and sniggering over 'Position of the Week'.
44. Tamogotchis.
45. Record bags.
46. The amazing silver corset the girl wore in the video for 2 Unlimited's 'No Limit' (aka. 'No Lyrics')
47. Browsing round The Gadget Shop and feeling cool.
48. Alisha's Attic.
49. Making pretend Ouija boards and scaring ourselves senseless with the lights out.
50. Buying cassette tapes for 99p from Woolworths on the week of release to avoid paying £2.29 once the song hit the chart.
51. Live & Kicking on Saturday mornings (081 811 8181!)
52. Velvet chokers.
53. Glow in the dark stars stuck to your ceiling.
54. Leader of the Labour Party, John Smith dying from a heart attack the morning after a big speech at a hotel.
55. Buying CD albums from Our Price.
56. Flared trousers.
57. Drawing smiley faces on everything :-) (but the proper way round)
58. 'Born Slippy' from Trainspotting.
59. Blur's 'Song 2' (woohoo!)
60. Buying postcards from Athena.
61. Learning so much about life watching 'Queer as Folk' (and wondering if it's possible to fangirl (or whatever it was called back then) over a gay man - Stuart of course).
62. Glitter hairspray.
63. Loving and laughing at 'The Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star' (which you can still watch now over on 4oD).
64. Pagers.
65. Impulse body sprays.
66. Fry's Chocolate Cream - the Five Centre variety.
67. Being amazed by what was shown on 'Eurotrash'.
68. High ponytails.
69. Boots Natural Collection.
70. All the hype over Knebworth.
71. Pulp's 'Common People' and 'Disco 2000'.
72. Scrunchies.
73. Strangely being attracted to manic depressive doctor, Danny Nash in 'Psychos' (another one which you can watch on 4oD).
74. Listening to the wives of prisoners ringing in to Late Night Love hosted by Graham Torrington.
75. The board game version of Atmosfear's Nightmare.
76. Fun House (Pat Sharp's mullet! The twins!).
77. Feeling oh-so-grown-up (and hoping the parents didn't find out) watching 'Sex and the City'.
78. Hamish Macbeth.
79. Rings and necklaces which had two parts to them so both yourself and your best friend could have a part each and then put them together because you're OMG BFF!
80. Learning the routine to Whigfield's 'Saturday Night' when it was actually released.
81. 'Father Ted' and the shock when Dermot Morgan passed away.
82. Learning all about love, legal terminology and Barry White from 'Ally McBeal'.
83.'Sister Sister' (Go home, Roger!).
84. Wallace and Gromit's 'The Wrong Trousers' (still an excellent film nowadays).
85. Blur's 'Parklife' (all the people, so many people...)
86. Plastic tattoo-style chokers.
87. Sparkly dresses, sparkly shoes, sparkly bags, sparkly everything.
88. Oasis vs. Blur (I was a Blur girl).
89. Choosing which girl you were from 'Friends'.
90. The two old guys singing the 'Macarena' (but you all learnt the routine anyway).
91. Big floppy hats with flowers on (à la 'Blossom')
92. 'Ballykissangel' (with Danny Byrne played by a young Colin Farrell).
93. Phrases like 'lush', 'dishy' and 'crush'.
94. Tie-dye everything.
95. Dancing skeletons in the video for Chemical Brothers' 'Hey Boy Hey Girl'.
96. Collection 2000 make up.
97. The tampon lady visiting school each year and all the boys being sent out to play football (does this still happen nowadays?).
98. Very small backpacks on very long thin straps.
99. All those girls across the UK crying when Take That split up.
100. Hangar 17 on BBC1.
101. Jack and Sally's wonderful relationship in 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'.
Anything ring any bells?
(and if you can't remember the 1990s, then this whole post has probably just made no sense whatsoever)
(I've also had so much fun watching old 1990s YouTube music videos that I reckon I'm gonna have to write a post just listing my favourite 1990s music)
Oh my so many memories - I was four when 1990 arrived so I too pretty much grew up in those years, I loved record bags and flat eric, Byker Grove, friendship bands. But the songs and the TV shows take me right back, I remember sneakily trying to watch Eurotrash and TFI Friday, those were the days!
ReplyDeleteOmg! This made me laugh. I was a bit older as I turned 15 in 1990 so part of my teens & early twenties were in this decade. You missed out shell suits!! In 1990 I remember wearing my shell suit with a hooded top, kicker boots (they were navy) while sporting the hairstyle of the year a spiral perm. The other thing I remember wearing were those Global Hypercolour tshirts where they changed colour by heat. Thanks for the memories :D Hope you are healing well? Xx
ReplyDeleteOh, Hamish Macbeth was THE BEST! Skousers and scrunchies, maybe not so much...
ReplyDeleteI love this! Love all the old photos too :) Leah Betts was from a village just down the road to me, so it was one of those weird situations where the local newspapers had the same headlines as the nationals - not something that happens all that often around here.
ReplyDeleteI loved Live and Kicking - I had the theme as my ringtone for ages!
This is BRILLIANT. I feel like I'm reliving my childhood as I type. My comments are as follows:
ReplyDelete7. The bit where Jack puts Sarah in a sock is the cutest baby moment in a movie, EVER.
9. We had shag bands, but what are snog bands? How did you tell the difference?
13. I’d forgotten about zigzag partings; I’m totally going to bring those back.
20. Door number 3 - I’m a Jack girl all the way (until he got all perma-tanned in seasons 4-6)
32. I also had hair glitter, in at least three colours. And worn all three simultaneously for school discos. Obviously. (Complete with no. 38)
43. I’m pretty sure they made some of those positions up; human beings don’t bend that way.
44. My Mum threw mine away, after I made her take it to work to keep it alive (my school banned them).
52, 53, and 56 - Yes, yes, yes.
68. I still wear high ponytails. I might start combining them with zigzag partings.
72. One of my teenage friendships ended because of a scrunchie theft. I haven’t spoken to her since.
82. I kind of want to learn the dance routine…
I wore 86 and 87 together frequently. With my hair in a scrunchie.
89. Definitely Phoebe (although I’d rather be Chandler).
xxx
Ahh this takes me back!
ReplyDeleteI love this list, so many things I'd forgotten about! Kicker platform shoes for school were a must and Tommy Girl perfume. How about Fresh Prince of Bel Air? And I felt so mature watching This Life.
ReplyDelete