Did you hear? The 90s are in! Minimalism, CBK, Kate Moss. Smoking! Smudgy makeup! No more clean girl aesthetic and body positivity. Give us skinny, edgy, Fuck You attitude and old school cigarettes. Those of us who lived through it the first time feel right at home. Anything goes! Except gaining weight, so THANK GOD the GLP1s came along when menopause made our diets of cigarettes, pills, and diet coke unsustainable. And who would actually drink diet soda these days, are you insane? That shit is toxic. Not toxic apparently? The 90s.
Ah yes, the Good Old Days. When a feminist was a menopausal woman in a tent dress with henna coloured hair and African godess statues on her mantlepiece. Cool, attractive, girls laughed along with sexist jokes and wandering hands and eyes. Look at me: I’m not one of those easily offended overly sensitive women on the barricade about equal pay and maternity leave! I’m cool with anything. I’m just like one of the boys, except I’m actually the butt of the joke, not in on it. The exploitation of the female body is fine, we’ll just call it art and pretend she doesn’t mind. She’s At One with nature and her sexuality, like Brigitte Bardot back in her day. Or Lolita. The male gaze is just the true appreciation of beauty and he’s a GENIUS! Be grateful for the attention, it won’t last.
The most popular girl in the 90s was thin, lofty, unattainable, and disinterested. A boyish waif, sustained on cigarettes and Big Gulp, who forgets to eat if she’s not reminded, and loves dancing in the rain. She doesn’t care about anything! Nonchalant doesn’t even begin to describe her. Try dissociated. She’s wearing whatever crossed her path between the bed and her front door, be it her toddler sibling’s t-shirt, her dad’s shirt, or, as in the case of Kate Moss at a party in 1993: a see-thru slip dress and black panties. Her hair is messy because who has time for such worldly things as hair brushing? She woke up like this! Makeup still on from last night. God forbid anyone thought you cared about anything. But don’t go too far, the boys still prefer the girls who look like barbie dolls if they’d brush their hair.
This fundamental state of not-caring is what all the current 90s mood-boards misunderstand. Also, kids today are moisturising, cleansing, hydrating and getting at least 8 hours of sleep — they have no idea what a blackout is. Or a one-night-stand. Mood boarding the 90s is an oxymoron, anyone who lived through it will tell you. No one would have owned up to planning their outfits, that would completely contradict the ironic statement of their generation. Look at me, I’m wearing a too tight, washed out My Little Pony T-Shirt with these ripped tights and my grandma’s bloomers! Or, if you’re trying to look blasé but expensive, all black (pro-tip: it’s also slimming!). I don’t care about your opinion, but please tell me I’m pretty, and let’s not pretend that I’m smart or anything. Tell me again about your band.
‘Caring About Things’ is pretty much the worst thing you could do in the 90s. That would make you a nerd, and ‘Not Being A Nerd’ is maybe one of the only things that mattered. If you reached the pinnacle of Cool you could allow yourself to be nice to the bottom feeders, the real nerds (we’re talking Rain Man level), but only then. You could be talented, as long as it seemly fell in your lap and you did nothing to actively attain it. Being good at something because of hard work and dedication; blood, sweat and tears? Loser! Don’t be passionate about anything, except ‘Not Caring’. You could be passionate about refusing to conform (as long as you were conventionally attractive beneath the smudgy makeup) but that’s about it.
It might sound cool now, some 30 years on, but the fuck-it vibe of the 90s is not a desirable state of affairs! I’ll take passion and intent over nonchalance any day. Sit me down with someone so passionate about their interest that they’ve read every book, heard every podcast, and are now BEGGING to tell me all about it. I want people to show that they care! About love, about me, about their stupid hobbies and weird neighbours (but please don’t tell me about your band, I really can’t anymore). And I will tell you about my latest obsession while we’re at it. It is NOT uncool to fret about what impression you make on others; it is one of the cornerstones of society to care about what people think about you. That’s what sets us apart from sociopaths and narcissists (another it-label these days).
But the not-caring has made a comeback, sneaking in with the ‘Setting of Boundaries’ and ‘Healing Work’ that everyone’s supposedly doing. Is my dependancy on Chat GPT to interpret your mixed messages draining a small rainforest every day? Sorry! Venice is crumbling into the ocean? Let me just throw some useless money at you and let me plan my wedding in peace. Do I find this situation mildly annoying and inconvenient? No problem! I’ll just ghost you, and if you don’t get the message I’ll block you as well. Are bombs flying all over the place? Sure, but let’s talk about the global mood board — Pantone’s color of the year — and how we can bring sexy back while not actually having sex, because who has time? Sex doesn’t really go with my infrared mask and moisturising routine. We’re wearing see-thru clothes and thirsting after gay men having sex on screen, but we’re FINE!!! (It’s better than the real thing anyway, much less messy and confusing.)
While I, and anyone growing up in the 90s, may be forever brainwashed to believe that the skinniest bitch wins, for a while it seemed like girl power, body-positivity and inclusiveness had been heartily embraced by millennials and Gen Z. Paired with the trend for everyone to be a feminist, the world was on the verge of finally becoming that lovely place the tent-dressed, henna-haired women were on about! Kumbaya!!
Then Kate Moss slipped on her Gucci thong again and we collectively declared: nah, fuck it. You got a light?