| HN Mirror

Some of us actually remember the 90s, and not this nostalgia-tinged "hey I was young and had no responsibilities so it was better." It's not like I lived in some third-world hellhole. I lived in Los Angeles. Murder rates were quadruple what they are today. Gang violence was totally out of control. Every single night there'd be some story on the news of a girl getting shot while standing in line at an ice cream truck. Always an ice cream truck. The LA Riots happened, and unlike what people in the US call a "riot" today when a window get smashed and trash cans are lit on fire, 63 people died. The LAPD was in the middle of the Rampart Scandal, planting evidence left and right and brutalizing people. My middle school got shot at in drive-bys three separate times while I was there. A black girl in my neighborhood was tied to a fence and burned alive. We weren't allowed to wear red or blue because the school district was so afraid of us getting shot. Medical care was so great that my best friend died from touching a cat when she was 12. Teachers were still getting fired for being gay. Guys like Matthew Shepard were getting tortured and beaten to death. Freedom of expression so great that 2 Live Crew was getting banned by US district courts and the Satanic Panic was still happening in a lot of places. AIDS was still scary as hell and not easily manageable with known medication. We were getting malathion dumped on us from the sky all the damn time because of Mediterranean fruit fly infestations.

But I'm sure it was a much better time on the Internet I didn't yet know existed because my family couldn't afford a computer until my senior year of high school.