[travelalberta]

To anyone with this kind of nostalgia I'd recommend watch 'Perfect Days'. You can live however you want.

While it is impossible to not have a smart phone at this point you get to decide how you use it. Want to feel like you are in the 90's? Stop using your phone. Consume only old or physical media if you want, get rid of streaming services. Go buy an old car if you feel like it. Go read a book. Anything you could do in the 80's and 90's you can do now just as easy. You just have to curate such a life.

I think the only place you have to compromise is work. You can't roleplay like it's the 90's if you work in tech. But hey when you clock out of work turn your laptop off and go do whatever you want. Again, there is nothing stopping you from doing anything you could have done back then now (except maybe buy a house).

[criddell]

That was a great time to be a kid and so much of what I did in that era is gone now. Going with friends to Blockbuster? Hanging out at the arcade? Stopping in at the mall because you will probably run into friends there? From age 15 to 25 I was at a house or field party a couple times a month.

And things like streaming services are no replacement for video stores. Scrolling though a list doesn't compare to going to a video store, wandering the aisles, bumping into people you know, talking and flirting and finding out about parties, and totally changing your plans based on who you happened to run into. The random social interactions were important.

You can do 90's larping, but unless you are doing it with all the people of the same generation from your community it's only a shallow facsimile of the real thing.

[travelalberta]

> That was a great time to be a kid and so much of what I did in that era is gone now. Going with friends to Blockbuster? Hanging out at the arcade? Stopping in at the mall because you will probably run into friends there? From age 15 to 25 I was at a house or field party a couple times a month.

This is true. I didn't really think about it from a kid/youth perspective. As an adult I think you can live a similar life style but kids definitely have been robbed of all of this. I'm past 25 and I average a house party a month still I would say. House party's are permission free though, if you want one then host one.

> And things like streaming services are no replacement for video stores. Scrolling though a list doesn't compare to going to a video store, wandering the aisles, bumping into people you know, talking and flirting and finding out about parties, and totally changing your plans based on who you happened to run into. The random social interactions were important.

Video stores still exist. Depending how big of a town/city you will still bump into people you know if you are out and about.

>You can do 90's larping, but unless you are doing it with all the people of the same generation from your community it's only a shallow facsimile of the real thing.

Live how you want. If it's good others will follow your lead. I deleted all social media over five years ago and I have some friends who have at least tried to follow my lead. I read a ton, my friends do as well. I have a group of guys to play magic with every week where we take turns hosting.

If you have a vision of what you want the world to be the first step is to live that way yourself. Either others will follow or they won't, but you can't force people to do anything.

[jrflowers]

That is larping. No amount of wacky pomo carpeting and Outhere Brothers cassette tapes can actually transport you to a post-cold-war-pre-9/11 world.

The nineties literally ended in a party where at least one person in the room thought they were going to die the next day. You cannot recreate that with a Doug t-shirt.

[tracerbulletx]

Works for the amish.

[BeetleB]

> I think the only place you have to compromise is work.

Or if you have a family.

The next time I say "We didn't have (to do) X in my days and things were just fine (or better)", I'll be kicked out of my house. :-)

[autotune]

Books have been replaced by DVDs at my library. I spent almost all my time at a book store for a year in Austin and can count the number of active readers I saw in there on one hand. It's depressing.

[travelalberta]

Reading is an independent activity by nature. I don't really see how other people not reading should affect you. There is nothing depressing about nature. It's natural that the majority of people would shift away from reading and gravitate towards easier forms of media consumption.

[adjejmxbdjdn]

> Reading is an independent activity by nature.

This wasn’t my experience at all. I read similar novels as friends, we talked about them, tried to replicate some of the stuff the characters did, have suggestion about books to each other, lent them out, went to the bookstore together, etc.

People read books on public transport before the iPhone and that was often the path to strike a conversation with a complete stranger who nonetheless shared interests (depending on the book they were reading).

Books certainly could be completely individualized experiences, but they offered a whole world of socializing opportunities.

[criddell]

Reading is an independent activity, but wandering through a magazine store with friends while you were on your school lunch break wasn't.

[sys_64738]

The weekly book club is very active at my local library for some reason. Strange but true.