I have come to the realization that I may have been born about 10 years too late.
Perhaps it’s because of the time that I grew up in as a kid, but for whatever reason, I seem to be in a time and place right now where I am really into anything that took place or happened in the 1990s.
However, unlike everyone else who lived through the Generation-X era, I was born in 1988, so I was still in my early years of grade school when everything that I enjoyed happened.
The first time I realized that my personal favourite era of music was different from a lot of other people, happened in high school, when I was one of a handful of students in my class who was regularly listening to bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and the Smashing Pumpkins.
As I moved into college, I also realized that my favourite television shows and movies were from the 1990s, as I was walking around campus extolling the greatness of the Kids In the Hall and Pulp Fiction.
Now granted, there are a few people that I am close friends with who share similar viewpoints on things from the 1990s that I enjoy, but I have always wondered why I enjoy bands, television shows, or movies from that time more than ones from the 1980s, which seems to get a ton of nostalgia love whenever it is brought up.
As I spent the last couple of days wracking things over in my brain, I came upon two possible reasons as to why I love the 1990s so much.
The first reason is that other than a few things, there aren’t a lot of iconic events that I can think of from the 2000s that I can really relate to.
I mean, there’s the White Stripes and a couple of other alternative rock bands from the last decade that I love, but other than that, there isn’t a whole lot of things from the 2000s that causes me to start rambling away in praising them.
But the biggest reason that I think I love everything from the 1990s is that old saying of everything being better in the past.
As the years go on, there are a ton of things that you remember from when you were younger that you automatically put up there as the best thing you have ever seen or heard in your life.
And while there are some things that don’t hold up when you view them again as you are older, for the most part, everything that I have discovered when I was younger are still things that I love today.
But as I move further into my 20s, many of the things I love from the 1990s are disappearing, and not just in the artistic field.
For example, when I was a kid, Teemu Selanne was scoring goals like a madman for the Winnipeg Jets and was one of the most exciting players in the NHL.
This season will mark the final time that the Finnish legend will suit up in the NHL, which bums me out a ton, as he has always been a player that I have admired since his rookie season back in 1992/93.
However, since I am now in a bigger city, I actually have the opportunity to see some of the things that I love from the 1990s in person, which is why I bought tickets to see Pearl Jam play live in December and I am planning to see Selanne and the Anaheim Ducks take on the Calgary Flames in the new year.
I’m pretty sure that I will be pinching myself when both events happen, as I will actually get to experience some of my favourite things from the past in the present.
Plus, it will make some cool stories to tell my grandkids some day when I tell them that the past was way better than anything they are currently experiencing.
