The trend “What Were You Like In the ‘90s?” went viral for the past few weeks, and I’d thought of jumping on it until I realized…

I barely had photos, much less videos.

Because that’s what the 90s were – crazy memories with very, very little evidence.

While it’s fascinating to see younger generations romanticize the decade, watching reruns of the shows we watched, playing the music we listened to, and occasionally cosplaying our high school fashion… millennials who did grow up in this decade still feel nostalgic about a lot of wild, fun times minus the digital footprint.

A life without the need for validation – especially by strangers.

A life where being in the moment was the only option—because we had very limited means to record those moments.

A life where we were socially connected, and not just virtually.

You had to be there.  But of course, a lot of you may not even have been born yet!

The Joy of An Unplugged Era

While not totally devoid of technology, the 90s didn’t have the frictionless hyperconnectivity that we have now.  Lifestyles, the way we worked, and the way we had fun, were very different then. 

We lived life unplugged.

Well, almost.

We weren’t plugged to the internet 24/7, and didn’t go everywhere with an electronic device stuck to our bodies like an extra appendage.

We called each other on traditional phones plugged into sockets—cordless phones or phones with caller ID were already innovations in their right.  Cellular phones then were analog, huge, and just used for calling – like traditional phones but portable.  Text messaging was a later development.

Later on, we used personal desktop computers (mostly in computer shops/cafes) but utilized the internet very rarely because it was slow and expensive, at least in our part of the world. There were games on the computer but the graphics were not the hyper-realistic ones we have now.
 
When you needed to meet someone, you called them on a landline phone or a payphone, and had an exact place and exact time to meet. And you have to arrive at the right time, because there was no way to tell people you’d be late so they don’t leave without you. We had to keep our original commitments as much as we could because, well, there was no easy way to take them back. Nowadays, we can change plans by moving times and locations after they’ve been set, even while we’re already in transit.
 
When we got offended, we weren’t able to take videos of people and post them online, to offend even more people and to shame somebody. We confronted people and said it to their face. If it was a friend, we aired it out personally or wrote letters to each other. No social media to post our conflict for the world to see. We were, for lack of a better term, civil. We always knew we were dealing with real people who had feelings, like we did.

Nowadays, you almost have to beg for civility online. It’s no surprise that screens dehumanized people, because screens are flat, non-living things.
 
Let’s compare the online video tutorials discussed previously to how we learned things before. For those of us who couldn’t play by ear, when we wanted to learn a song on the guitar, we sometimes went online for a few precious minutes on our metered internet to search for and print the tablature, or we bought songbooks.

But most of the time, we asked friends (who could play by ear) to teach us. And it was a lot more fun, interactive, and was a social activity.

But really, growing up from the 80s - 90s was a lot of disconnected fun.
 
We were, for the most part, physically and socially active. When we had free time in high school, we would stroll through the campus with friends, go to the mall for a movie, have impromptu jam sessions, play sports.

So why do I associate this “unplugging” if you will, with happiness? Let’s check it out against the three aspects of life we seek for ourselves.

We had a good life. We experienced complete engagement with our activities, and flow in work and play, fully present, and had little distractions.

It was pleasant, and we enjoyed many simple pleasures like curling up to read, hanging out phone-less with other phone-less friends, playing games, etc.

Lastly, it was meaningful because we had the time to learn skills and discover what we were good at, and we had the time to bring our talents to clubs that needed it.

A good life, pleasant life, and a meaningful life were all possible without the technology and connectivity we have today. A happy, unplugged life is totally possible. Maybe even more possible than if you were “plugged.”

One of the defining sounds of this generation was grunge, and one of the most popular bands in this genre was Nirvana.

Nirvana released their “Unplugged” album, and while I was a fan of the harsh sounds characteristic of rock: crashing drums, electric guitar distortions, and angst-ridden vocals, the unplugged versions with its soft beat, clean notes, the voice and lyrics shining above everything else, brought something beautiful and raw.
 
Notice the freshness of a woman’s natural beauty when all the makeup has been taken off. With all its protective layers stripped away, it’s the version truest to itself.

That’s what growing up in an unplugged generation was like.
It was unplugged. It was raw. And it was glorious.

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