The eternal '90s

Post Reply New Topic

There's a thread about tattoos in this section that made me think. A lot of people consider tattoos a fad. There's certainly some truth to this. It wasn't until about 1990, maybe even later, that tattoos became common outside of a few subcultures, such as bikers, sailors, prisoners and military men. They were seen as being very macho, implying masculine strength, violence, and general badassness. It's only been the past 15-20 years that tats have become truly a fad in the sense that 'everybody' does it, and the macho implication has worn off as I believe most tattooed people today are female.

The rise of tattoos since 1990 have coincided with several other trends, most of which I think are correlated somehow. The most obvious is the rise of body piercing. It actually wasn't common for girls to pierce their ears until the 1960s, at least I heard that. The other piercings, nose, belly, etc became popular in the early '90s. Slightly less obvious is the rise of alternative and punk culture. Once a backlash against formality, by the present, I would say the alternative is the new formality. Indeed, it almost looks a bit odd to see a person well-dressed today. Dressing 20th century sticks out as much in the grungy early 21st century as someone who just returned from a Renaissance Faire. I'm actually more used to seeing people with full sleeved tats and mohawks than I am people in suits and ties!

This formality goes beyond appearance too. The use of profanity has increased dramatically compared to the '80s. Of course profanity is probably as old as language, but before the 1990s, it was a private thing for the most part. You didn't hear much of it in movies, TV, and in public, and it was extremely uncommon to hear women use it publicly (not picking on women here, just stating the facts).

Another change that happened at the same time as all of those things is the loss of a belief in modern progress, that the world is destined for great things, and the rise of cynicism and doom and gloom. Back in the '60s, even as late as the '80s (Back to the Future), people still dreamed of a marvelous magical kind of future where everyone was happy and every day was kind of a scifi party. Most of the characterizations of the future since the '90s have been negative. Global warming, which essentially is a doomsday theory, is believed by most scientists, and it seems difficult to picture humans living just 100 more years. We are obsessed with nostalgia and hate the present, and even though we use technology we pretend to hate it. We swoon at people playing acoustic guitar even though synthesized hip hop is all that sells now. Nostalgia goes in 20 years cycles - now that 20 years ago = the 90s, which never really ended anyways (Nirvana are still played on 'new rock' stations, and little kids still like Eminem and South Park), we are now stuck repeating a past that we forgot is actually the present!

I think the first blow to the dream of the future was the decline of the hippie movement, Altamont showed that no amount of dreaming could ever wipe out the violence in our society (or seemed to anyway), the second blow was the end of the Cold War, not because the Cold War ended, but because when it did end, it was very anti-climatic and nothing really improved. Third blow would be the events of September 11.

Anyway, how this connects to tattoos, profanity, informality/slacker dress, etc. I think the underlying cause of this change in fashion and attitude is the fact that Modernity is over, and ended sometime during the 1990s. The age of ideology had ended with the fall of the Soviet Union and in its place there is a world of uncertainty where it's impossible to really know who 'the enemy' is. Is it violent teenagers? Is it video games? Is it terrorists? Is it our own government? Is it the new world order? The rise of the Internet which immediately followed the fall of communism essentially made the written word obsolete and that is why kids are losing their ability to spell.

Religion of the organized revealed sort is also a product of the written word, and now that paper is obsolete and information about other religions and the scandals and hypocrisies in religion are available, you can expect to see the average person become less religious, and the average religious person to become more radical, until religion dies out almost completely.

With the post-literate, post-modern age, skepticism of even formal dress arises. In a postmodern society, every opinion is valid, and the only evil or sinful thing is to deny a person their right to their own opinion. Of course, this isn't entirely true, they're not gonna legalize murder anytime soon, but you know what I mean.

In a sense, the end of modernity, means a return to primitive ways. I don't mean primitive in the pejorative sense, what I mean is that postmodern society is already more of an intuitive, emotionally based culture than one based on logic. This is why I don't think tattoos, body piercings, and alternative/DIY culture is just a fad of the 1990s/early 21st century era, but is actually a permanent feature of the new society that will likely last centuries.

Postmodern is all about 'keeping it real'. Fakeness is deplorable in the postmodern ethic. You see this in indie rock and metal when any band suddenly starts making money, they are accused of being fake. We love it when talented, but unattractive people like Susan Boyle and Adele become successful and deplore 'phonies' like Justin Bieber and Britney Spears. Modernity was about subduing the animal inside us, as it was still somewhat religious in its orientation and was also idealistic.

Tattoos, rather than being 'ugly' and 'rebellious', in the modern light, in the postmodern are seen as the ultimate symbol of artistic expression - turning one's own body, into art. After all, nothing can be more 'real' than something so meaningful, you will etch it in your skin, right? That's why as long as we are postmodern tattoos and 1990's (neo-primitive) fashion and culture is still gonna be all the rage.

Welcome to the post-modern, post-literate, post-ideological, post-religious, post-everything age!

I'll just have a Coke and listen to The Kinks.

Thank you for posting this. I am in my 50's. I'm guessing you are quite a bit younger. I stopped paying much attention to popular culture after about the 1980's. Its interesting getting the perspective on this subject from someone who has obviously paid attention to what has gone on since then.

I see wearing tattoos as a way of rebelling from the previous generation. The male members of my parents generation had short hair. My generation rebelled by wearing long hair. I figured subsequent generations would have to find something else. I remember when the Punks (during the 80's) rebelled against the "Hippies" with their particular stlye, which included some piercings, although not nearly as common as now. I don't mean to minimize the significance of the statement being made with tattoos, for example. I am just ignorant as to what that statement is (other than rebellion, or possibly just wanting their own look.)

As I see it, the statement made with long hair during the 60's and subsequent decades (until it faded) was to make a statement against the macho male prototype which facilitated the decent into (the Vietnam) war.

You'd probably be surprised, but the "issue" of teenage rebellion dates way back to the 1950s. There was an article in Newsweek from 1954 entitled Let's Face It: Our Teenagers Are Out Of Control. Also, have you seen movies from the '50s starring James Dean (such as Rebel Without A Cause)? Teenage rebellion was a real issue in the '50s, and historians theorize that it was due to the fact that teenagers in the post-WWII age experienced more freedom to do whatever they want than the generations before them. During and prior to WWII, teenagers were mostly expected to work alongside their parents. Or so I've read.

I disagree about your point about cursing being more common today than it was a couple of decades ago. Just yesterday, I saw a movie from 1976, and it was full of foul language.

Austin Powers is a pretty cool character, so the 90s weren't all bad for me.

I disagree on a large number of points - I think you're wrong about a lot of things you said. I'm trying not to be confrontational, so I'll keep it to myself unless you really wanna go into it.

The 90's sure had some good music though.