Do you think the 90s seem old yet?

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That's interesting you said the Middle Ages because I thought of that too. I've also noticed the "post-modern", which imo began right around 1990, maybe a few years later than that, seems more 'primitive' in some ways than the 'true modern' (1492-1991 or something like that).

Even going back as early as the late 1940s, you had some individuals, beatniks for example, or bikers, who are socially postmodern, but they only made up a tiny proportion of the population. I wouldn't say it was until some time in the 1990s that most people began to have a postmodern view of history and life. Political correctness, sarcasm, even serious things being satirical and self-depreciating, tattoos, the acceptance of profanity as acceptable language, the belief that history is NOT progressive, those are all post-modern things that very much define 2012 but for the most part did NOT define 1982 or even 1992 in some ways.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the entire 21st century kind of has a '90s' feeling to it. I think 90s pop culture might not have been a 'decade' so to speak like the 70s or 80s but rather the dawn of an entire era of history that could last lifetimes.

Even though most people who love the 90s hate today, I really don't think there is any generation gap. The 1980s oddly might have the distinction of being the last era that has a generation gap from whatever the present is. Once it's like 2050 or so and all the 80s generation is old, nostalgia for the living past might actually more or less die out completely.

Well, you'll have a lot of people who don't like nu-metal, commercialized-into-dance-music hip hop, or the emo stuff but there's still a lot going on out there that they'd have to be hiding from to call it all crap even by their standards (unless that is they want to be crotchety like that to stroke their own egos and say things like "raaahH - you young punks don't know nuthin!').

Postmodernism has actually been around as a concept for quite a while.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

I bought my first book about it for a college class in the late 80's. But even then it had been around long enough to have amassed quite a lot of scholarly books.

Political correctness was gaining traction in the 80's although it didn't become an insult and part of the culture wars until 1990

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness

I don't know if you could say they defined the 80's, but they were certainly there and common. However, if your impressions of the 80's are coming from old movies and TV of that era, I don't think those things were much represented in that type of culture. But they were definately strong on college campuses of the time. I have no idea when serious things being satirical and self-deprecating showed up, but sarcasm in pop culture was pretty strong. Profanity was acceptable to young people (myself at the time) and unacceptable to old people to about the same degree that it is today. Tattoos moved into the middle class in the early 90's but you are right, they were still considered "lower class" in the 80's and before.

The belief that history is not progressive waxes and wanes in western culture and has for centuries.