Dear Gen Z 💔
A Love Letter From the Last Free Decade
You want to know what the ‘90s were like? Sit down. Put your phone face down (although you are probably reading this from it) because what I’m about to tell you is going to sound like science fiction
It was the last decade before the world became the worst Black Mirror episode. Before everyone had an opinion about your opinion. Before every moment had to be documented, optimized, and monetized. Before the algorithm decided it knew you better than you knew yourself.
The 90s weren’t perfect, but they were free in a way that is genuinely gone now, and I’m not sure you’ll ever get it back.
You could speak freely
You could tell a story among friends about a fish you caught, a fight you were in, a city you visited, a girl you dated, whatever, even just a make-up stat, and no one could pull out a phone and fact-check you mid-sentence. It was either we believed you, or we didn’t.
If we didn’t, we would call bullshit, debate, mock, and laugh, but nobody pulled out Google and said, “Well, actually...”
No, we just talked. And yes, we made shit up. And yes, it was fun.
The irony is that today you have all the information in the world at your fingertips, and yet somehow people are less informed than they were back then.
You had to actually show up
If you said you’d meet your friends at the corner of 5th and Main at 9 p.m., you showed up. There was no “omw,” no “5 min away,” no last-minute cancellation via text, no GPS to find your way.
If you got there early, you waited. They eventually showed up. You would cal from your home to their home: “I’m leaving now,” they would say, “I’m leaving too,” and we all somehow met.
The 1 a.m. phone call
As kids who still lived in our parents’ houses, we’d agree on a time.
“Call me at exactly 1 a.m.”
Then you’d lie awake in bed watching the clock, and at exactly 1:00, you’d pick up before it could ring twice and wake your parents up. The worst thing would be if a parent somehow picked up; that was some scary shit.
