The 90s mall: we stopped hanging out there and started closing it
The 90s mall from the other side of the counter: the back hallway, the food-court trades, December shifts, and a 1996 rule written for the kids we used to be.
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80s christmas decorations: everything had a light bulb in it
80s christmas decorations were appliances: a blow mold on the lawn, a ceramic tree from a night class, a boxed tree with a color code, and a cord behind every one of them.
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Forgotten 90s toys weren’t outgrown. They were confiscated.
Forgotten 90s toys didn’t fade out. Slap bracelets, milk caps, and keychain pets got banned and confiscated. Here’s the drawer they all ended up in.
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80s board games: nobody actually finished one
80s board games rarely ended with a winner. They ended with dinner, a curfew, a flipped board, or a lawsuit.
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90s trivia: a quiz about the decade that ended the argument
Twenty questions of 90s trivia for the people who were old enough to pay for it. No movie lines.
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90s video games: the decade we were supposed to quit and didn’t
Search 90s video games and the internet hands you a ranking. Twenty titles in order, a countdown video, a forum thread of favorites, every list completely sure of itself. They’re good lists. They’re also, almost without exception, written by somebody who was nine. The 90s video games they remember came wrapped for a birthday, got…
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90s slang: two generations said it at once, and the lists only remember the younger one
90s slang lists mix two generations into one pile. Here’s what the twenty-somethings said, what their little siblings said, and the mall glossary in between.
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80s food: the cook was nine, and nobody was home
80s food wasn’t just the snack aisle. A lot of it was made by a nine-year-old alone in the kitchen with a toaster, a new microwave, and a note on the counter.
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80s trivia was a sport. The ref was whoever owned the encyclopedia.
80s trivia from the people who were there: the board game that ate 1984, the fake fact that went to court, and a quiz round with no movie questions.
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80s video games: the strategy guide was a kid on the bus
Every 80s video games list is a ranking, and nobody ranked them at the time. The real strategy guide was a kid on the bus, a graph-paper map, and a password you copied wrong.
