11 Problems You Probably Haven’t Had Since the 1990s

If you grew up in the late 80s or 90s, there’s a good chance you encountered many of these problems.

1. Your younger brother cut the tags off your favorite Beanie Babies. 

If you were anything like me, you hoarded Beanie Babies in the late 90s. I kept all the tags on and even bought trader magazines that told me exactly what each beanie baby was worth. I was convinced that I would be able to sell my precious Beanie Babies for millions in 20 years. Ya, it’s almost 20 years later, all those beanie babies are now sitting in a box in my mom’s attic accruing dust and worth maybe $50 dollars. Dare I say, the worst investment of all time.

 

2. Your Nintendo 64 game won’t start 

Looking back, blowing into your Nintendo 64 game cartridges was the easiest fix ever. I would gladly go back to those days, compared to having to explain how to setup a Wifi router any day.

 

3. Not having the lung capacity to blow up your new Limited Too inflatable couch 

As maddenning as IKEA furniture is to setup today, it’s a whole hell of a lot easier than blowing up the ginormous inflatable couches and chairs – covered in glitter- that we used to buy from Limited Too. I should also include that IKEA furniture doesn’t sag, deflate and is generally a lot more comfortable than our 90s furniture counterparts.

 

4. Having to “rewind” tapes before we could watch them

Seriously, all your pent-up anger and frustration would come up the minute you sit down to watch a movie and realize you have to rewind the damn VHS tape.

 

5. Accidentally killing your BFF in Oregon Trail 

Seriously, only the characters named after your enemies were supposed to die of dystenary when you forded the river. Not one of your five BFFs of the moment.

 

6. Grocery Shopping is not nearly as much as fun as Supermarket Sweep made it out to be

If only we could all win prizes by running through grocery stores trying to find obscure items in less than two minutes, like the contestants on this seriously underrated Lifetime game show.

 

7. Getting signed off AOL every time the phone rings

Whether you were finally getting up the nerve to talk to your crush on AIM, in a riveting AOL chatroom (with god knows who), or playing games on FreeArcade.com (Javanoid, anyone?), there was always a great chance you would be disconnected. Stupid phone calls.

 

8. Having to choose between Backstreet Boys and NSYNC? 

You had to choose one or the other. You couldn’t be a true fan of both.

 

9. Trying not to hurt yourself every time you play with your Slip-n-Slide or ankle-breaking Moon Shoes

It was a small miracle every time you and your friends played with either toy and no one got injured.

 

10. Trying to find creative ways to use all the free AOL CDs 

Seriously, it seemed like every week you would get another two or three CDs mailed to your house. It’s too bad Pinterest wasn’t around at this time for the perfect, most unrealistic DIY projects to do with these recycled CDs.

 

11. Having to find a pencil so you can fix your broken mixed tape.

It took hours of leaving the radio on to record the perfect cassette tape, and just one second for the tape to jam up and/or unravel.

 

What was your biggest problem in the 1990s? Share below in the comment section.  

 

Jessica Malnik works with B2B SaaS and professional service firms to build marketing moat that compound over time using her signature content framework. As both a strategist and executor, she helps clients develop strategic content marketing roadmaps, scale content production, and provide guidance on campaigns and individual pieces.
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