Amayzine

11 things we miss from the nineties

By
Kim Kardashian laughing with an old phone in her hands

When I started Amayzine, there was a DVD of a documentary about Bergdorf Goodman in our goodie bag. We thought that was so cool because not only did you get that amazing DVD (Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s), but also had Daan arranged for Bergdorf  to send two hundred matching bags. From New York to our Pilotenstraat, indeed. Now a DVD is now in the same category as the LP and the spinning wheel, in other words, in the museum. ‘I miss the DVD,’ sighed Lot. And one thing led to another. So here’s our list of what we miss from the nineties.

1. The video store
Going there was really an outing. Browsing through all the movies, giggling at that dirty men’s porn corner, stocking up on Häagen Dasz ice cream (that was the Ben and Jerry’s of the time, so to speak) and definitely getting a reprimand because you hadn’t paid the fine from the last time and because you never rewound your tapes properly. Try explaining that to your kids later; that their poor mother still rented movies from the video store.

2. The Free Record Shop
Just visiting these huge stores. Their selection of the best albums, the little bar where you could listen to a CD with headphones on and where everyone would move like a kind of silent disco avant la lettre to their song.

3. Vinyl
The first thing you did on a new date was to sniff through their DVD or vinyl collection. Checking out the cover, also the inner sleeve, reading the lyrics, seeing who the producer was, in other words: adoring and giving attention to a whole album. And then the moment the needle landed on the vinyl. Magical. Okay, we also had mice in our Amsterdam apartment that would hide beautifully among the thousand records, but we won’t talk about that further.

4. Your father-in-law burning DVDs for you
That was something, you know. With illegally downloaded movies on them. Wow.

5. Using words like cool, awesome, flashy, trendy and that sort of thing

6. Acid jazz and house music

7. MSN-ing
Of course with our own MSN language: o = 0, w8 ff, brb (my mom is calling me to eat: brb), wjnmk (never want to lose you), nwly (never want to lose you), bf4l (best friends for life).

8. Nintendo Game Boy
How happy were we with that?

9. Snaking on your Nokia
How cool did we think that was?

10. Anastacia

You know, with that tight belly and those colored glasses

11. Bodypump

Bodypump! To Anastacia!