Is it that the 90s were the best or nostalgia from people who grew up in the 90s? People have nostalgia from when the grew up because it was the world they were used to and they were experiencing it as young adult.

Do people from older generations think the 90s were the best? Do people from younger generations think 90s was great when told about it?

It is truly both. Like I said, with the aging up of the millennials, get ready for a lot of 90s nostalgia not unlike when boomers drove the swing revival of the '90s. Cyclical cultural trends based on generation.

But at the same time, the '90s do seem rather exceptional as a time in between conflicts- the Cold War, which in some ways is an outgrowth of the end of WWII, itself an outgrowth of WWI, was over. The anxieties of living in a post-bipolar world, of dealing with dangerous non-state actors or multipolar rivals to the American order, had not formalized yet. If anything, most of the world seemed to be getting along under the capitalist liberal democratic framework that Fukuyama called the End of History. So from a security standpoint it certainly seemed peaceful.

Yes, I remember the 80's as well, and while I have nostalgia for the bright colors and Lisa Frank aesthetic and music and so on, I have no desire to live in the 80's again. But the 90's were special.

I personally have a time travel rule that I wouldn't want to live before penicillin, vaccines, and novocaine. That really doesn't leave much of human history. But the 90's in the US and Western Europe were nice.

> a time of boundless optimism and futurism in America, and both the 2000s ... completely upended that.

Only upended because people fell for the whole "terrorism" con.

(also we were ignoring the former Yugoslavia, as well as the entire FSU in general — but IMNSHO "terrorism" was an unforced error.)

The West was, sure, but then it seemed like the intervention was pretty successful. It was internationally approved, got rid of Milošević, didn't run into any long-term nation-building woes as with all of the War on Terror operations. Of course, during it there were the seeds of future conflicts to come- the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the standoff with Russian forces at Pristina airport that future pop star James Blunt had to defuse to prevent WWIII.

Well we can now watch that 90s show ....sort of sequel to that 70s show. 90s are generally good year for America because economies were good. Entering Bush and Obama years by comparisons, terrible.