What are some things you missed most from the 90s and 00s?
For me the top 3 that came to mind:
Less foreigners and crowds, specifically before the mid 00s. The foreigners that were here were either the top execs or working in low paying manual jobs. Much less competition for the average Singaporean. Everything changed when they opened the floodgates in the mid 00s.
People were less materialistic, elitist and judgemental. No IG and TikTok and people were not pressured to compared with one another and becoming so unhappy.
The most iconic movies were made in the 90s, like Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Titanic and the whole lot of Disney cartoons. Same thing for mediacorp tv shows. Nowadays the movies and shows used too much CGI, stories are complicated and difficult to follow and acting standards certainly dropped.
Netizens’ comments
- Taking a bus to a “faraway” place that isn’t serviced by mrt felt like an epic journey. Back then the combination of less-available bus information and our young naivety made it feel like an epic undertaking.
In primary school I remember hearing about a Tamiya car shop somewhere in tampines. My friends and I drooled at the kind of rare parts we might find there that weren’t available in our local shop in Toa Payoh.
We used the school library computer, on its 56kpbs connection (might’ve been 10kbps, slow as hell for sure), to try find information on where this particular shopblock was. No one knew how to read maps and we barely understood the internet as more than the platform where we play neopets.
Well we found the block, planned out which busses to take, what bus to take home if we get lost, and packed water and snacks. Met up at the bus interchange and went on an epic journey to the east to hunt for legendary tamiya parts and perhaps race with the strangers who lived in those strange distant lands.
It was nerve wracking because our parents weren’t involved and all the roads looked the same, except we knew we were far as hell from our comfortable hdb estate.
We made it to the shop eventually. Spent some money on motors and other carbon fibre parts that weren’t available back home. Spoke with some uncles who had thousands of dollars in the hobby and big toolboxes. 10/10 wish I could experience another adventure like that. - Me: Watching Cardcaptor Sakura on Saturday morning in my pajamas on Kids Central.
My husband: Watching chinese dub Digimon Adventures on Sunday morning on channel 8. - The weather.
I was in primary school in late 90s, early 2000s. I remember I could walk back home in the middle of the day (~1-3pm) and not really break a sweat.
Try doing that now, I think can die lol. - Memories of buses…
The bus driver uncles would pretend they’re race car drivers, and execute a downshift on the manual transmission before a turn just so they could punch it out of the corner. Obviously, it was a bus so we weren’t going fast, but it sure felt exciting.
When it started raining, passengers would close all the windows without prompting. But the bus would quickly fog up and the driver would furiously wipe the inside surface of the windshield at every opportunity, like at stoplights. Sometimes the bus would be quite empty when it started raining so we’ll end up with drenched seats that no one wanted to sit on.
Maintaining your student concession bus pass through the year was a challenge. Mine was always pretty ragged after just half a year’s use because they had this rule about no lamination. Monthly stamps were so inexpensive back then, and they were good for every service at every hour. We sure made use of that perk during the weekends when we would go explore different parts of the country.
Recalling even further back, I have vague memories of riding the bus with my grandma. There were a driver and a ticket master who gave out punched paper tickets. I still have no clue how that system worked, as when I started traveling independently on buses, we had already switched to single operator with the coin box (many variants) with no tickets. The paper tickets came back later via auto-dispensers.
Fond memories…all. - You don’t miss the 90s, you miss being a kid without responsibilities because your parents tanked all that shit for you in the 90s.
Images source: Mike Lynch and Exploring Life via Wikipedia Commons and