"The Macarena" and other sins of the 90's

I was browsing over at Escapist magazine a couple days ago and happened to stumble upon (as opposed to stepping on, right?) and article about fashions decades. The author, known as "Spanner", had this to say about the 90's:

The '90s bore the burden of a half century of teeny bopping, disco dancing, punk rocking, jive talking gaudiness, and the children of that decade chose to be depressingly discerning. The fools refused to sacrifice themselves on the ostentatious altar of bad taste, and while this might make holiday photos far more tolerable 10 years hence, an entire decade now goes unrecognized.

No one ever says, "Oh my god. That's, like, soooo '90s." And why would you? People were well dressed, comedy was intelligent, the general populous worked hard (and smart), music was tuneful; it was boring as fuck. - Spanner, "Identity of a decade".Link goes here

Im just gonna have to stop him there.

I responded to him in his articles comment section about a number of different embaressing trends, but i think ill start here with the most blatently obvious:

The Macarena.

There, i just invalidated his entire statement. But for the sake of the younglings present, ill explain.

"The Macarena", much like "Walk like an Egyptian" before it, was a song that required its participants to dance. Written by Los Del Rios, the dance involved extending your hands... honestly i don't remember how you did the dance. I just remember everyone was doing this goddamn dance. They're used to be parties of people, with fields... endless fields... of Macarena dancers.

Retrospectively, the funniest thing about this dance was the fact that everyone (moms, dads, kids, grandparents and the family dog) was dancing to this song. However, i wonder if middle America would feel the same way if they listened to the lyrics:

Now don't you worry about my boyfriend
The boy who's name is Vitorino
I don't want him, couldn't stand him
He was no good so I
Now come on, what was I suppose to do
He was out of town and his two friends were so fine - Los Del Rios, "Macarena"

So essentially, little old grandmas and Elementary school teachers were dancing to a song about a girl having three way sex with her boyfriend's mates.

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Fun Times!

But the 90's was more than just a piss poor song about a hooker. Just a few more pardon shots on the 90's, told to you by the boy who became a man in them:

Ray-Ban Sunglasses- These really took off in 97 when they were featured in the movie "Men in Black" with Will Smith. I really don't see why, come to think of it. They look just like regular sunglasses, except a little darker. even so, i took to these things like they were a goddamn holy relic.

Okay well, i didn't really wear them per se. Ray-ban sunglasses cost upwards of $50 and I couldn't quite pull it off on a 12 year old's salary. Still, i was able to convince my mother to buy me some cheap 10 dollar imitations from Thrifty's. Hence, the illusion was maintained. I still remember going to our Christian convention (i was Christian back then) in my dress suit and ray-ban-esque sunglasses, pulling out my silver-coated pen/ neuralizer and telling girls to "stare at my little red light".

Flanel and torn jeans (grunge look)- Yeah, Kurt Cobain started this one. For a while every alternative and punk fan wanted to don faded flanel with torn jeans and move to Seattle. The whole "my clothes are tattered, just like my dreams" aesthetic was popular with high school misfits. Being a former high school misfit myself, i can understand that somewhat. Sadly, it was 99 when I started high school so i missed out on the grunge look. Some of you might wonder what the whole point was, but you should remember that it was started by Kurt Cobain and if the suicidal king of apathetic Alternative rock music thought it was cool, who the fuck are you to argue?

POGs- Lets get one thing straight: I have no fucking idea why these went away and fervently await their revival!

POGs were little cardboard, plastic, and metal discs used in a game. You play by placing you and your opponents cardboard POGs on a stack. during your turn, you pick up the metal or plastic ones, called "slammers", and throw them down on the stack as hard as you can. Any that land face up are considered a point (and, if playing for keeps, are yours). Whoever turns up the most wins.

For a brief glittering moment in 1994, you were no one among the Elementary school crowd unless you had POGs. Schoolyard alliances were forged and destroyed over these things. Soon, roving POG gangs began to form, who would challenge rival gangs to POG wars. Songs were sung. Innocences corrupted. Lives lost. Civilization as we knew it reduced to ash and and broken brick. And my gang rose to power, calling ourselves "The Dead Rabbits", quashing the tattered pulp of society under our leather clad jack boots!

...... which is probably why my school banned them... after which, we all just started playing tether-ball again.... *Ahem*

IN conclusion, I think the issue that Mr. Spanner has with the 90's is that he and the rest of us are not far enough from the decade to be looking at it retrospectively yet. From my observation, decades do not pass completely into retrospective observation until you are a full decade away from a decade. Because lets face it: some people are still into the fashions and trends of the 90's un-ironically.

Hell, I still wear my Black leather Trench coat, A-la "The Matrix"