The Nineties: A Book

In the 90s, the Internet made great headways in culture. Before the internet, it was normal to just not know things. You couldn't easily look something up, especially if it happened relatively recently. There could be a communal remembrance of the "wrong" fact. With the internet it became much easier to find obscure facts. 

Growth in technology also allowed for a move from a populist culture to more niches. Blockbuster and video rental stores allowed for even the most obscure foreign movies to be watched in small towns. Compact discs helped enable independent music to have a more widespread footprint. Online music stores made it easy to find almost any music. Then Napster came around and made it easy to get a desired song for free,

Decades don't necessarily fit into their chronological time period. The 90s pretty much started with Nirvana's Nevermind, and ended with the twin towers. Nevermind was not the most popular album (Many other albums by artists such as Shania Twain, Metallica and Backstreet Boys sold more copies.) However, it espoused the ethos of the 1990s. Being "real" was important. You could be famous as long as you didn't want to be famous. The pop culture mentality of the 90s took on personal responsibility for your condition but didn't do anything about it. The world is falling apart and you are miserable. Oh well. You will not do anything about it. Even the best-selling artist of the decade, Garth Brooks, expressed this "authenticity". He was himself and made music that he liked - it just happened to be very popular.

The books is a series of interrelated essays about the 90s and the "Generation-X" that inhabited them. (Included is a discussion of the book Generation-X and how it came to signify an entire group.) The generation is smaller than the one before and after it. There are many parts of the "mythos" of the 90s that don't match the lived experience. That is all part of how our "remembrance" of things in the past is colored by our future experiences.