Gen Z Is Looking Back At The 1990s And Realizing What America Lost

Gen Z is having a moment — not in the “It Girl” kind of way, deserving the paparazzi spotlight because it has particular talents, looks, or other … assets. Quite the opposite. Gen Z, the generational group born from 1997 to the early aughts of the 21st century, is emotionally marred by its technological umbilical cord, ADHD, and COVID-induced psychological distress.

This Gen Z moment is more akin to a mid-midlife crisis. And what better cure than a longing for the halcyon days of yore: the 1990s. If your generation is defined by a lack of rebelliousness, social isolation, and emotional cope, then why not live out your fantasies indulging in the wildly innocent and spontaneous authenticity of a world unsoiled by social media, doomscrolling, and the precarious teetering on the edge of ecological, political, and economic collapse that your Boomer grandparents have heaped on your conscience? Of course, relief would only be found in longing for the days of mix tapes, Must See TV, and meeting friends at the mall arcade (IRL!).

Gen Z’s ’90s infatuation is a reminder of what we had and what we lost. A culture grounded in an analogue world, a freedom untethered from 24/7 hyperattentive neuroses based on social media antisocialism, and a freewheeling, spontaneous in-the-moment reality where politics and culture and entertainment still had defined boundaries, and America was, for the most part, an outward-looking, optimistic culture obsessed with collective cohesion, not division.

We’ve seen this coming. It makes perfect sense that kids who never owned a physical thing, let alone burn CDs, copy movies from television onto VHS, or take a date out to the local Blockbuster Video (Netflix and chill has nothing on the suggestive power of “Basic Instinct” or “Wild Things”), would now have extensive vinyl record collections, buy Criterion Collection film DVDs or be snapping up back issues of magazines on eBay.

“Friends,” “Seinfeld,” “Sex and the City,” the Vogue aesthetic, and NYC glamour have newfound cachet. Hell, with the rise of GLP-1 inhibitors, heroin-skinny chic is even back with a fervor (just ask Demi Moore). So it’s only natural that the “It Couple of America’s” style capital — John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy — have found a resurrection among this generation. From Bessette’s killer headbands and Calvin Klein fashion to a Washington Square Park JFK, Jr. lookalike contest, this Love Story is the perfect form of escapism. The tabloid favs predated Bennifer and Brangelina and offered relationship drama that Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt only dreamed of.

Lawrence Schwartzwald/Sygma via Getty Images

But if there are takeaways from Gen Z’s emotional support decade, it’s that we can’t go back in time, but we can try to recapture the idealism of our past, even if it’s a pieced-together, imperfect idealism, akin to what JFK, Jr. embodied in his own life with the launch of his George magazine in 1995. It was a hope found in a nation of possibilities rather than one of victims or grievances, and “not just politics as usual,” as its tagline pronounced.

George had it all: celebrity cachet to chaperone the political party, think “Nerd Prom” well before Ana Marie Cox stole the moniker from San Diego’s Comic-Con, and with a self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek cheekiness completely absent in today’s self-important political spheres. This was vibes before vibe-maxxing was a thing; TMZ a decade before its celeb-skewering snark; politics merging with entertainment before The Donald came down the golden escalator.

In a way, JFK, Jr. and George were prophetic but also too good to appreciate in their own time, and too romantic and authentic for today. It would be unthinkable now for the son of President John F. Kennedy to put a too-cute Drew Barrymore evoking Marilyn Monroe, the sexy starlet who famously crooned for and canoodled with the 35th president, in that dress on the cover of his magazine. It was a figurative nesting doll of iconographic Americana. Kennedy explained the choice on an “Oprah Winfrey Show” appearance in 1996: “Bill Clinton turned 50 two days after we went on sale, as an editor, that is a colossal opportunity that you can’t let pass.” Gen Z would lap that up faster than a collagen smoothie.

But in the 1990s, that was the atmosphere proving Andrew Breitbart’s leitmotif that politics is downstream from culture. But George did it in a noncombative, approachable way. Supermodels, sports stars, screen legends, and gossip mingled with serious interviews with George Wallace and profiles of politicos such as Newt Gingrich, poking holes in the pious and self-important world of politics. It certainly defies today’s carefully curated, protect-the-brand-at-all-costs ethos.

Why so serious, Gen Z? Laugh a little! JFK, Jr. and George showed that nothing should be so precious, even your own legendary family. It’s doubtful that Hunter Biden would allow his father’s name, image, or likeness to appear anywhere near an ad — or mock ad — for dementia care, or even Baskin-Robbins. 

Gen Z missed out on real comedy and genuine, innocent fun. The 1990s were a time when late-night talk shows were actually funny and reflected collective cultural entertainment, not just vehicles for applause harvesting and woke scolds. Hollywood was still interested in making movies people wanted to see, and New York City was the center of the universe and a destination for dreamers and tourists; it was possible to meet your future spouse at a bar (when young people went to bars), ride the subway without fear of being pushed onto the tracks, or exist as a Jew. Instead, NYC has a mayor who seems hellbent on rolling the city back to the gritty urban decay of the 1970s — think “Taxi Driver” and “Mean Streets” — albeit with a touch of antisemitism and domestic terror attacks. Charming! Those films should be cautionary tales, not #Goals.

It’s no wonder Gen Z is looking back. When you’re promised the world and instead you get an IOU, you look for happier times where you can find them — even in the pages of long-lost magazines and People’s Sexiest Man Alive when he was…still alive.

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Jenna Stocker is editor and publisher of American Experiment’s quarterly magazine. A former Marine Corps officer, Stocker also contributes to The Federalist and National Review.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.