Things People Believed In The 90's That Don't Hold Up Today

[Denim&Venöm 16,464]

What are somethings that seeemed very certain, taken as fact or old practices that stood true in the 90's but hold no weight now.?

 

Ex: You need to practice cursive. Because you always use cursive in college. 

 

Cell phones blow up gas stations

 

Apple computers was gonna go bankrupt. 

 

A college degree guarantees you a career. 

 

 

 

Your turn

[Moved to Elsewhere 11,328]

That when the year 2000 hit, computers would crash and nuclear missiles would launch, destroying the planet.

 

Yeah people really didn't understand how technology works.

[Steel Accord 6,658]

Following the "nobody knows how tech works" that things like cameras, editing equipment, and basically everything it takes to make movies or other creative content couldn't be democratized. That such was the domain of Hollywood and little elsewhere.

 

Also there was that Mayan doomsday prophecy of 2012 that complete idiots or misanthropes believed and were actually hoping for.

[Scrubbed user 3,415]

"You'll never carry a calculator with you everyday."

[CaptainDoubloon 856]

Y2K. I never believed anything bad would happen.

[Mesme Rize 15,681]

There was still a large number of people, that believed that wrestling was real. Today, it has been so exposed to the public, that almost everybody knows that it's choreographed.

[God Of The Void 296]

There was still a large number of people, that believed that wrestling was real. Today, it has been so exposed to the public, that almost everybody knows that it's choreographed.

My uncle still thinks that it's real, regardless of the numerous times he's been told otherwise! *smirk* He's so stubborn! LOL!

[Unikitty 1,211]

That these were okay and not already outdated by the turn into the decade.

 

 

[Shanks 10,811]

The government can be trusted: there are still a disturbing number of people that believe this, but more and more people are finally starting to realize how corrupt everything is.

 

The "prosperity" of the 90's would last forever: to be fair people thought the same thing during the Roaring 20's, but just like in the 20's most Americans didn't know that it was merely the boom phase of a bubble that would inevitably burst.

 

Video games are for kids: there are still people who believe this but with video games becoming more mainstream they are now starting to rival movies in terms of influence on popular culture. 

[Kronos the Revenant 1,971]

By the time we hit 2015, everyone will have hoverboards and self-tying shoes and hovercars. Welp, it's 2016. Where's our hovering vehicles?

 

Also, some people said that all Americans will have personal helicopters by the year 2000. To this day, only very rich or important people have private helicopters.

[cmarston1 5,951]

That the 90's were the best decade for animation.

[Shanks 10,811]

That the 90's were the best decade for animation.

That is kind of something people believe much more now actually, partly due to nostalgia bias and partly due to overall decline in the quality of entertainment that happened around the late 90's to 2000's. There is still good stuff, but it is a bit harder to find.

[Pripyat Pony 2,608]

Cell phones blow up gas stations

 

You still shouldn't use one while pumping fuel or walking around the forecourt. Where I work, the main concern about mobile phones is that, while using them, people are putting themselves at risk of spilling fuel, or getting hit by cars, cuz they're not concentrating on the task at hand but on what their bestie did last night. The same rings true for pedestrian accidents as a whole; they have doubled in five years due to people too busy texting/calling/catching Pokemon to realise that they're about to walk in front of a car.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2344933/Pedestrian-mobile-phone-injuries-DOUBLE-years.html

 

Anyway, back on topic.

 

* Cracking your knuckles gives you arthritis.

 

* Neanderthal Man died out for being too stupid to live.

 

* The ozone layer had a hole in it caused by use of aerosols and it was BAD.

 

* King Tutankhamen was murdered.

 

* We would holiday on the moon by 2010.

 

* Pluto is a planet.

 

* Mobile phones in the 2010s would be teeny tiny.

[Anneal 2,194]

Now for something less obvious and subjective:

 

Back in the 1990s, autism cases started jumping up as more and more people were aware of the disorder, though not as much people understood it. The most popular treatment as the time was "facilitated communication", which was based on the beliefs that autistic people could have verbal abilities within their disorder. A helper attempts to communicate with autistics by asking questions and then assisting them to respond in different ways, such as typing or pointing at letters. 

 

The reports on it were very promising, and many were convinced that it worked, but some psychologists were skeptical and started experiments on autistic children, believing that the treatment was flawed and that the helpers may have been guiding them instead. Sure enough, their concerns were true and it was shown that facilitated communication was a pseudo-scientific therapy.

 

This actually hurt some families with autistic children that some countries ended up denying the studies. In the late 90s it was a big mess, with accusations of families when facilitated communication didn't work or even abuse towards these children. In 2003 the American Psychological Association officially debunked the therapy.

 

So it no longer holds up in the U.S. today. It still remains popular in Australia and Germany, however, along with some other countries, and is sometimes used as a scam for desperate families. It's something the international psychology organizations have been concerned about for a while. 

Edited August 29, 2016 by Sealand

[Light of Night 332]

From a very close source, as I'm a late-90s child.

 

• America would never be attacked.
• The world would end.
• That I am most certainly a kidnapped Asian child illegally adopted by my white father.  My white BIOLOGICAL father.

Edited August 29, 2016 by Light of Night

[Anneal 2,194]

Now that I think of it, there's a few other interesting myths that held well in the 90s but is throughly debunked now:

 

Eating fat makes you fat: Now with many people aware of nutrition, this myth has been thrown into the trash can. Not all fats are the same, and some are in fact helpful. This was a pretty popular phrase in the 90s where organizations were heavily anti-fat, though most nutritionists today will tell you that low-calorie diets help much more than low-fat and low-carb diets, in addition with good exercise. Even then, there are other vitamins and minerals that play a game.

 

The food pyramid: Still holds up a bit, but it's been shown less recently and it's more of a 2000s myth. Based on many factors you may have to eat more or less food, such as age, nutritional needs, activity, and so on. Not all sugars are equal, either, and it doesn't distinguish well between bad fat and oil and good fat and oil. Eating fish is not the same as a bag of potato chips. 

 

Mastrubation is bad: Made as a reaction to the sex revolution in the 70s; for a while the US was pretty conservative about sex in general and taught in schools that mastrubating was bad. Current studies say it's a good stress reliever and prevents sexual frustration, which means this is clearly wrong. 

 

The divorce rate was going up: Not really. In the 90s it was starting to drop, mostly because of birth control and late marriages, and now in the 2010s part of it is associated with changing gender roles. But from the 90s and even now we're still a bit convinced that divorce rates are getting worse.

 

Actually, this is still held up, so I don't know...

[Scrubbed user 3,415]

* Mobile phones in the 2010s would be teeny tiny.

 

They were, but then sometime in 2007-2008, we realized we could watch porn on them, so now we have phones where a 5 inch screen is considered "small".

Edited August 30, 2016 by Vulon Bii

[Twilight Frost 271]

Y2K

Having a College Degree guarantees you a job

There will always be enough full time jobs for everyone to have as long as they are not lazy. ( Total crock of lies that was.)

CD is the future!

The internet is just a FAD...TROLOLOLOLOLOLOOO!!!!!

[Pripyat Pony 2,608]

Here's more:

 

* The invention of CDs would make vinyl obsolete.

 

* Poinsettia plants are deadly poison and if you eat one, you will die in agony.

 

* Killer bees would swarm over the world in a deadly epidemic.

 

* There were Satanic cults that sacrificed thousands of children a year.

[Choros Isorropai 409]

wow, no one has said this... some one has gotten close! but only because its the government/private industry.....

 

*drum roll*

 

PRIVACY.... back in the 90s(time of Hackers with angelina jolie)

now look at all the cameras, microphones, taps, tails, and other forms of investigations...

quite literally, because of the internet and the prevalence of technology we are in the age of almost no privacy...

[Ruthborn 55]

Also, some people said that all Americans will have personal helicopters by the year 2000. To this day, only very rich or important people have private helicopters.

 

We have drones though. Which are pretty much mini-helicopters.

wow, no one has said this... some one has gotten close! but only because its the government/private industry.....

 

*drum roll*

 

PRIVACY.... back in the 90s(time of Hackers with angelina jolie)

now look at all the cameras, microphones, taps, tails, and other forms of investigations...

quite literally, because of the internet and the prevalence of technology we are in the age of almost no privacy...

 

Well, considering what some people have done I'm pretty sure there's a reason why we can't be trusted with "privacy" any more.

[Luminance 2,181]

In that Korean cars are bad cars. Look at where Hyundai and Kia is at now, they're everywhere and successful.

 

Cheap gas inflation adjusted of course.

[Yellow Diamond 7,561]

If I remember correctly, the prevailing wisdom in the 90s was that cell phones were essentially limited to people with expendable incomes. Granted, at the time they were, and their utility remained extremely limited in comparison to the modern smartphone. I don't think most people (including myself) could have foreseen phones making the jump from clunky trinkets to essential commodities, though.

 

The same holds true for high speed internet service. Like everyone else, I had dial-up; if you knew somebody with cable internet, that was a big deal. Now dial-up is essentially dead, and it's assume most everyone who has home internet has service in terms of megabytes per second rather than kilobytes.

 

CDs were also going to supplant cassettes and floppy disks. In many ways, they did -- but the essential properties of a floppy disk (that is, a read/write data device with no moving parts) were then ported to flash drives. ZIP disks ended up as the awkward middle child between CDs (which were limited in terms of space and customization) and flash drives. Now very few people rely on CDs, thanks to the aforementioned availability of high speed internet. Seriously, a service like Steam keeps all of your data stored so that you won't ever have to worry about losing the CD (or the jewel case with the security code!) or your hard drive.

 

Downloading music was a faux pas of sorts toward the end of the 90s. Remember Metallica taking Napster to court? I do. Plus, malware and viruses festered on downloading sites like Morpheus. Fast forward to today and just about everyone safely downloads and purchases music online. Music CDs are something of a novelty (not to mention expensive). That's an enormous change from the 1990s.

[Zyrael 1,471]

"cartoons are for kids"

 

 

airplanes are safe

[Wind Chaser 4,767]

airplanes are safe

It's still far safer than driving. How many planes crashed yesterday? This week? This month? How many roads are blocked up by car crashes today?

 

http://traveltips.usatoday.com/air-travel-safer-car-travel-1581.html

 

Even so, the aircraft we have today are safer thanks to technological advancements. You can't eliminate all accidents, but many that would have happened in the past don't happen today.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Wind Chaser