Forgotten Pop Culture Moments Of The 90s That Shaped History

Out of all the decades we obviously love the 90s the most. For ten years there was iconic moment after iconic moment, but not everything that changed the cultural landscape is on top of mind for most people. Some events that changed the world in significant ways have essentially been lost to time. From early internet phenomena to major moments in entertainment, we’re looking at the forgotten milestones that deserve more attention.

Friends may be a household name today, but when it premiered in 1994 it was far from a cultural juggernaut. The show quickly went from a sitcom about six friends living in New York City to the most watched show on television. Not only did Friends change the lives of the actors, but it redefined the sitcom format – and young people are still discovering the show today.

Long thrust into the dustbin of history, the Tamigotchi craze of the mid 90s is still tangible to everyone who lived through this brief, tumultuous moment. What millennial didn’t have their virtual pet taken away by a teacher, only to get it back, totally dead, at the end of the day? This may seem like a flash in the pan fad, but it paved the way for app based games that we obsess over to this day.

When the Spice Girls hit they hit hard. Were they a manufactured pop group? Sure. But they had killer songs and plenty of girl power to go around. The group only stuck around in the American cultural consciousness for a few years and a couple of albums, but they made “girl power” into a defining third wave feminist mantra of the 90s.

Online celebrities weren’t a thing in the 90s. How could they be? The amount of people online at the time was nothing like what it is today, and no one really knew how to become “famous” via Netscape. That changed when Jennifer Ringley live-streamed her life online via JenniCam. You probably don’t remember JenniCam, but through this real life Truman Show Ringley paved the way for modern day social media influencers.

In 1999, everything changed thanks to Napster. One day, if someone wanted to listen to a song they had to go to a record store and buy an album with that song on it, possibly burning $15 bucks on a bunch of tracks they didn’t want. And the next day, they could log onto Napster and download that same song for free. Not only did Napster change the way we consume media but it brought a swift end to the traditional music business as it existed in the 20th century.

In the early 90s Tupac and Biggie were on top of the world. They were both young, rich, black men who were able to put out party jams just as easily as they could wax philosophic about life on the streets, so when they were both murdered (Tupac in 96, Biggie in 97) under mysterious circumstances the world stopped to take notice. Their deaths led to a shift in the hip hop world away from gangsta rap as the media wondered aloud if violence in music related to the real world.

You may not think of Baywatch as an important TV show, you may not even think of Baywatch at all, but this show about hot lifeguards who solve mysteries absolutely changed television in the 90s. When Baywatch premiered it wasn’t through traditional means. Rather than pitch a pilot to one of the four major networks at the time (NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox), the show’s creators took Baywatch straight to syndication. That means that whoever wanted to play Baywatch could put it on their channel all for a price. Through the success of Baywatch, television creators were able to market their shows to distributors for a sweetheart deal that made it so they didn’t have to go through traditional means. And to think it all started with lifeguards running in slow motion down the beach.

When grunge hit the mainstream it didn’t just change music, it created a shift in fashion. Gone were the skin tight, dayglo looks of the 80s. Instead, young people opted for a more raw, unpolished look that felt more tied to reality. Even though the Seattle scene was only on top of the charts for a few years, the look of the grunge era permeated the rest of the decade.

Launched in 1995, the X-Games brought extreme sports to the mainstream. This may not sound like a big deal, but the X-Games influenced everything from fashion, to entertainment, and culture. Suddenly, kids in the Midwest were dressing like SoCal skaters and listening to bands like Pennywise and NOFX. Today, the X-Games spirit is still going strong with events like Skateboarding and Snowboarding in the Olympics.

It’s inarguable that Harry Potter’s dominance is deeply entrenched in the 2000s, but when Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was released in Britain in 1997 it started a revolution that reshaped literature. At the time, no one knew that this little story about a boy magician living under his uncle’s staircase would grab the world by the imagination and never look back, but nearly 30 years later the long-running book series has spawned a billion dollar film franchise, video games, and an upcoming series.