Romanticizing the past is very well researched, social psychological phenomenon.

To keep a balanced perspective, some of us (incl. yours truly) who think recent humanity peaked in the 90s, probably benefit from the occasional reminder that shit really wasn't all sunshine and roses.

Many parents in the early 90s dealt with recession, long phases of unemployment, debt, dying old school job sectors (textile, print, unqualified manual labor etc) outsourcing and benefit cuts/ social safety net reforms. Smog, pollution, acidic rain (dying Forests), holes in the ozone layer, Rwanda, Bosnia and Boybands also put a damper on things.

But here are my two observations where the 90s and 2020s vastly differ:

(1) We used to have one, generally shared version of reality and events and you could passionately argue over the cause or the best response to said events. The facts and the arguments made on the National Political stage were generally put through the journalistic ringer (sources, science etc) and News outlets and Journalists were massively damaged or pretty much finished if it came to light that they either manipulated a story (for impact) or delivered sloppy work.

Today? A mostly shared, fact-based reality no longer exists and it is a HUGE source of generally grief, fear, anger and societal divide. I'll spare everyone my version of how we got here and why, and will just say that this is poison for any Democracy and its legitimacy and that is scary shit we 100% did not face in the 90s.

(2) On the contrary. Despite the above mentioned challenges, the 90s overall were an incredibly promising decade: oppressive autocracies (USSR, South Africa) seemed globally on their way out.
It truly seemed like democracy would organically spread as long as we helped poorer countries develop. We even had a brief moment where it looked like a 2-State solution between Israel and Palestine was possible. I have so many examples but suffice it to say, there was a feeling that humanity in rhe new millennium would finally be able to create stable peace and Democracy, mirroring what Western Europe had managed after hundreds of years of wars..

30 years later, it's almost tragic how much have regressed. War in Ukraine, War on Iran, a new autocratic Bloc forming that will likely take world leadership before we kick the bucket, so many indicators pointing to a possibility massive recession and even Civil War ahead and to top it off, we still have to look at Broccoli hair daily.

How would any Xennial who grew up in an era of so much promise, not get tired of what's going rn?