90s References, Nostalgia, and Anachronisms in LFE

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Discuss any 90s references used on the show (as well as any 90s mistakes you catch) here! Feel free to wax nostalgic about the late 90s.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

90s references from the first episode that totally brought me back:

• the Spice Girls (on the cover of YM, no less)
• The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
• the Ricki Lake show
• The Real World: Boston (I still can't believe that Sean the lumberjack married Rachel from San Francisco and they now have NINE kids)

[betha]

Nooobody said “our computer lab is great, we’ve got dial-up!” in the 90s. Phone-line based internet service wasn’t called “dial-up” until there was something better to compare it to.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

11 hours ago, betha said:

Nooobody said “our computer lab is great, we’ve got dial-up!” in the 90s. Phone-line based internet service wasn’t called “dial-up” until there was something better to compare it to.

I agree. Back in ye olden days, people just said they had the internet. No one referred to it as dial up until there were options faster than dial up.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

My favorite 90s references in the second episode were Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Fiona Apple.

I appreciate that the writers made the effort to be accurate about Buffy being in reruns when this episode took place (S2 began on September 15).

Additionally, the MTV VMAs were held on September 4th that year, which is when Fiona Apple gave her famous "life is bullshit" acceptance speech which Izzy referenced.

[txhorns79]

Quote

Nooobody said “our computer lab is great, we’ve got dial-up!” in the 90s. Phone-line based internet service wasn’t called “dial-up” until there was something better to compare it to.

In 1997, my high school had broadband access to the internet.  I remember this quite clearly because it was so much easier to surf the internet at school than at home. 

[peachmangosteen]

4 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

In 1997, my high school had broadband access to the internet. 

Damn!

[txhorns79]

1 hour ago, peachmangosteen said:

Damn!

It was a very new thing, and I might be thinking of DSL v. something we have today, but what we had was definitely well beyond simple dial up connections like you might have at your house.

[CurlyATX]

On 3/29/2020 at 12:48 PM, txhorns79 said:

In 1997, my high school had broadband access to the internet.  I remember this quite clearly because it was so much easier to surf the internet at school than at home. 

Dang! I was working in 1998 and vividly remember how we  used dial up (with that hideous sound). 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The third episode as full of great 90s references!

• 90210
• Snapple
• Lilith Fair
• pager codes
• Sugar Ray
• Street Fighter
• Tyson Beckford
• Chumbawumba

[ElectricBoogaloo]

There weren't as many 90s references in the fourth episode but they were some pretty big ones!

• Jenny McCarthy/Carmen Electra
• more Lilith Fair
• the Spice Girls!

I remember the days when MTV had Singled Out and some other ridiculous shows! That's the kind of brainless entertainment that might be relaxing now that we're quarantined.

I loved that both Izzie and Serena dressed up as Posh. Pearl looked awesome as Scary Spice.

[Zima]

All of the scenes of them reading physical copies of newspapers remind me of how different things were back then in that respect.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The best 90s references in the fifth episode:

• the Arch Deluxe vs the McRib
• Anita Hill vs Paula Jones
• Alanis Morissette

I know it can be hard to remember now but Alanis Morissette was inescapable in the 90s!

 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Episode six was 80s references since it was a flashback ep. The one that really stuck out to me as super 80s was Linda mentioning Hotel New Hampshire.

Lots of art references (Warhol, Richard Prince) and fun music references (the Tom Tom Club, Grandmaster Flash). And we did get one 90s reference at the end of the episode (Meredith Brooks' "Bitch").

Edited April 9, 2020 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Welp]

Those diapers in the background when Elena was at the drugstore were definitely modern-day Pampers Pure, lol.

[peachmangosteen]

7 hours ago, Welp said:

Those diapers in the background when Elena was at the drugstore were definitely modern-day Pampers Pure, lol.

I thought the same thing! It was distracting tbh.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

1.7 references

• Borders - RIP!
• AIM - again, RIP.
• 90210 again (April's screen name) - this cracked me up!
• Magnolia Bakery - made famous by 90s show Sex and the City
• Poison Ivy - OMG, classic 90s movie!

The wardrobe and hair were perfect as always, from the baby tees to the hair twists.

The music in this episode was great too - Garbage, Collective Soul, 2Pac.

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Zima]

Also in 1.7, a cover of Pictures of You by The Cure!

Does anyone else get super nostalgic for Dawson's Creek every time they hear Joshua Jackson say, "Previously, on Little Fires Everywhere"? I bet they have him doing that voice-over intentionally for that purpose. 

 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

1.8

• UB40 - I used to love that song!
• Gattaca, Excess Baggage, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Men in Black, A Simple Wish, Spawn,

[betha]

I was just reading that Reese Witherspoon and Joshua Jackson would take the teen actors out for dinner to bond as a family and tell them what it was like to be a teenager in the 90s 🥰. And tell them about filming Cruel Intentions.

it all seems so natural to me to see their teen 90s lives but must be so strange for kids today watching to see all these teens without smartphones. 

I loved hearing the AIM sounds.

for anachronisms in 1.8- Mirabelle’s room. That large soft cutesy stuffed unicorn? No. Not only was that not around in the 90s, you could really only find it in the past couple of years. 

In 1997- I think pillow creatures were in. Flat pillow stuffed animals with head and feet. 

 

 

 

[MilkMachine]

On 4/24/2020 at 8:08 AM, betha said:

I was just reading that Reese Witherspoon and Joshua Jackson would take the teen actors out for dinner to bond as a family and tell them what it was like to be a teenager in the 90s 🥰. And tell them about filming Cruel Intentions

Whoa, I totally forgot he was in that.

[lu1535]

I loved Elena's car phone. What a chunk of hardware.

There were a few phrases used that were not around in the 90s. The one that sticks in my mind was Trip using the term "friendzone". I don't remember ever hearing that back then.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 3/29/2020 at 8:10 PM, txhorns79 said:

It was a very new thing, and I might be thinking of DSL v. something we have today, but what we had was definitely well beyond simple dial up connections like you might have at your house.

Weren't early high speed internet options being rolled out to consumers around that time. I would have been in 2nd year University in 97 and if we still had dial up it would have been on its way out I think. I remember the big deal about early high speed back then was not so much the speed but the fact that it didn't tie up a phone line and you weren't charged by the minute for use. So it seems odd that any kid, especially a kind of nerdy kid like Moody, especially in an affluent community like Shaker Heights would be bragging about dial up.

On 4/8/2020 at 11:03 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Episode six was 80s references since it was a flashback ep. The one that really stuck out to me as super 80s was Linda mentioning Hotel New Hampshire.

Lots of art references (Warhol, Richard Prince) and fun music references (the Tom Tom Club, Grandmaster Flash). And we did get one 90s reference at the end of the episode (Meredith Brooks' "Bitch").

There was also the sad reference to how Pauline's old house guest was in the hospital (I think they mentioned pneumonia). Which pretty strongly implied that he had HIV/AIDS (which hadn't been identified or named in 1981)

Edited May 26, 2020 by Kel Varnsen

[betha]

On 4/17/2020 at 9:37 PM, Zima said:

Does anyone else get super nostalgic for Dawson's Creek every time they hear Joshua Jackson say, "Previously, on Little Fires Everywhere"? I bet they have him doing that voice-over intentionally for that purpose. 

Yes, every time.

[Inquisitionist]

I seem to recall numerous mentions of Jerry Springer in the book, but perhaps audiences have forgotten who he is.

[dogmadealer]

The show is set in 1983 and yet it inserts mid-2000s social sensibilities, wraps it in mid-90s pop culture, and ties a 1980s ribbon around it. I love the show but there’s a lot that just snaps you out of its pretense.

A white homecoming dance DJ working turn tables with modern looking headphones around his neck? Didn’t happen in small town flyover country in the 80s. More like 2010. 

Black teenage boys dating rich white girls in an affluent, snow white Suburban Ohio enclave? And their parents were cool with it? Wouldn’t have happened.

References to Chumba Wumba, 12 Monkeys, and a lesbian Ellen Degenres decades before she even became super famous much less came out of the closet?

Cell phones and handheld personal camcorders? Even car cell phones were more of a 90s thing. But tiny camcorders like the one that appeared at the baby shower scene didn’t even exist until the late 2000s.

It’s sloppy writing. Why not just set it in 2010? The 80s thing is just a sentimental gimmick. 
 

[CraftyHazel]

On 1/28/2022 at 6:00 PM, dogmadealer said:

The show is set in 1983 and yet it inserts mid-2000s social sensibilities, wraps it in mid-90s pop culture, and ties a 1980s ribbon around it. I love the show but there’s a lot that just snaps you out of its pretense.

A white homecoming dance DJ working turn tables with modern looking headphones around his neck? Didn’t happen in small town flyover country in the 80s. More like 2010. 

Black teenage boys dating rich white girls in an affluent, snow white Suburban Ohio enclave? And their parents were cool with it? Wouldn’t have happened.

References to Chumba Wumba, 12 Monkeys, and a lesbian Ellen Degenres decades before she even became super famous much less came out of the closet?

Cell phones and handheld personal camcorders? Even car cell phones were more of a 90s thing. But tiny camcorders like the one that appeared at the baby shower scene didn’t even exist until the late 2000s.

It’s sloppy writing. Why not just set it in 2010? The 80s thing is just a sentimental gimmick. 
 

It’s actually set in the late 1990s.