I am not a ‘90s kid.

I was born in 1995 and I have about three lasting memories from the decade. My nostalgia for the 1990s stems from experiences after the turn of the millennium, which include staples of ‘90s kid-ness like watching “Rugrats,” taping shows with a VCR, traveling with a portable CD player or cranking out homework assignments to Nirvana.

So let’s get this straight: I love plenty of things from the 1990s, but I’d hardly go so far as to say it’s better than any other decade, like what a new wave of millennial nostalgia is beginning to suggest.

Sept. 12 was the first step in this new wave of nostalgia for the decade with the first annual “’90s Fest.” This festival featured costumed Nickelodeon characters, booths sponsored by companies like Nickelodeon and SunnyD, and, most notably, a musical lineup for the ages, featuring (washed-up) acts from the 1990s including Coolio, Lisa Loeb, Salt-n-Pepa, Blind Melon and Smash Mouth.

The whole festival was emceed by forgotten ’90s actor Pauly Shore. Tickets for the one-day event ranged from $60 for general admission to $150 for VIP tickets.

Corporations are beginning to realize the degree of profitability that 90s nostalgia brings with it, and the fact that events like “90s Fest” completely sold out shows that we’re just beginning to realize how much the “90s kids” are willing to spend on reliving their childhoods.

I have no specific issue with 90s entertainment in general. In fact, I was a ‘90s music defender for a good couple years as well. The first band I was ever a fan of, for instance, was Pearl Jam. From there I branched off into listening heavily to other artists, like Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots and Nirvana. I was caught once or twice saying how much I wish I’d grown up in the ‘90s, when good music was still being made and artists like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift weren’t dominating the airwaves.

Like many things I believed at 13 years old, though, I was very wrong. Once I hit high school and found an intense passion for influential 2000s artists like The White Stripes, The Strokes, Muse and The Black Keys, I stopped pitching this blindly nostalgic mantra.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love music from the 1990s as much as anyone — I still get more excited than anyone when “Even Flow’s” opening riff comes on the radio. But blindly defending the decade as something greater than it actually is just puts down everyone else’s tastes in music. And there’s a lot of music out there worth fighting for.

This point goes for any decade or genre too. Classic rock comes to mind, with people that claim that rock music died with Kurt Cobain and the rise of hip hop. Sure, there’s a ton of great classic rock out there (along with plenty of not-so-great classic rock), but attacking every other genre and decade as inherently inferior isn’t how anyone should be enjoying music.

I listen to new music much more than anything else. I wouldn’t argue that music today is necessarily better than any other time — that’s still an entirely subjective point of view — but listening to new things happening in music as they’re happening, is so much more satisfying to me than sticking to what I already know from the past.

Nickelodeon had some fun shows, Smash Mouth had some fun songs, sure. But it’s okay to let go of some of that nostalgia too. Once you stop letting old stuff control your life like I did, maybe you’ll have a better time with new stuff.

Brett Weiser-Schlesinger is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major. He can be reached by email at bweisers@syr.edu or by Twitter at @brettws.

Published on September 29, 2015 at 9:23 pm