Old enough to still vividly remember the news coverage of the Chernobyl disaster.
i was in 6th or 7th grade home room one day and they passed out a photocopy of a newspaper article. it described the coup that led to the fall of the Soviet Union. i had no idea what that meant, no idea what any of these countries it was talking about were like, but they pushed a lot of Cold War stuff bc my teachers were very much of that era. we did mock presidential debates and i did Bill Clinton, i think i talked about health care, lol, what a fucking joke. we still don't have it. =-p i remember one kid had the thumb-on-the-clenched-fist thing down pat, he had obviously studied Daryl Hammond's masterful portrayal. that era of SNL - Sandler, Farley, Hartman, Myers, etc. - is my GOAT.
when the OJ verdict was delivered i was in high school and we watched it live. it was the first time every room had a tv. at some point they had us watch Chanel One, which was an educational news channel. i think some of the people on that are in legit news media now lol.
growing up in the 90s was great. i was into BBSes and
DOOM mods (
Aliens TC was the ultimate) before there was even AOL. we had a SNES and spent at least half our days in the woods, exploring the creek, getting fresh air & exercise. nowadays of course i can't imagine anyone letting their kid leave the house for hours at a time but times were different then.
the media was definitely crazy violent and misogynistic. i remember random rapes happening all the time in movies and tv shows. of course it was the prime era of the 80s horror flick. that stuff always scared me, but i couldn't help wandering the isle of the video rental stores and look at all the crazy surreal VHS box art.