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04.29.12
The 1990s was a magical time.
If you grew up in the '90s then you were part of the last generation of kids who lived without being constantly connected to the internet. You lived during that last gasp of the analog era where most of your entertainment came on tape and if you wanted a new pair of Guess jeans or LA Gear shoes, you had to drive to the mall.
Also, if you wore pants that looked like this, people actually thought you were cool.
Families mattered on Friday nights.
People listened to rock 'n' roll because it was important.
Hip-hop was at its peak.
People spent time talking to each other instead of staring at their phones.
Some folks over at Reddit have been sharing funny memes that explain exactly what life was like in the '90s. From the terrible pastel-colored designs that were everywhere to the charming, but antiquated, technology kids today will never understand.
Here are 19 of the best memes from r/90s/.
via u/phill080891
Does this picture make you instinctively think "You quiero Taco Bell"?
via u/KazuChuu
Our immune systems were forged through miles of sweaty PVC.
via u/zraptorguard
Ingredients: Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and 2% or Less of: Concentrated Orange Juice, Concentrated Tangerine Juice, Concentrated Apple Juice, Concentrated Lime Juice, Concentrated Grapefruit Juice, Concentrated Pear Juice, Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Natural Flavor, Modified Cornstarch, Canola Oil, Sodium Citrate, Cellulose Gum, Sucralose, Acesulfame Potassium, Neotame, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Potassium Sorbate to Protect Flavor, Yellow 5, Yellow 6.
via u/Papash
How in the world did they cram 25 different colored pens into one super writing utensil?
I can still hear the sound of the rumpling plastic as I flip through the pages.
via u/afzalwas
Of course they have "Jerry Maguire." In fact, they have 500 copies of "Jerry Maguire."
via u/DataDuude
After the iMac dropped, only vertified dorks used an IBM.
This may have hurt your fingers, but was probably safer than licking the battery to see if it still had "juice."
via u/drinkinswish
Solitaire wasted more people's time in 1998 than Instagram does in 2022.
via u/SnooPies7080
Stomach ache? Flu? Munchausen's syndrome? This unique combination would have you back on your feet in no time.
via u/FlintTheDad
To quote a popular philosopher from the '90s, they went together like "peas and carrots."
via u/ThEhIsO8730
If the joint had all-you-can-drink refills, you drank 'em out of this cup. It held tokens, too.
via u/BarefutR
Throw on those shorts, then hop in your Miata and get yourself some action!
Not a Pokemon. but it does have powers.
Our planet never ceases to amaze.
Have you seen this tiny, yet gorgeous creature washing up along shores and in TikTok feeds?
No, it’s not a Pokemon, as some people on the internet will try to convince you. But with its mystical appearance and hidden (yet dangerous) powers, it might as well be.
Blue Dragon, I choose you!
upload.wikimedia.org
This little guy is technically called a Glaucus atlanticus, which is already incredibly fun to say. But you can also call him a blue dragon.
Pretty cool right? But how does such a delicate looking creature earn such a powerful name?
According to One Earth, a blue dragon is—believe it or not—part of the nudibranch family, aka mollusks and slugs. Yes, we live in a world where slugs are also dragons. Dare to dream! It's found on the surface of multiple oceans throughout the world, in both temperate and tropical waters. Which explains why they’ve been seen everywhere recently, even Texas.
The way they float on the water is pretty cool too. What we see on the surface is actually the blue dragon’s brightly colored underbelly, which creates a little air bubble to keep it buoyant. Meanwhile, its backside is a grayish white. Both sides act as a camouflage, mimicking either the blue ocean waves or the light penetrating the sea’s surface, hiding the blue dragon from predators both above and below. There’s even a science-y term for this defense mechanism: countershading.
And here’s where things get gnarly…
Even though they’re teeny tiny (rarely larger than 3 centimeters long), blue dragons can produce a dangerous sting. Just one prick can result in nausea and vomiting, severe pain, allergic dermatitis and inflammatory hyperpigmentation. Ouch.
Needless to say, blue dragons are the very embodiment of “look don’t touch.”
Not that it stops Aussies on TikTok like Juliano Bayd. Bayd has no problem picking them up with his bare hands. Look below for anxiety.
@julianobayd failed rescuer mission 😭 #bluedragon #rescue #wildlife #wildliferescue #dangerous ♬ original sound - Country boyz
In Bayd’s defense, it seems that his main focus is rescuing blue dragons and helping them return to the ocean, sometimes hundreds at a time. And he’s always transparent about the risks involved.
How does a blue dragon get the venom, you ask? By eating Portuguese men-of-war. You know, those crazy not-quite jellyfish sea animals that wash up on shore and deliver an infamously powerful sting, even when dead? The ones whose tentacles can grow up to 165 feet? Yes, those. The blue dragon eats the man-of-war (among other things), then stores the stinging cells in its appendages for later use. Let me repeat: This tiny floating slug, barely more than an inch, can and will eat an incredibly venomous life form (like it’s nothing!) then steal its venom like some kind of aquatic vampire.
And here’s a video of it doing just that:
Mother Nature never fails to offer us both the strange and beautiful. If you are lucky enough to see a blue dragon on your next beach trip, it’s best to admire it from afar. But do admire it. Because these otherworldly stinging slugs are quite stunning … in every sense of the word.
Trevor Noah's talked about Elon Musk's Twitter purchase in a Between the Scenes segment.
In the era of the mega-billionaire, much has been made of how such gargantuan wealth is built and what kind of taxes on wealth are fair and unfair.
The intricacies of economics can make such questions a bit tricky both practically and ethically, but there's no question that billionaires get enormous tax breaks through loopholes in our tax system and through straight-up tax legislation favoring the wealthy.
For the average American who will never see so much as one percent of a billion dollars in our entire lifetime, wrapping our minds around the financial workings of extreme wealth is like trying to learn another language. The whole "here's how much money I earn, here's what I can write off, here's what I pay in taxes" thing is pretty straightforward, but not how the uber-rich life works. Wealth doesn't equal money in uber-rich-land—except when it does.
In a Between the Scenes moment, Trevor Noah highlighted the weird way billionaire wealth sometimes counts as money and sometimes doesn't in a segment on The Daily Show. In his signature funny-but-smart way, Noah broke down the hypocrisy of billionaires being able to treat their stock shares as money when it comes to buying businesses, but not when it comes to paying taxes.
"I'm by no means an economist, nor am I an expert on stock markets and all things finance-related, but you have to admit, a lot of what happens on Wall Street seems like a scam," he began.
He talked about how the stock market went up one day because of what Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said about raising interest rates, then plummeted the next day because of people misinterpreting what he said.
"First of all, how does that happen?" he asked. "How are markets changing because somebody didn't read something or understand—and all of you at the same time? And secondly, why do markets do that?"
He said the nature of stock markets going up and down feels "scammy," and somehow we're supposed to be convinced that the stock market is good for us.
"I get it for people's retirements, and I get it for 401Ks and I understand those aspects of it," he said. "But I've realized there are so many things that are designed in such a slick, scammy way."
He gave Elon Musk's pending purchase of Twitter as an example.
"People argue that you cannot tax billionaires on the shares that they hold in a company because it is an 'unrealized gain," he said. Then he explained that he understands that argument because the shares haven't been sold, so there's no actual money in hand. "So you're worth the money, but you don't have the money…and it could also crash, and then you have nothing, so we can't tax you on it."
"You can't tax the people on a thing because they don't have it, it's just there," he says. "Okay fine."
Then he talked about Elon Musk's offer to buy Twitter, in which Musk put up his shares of Tesla stock as collateral. Noah explained how using his Tesla stock as collateral to get banks and investors to put up the cash for him to borrow to buy Twitter.
"So you can buy a thing based on what you have, yes. But when we want to tax you, you can say 'I don't have it,'" said Noah. "It's such a fun game that billionaires get to play because all their money is in that."
Noah points out how we can't fudge around with the IRS due to where our money is located. "You can't be like, 'That money's in the bank, I don't have that money. What money? It's in the bank. Only when I take it out, then you can tax me. For now, it's in the bank, IRS."
That's not something the IRS would accept.
"But if you have billions in shares, you can then use that as money, to then get more money, but not get taxed on any money, because you 'don't have money.'"
Noah said he's not suggesting that we tax people on unrealized gains.
"But I am saying, it seems to me that you then shouldn't be able to use a thing that's unrealized as collateral," he said.
That last point is worth restating. Noah isn't saying that billionaire wealth in the form of stock shares should be taxed like liquid money. He's questioning whether people should be able to use their untaxed wealth as collateral to get liquid money loans to avoid having to liquidate their own wealth (which they would then have to pay taxes on).
Food for thought. Watch:
This from Trevor Noah on taxing billionaires is \u2026 pretty perceptive!pic.twitter.com/8hv4HKZLtQ— Teddy Schleifer (@Teddy Schleifer) 1651943500