>>513560900 (OP)The sad part is realizing that the decline is slow and thus almost imperceptible. People today, heck, even 10 years ago people looked back on the 1990s with nostalgia, but they're thinking about the mid 90s and early 90s. By the late 90s, the degenerate nihilism was in full swing within mainstream media culture. This is how you got riots at Woodstock 99, girls gone wild, and the columbine shooting. There was a deep malaise going on despite the relative economic prosperity. Basically, people had it good economically but everything else was really boring. A lot of mainstream music seemed to be way worse than just a few years earlier, and far cry from the creative renaissance of the 60s and 70s.
It's funny seeing zoomers get nostalgic for the 2000s now, because that decade was worse than the 90s in every way. 9/11, Iraq War, a declining economy, capped off with the housing crisis. The only reason people were hopeful at all during the 2000s was because of the internet. There was a belief that the internet and social networks would strengthen society and community. Instead, the opposite happened, and those who run the social networks tweaked the algorithms to increase division because that drives engagement.
1997 may have been a turning point, but it was still a lot better than today