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The entirety of Freddie DeBoer's life outlook is that he loved hippies/bohemians in new york in the 90s and then turned out to be quite smart and a world view crystalized around that abstract attraction/memeplex. It was pretty clear in his infamous planet of cops piece and it explains exactly why he lives in a groundhog world of noticing the left has lost it's mind but waking up the next day completely forgetting that realization.

As for the 90s vs today, the tech sucked and was expensive, the domination of the moral majority sucked even though it's piercing light gave contrast to interesting subcultures just as much as modern progressivism sucks despite it's life giving contrast to communities like our own. The grass is greened by the lack of our, or at least my, current enemy but there is a cause for the sword in every era.

the domination of the moral majority

Was nonexistent.

Was it really? I suppose this is one of those "my enemies are both strong and weak" things, but the old Moral Majority certainly could and did throw their weight around. It all seems quaint in hindsight and with the passage of time, and especially in comparison to today's new ideologies, but back then, nobody realized that "Judeo-Christian Morals" were a dying meme--quite the opposite, in fact! The Nine Inch Nails concept album Year Zero imagined a world where Tipper Gore/Mary Whitehouse moral concern, megachurch Christianity, and Bush-era jingoism were fused to create a dystopian America. That was in 2007.

Need I dredge up the tragedy of Jack Thompson? It's not a story the Jedi would tell you.

Was it really?

Yes.

but the old Moral Majority certainly could and did throw their weight around

If you mean the literal Moral Majority, it disbanded in 1989.

The Nine Inch Nails concept album Year Zero imagined a world where Tipper Gore/Mary Whitehouse moral concern, megachurch Christianity, and Bush-era jingoism were fused to create a dystopian America. That was in 2007.

Yes, key word being "imagined". Much like the Handmaid's Tale in a later era.

If you mean the literal Moral Majority, it disbanded in 1989.

Yeah, that group wasn't around in the 90's, but the spirit was definitely still there, I'd argue.

To what effect? In what way, in the 90s, did the moral majority actually exert meaningful influence on the culture, or on individuals?

Those "explicit lyrics" labels were so oppressive, man...