TV references... an argument about which sci-fi show is better, Babylon 5 or Deep Space Nine (or something about Frasier spinning off from Cheers).

REM's "Losing My Religion" marks the beginning of the 90s for me, and "What's the Frequency Kenneth" an almost-mid-marker.

Some key Bill Clinton moments, most notably "I did not have sex with that woman" for the mid '90s.

Or toys going OUT of favor in the '90s: Cabbage Patch Dolls, G.I. Joe, and My Little Pony.

And catchphrases from Seinfeld and EARLY Simpsons (the ones that haven't aged well): "Don't have a cow, man." "Yadda yadda yadda."

Someone in baggy clothing is reading a zine.

Back in the USSR....

This is not a simple task. In the 50s, popular culture was confined to a couple national television networks, a handful of radio networks, theater chains, and print media. As such, popular culture was shared by a large percentage of the population. Popular culture was not so widely shared in the 90s. Of the examples that osf gives above, I would only recognize "Losing My Religion" and the Clinton quote.

What this boils down to is demographics. Who is your target audience, what would be their likely environs, and what in those environs would they most likely associate with the 90s? One potential indicator would be Time and People magazine covers from the era. Who or what made the covers?

The one example that I have is "Smells Like Teen Spirit". That song cut a huge swath through many demographics.

Rollerblading is apparently some fucking thing people actually do.
Pagers and early crappy cell phones.
Tauruses and Suburbans and Miatas and douchebags in Jeeps.
A Few Good Men.
Old Demi Moore in general.
People complaining about gas prices around $1.50.
Run, Forrest Run!
Pretty much 80s fashion and hair just toned down two big notches towards sensible.
Giant CD packaging and Discmans.
VHS tapes everyone and everyone is totally comfortable with them.
Coffee shops that aren't like Starbucks.
Carrying around stuff you printed out on fanfold paper, and the act of tearing off the side strips.
But not the green and white paper or daisywheel shit, that's grandpa stuff.
And the printout is something you got from USENET or listserv or some shit.
Email is rare special thing, ISPs are things to worry about.
Cable news not quite yet a festering blight on the world.
But network news shaming themselves nightly chasing Lewinski.
But major news shaming and discrediting themselves daily.
SNES.
(Maybe just my area): lots of pot/shrooms/LSD, harder stuff out of favor or not prevalent yet.
Early Simpsons and all the shit they referenced.
Life In Hell is the 90s no matter what the calendar says.
Computer nerds with giant Trinitron CRTs setting IPs manually at LAN parties.
Vampire (tR) LARPers but no Buffy, no Twilight.
The Pixies.
Nine Inch Nails, goth before Marylin Manson.
Reservoir Dogs references.
Distinct lack of zombies.
Unless you count the whole decade as a zombie continuation of the 80s, muted and stifled, a lifeless mechanical brain-dead shamble forward.

Björk.

As fleacircus mentioned, the cell phones of the era would be a dead giveaway and something that would fit into most introductory scenes.

For me, it's Blur, Oasis, large CRT monitors, big mobile phones and the beginning of email (and Usenet).

For me, it's Blur, Oasis, large CRT monitors, big mobile phones and the beginning of email (and Usenet).

This covers a lot.

-AOL disks
-Confusion about what this Internet thing is
-Information Superhighway
-Doom
-Myst

PowerPuff Girls
Satellite TV was still a huge dish
Stacks and stacks of CDs
CD/music stores
Computers were beige, period. Laptops might be black or grey.
Law & Order - there was only one.
Apple was just not a presence until the very late '90's.
Ren and Stimpy
I think MTV still played music, but VH1 was the bomb.

The '80's were cyan and red and bright. I remember the '90's being more neonish.

The 80s are easy to place because everything was so in your face. The 90s were just a reaction to the 80s, so more subtle.

Tauruses and Suburbans and Miatas and douchebags in Jeeps.

Jeeps don't represent any decade. They're everywhere, all the time. Also, most people i know that drive jeeps are very cool and down to earth (actual JEEPs, not SUVs with the Jeep name).

Yeah but in the 90s they were favored by the douchebags.

It's Earth Day, and we're all doing a vacant-lot cleanup wearing sexless plaid flannel shirts and overdyed or corduroy jeans. Being a female, I have five-year-old's plastic barrettes in my short bobbed hair. We're going out later tonight to try some of those new microbrews now that thank God we have some choices other than Molson, Rolling Rock, Miller and Bud. If we find something awesome I'll write my friend in another state a letter about it and enclose the beer label which I've carefully picked off. While we wait for a bunch of people to show up we'll stand around smoking Winston Lights (because Marlboro is The Man's) and hacky sacking. It's all good.

According to a fashion nerd friend several designers have done 90s looks recently, she called it "Kinda Kelly Bundy chic"

flannel.

Whelk, your fashion nerd friend is referencing a TV show instead of actual experience. This is why movies always get it wrong.

Well also more flannel and neo-hippie stuff ( not OG Hippie, but the 90s interpretation of the Hippie Look, which is it's own thing, like the 80s interpretation of the 20s) and denim. So much denim.

≡ Click to see image ≡

"denim." - The Whelk

Odd I don't remember much denim at all in the 90s. 70s lots, 80s lots but now designer. 90s I don't remember much of it at all.

Bettie Page bangs.

I wore a ton of denim in the 90s. There really was a lot of it - but it wasn't classic faded blue jeans. There were 2 kinds of denim: denim in deep dyed colors (purple, green, brown which was popular for men) and dark dark blue denim for jackets and skirts. The overdyed denim was popular in jackets too. You can find this stuff on eBay.

I really dug the colored jeans because they looked slightly more dressed up than jeans jeans and I was teaching in an outdoor program then. They helped me look a notch above hippie.

My favorite were a pair of saffron yellow corduroys. Next favorite was dark green. Worst part, to match I wore vests over turtlenecks. I should find pictures.

But the thing that makes me maddest was that the default uniform was an oversized plaid flannel or solid chamois shirt. That's nice and all, but that was the time in my life when I had probably the best conventionally-attrative body I'll ever have, and I spent the entire time covering it up with yards of flannel. Like everybody did. It was an oddly modest time. Same with the early 80s, oddly neo-Victorian. OR maybe it wasn't odd, just that we've become used to very very non-modest times.

Desert.

Storm.

Boring Postcards: Ghostworld was too late- 2001.

yeah but Ghost World was written in the mid 90s, plus I think it was my hairsplitting about "looks", which is something Endis does in the film.

FUN FACT I celebrated not going to my graduation by watching Ghost World.

I packed a lot of stuff into my 90s and never felt the need to conform to the status quo. I wore my share of flannel but usually in a punk overshirt sense, unless I gave in to my hippie instincts. Clothes are drag to me for the most part, suiting the occasion in a conscious ironic fashion. Maybe this is why I have a thing for guys who are willing to wear skirts.
I don't have top ten lists, I don't have favorites. I usually don't condense things into stereotypes. I suppose this makes me a bummer.