I Love the '90s: Part Deux

"I Love the '90s: Part Deux" is a year-by-year reminiscent fest in which b-grade actors and other assorted personalities, which expands on the earlier series that reviewed assorted moments in the 1970s and 80s. For the most part, the geek-natured commentators, a handful of whom supplied the commentary for the earlier decade reviews, mostly berate the pop culture, political, and other popular moments of the decade. And for the most part, it's just looking back on television shows, music, movie, and "fashion." Think of these shows as though have invited a few people into a room that you don't really know and haven't really spoken to. And then, someone makes a funny reference to something from your childhood. A toy, perhaps. Then, everyone joins in and for about an hour or so, they start to reminisce about things that they too remember from the decade. "Oooh! I used to have a fanny pack. A pink one!" or "Boy, the Nelson twins got fat." That's about what you get with the VH1 series reminiscing the decades. It is even more droll when you don't know who the commentators are or why they have to explain the most obvious things to you (someone actually explained what caller ID did, even though the title is pretty much self-explanatory).

There appears to be no end in sight for these VH1 fillers. Even when they get done with the 90s, I don't doubt that they'll continue to find something else to create hour long mini-ads for. But, it really says something of our own present culture and state of entertainment when we are so desperate to place all of our energy and attention on the old days. Since modern pop culture (and political hype and other popular moments) are basically nothing more than a recycling of the past, VH1 asks us not to struggle for something new, but instead, to place all of our energies in the past. And to remain there. What's the point to all of these shows? To think, with all of the money VH1 used to license all of those nauseating clips of even the most seemingly insignificant things, they could have bought some decent music videos or something.