Curious. I was born in the mid-90s, so, theoretically, I shouldn’t remember enough to know this, but I do.

I also had a genuinely horrible childhood, in a reasonably isolated part of the Western world, so this ISN’T necessarily just “nostalgia”. Certainly I’m not nostalgic for my childhood. Not in that sense. Though… Adulthood is even lonelier, so who knows, subconsciously…

Anyway, Australia either side of the 2000 Olympics, was a place of significant optimism. Genuinely, I was just a kid, and I could feel it. Pop culture was at its peak. The music scene, in particular live, was excellent. Our “high brow” arts and culture scene had never been better. We still dominated in (mens, mostly) sports, and our film scene was flourishing (MI:2, Matrix Trilogy and Man of Steel were all made in Sydney, amongst a number of others). Children’s entertainment and TV was unbelievably good, as was animation. And guess what, almost none of this was in any way “woke” or PC. Fuck, even the FOOD, drink, restaurant and bar scene was better, which… Should not be the case. But it was…

Politics was less divisive. Far, far less. We had an openly conservative government, and yes, sure, there were issues. I do not agree with many things they did (refugees - Tampa and Children Overboard; indigenous rights; the environment; increasing the US military presence on Aus soil), but we had no idea how good we had it, back then.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous lived, largely, in some sort of relative “harmony”. No reparations, and yes, there were riots (Redfern, later Cronulla), but I went to school with a couple of Aboriginal girls, and, at least in my experience, and what I saw, people were just BETTER to each other, and that was before the woke “Apology to the Stolen Generations”, and before my country started to fall over itself to rename every place, and destroy every element of “white” culture, in the name of appeasement…

Like, in the Y2K, Indigenous AND non-Indigenous came together to celebrate Cathy Freeman winning the 400m. Not because she was an Abo, but because SHE WAS AUSTRALIAN. That would never happen now. Not in the same way. If there even ARE Indigenous sprinters of that caliber anymore. And I honestly don’t see that ever happening again. Not at Brisbane 2032. Perhaps never again.

Things just sort of… Worked. Happiness and life satisfaction levels were higher. People could actually afford to buy houses. Cities hadn’t yet ripped themselves apart to support rampant mass immigration, and our women hadn’t yet declared open slather on our men. And people still attended church, and the synagogue. There were less mosques, but less hate preachers, too. It just felt like… A better time.

No smart phones. Shitty computers. Slower internet. But we still had games like KOTOR, Battlefront 1942 and COD.

People still talked to one another, face to face. I literally lived and went to school with people from all different ethnic origins, from all over the world. And WE GOT ALONG.

Then, things went very wrong. Sometime around 2010-2012, as I was finishing school. Maybe after Occupy. Maybe not. Here, things had already been on the slide since at least the 2007 “Apology”, and the 2005 Cronulla race riots, though…

So, how was it in your country? Do you think it was objectively better, 15+ years ago..? If so, why? What has changed? And what do you think caused it all to go to shit, in such a short period of time?

I know “political correctness” had a wave in the 90s, but I seemingly missed all of that, at the time. Nonetheless, I do genuinely think that things, and society, were better at that time, and, like I said, there are objective measures that would seem to back that up. Which is just… Honestly scary.