12 Regrets Only '90s Kids Will Understand

The '90s have left us with a lot of baggage, obviously. We have bones to pick with the past, and we definitely have many regrets that only '90s kids will understand. Putting aside your personal regrets, there are era-specific regrets you probably have that many other children of the '90s can relate to as well. Weird fashion, weird behavior, weird tastes: the '90s was a weird time. So we're bound to regret some of it, the same way every generation regrets something. Kids today might think they're immune, but they're going to have a whole bunch of different regrets — except for brown lipstick, I suppose. We all have that mistake in common.

The '90s gave us a lot of valuable fodder for our lives. Some of the best music came out of the '90s, and it makes us look cool to young people when we can tell them about the original song when a remixed version comes on the radio. Cool, but still old. But despite all the cool stuff we got from the '90s (Leonardo DiCaprio, Hypercolor t-shirts), there's a lot of stuff we could do without. Here are some very uniquely '90s regrets that only '90s kids will understand.

1. Being Too Young To Go To A Nirvana Concert

I mean, it might not have been something you could change — it's not like we all have time machines to use in order to go back and make our parents have unprotected sex on a different day. But looking back at the '90s, '90s kids always wish they were a little bit older, or at least a little bit wiser, or whatever it took to get their asses to a Nirvana concert.

2. Gelled Front Bits

If cameras didn't exist in the '90s, you'd probably be able to get away with this one because everyone would have an unspoken pact to collectively forget. But alas. We live in constant regret and sheer embarrassment over our sleek pony tails with two jagged gelled "bits" at the front.

3. Thinking She's All That Was "Cute"

We all wanted to be Laney. Obscure and weird, and made over by a sexy Freddie Prinze Jr. to become desirable and sexy. How misguided we were. Time wasted idolizing Cinderella stories would have been time better spent doing a billion other things. Like trying to be Beyoncé before Beyoncé got there.

4. Wearing Skirts Over Pants

Yes, non-'90s kids, this is a thing that happened. We actually wore skirts over pants. Not over leggings. Over actual pants. We do not feel good about it now.

5. Crying In Public When Ginger Left The Spice Girls

You couldn't just be sad to yourself, could you? You had to make a big drama IN FRONT OF PEOPLE when Ginger left the Spice Girls. Now all your friends will always remember that time you cried over a girl band breaking up.

6. All The Bindis

Before we thought about things like cultural appropriation, we wore a ton of bindis. The '90s were basically just a bunch of white girls in bindis. It's not something we're proud of.

7. Spending All That Money On CDs

If you've never looked at your huge collection of CDs and try to mentally add up how much you spent on them, don't. It's a terrifying amount of money to spend on obsolete technology.

8. Spending Money On Korn And Limp Bizkit Specifically

As above, but change obsolete "technology" to obsolete "music". Also very, very embarrassingly bad music.

9. Trusting Your Cootie Catcher

Putting your faith in a paper future-teller you made yourself was a massive mistake, wasn't it? Hindsight's 20/20!

10. Plucking Our Eye Brows Right Off

In the '90s, thin eyebrows were in, in a big way. So much so that a lot of '90s kids plucked their eyebrows nearly right off, or at least into very thin lines. For those of us that have managed to grow them back in the decade since, that's lucky.

11. Two Words: Soul. Patch.

If you happen to be a guy reading this, don't think you're safe from regret. I see a woman's plucked eyebrows and I raise you your '90s soul patch. Touché?

12. Putting Your Pocket Money Into Troll Dolls/Frogs/Beanie Babies

You know where your '90s pocket money would look better now? In a bank account. Instead it's in shelves and shelves of things like Beanie Babies, Troll dolls, and little plastic frogs. What were you thinking?

Photos: Miramax Films; Giphy (7)