How The 90s Killed America's Soul

追加: 2026-06-06

[00:00:03]Channel 4 News number one in Southern California.

[00:00:10]>> Presenting Bandit.

[00:00:21]>> Thank you very much.

[00:00:24]>> Hey boy, I am really happy. I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

[00:00:38]And the 11-day siege at a place called Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

[00:01:08]In 1999's The Matrix, it is revealed that the oppressive computer simulation has made humanity stuck forever in the year 1999 because it was when humanity peaked. Now, looking at that statement in the year of our Lord, 2026, they kind of hit the nail on the head with that one. Being a '90s kid used to be a bragging point for millennials before it showed that they were pushing 40. But as someone who was born after September 11th, looking back at the '9s, they really do feel like the last glimmer of light of the true American dream before the surveillance state and inflation were thrust upon us. But the 1990s weren't just sunshine and rainbows like we fondly choose to remember them.

[00:01:41]While yes, there is a very strong argument that the '90s were better than our current society, they had a problem that was a lot more prevalent than it is today. that being domestic t-wordism and a strong open distrust of the government. I'm not saying that the 2020s don't have this issue either because we absolutely do. One only has to go back to September 9th, 2025 when Charlie Kirk's assassination was aired to Americans all over the nation and current sentiments shared by a vast majority of the public about the current administration's uh failures related to a certain file group release. But the scale to which the '90s had this problem was very unique to their time. Bombings and shootouts involving hundreds of federal agents were happening on a nearly monthly basis. The last bombing I remembered was the 2013 Boston bombing marathon, and that was of the Islamic variety. These attacks were all homegrown and ideologically fueled from the cultural heart of America. I'm Craig 13, and today we're asking, had the 1990s killed the soul of America?

[00:02:39]Looking back, we need to see where America was positioned going into the 1990s. The Soviet Union was crumbling faster than the Berlin Wall. After 45 years of direct competition with the West, the Communists were losing power all over Europe. The Chinese and Vietnamese were beginning to reform and open their economies to the West.

[00:02:55]America had won. Political analysts were dubbing it the end of history. And yes, people truly believed that nothing bad would ever happen to America on the global stage again. But it's hard not to see how the average American wouldn't feel this way. The economy was booming.

[00:03:10]We had just beaten a rack with basically flicking our finger. And movies and music were all very fun and had a lot of positivity behind them. For those fiercely typing about grunge music, don't you worry, I will get there soon enough. We were global hedgeimons like nothing ever before seen in human history. We had the power of an invincible economy backed up by the strongest military on the planet. And with this power, we used it to spread our version of charity across the world.

[00:03:34]Foreign aid, democracy, culture, you name it, we shipped it. Well, as long as it was ideal or cash because anything else tangible, we were done shipping. By this point, manufacturing jobs were being shipped eastward to Vietnam and China, who gled up America's factories and birthed the rust belt. But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. I think 1996's Independence Day shows the general feeling of the average American going into the '90s. America is a global savior who all the other nations of the world rally behind and look to like a prophetic chosen one to lead them to victory. And the kicker is the speech the president ends up making near the climax of the film. It's here he declares Independence Day is no longer just an American holiday, but a global one.

[00:04:14]>> TODAY WE CELEBRATE OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY.

[00:04:18]>> It is the ultimate expression of US sentiment at the time. We will export our freedom to the globe and you will not only thank us for it but worship us for it. Russia was an oligarchy of different mafia bosses which resembled more of a criminal organization than an efficient dictatorship. China was on the come-up, but Beijing and Shanghai looked like this. The only real nation that scared Americans at the time was Japan, as they were one of the rising economies, and it was predicted they would overtake the US economy in the '90s. But by 1990, Japan's economy crashed so badly that it was known as the lost decade, and they have still yet to fully recover from it. Couple everything together that I just summarized. And as Americans, we felt like that we were chosen by God to be the winners of history. So we got comfortable. And when you get comfortable, you get lazy and you stop taking care of what needs to be done.

[00:05:08]Why manufacture cars in the States when factories in China and Mexico can make them for 20 to 80 times cheaper? Why have protective trade agreements that support American workers? After all, we're not competing anymore. So why shouldn't leadership make a little extra money for themselves and their elite class? Deals like NAFTA were signed under the guise of promoting free market and building up better relations with our neighbors. But in reality, it was kicking American families to the side so companies could make record profits. And when factories go away, infrastructure tends to follow. By the '90s, Detroit was already in a ruin. But it was indicative of where the nation as a whole was headed. The death of any empire isn't fast. You hit your peak and then it's a slow trend downward from there. Rome saw Marcus Aurelius leave a lasting impact as emperor and many agree that he was a great emperor. But immediately after him was the year of four emperors and saw the birth of inflation that would eventually kill the empire. They say that no Roman citizen or subject knew that the Roman Empire was just over one day on a specific date. They just say that one day a bridge broke in their town and no one came to fix it. And this is where America was beginning to go down in the 1990s. Things were beginning to break.

[00:06:13]But not just our infrastructure, but our ideals and sense of independence. And it all goes back to being comfortable. We lost our unifying boogeyman in the Soviets. Couple that with the loss of the American monoculture and religion, and people begin to lose direction. In the 1940s, 76% of Americans attended church weekly. By the 1990s, that was down to 42%. And who even knows what it is at today? And this section isn't me saying that every American has to be a churchgoing Christian. I am not saying that at all. What I am saying, though, is that society as a whole is better when a community comes together and worships and builds to something bigger than themselves. People were being left with a void, one that materialism couldn't fill, but it could at least distract the population. All while Americans were having birth pains of a crisis of meaning where there was none, the bureaucracy was trying to expand.

[00:07:01]Workers whose jobs were now meaningless now that the Cold War was over had to justify their wages. And this was true across all government branches. But when no foreign enemies could catch the American eye, the hunt turned domestically. And this is where we get into what defined the 1990s, violence.

[00:07:18]True raging against the machine and the machine crushing down harder than people expected it would. August 1992, US federal marshals surround a cabin in northern Idaho. Inside the cabin is ex- US soldier Randy Weaver, his wife, their four children, and his friend Kevin Harris. The ensuing standoff would soon become synonymous with government incompetence and overreach. You see, Randy moved to the middle of nowhere Idaho because he wanted to be left alone. Randy had some friends who had some uh unorthodox opinions about race and they had a preference for shaved heads. The FBI didn't like Ry's friends and they had an informant in their group. Again, Weaver was not involved in any hate group, but he did know people that were. Anyways, this informant asked Randy Weaver to make him some sought-off shotguns, to which Weaver refused. The informant then asked three more times and then to I guess make this guy shut up. Randy eventually agreed to make him the shotguns, which to my nonball knowowers out there to why this is a big deal, a shortbread shotgun is extremely illegal as it falls under the National Firearms Act and making and selling one is crazy illegal. Quick quiz. One of these shotguns is categorized as a short belt shotgun and the other isn't and is fine to own. If you can't tell the difference, then you can go to prison for 10 years and pay a fine of $250,000.

[00:08:38]Anyways, what this informant had done was also illegal and fell under the grounds of entrap. But that didn't matter. The feds went and arrested Randy Weaver and they said, "Hey, tell you what, Randy. If you turn on your friends and turn states witness and snitch on your friends, we'll drop the gun charges." Randy, I'm assuming very politely, told them no.

[00:08:56]>> How about no?

[00:08:58]>> And he posted bail and went home. So, the county sent him a letter telling him when his court date was, but importantly, they told him the wrong date. His real court date was sometime in February, but on the note that they sent him, it said that his court date was March 20th. And the government knew they made this mistake, but chose not to do anything about it. Well, actually, they did do something about it. They convicted him of skipping his trial, and they signed another arrest warrant for him. So, Weaver sees this and refuses to come out of his house thinking that he wouldn't get a fair trial. And honestly, fair after all that. So, here's where the really stuff comes into play. The FBI and the ATF got together and did a psych evaluation on Randy Weaver. And they came to the conclusion that he was extremely dangerous, armed, and that agents should be prepared to use lethal force on him. You want to know how they did this psych evaluation on him? By looking at him. You know how the therapist class always says the one thing about like, "Oh, don't judge a book by its cover."

[00:09:56]They did exactly that in this case.

[00:09:59]Anyways, the feds surround Ry's cabin with his family inside and allow no food in. The federal agents then lied, saying that Randy Weaver had shot at a news helicopter that was flying by. And because of this, they updated their rules of engagement to shoot on site, which was completely unconstitutional and illegal. But on one of these patrols, federal agents wanted to test the family dog Striker's reaction to them throwing a rock at it. Naturally, the dog runs after the agents, and the agents run into the woods. Well, remember how I said no food was coming in? The Weavers were beginning to starve. Well, they thought Striker was chasing a squirrel he saw. So, Sam Weaver, Ry's 14-year-old son, and Kevin Harris grabbed their rifles and ran outside. The three agents took up a defensive position, and when Striker walked up, they shot and killed the dog.

[00:10:50]Yeah. So, as this happens, Sam yells out, "You shot my dog, you son of a bitch." And raised his rifle and began to fire. The Marshalss returned fire and Marshall Larry Cooper and Bill Degan shot and murdered Samuel Weaver. Harris, seeing his best friend's son die, turned and dropped US Marshal Degan with a single shot, killing him. After this firefight, the FBI would post snipers all around the cabin, looking for any members of the Weaver family. A few days later, when Randy exited the cabin to go visit his son's body, a sniper took a shot at him and missed. In the ensuing chaos, Kevin Harris ran out to aid his friend. Seeing the movement, FBI sniper Lon Herrochi blindly fired into the cabin door, striking Kevin Harris, but importantly also fatally striking Vicky Weaver, Ry's wife, as she was holding their 10-month-old baby. After murdering two innocent people, the FBI and ATF were mounting up to do a final assault on the cabin until a veteran activist was able to convince Randy to stand down. The resulting fallout was devastating not only for the FBI and ATF, but also the attorney general, Bill Barr. Yes, this same Bill Bar who was Donald Trump's attorney general during his first term. So, Bill was going to be out of the job soon, but his replacement ended up being even worse. Janet Reno.

[00:12:11]Reno was a Miami prosecutor who had very little experience in federal law. But when Bill Clinton was elected president, he vowed to put a woman in a major cabinet position. Reno was one of the first DEI hires.

[00:12:22]>> You kids asked for it. Here comes 180 lbs of pure Reno.

[00:12:27]>> Anyways, under Reno's leadership, the FBI and ATF needed a win after Ruby Ridge. Because at this point, anti-government sentiment hadn't been this high since at least 1968. So, did they do the right thing and have accountability and punish those responsible for the atrocities that were committed? Nah, they doubled the [ __ ] down. and they found their opportunity in February of 1993 in Waco, Texas, 6 months after Ruby Ridge. In Waco was a compound full of cultists under the leadership of one, David Caresh, and they were known as the Branch Devidians.

[00:12:59]Caresh was insane and not a good person.

[00:13:01]I'm not going to defend anyone who engages in polygamy and the marriage of child brides. But there is no denying he was persuasive as he was able to convince over a hundred people to live in this massive compound with him on Mount Carmel. Caresh claimed that the apocalypse was imminent and that he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. You know, standard cult stuff. But what he had his followers do caught the eye of federal law enforcement. They began stockpiling massive amounts of weapons and ammunition. Now, this in and of itself isn't illegal, as Caresh and three other members of the cult, owned federal firearm licenses, and ran gun stores. The ATF just doesn't like it when big groups of people hoard large amounts of firearms. The ATF got their excuse to raid the compound after they heard rumors of the cult converting weapons to fully automatic firing and explosives being delivered to the compound. So the ATF launched their raid on February 28th and their OBSE was horrible because the Branch Devidians knew they were coming. What happened next has some conflicting reports, but a firefight engaged as ATF agents entered the compound. The agents claimed they were fired upon and the branched dividians claimed that they were shot at first. But after the initial volley, four ATF agents and five branched Vividians lay dead. What happened next was a 51-day siege of the compound where those that were in charge of Ruby Ridge came down to Waco to take charge there.

[00:14:19]And as they did at Ruby Ridge, they messed up everything here. When dealing with a large group of people that you generally assume are unstable, do you think it's best to antagonize them and make them more unstable? Because FBI HRT Commander Richard Rogers thought that would be an excellent idea. He ordered speakers to blare at full volume pop music and audio of rabbits being slaughtered all night long to prevent the branch devidians from sleeping. As well as this, he ordered APCs to destroy the graves of previous branch dividians who had died and had been laid to rest on the property. So, naturally, that made everybody else a little bit more unstable. It also didn't help that Caresh asked multiple times to negotiate with third party actors, but the FBI denied him every time. Eventually, 50 days in, Caresh claimed that he was going to surrender after he finished writing a religious message that he had been working on for the public. The FBI and ATF were split. Half saw it as a major breakthrough and that the siege was going to end soon and the other took it as an insult and the latter group wanted to use force and they got their way when Janino made a plea to Bill Clinton to let the FBI raid the compound which Bill didn't want to do. He wanted negotiation to win. However, the team on the ground in Waco lied and claimed that children were actively being abused in the compound which they just made up.

[00:15:41]And I'm not saying that this hadn't happened before, but during the actual siege of Waco, there was no proof that this was going on. So, Bill gave in and told Janet that she had to go ahead to do whatever she felt best. On the morning of April 19th, an APC wrecked through one of the walls of the compound and began pumping in tear gas into the compound, hoping to drive the Branch Devidians out. But this only made them hunker down deeper into the compound where they had a bunker and gas masks.

[00:16:05]And at some point, a fire broke out, and no one knows how.

[00:16:10]Mike, at this point the latest figures we have is >> and the presidential security unit.

[00:16:15]>> The fire quickly grew and consumed the entire compound in a massive conflration. After the ashes had settled, 82 branch devidians were dead, 25 of them being children. The branch devidians had no sign of pulling a Jonestown and surrendered branch devidians claimed that there had never been any discussion of doing that.

[00:16:35]>> Mr. branch. What have you heard about uh what has happened and and was this something that that was predicted by David? Is is this a plan?

[00:16:44]>> This is a systematic character assassination by the FBI to uh to eliminate all of the crime scene. Now they're destroying Now they're finishing off the job right now. They're destroying the crime scene. America, this is the biggest lie that's ever been put before the American public ever.

[00:17:02]Bill Clinton wants to use a scapegoat like the attorney general. You know, I don't buy it, >> Mr. Branch. Was there no plan?

[00:17:10]>> All right. Thank you very much, M.

[00:17:12]>> Many people theorize that the exhausted and frustrated federal agents started the fire with the CS gas, which is highly flammable, in order to finally end the siege. Along with that, Caresh had made a claim on one radio broadcast that made it out that ballistic experts would be able to prove that the FBI and ATF had shot first by examining metal doors which had incoming bullet holes.

[00:17:33]So, the fire would mask any evidence of wrongdoing. But fire can't melt steel doors. So, where are they? Well, they're missing. And we know they weren't lost from the fire because one double door had one door found perfectly fine and the other one was completely gone, which would have been impossible for a fire to do that. and a Texas Ranger testified that he saw the FBI agents load up that door into a van, but that's neither here nor there. Again, it's all just a theory and it's likely we'll never know what happened that day. But regardless, taking victory pictures on burnt rubble where children just burned alive is never a good PR look. And again, Caresh was a bad guy and deserved prison, but that will never justify the actions that federal agents took that day and the outcome that came from it. Naturally, after this, Americans were enraged by this and the lack of accountability by those responsible. So, the right-wing militia movement expanded rapidly, and some people began to make plans to get what they saw as revenge for Ruby Ridge and Waco. Allegedly, exactly 2 years after Mount Carmel had burned to the ground, a yellow rental truck was pulling up to the Mura Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Soon after, it would explode with enough force to be heard 55 mi away and record a 4.0 O on the RTOR scale. The man responsible was Timothy McFay, a Gulf War vet who had become disgruntled with the government after the previous two stories. And he made it his personal mission to get revenge against the federal government. He chose the Muro building because the ATF office was located there for Oklahoma. And conveniently, no ATF agents were in the building the day of the attack.

[00:19:10]Nothing fishy there at all. The blast did end up killing 168 people with a good chunk of that being children that were at a daycare located in the building. As horrific as this tragedy was, it served invaluable for the government. It made anyone who was critical of the government's actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge associated with McVey in his terror. And also, it gave the federal government justification to start going after right-wing groups, specifically militia groups. The government was able to do this so effectively, the right is permanently scarred by it. You see it today where the two biggest voices on the modern right being Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes not only call each other feds, but millions of Americans call each other feds daily.

[00:19:51]>> Well, I thought you were a fed. I was I thought you were a fed.

[00:19:54]>> I was a fed.

[00:19:56]>> Yeah, >> I'm not a fed. Um, >> the government's infiltration of anti-government groups wasn't just hearsay. There were, and to this day, federal agents in nearly every single right-wing group. If you remember the plan from a couple of years ago to kidnap Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer, that was planned by a right-wing group with a federal agent in it. Well, not just one. Nearly every single member of the plot was a federal agent who was undercover, and they didn't know that they were all undercover. I think there was only one guy who wasn't connected. It's entrenched so deeply in right-wing culture that anyone and everyone could be a fed that no one trusts each other.

[00:20:34]And it effectively has killed the ability to organize on that front, which has set us down the path of continuing government overreach. But McVey wasn't the only bombader of the 1990s. Not even close. One only has to go to the next year during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

[00:20:50]Now, I know this may shock you, dear viewer, but Atlanta hasn't always been the bastion of safety and peace that it's definitely known for today. During the Olympics, a bomb was planted in the crowd during a concert, and thankfully, a security guard managed to find the bomb and warn enough people to where only two people got killed by it. The security guard's name was Richard Juel.

[00:21:09]Now, did the federal government thank Richard for his service and saving hundreds of people's lives? No. So the FBI painted him as the bomber and tried to ruin his life because a bunch of FBI bureaucrats wanted him to be guilty because he was annoying. Now Juel wasn't the bomber and it was revealed eventually that it was a man by the name of Eric Robert Rudolph. Rudolph was bullied as a child from suffering from rhopima which deformed his nose causing it to form a grotesque bulbous wrong Rudolph. Eric Rudolph was like Timothy McVey, a US soldier who became disenfranchised with the government and chose to take out his protest explosively. He chose the Atlanta Olympics as to him they symbolized global socialism, which I don't get how because it's like the ultimate test of merit and competition and deciding who's best. They aren't taking Michael Phelps gold medals and redistributing them to a bunch of leosians that didn't even qualify. Speaking of Michael Phelps, I got him hanging up back there now. So yeah, it's a Michael Phelps autograph.

[00:22:09]Cool stuff. Anyways, back to the video.

[00:22:12]He also claimed that he chose the Olympics because they made their theme song for that year, Imagine by John Lennon, which justified Crash Out.

[00:22:24]>> Anyways, Rudolph was a white Christian nationalist and he spent the remainder of his career, for lack of a better term, riding around Alabama planting bombs at abortion clinics and gay bars.

[00:22:34]Again, I mentioned him to show that political pressures were pushing people to extremes at this time, but Eric and Timothy were far from the most famous bombers of the 1990s.

[00:22:44]That title goes to Uncle Ted. I'm at this point realizing there is a solid chance this video will not get monetized. So, if you want to be dripped to the gills, go buy some merch on the channel store or join the channel membership. You'll have your name appear at the end of the videos or you can just join the Discord. It's a good time.

[00:23:01]Shameless plug over. Theodore Kazinski was one of the most polarizing figures to come out of the second half of the 20th century. His ideals and writings have only gone on to be debated more and more as time has marched on. If you're watching this video, you know who he is, so I'm not going to bore you with a giant biography of his life, even though I should make a video on him. The main thing you need to know is Ted was a genius. And I don't just mean that in like the hypothetical way. He literally had an IQ of 167. Ted was gifted in math and foresight. Ted began to see the slippery slope humanity was heading on with their dependency on technology.

[00:23:36]Increasingly, he saw how it could and would develop from a tool that helps humanity in its daily tasks to a crutch we depended on to function to eventually our own collars. So Ted wanted nothing to do with this. So he fled to the mountains of Montana, but he couldn't shake his conscience or schizophrenia.

[00:23:55]What's really the difference between the two? So Ted began what would become his life's work? He would construct very elaborate bombs that were untraceable and he began to mail them to people that he deemed responsible for the creation of the technostate. This happened for nearly 20 years with the FBI dubbing him the uniomber. By 1996, his attacks were ramping up and he agreed to stop only if his manifesto would be published. That manifesto being industrial societies and its futures which details his predictions of the coming digital age and the existential risk that it posed to not only our individual liberty but humanity as a whole. The text reads very insane at points, but also Kazinski made some very accurate predictions about where AI development was going to be headed and what it meant for surveillance. But after the manifesto was published, Ted's own brother recognized the writing style and turned him in. Kazinski would end up spending the rest of his life in a supermax prison, but eventually it became revealed that he was a subject of MK Ultra style testing while he was in college. And it's believed that this experimenting contributed to his decline later in life. But that decline wasn't just felt by Kazinski himself, mech political circles, or just extremists.

[00:25:06]Society felt it at large. In 1992, Los Angeles was burnt to the ground after the beating of Rodney King by LAPD officers who were led off. The ensuing riots saw looters terrorize the streets, hunting down local business owners or anyone driving the wrong direction that day. Then came >> three years later after that, Americans were glued to their TV screens during the OJ Simpson trial, which had been dubbed the trial of the century. OJ was a star NFL running back and rising movie figure who had been accused of murdering his ex-wife and a waiter in a horrific crime scene. The evidence against OJ was damning. His DNA was all over the crime scene, and every piece of evidence pretty much pointed at him being guilty.

[00:25:46]Despite all of this, the jury came back with a not-uilty verdict, and America was torn. Across the nation, watch parties for the trial were filmed, and you could see crowds of people cheering and others in pure disbelief as the verdict was read. Years later, one of the jurors during an interview admitted that all the jurors believed that OJ was guilty, but they wanted revenge for Rodney King 3 years previously.

[00:26:08]>> How many of you think felt that way?

[00:26:11]>> Oh, probably 90% of it.

[00:26:15]>> But the broader damage was done, and America has a scar that it carries to this day.

[00:26:21]That was payback.

[00:26:22]>> Uhhuh.

[00:26:24]>> You think that's right?

[00:26:27]>> But why was this trial so important that millions of Americans were glued to their TVs waiting for this verdict? The 24-hour news cycle was coming to life, and the OJ trial just showed the power that it could have over the American public. Before the 1980s, the news was a nightly show that would recap events or discuss important moments for only an hour or two with a trusted, unbiased host like Walter Kankite. It also helped that the FCC required news stations to tell both sides of a political story.

[00:26:54]This was removed in 1987 and the Supreme Court said that news stations had every right to lie and could face no legal consequences for doing so. Along with this, in 1980, Ted Williams founded CNN, which changed TV forever. They pioneered the idea of 24 hours of constant news, and America couldn't get enough. So, other networks began to throw their hat in the ring, like Fox News, and clear ideological lines began to form. What started as a helpful way to keep Americans informed at all hours of the day turned into a race to see who could find the most shocking story and tell it from the most shocking angle. And the polarizational divide in America was set on this track that it is today. Fox News boomers and blue-haired millennials fundamentally see the world in distinctly different ways, and it largely depends on which news station was on at their house. Blue-haired millennials that watch MSNBC see a figure like Donald Trump as a devil that can do no right, whereas Fox News boomers see Trump as a figure that can do no wrong and worship him like a golden calf. And all this traces back to profit chasing executives from the 1990s. But the news wasn't the only media that began to show the decline of the 1990s. I truly believe that media peaked in the '90s. We will never see a movie released summer like that of 1994 or a 41day period of music being released like that in 1991. I feel very certain of that. But as much as I love '90s media, I can admit that the overwhelming message that was being presented by the music of the time was negative. And I think it was indicative for what was coming for the spirit of America. I love grunge. Jarflies is one of my favorite albums of all time. Yes, I know this is an LP. shut up. But the themes are just nihilistic and depressing. Just look up the song Nutshell on this album or the song Black Hole Sun by Sound Garden. Again, some of my favorite songs ever, but they are dark. Of the five major grunge bands to come out of that time, that being Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Sound Garden, Stone Temple Pilots, and Allison Chains, four of the lead singers are dead from either overdosing or unaliving themselves. I hate having to use those terms so much.

[00:29:04]But it wasn't just grunge. Rap music was evolving into gang rap with groups like NWA and the East West Coast divide saw the two biggest artists of each side being Tupac and Biggie Smalls being gunned down. It also probably didn't help that Shawn Combmes was becoming one of the biggest major players behind the scenes in the hip-hop world at the time.

[00:29:23]But just look at the movies. Movies like Falling Down or Fight Club echoed a deep subconscious disillusionment with American materialism, a monotonous work life cycle that has become the beast that it is today. Society as a whole didn't know it at the time, but they were yearning for something deeper.

[00:29:38]Again, I think part of why there's such a resurgence of 1990s media with Gen Z is because at the time, the industry was very honest and upfront with society's feelings about these things at the time.

[00:29:49]There's this whole fantasy on social media about finding the perfect bleedout spot if you're a dude and you hear the opening strums of the guitar from Nutshell. And it's very popular on social media. At least I think it is.

[00:30:02]Maybe I'm just a weirdo who gets those videos. I don't know. Again, the '9s were not all bad. They got a lot right and their society as a whole was much better for those growing up around it than the one today. Like I said, I think deep down people knew that our society was built on a house of cards, but the general outlook was positive. America was a golden place of opportunity that weathered much worse over the years.

[00:30:26]History was over and we were the winners. The American dream was the path forward until we woke up.

[00:30:36]Well, guys, I've been working on this video for a very long time, but I wanted my first video in the new office to be special. But if this is your first time on the channel and you're new here, don't hit that subscribe button just yet. Go check out some more of my videos because this one is pretty different than what I normally post. But if you are a regular, buy merch, join the channel, support the cause. Other than that, I hope you enjoyed whatever food you decided to eat or whatever poop you decided to poop when you sat down to watch this video. I'm Cray 13 and I hope you have a blessed day.