Culture of the 1990's without Bill Clinton

samcster94

Banned
What would happen to the pop culture of the 1990's if Bill Clinton never got elected??? Let's go the easy route and have him, like Gary Hart, get caught cheating on his wife. I am assuming, this is one where HW easily wins and a prominent 90's Dem gets elected in 1996.
 
Not much different to be honest. The '90s culture I would say started to take hold in the later half of HW's term, so at the very least the culture of 1993-97 would've been the same.
 
To me 90's culture is grunge, Windows 95, Seinfeld and the world not being scarred and fatigued by terrorism. Clinton is favorably remembered for just being there when things were going alright and didn't really personally impact culture more than just giving Darrell Hammond on Saturday Night Live a memorable character to play as well as fodder for other late night talk show hosts.
 
I was gonna say that the "Angry White Male" might be less of a staple of cultural folklore, since Clinton(especially when considered in conjunction with his wife) really seemed to be a lightning rod for people who identified with that tendency. I mean, any Democrat at the time would have attracted that sort of negative attention from men pissed off about social changes, but ol' Bill really seemed to hit a nerve with them.

But then I did a google on this cover, and saw that it was dated March 1993, when Clinton had only been in power for a couple of months(four, if you count from November). And the film in question must have been made before the election.
 
Now that you mention that, would a black/POC/Woman have attracted nearly the same outrage? I wonder if there wouldn't have been a bit less backlash since that would be "expected" and there's a chance that they would be either militant but as expected or relatively low key.
 
Now that you mention that, would a black/POC/Woman have attracted nearly the same outrage? I wonder if there wouldn't have been a bit less backlash since that would be "expected" and there's a chance that they would be either militant but as expected or relatively low key.

Colin Powell was more popular with white voters than balck voters, so perhaps had he run and been elected in 1996 (as polling at the time said he would) that might result in what you're looking for here...
 

samcster94

Banned
Colin Powell was more popular with white voters than balck voters, so perhaps had he run and been elected in 1996 (as polling at the time said he would) that might result in what you're looking for here...
He'd be better as a running mate. Him as a failed candidate would be more interesting.
 
He'd be better as a running mate. Him as a failed candidate would be more interesting.

I disagree. No candidate in their right mind would put Powell in second place as his celebrity would overshadow the Presidential nominee. Also, polling showed that he would get 50% to Clinton's 38% and Perot's 9%. If he he ran he would win, but certainly not by 12% in the popular vote. 6-7% is more realistic. If he did somehow fail, it would be a huge blow to his legacy and tarnish his public image.
 

samcster94

Banned
I disagree. No candidate in their right mind would put Powell in second place as his celebrity would overshadow the Presidential nominee. Also, polling showed that he would get 50% to Clinton's 38% and Perot's 9%. If he he ran he would win, but certainly not by 12% in the popular vote. 6-7% is more realistic. If he did somehow fail, it would be a huge blow to his legacy and tarnish his public image.
He would have made an interesting President if he had run (and won) '96. In OTL, Dole was a poor candidate and had zero chance. My original idea was more that what the pop culture would be like if you had HW for most of the 90's and replace him with a Democrat who didn't cheat on his wife.
 
To me 90's culture is grunge, Windows 95, Seinfeld and the world not being scarred and fatigued by terrorism. Clinton is favorably remembered for just being there when things were going alright and didn't really personally impact culture more than just giving Darrell Hammond on Saturday Night Live a memorable character to play as well as fodder for other late night talk show hosts.
the other thing to keep in mind is that this is when computers really took off: the first feature-length CGI movies courtesy of Pixar, computer-animated TV shows like Beast Wars and ReBoot, and computers became easily accessible in the home. i remember back in the mid-'90s my family got our first computer, an IBM, and--being a kid still in single-digits at the time--i started spending alot of time playing point-and-click games, eventually graduating to more complex stuff such as the RTS genre starting with the Lost World: Jurassic Park tie-in game Chaos Island and then Empire Earth. you could see the transition of technology by all my typing classes in elementary school taking place in a state-of-the-art computer lab (at least by public school standards) while the school library nextdoor to it in the same building still used physical checkout cards and catalogues. all that was already set in motion and the lack of a Clinton administration wouldn't change that.
 

samcster94

Banned
the other thing to keep in mind is that this is when computers really took off: the first feature-length CGI movies courtesy of Pixar, computer-animated TV shows like Beast Wars and ReBoot, and computers became easily accessible in the home. i remember back in the mid-'90s my family got our first computer, an IBM, and--being a kid still in single-digits at the time--i started spending alot of time playing point-and-click games, eventually graduating to more complex stuff such as the RTS genre starting with the Lost World: Jurassic Park tie-in game Chaos Island and then Empire Earth. you could see the transition of technology by all my typing classes in elementary school taking place in a state-of-the-art computer lab (at least by public school standards) while the school library nextdoor to it in the same building still used physical checkout cards and catalogues. all that was already set in motion and the lack of a Clinton administration wouldn't change that.
That would still happen on schedule, albeit without websites with jokes about Monica Lewinsky.
 
the other thing to keep in mind is that this is when computers really took off: the first feature-length CGI movies courtesy of Pixar, computer-animated TV shows like Beast Wars and ReBoot, and computers became easily accessible in the home. i remember back in the mid-'90s my family got our first computer, an IBM, and--being a kid still in single-digits at the time--i started spending alot of time playing point-and-click games, eventually graduating to more complex stuff such as the RTS genre starting with the Lost World: Jurassic Park tie-in game Chaos Island and then Empire Earth. you could see the transition of technology by all my typing classes in elementary school taking place in a state-of-the-art computer lab (at least by public school standards) while the school library nextdoor to it in the same building still used physical checkout cards and catalogues. all that was already set in motion and the lack of a Clinton administration wouldn't change that.

I didn't get into gaming until my brother and I got a Nintendo 64 for Easter in 1997. I believe it came with Mario Kart and later we got the original SuperSmash Bros. and Mario 64.

Other notable events was buying our first DVD player as Father's Day gift for my dad in the year 2000. I suppose I can tell any future kids I was there for the transition to all things digital. As a kid we'd rent VHS tapes at a video rental store, the cars had cassette tape players standard, and portable gaming was restricted to the early versions of the Game Boy.
 
Since WWII, pop culture has only seen two real "shocks." One was the sudden emergence of television in the fifties, followed by rapid advances in audio recording technology. The result was a culture in 1970 that scarcely resembled that of 1952. The gradual emergence of video games and computers in the following years did not create a true shock. The next shock is just happening, it is the use of social media to convey information. Just as nobody associated early television with the upcoming civil rights and anti-war movements, we do not yet know the ultimate impact of today's new media.
 
well i wasn't really trying to make a point about video games--i was addressing the general impact of computers on culture and computer games were just part of my own experience with it--for my own part, i didn't "really" join the internet until about a decade after we got that first computer and was in high school at the time and didn't actually grow up as a gamer like my post may have implied, and hadn't even started typing until a considerable amount of time after that same computer (not long before "joining" the internet, really)
 
With Bush, you have a far successful HW foreign policy in the 90s ( No Don't ask, Don't Tell, far better operations in Somalia, head first into Rwanda and the Balkans to stop the genocide. Russia will have a better time Post-Soviet Union and Bush Senior will deal with the restructuring of the various republics a lot better.) This will have everyone see America as still the World Policeman, and there be far less of the 'End of History' idea.


No Republican Revolution, the GOP might become a more moderate center-right liberal conservative party rather than the one we have now, while the Democrats would end up a centrist/center-left socially liberal party with a significant moderate faction.

The Dems, their imagine problems aside, would win 96. Heck, you could have Bill Clinton as a sort of 'Nixon' figure as he lose 93, wait out on 96, and win big in the 2000 election.
 

samcster94

Banned
With Bush, you have a far successful HW foreign policy in the 90s ( No Don't ask, Don't Tell, far better operations in Somalia, head first into Rwanda and the Balkans to stop the genocide. Russia will have a better time Post-Soviet Union and Bush Senior will deal with the restructuring of the various republics a lot better.) This will have everyone see America as still the World Policeman, and there be far less of the 'End of History' idea.


No Republican Revolution, the GOP might become a more moderate center-right liberal conservative party rather than the one we have now, while the Democrats would end up a centrist/center-left socially liberal party with a significant moderate faction.

The Dems, their imagine problems aside, would win 96. Heck, you could have Bill Clinton as a sort of 'Nixon' figure as he lose 93, wait out on 96, and win big in the 2000 election.
Clinton was a little too friendly with Yeltsin, despite the fact the man was hated in Russia for his corruption(and that time he shot at Parliament).
 
Top