As we sit warmly ensconced in our soaring urban dwellings, illumined by cellphone screens and computer glares, half-aware of the twinkling humming outside world, the urban world, the unsleeping urban organism, let us look back to the time before this, to the dawn of today – to the 90s.
I was still a relatively infantile half-wit in the 90s (a child), completely clueless about the rapid developments around me, the 8-point tremors that would lead to the tsunami of technology. I remember a weird brick cellphone that was cool because the buttons glowed green. I remember kiddie laptops that had programs featuring dancing monkeys doing math equations. I remember the tamagochi, the sinister precedent of the imagined relationship we would later develop with bits of wired plastic communicating with us through a series of ones and zeros. I also remember the snippets of music and fashion, the cultural tatters wafting in the breeze of yesteryear – the time when it was still okay for people older than 14 to make music. Sinead O’Connor crying stonily into the camera. Women who aren’t blonde wondering what’s going on. Plaid shirts. But more importantly – The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and more specifically, their great cultural commentary piece, “Under the Bridge”.
bangkokbird 