>>16219867Nah, we were very much inundated with degeneracy. It just was a bit different and not nearly to the extent we see today.
But, we had extremely edgy shows (Family Guy/American Dad, [adult swim] cartoons, etc.), our music was incredibly rebellious and dark (that's where "emo" cane from), tattoos were becoming very prevalent and common (same with piercings), our culture was being formed by internet insanity, and we were seeing cultural fracturing and parallelization occurring. Also social media was being created and Facebook was absorbing teens like no tomorrow.
The reason it seems like it was great, or "free" from the junk we have today, was because it was balanced with a a lot of positives and we still had a healthy core that had not yet broken or been (completely) rotted. Many of the junky things, like our music and cartoons, also offered something fairly cool and worked a bit better with the context of the times. Nowadays, you can't get away with doing shit like that, because there isn't that stable center to return to (at least, not on a larger social scale).
If you want to understand the culture, one of the best ways is to get something that can play Flash games and cartoons, then go to Newgrounds and look at everything before 2012 (unless it's new installments in an old series).
Another is searching YouTube and adding before:2007 (or whatever year) to see results from back then.
I wish you luck! Many good things, especially memories, from that time deserve to be shared with future generations!
