I have a lot of nostalgia for the pre-9/11 world too but be careful with the rose tint.

It wasn't so wonderful if you were gay, for example. AIDS was still new and scary in 1990, and society was not so accepting of that lifestyle.

I remember when I was a teen it wasn't uncommon to go to a Boston Pizza-tier restaurant and have the waiter make a quip about "not wanting to look like a fag" by ordering the same thing as the guy next to you. This was a thing into my 20s, as late as 2007 probably.