I found the image above making the rounds and thought it would serve as a fun bit of nostalgia fodder. Judging by the pop culture references scattered throughout, the scene depicted above takes place in a teenager’s room in an idealized version of the early 1990s. It’s a clear summer night, and our young gamer is sitting back to enjoy a few rounds of Street Fighter II.
There are a couple of almost certainly purposeful inconsistencies. Most of the showcased ephemera suggests an American subject, but he’s playing a Super Famicom instead of a SNES, so we have an interesting distortion of space. Doom also wasn’t released for Nintendo systems until 1995, whereas everything else in the room hails from no later than 93, so there’s a dreamlike compression of time. It makes for a compelling contrast.
Audience participation time. It’s mid-summer of your thirteenth year. You’re chilling at home on a perfect evening with your diversion of choice. Put yourself in the place of the kid in this picture. What’s in front of you? Tell us what you’re doing, and list some of the artifacts that would have been in a snap shot taken from the same perspective at the time.
If the header image has one demerit, it’s a decided lack of anime content. As long as we’re blending Eastern and Western 90s pop culture, that room could use a Gundam model or a Macross poster. Luckily, Combat Frame XSeed is coming to make up for what’s lacking. Support the runaway hit Indiegogo campaign now, get amazing perks, and help us fund the XSeed audiobook!
