Nothing says 1995 like arguing over a just-released PlayStation One. Photo / Pexels, Mariah N
About this time every year, we’re all faced with the same conundrum.
What do you say to someone you haven’t seen since Christmas?
It’s the same feeling you get in an Uber when a little voice in your head is whispering, “Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it,” and before you know it, you’ve blurted out, “Busy night?”
Only this time, the words that tumble out of your mouth are “Happy New Year”.
And the moment they do, you’re left wondering if that is still appropriate.
According to Larry David, the window for Happy New Year slams shut after three days of the new year.
Maybe four, if you’re feeling generous.
Anything beyond that and you’re not spreading goodwill, you’re committing a conversational crime.
Some people live by this rule with the kind of discipline usually reserved for Dry July or carb-free diets.
Others take a looser approach, extending the greeting through the first week of January, sometimes the whole month, especially if it’s the first time they’ve seen you since the calendar flipped over.
There are even those clearly angling for some sort of Billy T Comedy Award who go with “Haven’t seen you for years.”
All of which got me thinking, not just about how long we’re allowed to say Happy New Year, but about the bigger question lurking underneath it.
Do we actually need a new year?
Because if we’re being honest, the last few years have been a bit grim.
The kind of grim that inspires slogans like “Survive till 25″.
That sounds less like a fresh start and more like Survivor meets the Kardashians, where contestants are dropped into a bleak landscape with nothing but Fox News and a vague sense of dread.
“Survive till 25″ doesn’t scream optimism or hope.
It suggests we’re all hunkered down, bracing ourselves, quietly hoping the calendar will save us.
So, here’s my proposal. Instead of “Survive till 25″, let’s revive 95.
Yes, out with the new year and in with a good old year.
One that has already been road-tested.
One that didn’t come with constant alerts or the expectation that you’d be available at all times.
One where the biggest risk was forgetting to tape your favourite song off the radio.
I propose to Revive 95 properly, not metaphorically.
The rules are simple. We rewind to 1995 and hit reset. Anything invented after that quietly disappears.
Technology, news cycles, fashion trends, and even a few opinions.
No updates, no alerts, no pressure to keep up. Just a return to a time when the future felt exciting, not exhausting.
A time when Skynet was just something James Cameron warned us about in a movie, not a looming reality.
Windows 95 wowed us and made your beige home computer suddenly feel like it belonged in The Jetsons.
The internet existed, but it was slow, curious, and if someone was on the landline, you had to wait, and wait, and eventually yell down the hallway that you needed to use the phone line.
You didn’t live online; you visited it, usually with a purpose, and if you wanted to download something, you started it before bed and hoped it would be finished by morning.
It was a time when entertainment didn’t live in your pocket; you lived it. You went outside.
Or you called someone. Or you fired up the PlayStation One and argued over whose turn it was next.
Games were played in the same room, not through headsets with strangers on the other side of the world.
Losing meant handing over the controller and claiming the buttons were sticking.
A time when music mattered. You bought it, you owned it, and you listened to whole albums because that’s how they were meant to be heard.
Overseas, it was Oasis versus Blur, a debate that felt genuinely important at the time.
Radio stations shaped taste, introduced new artists, and decided what summer sounded like. If you missed a song you liked, you waited. Patiently.
Some music crossed the line, and if it carried a Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics sticker, that more often than not helped you decide it was exactly the album you needed.
It was a time when television was an event.
ER, Seinfeld and Friends weren’t something you binged on a rainy Sunday; they were appointments.
Miss an episode, and you relied on workplace recaps the next morning, usually delivered with wildly differing levels of accuracy.
Conversations started with “Did you see it last night?” and everyone actually had.
TV shows influenced how we talked. “Could it be any more influential?”
Even haircuts were dictated by whatever was on screen, whether you wanted them to be or not.
Suddenly, half the country was asking for “The Rachel” and hoping their hairdresser knew what that meant.
And then there was the news; no frantic fact-checking required.
When the O.J. Simpson verdict was delivered, the world stopped to watch.
People remember where they were when they saw it, not because it was trending, but because everyone saw it together.
There was no endless scrolling. Just one moment, absorbed collectively, then talked about afterwards, usually by people who had suddenly become legal experts on gloves and their fit.
Reviving 95 isn’t about pretending life was perfect. It wasn’t.
Things were harder in some ways and easier in others.
It’s about remembering a time when the pace felt manageable.
When progress didn’t feel quite so relentless.
So Happy 1995. See you there.