Forbidden Pop Culture
Reliving the 90s as an evangelical kid-turned-nostalgia influencer
"When I grow up, I want to be a nostalgia influencer!"
Said literally nobody.
Look- I never set out to be this. It’s definitely something a person has just gotta stumble into.
A true cringy ~theatre kid~ at my core who was always obsessed with the internet and creative expression, it weirdly makes sense in a way. It was totally normal for me to show up to class in high school in a thrifted 80s dress, and I took any opportunity for a school project to make a video on my Kodak Easyshare digital camera.
If you’ve ever stumbled onto my online presence, you would assume as someone with so much memory of 90s pop culture, I must have lived and breathed it as a kid, right?
Well… the thing is- I actually was not allowed to freely participate in pop culture at large until my mid teens as I was in prison.
A cultural prison, that is.
My 90s Experience
To really understand my nostalgia journey, you have to know how my experience of the 90s was… different.
Growing up in an "independent, fundamental King James Version only" Baptist church in the Deep South led to pop-culture isolation by design. And I was there Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and anytime the doors were open- as any good Baptist does.
Secular, or "worldly" music, movies, and other artistic diversions were not something we were meant to associate with. (For those who did not grow up in religious circles, “worldly” refers to well, anything that isn’t related to Jesus in any way. We were supposed to be "not of this world.”)
When it came to pop culture, I was taught that a Good Christian™ only listens to gospel music and watches Kirk Cameron movies. I remember going to a youth conference every year where a big segment of it was a message emphasizing how we needed to throw away all of our non-Christian music if we really wanted to be committed to God.
Even certain songs that had “too much rhythm” from our generally safe choir books were deemed inappropriate. Needless to say it felt very stifling to a kid with a deep fascination for music and popular culture of the time.
Let's go back to 1998.
Britney Spears' debut album was released and monumentally changed pop music as we know it. I can still feel the massive disappointment I had when my dad wouldn't let me get her debut album. As innocent as she was in the beginning, she was still looked at as a "Jezebel" or "harlot" who would *obviously* influence me to be fast and loose.
Nevertheless, I marched onward with my extensive catalog of Contemporary Christian CDs, and relying on crumbs of pop culture to be fed to me via other means, like:
Scheming at my classmate’s house on how to snag the affection of my 5th grade crush while wearing out the *NSYNC CD.
Being introduced to Edwin McCain and Smash Mouth while catfishing random people on AOL chat rooms with my next-door neighbor.
Getting to watch TRL after school before my mom came home from work and being enamored by the art of the music video. The fashion, the makeup- it all was so fascinating to me.
Music as a Cornerstone to my 90s Nostalgia
Many of my pop culture memories that I did get to experience from back then revolve around music, which is truly a foundation of a lot of my content to this day. It's amazing how powerfully a song can take you back to a singular moment. It's the closest thing we have to time travel!
One thing I really miss about growing up in a pre-24/7 connected world was how we really treasured the music we had because it was so precious. We didn't have a library of songs at our fingertips at any given moment like we do now. It all felt very intentional and we appreciated it more.
Lying on my hunter green carpeted bedroom floor studying the lyric booklet ofCeline Dion's "Let's Talk About Love" CD as her magical voice played on my little Sony boom box is one of my most vivid childhood memories.
Though yes, she was “worldly-” Celine was one of the artists I was actually allowed to listen to, so she got a lot of playback from me in the late 90s. To this day she's one of my favorite artists. I’ll never forget seeing her in Vegas as well as attending her documentary premiere in NYC last year!
While I was technically allowed to listen to her, she didn't come without critique. I was gifted the album by an uncle and I remember my Dad being very stressed about Celine's somewhat revealing outfit choices here. (Which, you know- is actually really funny considering I posed for a similar type of photo at age 3 at a Glamour shots at the Mall.)
Reclaiming My Past
While I had many happy childhood memories and a good childhood overall- there was also a lot of underlying anxiety there and a heaviness brought on by the church I grew up in.
I remember having stomachaches all the time from anxiety and not being able to sleep because I would replay the scary scenes from Revelations that the Pastor yelled about until he was blue in the face in the service that day.
Fears of being "left behind" from the Rapture, or being visited by an angel in my sleep were very real to me and I was constantly fretting about it. Also- what if I said the prayer wrong and I was gonna go to Hell because I didn't pray exactly the right way? Eternal damnation was a very realistic threat at all times for me!
Over the years I've thankfully deconstructed from the legalistic evangelical church I grew up in, and I think over the years I subconsciously found myself wanting to go back and sort of reclaim parts of my past and experience pop culture in ways that I truly couldn't at the time.
Becoming a Social Media Pioneer
I was always an early adopter of social media. I’ve been on pretty much every platform you can think of at some point, beginning with the first form of “social media” I can think of- AOL chatrooms and message boards.
Next came Myspace, then Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Youtube- you name it, I was active there. I was always a child of the internet and so fascinated by computers. I was a Neopets entrepreneur and a “web designer,” creating my own Geocities and Expage websites about random things.
So naturally when Tiktok came out, I gravitated towards it like I did any other platform.
By the time the pandemic happened, my creative outlet of the time, theatre, had all but disappeared. So of course I did what seemed natural- to start posting there. At first it was a hodgepodge of randomness, but the music aspect of Tiktok was always so fascinating to me, how you could seamlessly create to the soundtracks we were listening to.
I randomly had the idea to do a "if Tiktok existed in the 90s" series and did a lip syncing video to Macarena while wearing butterfly clips and a 90s brown mauve lip. I went to bed, and by morning, it had gone viral.
That changed everything for me!
So I kept going with this series, all the while revisiting all the 90s favorites, rediscovering all the different 90s subgenres and immersing myself in replicating each year with meticulous accuracy.
I studied music videos I had never seen before and did deep dives on my favorite artists- things like, “What is the group Dream up to these days?”
A 90s Renaissance- Honoring the Glamour
Making these videos set off a 90s/00s renaissance for me in the media I consumed.
Funny enough, this also coincided with a resurgence of 90s and 00s trends in stores. I actually bought my gold butterfly clips new from Urban Outfitters in 2021 believe it or not!
I was furiously creating playlists, researching old music videos, and investing a lot of time in pop culture of the era.
One thing that we tend to do online is poke fun at old trends, and while I definitely do that sometimes, at my core I always hold a lot of reverence for the art of the music video and for the art of glamour. I mean, I taught myself how to do a full face of makeup at age 12 via all the beauty and fashion magazines that I memorized!
My mom was a very simple woman and never really taught me much in the way of beauty, but I was compelled to devour every piece of media I could to help turn myself into the pop stars and Disney channel stars I idolized.
I’m not trying to just parody pop culture- I like to feel like I’m honoring it. And that's still a philosophy that drives my work. I know it sounds silly and deeper than it probably needs to be- but honoring the spirit of the artists and creatives of that time and what they created is always important to me. That’s why so many people comment things like- “Our makeup wasn’t this good back then!” But I like to sort of live the fantasy of it all. And represent for those of us that were enamored by the glamour of the time, who were really into makeup and styling.
I think part of this is due to my roots in theatre- when doing a show set in a certain year I was always really obsessive about getting everything super accurate. I get a lot of joy in that, personally. It’s methodical, almost a scientific experience for me.
The Transformation to a Nostalgia Influencer
Back in 2015, I remember being so fascinated by Youtube beauty creator culture. I always thought, "Wow, one day I want to get to a point where people are sending me free makeup!"
Then all of a sudden I was living it.
After some time, my videos took off and I cultivated a little audience and it was all very exciting.
One of the first collaborations I did was with a brand I still love and support- Nosta Beauty. I was going back in time year by year in my time travel series, dabbling in 1970s and 1980s looks- and it coincided with the release of their 80s VHS styled makeup palette so we did a collaboration.
I'm still friends with the owner to this day and all of her products are so innovative and cool! I had the pleasure of actually being a part of the product shoot for her Nostalgia Playlist CD shaped eyeshadow palette which was an awesome experience.
Getting Deeper into the Nostalgia Mines
The fact all this was happening was so incredibly rewarding as I was also grappling with feeling like a failure around this time professionally. When I moved to NYC in 2019- I thought my theatre career was really going to finally take off. Between COVID, then an injury that had me out of commission for a year- let’s just say that didn’t happen in the way I expected it to.
To fill the artistic void- creating videos kept me going.
Soon enough I had more brands wanting to ride the nostalgia marketing wave and partner with me to make videos. I did fun nostalgic videos with brands like Trapper Keeper, Rugrats, and other similar brands, and I kept diving deeper and deeper into my memories. It was always- and still is- such a rush when I can recall something super obscure that I hadn't thought of in 20 years.
“Nostalgia mining” was more than a hobby- it was turning into a part time job at this point!
In the beginning of 2023, I had a concept come to me to do a video poking fun at the ever omnipresent rooster theme our mom’s kitchens had in the 90s. That video set off a wave of a series that went extremely popular- totaling over 20 million views in a week. To this day that series still results in some amazing opportunities I would never have expected- like getting invites to red carpet premieres and magazine features. I’m so grateful for all of the cool things I’ve been able to experience!
Moving Forward
As I look back at the journey of the past few years, it really does feel in a way like I was able to reclaim pop culture from that era for myself instead of it feeling stolen from me.
There is definitely a duality- on one side I am portraying realistic scenes that were comforting at the time and that are still comforting today- and on the other I am reinventing and reliving a sort of idealistic abstraction of what these eras represent for myself. Moments I may not have lived myself but what I always imagined I would have liked to.
A lot of people brush off pop culture as a silly, pointless thing to pay attention to but I think it's such a fascinating way to capture the overall sentiment of a time. And as an entertainer, I find it very fulfilling to be able to transport people there just for a little bit.
Whether it's revisiting the zen vibe of The Weather Channel's light jazz, or a rooster themed kitchen with country music playing in the background while mom preps dinner- my goal is just to spread a little bit of joy and warmth and recreate little mini-worlds you can lose yourself in for just a moment.
And with this weekly newsletter, I want to dive deeper than a 15-30 second video, and take a closer look at the things that shaped us and that are currently shaping pop culture and art around us today.
Thanks for letting me give you an introduction into why I do what I do- I can't wait to go on this new journey with you!
-Janine
Love this so much!! (Esp Celine part, obviously!!) Welcome to Substack 😊💌