April 4, 1995
April 4, 1995 was filled with various fashion styles, movies, albums, and much more. It was the middle to the end of not just the decade, but the century. During this date, little to anyone's knowledge, I came into this ever grungy atmosphere. The weather was nice and cool with a mere 66 degrees in Fahrenheit and a wind mileage of 9 mph. It was the day right after my mom's birthday and everyone was wearing plaid and listening to Madonna and Nirvana. I was actually suppose to be a boy, due to not having 4D sonograms or any good graphics at that point, and I came out to be a girl. Though the clothes may change a bit, the technology advances and new great singers come and go, the thing is, everything relatively remains the same.
During the day that I was born, people were still Photoshopping pictures. When I looked up the Vogue cover for that month, you could clearly see that the girl had an elongated neck with perfectly straight lines, all edited. This finding is pretty sad, but it is true nonetheless, though companies now-a-days are starting to give up this Photoshop parade and go on to a more natural facade.Who were these people that were Photoshopped on these covers? Models, TV stars and pop stars.
Another thing that had stayed the same was pop stars. Pop stars have been around for ages and 1995 was no different. At that time, specifically around April 4th, the biggest pop stars were Mariah Carey, TLC, and Madonna. Madonna's song, Take a Bow, was number #1 during the week of my birthday, according to Billboard. Pop stars will probably never go away, but one thing's for sure, we always seem to get their song's stuck in our heads.
During the day that I was born, people were still Photoshopping pictures. When I looked up the Vogue cover for that month, you could clearly see that the girl had an elongated neck with perfectly straight lines, all edited. This finding is pretty sad, but it is true nonetheless, though companies now-a-days are starting to give up this Photoshop parade and go on to a more natural facade.Who were these people that were Photoshopped on these covers? Models, TV stars and pop stars.
Another thing that had stayed the same was pop stars. Pop stars have been around for ages and 1995 was no different. At that time, specifically around April 4th, the biggest pop stars were Mariah Carey, TLC, and Madonna. Madonna's song, Take a Bow, was number #1 during the week of my birthday, according to Billboard. Pop stars will probably never go away, but one thing's for sure, we always seem to get their song's stuck in our heads.
Speaking of pop stars, the biggest story in my home town of San Antonio was the news about Selena Quintanilla's death. She was one of the biggest Mexican American pop star that was accepted by the Mexicans and the Americans. When she died, people from all over had memorial for her, such as San Antonio and Corpus Christi Texas. Selena's death was not on my birthday, but it was close enough for the nurses to ask my mother if she was going to name me Selena, which she did not. Selena's death can be compared to recent Paul Walker, who's death swarmed the internet and his last Fast and Furious 7 movie was greatly perceived in the box office. I couldn't get the actricle picture from my hometown's archive, because then I would have to subscribe to them, but I took snip-its of all three title's and beginning prompts (which is all I could see without subscription).
For those that were too cool for main stream media and did not want to include themselves with any type of pop star, there was video games. Video game fanatics everywhere were getting ready for the first E3 that was being held a month later in L.A. In the meantime, GameInformer was still publishing about now-gone game consoles in April 1995, such as Sega, Atari, SNK, and even CD's for the computer, while GamePro was doing reviews on Mortal Combat 2 and Madden NFL 95. Even the covers of these various issues have what was then, amazing graphics. Now looking back, it seems that the video game world has come a long way from where it started. The point is, these video game magazines still exist and people still enjoy playing them. Of course, Atari and Sega are not around anymore and are only seen in the arcades, but we are still nostalgic for their presence. I also wanted to point out that back then GameInformer was only $3.95, now looking at their website, I can get a magazine for $14.99 with GameStop power rewards card. Isn't it funny how people forget these things?
Speaking of forgetting things, the one of the biggest nonfiction best sellers during the week of my birthday was The Hotzone by Richard Preston. I wanted to point this out, because who would have known that years later, an Ebola panic would explode the U.S. and the future city that I am living in now, once held the Ebola victim that caused the panic. Now this book actually came out in 1994, but was still very popular in April 1995. The first nonfiction bestseller on the list was actually the Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, which is about new spirituality and finding different spiritual and psychological ideas that are within the ancient eastern cultures. This made me interested as will, because that is what I like to do. I like to learn and understand different religions and cultures. Anyways, the idea here is that though ideas and thoughts come and go, eventually they resurface and as the thought of the Ebola virus spreading was on people's mind, so was their thought on reading this book again.
Even though the world you were born in, or I was born in, is not completely the same as it is now, some things still remain the same. Yes, we do not go around wearing parachute pants anymore like in the 70's, but we do wear over-sized plaid like in the 90's. You can't catch the spice girls on the radio, but you can catch 5th Harmony. And people still go see Jim Carrey movies and watch SNL, of course the humor is a little different, but the concept is still their. We all still want the best president in the world, we still are looking for better graphics in games and babies are still being born, on a different day, in a different decade that they wish was another decade, and the people may change, the trends may change, the computers might get smaller, but the stories and the concepts and puberty are still the same.
Work Cited:
Miesel, Steven. Vogue. April 1995. Web. 01 Nov. 2015
Madonna. "Madonna - Take A Bow." YouTube. YouTube, 29 Oct. 2009. Web. 09 Nov. 2015.
Danini, C. (1995, April 4). Mexico City's Media concentrates on rites. San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved November 8, 2015.
Garza, T. (1995, April 4). Hundreds Attend Mass in Alamo City - Young and Old Grieve Star. San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved November 8, 2015.
Garza, T. (1995, April 4). Hundreds Attend Mass in Alamo City - Young and Old Grieve Star. San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved November 8, 2015.
GameInformer. Issue: 24. April 1995. Web. 05 Nov. 2015
Preston, R. (1994). The Hot Zone (1995 ed.). New York, New York: Random House.
