With the increase in cheap material and factories – brands began to create “memorabilia” or the tiny plastic toys that would come as complements to their products. Because of which small but funky objects like erasers, bizarre pencils, stationery, and toys in varying shapes and sizes became commonplace industrialized plastic goods became routine things. They created mascots like 7up’s Fido Dido, and Pillsbury’s Doughboy, to etch their goods into the public imagination and boost their sales.Įconomic liberalisation led to a reduction in tariff barriers, which made the import of polymer substances for plastic production cheaper and led to a boom in plastic production. They used their ad campaigns, catchy jingles, and clear, distinct brand images to gather attention. Large companies that manufactured FMCGs (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), like ITC and Nestle established a market in India. With the gates open to foreign investment and manufacturing, there was also a massive change in food production – with the 90s came brands like McDonald’s and Domino’s Pizza and goods like biscuits, candies, toffees, and various kinds of chips. Even as the economy in India was opening its doors to the world, to consumers and onlookers it was as if the world had come home. Dreams yet to be dreamt were being fulfilled. Brands were teaching consumers to desire more, and by doing this, they produced a type of consumer who was going to be like no other before. The idea that the world was at the tip of our fingers made this decade unique. More people had a glimpse of, and access to, a lifestyle that could compete with the glamour and glitz of the wealthy. Earlier, the bourgeois and the urban elite were the sole hoarders of cultural capital, but this democratized economic liberalisation. There were homes where children weren’t allowed to watch shows, in others teenagers pirated CDs filled with them, and sneaked them into their lives. The Wonder Years, I Dream of Jeannie, Friends, Different Strokes, Silver Spoons, Mind your Language, Small Wonder, and much alike, entered our TV screens and offered a glimpse of a life fuelled within the comforts of Western capitalism. In the advent of economic liberalisation, when India opened up to foreign trade and manufacturing cars, clothes, electronic gadgets, and gizmos, all kinds of seemingly fantastical things were snaking their way into the nation.ĭuring this time, films and shows from the US and the UK also made their way to us. But to have access to this information is what made the 90s exciting. How they got me to stop is another story. I also threw a tantrum and demanded my parents buy that watch for me. One such speculative science paragraph said the future of television devices was heading towards a tv-like device worn on the wrist. The last page of the Kannada magazine Mangala that my parents read had a fun section that held stories for children, comic strips, games, and facts or science-y stuff. It was the fag end of the 90s, and I was five or six years old. Manufactured Nostalgia – Pillsbury’s Doughboy The 1990s enabled a food industry that not only played with our palates, but also with our minds and memories.
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