fads

A four-panel comic under a banner reading "Wacky ~90s~ Fads!" Three panels show genuine 1990s fads with labels: "Wide-leg jeans!" (baggy jeans), "Grunge music!" (a long-haired person playing acoustic guitar), and "Tamagotchi!" (the handheld virtual-pet toy). The third panel, treated as just another goofy fad, is labeled with a caption: "Belief that universal internet access will decrease ignorance while advancing democracy." In it a person in baggy 90s clothes gives a thumbs-up beside an old desktop computer and declares, "Gatekeepers are the problem, not us!" The joke is that this optimistic 90s belief about the internet aged as badly as the dated fashion fads around it. Votey (bonus panel): hand-lettered text reading "Disinformation wants to be free!" — a dark twist on the old hacker slogan "information wants to be free."