ElI5: Why was so special about Windows 95, what made it a 90s pop culture touchstone?
In: Technology
A lot of posts are are implying that before Windows 95 everything was a DOS command line. This isn’t true. Windows existed before Win95, Windows 3.1 was very popular and pretty similar. However Windows 95 had a couple of new things that made it special. First is the “START” button. This was new in Windows 95. Before that you have to click through windows of icons to find what you wanted. Basically the whole experience was like using the File Explorer is today (just without any of the sidebars or previews).
The other thing people have touched on but not really gone into was the marketing. Microsoft paid huge money to use the Rolling Stones “Start Me Up” in their commercial. Just the fact that they paid a lot of money was news and itself free promotion. There was also the fact tha the OS came with a copy of the music video for Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” which was a huge hit at the time.
Latest Answers