Pearl Jam formed in 1990. Nirvana technically started in the late 80s, but Dave Gohl didn't join until 1990 and they didn't become popular until
Nevermind in 1991. So as a cultrual point, those two are without a doubt products of the 90s.
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I acknowledge your perception of these things coming to the forefront of culture in the 90's, but I knew them all quite well in the 80s' -- so it doesn't wash for me
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And your insistence that something must exist
exclusively in a particular decade to be considered iconic of that decade doesn't wash with me. It's not about exclusivity, it's about cultural impact. The internet can be traced back to the late 50s, but it is without a doubt a defining phenomenon of the 90s.
The internet is without a doubt a defining phenomenon of the 90s, but a particular USE of the internet (social media) is a defining phenomenon of the Milleni-Os (the same way that a particular USE of cars as a social tool for teens is a defining phenomenon of the 50s).
Coffee has existed for centuries. Coffee shops have existed for decades. But with grunge came the Seattle influence, came the rise of Starbucks. An defining phenomenon of the decade.
I think we need Madz and Tori in here. Describe to them checking your email once per day because you only had a few hours left that month to log into AOL, having a cell phone only in the car for emergency purposes, renting VHS movies from a store instead of having DVDs show up in the mail. Then ask again if the Milleni-Os (yeah, I'm not giving up on that one) are indistinct from the 90s.
As I said before, you can always find ways to blur that line. That goes for every single decade. Time isn't actually broken up into distinct units of 10 years, it just happens to be a period that generally encompasses enough cultural change that artificially drawing those dividing lines highlights some important cultural touchstones.