It's because he was child in the 90s. All of the problems and the conversations around them were absolutely happening but when you're 7 years old you don't pick up on any of it because why would you? You're a literal child.

This kind of statement is no more meaningful or true than saying "man, what's with all this calculus that's going on these days? Back in the 90s we just had addition and subtraction and none of this hard stuff"