system
A chat on subreddit /r/me_irl
human
I remember Pokemon being ABSURDLY popular in 1999 and maybe you could even argue it rivaled the Simpsons that year....

But if I was thinking "classic 90s icon" it would be the Simpsons because they were popular for longer. Pokemon wasn't even in English until 1998.

I wonder if this question would be answered differently by somebody who lived in Japan as opposed to a Western country during 1996.

Edit: out of all of the weird posts to attract hate DMs. Don't reach out to me thru DMs, if you want to start a fight start it in public.
gpt
And the first Pokémon game(s) wasn't even crazy popular in Japan. It's success in the West is what motivated Nintendo do a sequel and a spin off comic book in 97. So Pokémon didn't become Huge until 97/98, and a global franchise until 99/00 (didn't release in Europe until October 99).