Spend enough time on this blog, and you’ll soon discover that contextualizing the generations, especially in regard to pop culture, gets a lot of page space. The memory-holing of Generation Y that came down from Madison Avenue at the turn of the millennium and only recently fell out of fashion comes up a lot because it’s an easily proven example of media gaslighting.
Marketing in a youth-obsessed culture is necessarily youth-oriented. The Gen Y category fell out of use when Ys entered their 20s and the ad agencies lost interest in them. Millennials held corporate marketeers’ attention longer due to their extended adolescence, but even that coddled cohort is falling out of vogue now that Millennials are turning 30.
This article, wherein a Gen X Pop Cultist surveys the Low 90s moonscape and tries to make sense of the ensuing and ongoing stagnation, is a promising sign that normies are starting to notice Cultural Ground Zero.
Is it odd to anyone else that stuff from the year 1999 gets mixed in pop culture from the 1990s? I am familiar with the Gregorian calendar like everyone else, but culturally, 1999 did not feel like a 90s year. The clothes, toys, movies, books, and tv shows of 1999 were all too modern to have appeared in the 80s or very early 90s.
What our Xer’s forensic geekery is fumbling to grasp is the end of the IP explosion phase that rocked all media in the 80s and whose aftershocks lasted into the mid-90s. All major entertainment brands have been stuck in a Milking –> Hibernation –> Reboot –> Milking cycle ever since.
Playing a Nintendo Entertainment System would bore the 2000s teen and the 2000s teen would not have any idea what a CD long-box is. I bet Will Smith in 1990 would faint after hearing that a SONY PlayStation would be launched in 5 more years. The 2000s teen in that photo was an XYer and Will Smith is a member of Generation X. In 1999, I was into the same pop culture icons that that 2000s teen liked. The Bride of Chucky, H20 (the Halloween movie), The WB, early South Park, the New York Yankees, Kid Rock, Eminem, N’SYNC, Britney Spears, and Austin Powers were all on my radar. For that reason alone, I could never call 1999 a year of the 90s (I was old enough to tell the difference).
Besides some general incoherence, what’s interesting here is that the author gets the generation breakdowns right. Will Smith is indeed a member of Generation X. The clunky term “XYer” clearly refers to Generation Y, most of whom would have been teenagers in 1999.
The photo to which the OP is referring depicts a teenage boy chilling in his room sometime in 1999. Note that he is neither listening to grunge nor glued to a cell phone. He is instead playing a PS1 on a CRT TV. This is Generation Y. Note that this photo could easily be an alternate angle shot of the 2003 teen’s bedroom in this post’s header image.
The very early 2000s (1999-2001) were the most definitive part of the 2000s and it was the last time the world was anxious to turn on the radio or MTV before rushing out to buy the whole album from their favorite artists. There was some great music in the 2002 to 2004 era, also, but the songs released from 1999 to 2001 were so futuristic sounding that they are in a class of their own. There was a lot going on in the world in 1999. Gen Zers were beginning to watch TV, Late Millennials were starting elementary school, Core Millennials were on their way to middle school, Late XYers were teens, Early XYers were college students, and Late Gen Xers were producers for the first time.
Again, his terminology is a little unwieldy, but the categories the terms represent are largely accurate. The only outright error is that the first Zoomers were only just being born in 2001. Otherwise, the earliest Millennials were indeed in grade school, Ys were in high school and college, and Xers were advancing into those positions of middling authority which Boomers would allow.
The stark reality which the Retro Junk author comes close to grasping, only to shrink back from, is the dearth of anything new breaking into the mainstream since the High 90s. What started out as major studios, labels, and publishers playing it safe has now curdled into an all-out assault on audiences.
Look off the well-worn mainstream path, though, and you’ll find myriad thriving indie scenes where creators are working hard to break new ground and please audiences. If you’re in the market for a spacefaring adventure that blazes fresh trails with beloved tropes, check out my new mecha thriller Combat Frame XSeed: S!
