A Cultural History of (My) Era

Experience

Reagan — No memory.

The Fall of the Soviet Union — No real memory. The story of Swan Lake on Russian television. A Russian ship with a very surly crew appearing on a goodwill visit to New York Harbor.

The 1980s — Very little memory, my dad saying the ‘80s were all about ‘excess.’ A hard-to-explain taste for Billy Idol as I got older.

AIDS crisis — Sex ed very early. Saying to another second grader, “I’d like to have a kid but not if I have to do that.”

George H.W. Bush — Dan Quayle spelling potato with an e. Bush looking at his watch during a debate.

Persian Gulf War — The school calling home to check that none of the kids were traumatized by the images on TV. My father saying the kids were fine; maybe they should check on the Iraqis instead.

Bill Clinton — My teacher explaining that Republicans are for the rich and powerful, Democrats are for people like us. Something about Clinton playing a saxophone. My father saying, “He’s a rogue but he’s our rogue.”

Software — Need to set a grueling pace always for the Oregon Trail.

AOL — My cousin talking to several friends over chat while talking to the same friends on the phone at the same time. Everybody impressed and intimidated.

Yugoslav wars — No memory of Bosnia. The sneaky way people liked Wag The Dog. The Kosovar kid who turned up at our school. How no one ever figured out how to really talk to him.

Rwanda — No real memory. An idea of the Tutsis being taller than the Hutus. Later on, when reading Samantha Power, etc, an immense sense of guilt.

Boy bands — A girl in fifth grade writing on the blackboard that she wanted to marry Lance Bass. My reaction: you’ve got to be kidding me.

Whassup Budweiser commercial — Boys literally spending all of middle school quoting it to each other.

Lewinsky Scandal — My arguing to my parents’ perplexed friends that Clinton deserved to be impeached. Seemed so straightforward — he had committed perjury; he should lose his job.

1990s — Watching the news on January 1, 2000, almost having trouble imagining anything going wrong anywhere.

George W. Bush — My dad describing him as almost an inevitability — Prince Hal. My uncle “voting for gridlock.”

9/11 — Leave American music class and hear about an emergency assembly. While I’m on line for it, my English teacher says there’s been an attack. “Thousands are dead.” The only thing that comes to mind is Independence Day. The vague disappointment when it turns out to be a terrorist group.

Patriot Act — The radical history teacher the only one to speak out against it. His sly smile saying even Hillary voted for it.

Iraq War — Furious debate with my barber about it. The moment of terror thinking he’ll sabotage my haircut.

2004 election — The kid everybody liked in college writing ‘Kerry’ in chalk on the sidewalk the day of the election. The first time I thought he actually might win.

Facebook — A certain number of people just disappearing into their rooms freshman year of college. The kids who pranked Facebook by starting a separate group for every activity during the day. The amazement when they got a message from Zuckerberg himself telling them to knock it off.

Apple — The look people started to get when they saw that I didn’t have a MacBook. The way the salesman said, “Welcome to Apple,” the first time I got an iPhone.

YouTube — The realization that everybody I knew courted by playing YouTube clips to one another.

Twitter — My certainty that it would be a fad. My dad saying, “You can’t say anything in 200 characters.”

Gmail — Somebody saying, “E-mail is the new way to ignore people.” The sudden feeling of everybody just failing to reach each other.

Obama — My grandparents — Republican boosters — realizing that their Senate seat was lost because of this talented up-and-coming politician. Hearing that Obama had actually been weak at first on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. Somehow liking him even better once I heard that.

Recession — An Indian restaurant with a sign out saying, “Owing to the crisis of the credit crunch, we are pleased to offer the following specials….” The laugh you got every time you started a sentence with, “In this economy….”

2000s — The decade never even figuring out its abbreviation.

Tinder — A category in my high school yearbook: “Most likely to resort to online dating.” Eventually, the idea of ‘meeting IRL’ starting to seem grubby and quaint.

Instagram — Hearing that it was the “friendliest place on the Internet.” Noticing that people spent literally all day scrolling.

Game of Thrones — The office manager, who had Tivo’d it, covering her ears when everybody on Monday talked about the most recent episode. How annoyed everybody was with her. The sense — somewhere around the Red Wedding — that this might be like the last experience everybody truly shared together.

Trump — My father, who had watched the escalator speech, saying “He’ll need to drop out right away.”

2010s — The partiers streaming away from Hillary’s Brooklyn office in tears. The sense of history starting up again.

Pandemic — A party over the winter with my OCD boss refusing to touch anyone else. How cool I felt shaking hands like a normal person. A moment in the spring of thinking it might be fun and cozy to wrap up in masks and gloves for some limited period of time.

Ukraine — Somebody saying, “What is going on? First a pandemic, now a war?”

AI — Reading an article on ChatGPT’s release. A really terrible, sinking feeling.