Cultural Touchstones By Decade

Where were you when....?

1990s

• Does the combination of the fall of the Soviet Union plus the introduction of large-screen plasma televisions mean the best of all worlds or the best of all possible worlds? Is it better as the ‘End of History’ with a quotation mark or without?

• Did the CNN coverage make you feel like you were hunkered down under bombardment in Baghdad — or did you wonder if the Gulf War did not actually take place at all?

• Were you more taken with Bill Clinton being a Rhodes Scholar or with Bill Clinton playing the sax on Arsenio Hall? Or were the wrap-around glasses a bit much?

• Where were you when you heard Kurt Cobain died? Did you give a shit?

• So, there are no other suspects, he had a history of violence, and he caught his wife having an affair with another man. Open and shut case, right?

• Seinfeld or Friends?

• It kind of seems like that life boat is big enough for two, doesn’t it?

• Did you view Wag the Dog as playful satire or did it kind of perfectly seem to match up to the US’ intervention in Kosovo?

• Have you noticed that every time you think about the blue dress it just gets that more disgusting?

• Britney Spears does seem to be kind of young to be writhing around like that, doesn’t she? — or no problem at all?

• Did the thought ever once cross your mind that The Matrix might be a true story?

  2000s

• Where were you when the second tower was hit? Where were you when it fell?

• Were you pro-war? If you were anti, did you protest?

• The movie Kill Bill. The sudden taste that everybody had for really extreme violence.

• Are you The Wire or Mad Men?

• Are you a Jon Stewart or a Stephen Colbert?

• Did you read your Harry Potter proudly or did you try to hide it in that demure adult cover like everybody else on the train?

• Did you cry at Obama’s inauguration?

• Where were you when David Foster Wallace died?¹

• The movie Avatar. The feeling that all might be right with the world, actually.

• Did you feel a distinct sense of schadenfreude when Lehman went down? At what moment did you realize that the crisis might affect you?

  2010s

• Are you a Twitter? An Instagram? A Facebook? All of the above?

• Do you see yourself as more of a Stark or a Lannister — or did you make the mistake of naming your baby ‘Khaleesi’ before the final season came out?

• Screen time over/under six hours? (Parental locks, weird programs to block yourself from accessing the internet, or total tech determinism?)

• Edward Snowden=hero? traitor? very cute? Did you start giving your messages a once-over to see how they might look to the NSA agent watching you?

• Have you ever once referred to Beyonce as Queen? Or are you on more of a Bey basis?

• What was the first shooting when you felt things might be going off the rails? When you started to scope out your surroundings in public a little bit more? Aurora? San Bernardino? Charleston? Sandy Hook?

• When did you first hear the term ‘woke?’ How did you react?

• How did you spend Election Day 2016? Did you cry? Did you mention the word ‘Canada’?

• Did you put up a Black Lives Matter sign?

• How did you hear about the Weinstein rape accusations? What was your first social media post on them?

  2020s

• Mask or no mask?

• Vax or no vax?

• Where were you when you saw the George Floyd video?

• How do you refer to January 6? Do you call it January 6 in the same tone you refer to 9/11 or are you secretly kind of thrilled by it?

• Was there a moment when you realized Elon Musk was out of his mind or did it slowly dawn on you? (Was it before or after you realized that Kanye was out of his mind?)

• Rate the following in your personal order of probability: Covid originated from a lab in Wuhan, Epstein was murdered, Bill Gates created the pandemic, David Grush actually did reveal a massive government cover-up of alien craft, the lizard people run everything.

• Gen Z: out of its mind?

• Which Taylor Swift song would you match up to which episode of your life — or is your entire knowledge of Taylor Swift that she is that tight end’s girlfriend?

• Did you put up a Ukraine flag anywhere? When did you discreetly take it down? What was the first contrarian piece you read or watched on Ukraine?

• Where were you on 10/7? Did the word ‘genocide’ pass your lips anytime in 2024?

• While you deplore the Roy family and everything they stand for, do you by any chance own a sleek black wool baseball hat?

1. Well, this is kind of a high-brow list. Can sub out for when Carrie Underwood won American Idol or whatever.