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Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything
A brilliantly provocative and entertaining essay collection about the Y2K era, the generation defining period that birthed everything from AOL Instant Messenger, the Hummer H2, bling era rap, and low-rise jeans, to McMansions, anti-Bush chain emails, Abu Ghraib, and the subprime mortgage crisis.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 7, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
July 19, 2024
When I saw the title, I knew I had to read this book. Being just a couple of years older than the author, I vividly remember all the events and pop cultural events she describes. All of these moments, both political and entertainment-related likely shaped our current culture, which were fascinating to reflect upon.
Initially, I expected a relatively light-hearted read, but it turned out to be a profound commentary on how that era influenced our world today. There were critiques of the era and how certain things in pop culture were problematic, then and now. The writing was insightful and thought-provoking. It took me back to my early teens where I loved glitter eyeshadow, logging onto AIM, and seeing if my favorite song was number on TRL. The book also delves into significant events/people like 9/11, Occupy Wall Street, Starbucks, unions, global warming/climate change, George Bush Jr, etc, making it a comprehensive reflection on the era.
As a fan of nostalgia, I appreciated the references to pop culture and the political climate of the time. I had just about every single experience myself that she had in that time period. The book made me recall both the good and bad, and it made me realize how optimistic us millennials were right at the start of the millennium. As time went on, I saw how those feelings faded in the post-millennium era. It makes me wonder are those same millennials optimistic now or do they still feel existential dread and hopelessness for the future
Thank you to the publisher Dey Street Books for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley
Initially, I expected a relatively light-hearted read, but it turned out to be a profound commentary on how that era influenced our world today. There were critiques of the era and how certain things in pop culture were problematic, then and now. The writing was insightful and thought-provoking. It took me back to my early teens where I loved glitter eyeshadow, logging onto AIM, and seeing if my favorite song was number on TRL. The book also delves into significant events/people like 9/11, Occupy Wall Street, Starbucks, unions, global warming/climate change, George Bush Jr, etc, making it a comprehensive reflection on the era.
As a fan of nostalgia, I appreciated the references to pop culture and the political climate of the time. I had just about every single experience myself that she had in that time period. The book made me recall both the good and bad, and it made me realize how optimistic us millennials were right at the start of the millennium. As time went on, I saw how those feelings faded in the post-millennium era. It makes me wonder are those same millennials optimistic now or do they still feel existential dread and hopelessness for the future
Thank you to the publisher Dey Street Books for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley
January 22, 2025
One of the few times I could ever say this, but I wish it had a little more about Larry Summers. Shade has a fun style, and the walks down memory lane were really well done.
January 6, 2025
I really wanted to love this book. When I saw the cover and description of Y2K by Collette Shade, I immediately thought, "Finally, a major publishing company allows a fellow millennial to write narrative nonfiction with pop culture analysis!" I am five years older than Colette, and our life experiences as a youth, not to mention our genders, are different, but still, we're both millennials.
I want to credit Dey Street Books for giving a millennial that opportunity. Unfortunately, Y2K tries to be too many things. There are two really good narrative non-fiction chapters about a family member becoming absurdly wealthy in the infancy of the tech sector and another about how mass media to young women led to her teenage eating disorder.
Shade grew up in a very well-educated and extremely progressive Universal Unitarian family. She touches on this several times, and there's a humorous chapter where she learns everything about sex through the church when all others were promoting purity culture. These were the kinds of stories I was hoping for.
Two chapters discuss the excitement of logging on to the Internet and going to Starbucks for the first time. I vividly remember those experiences, as do most millennials.
However, rather than continuing in a narrative nonfiction style, these chapters are deconstructed into an upper-level college political science or sociology lecture by a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. I presume she was attempting Chuck Klosterman-style philosophy, especially in his book about the Nineties. Unfortunately, it becomes a Mad Lib of progressive talking points and self-flagellation. It is her first book, though.
There are brief flashes of her capturing the excitement of the early Internet, mass consumerism delivered to millennial teenagers, the realization that we weren't bulletproof after 9/11, and the global financial crisis, during which many millennials (myself included) had to move back in with their parents and apply for any available job.
But all eventually devolve into historical lessons from prior generations. Shade's not smug by any means, but many of these digressions were before our generation was born.
Hopefully, more presses like Dey Street will give millennials opportunities to write similar nostalgic books. Eventually, someone will hit a topic like this out of the ballpark, and I look forward to reading that book. Shade's book was a noble effort but fell short for me. There are a bunch of four-star ratings, so maybe different strokes for different folks.
I want to thank Dey Street Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
I want to credit Dey Street Books for giving a millennial that opportunity. Unfortunately, Y2K tries to be too many things. There are two really good narrative non-fiction chapters about a family member becoming absurdly wealthy in the infancy of the tech sector and another about how mass media to young women led to her teenage eating disorder.
Shade grew up in a very well-educated and extremely progressive Universal Unitarian family. She touches on this several times, and there's a humorous chapter where she learns everything about sex through the church when all others were promoting purity culture. These were the kinds of stories I was hoping for.
Two chapters discuss the excitement of logging on to the Internet and going to Starbucks for the first time. I vividly remember those experiences, as do most millennials.
However, rather than continuing in a narrative nonfiction style, these chapters are deconstructed into an upper-level college political science or sociology lecture by a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. I presume she was attempting Chuck Klosterman-style philosophy, especially in his book about the Nineties. Unfortunately, it becomes a Mad Lib of progressive talking points and self-flagellation. It is her first book, though.
There are brief flashes of her capturing the excitement of the early Internet, mass consumerism delivered to millennial teenagers, the realization that we weren't bulletproof after 9/11, and the global financial crisis, during which many millennials (myself included) had to move back in with their parents and apply for any available job.
But all eventually devolve into historical lessons from prior generations. Shade's not smug by any means, but many of these digressions were before our generation was born.
Hopefully, more presses like Dey Street will give millennials opportunities to write similar nostalgic books. Eventually, someone will hit a topic like this out of the ballpark, and I look forward to reading that book. Shade's book was a noble effort but fell short for me. There are a bunch of four-star ratings, so maybe different strokes for different folks.
I want to thank Dey Street Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.
August 5, 2024
Y2K is a short, insightful essay collection centering around the late ‘90s and early 2000s. It touches on a lot of important topics from climate change to eating disorders to internet porn, centering on American culture and politics during this period.
For me, this was the world I was born into, a Y2K baby, born on 01/01/2000, so the nostalgia is not quite as strong as it would be for some millennials.
I tend to really like essay collections, like Chuck Klosterman, and personal political books, like Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger, so this was right up my alley. While I have no complaints about the content, and tend to agree with Shade on most political points, I think there was a lack in the depth of analysis at times in this collection. She touches on a lot but sometimes remains at the surface level.
A reflection on the prevailing ideologies at the turn of the century, Shade examines what went so astray during the “neoliberal turn” and how this impacted her own life. The writing isn’t perfect, but it’s a debut and interesting ideas are there. Personal and perceptive.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
For me, this was the world I was born into, a Y2K baby, born on 01/01/2000, so the nostalgia is not quite as strong as it would be for some millennials.
I tend to really like essay collections, like Chuck Klosterman, and personal political books, like Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger, so this was right up my alley. While I have no complaints about the content, and tend to agree with Shade on most political points, I think there was a lack in the depth of analysis at times in this collection. She touches on a lot but sometimes remains at the surface level.
A reflection on the prevailing ideologies at the turn of the century, Shade examines what went so astray during the “neoliberal turn” and how this impacted her own life. The writing isn’t perfect, but it’s a debut and interesting ideas are there. Personal and perceptive.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
February 1, 2025
ok first of all--not knowing her personally just based on her authorial voice in this book--I think Colette Shade is annoying in the same way that I am annoying but she is like, one notch more annoying than me and somehow one notch less self aware than me even though she wrote a semi-memoir book?? Also she is less funny than me. Now I'm writing my memoir in the form of a GoodReads review.
Anyway at first I really enjoyed this book when it opened with a more memoir-slanted essay remembering her first experiences with the internet and getting an inflatable chair for her bedroom. Girl, same!!
But the book as a whole is a mixture of memoir-y reflections + political history + commentary on the present day. (Present-ish--she refers to "the Trump presidency" in the singular which was depressing to contemplate.)
It's a relatively short book and I feel like she bit off more than she could chew. Both the memoir and the cultural history are short-served and the political commentary is both scolding and base-level. Toward the end she quotes the author of the McMansion Hell blog and casually mentions that she met her at a DSA meeting and I was like "oh yes, you have the vibe of someone who recently joined the DSA and made it your whole personality." Also when she mentions having no college debt because her rich uncle gave her $100,000 in stock for Christmas.
For being so short it's also repetitive, like she explains how the internet used to make dialup sounds at least 3 different times.
I feel like this review is really mean but I was really disappointed in this book! I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU, COLETTE.
Anyway at first I really enjoyed this book when it opened with a more memoir-slanted essay remembering her first experiences with the internet and getting an inflatable chair for her bedroom. Girl, same!!
But the book as a whole is a mixture of memoir-y reflections + political history + commentary on the present day. (Present-ish--she refers to "the Trump presidency" in the singular which was depressing to contemplate.)
It's a relatively short book and I feel like she bit off more than she could chew. Both the memoir and the cultural history are short-served and the political commentary is both scolding and base-level. Toward the end she quotes the author of the McMansion Hell blog and casually mentions that she met her at a DSA meeting and I was like "oh yes, you have the vibe of someone who recently joined the DSA and made it your whole personality." Also when she mentions having no college debt because her rich uncle gave her $100,000 in stock for Christmas.
For being so short it's also repetitive, like she explains how the internet used to make dialup sounds at least 3 different times.
I feel like this review is really mean but I was really disappointed in this book! I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU, COLETTE.
July 29, 2024
I swear, I tried SO hard to like this.
First guess why I didn't - I started the 2000s at 5 years old, hence was a little later to the party than the author. I got 99% of the pop culture references though... Next guess - I had no clue what was going on in politics at 5 years old. DING DING DING!
Next question - why is there thisss much politics anyway? Yes they played a huge role in developing our culture at the time, but is this what I really signed on for? No, it is not.
If I sound grumpy about this, it's because I am. There was ssooo much potential here. The references outside of the in-depth look into politics were spot on. I was surprised more than once to learn new details of a time I thought I knew well, being that I lived through it. Heck I'd even be okay with mentions of the political environment and breaking news stories of the time; Like I said before, governmental decisions certainly did play a large roll in our day-to-day lives (whether we knew it at the time or not). But sheeeeesh. The title, cover and description all failed to mention the poli sci lesson you'd also have to endure.
I also struggled with the huge discrepancies in voice from essays to essay (sometimes even paragraph to paragraph). One min I felt like I was listening to one of my girlfriends, the next I felt like I was in AP gov. It's weird hearing me say this (reading me write this?) since that's usually exactly what I'd go for in a book. Unfortunately it just wasn't done well here and felt abrasive, like they were trying too hard to be edgy while still proving they'd done their research.
Again, I wouldn't sound so pissy about it if this book didn't have SO MUCH potential.
Also side note, if you do care about the finer details of 2000's political aspects in addition to pop culture, this is the book for you. You will give it 5/5 stars.
{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Colette Shade and publisher for the eARC
First guess why I didn't - I started the 2000s at 5 years old, hence was a little later to the party than the author. I got 99% of the pop culture references though... Next guess - I had no clue what was going on in politics at 5 years old. DING DING DING!
Next question - why is there thisss much politics anyway? Yes they played a huge role in developing our culture at the time, but is this what I really signed on for? No, it is not.
If I sound grumpy about this, it's because I am. There was ssooo much potential here. The references outside of the in-depth look into politics were spot on. I was surprised more than once to learn new details of a time I thought I knew well, being that I lived through it. Heck I'd even be okay with mentions of the political environment and breaking news stories of the time; Like I said before, governmental decisions certainly did play a large roll in our day-to-day lives (whether we knew it at the time or not). But sheeeeesh. The title, cover and description all failed to mention the poli sci lesson you'd also have to endure.
I also struggled with the huge discrepancies in voice from essays to essay (sometimes even paragraph to paragraph). One min I felt like I was listening to one of my girlfriends, the next I felt like I was in AP gov. It's weird hearing me say this (reading me write this?) since that's usually exactly what I'd go for in a book. Unfortunately it just wasn't done well here and felt abrasive, like they were trying too hard to be edgy while still proving they'd done their research.
Again, I wouldn't sound so pissy about it if this book didn't have SO MUCH potential.
Also side note, if you do care about the finer details of 2000's political aspects in addition to pop culture, this is the book for you. You will give it 5/5 stars.
{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Colette Shade and publisher for the eARC
Read
August 29, 2024Twas mid
Read
February 8, 2025Oof, this wrecked me (complimentary).
February 4, 2025
oh god. i was excited to read this because i had developed some kind of impression that it was a lot of writing on sf during the dot com boom and bust when really there was one chapter sort of about that. this book spoils the ending of moby dick and also claims the enlightenment involved the rejection of stories from religion and PSYCHOANALYSIS??? chica the enlightenment predates freud by like 200 years!
it’s also only vaguely about y2k — it reaches so often into the present because the foundational argument is so loose and thin and can’t support en entire book. also not a single thing in this except for the memoir bits doesn’t already exist on some blog or in a tweet. and i don’t want to read political and cultural analysis that is the equivalent to some blogs and tweets!
i am being a massive bitch right now, writing a book is really hard, but also no one /has/ to write a book!
it’s also only vaguely about y2k — it reaches so often into the present because the foundational argument is so loose and thin and can’t support en entire book. also not a single thing in this except for the memoir bits doesn’t already exist on some blog or in a tweet. and i don’t want to read political and cultural analysis that is the equivalent to some blogs and tweets!
i am being a massive bitch right now, writing a book is really hard, but also no one /has/ to write a book!
January 3, 2025
thought this would be fun and nostalgic, but it was actually really sobering and sombre. a good read though
January 9, 2025
More than just a nostalgia trip — though there’s plenty of fun nostalgia for anyone who lived through the Y2K era — Colette Shade reckons with the political legacy of a time that radicalized a lot of millennials like me. Great read.
January 26, 2025
I went in with the wrong assumptions about this book. I thought it would be “teehee didn’t the internet make weird beep boop sounds in the year 2000?” Instead of “here is a series of linked essays on how millennials got absolutely screwed”. Shade and I graduated high school in the same year and I recognize a lot of milestones we hit at the same time. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and sometimes it takes an author willing to confront the truth of an era to remind us it wasn’t all plastic furniture and alien charm bracelets.
NetGalley provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
NetGalley provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
January 26, 2025
different than i thought. i loved the pop culture aspects. it got more serious than i thought and more about politics (but i love politics so i’ll take it)
January 1, 2025
Colette Shade found (what I think is) the perfect balance of nostalgia, pop culture references, and insightful historical context and analysis with this book. As a younger millennial, I witnessed many of these events but was too young to really understand the full cultural and political impacts of everything happening. Shade did an excellent job at diving into the highs and lows of this era with thoughtful research and a critical but witty tone. This book was more serious than I anticipated, I expected more of a nostalgic look at the pop culture of the time, but what Shade delivered was even better, by examining the underlying forces contributing to these pop culture phenomena.
Thank you to Dey Street Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Thank you to Dey Street Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
January 11, 2025
For those who read One in a Millennial but found it too cloying and twee. This is a bucket of ice water dumped on the head of millennial nostalgia.
Though her view of the time is colored by adult regrets and disappointments, Shade still seems to embody the moody and struggling teenager she was at the height of My Super Sweet 16’s ratings. Regression is a funny thing.
Good points are made, some more convincingly than others. It gets a little repetitive and occasionally preachy (damn, this lady HATES SUVs). For me it was interesting peek into what it might have been like to be raised by left-leaning Boomers rather than conservative Gen Xers.
Notably the audio book has some pretty major pronunciation issues I hope can be addressed. The punchlines about the Bush administration don’t land unless Colin Powell is pronounced like the large intestine. And how am I supposed to trust you as a millennial authority when you think Halle Berry and Hailie Jade have the same first name? Please fix this (along with “muckraker” and Rush Limbaugh, to name some off the top of my head). I know it’s not author-read, but it undermines all credibility!!
Though her view of the time is colored by adult regrets and disappointments, Shade still seems to embody the moody and struggling teenager she was at the height of My Super Sweet 16’s ratings. Regression is a funny thing.
Good points are made, some more convincingly than others. It gets a little repetitive and occasionally preachy (damn, this lady HATES SUVs). For me it was interesting peek into what it might have been like to be raised by left-leaning Boomers rather than conservative Gen Xers.
Notably the audio book has some pretty major pronunciation issues I hope can be addressed. The punchlines about the Bush administration don’t land unless Colin Powell is pronounced like the large intestine. And how am I supposed to trust you as a millennial authority when you think Halle Berry and Hailie Jade have the same first name? Please fix this (along with “muckraker” and Rush Limbaugh, to name some off the top of my head). I know it’s not author-read, but it undermines all credibility!!
January 9, 2025
Missed the Mark: A Personal Memoir Disguised as a Cultural Retrospective
As someone who came of age during the late 1990s and early 2000s, I am squarely in the target audience for Colette Shade’s Y2K. I picked up the book expecting an entertaining and insightful look back at the cultural, political, and economic forces that defined the era—essentially, a nostalgic trip back to my formative years. Unfortunately, Y2K leaned heavily into memoir, focusing far more on Shade’s personal experiences during the decade than on the broader context that shaped the time. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with memoir, Shade’s anecdotes included, but did not rekindle the excitement of AIM chats, the absurdity of early McMansions, or the rise of low-rise jeans as cultural phenomena. It might appeal to readers who enjoy memoirs with a dose of cultural commentary.
I am grateful to Goodreads for providing me with an advanced reader copy of Colette Shade’s Y2K.
As someone who came of age during the late 1990s and early 2000s, I am squarely in the target audience for Colette Shade’s Y2K. I picked up the book expecting an entertaining and insightful look back at the cultural, political, and economic forces that defined the era—essentially, a nostalgic trip back to my formative years. Unfortunately, Y2K leaned heavily into memoir, focusing far more on Shade’s personal experiences during the decade than on the broader context that shaped the time. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with memoir, Shade’s anecdotes included, but did not rekindle the excitement of AIM chats, the absurdity of early McMansions, or the rise of low-rise jeans as cultural phenomena. It might appeal to readers who enjoy memoirs with a dose of cultural commentary.
I am grateful to Goodreads for providing me with an advanced reader copy of Colette Shade’s Y2K.
January 17, 2025
One thing I think we’ve learned with books like this is that the author needs to make a firm choice between whether they are writing a book about nostalgia or one about cultural criticism. In theory the two should be able to coexist, but when books like this try to split the difference it just doesn’t work all that well.
Shade was clearly leaning more toward criticism, but she inserts so much personal information that it’s difficult to see this as an objective cultural critique. Shade is at her best when discussing topics where she seems to feel less personal connection (the climate crisis, forced patriotism underscored with racism). The things she seems to feel more personally connected to skew the criticism in such a way that it feels a lot more like personal disappointment.
To that end, a lot of the less successful parts of this book seem to stem from the fact that the author is clearly disappointed by the world currently (like most of us, I suppose), but also unhappy with how her own life turned out. “I thought I would be married,” she laments. “I thought I would get into Stanford.” While I can understand why anyone might feel disappointed by not finding the adult relationships they seek, it’s a little hard to understand why someone who says they were struggling to pass their high school classes and had to go to community college just to get their grades up enough to attend a four-year school thought that Stanford was ever a realistic option.
Whatever Shade was struggling with, it certainly isn’t about a lack of ability. She’s a very capable writer. That’s not the issue here. But even if you empathize with the crushed dreams of it all (however realistic or unrealistic), it’s sort of a tough assignment to effectively blame all your individual disappointments on a cultural era. While there are some truths connected to this idea (certainly the 2008 recession put a lot of people behind where they expected to be professionally and financially), but it feels silly and tired to blame issues of self worth on, I dunno, low-rise pants.
In all, I think Shade tried to be both Kate Kennedy and Chuck Klosterman with this, and ends up missing the best parts of what they both did with One in a Millennial and Nineties, respectively. The fact that this book has no sense of humor is perhaps the biggest miss (both Klosterman and Kennedy are consistently entertaining and display a sense of humor about their subjects). Klosterman seemed to be able to separate the material from his personal feelings, which helped his account feel more honest and objective. But interestingly Kennedy, who takes the most personal approach of the three, ended up making a lot more salient points than Shade did, perhaps because she took a more nuanced approach.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Shade was clearly leaning more toward criticism, but she inserts so much personal information that it’s difficult to see this as an objective cultural critique. Shade is at her best when discussing topics where she seems to feel less personal connection (the climate crisis, forced patriotism underscored with racism). The things she seems to feel more personally connected to skew the criticism in such a way that it feels a lot more like personal disappointment.
To that end, a lot of the less successful parts of this book seem to stem from the fact that the author is clearly disappointed by the world currently (like most of us, I suppose), but also unhappy with how her own life turned out. “I thought I would be married,” she laments. “I thought I would get into Stanford.” While I can understand why anyone might feel disappointed by not finding the adult relationships they seek, it’s a little hard to understand why someone who says they were struggling to pass their high school classes and had to go to community college just to get their grades up enough to attend a four-year school thought that Stanford was ever a realistic option.
Whatever Shade was struggling with, it certainly isn’t about a lack of ability. She’s a very capable writer. That’s not the issue here. But even if you empathize with the crushed dreams of it all (however realistic or unrealistic), it’s sort of a tough assignment to effectively blame all your individual disappointments on a cultural era. While there are some truths connected to this idea (certainly the 2008 recession put a lot of people behind where they expected to be professionally and financially), but it feels silly and tired to blame issues of self worth on, I dunno, low-rise pants.
In all, I think Shade tried to be both Kate Kennedy and Chuck Klosterman with this, and ends up missing the best parts of what they both did with One in a Millennial and Nineties, respectively. The fact that this book has no sense of humor is perhaps the biggest miss (both Klosterman and Kennedy are consistently entertaining and display a sense of humor about their subjects). Klosterman seemed to be able to separate the material from his personal feelings, which helped his account feel more honest and objective. But interestingly Kennedy, who takes the most personal approach of the three, ended up making a lot more salient points than Shade did, perhaps because she took a more nuanced approach.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
December 6, 2024
Dey Street Books provided an early galley for review.
The cover of this one looked enticing and grabbed my attention. As the turn of the millennium was approaching, I remember distinctly reviewing my company's software products to see if there would be an issue for our customers when the calendars rolled over to year 2000. I also remember that New Year's Eve as we watched other countries around the world hit midnight before the East Coast did, breathing a sigh of relief as each one passed with no evident disaster.
Despite the age-gap between myself and the author (in 1999, I could have easily had a daughter who was eleven), I can certainly connect to many of her views in her ten essays. I too admit to being an owner of Smash Mouth's Astro Lounge CD after all. And I see how most recent current events (the end of 2024) would make one nostalgic for their youth. Only for me, it would bounce two decades prior (1977 to 1986).
Shade certainly was thorough with her research. Even having lived through these times, there were several things that had flown beyond my radar. It was enlightening to have some things put into context with others.
The cover of this one looked enticing and grabbed my attention. As the turn of the millennium was approaching, I remember distinctly reviewing my company's software products to see if there would be an issue for our customers when the calendars rolled over to year 2000. I also remember that New Year's Eve as we watched other countries around the world hit midnight before the East Coast did, breathing a sigh of relief as each one passed with no evident disaster.
Despite the age-gap between myself and the author (in 1999, I could have easily had a daughter who was eleven), I can certainly connect to many of her views in her ten essays. I too admit to being an owner of Smash Mouth's Astro Lounge CD after all. And I see how most recent current events (the end of 2024) would make one nostalgic for their youth. Only for me, it would bounce two decades prior (1977 to 1986).
Shade certainly was thorough with her research. Even having lived through these times, there were several things that had flown beyond my radar. It was enlightening to have some things put into context with others.
January 18, 2025
Most people think, incorrectly, that "apocalypse" means "the end of the world." The Greek word apokálypsis—from which it is translated—means "a revelation," "a disclosure," or "an unveiling." In an apocalypse, as it is commonly understood, a world is destroyed violently. But more important, an apocalypse means an era of false living is over. An apocalypse gives us the ability to see things as they really are. The Christian Bible begins with Genesis and ends with a story in which the sinful is beset by plague, fire, and political turmoil. But then a better world is revealed, with a river "bright as crystal" and "the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit; and the leaves for the healing of nations." In this story, change is possible, but only if things can be looked at honestly. This is a common narrative across faith traditions, throughout art and literature, and in my own adopted political tradition. Even Semisonic sang, in 1998, that "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."
February 2, 2025
Oof, “essays on the future that never was” indeed. This ended up being way more excoriating and biting than I anticipated. A week and a half into this presidency, I kind of needed it. This book is for the millennial inheriting a worse off world than their parents: the climate, the economy, the politics. The through line Shade offers between George W. Bush to Obama to Trump…. I felt her anger, snark, and hopelessness. Sure she has some blinders, and within all of her snark she also grew up very idealistic and privileged. But I understand her positions. Some essays were more about reliving the 2000s than analysis; I liked the ones that focused more on analysis. This is also the second book this month that is talking a lot about the DMV, where I live, which I did not expect.
January 17, 2025
A must read book for anyone growing up at the turn of the millennium. An engrossing look at period of the late 90's to early 2000's that does an excellent job of showing how trends and issues from the era developed and even play a role in our lives today.
February 2, 2025
Enjoyed listening to this on audiobook and found some of the essays to be quite interesting, but ultimately the collection fell a little flat for me. Interesting to look at some of the more recent roots of ongoing political and social issues.
January 29, 2025
this was a fun listen i was only a toddler during this era but i liked the authors takes on things
January 18, 2025
2.5 stars
Though I liked some parts and also how the author uses biographical info to illustrate and highlight certain points, some (most?) parts lost my interest due to a lack of coherence, sometimes reverting to a dry, political and historical statement (even from before the era she is discussing). Also, to me it wasn't always clear when objective information was being given, the author's perspective or her opinion. All in all I guess this just wasn't for me.
Interest topic 6
Writing Style 5
Execution/Pace 6
Execution/Setup 3
Enjoyment/Engrossment 4
Narration 6
Though I liked some parts and also how the author uses biographical info to illustrate and highlight certain points, some (most?) parts lost my interest due to a lack of coherence, sometimes reverting to a dry, political and historical statement (even from before the era she is discussing). Also, to me it wasn't always clear when objective information was being given, the author's perspective or her opinion. All in all I guess this just wasn't for me.
Interest topic 6
Writing Style 5
Execution/Pace 6
Execution/Setup 3
Enjoyment/Engrossment 4
Narration 6
January 12, 2025
Such a fun and interesting read! Yes, Shade dives deeply into all the weird, memorable stuff from the early 2000s, but this book is SO much more than nostalgia bait. Her combination of personal anecdotes, keen observations with cultural critique makes this collection of essays relatable, enjoyable, and insightful. This book will make most millennials laugh, but will probably also teach them a thing or two about the time period we grew up in. Can't wait for more work from this talented author!
January 22, 2025
Very nostalgic, but also gives a glimpse into why millennials are angry about how America has failed us.
February 6, 2025
I genuinely enjoyed every moment with this book- my ideal blend of nostalgia and criticism.
December 20, 2024
Excellent read! Thank you so much! Very much appreciated!
February 4, 2025
"Monopolistic social media companies have corralled users into a handful of addictive platforms filled with bots, misinformation, and violent threats. Streaming services have decimated artist revenue, ride-share services have destroyed the taxi industry, and self-driving cars plow into pedestrians. Google's vaunted search algorithm is now clogged with ads."
"Globalization was shorthand for a new kind of colonialism in a supposedly postcolonial world."
"And teens were its core demographic. That year, they spent more than $ 150 billion: on clothing, entertainment, electronics, junk food. Most youth entertainment was packaged and sold by five companies: News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Vivendi Universal, and AOL Time Warner, accounting for all major TV networks, film studios, and music labels.
This consolidation was enabled by Bill Clinton's signing of the Telecommunications Act in 1996, which deregulated the industry, allowing for previously illegal mergers."
"Culture and tech critic Douglas Rushkoff described the world of teens in the Y2K Era as one 'made of marketing,' noting that 'a typical American teenager will process over 3,000 discrete advertisements in a single day, and 10 million by the time they're 18.'"
"Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge and Pat Robertson didn't mind the economic policies of outsourcing and corporate consolidation, and they didn't mind the materialism either.
They hated that we now had a borderless, cosmopolitan society that promoted race mixing, sexual promiscuity, feminism, and queerness while challenging the supremacy of white Christian American masculinity.
There was too much permissiveness, too much moral relativism. We were also-in the peace that followed the end of the Cold War-becoming soft. We lived in a decadent age, conservatives claimed, and we would soon pay the price."
"Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter declared that it was 'the end of the age of irony.'"
"And now that patriotism amounted to consumerism, any critiques of the economic system amounted to treason."
"Viagra hit the market in 1998 and was advertised on prime-time television* by former presidential candidate Bob Dole."
"Both porn aesthetics and purity culture tell girls that there is power in their sexuality. For the former, the power comes from having sex. For the latter, power comes from refusing it. Both girls are sex objects, meant to be consumed by men, either now or later."
"But there are two issues with this argument, besides the underlying assumption that the social norms of the 1950s are an ideal to which we can and should return. First, evangelicals were ardent supporters of a deregulated free market, which led to exactly the sort of sexual liberalism they despised. Both sex and novelty sell, and under capitalism the once outré becomes normal. Second, the effects of a deregulated free market that took hold in the '70s and accelerated during the '80s and
'90s— deindustrialization, falling wages, mass incarceration-likely undermined the stability of the American family far more than seminude pop stars, gay rights, birth control, abortion, or internet porn. To me, it doesn't seem like a coincidence that purity culture arose shortly after these changes began. Purity culture was a conservative coping mechanism for a society spinning out of control. But what conservatives refused to see was that they helped set it spinning in the first place."
"that, if I could be skinny again, somewhere along the way I could exchange it for something real."
"Lean imagines the firm and the self as "a disciplined, practiced body": you make do with less, you maximize your effort and productivity, you do two people's jobs for the same pay. Lean imagines the nation this way, too, and so the policies it promotes are austerity: cutting social programs, cutting infrastructure funding, reducing deficits.
Reduce, reduce, reduce. It is economic anorexia."
"The Y2K Era-1997 through 2008—was defined by the conviction that politics were no longer relevant. When the 2008 financial crisis brought on the Great Recession, it felt like a dam bursting. The consensus of the post-Cold War neoliberal order was underwater, and politics now suffused every aspect of culture."
"Liberals fixated on Trump's shortcomings as if these weren't what his supporters liked about him: he was mendacious, hypocritical, stupid, racist, misogynistic. He was a sexual abuser and a bully. But two of these qualities most vexed liberals about Trump, and these were identical to what bothered them about George W. Bush: his blatant lies and hypocrisy, and his lack of intelligence as evidenced by his speech patterns."
""Mooooom! Daaaaaaad! He's cheating!" But even as a child myself, I could see that no one was coming to save us."
"Often it was materialistic, violent, misogynistic, and homophobic. But so was America as a whole."
"Neoliberalism promotes the idea that individual freedom and liberty are best attained by reducing the role of government in ameliorating social suffering and relying instead on the market," Spence writes. "The consequences of the neoliberal turn are several-increased inequality and insecurity, decreased transparency and accountability, decreased use of government to ameliorate suffering, and increased incarceration of undesirable populations. The neoliberal subject, the homo economicus, is the entrepreneur, the enterprise-corporation of one, the hustler."
"As Martin Luther King noted in his 1967 'Beyond Vietnam' speech, American war-making abroad and the abandonment of Black neighborhoods at home are directly related. 'A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle,' King said. 'It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor-both black and white through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.'"
"Globalization was shorthand for a new kind of colonialism in a supposedly postcolonial world."
"And teens were its core demographic. That year, they spent more than $ 150 billion: on clothing, entertainment, electronics, junk food. Most youth entertainment was packaged and sold by five companies: News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Vivendi Universal, and AOL Time Warner, accounting for all major TV networks, film studios, and music labels.
This consolidation was enabled by Bill Clinton's signing of the Telecommunications Act in 1996, which deregulated the industry, allowing for previously illegal mergers."
"Culture and tech critic Douglas Rushkoff described the world of teens in the Y2K Era as one 'made of marketing,' noting that 'a typical American teenager will process over 3,000 discrete advertisements in a single day, and 10 million by the time they're 18.'"
"Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge and Pat Robertson didn't mind the economic policies of outsourcing and corporate consolidation, and they didn't mind the materialism either.
They hated that we now had a borderless, cosmopolitan society that promoted race mixing, sexual promiscuity, feminism, and queerness while challenging the supremacy of white Christian American masculinity.
There was too much permissiveness, too much moral relativism. We were also-in the peace that followed the end of the Cold War-becoming soft. We lived in a decadent age, conservatives claimed, and we would soon pay the price."
"Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter declared that it was 'the end of the age of irony.'"
"And now that patriotism amounted to consumerism, any critiques of the economic system amounted to treason."
"Viagra hit the market in 1998 and was advertised on prime-time television* by former presidential candidate Bob Dole."
"Both porn aesthetics and purity culture tell girls that there is power in their sexuality. For the former, the power comes from having sex. For the latter, power comes from refusing it. Both girls are sex objects, meant to be consumed by men, either now or later."
"But there are two issues with this argument, besides the underlying assumption that the social norms of the 1950s are an ideal to which we can and should return. First, evangelicals were ardent supporters of a deregulated free market, which led to exactly the sort of sexual liberalism they despised. Both sex and novelty sell, and under capitalism the once outré becomes normal. Second, the effects of a deregulated free market that took hold in the '70s and accelerated during the '80s and
'90s— deindustrialization, falling wages, mass incarceration-likely undermined the stability of the American family far more than seminude pop stars, gay rights, birth control, abortion, or internet porn. To me, it doesn't seem like a coincidence that purity culture arose shortly after these changes began. Purity culture was a conservative coping mechanism for a society spinning out of control. But what conservatives refused to see was that they helped set it spinning in the first place."
"that, if I could be skinny again, somewhere along the way I could exchange it for something real."
"Lean imagines the firm and the self as "a disciplined, practiced body": you make do with less, you maximize your effort and productivity, you do two people's jobs for the same pay. Lean imagines the nation this way, too, and so the policies it promotes are austerity: cutting social programs, cutting infrastructure funding, reducing deficits.
Reduce, reduce, reduce. It is economic anorexia."
"The Y2K Era-1997 through 2008—was defined by the conviction that politics were no longer relevant. When the 2008 financial crisis brought on the Great Recession, it felt like a dam bursting. The consensus of the post-Cold War neoliberal order was underwater, and politics now suffused every aspect of culture."
"Liberals fixated on Trump's shortcomings as if these weren't what his supporters liked about him: he was mendacious, hypocritical, stupid, racist, misogynistic. He was a sexual abuser and a bully. But two of these qualities most vexed liberals about Trump, and these were identical to what bothered them about George W. Bush: his blatant lies and hypocrisy, and his lack of intelligence as evidenced by his speech patterns."
""Mooooom! Daaaaaaad! He's cheating!" But even as a child myself, I could see that no one was coming to save us."
"Often it was materialistic, violent, misogynistic, and homophobic. But so was America as a whole."
"Neoliberalism promotes the idea that individual freedom and liberty are best attained by reducing the role of government in ameliorating social suffering and relying instead on the market," Spence writes. "The consequences of the neoliberal turn are several-increased inequality and insecurity, decreased transparency and accountability, decreased use of government to ameliorate suffering, and increased incarceration of undesirable populations. The neoliberal subject, the homo economicus, is the entrepreneur, the enterprise-corporation of one, the hustler."
"As Martin Luther King noted in his 1967 'Beyond Vietnam' speech, American war-making abroad and the abandonment of Black neighborhoods at home are directly related. 'A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle,' King said. 'It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor-both black and white through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.'"
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 14, 2024
Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC!
Calling all millennials - you need to read this book. This was one of my favorite reads of 2024.
“When I’m in a nostalgic mood, I retreat to the world of my childhood.”
This collection of essays feels like a punch to the gut of nostalgia, but also a brutal reality check of what exactly happened during that time, when we all maybe overlooked some crucial details.
I feel like I learned SO much, without feeling like I was in some weird class about the 2000s, thanks to Colette’s style of writing that married snark and storytelling with well researched facts.
Calling all millennials - you need to read this book. This was one of my favorite reads of 2024.
“When I’m in a nostalgic mood, I retreat to the world of my childhood.”
This collection of essays feels like a punch to the gut of nostalgia, but also a brutal reality check of what exactly happened during that time, when we all maybe overlooked some crucial details.
I feel like I learned SO much, without feeling like I was in some weird class about the 2000s, thanks to Colette’s style of writing that married snark and storytelling with well researched facts.
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