Millennial
1999 FOREVER
This is episode 9 of 1999 FOREVER “Remember: Turn your computer off before midnight on 12/31/99” read a Best Buy sticker that was given to every computer customer for months leading up to the new year. An entire catalog of Y2K prep manuals appeared. Suddenly it did seem possible that ATMs would freeze, elevators might plummet, planes might crash, and nuclear missiles would erroneously fire. So many things were controlled by computers. On “The Simpsons,” Homer messed up and personally caused Y2K chaos and the end of the world. President Clinton called Y2K “the first challenge of...
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Reality Goes Viral
1999 FOREVER
1999 was a year of viral memes, even though we didn’t know what those were yet. “I see dead people.” “One time at band camp.” The Budweiser Wassup commercial. In the late ‘90s, the Texas-based radio show host Alex Jones looked around and saw “The X-Files,” “The Blair Witch Project,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “The Matrix,” and the barrage of ‘90s pop culture about government cover-ups, and started a radio show about conspiracy theories. He called it InfoWars. By 1999, it was being carried on 50 small stations and Jones took his show online, to an even bigger...
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Party Like It's 1999
1999 FOREVER
There’s a deep nihilism to “partying like it’s 1999.” Is the world ending? Maybe, so let’s party until it does. Imagine 400,000 people crowded onto the grounds of an airforce base. It’s summer and the high peaks above 100 degrees. It’s a hot wasteland of bodies and debris as far as the eye can see. Everyone is drunk, overheated, and sunburned. Scores of people are sent to the hospital. And then the fires start. This is Woodstock ‘99, otherwise known as the Day the Nineties died. 1999 FOREVER’S theme song is “In the Freezer” by Sophie Strauss To support...
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Bang Bang
1999 FOREVER
In 1999, the stories of three horrific acts of violence haunted the country: the murder of Amadou Diallo in New York City, the murder of Brandon Teena in Nebraska, and the Columbine school shooting in Colorado. These murders were all perpetrated by groups of white men and presaged the violence that would become a part of daily life for Americans: epidemics of police violence, violence against LGBTQ people, and mass shootings. It’s easy to forget it wasn’t always like this. 1999 FOREVER’S theme song is “In the Freezer” by Sophie Strauss To support 1999 FOREVER, you...
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Let Me See That Thong
1999 FOREVER
Thongs are a uniquely American obsession, born out of our paradoxical legacy of both prudishness and thirstiness. The thong is a paradox in itself–an item of clothing introduced to a country by women taking their clothes off. This episode’s themes have been percolating for a long time, simmering, slowly trickling into our consciousness until we were ready for the most important song of 1999: "The Thong Song." 1999 FOREVER’S theme song is “In the Freezer” by Sophie Strauss To support 1999 FOREVER, you can subscribe, leave a rating and a review, and tell all your friends...
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Work Sucks
1999 FOREVER
We’re living in a period some have called The Great Resignation. Or are we quiet quitting now? While this hostility toward work feels radical, we’ve been here before. As Blink-182 said in their 1999 song "All the Small Things": Work sucks. Several movies of 1999 follow almost the same character with the same problem: A mid-level, white-collar, white man is bored and dissatisfied with his corporate life; only a radical jolt to his system can force him to wake up and see everything with new eyes. In "Fight Club," that shock comes in the form of a soap-selling maniac named Tyler Durden....
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Britney, Interrupted
1999 FOREVER
Britney Spears has released nine albums, won a Grammy, set 15 Guinness World Records, won seven Billboard Music Awards, and held a Las Vegas residency. She’s the best-selling teenage musician of all time and the youngest to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was only 17 years old when "...Baby One More Time" came out. And beginning when she was 26, she was under a conservatorship for more than a decade that gave her father complete control over her life, assets, and decisions. For all intents and purposes, legally, he became Britney Spears. Appetite for stories about mad girls was...
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Tony Soprano Season
1999 FOREVER
Today The Sopranos is widely regarded as one of the best television shows of all time. In the late ‘90s and early 2000s we lived in an ocean of exceptional television–dramas that dared to be unconventional, with troubled, complicated characters, and higher-than-ever writing and production quality. “It’s not TV, it’s HBO,” the channel bragged. This was the beginning of prestige tv. But The Sopranos is only about organized crime on the surface. The pilot begins with Tony starting therapy because he’s having panic attacks. Even though Tony’s not completely sure therapy works, he...
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Bedroom Daydream
1999 FOREVER
There’s something I need to talk about. I can’t stop thinking about 1999. By thinking I mean obsessing, like making charts and timelines with Sharpie on cardboard in my free time. An incredible number of completely world-altering events happened in 1999, and I’m not exaggerating. 1999 FOREVER will be a journey in time. Join me every week as we try to understand 1999 and its echoes in the world we live in today. Because nothing has been the same since. 1999 FOREVER’S theme song is “In the Freezer” by Sophie Strauss To support 1999 FOREVER, you can subscribe, leave a...
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1999 FOREVER trailer
1999 FOREVER
Hey, have you ever thought about 1999? No, like, have you ever really thought about it? I have. A year ago I started making a list of every major thing that happened in 1999. And when I got going, I couldn’t stop. 1999 was unreal. Listen to this: In terms of movies, 1999 was peak culture. Things were off the rails with preparations for the Y2K crisis. On the radio and on television, the tone was being set not just for the next year but for the next several decades. 1999 left an unbelievably lasting mark. In 1999, I was 10 years old. Now, join me as I go back and dive deep into...
info_outlineThere’s a deep nihilism to “partying like it’s 1999.” Is the world ending? Maybe, so let’s party until it does.
Imagine 400,000 people crowded onto the grounds of an airforce base. It’s summer and the high peaks above 100 degrees. It’s a hot wasteland of bodies and debris as far as the eye can see. Everyone is drunk, overheated, and sunburned. Scores of people are sent to the hospital. And then the fires start.
This is Woodstock ‘99, otherwise known as the Day the Nineties died.
1999 FOREVER’S theme song is “In the Freezer” by Sophie Strauss
To support 1999 FOREVER, you can subscribe, leave a rating and a review, and tell all your friends how much you like it. To see episode moodboards, behind-the-scenes photos, videos, and more, follow me on Instagram @dahliabalcazar.
SOURCES
- Jamie Crawford, “Trainwreck: Woodstock ‘99,” 2022.
- Vera Papisova, “Sexual Harassment was Rampant at Coachella,” Teen Vogue, 2018.
- Garret Price, “Woodstock ‘99: Peace, Love, and Rage,” 2021.
- “Our Live Report from Woodstock ‘99,” SPIN, 1999.