What was the Y2K Era and why are we still living in its shadow?
THE EARLY 2000s were marked by a sense of both unbridled optimism and existential dread. It was a new millennium and the future had no limits. Technology was fun. For many it felt like the end of history; we solved all the big problems. No more wars, no more racism, no more sexism. But then history kept happening.
In Y2K, one of our most brilliant young essayists Colette Shade offers a darkly funny meditation on everything from the pop culture to the political economy of the period. By zooming in on Y2K cultural artifacts like inflatable furniture, Starbucks, TRL, the rise of internet porn, and the collapse of the housing market, Shade produces an affectionate yet searing critique of an era that started with a boom and ended with a crash.
In one essay Colette unpacks how hearing Ludacris’s hit song “What’s Your Fantasy” shaped the course of a generation’s sexual awakening; in another she interrogates how her eating disorder developed as rail-thin models from the collapsed USSR flooded the pages of Vogue; in another, she explores how post-9/11 hysteria curdled into a kitschy patriotic consumerism that warps our politics to this day.
Perfect for fans of Jia Tolentino and Chuck Klosterman, Y2K is the first book to fully reckon with the mixed legacy of the Y2K Era—an expertly timed, delightfully nostalgic, and bitingly told collection that holds a mirror to our past, present, and future.
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