Sometimes it’s for good reasons: it was the final decade before Web 2.0 changed the world, the first since the 1930’s to not live under the shadow of nuclear war and there was a genuine sense of optimism in the air if you lived in the West. Sometimes it’s for nefarious reasons: ignoring the Iraq war and the conflict in Bosnia to pretend that everything was hunky dory before September 11th, revising history to portray New Labour as sensible adults instead of authoritarian class traitors and celebrating trash culture instead of arguing how it contributed to a dumbing down of society.
Some have argued that it was the last decade of pure, unadulterated freedom which, as someone who grew up in this period, I would have to question. But I cannot deny that it was a fascinating time to grow up in, especially the late 90’s.
As I wrote in a review of a similarly themed book:
I was 13 in 1999 which, in hindsight, turned out to be the perfect age to witness the paranoia re Y2K, the over-optimism about how the 21st century would turn out, worrying that the murder of Eamon Collins would signal another year of turmoil for the post-GFA era North, and a little piece of software called Napster which would drastically alter music (and how we consume it) forever.
And, as this new book argues, 1999 also set the scene for the world we live in today.
TikTok fights and quack conspiracy podcasts? Jerry Springer did that beforehand. The blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction? Welcome to professional wrestling’s kayfabe tactic which drove the Monday Night Wars. OnlyFans? Girls Gone Wild. An endless glut of reality shows? Both Big Brother and Survivor debuted in this period. The speculative frenzy that drove the price of Beanie Babies into stupid numbers? Crypto. Donald Trump in the White House? He announced that in 1999 with Oprah as his running mate.
Quite depressing when you think about it.
A freelance journalist as well as a market research analyst, Ross Benes has put together a fascinating tome that intricately dissects this period, makes connections that you may not have considered before and all with the gusto and enthusiasm of a lifelong fan of pop culture.
His discussion about reality TV is not only laser sharp, but also underlines how ingrained such shows have been in the collective psyche for the past 25 years:
Although our collective TV viewing is fractured to an extent that largely prohibits shared pop cultural moments outside sports, many, if not most, consumers still recognize a Kardashian/Jenner viral post, The Bachelor rose ceremony, Big Brother espionage, Queer Eye makeover, Shark Tank business pitch, and Survivor challenge. This is because in the late 1990s and early 2000s, reality TV exploded. Since then, its presence, on our screens and in our lives, keeps expanding…Throughout the 1990s, reality shows were a cable hit on MTV. After MTV and CBS became sister stations, CBS brought reality to broadcast TV in a big way. Within two years of the merger, CBS rolled out three of reality’s most successful franchises—Big Brother, The Amazing Race, and Survivor. When Matt Damon said, “I always thought it better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody” in the December 1999 movie The Talented Mr. Ripley, his statement could have applied to many TV characters.
And as for the real legacy of reality TV, Benes puts it in sly terms:
Some reality stars would transcend the genre. “New York, my city,” the narrator states in the opening sequence of a famed 2004 reality show. “Where the wheels of the global economy never stop turning. A concrete metropolis of unparalleled strength and purpose.” The narrator fancies himself as “the largest real estate developer in New York.” He describes how the mean streets hardened him, brags about his expensive lifestyle, shills for his brand, and portrays his millions in debt as personal assets. The show pits sixteen young entrepreneurs in a competition to become this man’s apprentice. The star and producer of the show is of course Donald Trump, president of the United States of America.
Similarly, when discussing how wrestling’s theatrics have crossed over into the pollical realm when the likes of AOC and Jake Tapper tweet or deliver news like they’re cutting a promo with The Rock, one can’t help of the 2006 film Idiocracy.
Written with a critical love of the period and the culture, Benes offers up plenty of thinking points and laughs along the way. It especially helps that the tone oscillates between sneering and accepting complicity, especially when he considers the naked consumerism of Pokémon (gotta catch ‘em all) and Beanie Babies (which made up 10% of eBay’s sales at one point).
Due to this and other perceived blind spots, Benes has been criticised in some circles for not fully grappling with what he claims are the lasting implications of this culture: after all (as some argue) is it really a surprise whenever MAGA supporters treat ICE raids with a little more seriousness than Grand Theft Auto but with the same glee?
What I think it really speaks to is the defeat of class politics and the ubiquity of The Third Way in the 1990’s.
As the Revolutionary Communist Party argued in their suicide note:
…over the past couple of years we have come to understand that there are new barriers which need to be overcome before we can begin to convince people to act against the usual ills of capitalism. The flipside of the current problem mongering is the constant diminishing of the potential for people to do anything about it. There is now a widespread assumption that we are more or less incapable of changing things for the better, an assumption that 'There is no alternative'. The combination of these two factors is creating a paralysing atmosphere in society.
Combined with the complete discreditation of Marxism for a decade, the fragmentation of traditional working-class areas of solidarity (such as churches and clubs) and the acceleration of the metropolitan city, it’s no wonder that the pop culture of the era was aspirational yet low rent, real but fake, inviting yet gatekept.
Therefore, a book like this is necessary to remind us that nostalgia is fine in small doses, but we shouldn’t be so easily fooled again.
Ross Benes, 2025, 1999: The Year Low
Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times. University
Press of Kansas. ISBN: 978-0700638574
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
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