Y2K Pop Culture

We are 25 years into the 2000s, so we wanted to debate: what’s the most definitive piece of Y2K pop culture? We try to pinpoint the essence of that period when teens ruled the culture, viral internet memes first became a thing, and everyone was freaking out about stocking up on duct tape. We talk about Spice World, Get Over It, Britney Spears’ “Oops… I Did It Again” music video, and Janet Jackson’s “Empty.” See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:19Aisha Harris?

  True story. A couple of years ago, American Girl introduced a pair of new historical characters from, wait for it, 1999. The doll's accessories were as Y2K as they could possibly get. A Tamagotchi, a purple inflatable chair, a portable CD player. Basically, my 11-year-old life. I felt so old when I saw that. Now, we're officially a quarter century into the 2000s, and it's our turn to be a little bit nostalgic here on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. We're going to try to pinpoint the essence of that period when teens ruled the culture, viral internet memes first became a thing, and everyone was freaking out about stocking up a duct tape.

• 1:00Aisha Harris?

  I'm Aisha Harris, and today, we're debating what's the most definitive piece of Y2K pop culture.

• 1:10Speaker 02

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• 1:47Speaker 00

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• 2:31Speaker 00

  See the film that the L.A. Times calls "instantly classic." Opens only in theaters October 23rd in New York and Los Angeles. Nationwide, October 30th.

• 2:41Aisha Harris?

  Joining me today is Christina Tucker. She's the co-host of the podcast, Wait, Is This a Date? Hello, Christina.

• 2:47Speaker 03

  Hello, hello. Thrilled to be here.

• 2:49Aisha Harris?

  Thrilled to have you here. Also with us is culture writer Margaret H. Wilson. Hello, Margaret. Hi, Aisha. Delighted to be here. It's so lovely to have you. And making the Pop Culture Happy Hour debut, I am so excited, is the host of the podcast Pop Pantheon, DJ Louis XIV. Welcome to the show, Louis.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  Aisha, this is a true honor. Thank you so much for having me.

• 3:12Aisha Harris?

  It's so great to have you here. So, we're here to argue for the piece of culture that we think best captures the spirit of Y2K. And for our purposes, we're going to be defining the Y2K era as being bookended by two very arbitrary, but monumental cultural moments. The international launch of the Tamagotchi in May of 1997, and the shutdown of Napster in 2001. So, whatever we chose had to fall within that time period. Christina, I'm going to start with you. Tell us, what is your pick?

• 3:43Speaker 03

  Folks, it's Spice World. It's the movie Spice World. I considered doing the album Spice World, but when I thought about the film Spice World, there were some obvious things that made it very Y2K culture to me. One, the fashions. The fashions are extremely of the Y2K era in a way that I find so comforting and takes me simply right back to being an 11-year-old, once again. The notion of girl power, huge for Y2K. I don't know what we had happening in the culture, something that I'd love to bring back, maybe. But for me, the most definitive thing that makes this Y2K culture is the way the paparazzi are obsessed with stalking those girls. And to me, that spooky man is like, one of the horsemen of the apocalypse.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  And then like right on his heels is, you know, we've got Perez Hilton coming down the line, you know, Dumas is coming later. I think the way they talk about privacy and what we demand from celebrities as people, it was just like a shockingly prescient way of thinking about what pop culture would become. And for me, that makes it very definitive of Y2K culture because Y2K and paparazzi culture, baby, tight as heck.

• 4:56Aisha Harris?

  I mean, that was also 97 was the same year as the death of Princess Diana, right? And that had its own paparazzi storyline.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:05Aisha Harris?

  Christina, look, I love this. I named my first book after a Spice Girls song. Like, this is very dear to me. I'm curious, Louis and Margaret, how do we feel about this? Does this feel like an apt pick? Does it feel Y2K enough? It's such a strong pick.

• 5:19Speaker 04

  This is such a good pick. Like, I'm actually sort of kicking myself that I didn't think of it, to be honest with you. Like, I have so many core memories tied to this. Like, definitely, as a queer person, as a queer man, Spice World, and my pick also, are points of like, deep conflict manifesting themselves, because I wanted to love the Spice Girls openly, but I couldn't because of maybe what that meant. And I remember trying to find like, roundabout ways to like, see this movie without like, letting too much on. So, a lot of psychological fraughtness. I don't know if it's Y2K to be like, a certain version of closetedness, a certain version of closeted kid. And also, I would say, this sort of like, glossy, almost naive, bright-eyed optimism

• 6:01Speaker 04

  of the teen pop movement, and like, how teens were represented. I mean, the Spice Girls themselves were not teens, but they were geared towards that culture. And in some ways, I think like, calcified, or were the precursors to like, the teen pop explosion that would happen a couple of years later.

• 6:16Aisha Harris?

  A hundred percent.

• 6:16Speaker 04

  And that particular sort of teen- Mil you, I feel like is so Y2K to me in the most quintessential way.

• 6:24Speaker 05

  I feel like the Spice Girls taught us to love Europop again. Like, as a country, we'd lost our way. As a country, we like only wanted something that had like aesthetic grit to it, that like thought how much we were gonna enjoy listening to it. And the Spice Girls swooped in and they were like, what if it was just fun to listen to? And you could dance to it all the time?

• 6:45Speaker 04

  Right.

• 6:46Speaker 05

  And for a heady moment, we were like, yeah.

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Well, it's like the timeframe that you all have presented of like 97 to 2001 is really interesting in sort of like the pop musical trajectory. Because you're sort of like dealing with the exact moment where there's sort of this like retrenchment towards pure pop, sort of frivolous pop after sort of this dominant period for gangster rap, for grunge, for like these more kind of-

• 7:11Speaker 05

  For Lilith Fair.

• 7:12Speaker 04

  For Lilith Fair, for these more sort of like cred-driven, raucous ideals of centralized pop music and back towards something that sort of celebrated artifice, celebrated lightness, celebrated, again, like I think a certain European sensibility that tracks through also the American teen pop of that moment. Yeah. Via Max Martin and all these Swedish men. So, yeah, I think that's a really quintessentially Y2K thing too as well, this sort of like version of pop music.

• 7:41Aisha Harris?

  Especially the Spice World album was such a disco-inflected piece of work. Like, it was like a look back to 20 years prior.

• 7:48Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 7:48Aisha Harris?

  So it was like that weird moment. And then, of course, like in that same period, you have VH1 launching its I Love the Seventies and I Love the Eighties. So it's both of its time, but also it's like a complete rewind and a remix.

• 8:00Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 8:01Speaker 05

  Right.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  It's like a post-modernism version of pop music in a way. Like, and that's what you could also say about a lot of this teen pop music that was essentially being like, I'm gonna take this from disco, I'm gonna take this from rock, I'm gonna take this from reggae, whatever it is, and sort of like take the stickiest parts of everything and like just blast them out to a thousand.

• 8:21Speaker 05

  Right.

• 8:22Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  I also think it's crucial to remember that Spice World includes aliens. That's also very Y2K culture. Deeply Y2K to be like, what's happening in space? And like, what's going on up there?

• 8:33Speaker 04

  And the future, like a very specific sort of glossy version of like, what the future could look like, maybe.

• 8:39Speaker 05

  I feel like in the last seven or eight years, that's when like, Y2K fashion has started to become cool again among actual young people. And I remember just how chilling it was. The first time that I saw Y2K as a descriptor on a secondhand site. And the way it was like, they were presenting the clothing that I had been traumatized by as a teenager. And they were presenting it like,

• 9:05Aisha Harris?

  Low-rise jeans.

• 9:07Speaker 05

  Like, no person who had been personally victimized by it was ever going to encounter it. It was like an archaeological find. It's like, from nowhere, we bring back butterfly clips. And I was like, no, they come back from somewhere.

• 9:20Aisha Harris?

  Well, it was my understanding that when I was 11 years old and wearing bell bottoms, that everyone who lived through that already was like, why are you doing this again?

• 9:27Speaker 05

  Right. I finally understood how everyone who was young in the 70s felt about my Delius catalogs.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Right, yep.

• 9:34Speaker 04

  What was also interesting about the Spice Girls versus some other, like, members of this boom, right? Was that they presented a version of quote unquote diversity that like, I feel like wasn't that common. Like, I mean, you had a person of color in the group. Their body types, I mean, like now we look back at it and we're like, those are five skinny women. Like, you know, at the time, you know, given how messed up our body standards were.

• 9:57Speaker 05

  Well, Sporty was so sporty.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, she was sporty.

• 10:00Speaker 05

  She's kind of grayer, right?

• 10:01Speaker 04

  Right. And also when you contrast them with the Britneys and Christinas, you know, who had this very particular version of sort of like ultra thinness and all that kind of stuff. Like, the Spice Girls were kind of like this, be yourself, like be different, like be outside the norm. That was what girl power was in a way.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like, here's five versions that you can be. Pick one.

• 10:21Speaker 04

  Right, exactly, exactly. Which was more than a lot of our pop culture at that time was selling us, you know?

• 10:26Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, this is true. This is true.

• 10:28Speaker 05

  Well, it's sort of taking the actual like, challenge and complexity of the early 90s and like, fully commercializing it, right? And defanging it, being like, yeah, be yourself in a sexy way.

• 10:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, be yourself in a sexy way.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, be you, as long as it's hot.

• 10:44Aisha Harris?

  Yes, yes, right. I mean, Christina, that is a very worthy pick for most definitive. That is Spice World, the movie, of course, which came out in 1997.

• 10:53Speaker 05

  And now we're gonna move to Margaret's pick. And we've got another movie here. Yes. And there's so many movies you could have chosen from this era. I am so excited to hear. You're so excited to hear why I chose this one? Seriously, yes, yes, I am. I started 7th grade in 1997. So I feel like that gives me a frame of reference where like this is like peak teen years. And this is also, I feel, the apex of the second wave of teen movie culture. If we have like John Hughes as our first wave, or like maybe Gidget is our first wave, then we have John Hughes. Yeah. Right, and then we have Y2K. And there are so many movies in this period I could have talked about. Obviously, Josie and the Pussycats was in the conversation. But I already talked about them on the Fictional Band episode, and I do have to have like more than one personality trait.

• 11:38Speaker 05

  I can't just talk about them all the time. But 10 Things I Hate About You, Bring It On, Even She's All That. There are so many incredible teen movies. Why did I pick this medium terrible one, Get Over It? Which if you've never heard of it, don't be surprised. It's because I think if something achieves escape velocity from its time period, right? I think it gets recontextualized and like we incorporate it into our own aesthetics now. Yeah. Right? Like I couldn't pick Bring It On because Bring It On is already being made in part of our time because it's in the Thank You Next video by Ariana Grande. Right. But if you find something that stayed trapped in the amber of its period, right?

• 12:21Speaker 05

  Like you can extract the DNA. And like you could make Y2K again with the blood of Get Over It. Okay, so remind us all what Get Over It is about. So Get Over It is part of the proud Y2K tradition of retelling Shakespeare plays as teen movies. Of course. In this case, it is.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  That was a movement.

• 12:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, a huge movement. Bring it back. A Midsummer Night's Dream, a boy gets dumped by the girl he wants to be with at the beginning of it, and he ends up with a different girl by the end. The different girl is Kirsten Dunst, the boy is Ben Foster. We have Mila Kunis up in the mix. We have a lot of people, but we also have figures who exist basically in this time period and have never come back again. Like, the opening credits are, for some reason, Vitamin C. Vitamin C. With a marching band.

• 13:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, that sounds right. That is Y2K. That is Y2K. You know what else is Y2K? Ben Foster's best friend slash sidekick, that one of them is Colin Hanks, right? Y2K, absolutely. Nepo baby, a new generation. And two, the other one, Cisco. Cisco. Cisco of the thong song. The outward credits are a duet between Cisco and Vitamin C. And if that's not Y2K, I don't know what is.

• 14:06Speaker 05

  However, the most Y2K thing about this is this is one of those classic teen dramas where they're like in a play, but then their lives are also mirroring the play. So there's a lot of Shakespearean nonsense. But the most Y2K thing is the theater teacher who is running this musical version of A Midsummer Night's Dream is played by Martin Short. And I am going to send a picture in the chat because I just think it's really important for you to see how Martin Short is costumed. For the listeners at home, we have Martin Short. He has the classic, straight up in the front styling of male hairstyle with frosted tips. So frosted tips. He is. Those are frosty.

• 14:49Speaker 05

  Frosty frosted tips. He is tanning bed, tanned, a crispy orange. He's Mark McGrath. He has Mark McGrath sideburns, those like skinny ones that are like really, really sharp at the bottom, very shaped. Yeah. And he has a soul patch. The man is wearing not one, but two studded leather cuffs on his wrists. And he has a shirt that has a sort of psychedelic fiery leaf print on it that is made out of some kind of absolutely egregious polyester with those huge lapels. And what is important about this image? Is not even at the height of Y2K mania presently, not even now, would anyone choose to dress like this?

• 15:30Speaker 05

  This is not the part of Y2K that like you're excited to show off to other people. Like this is what it was really like when you were in it. That is why I chose Get Over It because I'm not over what this time did to me. And I want other people to understand it better.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  The crusade, the crusade that you're on.

• 15:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  I mean, Cisco, Cisco in and of himself makes this such a great pick to me. Like, in some ways, I'm like, is the thong song like the ultimate Y2K moment?

• 15:59Aisha Harris?

  I'm literally sitting here thinking, it might be. I honestly considered it. I did consider the thong song.

• 16:04Speaker 05

  But no, when you open the DVD case for this and you have to open a DVD case because you can still smell Gap Dream just emanates out. CK1 hits you right in the face.

• 16:17Aisha Harris?

  I love it. Love it. Okay, Margaret, that is, that is a great pick. That was the movie Get Over It. And now we're gonna throw to you, Louis. Louis, what is your pick?

• 16:28Speaker 04

  Okay, well, I'm gonna come in on a unique angle and I'm gonna say a word that, you know, may not be everyone's favorite, but I feel like should be mentioned in this conversation, which is 9/11.

• 16:39Aisha Harris?

  Yeah. Not everyone's favorite.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  I'm sorry to like bring up 9/11 in the chat, but.

• 16:45Aisha Harris?

  Yes, I mean, that was part of our cutoff for this experiment. That feels like the end of an era in a way.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, right. That's the end of Y2K to me. And it's sort of that loss of innocence, right? And I think that like, that is the end of whatever this moment is for culture, for our world. And so when I was thinking about this, I was like, what is sort of emblematic of that particular brand of sort of like pop macro naivete or whatever it was? And to me, that's Britney Spears and everything that surrounds her. So I picked the Oops, I Did It Again music video, which came out in 2000, directed by Nigel Dick, who had also directed her previous music video for Baby One More Time, her infamous debut music video where she tied her shirt up. We all know that. That could easily also

• 17:34Speaker 04

  be on this list. But I think that Oops, I Did It Again captures the things that sort of are emblematic to me about Y2K aesthetically and specifically as it's framed through that sort of naivete, this sort of like futurism with this glossy edge, this sort of knowingly artificial futurism. Like in the video, Britney is in some sort of like space age something.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Mars Lander, what's happening up there?

• 18:11Speaker 04

  And she was hot, too. I mean, let me tell you. I mean, she is at the peak of her very specific version of sort of like, "I'm an innocent teen, but also I am beckoning you sexually."

• 18:22Aisha Harris?

  Not a girl, not yet a woman.

• 18:24Speaker 04

  That is 100% correct. And what that sort of represents to me is this sort of techno optimism, right? Like that we were in this moment of like, "The future is here." Like, that's the thing about the turn of the millennium that was such a big deal. It's like, "We're in the future." Like, "We have arrived in 2000. Whoa." Like, the word "2000" in and of itself was like this kind of mind-blowing idea. And I think this video really captures that sort of like, "Oh, my God, the forward march of technology." Like, the internet, like, whatever it was. I feel like that version, that sort of like, almost like completely service-level, like, not grappling with any of the danger of this, just thinking about like the fun of technology, right? Like, I feel like that's a big part of that.

• 19:02Speaker 05

  Doesn't it look cool?

• 19:03Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  I think that's what we did. I think we were all like, "Yeah, doesn't tech look cool?" And now we're kind of like, "Wait, what?

• 19:09Aisha Harris?

  Whoa."

• 19:10Speaker 04

  I think palette-wise, both as a song and a video, it really represents like what Y2K was about. Like, bright, iridescent silvers, like hot pinks, blues. Like, Britney's in that, obviously, like, super red.

• 19:24Speaker 05

  Ugh, latex. Latex jumpsuit?

• 19:26Speaker 04

  Plastic and latex jumpsuit.

• 19:28Aisha Harris?

  I think latex is Y2K culture.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:31Speaker 04

  100%. Latex and also her body, right? Like, her body's very clearly shown in that outfit. And that body is the Y2K, in some ways.

• 19:40Aisha Harris?

  Ideal.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  The emblematic Y2K female ideal body, right? Britney was that for so many people. You know, I think the idea that, Christina, you were getting at in yours, which was sort of this idea of post-modernism. Like, this idea of like, the music in particular, oops, I did it again. When I think about like what sort of Swedish pop mastermind Max Martin was doing at that time.

• 20:03Speaker 05

  God bless him.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  God bless him. But Max Martin's music was sort of this like post-genre, post-modern ideal of like what pop could be. Like, there were no boundaries. It kind of gets into the techno-futurism part of the whole thing, where it's like, "We're not beholden- To tradition, we're not pulled into boundaries. We're making R and B music, but with like this white girl in the front. Like, you know, roots don't matter, like history doesn't matter.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  We're back to Y2K, combine everything. Everything's gotta be two things.

• 20:29Aisha Harris?

  It even has a Titanic reference, like, come on now.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. Right, exactly. And the video has a literal Titanic reference in it, like for like no apparent real reason, except to just sort of say like, what if there was a Titanic reference in this? But it all serves this idea of like, you know, shameless capitalism in a way. Like, we're not here to talk about roots, we're not here to talk about history, we're not here to think about anything besides like what will grab and sell the most. So if that means like, you know, a Wawa funk bassline and big electronic guitars from arena rock, and it means like, you know, culling from black musical traditions with really no black people involved, or like respect for where any of this is coming from.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Sure, sure.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  It didn't matter. And like, let's throw the Titanic reference in, like, we have flames, we have keyboard slams. There's nothing that can't be in this, right? Like, there's no boundaries, there's no history, we're in the future, we're in this spaceship of some sort. And Titanic's here also, you know, utopian dreams, right? Like, and I think that that's why I bring up 9/11, because I think that that, in some ways, in relief, highlights the sort of foundational elements of this moment, which were that like, there was this naivete. And to me, Britney, Miss, you know, I'm not that innocent, but like, you know, you are that innocent, you know, that kind of dichotomy. She embodies that very clearly to me, and especially in this video.

• 21:43Aisha Harris?

  I mean, even to your point about capitalism, this is like peak teen pop explosion, right? Like, it was the year 2000, you had Millennium, Backstreet Boys had just come out the year before, smashed records, and then, you know, you have No Strings Attached, Celebrity, the NSYNC album that came out in 2000, 2001. So it was just kind of like this moment where it crested, and then it went away. But it was also, as capitalistic as it was, the idea that, you know, teens could propel the culture in a way that felt Not very new, but it felt like a different version of that because it was the very early internet version of that.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:19Aisha Harris?

  Oh, man, I mean, this is a great pick. I mean, all of these have been excellent picks. I think we're definitely touching on a lot of ways, both different and the same, that the culture was kind of aligned aesthetically.

• 22:30Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. And like, that's really well represented by the Titanic reference.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally.

• 22:35Speaker 05

  Because it's not like she's like, oh, you brought me the heart of the ocean from the movie Titanic, directed by James Cameron, right?

• 22:41Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 22:42Speaker 05

  Heart of the ocean. Everyone knows what that is. Everyone knows what it looks like because everyone's seen that movie.

• 22:47Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Speaker 05

  Everyone still knows what that looks like.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 22:50Speaker 05

  Because this is sort of the last time we had a monoculture, this mono.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  Yes, for sure, absolutely. So I think that that's just an important sort of like element of this that then begins to fracture. I mean, the Napster thing is powerful because the minute people start being able to download music and choose their own adventures musically, that's part of the dissolving of this whole idea.

• 23:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:08Aisha Harris?

  Mm hmm, absolutely. Well, great pick, Louis. You went with Oops, I Did It Again, the video for Britney Spears. And now we're gonna go to my pick, from Britney to arguably one of her mothers, one of her forebears, her pop forebears.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 23:23Aisha Harris?

  I chose a Janet Jackson song. Um, as I already hinted, I went in the kind of the complete opposite direction of Margaret in terms of how I thought about this, which is, like, I wanted to figure out what kind of both lived in this space where it was forward-thinking and really predicted the way that we interact, and what also felt like very much, you know, of the moment and of that time. And so I chose a deep-cut Janet Jackson song called Empty from her fantastic, very forward-thinking album, The Velvet Rope. And I just want to start by saying the opening of this song sounds like this.

• 24:09Aisha Harris?

  So anyone who's listening to this, who's probably under the age of like, I don't know, 25, 30, you might not know what that sound is, but that is the sound of your modem booting. Yeah. And having to connect your phone, like your phone line was connected to the internet. And if you were on the internet, you couldn't also use the phone. It was very much a point of contention in many households, including mine. Yes. And your parents were like, get off the internet. You know, that alone. This song came out in 1997. The album came out in 1997. And so the internet existed, chat rooms existed, but it was still very, very nascent. It was still very, very early in that time. And that sound alone, to me, is very Y2K. But then the concept of this song is internet connection with someone you've never met in real life.

• 24:54Aisha Harris?

  And this is like specifically more about love than it is about necessarily like friendship. It's like a very lusting and very yearning song. But also this can apply to, you know, any sort of relationship. So here is one of the verses which will tell you everything if you can understand, because I love Janet, but sometimes her enunciation, you know. But here we go.

• 25:26Aisha Harris?

  The way she sings.

• 25:29Aisha Harris?

  Like, oh my goodness.

• 25:33Aisha Harris?

  Because this song is like, it's a discovery, right? It's like, I've never felt this way before. I've never connected with someone without having met them before. Like, is this a new way to love? Yeah. Girls, you don't know.

• 25:46Aisha Harris?

  Like, I met my partner slash husband, whatever I'm calling him now. Like, I met him on the internet some couple decades later after this album came out. But like, it happened. Mm-hmm. And the way that this song predicts online dating, but also just how now this is how so many people interact. And Catfish came out of people finding love on the internet and being scanned. This idea of connection and the way she talks about it and the way she frames it as this is very exciting and fun, but it's also kind of depressing and leaves me empty. I feel empty. And she keeps saying, I feel empty. That just hits.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:21Aisha Harris?

  Especially in a post-COVID world, you see all these studies about younger people, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, who like don't know how to communicate in real life because they only connect on the internet.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:31Aisha Harris?

  Look, Tumblr had some great moments, great connections. LiveJournal was my thing back in the day. I had a lot of people I never met who I was like, oh, I know you on LJ. Like, what's your handle? It's just to me, I don't know if you can get more Y2K than talking about how we connect over the internet and how the internet has warped our sense of belonging, our sense of understanding, our sense of just like having internet personalities that are different from perhaps the way we are in real life.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:56Aisha Harris?

  Yeah. And the song is just a friggin' bop. Janet wrote it with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and her then-husband at the time, Renee Elizondo Jr. Like, it's, it's just like, it sounds very 2000s. It does. It also just kind of comes in that same mix of that era of R&B especially. But also pop, like NSYNC had digital get-downs.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  I was literally thinking about digital get-downs. Just you and me, baby.

• 27:18Aisha Harris?

  The entire Fanmail TLC album is like, you can draw that line. It has an entire

• 27:24Speaker 03

  Oh, my god.

• 27:24Aisha Harris?

  internet, roboty voice interludes and things about connecting with fans. I just think it's both, it was part of a musical moment and led to more songs and more musical culture happening in that vein in a very Y2K way. But also, like, almost all of it can apply just as much to the present day as it did then. Yeah.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think that's what's really interesting for me about it is like thinking about her in 97, thinking like, but I feel empty even having all of these connections when I think like digital get-down for me is like, ooh, this is like sexy and fun. Like, there's no negative. You know, you're 20,000 miles away, but I can see you.

• 27:58Aisha Harris?

  Exactly.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  And like, there's excitement there. And here, I love in this one that she's like, this is interesting and new and fun, but it's not doing anything for me. And I think that is really interesting that it took us this long to get to where she's kind of at right now.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  Well, leave it to Janet's like ultra sensitivity to capture something more nuanced in a moment. That was often about sort of like maximalist overload. I think that like this song is unique in that way because Janet was at this moment of like creative zenith. This album is perhaps like maybe my all-time favorite album, but also one of the most Influential, it's

• 28:30Speaker 03

  One of the best albums ever made.

• 28:31Speaker 04

  It is one of the best albums of all time, period. And this is maybe the best song on the record. So like incredible pick. Like of everything that we've spoken about, maybe this entire day, I feel like as much as this sounds Y2K, I think you hear this song in contemporary music so clearly. Like the innovation that was going on here is something that is very directly referenced by so many artists today. And like, what do you even call this? Like it's R&B, it's electronic music, it's pop, it's avant garde, it's mainstream, it's sexy, it's sad. It contains so many multitudes, it's so layered. I'm feeling emotional just thinking back at somebody at the dawn of this moment, looking

• 29:15Speaker 04

  out over the horizon and wondering about like what this is going to mean for us and like how dark it is for all of us sitting here, like knowing what it's manifested and like how bad things have become because of all of this stuff. And just like thinking about her sheer like prescience and brilliance in that moment, but also the naivete that we were talking about earlier. Like she is grappling with this in layered ways, but she can't possibly really know what's coming. You know what I mean? And just sort of that sense of wonder, you know what I mean? I feel like we live in a moment that feels like we don't have a lot of wonder. And like, I feel like even in all of her fears and anxieties that she expresses on this song, there's still that sense of like possibilities of what could be maybe good, maybe bad. She doesn't really know. And there's something sort of sad to me about thinking back on that moment and like what the song encapsulates in that way.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  Woo, Y2K. Y2K.

• 30:04Speaker 04

  Also, everyone like listened to the velvet rope because wow, like any excuse to listen to that album.

• 30:11Aisha Harris?

  Absolutely. Well, we want to know what you think is the most definitive piece of Y2K pop culture. Find us at facebook.com slash PCHH. And that brings us to the end of our show. Margaret H. Wilson, Christina Tucker, DJ Louis XIV. Thanks so much for being here. You did not leave me empty. I feel full and fulfilled.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  Same, same. Girl power.

• 30:34Speaker 04

  And let's just say Y2K was better.

• 30:38Aisha Harris?

  Here, here. This episode was produced by Carly Rubin, Janai Morris, and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Happier from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next time.

• 30:56Speaker 00

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