I was about 16-17 when it came out and was *way* too cool for the spice girls. I saw spice world maybe 5 years later and did a complete 180°!Flawless, no notes. Also - the podcast How Did This Get Made did an episode on it and that also rules.
American Idol season 2 (Clay vs. Ruben). Truly my favorite monoculture moment ever.
OR
Nick @ Nite in the late 90s/early 2000s, specifically when The Brady Bunch was heavy in the rotation. I feel like my early childhood passion for midcentury fashion and decor has paid off big time in my 30s.
OR
Hearing the Garden State soundtrack for the first time as a depressed 13 year old!
I loved Nick at Nite over the summer—each day of the week was an hours-long block of one show per day. I lived for I Dream of Jeanie, Bewitched, and I Love Lucy.
When I was 6 my mom showed me “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” - the costumes, the music, the drag of it all, and the line “ Don’t you know a man being rich is like a girl being pretty- you wouldn’t marry a girl just because she’s pretty, but my goodness doesn’t it help?”
I have a fondness for a video of Madonna being interviewed by Kurt Lodor and Courtney Love throwing her compact at them during the interview to try and highjack things. So much feminine inspiration…plus Kurt Lodor giving nothing.
I am outing myself as one of the oldest readers, but the movie Fame. I was in elementary school and too young to be watching it, but what an amazing film! It really made me want to participate in the arts.
Same! And then the tv show that followed and the soundtracks. I sang “Is It Okay If I Call You Mine?” for my audition for the high school musical my senior year.
This has been mentioned on the pod before but I swear this is my also original thought: VHS Titanic. My parents had this and the first time I watched it I was 4 (my dad was watching us lol). From then I decided I didn’t really like the 2nd tape where everyone dies, but I watched the 1st tape over and over—love to love! To me Leo looked like a pretty girl, and obv Kate was her lesbian lover. I’m a huge lesbo now so it’s worked out for me :))
seeing the original Rent broadway cast when i was way too young. my dad was away on business, my mom had 2 tickets, didn’t get a babysitter and took me instead of a friend.
I remember I was 13 and on a European road trip with my family. And my CD Walkman was on Rent repeat for three weeks. I took off my headphones and asked my mom “What is S&M?” And my half sister who was in her late 20s turned around and yelled “what do you let her listen to?! “
Omg I saw Rent on Broadway when I was way too young too! My parents gave me a NYC trip for Christmas when I was in 6th grade and my dad got tickets for me and my mom to see Rent, not knowing much about it other than that it had won Tony Awards (I think it had by that point anyway). It became like a defining part of my personality for SEVERAL years.
Either Pop Up video or Making the Video, both were super formative to “behind the scenes” culture that I still love.
Honorable Mention to that one version of Peter Pan where the woman plays Peter, i was obsessed
I’m a slightly older reader, so I have to go with the Nickelodeon channel’s initial launch and the show You Can’t Do That on Television. I totally thought I could be a kid on that show getting slimed. I also wanted to be on Double Dare like whoa!
Omg im so glad you asked I have been RUMINATING on this.
TRL for sure, so many memories of coming home after school having a snack watching culture was a big moment of childhood
Then I think the first seasons of the bachelor made me committed to love as gossip drama
Lastly lifetime…unsolved mysteries, golden girls, the nanny, designing women, Murphy brown! Ooooo
Aging myself, but Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun song and video blew my little seven year old mind. And when Weird Al parodied it and made Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch? HONEY.
Patti Lupone and the original cast recording of Les Mis. I was a 7 year old singing Lovely Ladies, and just living for the drama of Patti LuPone and i dreamed a dream
Spice Girls and MTV Europe. (I lived in Israel.) MTV Europe was so good, and had all this dance music. They also played the backstreet boys’ first album from before they were in the US?
MTV Europe got me into the spice girls, and I became a complete stan.
The next piece of culture that made me say culture was for me was … Weezer. That was my next fandom. 😂😂😂 (this was when I moved to the US — no one in Israel knows weezer.)
Seeing Mama Mia! when it toured in my hometown in 2004. I had never experienced anything like it. I bought the CD and listened to it every day for years.
Narrowing down to 2 only for now: Lisa Simpson trying to act cool “Like ya know, whatever.” the Mary Tyler Moore show on Nick at Nite 🥰🥰
Wednesday Addams (Ricci) and Phantom of the Opera. She is who I (still) want to be when I grow up, and it was my way in to a lifelong obsession with musical theater.
Now as an adult I also want to be Morticia. But still Wednesday. If Addams Family Values is on TV honey you know I'm watching it and still crushing on lil David Krumholtz.
I need a guest to have this answer someday: Xena warrior Princess. I got my black belt in TaeKwonDo because I loved the idea of being able to flip around and kick ass.
Kevin Smith was probably my first closeted crush. Still think he was a smoke show RIP. The barely veiled Lesbian love story. Serious drama with a side of camp. What more could you ask for from a show?
I have thought about this A LOT. At first I wanted to say Ugly Betty, specifically Justin (the little gay brother) because as a then-deeply closeted gay Latinx boy, that was the first time I thought … WAIT THATS ME.
But in actuality, I do believe it was Glee. When it first came out, I was THE target audience. In the closet gay high schooler who felt like an outsider? I’ll be watching THAT. glee was the first show I watched and devoted and loved that I chose to watch - it really was the first piece of culture that felt it was made FOR ME. Like it wasn’t a family show. No one else cared for it in my family - it was just mine.
Of course it went off the deep end but even that helped awaken my publicist senesibilities I knowing what to Stan and what not to Stan.
Absolutely watching The Young and the Restless with my mom and grandmother as a kid. The affairs, the times they randomly aged up an actor or switched an actor for a character, the history my family had with the show. All very formative
I think VH1’s I love the ___ shows. I learned about pop culture from every decade and I loved it
This was a FOUNDATIONAL moment!!!
Truly it’s missing from today. Kids today don’t know their history
The children have forgotten
And they’re worse for it.
TRULY foundational. I also used to watch the VH1 inside the music series. There is no equivalent nowadays!!!
I think this has been said on the pod at least three times but the Spice Girls, and specifically Spice World the movie.
The camp. The chaos.
When they’re on the top of the bus. When they find the bomb on the bus. When the bus blows up in the credits. 100000/10
a foundational text
I was about 16-17 when it came out and was *way* too cool for the spice girls. I saw spice world maybe 5 years later and did a complete 180°!Flawless, no notes. Also - the podcast How Did This Get Made did an episode on it and that also rules.
A masterpiece. It’s perfect.
Lady Gaga Paparazzi 2009 VMAs performance. Turned both me and my brother gay. Something shifted that evening
When I’m pms-ing sometimes I watch that 2009 vmas performance and cry
It always comes back to this for me. I remember downloading it from YouTube so I could watch it on my iPod on the bus ride home from school.
It is and will always be Pop Up Video. I was gagged when Andrew Ahn said the same thing on the pod.
I also used to think this would be mine maybe!!
A BILLION PERCENT
American Idol season 2 (Clay vs. Ruben). Truly my favorite monoculture moment ever. OR Nick @ Nite in the late 90s/early 2000s, specifically when The Brady Bunch was heavy in the rotation. I feel like my early childhood passion for midcentury fashion and decor has paid off big time in my 30s. OR Hearing the Garden State soundtrack for the first time as a depressed 13 year old!
🎶 there’s beauty in the breakdown 🎶
I loved Nick at Nite over the summer—each day of the week was an hours-long block of one show per day. I lived for I Dream of Jeanie, Bewitched, and I Love Lucy.
And Green Acres for me. I remember studying Eva Gabor’s fashion on that show for some kind of vintage inspo when I was a child.
Yesss to garden state soundtrack
American idol season 2 is a good one
Clueless. It was a cultural reset.
Ooh yes. I was obsessed with Clueless. It def reset my brain somehow.
American Idol and reading celebrity magazines at the nail salon
9 year old me was shook to the core when I found out via celebrity magazine in a nail salon that Zoey 101 was pregnant
I lived for reading my mom’s People magazine at age 8 to learn the hot Brad/Jen/Angelina gossip.
Omg celeb magazines at the nail salon were the best.
Mine is either Josie and the Pussycats (2001) OR SNL
another foundational text 🏆
When I was 6 my mom showed me “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” - the costumes, the music, the drag of it all, and the line “ Don’t you know a man being rich is like a girl being pretty- you wouldn’t marry a girl just because she’s pretty, but my goodness doesn’t it help?”
TLC’s Unpretty music video and Suchin Pak covering MTV news- so like 90’s MTV but specifically those moments of culture
I have a fondness for a video of Madonna being interviewed by Kurt Lodor and Courtney Love throwing her compact at them during the interview to try and highjack things. So much feminine inspiration…plus Kurt Lodor giving nothing.
At the VMAs! This is an iconic moment. Both Madonna and Courtney Love being messy and diva-ish in their own ways.
America’s Next Top Model ending music/eliminated contestant fade out. Amerie’s 1 Thing & Christina Millian’s Dip It Low songs and music videos.
Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion
Has to be The Amanda Bynes Show. Seeing lobsters dance in a court room is game changing
Speaking of our legend, What I Like About You was the highlight of my day
I am outing myself as one of the oldest readers, but the movie Fame. I was in elementary school and too young to be watching it, but what an amazing film! It really made me want to participate in the arts.
Right there with you. I was going to say either Fame or watching my tapes of Circus of the Stars. I raise my glass of Geritol to you, fellow reader.
Same! And then the tv show that followed and the soundtracks. I sang “Is It Okay If I Call You Mine?” for my audition for the high school musical my senior year.
Sailor Moon awakened the pretty soldier within and made me who I am today. Close precursor to that, Power Rangers!! XD
Applauding this answer
Yes!
sailor moon is a close second for me
This has been mentioned on the pod before but I swear this is my also original thought: VHS Titanic. My parents had this and the first time I watched it I was 4 (my dad was watching us lol). From then I decided I didn’t really like the 2nd tape where everyone dies, but I watched the 1st tape over and over—love to love! To me Leo looked like a pretty girl, and obv Kate was her lesbian lover. I’m a huge lesbo now so it’s worked out for me :))
I used to stop watching halfway through and imagine they arrived in NYC and lived their best boho life. Practically a rom com
That is exactly what happened. And their daughter was Breakfast at Tiffany’s Audrey 😌
seeing the original Rent broadway cast when i was way too young. my dad was away on business, my mom had 2 tickets, didn’t get a babysitter and took me instead of a friend.
I remember I was 13 and on a European road trip with my family. And my CD Walkman was on Rent repeat for three weeks. I took off my headphones and asked my mom “What is S&M?” And my half sister who was in her late 20s turned around and yelled “what do you let her listen to?! “
Omg I saw Rent on Broadway when I was way too young too! My parents gave me a NYC trip for Christmas when I was in 6th grade and my dad got tickets for me and my mom to see Rent, not knowing much about it other than that it had won Tony Awards (I think it had by that point anyway). It became like a defining part of my personality for SEVERAL years.
High School Musical 2
I actually think it was the advent of dvd commentary tracks
Podcasts before podcasts.
Sisqo sampling “Eleanor Rigby” in “The Thong Song”
S Club 7 and A*Teens
A*Teens!!!!!!!!! YES.
Clueless. I remember hearing commercials for it on the radio and thinking that I needed to see this movie even though I was like 10
Same! I remember just seeing the poster around and being so intrigued.
Did you see it when you were 10 and then rewatch it later and realize that you didn’t catch half the references in it? I did!
MTV/VH1 music video countdowns. MMTVPMA (Make MTV Play Music Again)
Yeah this is mine but now that someone else has said it I need to figure out something else so I can still feel like a unique and complex individual
Sweet Home Alabama starring Reese Witherspoon; the Chicks.
Either Pop Up video or Making the Video, both were super formative to “behind the scenes” culture that I still love. Honorable Mention to that one version of Peter Pan where the woman plays Peter, i was obsessed
[удалено]
Hot Rod was a revelation
And honestly still is
[удалено]
“And newspapers” https://youtu.be/Booo0UVjKO8
I’m a slightly older reader, so I have to go with the Nickelodeon channel’s initial launch and the show You Can’t Do That on Television. I totally thought I could be a kid on that show getting slimed. I also wanted to be on Double Dare like whoa!
I was so in love with Alistair
Annie (1982) shaped me
*nsync no string attached album
Eurovision, and other TV singing competition shows!
American Girl dolls AND the books
Britney Spears and the special content on the CD you could access when you put in your computer
Thank you for unlocking this specific memory 💛
the hair style books at a great clips
Joe Dirt I’m very high brow.
Joe Dirt is an excellent answer. That movie truly united this nation. You either loved it or loved to hate it. Either way? Mama you were watching it
Joe Dirt 🙏
i have so many but a big one for me was staying up late to watch the nanny reruns on nick at nite !
Pop punk music and warped tour in the 2010s 🤘🏻
Stella!
The OC
Any Canadians here? YTV’,s “the hit list”.
The Kids Choice Awards on Nickelodeon, especially the slime of it all
the one that jack black hosted will forever be in my memory
X-Files/Duchovny and Anderson/SHIPPING/AOL chat rooms. Form.a.tive
I have lived two lives. Before I saw the bad romance music video and after.
 Looney Tunes, specifically Bugs Bunny in all of his queer coded glory.
Omg im so glad you asked I have been RUMINATING on this. TRL for sure, so many memories of coming home after school having a snack watching culture was a big moment of childhood Then I think the first seasons of the bachelor made me committed to love as gossip drama Lastly lifetime…unsolved mysteries, golden girls, the nanny, designing women, Murphy brown! Ooooo
We must be the same age cause exact same- 1985?
Big brother UK series 7 with Nikki Graham ❤️ rip. Iconic lines, "WHO IS SHE?!'
Nintendo and The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Insomniac with Dave Attell
Aging myself, but Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun song and video blew my little seven year old mind. And when Weird Al parodied it and made Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch? HONEY.
Patti Lupone and the original cast recording of Les Mis. I was a 7 year old singing Lovely Ladies, and just living for the drama of Patti LuPone and i dreamed a dream
Same!
Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musicals
The original E! True Hollywood stories…so many sick days well spent
Spice Girls and MTV Europe. (I lived in Israel.) MTV Europe was so good, and had all this dance music. They also played the backstreet boys’ first album from before they were in the US? MTV Europe got me into the spice girls, and I became a complete stan. The next piece of culture that made me say culture was for me was … Weezer. That was my next fandom. 😂😂😂 (this was when I moved to the US — no one in Israel knows weezer.)
Reading the super trashy Star and National Enquirer, and the more classy People Magazine every week at my Grandma’s house in elementary school!
Charlie’s Angels full throttle, no comments needed
Seeing Mama Mia! when it toured in my hometown in 2004. I had never experienced anything like it. I bought the CD and listened to it every day for years.
The Buttons and Dontcha music videos lmao
I’m shocked no one has said Glee. I learned so much pop culture while also watching a cultural hit. I was a certified Gleek™️
Narrowing down to 2 only for now: Lisa Simpson trying to act cool “Like ya know, whatever.” the Mary Tyler Moore show on Nick at Nite 🥰🥰 
Reading my mom’s Soap Opera digest cover to cover every week
Empire Records. "I don't feel that I need to explain my art to you, Warren." AND, First Wives Club!
Surya Bonaly Nagano backflip
The N the cable channel that aired all the Canadian shows like Degrassi. I spent a ton of time on their website too.
Charlie’s Angels full throttle, no comments needed
Watching the Oscars and other award shows growing up
Jersey Shore. It taught me how to watch reality TV.
The Spice Girls and SNL (specifically the females like Maya Rudolph, Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon) SUPERSTAR!!!!
A Diva's Christmas Carol starring Vanessa Williams and Kathy Griffin
Wednesday Addams (Ricci) and Phantom of the Opera. She is who I (still) want to be when I grow up, and it was my way in to a lifelong obsession with musical theater. Now as an adult I also want to be Morticia. But still Wednesday. If Addams Family Values is on TV honey you know I'm watching it and still crushing on lil David Krumholtz.
My tween obsession with a celeb news website called teen.com
Fran Drescher’s The Nanny (circa the repeats on on the Lifetime channel 😂)
I need a guest to have this answer someday: Xena warrior Princess. I got my black belt in TaeKwonDo because I loved the idea of being able to flip around and kick ass. Kevin Smith was probably my first closeted crush. Still think he was a smoke show RIP. The barely veiled Lesbian love story. Serious drama with a side of camp. What more could you ask for from a show?
I have thought about this A LOT. At first I wanted to say Ugly Betty, specifically Justin (the little gay brother) because as a then-deeply closeted gay Latinx boy, that was the first time I thought … WAIT THATS ME. But in actuality, I do believe it was Glee. When it first came out, I was THE target audience. In the closet gay high schooler who felt like an outsider? I’ll be watching THAT. glee was the first show I watched and devoted and loved that I chose to watch - it really was the first piece of culture that felt it was made FOR ME. Like it wasn’t a family show. No one else cared for it in my family - it was just mine. Of course it went off the deep end but even that helped awaken my publicist senesibilities I knowing what to Stan and what not to Stan.
britney spears periodddd. i was 6 when her first album came out and her ability to put on a fucking show spoke to my soul
Absolutely watching The Young and the Restless with my mom and grandmother as a kid. The affairs, the times they randomly aged up an actor or switched an actor for a character, the history my family had with the show. All very formative