From pro wrestling and Pokemon to Vince McMahon and Jerry Springer, this look at the low culture of the late '90s reveals its profound impact and how it continues to affect our culture and society today. The year 1999 was a high-water mark for popular culture. According to one measure, it was the "best movie year ever." But as journalist Ross Benes shows, the end of the '90s was also a banner year for low culture. This was the heyday of Jerry Springer, Jenna Jameson, and Vince McMahon, among many others. Low culture had come into its own and was poised for world domination. The reverberations of this takeover continue to shape American society. During its New Year's Eve countdown, MTV entered 1999 with Limp Bizkit covering Prince's famous anthem to the new year. The highlights of the lowlights continued when WCW and WWE drew 35 million American viewers each week with sex appeal and stories about insurrections. Insane Clown Posse emerged from the underground with a Woodstock set and platinum records about magic and murder. Later that year, Dance Dance Revolution debuted in North America and Grand Theft Auto emerged as a major video game franchise. Beanie Babies and Pokemon so thoroughly seized the wallets and imagination of collectors that they created speculative investment bubbles that anticipated the faddish obsession over nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The trashy talk show Jerry Springer became daytime TV's most-watched program and grew so mainstream that Austin Powers, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Wayans Bros., The Simpsons, and The X-Files incorporated Springer into their own plots during the late '90s. Donald Trump even explored a potential presidential nomination with the Reform Party in 1999 and wanted his running mate to be Oprah Winfrey, whose own talk show would make Dr. Oz a household name. Among Springer's many guests were porn stars who, at the end of the millennium, were pursuing sex records in a bid for stardom as the pornography industry exploded, aided by sex scandals, new technology, and the drug Viagra, which marked its first full year on the US market in 1999. According to Benes, there are many lessons to learn from the year that low culture conquered the world. Talk shows and reality TV foreshadowed the way political movements grab power by capturing our attention. Pro wrestling mastered the art of "kayfabe"-the agreement to treat something as real and genuine when it is not-before it spread throughout American society, as political contests, corporate public relations campaigns, and nonprofit fundraising schemes have become their own wrestling matches that require a suspension of disbelief. Beanie Babies and Pokemon demonstrate capitalism's resiliency as well as its vulnerabilities. Legal and technological victories obtained by early internet pornographers show how the things people are ashamed of have the ability to influence the world. Insane Clown Posse's creation of loyal Juggalos illustrates the way religious and political leaders are able to generate faithful followers by selling themselves as persecuted outsiders. And the controversy over video game violence reveals how every generation finds new scapegoats. 1999 is not just a nostalgic look at the past. It is also a window into our contentious present.
Ross Benes is an award-winning journalist and author, whose writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Vice, Nation, The Wall Street Journal, and beyond. He has also written three books, including Rural Rebellion: How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold and Turned On: A Mind-Blowing Investigation into How Sex Has Shaped Our World.
"1999 gives power and authority to the very forms of culture that are deemed least legitimate and least worthy, mainly when politicians and religious leaders thought they would be the downfall of society. There is a link between devaluing culture and political unrest/change. Specifically, this book helps to explain the election of Donald Trump in ways that most strictly scholarly analyses cannot capture." - Dustin Kidd, author of Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, Mass Media, and Society"Grab a Lunchable and pull up an inflatable chair for this must-read analysis of 1990s reality TV, plushy fads, one-hit wonders, porn stars, and video games. More than a fun romp through the good, bad, and ugly of a now bygone era, 1999 offers serious perspective for understanding the relationship between pop culture and the broader American landscape of politics and inequities in decades past as well as today." - Kelsy Burke, author of The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present, and Future of America's Obscene Obsession "1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times does far more than simply provide a highlight reel of the most notorious entertainment products in the dying gasps of the 90s. Rather, it threads together things like Jerry Springer, The Rock, and Beanie Babies into a cohesive deep dive into the lowest common denominator, showing us how fame, power, and money can warp even the best intentions. Simultaneously weird, sobering, and ceaselessly thoughtful, 1999 isn't just about the end of a century, but the beginning of the world we know now." - Daniel Dockery, author of Monster Kids: How Pokemon Taught a Generation to Catch Them All"1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times is an insightful, well-researched look at the premier junk we were consuming at the turn of the century. Thank you, Ross Benes, for reminding me of so many terrible-in-a-good-way cultural moments." - Mark Yarm, author of Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge
