Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was)
Perfect for fans of Jia Tolentino and Chuck Klosterman, Y2K is a delightfully nostalgic and bitingly told exploration about how the early 2000s forever changed us and the world we live in.
THE EARLY 2000s conjures images of inflatable furniture, flip phones, and low-rise jeans. It was a new millennium and the future looked bright, promising prosperity for all. The internet had arrived, and technology was shiny and fun. For many, it felt like the end of history: no more wars, racism, or sexism. But then history kept happening. Twenty-five years after the ball dropped on December 31st, 1999, we are still living in the shadows of the Y2K Era.
In Y2K, one of our most brilliant young critics Colette Shade offers a darkly funny meditation on everything from the pop culture to the political economy of the period. By close reading Y2K artifacts like the Hummer H2, Smash Mouth's "All Star," body glitter, AOL chatrooms, Total Request Live, and early internet porn, Shade produces an affectionate yet searing critique of a decade 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 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 reveals how the McMansion became an ominous symbol of the housing collapse.
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--a perfectly timed collection that holds a startling mirror to our past, present, and future.
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Colette Shade's work has appeared in The New Republic, The Baffler, Interview Magazine, The Nation, and Gawker. Y2K is her first book.
"Nothing I've read has cut to the heart of the '00s like Y2K. After putting it down, I felt like I was able to excise the last of the decade's cultural residue from my mind -- save, perhaps, my enduring love for chokers. That dies hard." -- Bustle
"We need more great essay collections that take a critical lens to recent culture and history and Shade's collection is a perfect addition to that pantheon. While nostalgia is just now dipping into the Y2K era, Shade unflinchingly looks at the time period with biting takes and a keen eye." -- Debutiful
"In this trenchant debut collection, millennial essayist Shade details how the social and economic convulsions of the "Y2K Era" (1997-2008) set the stage for the 21st century ... The selections elegantly blend dark humor with thought-provoking arguments ... A rich blend of cultural and economic analysis, this soars." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Shade scrutinizes and celebrates the new millennium with heart and a spicy sense of nostalgic humor...[She] particularly excels with an in-depth discussion on how the techno-optimistic ascension of the internet revolutionized politics, social intercourse, and our own individual self-perception...Shade's exploration of those indelible years creates a fun, fulfilling, and rewarding time capsule." -- Kirkus Reviews
"A hilarious, informative, and provocative look back at an era that promised so much yet delivered such a mixed legacy. If you wore butterfly hair clips, had a LiveJournal, and know all the words to Smashmouth's "All Star" (or wish you did), Y2K is for you. Colette strikes the perfect balance of sharp critique, humor, and nostalgic reflection, making Y2K a must-read for any millennial." -- Taylor Lorenz, bestselling author of Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet
"In Y2K, Colette Shade has pulled off the seemingly impossible: she has taken one of the most ephemeral and chaotic eras in American history and made it concrete. Through surprising historical analysis and revealing first-person memories, she reconstructs a period that changed everything, before it was tossed in the memory hole. Y2K will be a thrill for anyone who lived through the Aughts, but more importantly, it will stand as a rich testament for those who didn't." -- Josie Riesman, New York Times Bestselling author of Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America
"Colette Shade's entrancing Y2K reads like a love letter from a not-so-distant past, from a time when we were told that the "end of history" would be a good thing, not the actual apocalypse. This wry collection of essays establishes Shade as a subtle stylist and formidable critic. It's filled with insights and delights, a cultural anthropology of a generational shift, and a coming of age during a hinge moment in history, when the optimism of the late 1990s, banal and plastic in hindsight, gave way to dread." -- Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The End of The Myth
"A fascinating, nostalgic, bittersweet, and sometimes enraging trip down memory lane, deftly portraying a particular American coming-of-age in the 90s and aughts. Shade carefully describes the artifacts, ideas, and experiences of our elder millennial microgeneration and astutely connects them to the macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions that forged them. A must-read for those of us trying to make sense of the culture that raised us, the world we inherited, and the future in which we will all play a part." -- Lydia Kiesling, bestselling author of Mobility
"Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything is a journey through America's fears and dreams, hope and despair, and boom and bust in the first two decades of the 21st Century. Having come of age with a millennial bird's eye view, Colette Shade offers a crash course on the consequences of wealth creation at the expense of human survival. Equal parts smart, funny, and introspective, Shade bears witness to the nostalgia and the distractions--even as she cautions us to beware the train wreck we can't stop watching." -- Bakari Kitwana, co-editor of Democracy UnChained: How to Rebuild Government for the People
"A sharp, thoroughly researched look at the culture and politics of America in the early 2000s--with a thick coat of frosted lip gloss for good measure." -- Rax King, author of Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer
