Anime and Manga
"Yes, once again, I am mentioning Evangelion, for the... fuck, I don't know, just assume that the next time I am talking about the evolution of some aspect within anime, Evangelion is gonna have some part in it."
Films — Live-Action
"There's Something About Mary wasn’t just a colossal critical and commercial hit in the summer of 1998. It was a full-on cultural sensation. The shot of Cameron Diaz with stuck-up spunk hair became one of the defining images of '90s comedy, and There’s Something About Mary still ranks as one of the highest-grossing romantic comedies of all time. Without There's Something About Mary, the entire comedic landscape of the aughts might’ve been very different. Along with American Pie the next year, it kicked off a new comedic era that included films like Wedding Crashers, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Superbad. Who knows how Judd Apatow's zeitgeist-defining career would’ve panned out if There's Something About Mary hadn’t paved a path for rom-coms that wore their R-rating not as a matter of fact (like When Harry Met Sally... or Pretty Woman) but as an edgy badge of honor."
— Caroline Siede,
"Raunch hijacked the rom-com after the runaway success of There’s Something About Mary"
"Raunch hijacked the rom-com after the runaway success of There’s Something About Mary" Literature
"In the world of YA Fantasy, there's before Tamora Pierce, and there's after her female heroes started kicking down the doors (and walls, and other barriers)!"
Live-Action TV
"No one-hour drama series has had a bigger impact on how stories are told on the small screen, or more influence on what kind of fare we’ve been offered by an ever-growing array of television networks."
— Maureen Ryan on The Sopranos
on The Sopranos Music
"Call me a shallow critic if you want, but I'm not all that interested in music that's just... music. I like the big, gaudy videos and the biographical career arcs and all that stupid extra stuff. I like music with mythology attached to it, the big iconic figures, and in the late 2000s when I started reviewing music, those icons were all pop stars. It really is just the same nerdy impulse that got me into comic books as a kid. You've got these larger-than-life figures in ridiculous costumes, and every release is an event. That's my nerd cred. You may have all 42 volumes of the original Dragon Ball manga, but I listen to mainstream music! So yeah, that's basically how I got into this. The pop stars like Lady Gaga or Katy Perry, those were my superheroes.
Or at least they were. Before the bomb dropped.
In hindsight, Lorde's big anti-pop pop anthem "Royals" seems like the shockwave that destroyed everything. Basically, Lorde killed Superman, and now we're in some kind of post-apocalyptic dystopia comic instead. It didn't happen right away, of course, and obviously, you can't pin everything on one song. But it feels like the turning point that explains where we are now. How we got from Pitbull to Post Malone, from "Party in the USA" to "Stressed Out". And slowly but surely, those big, godlike figures, those big names with big reputations, burned themselves out. The genre still exists, but the hits are coming from people like Charlie Puth or Camila Cabello or Dua Lipa. And y'know, I like Dua Lipa a lot. I don't like Camila Cabello at all. But in both cases, there's no star power coming off of them. They're just people who make songs. It's my job to keep track of these people, and I barely even know what they look like. And that's before you get into EDM, where the music is made by disposable no-names working for literally faceless producers."
Or at least they were. Before the bomb dropped.
In hindsight, Lorde's big anti-pop pop anthem "Royals" seems like the shockwave that destroyed everything. Basically, Lorde killed Superman, and now we're in some kind of post-apocalyptic dystopia comic instead. It didn't happen right away, of course, and obviously, you can't pin everything on one song. But it feels like the turning point that explains where we are now. How we got from Pitbull to Post Malone, from "Party in the USA" to "Stressed Out". And slowly but surely, those big, godlike figures, those big names with big reputations, burned themselves out. The genre still exists, but the hits are coming from people like Charlie Puth or Camila Cabello or Dua Lipa. And y'know, I like Dua Lipa a lot. I don't like Camila Cabello at all. But in both cases, there's no star power coming off of them. They're just people who make songs. It's my job to keep track of these people, and I barely even know what they look like. And that's before you get into EDM, where the music is made by disposable no-names working for literally faceless producers."
Professional Wrestling
"Inevitably, no matter what you consider the essential attributes of a successful wrestler in a given era, someone who breaks the mold, a Mick Foley, appears and changes the rules again."
— The Top 100 Pro Wrestlers of All Time
Toys
"Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been... dolls. But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls. Until...
<cue Also sprach Zarathustra as little girls smash their baby dolls in favor of Barbie, in homage to the Stone Age scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey>
<cue Also sprach Zarathustra as little girls smash their baby dolls in favor of Barbie, in homage to the Stone Age scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey>
— Teaser trailer for Barbie (2023)
for Barbie (2023)
