XSWE GM

13/06/2022

Defining the boundaries of generations is a tricky thing, but most people use the term Generation X to apply to the children of Baby Boomers born between the early 1960s and the early 1980s. While this generation is able to take advantage of modern technology, they grew up without a lot of things that many of us take for granted now: personal computers, cell phones, and even Diet Coke. That's right: Diet Coke, released in 1982, is young enough that most Gen Xers remember life without it.

13/06/2022

The Nick at Nite programming block has aired weekday evenings on Nickelodeon since 1985. Though the channel's daytime programming is for kids, Nick at Nite has always featured reruns of syndicated shows for their parents after 9 p.m. In the early days, shows like I Love Lucy, Green Acres, and Mister Ed dominated the schedule. Now, the rebranded "nick@nite" programming block features Friends, George Lopez, Spongebob Squarepants, and the still-in-production Mom. That '70s Show, Everybody Hates Chris, and How I Met Your Mother were all recently featured as well. That makes us feel older than Monica getting called Ross' mom at his wedding!

13/06/2022

Take a look at the "call" button on your cell phone—it's probably an outline of an old telephone handset. What about the FaceTime icon? It looks like a camcorder from the 1990s. And if you want to save the document you're working on, you know to click on the icon that looks like a floppy disk. Now take a moment to realize that today's teenagers have probably never used an old phone handset, a camcorder, or a floppy disk. Mind blown.

13/06/2022

The first Home Alone movie, released in 1990, gave us our first glimpse of 10-year-old Macauley Culkin. His mom in the movie was played by the hilarious Catherine O'Hara, who at the age of 36, still had the best part of her career ahead of her. (She's since starred in cult favorite Best in Show and currently stars on the beloved TVLand sleeper hit Schitt's Creek.) Now, Culkin is 38, two years older than O'Hara was when she played his mom. If that doesn't make you Kevin McAllister scream, what will

13/06/2022

Although he'd been making music since 1982, Coolio didn't hit it big until the mid-1990s. When the movie Dangerous Minds came out in 1995, even people who never listened to rap or hip-hop were fans of "Gangsta's Paradise." The song even won him a Grammy for Best Solo Rap Performance.

07/06/2022

People in their 30s and 40s have spent the last 10 years or so waxing nostalgic about how MTV used to be about the music. Gone are the days when the cable channel broadcast music video after music video, as it used to do when it launched 1981. If MTV were a person, it'd be 37 and could have teenage children of its own right now. And here's a bonus fact that'll make you feel ancient: It's even been a full decade since Carson Daly last hosted Total Request Live in 2008. Paint your pinky and ring fingernails with black polish in mourning.

07/06/2022

To be eligible to become president of the United States, a person must be at least 35 years old, have resided in the U.S. for at least 14 years, and be a natural-born citizen. And Pac-Man definitely meets the first two requirements. Though he was born in Japan in 1980, he quickly crossed the Pacific to become a sensation in the U.S., where he's resided ever since. At 38, he's old enough for the highest office in the land. We imagine his platform would be cherries for everyone and no more ghosts!

07/06/2022

Though the music of the Rolling Stones is timeless and the current band members continue to tour, the fact remains that their heyday in the 1960s and '70s is moving further and further into the rearview. In fact, Sir Mick Jagger himself is, at 73, not only a grandfather, but as of 2014, a great-grandfather as well. But he also became a father again—for the seventh time—in 2016, meaning he has a son that's two years younger than his great-granddaughter. We'd like to imagin

07/06/2022

In 1981, Lady Diana Spencer married Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne. It was the wedding of the (previous) century and it's estimated that about 750 million people watched on TV, not on their computers at work. Now, it's nearly four decades later. The beloved people's princess tragically died and her children—Prince William and Prince Harry—have grown up, gotten married, and started families of their own.

07/06/2022

Ask anyone who was around during the early days of the internet: plugging words into multiple search engines like Altavista, Dogpile, and Ask Jeeves was a pain. Then Google stepped in and seemed to unify the entire World Wide Web in one fell swoop. Now, Google's been around for two full decades and has expanded beyond a search engine into email, virtual reality, and more. It's become its own verb and you've probably already Googled something today. But prior to 1998, "googol" was just a funny word that meant an incredibly huge number: a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

02/06/2022

Many science fiction and fantasy films have dared to imagine what life would be like in the future, but Back to the Future and its sequels have been major cultural touchstones for Gen Xers. In the first sequel, released in 1989, the plot took us 26 years into the future, one which was full of hoverboards, self-lacing shoes, and pizza rehydrators. Well, now we're almost four years past the version of 2015 Back to the Future II imagined. But our hoverboards don't levitate, we're still tying our own shoes, and our microwaves and ovens can't reheat a tiny frozen pizza in a matter of seconds. Sorry to have let you down, Doc Brown

02/06/2022

Although they've stayed in the public eye the past two decades—thanks to reunion tours, supposed infighting, a musical, and an Olympics performance—the Spice Girls were at their peak in 1996 with the hit song "Wannabe." And we still don't know what Scary Spice is saying! If you want to give it another go and re-live the glory days of the late-'90s, four of the Spice Girls—minus Victoria Beckham (AKA Posh Spice)—will be going on a second reunion tour in 2019. (Yes, we're in second reunion tour status.

02/06/2022

The Harry Potter book series turned 21 this year. In 1997, J.K. Rowling published Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Sorcerer's Stone to Americans), which set many young readers off on a magical journey that spanned a decade's worth of books. In this first book, the title character was 11 years old, meaning Harry himself is now—brace yourselves—32. At least Daniel Radcliffe is still 29 for another year.

02/06/2022

Personal entertainment technology comes and goes faster than a Tickle-me Elmo in 1996. So it's a bit surprising that DVDs stuck around for as long as they did. Sure, Blu-Ray started to overtake the humble DVD in the early 2000s, but it's more or less the same concept—a movie or several episodes of a TV show on a flat silver disc. Given the increase in downloading and streaming services, it just might be the last form of physical media. It's OK if that makes you shed a tear or two.

02/06/2022

Even though Sesame Street had been around since the 1970s, Elmo reached a new level of fame in the mid-'90s. The "tickle-me" version that giggled when you pressed his tummy flew off the shelves faster than Tyco, its manufacturer, could keep up. In short, Tickle-me Elmo was the hottest toy of the 1996 holiday season. If you do the math, that means he turned 22 this year. And if he paid attention to everything he learned on Sesame Street, he'll be graduating from college soon

27/05/2022

27/05/2022

27/05/2022

27/05/2022