What pop culture just screams 2001 to you?
Halo, Fast And The Furious, Josie And The Pussycats, and more of the most 2001 pop culture
Film Features Parker Posey
Inset images: Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s musical episode, Rachael Marie Cook in Josie And The Pussycats, Lil’ Kim in the “Lady Marmalade” video from the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack Gif: Natalie Peeples
As a part of our ongoing 2001 Week coverage, we’re asking:
What pop culture just screams 2001 to you?
100 Comments
2001: A Space Odyssey
(Honestly, hand on heart, first thing I thought of.)
My god, it’s full of nostalgia!
“Take off the low-rise jeans Hal. Hal, take off those low-rise jeans!”“I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it, I could sing it for you.”“Yes, I’d like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.”“Where’s all my soul sistas…”
Same. It’s like I’m back in my parents’ basement again, all by myself, watching a cinematic masterpiece for the first time (on a tube TV) and feeling completely changed afterwards.That must have been in ‘06 or ‘07. Close enough.
The AVClub: Its origin and purpose still a total mystery.
I came to post and salute you for having done so.
Dunno if this counts as pop culture, but I think 2001 was a really good year for baseball. I’m biased because I’m a Mariners fan, and that was the year they won 116 games after losing Randy, Griffey, and A-Rod. Sure, they didn’t make the World Series that(or any other) year, but it was still a lot of fun. Also, I think that year’s World Series was one of the best ever.
My family was supposed to got to some games that year that got cancelled shortly after 9/11. They got moved to the end of the season and we got to see them win game 116. They won the game by beating the Texas rangers and the last out was against Alex Rodriguez, and the entire stadium went crazy when that happened.
Limp Bizkit. This was probably the group’s peak, and them making the “Rollin” video on top of the World Trade Center really stands out now.
My wife’s favorite band, Jimmy Eat World, exists in my memory as a 2001 band for similar reasons.One of the guys in my dorm spent a month and a half using Rollin (air raid remix) as his alarm sound, though, which is also very 2001.
I came here to mention Jimmy Eat World and especially “The Middle,” which feels like it was e v e r y w h e r e in the fall of 2001. Weird, it’s almost like everyone needed to hear that “everything everything will be all right”
Adult Swim in general is probably the most 2001 feeling for me. Home Movies was fantastic, but I think I’d seen it earlier on UPN. The one two punch of weird avant-garde comedy and cool new anime like Cowboy Bebop was pretty much a game changer. This was around the time I first got a 19 inch CRT TV in my room. “Hello grown-ups? I’m joining you.”
Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Sealab 2021. The Brak Show. Harvey Birdman…
Haha yes! I remember thinking Aqua Teen Hunger Force was the funniest show in a long time when I first saw it. I remember buying the first season DVD so I could show everyone Meatwad.
I still think its pretty damn funny. The movie is hilarious. And I hear it’s coming back as a few movies, plus a new show featuring the villains.
Fast and the Furious and American Pie 2 are huge ones for me. A cam version of the latter was the first movie downloaded from Kazaa that circulated at my school back in early 2002. 2001 was a really, really interesting year for comic fans – Marvel went through a really big change – the Ultimate line was in its first year and doing some really interesting stuff (Though 2002 was a better year for that line I think).The X-books relaunched under Grant Morrison, Joe Casey, Peter Milligan and Chris Claremont and produced some incredible comics.Moulin Rouge! is peak 2001 for me, as is Swordfish, a movie which, like Fast and the Furious, has all the worst fashions of the turn of the Millennium in one movie.
Swordfish… This is correct
Stargate SG-1, if it ever peaked it was around then before the move to The Sci-Fi Channel
Diablo II! The music! The atmosphere! The strange and gross monsters! Google tells me that the base game came out in 2000, but its essential expansion pack came out in 2001, which is when I started playing.I wasn’t “supposed” to be playing it because it’s pretty gory, but my parents were terrible enforcers.
I can’t carry any more.
I am overburdened.
“I am overburdened” is inadvertently a very 2021 mood.
Boy Bands.
Fuck your editor and chief and these horrible business practices https://www.gawker.com/media/av-club-tells-staffers-move-to-la-or-lose-their-jobs
Especially the Editor! But especially the Chief.
They better be paid very well to move to LA. Otherwise, forget it.
Trump administration did something like that with the offices of the Bureau for Land Management, they tried to move the office to Colorado as a sneaky attempt to have everyone in the department quit as a way of gutting the department without explicitly admitting that they were doing so.My guess is that this is the pretty much the same move
It’s almost like G/O really doesn’t care about any of the sites they run
One can only imagine…
The AV Club really is a microcosm of the Internet in this era, private equity slowly strangling the goose that lays golden eggs.
It’s ever further proof that everything great in the world will eventually be ruined by capitalism
Is this for real? Part of the reason I like AV Club is because it is not another solely LA-based entertainment blog. Nothing against LA but it is not the center of the universe. I hope if anyone jumps ship or writes for another site instead there is a way to find out and follow where they go.
You can follow/bookmark the writers’ Twitter accounts or their personal websites (if they have one) to keep track of their future exploits.
They really do seem bound and determined to ruin this site…
For me it was 9/11. When are they going to get around to making a sequel?
https://www.gawker.com/media/av-club-tells-staffers-move-to-la-or-lose-their-jobsIn solidarity with the workers who are getting screwed by this, and as a result of an apparent string of crappy decisions by AVClub management, I’m done with AV Club. I’m blocking it at my router, telling Google News not to show it to me any more, and cutting off access to the rest of the sites in the network.AVClub has been anti-reader and pro-revenue for some time. The contributors have (mostly) been providing quality content. It’s the management that sucks.
The AVClub seems to be on a westward* journey — from NYC to Chicago and then in LA. Hopefully they won’t make any ill-chosen shortcuts like the Donner Party did.
* Yes, I suppose they technically started in Madison, WI like the rest of The Onion, but I don’t think anyone from those days is still on staff.
News footage of 9-11. That just says 2001 to me.
What screams 2001 to me? The current tv cut of any film with a NYC skyline made before that year.
This is the correct answer.
Not every. I haven’t seen the 1976 King Kong movie lately, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t cut out the WTC (which Kong climbs instead of the Empire State). Or Escape From New York where Snake lands his glider on it.
“What pop culture stands out for 2001″0 mentions of 1 billion people around the world going in costumes at midnight to see The Sorcerer’s Stone.
You mean the Philosopher’s Stone given that’s the title everywhere except for the US because the distributor of the book thought that it was too complicated a word for an American audience.
This a moronic lie. The word “philosopher” in American English simply has a COMPLETELY different definition that in no way invokes wizardry or mysticism. Plato and Carl Jung were “philosophers”.
No, Philosopher is the same in Europe referring to someone with a love of wisdom and knowledge. We could just understand that it referred to the person who created the stone and not simply “magic man”.
The only 3 acceptable terms for Nicolas Flammel in American English are “sorcerer”, “wizard”, or “alchemist”. Philosopher does not convey any useful meaning, the entire point of human language.
But you should check out this incredibly dumb country I know of who call their 3-dimensional living spaces a “flat”. How wacky and low IQ is that!
“Sorcerer” just sounds cooler, tho amirite?
“Sorcerer” just sounds cooler, tho amirite?Hell yes!
(Yes , yes ..it’s an Eagles song , but its nothing like any of their other stuff , also it crops up elsewhere in genre …specifically in Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy )
Famous Americans, Plato and Carl Jung.
…they don’t need to BE Americans to explain this point. Literally how stupid are you two?
Why would Americans invent a word to describe another country’s Thinky People?
Plato and Jung were mystics though, believing in all sorts of irrational things dealing with the nature of reality and memory.
The word “philosopher” in American English simply has a COMPLETELY different definition that in no way invokes wizardry or mysticism.LMAO, what? First, you realize the original title (and plot) specifically reference the philosopher’s stone, which grants immortality and can turn base metals into gold, yes? Like, that’s not something they made up for the book. Second, the word “philosopher” means the same damn thing to all of us outside of the U.S. It’s a fact that the title was changed because of Arthur Levine at Scholastic and his fears that “philosopher” was too archaic sounding for American children and so they ended up with Rowling’s suggestion of “sorcerer’s stone” (it was very nearly “Harry Potter and the School of Magic”).Rowling’s on record as regretting the name change.
Philosopher means exactly the same thing in British English as American English. We refer to Plato and Nietzsche as philosophers too, and philosopher hasn’t had anything to do with magic for hundreds of years.But the Philosophers Stone is an actual legendary alchemical item, so changing the title to Sorcerer completely divorces it from the subject of the book.
so changing the title to Sorcerer completely divorces it from the subject of the bookOn the contrary, changing the title of a book about wizards from “philosopher” to “sorcerer” MARRIES it to the subject.
Yes, the first book is about Harry discovering that he’s a wizard, but it’s also about the philosopher’s stone. You know, the mythical stone that grants immortality and has alchemical powers? The attempted theft of which is a major plot point? It makes zero sense to call it the sorcerer’s stone when the book is referencing a thing that has been written about since the 4th century.The only way your comments here make any sense is if you’ve never heard of the philosopher’s stone and think it was invented by Rowling, so here’s a Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher’s_stone
It had shown up in quite a bit of pop culture in the states by that point too. I was only 15 in ‘01 but the specific Philosopher’s Stone had been referenced in all kinds of movies, books, video games, cartoons that I had seen. It wasn’t an unknown concept. Even if it was, the first thing an average person is likely to think of when you say “philosopher” to them is the word “Greek” and they’ll conjur up a bunch of stereotypical images of ancient Greece. So a Philosopher’s Stone would still sound like some ancient thing. Or, if the person doesn’t think of anything when they hear “philosopher” then it doesn’t matter that you’re using the word, it sounds as weird as sorcerer.
I disagree, purely because the Philosophers Stone is a ‘real’ thing that Harry has an encounter with. By changing it to Sorcerer you’re no longer referencing the legendary item, just a nonsense phrase that was made up.People know who Robin Hood and his Merry Men are and the name conjures up certain images. Imagine changing the name to Bow Guy and Some Dudes to simplify it for your audience. It totally removes the existing meaning.
“We thank you for your assistance, Non-Denominational Spiritual Figure Tuck.”
I just love them throwing around the word “moronic” while arguing that “philosopher” means “wizard” in countries outside of the U.S.
Look, if kids can learn how to parse completely made up words like “muggle” and “horcrux”, they can deal with the mystical connotations of a genuine mythological item called the Philosopher’s Stone.
I don’t think it’s a question of “will they understand it?”, so much as “which title is more likely to get kids to pick up the book in the first place?”.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and especially its soundtrack always manages to take me back to 2001. Looking back, that whole year was a murderer’s row of video game releases: Halo, Final Fantasy X, Gran Turismo 3, Grand Theft Auto 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Smash Bros Melee. I spent pretty much every waking moment playing THPS3 and Melee, and it seemed like every other weekend I was at a friend’s house for a Halo party.
Pretty sad era of my life, now that I think about it.
Bob Dylan’s album, “Love and Theft.” I’m in New York City, and on the morning of 9-11, I was planning to walk to Tower Records and purchase it. It was being released that day. I…um…ended up not doing that. (I bought it a few days later, and it helped me through some very emotional times.)
They Might Be Giants’ “Mink Car” was also supposed to have a launch party in NYC that day.
On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, a band called Slayer released an album titled God Hates Us All.
The Strokes and White Stripes. I don’t mean to call the music dated. Just that the look and sound were very original and impactful for the moment.
My younger brother and I didn’t play many video games as kids except for Mario Party 3 and anything in the Pokemon series. But getting Super Smash Bros. Melee alongside the GameCube for the holidays was our crash course into learning about Nintendo’s assortment of characters and properties and a fun and wacky fighting game in its own right.
napster
That was really 1999 and 2000 though. Napster was shut down for legal reasons in July 2001, and was already being blocked by many ISPs even before that.
oh dang, limewire then! I just remember downloading way too much shit back then!
I was already an adult in 2001, so all the pop culture and fashion from then until now seems to blend together.
Exactly. Things like Halo seem like a recent video game to me, because to me nostalgic video games were things from the 1980s.
2001 was, what? Like 6-7 years ago, right???
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring movie
2001? Band of Brothers, which aired its first two episodes on Sunday, September 9th.What many people reading this are too young to remember is that while people were still going out locally after 9/11, for about 4-6 weeks afterwards air travel was nearly non-existent and when it came back it did so slowly. I went to Europe a slug of times in the next few months and even in November there were places where I was literally the only American they’d seen for a week.So especially that first month when nobody was going anywhere that show was an outright phenomenon. I was having watercooler discussions about it with people who had never watched a war film in their lives but were just fascinated. Definitely a cultural moment.
I watched that with my older brother and it was something of a bonding experience for us. My views on war films/TV have shifted a lot since then and I don’t really watch them anymore, but I still have fond memories of that show for the way it really got me invested in the lives of those men.
Wait, OMWF was 2001? I would’ve sworn it was like 19 years ago. Jesus fuck – don’t get old, kids.
Okay I’m gonna split this into two phases, pre- and post- 9/11, because, yeah.Pre is probably the Lady Marmalade video, can’t really argue that. Flashy, horny, nobody’s even really shocked by how porny it is. Multicultural in a “nobody’s talking about racism” kinda way, Girl Power heavy, etc. Post is Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Things are more serious now, we want escape because times are now Rough but also it must be serious escapism, there are clear good guys and bad guys and there’s heroic sacrifice that makes us sad, etc. Like obviously this film was being worked on mostly pre-9/11 but it arrived at the right moment.
Gorillaz, Daft Punk, Jill Scott, Travis, Radiohead, PJ Harvey, “Me Gustas Tu”, “Lady (Hear Me Tonight)“, Coldplay, Moulin Rouge, Ghost World, Shrek, AI, Harry Potter, Fellowship of the Ring
Josie & The Pussycats has aged incredibly well in my eyes. If anything, that movie undersold how much worse the intersection between pop music and product placement would get. There doesn’t even need to be a secret conspiracy. Pop stars will do it willingly and gleefully.
The correct answer is:JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER
It’s a bit strange that there’s no mention of 9/11, when there hasn’t been anything affecting pop culture as much as that did, especially during the year it happened. Before Giuliani became known as a belligerent, Trump defending, hair dye sweating, Four Seasons Landscaping speech giving, Borat 2 shirt tucker joke of a human being, he saved his reputation from being remembered merely as New York’s scolding dad to someone who was there after 9/11, making a meaningful appearance in the season premiere of SNL with fire fighters and a performance from Paul Simon.Even before SNL returned, Conan came back a staggering 7 days after 9/11. He walked out to his desk in a cold open and gave a heartfelt monologue, perfectly capturing the somber and uncertain atmosphere. Gradually, things started to get back to normal. 10 days after 9/11, Fountains of Wayne performed their cover of Better Things, helping us look ahead with cautious optimism. RIP Adam Schlesinger.Last and definitely not least was the series premiere of 24, a wild ride of a Kiefer Sutherland comeback vehicle that exceeded everyone’s expectations. They had to cut out the shot of the plane explosion from the pilot episode as seen in this trailer:
I hate everything involving Whedon as all the stuff surrounding him now blights out just how good Buffy was and just how brilliantly great OMWF was
Dujuor means 2001.
I have to admit I still have my old mix cds with songs from BOTH Josie and the Pussycats and Coyote Ugly. I don’t want to blow anybody’s mind or anything but there are songs on there from Legally Blonde as well. So hit me up if you need something to listen to when you take a long way to the mall just to walk around while you and your friends wait for a table at the Cheesecake Factory. Boom.
Ah, but do you know all the words to Enter Sandman?
Brian Fellow 4eva
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There’s only one answer to this question:Just wish I could find an archived version of the website with all of it. A contemporary article from Wired describes the part I remember best:““Holy Fucking Shit,” reads the infographic topping this week’s issue. The graphic shows a map of the United States engulfed in flames, overlaid with the crosshairs of a gun sight.”edit: There it is, in the middle of the “US Vows to Defeat” article: https://www.theonion.com/issue-37-34-the-september-11th-issue-1828969352
This issue genuinely helped me process the events in a way nothing else got through to my teenaged brain.
The “Holy Fucking Shit” was just perfect, and has (obviously) stuck with me to this day.It struck the perfect tone for humor — respectful in the sense of not minimizing the event in any way, but funny in that such an apparently over the top reaction (to anything else) was so meager and insufficent in the face of this.
Jay-Z’s performance at the first BET Awards when closed the show with Izzo and brought up pretty much the whole crowd of rappers at the time up on stage with him.
Rather than a particular piece of pop culture, I remember how things changed post 2001. Shows like ‘The X-Files’, which posited that the government and law enforcement were shadowy organisations out to manipulate you, became less popular. Cop shows became more lionising than ever of their protagonists. Something affected the popularity of the Dixie Chicks, if I recall. And it was a while before these changes left us.
2001 was to me when house music got really into the rabbit hole of playing with bleeps, cuts and rest of experimentation, daring to go to complex rhythms, taking cues from uk garage in that chopping, and hence things like Herbert’s “Bodily Functions”, the Force Tracks records like Luomo’s “Vocalcity”, mixed with the indietronica emo glitchy pop of The Notwist, The Books, Hood or Dntel. And my favourite Cornelius album which blew my mind back then and still does, “Point”. Electronic music was more modern 20 years ago than nowadays.
What I mostly remember about 2001 is that I didn’t take any shortcuts and spent the money that I saved up. Sure, I was running out of luck but, like my sister, I didn’t give a fuck.
Three things, all of which premired near close to each other, Smallville, 24 and Justice League.
No. 2 redefined serial television, gave viewers a competent Black political figure to look up to and unfortunately helped cement America’s right wing our way or the highway attitude for decades.
No. 1 and No 3, showed that superhero shows can be done on a serious level and in no. 1’s case, with some pretty good VFX to match.