1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,920

2
00:00:05,920 --> 00:00:13,440
A few years ago, as I stepped rather stumbled into 
my forties, I started to reflect on my youth and  

3
00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:19,640
the decade when I came of age the 1990s. I often 
hear people these days struggling to describe the  

4
00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:28,040
1990s, often referring to them as a decade that 
is almost characterless, boring. Well, I disagree,  

5
00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:34,920
and in fact, I think it's inaccurate. I think the 
1990s were one of the most disruptive inflection  

6
00:00:34,920 --> 00:00:41,120
points in the history of Mankind. And if you 
think that today's era is one of unprecedented  

7
00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:48,200
technology acceleration, what with AI, Machine 
Learning, IOT and 5G, consider that, my  

8
00:00:48,200 --> 00:00:55,960
microgeneration: Xennials, sandwiched between Gen 
X and Millennials, had to switch from cassettes to  

9
00:00:55,960 --> 00:01:04,520
CDs and DVDs to the internet and streaming - and 
all in the space of a single decade. This makes us  

10
00:01:04,520 --> 00:01:11,880
Xennials fairly ambidextrous technologically, 
but also psychologically. I'm Charlotte Kan,  

11
00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:17,360
I'm an inquisitive Xennial, and I am going to 
invite global thought leaders and experts to  

12
00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:24,720
come and join me here in the studio to reflect on 
the 1990s and their lasting impact on our world.  

13
00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:41,520
And my first guest is fellow Xennial writer and 
academic James Brooke-Smith. Welcome to Xennials.

14
00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:51,440

15
00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:53,480
Hello, James.
Hello. Thanks for having me.

16
00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:58,360
Well, I'm delighted to have you here as the 
first guest on this podcast because you are  

17
00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:04,160
the author of this bible on the nineties. It's 
called Accelerate a History of the Nineties.  

18
00:02:04,160 --> 00:02:10,680
The book very much belongs to the analog era in 
the sense that it's well researched of course,  

19
00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:15,240
but it's also very digital because it's 
very relatable, it's very engaging,  

20
00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:19,080
it's fun. You reference pop culture 
throughout and you use the first  

21
00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:25,320
person narrative a lot. This mix of low and 
high culture. It's very Xennial, isn't it?

22
00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:31,920
Yeah, I think you're right there. As somebody who 
grew up in the 1990s, I was 11 when they began,  

23
00:02:31,920 --> 00:02:37,560
21 when they ended, they kind of formed me 
as a human being to a certain extent. I find  

24
00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:45,000
that my approach, my style, my thinking does 
span those two kind of pre and post digital  

25
00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:51,320
worlds. And you're absolutely right that this 
mixing up of cultures, the high and the low,  

26
00:02:52,560 --> 00:02:59,880
the sacred and the profane, the near and 
the far is very much a defining feature of  

27
00:02:59,880 --> 00:03:05,280
this hinge generation that comes throughout the 
1990s. And I tried to reflect that in the book.

28
00:03:05,280 --> 00:03:09,320
So what is the story you were trying to 
tell with your book about the nineties?

29
00:03:09,320 --> 00:03:15,200
There are a number of stories that bubble 
up out of this complex and rich decade,  

30
00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:19,800
but one of the things, one of the reasons 
why I wrote the book and what I wanted to  

31
00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:27,120
convey through it was the sense that I had 
in the last few years that the nineties had  

32
00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:38,040
ceased to be part of living memory had shifted 
into a historical era. And that made me feel,  

33
00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:42,880
first of all, very old, made me feel like 
a middle-aged grown-up Xennial rather than  

34
00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:48,360
a young person. But it also made me 
want to reflect on that decade that  

35
00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:55,880
formed me that had so many interesting kind 
of cultural and political events in it. And  

36
00:03:55,880 --> 00:04:02,560
to revisit it with a different perspective, 
with the perspective of historical distance.

37
00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:05,480
And the Nineties are making a comeback, 
aren't they, look at the fashion today,  

38
00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:10,680
everyone is dressed like we used to in 
the 1990s. Why the fascination with them?

39
00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:15,960
Yeah, I think there's a certain glamor that 
attaches to the 1990s, especially for young people  

40
00:04:15,960 --> 00:04:22,880
today. It's seen as a kind of good decade or at 
least good in comparison to what came afterwards,  

41
00:04:22,880 --> 00:04:30,920
with a much more anxious, turbulent world that 
people grew up in subsequent generations. So  

42
00:04:30,920 --> 00:04:36,800
there's a lot that's appealing about it. But I 
also think it's somewhat ironic that the 1990s  

43
00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:42,720
are now being recycled as retro culture because 
there was a great deal of retro culture about  

44
00:04:42,720 --> 00:04:49,240
in the 1990s as well. We look back to the 
Sixties with a kind of awe and reverence,  

45
00:04:49,240 --> 00:04:53,560
which if you think about it was about the 
same amount of time before us as the Nineties  

46
00:04:53,560 --> 00:04:58,440
is now for the younger generation, 
which again makes me feel very old.

47
00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:06,880
Same here, sadly. Let's talk about generations. 
I have titled this podcast Xennials,  

48
00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:12,720
yet in your book you question the concept 
of Al. In fact, you call it dubious. Is it  

49
00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:19,840
fair from an academic perspective to isolate 
and dissect such a small demographic cohort?

50
00:05:19,840 --> 00:05:24,360
In the case of this kind of micro or 
sandwich generation, the Xennials,  

51
00:05:24,360 --> 00:05:33,920
it makes sense in many respects to focus on 
us as a kind of unit. And that is because of  

52
00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:40,920
the deep and lasting impact of the shift to a 
digital culture. I think it's one of the most  

53
00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:47,640
transformative historical shifts of the modern 
era equivalent to the invention of printing,  

54
00:05:47,640 --> 00:05:53,840
for instance, back in the 16th and 17th 
centuries, which produce enormous seismic  

55
00:05:53,840 --> 00:06:01,000
shifts in the culture of Europe and the world. 
So I do think it makes sense in terms of digital  

56
00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:08,360
culture and we have a perspective on it that is 
perhaps lacking to other generations in that we  

57
00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:15,800
straddle that divide. I grew up in a small town 
in provincial England, and in order for me to get  

58
00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:22,480
access to the culture that was exciting. I had 
to get on a train and I had to go to a big city,  

59
00:06:22,480 --> 00:06:28,760
and I had to wander through the streets and go to 
a record store or a bookshop and be scared of the  

60
00:06:28,760 --> 00:06:35,680
physical place and the older, cooler, more 
serious people there. And so that, I think,  

61
00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:44,160
gave culture a kind of aura and importance that 
perhaps it is lost in this always-on, globally  

62
00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:54,260
accessible kind of niche world of the digital. So 
I think it makes sense to divide us as Xennials.

63
00:06:54,260 --> 00:06:57,280
[Music]

64
00:06:57,280 --> 00:07:02,720
James, it's time now to deep dive into the 
nineties. The general consensus is that the  

65
00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:10,280
decade starts a cold and misty day of November, 
1989 in Germany with the fall of the Berlin wall.  

66
00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:17,360
And it's a rather crucial and uplifting moment 
generally for mankind and history, which signals  

67
00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:24,280
the end of a bipolar world. But sadly, it ends on 
a rather tragic note with the attacks of September  

68
00:07:24,280 --> 00:07:31,400
the 11th. So what happened according to you that 
led to that rather abrupt end to the decade?

69
00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:39,240
Yeah, so 1989 is one of the great moments 
in European, indeed in world history. The  

70
00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:44,400
fall of the Berlin Wall, the beginning of 
the end of Soviet communism, and a peaceful  

71
00:07:44,400 --> 00:07:50,200
revolution that's driven in large part by 
popular movements, people who have suffered  

72
00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:56,400
under communist authoritarianism coming out onto 
the streets, showing themselves in front of the  

73
00:07:56,400 --> 00:08:04,680
television cameras and precipitating this change. 
So it's an enormously powerful and moving moment  

74
00:08:04,680 --> 00:08:13,960
for world history. And then we get over the 
course of the 1990s, all kinds of optimistic,  

75
00:08:13,960 --> 00:08:20,040
even perhaps utopian hopes for the future. 
We Francis Fukuyama talking about the spread  

76
00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:25,440
of liberal democracy around the world. We have 
the birth of the internet and this new globally  

77
00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:34,560
connected society, all kinds of great hopes 
for the way the world is changing. And yet,  

78
00:08:34,560 --> 00:08:43,760
as you say, 9/11 ushers in a new world of 
fear and resentment and conflict. So I think  

79
00:08:43,760 --> 00:08:53,600
that optimism comes crashing down with 9/11 
and subsequent historical events after that.

80
00:08:53,600 --> 00:09:00,080
There were many signs throughout the nineties 
that there were cracks in the belief that the  

81
00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:05,960
neoliberal international order was going to 
be the path to enlightenment and happiness,  

82
00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:12,920
really. Irony, for instance, and self-deprecation 
was very present throughout the Nineties  

83
00:09:12,920 --> 00:09:18,400
and certainly was very widespread in pop 
culture. Think of The Simpsons for instance,  

84
00:09:18,400 --> 00:09:24,680
or the conceptual art of Damon Hirst. So 
in your view, is it somehow a response to,  

85
00:09:24,680 --> 00:09:32,200
like I've said, this globalization, neoliberal 
order and maybe to go even further an antidote  

86
00:09:32,200 --> 00:09:38,400
to the intellectual, political and 
even religious vacuum of the 1990s.

87
00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:45,600
So it's quite clear that there's a strain in 
Nineties popular culture across television,  

88
00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:56,240
music, writing, visual arts that has a kind of 
ironic, disaffected attitude, often involved in  

89
00:09:56,240 --> 00:10:05,080
kind of gross out humor - South Park - South Park 
was a great example of that, a kind of cynical  

90
00:10:05,840 --> 00:10:12,520
approach to the culture surrounding people. And I 
think it stems from a number of different factors.  

91
00:10:12,520 --> 00:10:23,080
But there's a large sense in this ironic attitude 
about a kind of disaffection with the affluent,  

92
00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:30,400
fairly stable conditions in western liberal 
democracies in the 1990s, a sense that there  

93
00:10:30,400 --> 00:10:40,440
aren't any big kind of forward moving political 
movements and a sense that all culture is part  

94
00:10:40,440 --> 00:10:46,840
of a kind of commodity system. The Simpsons 
is a super good example because it's funny,  

95
00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:52,160
it grows out of the 1960s, seventies college 
counterculture in the United States. Matt  

96
00:10:52,160 --> 00:10:58,760
Groening grows up in Washington state, the home 
of grunge, the kind of hippie counterculture,  

97
00:10:58,760 --> 00:11:07,560
and the jokes poke fun of American suburban 
life and consumerism. But of course it's on Fox,  

98
00:11:07,560 --> 00:11:14,840
the giant cable channel. So there's a built-in 
irony there that the Simpsons plays with and  

99
00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:20,720
makes fun of. And I think that's the condition 
for much of the popular culture at the time.

100
00:11:20,720 --> 00:11:26,280
And going back to grunge or rave 
or even house music...In the book,  

101
00:11:26,280 --> 00:11:31,640
you spent some time describing the emergence 
of house music, for instance, in Detroit,  

102
00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:39,160
the old industrial basin of America that's 
basically left depleted by globalization.

103
00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:47,160
Absolutely. It's a new musical subculture that 
emerges from the wreckage of North America's  

104
00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:54,440
industrial base. Many of the first pioneering 
house DJs, their families worked in middle  

105
00:11:54,440 --> 00:12:03,600
management for Detroit auto companies. And what 
you see in house and techno and that kind of wave  

106
00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:11,280
of electronic dance music is a shift from that 
old industrial model to the digital culture,  

107
00:12:12,880 --> 00:12:20,880
but from a kind of DIY youth cultural approach. 
So where did many of the first raves take place?  

108
00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:26,840
In Berlin and in Manchester and in London 
and around Europe, they took place in old  

109
00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:32,920
warehouses. This used factories. So as we get 
the shift towards de-industrialization and this  

110
00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:39,760
new globalized, digitized neoliberal 
marketplace, raven and techno music,  

111
00:12:39,760 --> 00:12:47,880
I think use those new materials for 
subcultural youth cultural hedonistic ends.

112
00:12:47,880 --> 00:12:52,320
What about grunge then? Because it 
really took the Nineties by storm,  

113
00:12:52,320 --> 00:12:55,560
it appeared very, very suddenly. 
What's the story of grunge, James?

114
00:12:55,560 --> 00:12:58,840
Yeah, the story of grunge is, and 
it mirrors in certain respects,  

115
00:12:59,440 --> 00:13:05,040
the story of Detroit techno and house music, 
which is a kind of black urban subculture.  

116
00:13:05,040 --> 00:13:14,160
Grunge is the white equivalent in certain respects 
in that it emerges from a kind of DIY punk ethos,  

117
00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:19,760
which is very suspicious of mainstream and 
corporate culture, especially corporate kind of  

118
00:13:19,760 --> 00:13:28,440
chart music, corporate rock. And it emerges from 
these local scenes where people produce fanene  

119
00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:36,840
and put on concerts on a kind of local level. 
And it's a very intense kind of hedonistic,  

120
00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:43,040
disaffected musical subculture. But what 
happens in the 1990s is that it explodes  

121
00:13:43,040 --> 00:13:52,040
into the mainstream. So the values of the kind of 
punk ethos, do it yourself, make your own culture,  

122
00:13:52,040 --> 00:13:59,040
liberate your own self, emerges into the space 
of MTV and the broadsheet newspapers and giant  

123
00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:05,080
kind of rock concerts in stadiums around the 
world. And the great story of grunge is that  

124
00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:10,600
when Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth 
arrive in that space, they kind of regret  

125
00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:19,360
it and they feel ironically that it's not them. 
They feel uneasy with that kind of giant success.

126
00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:24,520
They feel like they're sell-outs, really. I 
think that's the story. Yeah. I have to ask you,  

127
00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:29,800
do you remember what you were doing 
when Kurt Cobain died and when the  

128
00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:34,120
announcement was made everywhere 
on the radio in the West anyway?

129
00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:40,120
Of course I do, it was one of the most important 
moments of my young life at the time. I was at  

130
00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:46,920
my girlfriend's house in the countryside. We were 
watching MTV and making out late at night, and it  

131
00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:53,200
popped up on the MTV news and Kurt Cobain had died 
and we were thumbs struck. I mean, it was really a  

132
00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:59,240
generational event for a certain subsection of 
youth culture. It was a big deal. I, in fact,  

133
00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:08,160
had tickets to see Nirvana play in Manchester only 
a couple of months after he took his own life.

134
00:15:08,160 --> 00:15:10,880
[Music]

135
00:15:10,880 --> 00:15:16,720
During the 1990s James, there's a lot of 
hope. We've talked about it initially anyway,  

136
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:24,040
and we start seeing the emergence of a new 
type of media savvy, modern, approachable,  

137
00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:33,000
charming politician like Bill Clinton or Tony 
Blair here in the UK. They embody rupture. And  

138
00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:39,960
there again, it ends rather badly. In fact, 
spectacularly badly for both of them. What do  

139
00:15:39,960 --> 00:15:44,280
you think it says about the Nineties, the 
emergence of such maverick politicians?

140
00:15:44,280 --> 00:15:49,440
Yeah, they're very definitive personalities. 
For the 1990s, both Clinton and Blair,  

141
00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:55,200
they're younger. They were both, I think in 
their forties as they came to power. And they  

142
00:15:55,200 --> 00:16:02,760
both embodied a new kind of casual, youthful 
political mood, political style. Bill Clinton  

143
00:16:02,760 --> 00:16:09,680
famously on late night TV, said that he wore a box 
of shorts rather than briefs. I mean the leader of  

144
00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:16,480
the free world talking about underwear. This is a 
new kind of casual dress down popular culture of  

145
00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:24,880
politics. What they offered in political terms 
was a kind of synthesis of, on the one hand,  

146
00:16:24,880 --> 00:16:31,560
the communitarian values and commitments of the 
post-war welfare state. And on the other hand,  

147
00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:37,760
the dynamic energies of the free marketplace and 
that kind of Thatcherite Reaganite version of free  

148
00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:43,240
market economics that emerged in the Eighties and 
they were trying to, this was third way politics  

149
00:16:43,240 --> 00:16:49,680
affect a kind of synthesis between those two 
aspects. And it kind of harmonized with the times,  

150
00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:55,400
with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the absence of 
communism as an alternative model, even though it  

151
00:16:55,400 --> 00:17:03,960
was discredited long before 1989, but as this 
viable or at least existing alternative. And I  

152
00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:10,280
think the energy around, certainly from somebody 
who grew up in the UK, new Labor's election in 97  

153
00:17:10,280 --> 00:17:18,200
was real. It was a landslide and it was a big both 
political and cultural shift from the kind of,  

154
00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:24,360
not just conservative policies, but the kind 
of culture of conservatism that defined the  

155
00:17:24,360 --> 00:17:31,280
early Nineties. But then of course over time, 
the wheels came off as it does with almost all  

156
00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:40,000
political projects. But the key thing I think 
for Tony Blair was the Iraq War, obviously part  

157
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:48,760
of that kind of post 9/11 new world. And 
that soured his, I think, legacy for Bill  

158
00:17:48,760 --> 00:17:57,040
Clinton. Obviously Lewinsky, that giant celebrity 
scandal, soap opera that descended upon the White  

159
00:17:57,040 --> 00:18:05,280
House and the way in which Kenneth Starr and the 
Republicans went for him. And I think we still  

160
00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:13,200
live with the toxic legacy of that Republican 
forever war against Clinton and the Democrats.

161
00:18:13,200 --> 00:18:19,880
Another phenomenon of the 1990s is the fact 
that as the decade unfolds, the world becomes  

162
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:24,840
smaller and it's increasingly connected 
through television. We've talked about it,  

163
00:18:24,840 --> 00:18:30,320
but also the internet of course created in 
the mid nineties and transport as well - the  

164
00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:37,080
democratization of cheap travel, for instance, 
and the success of Alex Garland's The Beach,  

165
00:18:37,080 --> 00:18:40,760
for instance. So many people take a 
gap here, start exploring the world,  

166
00:18:40,760 --> 00:18:47,600
et cetera. It really feels like Xennials like us 
really benefited from the perks of globalization.

167
00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:54,840
I think that's absolutely true. The world 
opened up in this very practical and concrete  

168
00:18:54,840 --> 00:19:03,360
way in the 1990s, and I think about my own 
youth. It was the norm to travel to distant  

169
00:19:03,360 --> 00:19:10,600
countries as a relatively affluent, western 
educated young person. The idea of gap years,  

170
00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:19,040
the idea of backpacker tourism, long haul, cheap 
air travel really did open the world up for us.  

171
00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:24,000
And that is partly a result of economics, and 
it's partly to do with the geopolitical climate  

172
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:33,480
at that point. We have NAFTA, we have the EU, 
Freedom of movement is kind of enshrined as  

173
00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:39,880
kind of assumed right for us as Xennials. And that 
feeds into other areas of the culture at the time,  

174
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:47,280
the internet bringing the very, very far 
near, both in terms of place but also culture,  

175
00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:57,920
the ability to search up and access previously 
incredibly distant niche cultures and identities  

176
00:19:57,920 --> 00:20:02,880
is something that we've definitely benefited 
from and lived with. And I think it came as  

177
00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:08,560
a shock to us, or at least it seems shocking 
to witness a kind of backlash to that in the  

178
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:16,800
present with more nationalistic politics, 
with Brexit, with Trump, with the kind of  

179
00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:21,600
delayed shockwaves of globalization that 
I think we're living through right now.

180
00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:28,200
It's time to wrap up, unfortunately, 
James. To conclude with, I wanted to  

181
00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:33,760
share the feeling I had when reading the... 
well upon reaching the conclusion of the book,  

182
00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:40,760
I started to feel a certain malaise, really 
almost a sadness in fact, because as indicated  

183
00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:45,840
in the title of the book, things really start 
to accelerate and technology in particular,  

184
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:51,120
but not just societal change as well. 
And it's Moore's Law that you mention  

185
00:20:51,120 --> 00:20:57,080
several times in the book, but, when it comes to 
technology, we're fairly optimistic, weren't we?

186
00:20:57,080 --> 00:21:04,800
Yeah, absolutely. The 1990s, I think 
was the last era of digital optimism,  

187
00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:12,920
or at least a sense that digital technology was 
going. Everyone knew it was going to be big.  

188
00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:18,160
Everyone knew it was going to be a transformative 
technological infrastructure, which was coming  

189
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:26,000
online over the course of the 1990s. And I 
think we read it wrong in many respects. I mean,  

190
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:31,120
I think digital technology is amazing and it's 
empowered us and enriched our knowledge in so  

191
00:21:31,120 --> 00:21:40,880
many ways. But much of the discourse back then 
was about democratization and about individual  

192
00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:51,360
empowerment and the idea that cyberspace was this 
kind of separate domain, which would free us from  

193
00:21:51,360 --> 00:22:01,480
old prejudices, our geographical locations, our 
kind of the bad parts of our traditions. And I  

194
00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:06,800
think that was overly optimistic. Certainly the 
way we see digital culture today is much more to  

195
00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:15,680
do with polarization to do with siloization, 
fragmentation. So yeah, it was a moment of  

196
00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:22,000
optimism. And I think it's telling that if you 
look at the digital boosters from the 1990s,  

197
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:29,040
Tim Berners-Lee, for instance, who invented 
HTML code or Jared, Jaron Lanier, who was one  

198
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:36,880
of the big VR advocates at the time, many of them 
these days are looking back to the Nineties and  

199
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:43,760
the possibilities that weren't actualized. And I 
think Tim Berners-Lee in particular is advocating  

200
00:22:43,760 --> 00:22:50,040
now for what he calls the decentralization of 
the internet, going back to its first principles  

201
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:59,000
of individual empowerment, and rather than the 
kind of massification in terms of a handful of  

202
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:06,020
small platform giants that we have in the form 
of Meta and Apple and all the rest of them.

203
00:23:06,020 --> 00:23:08,760
[Music]

204
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:14,440
Okay, so James, it's time for a Xennial quiz.

205
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:17,600
[Music]

206
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:19,720
James your favorite album of the Nineties.

207
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:24,560
My favorite album of the 1990s 
is Massive Attack's Blue Lines.

208
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:29,840
Good one, good one. It could have been on my list 
as well. In fact, it probably is.. favorite film?

209
00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:33,600
Favorite film is a very tough one 
because I'm a professor of film studies,  

210
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:38,040
but I think I'm going to go with 
Trainspotting by Danny Boyle.

211
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:44,520
Yes. Yeah, totally emblematic of the era. 
Indeed your favorite gadget of the Nineties?

212
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:49,400
It's a very difficult one to pick,  

213
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:54,840
but I'd say my first ever cell 
phone, which I think I got in 1998.

214
00:23:54,840 --> 00:24:01,240
Okay, same here. 97 or 98 around 
that time. Your favorite book?

215
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:05,240
My favorite book of the nineties. It was 
published in 2000. But I'm going to go  

216
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:12,080
with Zadie Smith's White Teeth, hugely impactful 
book, which I just absorbed at the time and loved.

217
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:17,240
And finally, describe Xennials...

218
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:19,120
Ironic?

219
00:24:19,120 --> 00:24:24,920
Thank you so much, James. James Brooke-Smith, 
author of Accelerate, a History of the Nineties.

220
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,880
Thank you so much for your insights today.

221
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:29,530
Thank you very much.