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Hello for this episode of the podcast about 
the last analog generation sandwiched between  

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Gen X and millennials, I've decided to 
go freestyle, off-piste, by inviting the  

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award-winning journalist, content king and Gen X 
extraordinaire Matt Potter. Welcome to Xennials.

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Matt, you are a journalist for the BBC and 
the Washington Post, filmmaker, broadcaster,  

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non-fiction author, very inquisitive too, 
your work on everything from the Nineties'  

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free market explosion to smuggling, politics 
and cybercrime really explores the deep trends,  

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shifts and changes happening beneath the surface. 
I'm delighted to have you on this podcast.

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I'm delighted to be here.

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And, Matt, to start this conversation, 
I want you to reflect on the fact that  

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in 1990 Time Magazine described GenXers like 
you, as 'balking at work and unable to make  

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decisions with attention spans as short 
as one zap of a TV dial'. Sounds familiar?

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What's not to like right about that? But actually 
in all seriousness, there's two points about that,  

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which is one since, I mean there's 
a reference very similar to that,  

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to attention span and the young no longer 
honoring their parents in the Bible. Socrates  

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has talked about this. Every generation 
sees the next generation as hopelessly  

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feckless and hopelessly exotic. And there's 
always, there's that phrase, what is it that  

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to each generation it considers itself wiser 
than the one after it, but more intelligent  

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than the one before it. And I think for me, 
what was interesting about being a Gen Xer  

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was not that, I mean, people were telling us 
the same as people are telling Gen Zs now,  

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people were telling us that, but how loud that 
was, it cannot be overstated because of the fact  

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that we were quite a small generation and the 
baby boomers were this huge bulge in the pipe.

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And anyone who wants to look at the 
history of the 20th century or the  

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late 20th century can see that it can 
be explained by that bulge in the pipe,  

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sort of being able to out volume everything 
else. And when it wanted fillo faxes and shares,  

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then there were the eighties and when it 
wanted rebellion and there were the sixties,  

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and when it wants its country borders, because 
they're now old, you've got the 2010s. However,  

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being a Gen Xer was about being absolutely, I mean 
the size differential in those generations and  

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growing up in the shadow of it, you were being 
told over and over again how none of the music  

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you like, none of your culture is valid in any way 
because it would never be like the Sixties, mate.  

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You were being told that nothing that you had 
that none of your technology was right, because  

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it will never be like we had it, but really loudly 
because there were three of them to one of us,  

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and people talked about not wanting to work and 
we were called the slackers, and there were all  

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these movies like Kevin, Kevin Smith's Clerks, and 
Beck, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

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And Nirvana saying just for goodness sake, what 
can we do? And I think that's because there was  

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nothing we could do, but shrug and walk off. 
Our vote didn't mean as much as the baby boomers  

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votes. We had a situationist view, we could 
ironise, which is why lots of early nineties.

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Which people can't really do 
these days by the sound of it.

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Right, but you know which is why a lot 
of, whether you take a Beck or a Nirvana,  

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it was all very much about, well, that's what 
you say, mate, but what about this? And we could,  

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like the Situationists, we realized that 
we couldn't stop Guy Deborde's barrage,  

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but what we could do was we could subvert it, 
which is why that was the age of Ad busters.

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Yeah I just want to go back to the point 
you made about this simmering anger almost  

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at the fact that previous generations thought 
they'd done so much more than Gen Xers. They  

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had lived a golden era and kept repeating it. 
I hadn't thought about it that way. Actually,  

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for me, general angst and the 
sense of irony of GenXers was well,  

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came from the fact that a lot of GenXers are 
latchkey kids, a lot of them grew up in well  

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single parent families because divorce rates 
were soaring in the sixties and seventies.

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And being told not to get too attached to anything 
because if we can still remember the Cold War,  

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the eighties, our first times we could remember 
were full of people going, go to bed tonight,  

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kiss everything goodbye just in case. 
And it was like, wow, okay. So things are  

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really ephemeral. Things are really not worth 
becoming emotionally invested in, you know.

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I didn't have that sense growing up 
as a Xennial. Absolutely. I mean,  

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I literally witnessed the fall on the 
Berlin Wall when I was quite young.

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Awesome I hate the fact that you've just 
said you can remember it. You were quite  

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young because I was on my gap year in Germany.

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Oh my goodness what was it like at the time?

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Oh, it was amazing. The funny thing is that it 
caught everybody by surprise. So people talk  

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about the dissolution of the Soviet Empire 
and all of these things as if it was like,  

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well, we knew it was crumbling, 
we knew the empire was crumbling,

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Yeah but oonly the same way that we know the 
climate is changing, but nobody expects the  

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earth to catch fire very suddenly on a November 
evening, you know. And so there was this whole  

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sense of like, or something's happening. And then 
suddenly the Berlin Wall came out and it was just  

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like for people in Germany, it was like, oh, 
bloody hell. We didn't expect that. And it's like,  

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but you did expect that, but not tonight, 
not now. And so there was this whole sudden,  

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I remember this whole sudden scrambling for 
a reaction, this whole feeling of history's  

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kind of pointing at us right now and we dunno 
what to do with this moment. And it caught  

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so many people in the west off guard, just 
like it caught the border guards off guard.

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That's a very interesting point. And also 
the fact that I think in the late eighties,  

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you start seeing the emergence of round the 
clock news where everything is televised and  

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everything becomes a collective experience 
because literally I think it was one of the  

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deeply historical moments that people 
could actually witness from a sofa.

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Oh, that changed everything. So the 
point where you got the Berlin Wall,  

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here we are live at the Berlin Wall, and 
here we are live in the first Gulf War,  

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and suddenly they were big television moments 
and it was quite odd to see in the sense that  

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there were two things that you noticed. 
The first thing, I mean, I think it was,  

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maybe it was Sky News or in 92, I think created 
the first UK based rolling news station. And it  

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was really odd because you noticed that people 
needed suddenly to come up with something they  

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all felt they needed. It was no longer the 
case that you could say to a politician, what  

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do you think? And the politician would go, well, 
we're going to retreat to checkers for 48 hours  

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and by Monday we shall have an opinion. It was 
actually, it was like, what do you think now here?

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Which is why we got that was the birth, if 
you like, of these great, the rhetoric first,  

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give them the soundbite as George W. Bush 
called it the vision thing. Give them that  

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now and then we'll think about it later. And 
you can see the apotheosis of this when you've  

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got people like Boris Johnson just going, 
we're going to blurt you something out and  

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then everybody's scrambling to make that real 
or make that true. So there was this sudden  

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power of the image in real time. And then the 
other thing it did, I think is along with that,  

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and I want to talk about the change to Xennials, 
because along with that, what I could see at the  

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same time was this sudden visibility in the world 
as mobile telephony. As the internet suddenly  

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came on and the internet, we've all seen those 
graphs of expansion. And by like 95 it was like,  

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okay, now we're talking. This is an actual 
thing that the population is doing at large  

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that made people visible and made young 
people visible in a way that we could see  

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as Gen Xers. And I say Late Gen Xer, but we 
could see, oh my goodness, oh my goodness,  

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look at this. People like I was five years ago are 
now able to have their opinions heard unmediated.

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I think that's yet again an important point 
here, the fact that young generations,  

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or younger generations have a 
voice, more than previous ones.

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Absolutely. And I think we were 
the last ones. And boy they use it!

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I mean, think personally, I think 
it's wonderful. I'm a big kind of  

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neophyte and I've got great hope in this 
kind of this capacity for vocalization  

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that the thing that almost I had to live through, 
which was just the people who owned the channels  

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got to tell you the way it was going to be isn't 
the case. So you suddenly get the idea that, well,  

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things, policies can be crowdsourced or right. 
And that was never the case before. So I love  

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that. But you are right, and I do feel like I'm 
one of the last kings of the dark ages before  

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everybody goes, right? Well, it all starts 
with William the Conqueror, and I'm like,  

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we were there too. I always feel like that last 
bit of invisibility before the sudden explosion.

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I get you, I mean, it's great to have a 
voice, but you need to have something to say,  

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and that's a different matter. Anyway, moving 
on. I want you to tell me your thoughts on my  

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little venture here. I'm trying to understand what 
creates or constitutes a micro-generation, whether  

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you think it's relevant or not. And I'm going 
to tell you a little story. I've got something  

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to share here with the audience, how this whole 
project started. One summer, a couple of years  

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ago, I traveled back to my small town in southern 
Brittany with my family, and I was, as you do at  

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the market, Le marché on a Saturday morning with 
husband and kids. And I bumped into an old flame,  

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teenage flame, and we start chatting a little bit, 
slightly awkward, as you can imagine. And then he  

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starts talking about a friend who sadly ended 
his life and in his group of friends, I'm not  

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sure I'm going to keep this for this recording, 
but I want to share the story anyway. And in  

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his group of friends, a lot of people suffered 
from depression, a lot of people suffered from  

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breakdowns and mental health issues. I could 
not feel that so much in my generation or in  

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subsequent generations. So that's when I started 
to reflect on what's made Gen Xers in particular,  

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so depressed. And then I looked 
into statistics and the ONS,  

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the organization is it of national, the Office 
of National Statistics, sorry, says that Gen  

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Xers are more prone to suicide, depression, 
substance abuse, and any other generation.

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And that's only the good 
bits. No, no, that's kidding.

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No, I don't want you too dark here. We're 
absolutely right. Clearly there's a generational.

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There absolutely is. And the funny thing is 
we talk about, for example, the male suicide  

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epidemic. What people don't talk about so much is 
the fact that it is a specifically very much a Gen  

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X male suicide epidemic. The wave follows that 
generation through. So it was teenagers when I  

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was a teenager. It's been very, very odd and you 
are absolutely right. There are things around,  

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you are going to charge me a hundred pound 
an hour now for talking about this because  

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you are becoming my therapist. But there are 
things around, there are things around being  

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without currency, without value. There are 
things around being the latchkey kid. There  

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are things around being closed out of 
a culture that is supposed to be yours,  

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that point about radio one, about the youth, 
that that's not just a frivolous point. That  

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is the feeling that we had growing up, that all 
of the things, children's programs, pop radio,  

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all of these things were still very much 
owned by and telling you all about this  

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golden period that was the sixties, that nothing 
you can ever do will ever be as good as that.

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So I think there's a real sense that we were 
formed by a group of people who were high on  

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the fumes of their own myth. And I think the 
latchkey thing is part of that. I think there  

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were people who bless them, I understand there 
was a social change afoot. Both parents were  

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suddenly working great, but I think both parents 
were throwing themselves into Now we need to work.  

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And the kids became this encumbrance a burden 
rather than that as an asset. And I think that  

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was potentially quite a moment. And then I just 
genuinely don't think you can underestimate the  

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power of growing up in the shadow of duck 
and cover commercials for nuclear war.

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You see I did not experience it.

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No exactly that's

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I did not have hSo that's why we didn't have 
that constant sense of anxiety. We're talking  

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about today's eco anxiety, anxiety related 
to AI and digital acceleration as if it's  

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something completely new. Oh yeah, 
previous generations had that too.

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Absolutely. And I think there was a very odd 
moment. So there's a wonderful book called  

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Culture of Fear Revisited by a guy. 
He's a fairly fringe academic called  

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Frank Far, but the book's worth reading 
in the book, it talks about how much safer  

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the world became between the fifties and the 
two thousands in real terms, at least in most

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Longterm development trends.

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Absolutely. We live longer, we disease will 
kill. Absolutely. Even look at cancer that's  

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now a treatable thing, et cetera. He talks 
about the anxiety, the idea of fear and that  

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the idea of fear when it stopped being about 
the things that would definitely probably kill  

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you or one of your siblings, child mortality 
that didn't stop being passed down by parents,  

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their kids. But it became a free floating thing 
that was waiting to the idea of you are at risk,  

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we're all at risk, you're at risk of this, you're 
at risk of that you, you'd see it everywhere.

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Hang on a second did you 
not write a book called...

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"We are all targets" I did absolutely

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So I want you now to tell me more about that,  

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about the fact that you have tried to 
explore this sense of menace, of threat that

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Absolutely. Tell us more. You will know because 
you are a creative, like me, Albert Kmu once said,  

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every man's work is a slow detour through the slow 
trek, through the detours of his art to discover  

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the two or three great and simple images in whose 
presence his heart first opened. And the fact is,  

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I may have garbled it slightly, but he was writing 
in French, something like that. And the fact is  

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that when you write a book or when you become 
a journalist or when you do any piece some art  

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or any piece of creative, what you can do is 
you can sit down or when you're a songwriter,  

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you can sit down after a while and go, here 
is my, oh, that's the theme, isn't it? Right.  

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So I've written this out. I've written three 
books. First one was about arms trafficking  

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and the sudden flooding of the world with guns and 
drugs in the wake of the Soviet collapse, right?

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Rock and roll, rock and in fact, roll. 
The second one was a social history of  

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the resignation letter, the only epitaph we 
get to write up for ourselves and so on. The  

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third one was about cybercrime, the birth of 
cybercrime, in fact, Yugoslavia in the late  

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nineties. Now all of those, I realize all of 
them are basically a look at the nineties and a  

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look at what's happened to us since then. And a 
look at the world deregulated, a world which we  

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are now told we live in without borders, in 
which somebody over there can do something,  

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the butterfly can flap its wings. And it's very 
easy to imagine the tornado in Texas and it's  

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this world I'm trying to make sense of when 
in the words of Burger King have it your way,  

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it's your right. You the customer, you or in the 
words of Thomas Friedman, one vote equals $1 and  

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$1 equals one vote. And if you suddenly have a 
world in which, and we talked about visibility  

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in which everybody has a voice and nothing 
matters except what the consumer wants,  

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then you have something that you have to live 
by different rules than the ones in the past.

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And it's possibly also because you and 
I grew up during peak globalization,  

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apparently it happened in real economic 
terms, not until the start of covid actually,  

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or just before covid happened. But 
ideologically we were already reaching  

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some of its limits. But we lived 
through the era of overconsumption.

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Absolutely of powerful multinationals like 
Enron Oh yeah. Of Burger King and fast food  

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culture and all those commercial 
messages that we were constantly

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Inundated with. And this was supposed to 
be, and Tom Friedman of the New York Times  

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has become a joke. It's like, oh, the booster 
for globalization. Well, oh, it's brilliant.  

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The olive and the Lexus tree. No one's the 
McDonald's theory. No country with a McDonald's  

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has ever gone to war with another country 
with a McDonald's. Of course it's not true.

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But we grew up in this slight dystopian 
environment where like I we're bombarded  

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with there I mean messages absolutely. 
Find this, find that and enjoyed be happy

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Absolutely. be happy buy that to be happy 
exactly that. And that's why I think there's a  

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lot of among and if we think about the Gen X xal 
changeover, and for me, I think this was one of  

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the most exciting times, if I'm honest as a later, 
gen X was to seed. It felt like suddenly seeing  

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light flood the world, if I'm honest. Because what 
you felt was I've been living in the dark, I've  

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been, maybe I'm a freak. Maybe I like a certain 
kind of music. Maybe I have these secret thoughts.  

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The internet coming along meant that I didn't 
feel like the solo zebra in the horse field.

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The fact that globalization accelerates in the 
nineties can be a little bit scary for fun. But  

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as far as I'm concerned, and that's my big 
thesis for Xennials, I think my microgeneration  

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has benefited from globalization more 
than previous generations it means.

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The shift is the interesting time as well it's.

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So much happens then. And it means, and 
I've talked about it in an article I share  

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wrote recently published on LinkedIn, which talks 
about the fact that I'm a lower middle class kid,  

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latchkey kid who grew up in a small 
village in Britain. I was able to study  

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in the UK to start my career in London working 
for American companies. I traveled the world,  

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of course everyone does travel these days, but I 
was probably the first generation to really, well,  

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from the first generation I was really able 
to grab all the opportunity of cheap travel

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Democratization of like 
I've said, of opportunities.

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And think about it, it wasn't just 
physical travel as you're saying it.  

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And it wasn't just mobility, which 
I think we're talking about. It was

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That's it a cheap cheap mobility.

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Cheap mobility. But it was also if we think one 
of the best things to happen for me that zeal  

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generation brought in, and it happened with the 
nineties and people didn't talk enough about it,  

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was that we all, let's say the subcultural tribes,  

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suddenly the walls between them collapsed like 
the Berlin Wall. So because of, partly because  

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of blogs and so on, but partly just because rave 
culture, all these sorts of things, ecstasy was  

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a great help because honestly it made the Sisters 
of Mercy and Prodigy and Trip Hop and Britpop all  

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sound like it. I never personally would never 
recommend any of that, but all I'm saying is  

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it was clearly it meant something. And there's 
this feeling when you, let's say we think about,  

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oh, for a moment, I'm not going go on about it. 
I'm not going to rave about it. But if you think  

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about ecstasy as a thank you ecstasy culture, 
see, the Gen X comes with free dad jokes. But  

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if we think about ecstasy and it's its 
influence on culture just as a symbol,  

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not to say it's pervasive. What that did was it 
creates feeling, the Jungian feeling of like,  

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we are in an oceanic soup. There's no border 
between me and you and the music. Yeah,

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That's very egalitarian.

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You're right absolutely and it was like you know 
I can I can be mates with you and you and I right  

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and that collapsing of walls and borders and if 
we think about the whole cut of the 90s you know

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Not just physical but social and and what 
what would call the mind forged manacles  

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that we wear you know and so you got things 
like and it did mean a lot to us at the time  

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you got things like you know garbage and 
tricky collaborating or you know which  

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was a grunge thing and a trip hop thing and 
you and you'd think this is really cool and  

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these became little hyperlinks there 
was a lot there was a lot of mixing.

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Actually, I will talk about it. Different 
episodes with a music expert. I can't say  

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too much about it, but it should be a good 
one indeed. But I talked about cheap mobility,  

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but another feature of the nineties, as far as 
I'm concerned from my perspective as a Zenni, is  

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the fact that generally we had great access to 
culture. And culture is very empowering when  

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you are absolutely and lower middle class kid 
growing up in a small village, it means that  

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you can educate yourself easily, cheaply. 
Absolutely. And in the fashion you see fit,  

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of course you've got school and you've got 
what's on tv. There's much more beyond that.

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And that is enfranchisement and that 
is choice coming in the words of the  

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manic street preachers, libraries gave us power.

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Very much so.

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00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:18,120
And this is, people don't think about that 
enough when they talk about all, oh, we are  

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00:23:18,120 --> 00:23:22,711
overwhelmed by information. And again, that's 
an old thing that's gone back to the Socrates,

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And they should feel blessed.

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But nobody says you have to take in all the 
information. But it does mean that you can  

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00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:34,920
seek out your own path through information. And 
that's been tremendously empowering. I mean, no,  

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at no other time and in no other world have 
I seen anything as exciting as what happened  

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00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:47,880
when the internet came online. Because 
before that I'd be listening in my own  

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lonely early teenage way to let's say a 
David Bowie album. And someone would go,  

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oh, that's the influence of kabuki. And I'd go, 
what's Kabuki? And I'd go to the public library  

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and I'd go, does anyone know where I can find 
her? Yeah, finally there's a reference. Okay,  

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00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:11,400
fine. Or let's say write Kabuki theater, no plays. 
You can devour so much, you can be a magpie.

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But there was an intention and there was a 
journey. We're curious about culture because  

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that's the difference. And that's possibly why 
people do not appreciate it as much culture.  

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00:24:22,120 --> 00:24:28,760
Although we had, I think in the nineties, great 
access to it. Like I've said, we still had to go  

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for it to find it. Yeah, I know you're right. And 
to often travel somewhere for it. And that's the  

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key difference. But there was a real appreciation 
for it when this instant gratification culture.

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I remember having a subscription to 
is it called that Micky Mouse magazine  

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when about arrive every Friday 
i' been waiting for it all week

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When's the new drop date absolutely amazing

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00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:58,480
God and it was a time of exploration yeah and 
given the general cultural context today there was  

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space for being not always very politically 
correct yeah yeah okay there was space for irony  

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certainly for sarcasm yeah yeah and a nuance. Now 
it's time to wrap up yes unfortunately um Matt.  

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I could go on all all day, I know I know very 
frustrating exercise for me. To wrap up to sum up  

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the 1990s the 1990s what brings to your mind what 
was it the decade of how should it be remembered.

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How much do I love this question you have two 
minutes and a half for me the 1990s was a decade  

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of like I said it literally and symbolically 
walls being deleted and falling down and the  

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00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:47,760
public and people and commentary and so on 
scrambling to make sense of what does that  

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00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:51,920
mean does that mean you know one of the first and 
most naive things everybody would say about the  

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00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:58,640
Berlin Wall: yes the people there are finally free 
of their right that's your very simple take on  

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00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:04,400
the more interesting take is that we're going to 
have a longer more drawn out more messy process  

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00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:08,360
of assimilation and comparison of ideas and 
culture and so and we're going to have to  

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00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:11,840
get used to that and we're going to have to 
look at what's valuable in that and it's the  

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00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:15,760
I think it's been the same with the internet you 
know there was a lot of anxiety about that about  

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00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:20,600
oh brilliant now people can do things there 
are bad things on it you know it's the same  

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00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:28,400
about social media now and I think it's genuinely 
it's it was one of it was a time of great sudden  

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00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:34,600
exchange and and the ability to see things 
it was a time when we could find people could  

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00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:40,960
find their tribe. And to me that's why I 
loved it when you know this social when  

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00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:44,600
the the idea of the hashtag because that was 
about sticking up your little flag and going  

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00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:48,320
this is the thing I want to talk about who's 
with me who wants to talk about that as well

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So this begs the question 
yeah what was your tribe.

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00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:58,560
My Tribe as you've probably worked out during 
this my tribe people are you my tribe is is  

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00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:05,520
magpies, my tribe is has always been people who 
who take the time to engage to look beneath the  

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00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:12,360
surface of what is apparently going on and go co 
what's really important to here um and kind of  

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00:27:12,360 --> 00:27:19,600
to to just remain interested in it all and to to 
make out of it the tomorrow that we'll deserve.

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00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:24,720
Matt Potter, the inquisitive, 
Gen Xer. Same thing same tribe  

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00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:30,000
here same tribe um okay Matt are 
you ready for the Xennial quiz.

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00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:37,920
I am I'm as ready as I'll 
ever be all right bring it on.

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00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:45,240
Matt yes the quiz composure we're now going 
to talk about your favorite album of the 90s

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00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:54,800
Oh can I have two of course right so I guess one 
of my most influential albums of the 90s was uh  

295
00:27:54,800 --> 00:28:00,080
was Mellow Gold by Beck I heard it and it was it 
was his and he came up and it sounded nothing like  

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00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:04,440
a professional album it sounded nothing like it it 
sounded like somebody arseing about with a bunch  

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00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:11,880
of things doing a com through paper and basically 
having fun and to me that was as valuable at the  

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00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:20,240
time as and it was word drunk and it was I going 
to say yes go um chaotic but witty chaotic thank  

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00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:24,240
you there was some real value in somebody almost 
like opening up the cupboard and going see it's  

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00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:29,360
all held together with string here anyone can 
do this it was a very punky moment so I thought  

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00:28:29,360 --> 00:28:33,080
that was that was really cool and again it was 
it was there was hip hop in there there was folk  

302
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:38,280
there was Rock there was all sorts of things and 
the other one I'd say was unless is an odd one I  

303
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:42,440
used to love transglobal underground in the 
'90s and their albums that came out so they  

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00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:46,600
were sort of like this this Global Collective 
of you know they'd always be at a place called  

305
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:53,320
the whirlygig on hammersmith High Street where it 
was like kind of um Global beat uh a bit of world  

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00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:59,560
music and masses of Rave masses and masses 
of Rave and so ra r was very freeing to to  

307
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:05,600
to all of us I think it was to me the fact that 
you could it it just didn't matter you could be  

308
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:10,360
one of the cool kids are not one of the cool kids 
but in your combats and trainers and t-shirt you  

309
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:15,560
were absolutely in this Oceanic wonderful soup 
so those are the two albums remember Asian D  

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00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:21,760
Foundation oh I love Asian Dub Foundation second 
remind me reminded me of this absolutely nice.

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00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,000
Okay tell me about your favorite film of the '90s.

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00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:30,960
Oh so can I tell you there's one story about my 
least favorite form of the '90s which I before  

313
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:37,480
okay so I went to see so the '90s were were 
quite weird because suddenly we had had um  

314
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:41,480
there was a sudden explosion after or around the 
time of things like silence the Lambs and the X  

315
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:46,400
Files and so on there was this sudden explosion 
of oh we haven't talked about the X then ask me  

316
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:52,240
about oh my God right but there was this sudden 
explosion of like let's have a look at the dark  

317
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:57,240
andil things and for a while there was serial 
killer Vogue right yeah it was and it and there  

318
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:01,640
was Millennium the TV show there was all seven 
there was otherwise Backdraft was and I remember  

319
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:06,800
being outside the cinema quite young outside the 
cinema in slough which is I'm not laughing at  

320
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:11,800
slough because it's where I was born glamorous 
right I know glamorous very very concrete very  

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00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:17,400
now slow um so there was I was outside the cinema 
and we had gone to see Silence of the Lambs and  

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00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:23,280
me and my friends went Silence of the Lambs oh oh 
it's full okay Backdraft right Donald Southerland  

323
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:27,320
can't go wrong oh that's full as well there's 
a serial killer in that that's oh right there  

324
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:31,440
I've never heard of that but it's called Henry 
portrait of a serial killer so why don't we go  

325
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:36,960
and see that cuz it can't be that different from 
Silence the Lambs now I got into that film and it  

326
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:41,880
was one of the great kind of like it's filmed 
with a super eight camera lowfi type movies  

327
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:46,720
but if you've not seen it don't go and see it 
it's so it's so awfully unrelentingly brutal  

328
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,960
and depressing that I I left the cinema it's the 
only time in my life I've ever left the cinema but  

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I think I think my my my favourite film would 
probably be I think days confused the movie.

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00:30:57,640 --> 00:30:58,920
Favourite gadget.

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00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:03,160
Again we've talked if anyone's watching this 
we've talked about this earlier the pager oh  

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00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:07,640
the pager the pager a pager claimed to 
be a Liberation because you get to know  

333
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,440
that somebody but it was not because it 
was almost like having an electronic tag  

334
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:15,200
because people would go Matt call me you'd 
be sitting in the pub with your friend Matt  

335
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:17,960
call they wouldn't tell you what they wanted 
but they'd say call me and you'd have to go  

336
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:25,480
and find a phone box um so that was that was I 
suppose the emblematic one lastly I will hurry  

337
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:30,440
one of my things is one of my fascinations is 
intermediate technologies so the pager was your  

338
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:35,480
clear intermediate technology between I like 
that right and and let's say Page Turners on  

339
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:39,440
the internet look we've got a magazine but it's 
on the Internet it's not a website but you can  

340
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:45,320
still hear the sound of pages paper you know it 
was meant to explain to people who've never had  

341
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:51,720
a thing completely irrelevant now very you 
know what the new thing anyway so Pagers.

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00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:57,200
I'm going to open pandoras 
box here your favourite book

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00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:04,240
No logo ah favorite book of the '90s no I think 
I've got different there are different novels  

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00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:08,400
there's so many I could mention but I think 
if we're talking about the '90s then no logo  

345
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:14,960
was absolutely this this moment of great 
distillation of the thing that we all were  

346
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:20,360
were thinking which is the more people get on 
to you know the more the corporates want to  

347
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:24,320
take over of course it's the first time coffee 
shops have been seen in Britain proper coffee  

348
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:30,760
shops the Seattle Coffee Co which birth you 
know which star and the more these again this  

349
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:34,920
moment where people were going hi kids I 
too am a trendy kid you know the more you  

350
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:38,720
realise that's actually not trendy the more 
people are branding this downtown location

351
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:45,440
There was a similar kind of book in France 
that um became very successful it was 99  

352
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:51,520
Franks by Frederick be on was a reflection 
on the world of advertising and marketing.

353
00:32:51,520 --> 00:33:01,680
One word to describe the decade 
the 1990s sample-tastic oh okay a  

354
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:06,680
mix yeah you know we could all patchwork 
our own identity absolutely DIY culture  

355
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:11,800
absolutely make it your own yep Lofi DIY 
just do it the World is Yours exactly

356
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:13,520
Matt Potter thank you very much.

357
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:15,560
Thank you for having me it's been a real pleasure

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00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:27,760
Indeed.