Outdated
With each generation, styles and preferences change. But what about cultural reference points or touchstones? This is interesting to me when I am in rooms where someone of a certain age will make a reference to a shared cultural event that is lost on me1.
If you are older than 35, the following is a GPT-42 generated list of cultural events3 that were meaningful for people > 35 but are outdated references for people < 25.
The Y2K bug scare (1999-2000)
The original run of Friends (1994-2004)
The release of Britney Spears' debut album, "...Baby One More Time" (1999)
The Monica Lewinsky scandal (1998)
The debut of the first Harry Potter book (1997)
The Spice Girls phenomenon (1996-2000)
The death of Kurt Cobain (1994)
The introduction of the Sony PlayStation (1994)
The launch of the sitcom Seinfeld (1989-1998)
The tragic death of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. (1996-1997)
The debut of Pokémon (1996)
The release of Titanic (1997)
The sitcom Will & Grace (1998-2006, 2017-2020)
The introduction of the iMac (1998)
The rise of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) (1997-2017)
The "Dolly the Sheep" cloning breakthrough (1996)
The release of Backstreet Boys' self-titled debut album (1996)
The emergence of the dot-com bubble (late 1990s)
The release of the Disney movie The Lion King (1994)
The release of the first Matrix film (1999)
The emergence of Napster and the start of digital music sharing (1999)
The release of the first iPod (2001)
The tragic events of September 11, 2001
The first season of American Idol (2002)
The debut of the reality show Survivor (2000)
Agree or disagree?
Matlock as must-see TV.
Prompt: create a list of 25 cultural events and dates that would be meaningful to anyone over 35 but outdated to anyone younger than 225
A different prompt using historical events vs cultural events yielded a different list. Ex: Columbine (1999).