-1998-: Following

Looking back at media produced before 1998, there is a relentless optimism. We thought Y2K was a technical glitch, not an existential dread. We thought the internet would be a global coffeehouse, not a global colosseum. We watched The Truman Show (1998) and thought, “Wow, what a creepy concept,” not “Oh, that’s just Tuesday on Instagram.”

I remember the summer of 1997 vividly. You could be unreachable . If you drove from Boston to Maine, you simply vanished for three hours. No cell signal. No texting “I’m 5 minutes away.” You just... arrived. It felt like magic. Following -1998-

Following 1998, we entered the long now. Everything is recorded, archived, and optimized. Looking back at media produced before 1998, there

I miss when “following” just meant the next page in a book, not a metric of your worth. We watched The Truman Show (1998) and thought,

Here is the thing I miss most: The naivety.

What do you remember from the year before the noise? Let me know in the comments—but I’ll probably reply tomorrow. I’m still in 1997 mode.