All Of A Sudden -1996- <RECENT · Tutorial>

All of a sudden, 1996 felt like the end of one century’s shadow and the beginning of another’s light. Not quite retro, not yet modern—it lived in the hyphen between. And looking back now, it seems less like a year and more like a breath held before a long, fast run.

On a personal level—imagining for a moment—1996 was the year of the Tamagotchi, the Tickle Me Elmo, the first DVD player. It was the year you might have watched Friends on a Thursday night, or listened to Jagged Little Pill on a portable CD player that skipped if you walked too fast. It was the year pagers buzzed with numeric codes that meant “I love you” or “call home.” It was the last full year before Harry Potter was published, before Princess Diana died, before everything changed again. All of a Sudden -1996-

All of a sudden, it was over. And all of a sudden, it’s thirty years ago. All of a sudden, 1996 felt like the