Imagine it's 20 years from right now and (miraculously) you're reading a BuzzFeed article. Using completely baseless speculation, I will go full-on Harry Camping and predict the topic of the article you'll be reading on that warm day in 2034.
When they're not improperly citing sources, BuzzFeed gets a lot of readers by pulling on their sentimental strings. Presenting mementos of the not-so-distant past, and using them to elicit feelings of nostalgia. Writing articles about the toys you grew up with, the clothes you wore, and the music you once listened to, but now only parody when shit-faced at the karaoke bar.
BuzzFeed uses this beaten-horse style of prose predictably and effectively. So predictably, that if they're not defunct in the 2030's, then this is an excerpt of what you'll see:
| THE 2010's, Remember ‘em?
Remember how we lost our minds over a show about a high school chemistry teacher who “Broke Bad?” About how all-of-the-sudden we wanted to see Bryan Cranston in everything? Remember how Aaron Paul became the reincarnation of James Dean?
Now look at this sparse comment about Mad Men! A period piece about advertisement executives who drank hard liquor and downgraded women… all while manipulating the minds of Golden Age America! Remember that? Now look at Jon Hamm's penis.
Now check out this screengrab of an old discussion thread about zombies lingering in a post-apocalyptic world. Remember them? Remember how nobody on the show would actually call them zombies… as they ravenously stalked British stage actors?
Oh… and do you remember how many of us would even take a day off work just to watch an entire season of a show in one sitting? Remember that show? It was set in the epicenter of the free world. ***NOSTALGIA WARNING*** It showed us the dark side of power. The drawl side of Spacey. And the story of just how susceptible a house made of cards can be.
***NOSTALGIA INJECTION COMPLETE*** |
We might smile, we might cringe. But the photo-essay will go on to remind us of how we once tested the bounds of bandwidth. Of how viscerally we reacted to the Dexter finale. How we endured through longread takes on the politics of Westeros. And how we re-watched The Sopranos because we were too young to absorb it in its initial run.
That's when they'll finally arrive to the stretch run of the essay. Where they dig up the pop kernel from another show that ran in The Sopranos' time. A series we through-and-through swore was still “the best show ever made.” One that made us sympathize with criminals. And epitomized the true lexicon of the 2010's, finishing this nostalgic piece with the era's most tired icebreaker:
| Have you seen The Wire? |