methodwriter85

Nah, the thing about Harry Potter was that hot girls were into it, too. I've seen sorority college girls talk about Harry Potter. It really did appeal to everyone, especially after the movie came out in November of '01. And we've already established that Marie and her friends are major Harry Potter fans, so the upcoming movie should be a big deal to them. The fact that Marieand her friends were big fans of the books is what convinced Robbie to make the incredibly wise decision to invest in the film series, is it not?

Hey, Blue, you're closer to Matt and Wade's age group than I am...I'm curious...in 2001, were the upcoming Harry Potter films a big deal, or were things more about The Lord of the Rings? I was in 9th grade in 2001, and I remember both movies being pretty huge, but my age group was leaning more towards Harry Potter. I'm absolutely positive Harry Potter would be a big deal for people Will/Marie/JJ/John's age, but I'm not so sure about the Matt/Darius/Wade college-aged group.

Yeah, that's what is pretty fascinating about this- it's really hard to pinpoint the spread of slang, especially once we get to the post-MTV era. The movie Clueless in 1995 was extremely influential- that movie basically signaled the end of the Grunge Era, and how people talked throughout about 1995 to about 1997. TV is also pretty big- The O.C. and Laguna Beach had a lot of slang terms that spread pretty fast in 2003 and 2004. Then there was Jersey Shore that influenced slang in 2010 and 2011- suddenly people were saying things like "grenade." Have you ever seen the 1983 movie Valley Girl? It was pretty cool, because it showed the differences in slang between Valley kids and Hollyweird kids, kind of what you're getting at. In my case, I tend to think if it's something I heard in Delaware, it was probably in California at least 2-3 years before, because Delaware tends to be behind in slang. What's even funnier was when I lived in Western Pennsylvania,and people were still wearing popped collars and Livestrong bracelets like it was the mid-2000's. It was a weird time-warp. I remember when Mark started writing Bloodlines, he asked Adam about slang terms he used when he was an 18-year old jock in 1998. Of course, the slang wouldn't be exactly the same, since Adam is from Texas and Matt is from Ohio, but it should probably come close. That's part of what this thread is all about- sussing out slang words we've used that might turn out to be just things that were particular to our friends/region. We can't ever really get it perfect, but it's fun to try, because part of what Mark tries to do is recreate the particular mindset of a time period, and slang is part of it.

Since by virture of it being Matt and Wade's graduation year, I'm assuming we'll hit that year, too... I think of 2002 as being the Year of Avril Lavigne, as the trend of the pretty blonde pop pwincess went out, although not nearly as fast as the boyband fanom . Avril represented the anti-dote to that, as the "punk" girl who was supposed to be more "real" than the Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera/Mandy Moore/Jessica Simpson brigade. Although the pop deal did continue in the U.K., it felt pretty dead in the U.S. In terms of '02 pop culture references, I'm looking forward to , The Osbournes, Maroon 5 (shut up- was an awesome song), (okay, I know), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Chicago. I also really liked Far From Heaven, which I caught at the local university cinema in early '03. Dennis Quaid was pretty damn hot for an old guy in that film, I thought. (You might remember him as Lindsay Lohan's dad in the Parent Trap.)

Alright, I'll try another Darius. Since you want darker coloring (but you still seem to envision Darius with high cheekbones), I like the idea of Rob Wilson, the male Price Is Right model, and a new actor for the online revival of All My Children. I think he does have an ambigious racial mixture that I could totally buy as being Persian. I could also see Rob Wilson as the slutty Latino boy that lived with the Schluters and Cramptons for a few years because Mexico wasn't that forgiving to the gays.

Wait, I thought the Greek system was based on friendship and philanthrophy.

Dirty-mouthed Delawarean making most of gaffe AJ Clemente is from Delaware. You gotta love how small this world is.

*shrugs* It was the . That's where I got it from. *sigh* Matthew Goode is sooooo hot.

It was with this chapter that I realized that I kind of find Tony boring. Of course, your mileage may vary, but I don't find much that distinguishes Tony from any other hot, macho jock from a rich family that we've had in CAP other than the fact that he's a legacy character, and he has freak-outs similiar to Robbie back in Be Rad. Hot Jeff is way more interesting, and he has a great banter with Will. Tony and Will feel to me like a rip-off of early Brad/Robbie, only I don't find Tony nearly as endearing as Robbie was in 1980. They can't really become an official, open couple because of Will's age (and because Tony is more than 4 years older than him), and because this is the post-Megan's Law era where officials start to really slam down on statutory rape. Will can't exactly hold hands with him at lunch, he can't take Tony to his prom (Will doesn't turn 18 until he's in college), Tony can't tell his soccer pals at Stanford that he's dating a 14-year old, etc etc etc. I'm pretty sure Tony's family has stock in Schluter Entreprises (or whatever the hell the conglomerate is called)...it was implied that Tony grew up in a pretty upscale suburb of St. Louis. He doesn't have Crampton/Schluter riches, but I'm guessing that he's probably close to where Matt's family is on the socioeconomic scale, only Matt's family would have more cache as older money. The 2000's were not a pretty decade, that's for damn sure. They were some positives- like the advance of gay rights and all the cool technology that came out, but god this decade was turbulent. There's that stuff, then there's the D.C. sniper, the Iraq War, The Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Virginia Tech Massacree, the Economic Crisis of 2008-2009, etc etc etc. Should give Mark a lot of material.

I can't with "Follow Me." I'm sorry, that's a song from 2001 that still makes me twitch today. Chapter 4 -When Will contemplates high school relationships, and doesn't know if he'd want to get that wrapped up into someone. -When Will has his threesome with the future Anakin Skywalker and his Disney Channel Original Movie boyfriend. -When Will and Tony have some sexytimes. God, this song was everywhere back in early '01. There was even a running gag about that song in this 2001 movie called Orange County. -When Will and Tony declare their love for one another. I remember Tim kind of bitched about the fact that I didn't use opera music the last time we were in Italy, so I thought I'd change that. You're welcome, Tim.

Very good point. It's not as if Will was being particularly discrete about his affair with Kyle, either- that it took six months to get discovered kind of shocked me. Eric must have been incredibly dense. Menlo is a fairly small school- I'm estimating there are probably about 100 to 150 students per grade, and there's no way there wouldn't have been some whispering going on. I've gone to the small school that holds 7 grades. It's not like a large public school where there are 2,000 students and you can just disapear- people are always in other people's business. That Marie didn't crack sooner does show some restraint on her part. You can see both sides- Will is not responsible for Eric being faithful, and Marie is not responsible for the fact that her cousin wanted to bang her friend's boyfriend. But I'm getting the feeling that things are being skewed so that things are entirely Marie's fault and Will's once again blameless; then again, that's also what happens when you follow in first-person perspective.

I always thought it'd be cute if a character said someone's car was "sick", and the mid-Western boy asked what was wrong with the car. What an incredibly cute call-back that would be. I first heard "sick" used in the context of being cool on the O.C. in 2003; it also gave us "rager." Laguna Beach in 2004 confirmed that Cali teens were using sick and rager, so I figure that "sick" should be around by 2001. On the other hand...does anyone remember saying things were "the bomb" in 2001? I'm from a state that lags behind culturally behind states like California and New York, and I don't remember anyone still saying things were the bomb in 2001, but Mark insists that his research shows that teenagers in the early '00s were still saying that. I guess maybe it's one of those things where people just kept saying old slang words. I'm starting to cringe a little when Will's saying things are the bomb, because that feels so 1997. Maybe Will's just kind of a dork who doesn't keep up the latest slang? Because we did have JJ and Kristin saying something was beast, so it's possible that Will's just a quirky guy who's attached to an outdated slang term. I had a friend named Steve in college who insisted on saying things were "dope" and "fresh" in 2010.

He's 24 now, though. No longer a whippersnapper, I believe. The mid-20's. Which were pretty much my favorite years, so go, Yang.

Have a happy birthday!

I'll just wait for the expansion pack.

Here's this pretty funny viral video, where two Philly reporters start laughing uncontrollably after trying to get through an interview with the hot but incredibly dumb Ryan Lochte. These two are awesome. I want them to sit around and mock all the current vapid celebrities for a talk show.

Yeah, but unfortunately for him, this video has gone viral. It's funny that more people have seen this video than the amount of people who actually live in North Dakota.

Yeah, I was thinking about it and realizing that it might have been just a local thing. I mean, "sick" was and is everywhere (I can't wait til these kids start saying things are "sick"), but I'm willing to relent on this one.

I think the thing about that situation was that even though Will at the time thought he was in love with John, it really was just a crush. Will also had to keep himself from going too insane, because as Stefan pointed out, John is his cousin and it would not do to upset his family like that. If it was someone that Will was truly into (imagine what would happen if Will found Tony with another guy), I think he'd go completely and totally ballistic. What I liked so much about this storyline is that both Will and Marie are being complete shitheads- Will for having sex with a guy he knows is in a relationship, and Marie for getting herself involved in something that was never her business to begin with. It's such high school/college bullshit, and makes me laugh about situations I remember seeing/hearing about when I was young in the early/mid-'00s. I like MJ's theory that Marie wanted to be overheard so she could ruin what Will had with Kyle.

Were California stoners in 2001-ish prone to use the word "dank" to describe particularly potent weed, or was that just an East Coast thing? I didn't smoke pot, but I had friends who did, and I remember hearing the word dank getting thrown around in the early/mid-00's, but not so much recently. Also, did "sick" replace "the bomb" yet by 2001?

Thanks for your comments. Here's another interesting article I found about it, though not nearly as in-depth: How Detroit Became The World Capital of Staring At Abandoned Old Buildings I really want to tour the ruins some day.

So, since Adam Phillips just loves to get on me for my reading habits, I thought I'd try and read something that wasn't written for 12-year olds, and looked around for something a little different. I've had this fascination for the past couple of years with the city of Detroit, and how it's accelerating depopulation has been depicted in pictures and videos. Detroit, in the course of one decade, has seen its population plunge from about 950k to just 714k- that's approximately equal to if the city of Norfolk, Virginia completely emptied out in one decade. The trend of depicting Detroit's emptying city landscape has been referred to as "ruin porn." I found this pretty interesting article that discusses the phenonmenon, and what it says about both the city and about the people that buy into "ruin porn" aspect of Detroit. Detroitism by John Patrick Leary Detroit is a histroy lesson and a cautionary tale, I think. One day I hope to explore the ruins of Detroit. For me, I find the ruins of Detroit fascinating to look at, because it was a city that was built on America's utter faith and confidence in their cars (a time before I was born), and it just never recovered from the upheaval and strife of the 1960's and 1970's and could not come up with an alternative industry to at least stabilize the city. (Pittsburgh has a simliar story, although its education/hospital sector has slowed down the population bleed. ) The story seen through these pictures suggest the massive dreams that American's industrial might were able to muscle into being...as well as the massive downfall of said American industry. We're a country that used to make things that last, and we became a country that buys goods and provides services, but doesn't really make.

I think with Mark, smoking pot would be like drinking coffee or something. I can't imagine him tripping balls off pot, even if it were totally dank. Now me? I took a hit after about a year of abstaining, and damn, I was goofy. Anyway, the deal with Hank was pretty funny. It reminded me of that joke, about how lesbians on a third date show up with the moving truck. Although to be fair, they were all "Annie on My Mind" in high school. (I knew these two girls in high school...one of them was reading this book, and then later on her ex-boyfriend told me she dumped him because she realized she was a lesbian.) It doesn't seem like Tiffany is quite like that. Sure, she settled with Jeanine for a bit, but I do wonder if maybe Tiffany got pressured a bit into having kids, which would make sense- Tiffany was about 23, Jeanine was about 36 or so. It doesn't feel like Tiffany's in the same kind of rush to get a girlfriend again, which I like...it'd be cool if she also maybe dated a few guys. I like that her sexuality, along with Matt's, is mainly "gay" but with some kinks in it.

Thanks, Mark. I remember someone made fun of me for obsessing over whether or not something was said by teenagers in 2000, but...well, that's kind of what my part in your team is about. I have this strong sense of change over time, and I'm fascinated by how trends and culture evolve. It's a weird thing with me. Name me a year after about 1954 and I can tell you something about the year off the top of my head, either an event or a song, or some trend. It's been a blast, even when we've butted heads about stuff. As a history guy who bemoans the dearth of good soap operas, I'm glad that I get to read a historical one on nearly weekly(sometimes daily) installment. She's been a blast to work with. I loved her input that helped create the Tiffany/Amber Corwin scandal. I'm grinning with delight at what it'll be like when we can start having JJ butt heads with Johnny Weir. Dear god, the fur will fly. LOL.