Still, on the surface, Klosterman’s work seems infectiously permissive. To make such essays on the mundane successful, one requires intelligence and imagination. The ubiquity of his subjects was part of their appeal. And instead of employing obscure books or esoteric subcultures, Klosterman dealt with phenomena that many of us are familiar with. He didn’t need a platform like a feature film or magazine reportage (of the 18 essays in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, only two had been previously published) all he needed was persepctive paired with experience. What made Klosterman different was his autodidacticism. It owes a debt to New Journalists like Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese and Joan Didion, as well as critics like Susan Sontag and Lester Bangs.

Of course, this style of writing wasn’t invented in the 90s. Consider the detailed examination of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” in Reservoir Dogs, or the elaborate debate about what makes up a food court in Mallrats, or any episode of Seinfeld. Talky films by Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, and Richard Linklater, as well as shows like Seinfeld and books like David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again– were all engaged in playful critiques of popular culture. Most significantly, though, was that Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs simultaneously heralded the critical approach of what followed: Klosterman’s brand of armchair pop philosophy prefigured the voices of the internet.Īn essay scholastically scrutinizing Saved by the Bell seemed novel in 2003, although this is precisely what much of the culture of the 90s was up to. With his second book, Klosterman encapsulated how 90s pop culture was interpreted while also expanding the list of once undeserving subjects now considered worthy of attention and scrutiny. Topics included the television show Saved by the Bell, sex icon Pamela Anderson, the Left Behind novels, MTV’s The Real World, and other fin de siècle ephemera. Nevertheless, Klosterman’s breakthrough book, the essay collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, was wholly mired in the 90s in both subject and approach.

By September 11, the ethos of the previous decade had come crashing down along with the Twin Towers. Klosterman’s debut, Fargo Rock City, a memoir of life as a heavy metal enthusiast in North Dakota, was released on May 22, 2001. Chuck Klosterman’s tenure as pop culture’s critic par excellence began just as the 1990s came to a close in fact, according to his newest book, The Nineties (Penguin Random House, 2022), it started four months before the decade officially concluded.

Book the nineties