Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs

Wolk, Douglas

Wonder, Stevie

Wonder Years, The

Worthy, James

Wrath of Khan, The

Wright, Will

X-Files, The

Yearwood, Trisha

“You May Be Right” (Joel)

“You’re in My Heart” (Stewart)

Young, Bobby

Young, Neil

youth (teen) culture: moviess, 1980s; The Real World virtual mentality; See computers; movies; television

Zamora, Pedro

Zander, Robin

Zodiac killer

Also By Chuck Klosterman

Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota

Copyright

Scribner

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New York, NY 10020

Copyright © 2003 by Chuck Klosterman

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

“33” was previously published in a different form in GQ. “Appetite for Replication” was previously published in a different form in The New York Times Magazine

SCRIBNER and design are trademarks of Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work.

DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING

Text set in Electra

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Klosterman, Chuck.

Sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs : a low culture manifesto / Chuck Klosterman.

p. cm.

1. Popular culture—United States. 2. United States—Civilization—1970—. I. Title.

E169.12.K56 2003

306’.0973—dc21

2003045535

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-5824-1

ISBN-10: 0-7432-5824-X

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Notes

1

1. Hopefully Charlie Rose, if he’s still alive.

2

2. The notable exceptions being Vertigo (where the softhearted Barbara Bel Geddes gets jammed by sexpot Kim Novak) and My So-Called Life (where poor Brian Krakow never got any play, even though Jordan Catalano couldn’t fucking read).

3

3. “Sometimes” meaning “during college.”

4

4. Here’s one example I tend to deploy on second dates, and it’s rewarded with an endearing guffaw at least 90 percent of the time: I ask the woman what religion she is. Inevitably, she will say something like, “Oh, I’m sort of Catholic, but I’m pretty lapsed in my participation,” or “Oh, I’m kind of Jewish, but I don’t really practice anymore.” Virtually everyone under the age of thirty will answer that question in this manner. I then respond by saying, “Yeah, it seems like everybody I meet describes themselves as ‘sort of Catholic’ or ‘sort of Jewish’ or ‘sort of Methodist.’ Do you think all religions have this problem? I mean, do you think there are twenty-five-year-old Amish people who say, ‘Well, I’m sort of Amish. I currently work as a computer programmer, but I still believe pants with metal zippers are the work of Satan.’”

5

5. “A certain kind” meaning “bad.”

6