A recent comic from Tom The Dancing sarcastically theorized that popular culture was at a qualitative peak when the subject was twelve years old. I will turn this theory into a subjective survey on my experience on the year I was twelve. Below is a list of notable cultural output from year 1997.
Games
- Diablo (PC)
- GoldenEye 007 (N64)*
- Fallout (PC)
- Total Annihilation (PC)
- Grand Theft Auto (PC)*
- Age of Empires (PC)
Film
- Chasing Amy
- Cube
- The End of Evangelion
- Event Horizon
- Face/Off*
- The Fifth Element*
- The Game
- Good Will Hunting
- The Jackal
- Jackie Brown
- L.A. Confidential
- Lost Highway
- Princess Mononoke
- Spawn*
- Starship Troopers*
- Welcome to Sarajevo
Music
- Erykah Badu — Baduism
- Strapping Young Lad — City
- Our Lady Peace — Clumsy
- The Chemical Brothers — Dig Your Own Hole*
- Fear Factory — Remanufacture
- Faith No More — Album of the Year
- Sneaker Pimps — Becoming X*
- Radiohead — OK Computer
- The Prodigy — The Fat of the Land*
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor – F♯A♯∞
- Rammstein -Sehnsucht*
- The Crystal Method — Vegas
- Bjork — Homogenic
- Chumbawumba — Tubthumper*
- Dream Theater — Falling Into Infinity
- KMFDM — Symbols
- Portishead — Portishead
- Aphex Twin — Come to Daddy
- Green Day — Nimrod
- In Flames — Whoracle
Television
- La Femme Nikita premieres on USA Network
- Toonami debuts on Cartoon Network*
- South Park is aired for the first time on Comedy Central*
- Bret Hart lost his last match in the WWF via submission to Shawn Michaels, however Hart never tapped out. see Montreal Screwjob*
Literature
- J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
- Arundhati Roy – The God of Small Things
- Kurt Vonnegut – Timequake
- Iris Chang – The Rape of Nanking
- Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel
- Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel
*(Anything with the asterisk is something I discovered and liked at age 12. Everything else I discovered years after the fact)
Apparantly, 1997 was the peak of culture.