I’ve lived in Kentucky my entire life. The fact that naan is commonly found in groceries around here is crazy to me. Kentucky isn’t exactly a ‘connected’ place. It’s a testament to just how far flung Indian culture has become.
I used to go to Taste of India all the time with a Bangladeshi friend. Now if only there was a specifically Bangladeshi restaurant in Lexington. I think there used to be one, but it closed down.
7:54 I can't believe JJ touched briefly on this phenomenon without bringing up one of the most ubiquitous and kid-loved flavors of the '90s and 2000s: *blue*
@@albertmiller2electricbooga897 Yeah i remember going to kids camp and always getting a blue drink. I never figured out what it was supposed to be, but i loved its surgary acidic flavor
Blue raspberry actually dates back to the 50’s and was believed to be invented by the icee corporation. What makes blue raspberry especially unique is the fact that it isn’t even a real fruit! Rather it’s a combination of artificial fruit flavors which turned into its own unique flavor
I was watching a documentary about the first Woodstock and for the food, the organizers basically had these puny lookin' little burgers that you'd expect a college kid to make and I thought to myself, "this would literally be unimaginable in any North American music festival today." Not only would the festival have to be aesthetically pleasing, but the food options as well. Nowadays burgers cost like $15-20 at any given festival, but they're definitely much tastier. You'd also have bulgogi tacos, lobster mac n cheese, maybe little donuts or something. And lots of food trucks. Lots and lots of food trucks. And it brought me down this rabbit hole thinking...if I was transported back in time, maybe to various points in the 20th century, what would my opinion be on the general "food culture" and "restaurant scene?" I'm sure I'm not the first one to say this but...I'm consistently impressed by how you make videos on topics that people have THOUGHT about, but could never quite articulate.
The fact is that food really did suck until quite recently. We eat such lavish meals today and take so many things for granted that people for most of American history - let alone human history - never had the pleasure of experiencing. So many ingredients, spices, flavors, cuisines, dishes... we all eat better than history's mightiest emperors!
@@JJMcCullough That's definitely true, maybe not "objectively," but a 2024 person going back to 1974 or 1984 would probably find the food far blander and lacking the technique and expertise of today..
@@JJMcCulloughI collected old recipe books for a long time from the late 1800s to the 1970s and 90% of the food in them is just not going to taste good whatsoever compared to what we have access to now. And I don’t even mean the weird jello ham and banana salad. Most food was just seemed to be so bland and gross. Freezing molasses on a sheet of ice as a “candy treat” for example. Yuck.
My father was diagnosed with Celiacs (then referred to as 'non-tropical Sprue') in the late 1970's. Americans were not diagnosed with it as it was considered a "European' disorder. Never mind that most people in North and South America have at least a little bit of European ancestry. It was a lot more restrictive then and my father had been very ill before he was diagnosed. He ate constantly and could not maintain his weight. He developed brittle bones and other disorders because of malnutrition because of his Celiacs. Going gluten free saved his life.
Honestly you could do another video on just drinks. Energy drinks, non alcaholic cocktails and lower alcohol consumption in general, changes in coffee culture.
oohh yeah I forgot about drinks. Haha, it's funny you mention that because the ORIGINAL THOUGHT that inspired this whole video was noticing energy drinks at the store and thinking "hmm, you know, these weren't a thing 20 years ago..."
@@JJMcCulloughI'm sure you've seen him, but there was a guy who half jokingly calls himself an energy drink sommelier BigSommEnergy. Does real reviews
I would add Water too. Talking to parents has me realized just how more common bottled water has become in the past 30 years, and that people take hydration WAY more seriously than in the Great 30.
Too seriously I wonder. Some people seem obsessed with water consumption. Also I think some have gone overboard and end up overhydrating. Remember, food counts too!
Yeah my parents joke that water was not really a big deal in their time ("bottled water? what's next? bottled air?"). Around 2018 I switched to an almost all-water liquid diet, with the odd tea, juice and milk on the side and they used to tease me about drinking water as much as I did.
They have all of those dumb fancy waters now, too. I thought Liquid Death was an energy drink and that La Croix was alcoholic. I just drink water, bro.
When I was growing up, my mother was excited to introduce me and my sister to kiwi fruit, assuming we'd never had it before. I probably shouldn't have, but I told her that my aunt and uncle on my dad's side of the family had been serving kiwi at holiday dinners for a few years now. Nowadays, you can find starfruit and dragonfruit and papayas and plaintains at most grocery stores.
It does! Though it might be good to reconsider the insistence on exactly 32 year chunks if the purpose of the system is to demonstrate distinct periods in the evolution of the country.
@@Someone-mv5rg It is common for historians to break down history into convinient chunks, even though nothing is as cut and dry as it makes history feel
“I had some food today and the label said ‘contains natural and artificial flavors’. At that point you could just say ‘contains Flavors’…….” -Demetri Martin
As a non-north american that has been to the US back in the 90s and a couple of years ago, I can say that DEFINITELY your food got better tasting, more diverse and healthier. (talking without seeing the whole video) one thing that got exponentially better in the US is coffee.
non-North American? Wouldn't it have been easier to say South American? In which case, it's not like the countries on the continents are united really (aside from the EU trying to rip off us Americans).
The rise of plant-based/vegan foods has been really interesting to me. I grew up a vegetarian in the 2000s before many of the major plant-based food companies were even founded (we had Boca and MorningStar Farms, but they weren’t as big either). I’ve tried most of them at this point, and they’re perfectly fine, but they’re usually too expensive for me to have that often. I still eat most of the same plant-based alternatives I had a couple decades ago like tofu, tempeh, beans, lentils, TVP, nutritional yeast, seitan, etc. The new stuff is still luxury food. The main exceptions to this are the rise in vegan cheese options at pizza restaurants and entirely vegan restaurants. I always used to bring food with me to social events and rarely go to restaurants, but now I find myself going to a lot more because I can actually eat the food! Which is very nice
@@alexreid1173 That is a huge positive, I'm not vegan or vegetarian, but I do think it's nice that there are OPTIONS for people if need be. It doesn't hurt anyone, and hey, I prefer a good plant based dish from time to time!
Same with me. Went vegetarian in 2008 and tended to eat the same few frozen options from Morningstar, Boca, and Quorn because that was all that was available. Even finding prepared foods not aimed at vegetarians that didn't have some sort of meat component was difficult.
The funny thing is that I, a (pretty proud) omnivore, have eaten MorningStar grillers for years, not as a burger replacement per se, but simply because I enjoy them as an easy lunch. However, I wouldn’t eat something like an impossible burger, because it really holds no benefit to me.
My spouse, who was born and raised in Wisconsin mind you, has been a vegetarian for 21 years (I was also vegetarian and vegan during and a little bit after college for a year or so). He’s had a much easier time going out to restaurants and finding foods in grocery stores and co-ops in the past 10 years vs having to ask for a lot of substitutions or cooking specialty foods from scratch (it helps that Beyond Meat and Impossible burgers and other goods are more common now). One other bonus is that his dad doesn’t joke around about not eating meat as much as he used to, being a Midwestern dad and all 😂
Not sure if this counts as food culture necessarily but I feel like caffeine has been greatly expanded and more widely used in the lesser 30s. Until the early 90s caffeine was almost exclusively consumed as just black coffee used from a cheap machine at home or at work. But the Lesser 30 era has seen the rise of energy drinks spearheaded by Red Bull which gained prominence in the 90s, canned tea headed by Arizona Tea, and even canned coffee available at thousands of stores. The Lesser 30 era also saw the growth of the chain Starbucks which was really the first nationwide coffee chain. And even for at-home coffee use, there is now the luxury expresso machine maker Jura for the bourgeoisie upper middle class. This is probably perfectly encapsulated by the fact that Dunkin Donuts the chain that is by far most associated with that food dropped the "Donuts" part in 2019 to emphasize more on caffeinated beverages.
@@killercaos123 An excellent example! The chili pepper is an essential part of many Asian cuisines, and yet it is from Central America. The Columbian Exchange revolutionized food all around the world.
Ramen is actually a fusion dish which came from china and was given a Japanese spin Which is ironic because we Americans have this idea that ramen is such a pure and stereotype Al Japanese thing
A topic I would love to see you cover is entertainment, specifically movies and TV, and how the structure of films, lengths, subject manner, and audience tastes were in the earlier era compared to now and technologies relating to them. You could talk about things like the development of different technologies like CDs or streaming changed how we watch things or how they are made, or how studios have become much more cautious with what they greenlight and are more willing to rely on big budget films, particularly from established franchises. I think that last point in particular would work quite well with the "great 30" and "lesser 30" theme considering most of these established franchises our current era is known for now were first conceived of during the "great 30" era.
The rise of streaming services is an especially interesting topic insofar as how it affected Hollywood. In a nutshell, streaming services have killed the mid-budget movie. The business model for those movies was that the theatrical run was just a self-financing marketing campaign while the sale of physical media for home use (VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.) was where the movie became profitable. But now that streaming has replaced physical media and that home release revenue is gone, movies have to have a profitable theatrical run to be financially viable for a studio. That's why the only movies that get greenlit now are either independent films made for five bucks and a dream or are tentpole projects based on an existing IP with a budget equivalent to the GDP of a small country.
I think one of the big topics of the lesser 30 that has to have a video would be the advent of the internet, and how it has impacted culture and developed it's own culture. I'd sat that if anything, that would be the most unique thing about the lesser 30, even if it wasn't necessarily imvented then, it didn't become common until the mid-90s and it's now a necessity to even function reasonably in our time
The massive spike in popularity of sparkling water as a healthy alternative to sodas is I think a big thing that should've been touched on. Sodastream was pretty revolutionary in the beverage game
I can attest to this. My mother has been on a health craze recently and has replaced soda with sparling water, I think it is the La Coix stuff or whatever. I can agree that sparkling water has become more popular in that back when I was a kid in the 2000s and a teen in the early 2010s sparkling water was seen as this nasty thing for weird people.
Have you noticed pretty much every new energy drink that comes out is sugar free? I really only ever drink Red Bull, when I rarely have an energy drink, because I cannot stand the taste of sucralose and other sugar substitutes.
@@joelsmith3473 Yeah i feel like sugar free isn't the best example. its been around for decades, 70s i think. i'd say non-gmo and no artificial flavors is a better example
There has been one big revolution you missed in how we obtain food: the internet. We used to buy cookbooks, now you can find any recipe for any cuisine for free. You can buy groceries online, and if that isn’t enough variety and you can import ingredients to your home from overseas. Food delivery used to be for Italian and Chinese, now it’s nearly every local restaurant. When you’re travelling overseas, you can research all the highest rated restaurants and dishes easily.
An interesting thing is the number of Thai restaurants vs the number of Filipino restaurants. Offhand, there are a lot more Filipinos in the US than Thais, and Filipino food is less aggressively spicy than Thai. But Thai food is vastly more popular.
One of the possible factors to this is that the thai government tends to promote thai restaurants worldwide in order to promote their culture/country to the international community
Most Americans wouldn't know the difference between lumpia and a crispy spring roll. You can ask for thai spicy, but most places make it super mild. My favorite "Thai" place is actually Laotian. I always get the sausage with sticky rice. My kids get the pad thai because it is noodles with a sweet sauce.
I've seen farm shares growing in popularity here in the Midwest. They're basically subscriptions to the produce from a nearby farm where you pay a lump sum at the beginning of a season and you get a sort of percentage share of the farm's total output for the season. Many of the farms near me that participate have as many as 30-40 dropoff locations around the city where the share participants can pick up their weekly share.
I live in Indiana and get my beef and dairy this way. Im not a good cook but i havent made a bad meal yet. It being expensive also incentivizes you to cook more - no steak is as good as the grassfed beef raised 15 min away...
The last 3 minutes of your video was so fun to watch. I feel so spoiled but also grateful that we’re living in an era where foods of all different kinds of ethnicities are available to us in restaurants or grocery stores. Where else can I get Moroccan food for lunch and Burmese food for dinner?
I guess just a quick comment about the various eras of presidents that you showed near the start, I found it interesting that you use "Early" and "Late Victorian" as a term. I guess from an american-centric view, I would not think to use Queen Victoria for the US (despite the influence that she and her country had on the globe), and would instead use Antebellum and Reconstruction/Gilded Age for those two eras, despite the misalignment of the presidencies and those pre-defined eras. But I do love how you've come up with this concept of the three-decade eras of America. I love your videos and hope to see more in the future. Take care! :)
Victorian just sounds too good not to use, I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of people used the term without realising it refers to Queen Victoria.
You are so close to hitting one million! Congrats JJ. its nice to see you take off you deserve it. Don't forget about your pals back in Vancouver when you are a big and famous celebrity! Give us a little shout out once in a while lol ;) Sincerely, Fellow Vancouverite who hasn't found better Canadian made content since trailer park boys or corner gas.
J.J.'s collection of increasingly specific history books is really funny to me. I'll never get over him citing a book entirely about the history of potato chip flavorings.
@@amelialonelyfart8848 JJ is an advocate for reading, which i appreciate, his videos are interesting because he isn't just looking up wiki info online to make a video
I grew up being raised in all the food health fads. It was always fascinating to me how my boomer relatives were largely unhealthy in terms of having no aversion to the hyperprocessed overengineered foods whilst my gen X parents were gluten-free, vegan, organic, no preservatives. Both generations of my family are basically just products of their respective 30s.
I've flipped through my grandparents' old cook books from the 60s and 70s, and it made me grateful that our cuisine has moved beyond sweaty cubed ham suspended in miracle whip-infused jello molds....that's a real recipe, folks. I'd still destroy a plate of deviled eggs, though.
This is perhaps a tie-in with the rise in ethnic food, but spicy food, both in prevalence and intensity, has seen a big increase in the last 30 years. This has led to a radiation in spicy flavors of snacks and sauces, spicy novelty foods such as the various "One ______" challenges, and the explosion in popularity of the Hot Ones talk show.
I love spicy food, but it's gotten out of control. Flaming Hot Cheetos are WOUNDERFUL. But now all chips have a flaming hot version. No idea who asked for flaming hot ruffles!
I really wonder what factor has kicked off the hot/spicy trend here in the USA? Is it ethnic food or the fact Americans are tired of the bland/sugary foods and want something hot for a change?
One of the trends in the later half of the "lesser 30" is the rise of meal kits and meal services. I don't know how many people use services like HelloFresh, Blue Apron, Factor, etc., but the very concept of such services would have been unimaginable when I was growing up in the 80s.
I feel like JJ underemphasizes the impact of the internet on the last 30 years, when he describes them as the 'lesser 30'. While it might me more gradual and subtle than any big changes from the 50s to 80s, I feel like it intensified a lot of aspects of how we experience culture overall.
@@JJMcCulloughI personally wouldn’t hesitate to call it revolutionary on a level on-par with or exceeding television. The last years of the ‘00s and the mass adoption of smartphones + social media in particular I believe are going to be seen as a seismic shift.
I think one of the biggest trends in Food that I’m seeing as a chef is a complete global decentralization of recipes. If a recipe looks good in France chefs all over the world will try and make it to see if it’s good. as a chef when I see something online, I make it for the staff meal at my hotel to see if it’s actually good and sometimes with a little bit of work, we actually start adding those items to the menu.
That's true even on the amateur level, one of the conveniences of the internet age. I see taiyaki in a show, order a specialized pan and have it delivered the next day. I see brigadeiros in a video game, having never heard of them before, and instantly found a recipe.
I think a big change in attitudes towards food came with Anthony Bourdain. He spearheaded eating real, authentic food from different cultures that didn't water itself down or pander to American taste buds, and his ideas have largely been adopted by middle class foodies/America in general. It's notable that a lot of ethnic cuisines- notably Chinese and Mexican food- were "Americanized" to be more palatable to American tastes, which created a whole new cuisine but also didn't expose American taste buds to the real deal. It's notable now how Americans are much more hungry for authentic ethnic food and that gives a market to ethnic cuisines from all around the world, not just the canon from 30 years ago.
Modern Mexican cuisine is still muddy in regards to authenticity because even if you eschew the Bell in favor of a taco truck a lot of what they're selling is still going to be Hispanic food from the American Southwest. It comes from a distinct, but no less authentic, Mexican-descended subculture.
American Girl added two dolls to their “Historical” Line. Their story is set in 1999. If the toy lines can call it history then it’s not “too soon” to talk about it
In Germany a car that is older than 25 years can get a special license plate whith a extra H (for historisch, historic in english) and less tax. Its a crazy thing when a car model that you consider ‚normal‘ is suddenly part of history. So older than 25 years is part of history
7:59 I love the boldness of brands like Mountain Dew and Coca Cola that brand their artificial flavors with more abstract concepts like Purple Thunder and Dream Land. Artificial flavors are typically only named after they're invented (why artificial strawberry only bears a passing resemblance to the real thing) so on one level naming a different artificial flavor Dream Land isn't any less arbitrary
Kind of like how Mountain Dew Black was introduced as grape flavored, but when last brought back it said citrus flavored. Or how Mango MD is now a KFC exclusive flavor called MD Sweet Lightning
As a cook for 15 years even in the last 15 years it has changed so much. Food used to be just that not many cared too much about authenticity, gluten free (of course we had people who were celiac just not people who are wanting gluten free options because they think it's healthy), the virality of food (some fast food stuff of course did this but that was pretty much it). Now everything has to be either 100% authentic no matter what, gluten free because why not and extremely eye catching food even if they taste like crap if it looks cool people will eat it. It's a double edged sword because I do understand the want for all those but people take it to the absolute extreme to the point where you do one thing slightly different you can piss off so many people in each of those wants.
You made me do a double take on my snack that I am currently eating and drinking. Peach Mango sports drink with popcorn. While popcorn was my go to snack in the 90s, I don't remember peach mango anything during that time.
Great video! I’ve often thought about how food in America has become more accommodating over the last 30 years and how people now have higher expectations. I think the only thing I would add is that in addition to more diverse ethnic food choices in the Lesser 30, we’ve doubled down on our expectations on cuisines from the Greater 30. We now seek out fresh pasta, handmade tortillas, XLB instead of wonton soup, and different regional styles of pizza. We now order California rolls only to round out a sushi platter.
PLEASE make more lesser 30 videos. This video was so interesting, if it doesn't get the views you want then don't push yourself but as a person you are so articulate and I'd like to see these themes in other projects you do. Definitely one of the best videos I've seen in a while.
The thing I am most surprised in this video was that the number of Vegans/vegetarians haven’t changed much in the last 30 years. I thought they were now 10% of the population like my younger sister. Also I prefer the “20th century 30” and “The Millennium 30” to the greater and lesser 30 as not create an opinion of superiority in one of them.
I agree. JJ is understating the radical shifts of the past thirty years, and showing a clip of Steve Jobs' unveiling of the iphone when saying that this era has more "subtle shifts" almost made me laugh. The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we live and even view ours lives, and that is just the one, big example.
I wouldn't be surprised if social media has made vegans and vegetarians more visible. Before it might have been something you kept to yourself and like minded peers, but now it's something you seem to tell everyone (and some who won't shut up about it).
@@knightshade2654 I think that’s still underestimating how dramatically life changed from 1960-1990’s. In 1960, 1/6 of American homes didn’t have plumbing. The Beatles were considered radical and dangerous. Microwaves hadn’t been invented yet, only 4% of households owned a dishwasher, the civil rights act was still a decade away, and women still couldn’t still needed a man’s approval to get a credit card. I think the last 30 years have seen crazy changes to society as well, but I don’t think they were equally radical departures.
@@Croz89 It's made a lot of groups seem more visible than they actually are. To this day the autistic population is about 2%, the trans population is about 1%, and the approval rating for communism is about 4%.
i take the lesser 30 more as like, an adjustment period for a lot of the big changes from the last 30 years. Like, taking a second to go over them as a society and tweak them to make them more stable and sustainable. Making a food analogy, it's like the 60s-90s was when we went to the grocery store and just impulse bought a bunch of stuff and the 90's 2010's is us trying to make room in our pantry/refrigerator next to the opened cereal boxes and tins of old beans.
I agree with that last bit for sure, we make indian food at home a lot because the ingredients are easy to come by and its easy to make, but i couldnt imagine trying to make indian food as a lower class household in missouri 50 years ago lol
One subset of novelty food that has gotten more attention lately is Instagrammable food, that is, visually distinctive treats suitable for showing off on social media. The US has seen plenty of examples of foods created for visual impact, such as the wedding cake, the banana split, and giant vegetables grown to win prizes at state and county fairs. Even eating as a form of content creation has precedents, such as the pie-eating contests that have also been a staple of fairs and similar events. The biggest difference, aside from the advances in physics, chemistry, and biology that have made possible an ever greater variety of fantastical foodstuffs, is the rise of a class of professionals who have made food reaction videos a major part of their portfolios.
Oh, wow. 1992 was the year before I was born. I'm surprised nutrition labels are that new. I always assumed that they had been around for decades before then.
I loved this video and I agree with all the points to be honest! I live in the U.K., and the same trends apply here, though higher % of people are now vegetarian or vegan. Some aim to cut down on meat, whilst not eradicating it completely from their diets. Hope you’ll do more videos on the “lesser 30” era! 😊
what about home delivery through apps? I feel like it escalated so much in recent years... now there are times I go to my favourite (non-pizza) restaurant and it has more deliverymen than diners/takaway takers. Many office workers get quotas for delivery apps and therefore order lunch through them regularly.
@@Maria_745 That's not just a result of the last thirty, but the last ten or even five. Any restaurant that didn't have online ordering in 2020 quickly installed it. Some of them, like where I worked, did so without allotting a staging location for online orders or additional staff/training.
I think that spiciness has also become a distinctive feature. The invention of Takis, or the TH-cam show Hot Ones, are good examples. Mexican Birria, along with other dishes that were less popular than tacos and avocados, have become more common in America too.
I’ve only spent a year of my life in Canada but for some odd reason seeing the PC packages in the B roll from the grocery store made me miss it. Gotta get back to Canada sometime soon.
I can give a funny anecdote around the point of fusing foods from diverse ethnic backgrounds. In my home town, a family opened a Japanese restaurant. The problem, however, is that when it started to take off, they did not have enough workers and so they hired members of our Mexican community. It only took a few months for them to add the standard Americanized Mexican foods to the menu. So, now, we have a place called Wasabi that serves great Mexican, wonderful Japanese, and amazing sushi, but has still kept them distinct. I love how they play it up too. The dining room has Dia de los Muertos decorations mixed with traditional Japanese tapestries. It has become a staple of the little town.
Haven’t watched yet so I’m curious to see if one of your topics was the increased level of spicy food available within the U.S., as well as increasing Korean influence
Oh my! I'm absolutely in love with your current Jim Morrison hair style!!! I don't have a clue about what you're saying, though... I'm too distracted just looking as it waves along.😊
Those are the kind of foods that get a lot of social media attention but they're not something you see in most restaurants much less groceries. What I have seen a rise in is regular donuts with novel toppings and an increase in East Asian deserts via boba tea shops. There's a lot of mochi and ube going around desert shops here.
I brought an expanded taste for Korean food back from Peace Corps service in Korea in the early 70s. I already had some experience with Americanized [i.e. FAR less spicy🌶] Korean BBQ chicken taught by a Korean war bride to my best friend's family. I returned overseas as a teacher and brought back a taste for Japanese, Persian, European, Turkish and Arab Middle Eastern Cuisine. Many of our military personnel have continued to bring back a taste for better beer and wine, exotic food and wives. As the Romans probably observed and the French would say, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!" Thanks for another marvelous video JJ!
Two big things I would add are the impact of the internet and the impact of logistics/mechanization over the same period. I think this has led to something like a bifurcation of the restaurant business. One group of restaurants is trying to operate on razor thin margins catering to very price conscious consumers; they are all either dying out or blending together because they're all buying the same ingredients and selling the same products. Another group of restaurants is trying to cash in on their reputation using social media. Everybody in the middle is getting pushed into the decision, will they sell out and reheat sysco products, or will they shoot their shot at social media fame?
i’m wondering if nostalgia of past brands (e.g., the resurrection of twinkies and the proliferation of classic breakfast cereals) is also a dominant theme
also important to note the growing importance of food related media. cooking shows have been around for awhile on cable television, but now its not just a few celebrity chefs, but thousands of food influencers, almost none of them classically trained. people are learning how to cook from youtube vidoes instead of their parents or any institution, some of which are high quality and informative, but many of which arent. its made the restaurant scene even more competitive and varied; it's boosted the prestige and knowledge of ethnic cuisine especially; but it's also made the restaurant industry and peoples personal tastes more susceptible to fickle trends. ive seen a lot of questionable things go viral, but also some very interesting things
I know it's not the focus of his videos, but I love that JJ has such a good ear for what nostalgic little video game sounds would make something pop when it comes up on screen. I love even more that he doesn't just use all the same big name ones; this man used the fucking "lost a life" jingle from _Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers_ on the NES, a certified banger to be sure but I have never heard anyone use those sounds in a video. AND THEY SHOULD
How you can say the last 30 years had more subtle changes than the preceding 30 is beyond me.1993-2025 were immense/enormous cultural changes. Probably the most ever in human history. The ubiquity of the internet, for starters, but ubiquitous cell phone coverage even moreso. Many countries who didn't have the infrastructure for landlines hopscotched over that completely and erected cell towers to propel their populations into the 21st century from nothing before it.
One of the reasons peanut allergies have risen is, counterintuitively, because we have withheld peanuts from babies. I saw a fascinating report on it recently that shows that babies with eczema are still exposed to peanuts, but through the skin (from people holding / kissing them) rather than through food, and the immune system freaks out about it and develops an allergy. The recommendation these days is to allow small doses of allergens in foods to babies.
12:45 there’s actually quite a bit of evidence that this is a consequence of city and urban living. Even when you control for these variables, studies have consistently demonstrated that children raised in rural areas are less prone not only to allergies, but to all sorts of autoimmune disorders. Nobody’s really sure why this is the case, exactly. Most seem to think it has to do with the bacteria and other microbes that live inside versus outside, but which ones are the cause is unclear.
I feel like every time I watch a video of yours your hairstyle is significantly different. I respect that. I'm way too conservative with my hairstyles.
I think there will be an emphasis on growing and learning to cultivate home garden crops. The want for true food will evolve to change front lawns into food growing ventures.
I feel like a lot of the 'struggling vegan companies' narrative comes down to initial market oversaturation. Something like that was the case with early video games in the 1990s. Lots of small companies making a few questionable products that would nonetheless sell somewhat decently. Then a crush followed and Boomer media was happy to proclaim that video games were a fluke and human are over them. Didn't quite pen out like that. Consolidation of the market and economies of scale will make vegan mock products as or more affordable than non-vegan versions, despite a slue of state programmes pouring billions into animal agriculture to keep prices down, in the next decade or so.
Where I lived in Lincoln, NE, the local gas station was run by an Indian immigrant family that built their house above the convenience store and lived upstairs. Rather than typical gas station fare of hot dogs, pizza, and taquitos, during mealtimes you could get fresh naan, rice, and the entree of the day, plus samosas and soup available all day-smack dab in the middle of the American Midwest. Not only that, but the food seemed quite popular with the (mostly Hispanic) construction workers who would stop by around lunchtime.
You're the only other person besides my mother who pronounces "vegan" like you do except for my mother. She's in her early 70s and I'm in my early 50s, so I don't know if it's a personal thing or not. I always assumed she was so unfamiliar with the concept and had never heard anyone else say it. This is not a critique, just an observation.
I’ve lived in Kentucky my entire life. The fact that naan is commonly found in groceries around here is crazy to me. Kentucky isn’t exactly a ‘connected’ place. It’s a testament to just how far flung Indian culture has become.
I used to go to Taste of India all the time with a Bangladeshi friend. Now if only there was a specifically Bangladeshi restaurant in Lexington. I think there used to be one, but it closed down.
30 years ago I was vacationing in the backwoods of West Virginia, and came across a Hindu temple that drew pilgrims from all over the USA.
Same. The fact I can consistently buy naan in the last I'd say 5 years is a miracle of the modern world.
It's doctors and motel owners. In the South these are two common South Asian jobs outside the big cities.
@@Alex_Plante yes, but that temple was built by western Hindus rather than immigrants. Which might make it even more remarkable.
7:54 I can't believe JJ touched briefly on this phenomenon without bringing up one of the most ubiquitous and kid-loved flavors of the '90s and 2000s: *blue*
Blue is the _best_ flavor~
blue raspberry was always so stupid to me, blueberry was right there
@@albertmiller2electricbooga897 Yeah i remember going to kids camp and always getting a blue drink. I never figured out what it was supposed to be, but i loved its surgary acidic flavor
@@albertmiller2electricbooga897blueberry doesn't taste as good as raspberry as a drink
Blue raspberry actually dates back to the 50’s and was believed to be invented by the icee corporation. What makes blue raspberry especially unique is the fact that it isn’t even a real fruit! Rather it’s a combination of artificial fruit flavors which turned into its own unique flavor
I was watching a documentary about the first Woodstock and for the food, the organizers basically had these puny lookin' little burgers that you'd expect a college kid to make and I thought to myself, "this would literally be unimaginable in any North American music festival today." Not only would the festival have to be aesthetically pleasing, but the food options as well. Nowadays burgers cost like $15-20 at any given festival, but they're definitely much tastier. You'd also have bulgogi tacos, lobster mac n cheese, maybe little donuts or something. And lots of food trucks. Lots and lots of food trucks.
And it brought me down this rabbit hole thinking...if I was transported back in time, maybe to various points in the 20th century, what would my opinion be on the general "food culture" and "restaurant scene?" I'm sure I'm not the first one to say this but...I'm consistently impressed by how you make videos on topics that people have THOUGHT about, but could never quite articulate.
The fact is that food really did suck until quite recently. We eat such lavish meals today and take so many things for granted that people for most of American history - let alone human history - never had the pleasure of experiencing. So many ingredients, spices, flavors, cuisines, dishes... we all eat better than history's mightiest emperors!
But was it an award-winning documentary about Woodstock?
@@mrsanchez7 It actually was!
@@JJMcCullough That's definitely true, maybe not "objectively," but a 2024 person going back to 1974 or 1984 would probably find the food far blander and lacking the technique and expertise of today..
@@JJMcCulloughI collected old recipe books for a long time from the late 1800s to the 1970s and 90% of the food in them is just not going to taste good whatsoever compared to what we have access to now. And I don’t even mean the weird jello ham and banana salad. Most food was just seemed to be so bland and gross. Freezing molasses on a sheet of ice as a “candy treat” for example. Yuck.
My father was diagnosed with Celiacs (then referred to as 'non-tropical Sprue') in the late 1970's. Americans were not diagnosed with it as it was considered a "European' disorder. Never mind that most people in North and South America have at least a little bit of European ancestry. It was a lot more restrictive then and my father had been very ill before he was diagnosed. He ate constantly and could not maintain his weight. He developed brittle bones and other disorders because of malnutrition because of his Celiacs. Going gluten free saved his life.
Honestly you could do another video on just drinks. Energy drinks, non alcaholic cocktails and lower alcohol consumption in general, changes in coffee culture.
oohh yeah I forgot about drinks. Haha, it's funny you mention that because the ORIGINAL THOUGHT that inspired this whole video was noticing energy drinks at the store and thinking "hmm, you know, these weren't a thing 20 years ago..."
@@JJMcCullough energy drinks are my biggest noticed change at the grocery store. They have an entire aisle!
@@JJMcCullough I was expecting your mention of Thailand to segue into that, because that's where Red Bull originated.
@@JJMcCulloughI'm sure you've seen him, but there was a guy who half jokingly calls himself an energy drink sommelier BigSommEnergy. Does real reviews
I remember watching red bull commercials in the late 2000s
I would add Water too. Talking to parents has me realized just how more common bottled water has become in the past 30 years, and that people take hydration WAY more seriously than in the Great 30.
Too seriously I wonder. Some people seem obsessed with water consumption. Also I think some have gone overboard and end up overhydrating. Remember, food counts too!
Yeah my parents joke that water was not really a big deal in their time ("bottled water? what's next? bottled air?"). Around 2018 I switched to an almost all-water liquid diet, with the odd tea, juice and milk on the side and they used to tease me about drinking water as much as I did.
They have all of those dumb fancy waters now, too. I thought Liquid Death was an energy drink and that La Croix was alcoholic. I just drink water, bro.
@@Croz89 Hydrate, don't diedrate.
@@MidwestArtMan ehh I just think they're neat
When I was growing up, my mother was excited to introduce me and my sister to kiwi fruit, assuming we'd never had it before. I probably shouldn't have, but I told her that my aunt and uncle on my dad's side of the family had been serving kiwi at holiday dinners for a few years now.
Nowadays, you can find starfruit and dragonfruit and papayas and plaintains at most grocery stores.
I’m all in on the idea of a lesser 30 series! That sounds so interesting
I need all the cultural analysis videos by J.J.. All of them.
Yeah sounds really cool
It does! Though it might be good to reconsider the insistence on exactly 32 year chunks if the purpose of the system is to demonstrate distinct periods in the evolution of the country.
@@Someone-mv5rg It is common for historians to break down history into convinient chunks, even though nothing is as cut and dry as it makes history feel
“I had some food today and the label said ‘contains natural and artificial flavors’. At that point you could just say ‘contains Flavors’…….” -Demetri Martin
I love Demetri Martin! Been listening to his comedy for what feels like eons now 😅
@@rachel_sjI laugh every time I see a fractional crab to this day
As a non-north american that has been to the US back in the 90s and a couple of years ago, I can say that DEFINITELY your food got better tasting, more diverse and healthier. (talking without seeing the whole video) one thing that got exponentially better in the US is coffee.
I wasn’t alive in the 90s but like looking at the junk food and stuff has shown a lot about how are cuisine has changed
non-North American? Wouldn't it have been easier to say South American? In which case, it's not like the countries on the continents are united really (aside from the EU trying to rip off us Americans).
So many independent coffee shops now. Not just Starbucks, Dunkin', and your local convenience store
The rise of plant-based/vegan foods has been really interesting to me. I grew up a vegetarian in the 2000s before many of the major plant-based food companies were even founded (we had Boca and MorningStar Farms, but they weren’t as big either). I’ve tried most of them at this point, and they’re perfectly fine, but they’re usually too expensive for me to have that often. I still eat most of the same plant-based alternatives I had a couple decades ago like tofu, tempeh, beans, lentils, TVP, nutritional yeast, seitan, etc. The new stuff is still luxury food.
The main exceptions to this are the rise in vegan cheese options at pizza restaurants and entirely vegan restaurants. I always used to bring food with me to social events and rarely go to restaurants, but now I find myself going to a lot more because I can actually eat the food! Which is very nice
@@alexreid1173 That is a huge positive, I'm not vegan or vegetarian, but I do think it's nice that there are OPTIONS for people if need be. It doesn't hurt anyone, and hey, I prefer a good plant based dish from time to time!
Same with me. Went vegetarian in 2008 and tended to eat the same few frozen options from Morningstar, Boca, and Quorn because that was all that was available. Even finding prepared foods not aimed at vegetarians that didn't have some sort of meat component was difficult.
The funny thing is that I, a (pretty proud) omnivore, have eaten MorningStar grillers for years, not as a burger replacement per se, but simply because I enjoy them as an easy lunch. However, I wouldn’t eat something like an impossible burger, because it really holds no benefit to me.
My spouse, who was born and raised in Wisconsin mind you, has been a vegetarian for 21 years (I was also vegetarian and vegan during and a little bit after college for a year or so). He’s had a much easier time going out to restaurants and finding foods in grocery stores and co-ops in the past 10 years vs having to ask for a lot of substitutions or cooking specialty foods from scratch (it helps that Beyond Meat and Impossible burgers and other goods are more common now).
One other bonus is that his dad doesn’t joke around about not eating meat as much as he used to, being a Midwestern dad and all 😂
MorningStar Farms buffalo wings are so good.
Not sure if this counts as food culture necessarily but I feel like caffeine has been greatly expanded and more widely used in the lesser 30s. Until the early 90s caffeine was almost exclusively consumed as just black coffee used from a cheap machine at home or at work. But the Lesser 30 era has seen the rise of energy drinks spearheaded by Red Bull which gained prominence in the 90s, canned tea headed by Arizona Tea, and even canned coffee available at thousands of stores. The Lesser 30 era also saw the growth of the chain Starbucks which was really the first nationwide coffee chain. And even for at-home coffee use, there is now the luxury expresso machine maker Jura for the bourgeoisie upper middle class. This is probably perfectly encapsulated by the fact that Dunkin Donuts the chain that is by far most associated with that food dropped the "Donuts" part in 2019 to emphasize more on caffeinated beverages.
Caffeine is everywhere every kid drinks it everyone drinks it you can’t escape it!
Caffeine is a good one, as the explosion of energy drinks is crazy. There's an entire aisle for them now.
@@devenscience8894you can find suck a variety of them
Very true. It’s easy to forget how new energy drinks are. Red Bull only launched in 1987 and most other big brands date to the 2000’s.
I remember in the '90s that virtually every major soda brand had a caffeine-free version which all now seem virtually defunct.
wow this is the earliest i've ever made it to a new, award winning J.J. McCullough video
Allow us to present you with the JJ Early bird award!
Wow! Now it's an award winning comment on an award winning video!
*not award-winning
*for legal reasons
Same here
18:00 If you go back far enough, _all_ national cuisines are "fusion" cuisines.
It's true. Not even THAT far back. Pizza is a fusion cuisine since it involves fruits from the new world.
There are funnily enough a lot of people in China that think the chili 🌶 pepper originated from that nation
@@killercaos123 An excellent example! The chili pepper is an essential part of many Asian cuisines, and yet it is from Central America. The Columbian Exchange revolutionized food all around the world.
Ramen is actually a fusion dish which came from china and was given a Japanese spin
Which is ironic because we Americans have this idea that ramen is such a pure and stereotype Al Japanese thing
@@DavidGonzalez-jd8nlwell that can be said for a lot of Japanese (and Korean) culture
A topic I would love to see you cover is entertainment, specifically movies and TV, and how the structure of films, lengths, subject manner, and audience tastes were in the earlier era compared to now and technologies relating to them. You could talk about things like the development of different technologies like CDs or streaming changed how we watch things or how they are made, or how studios have become much more cautious with what they greenlight and are more willing to rely on big budget films, particularly from established franchises. I think that last point in particular would work quite well with the "great 30" and "lesser 30" theme considering most of these established franchises our current era is known for now were first conceived of during the "great 30" era.
The rise of streaming services is an especially interesting topic insofar as how it affected Hollywood. In a nutshell, streaming services have killed the mid-budget movie. The business model for those movies was that the theatrical run was just a self-financing marketing campaign while the sale of physical media for home use (VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.) was where the movie became profitable. But now that streaming has replaced physical media and that home release revenue is gone, movies have to have a profitable theatrical run to be financially viable for a studio. That's why the only movies that get greenlit now are either independent films made for five bucks and a dream or are tentpole projects based on an existing IP with a budget equivalent to the GDP of a small country.
I think one of the big topics of the lesser 30 that has to have a video would be the advent of the internet, and how it has impacted culture and developed it's own culture. I'd sat that if anything, that would be the most unique thing about the lesser 30, even if it wasn't necessarily imvented then, it didn't become common until the mid-90s and it's now a necessity to even function reasonably in our time
The massive spike in popularity of sparkling water as a healthy alternative to sodas is I think a big thing that should've been touched on. Sodastream was pretty revolutionary in the beverage game
Maybe I will discuss it in a video just about drinks.
I can attest to this. My mother has been on a health craze recently and has replaced soda with sparling water, I think it is the La Coix stuff or whatever. I can agree that sparkling water has become more popular in that back when I was a kid in the 2000s and a teen in the early 2010s sparkling water was seen as this nasty thing for weird people.
Idk man this hot dog I got 30 years ago only became a brown mush
Award winning minecraft youtuber Stoneworks?
@@racsoleerf124 I hereby grant this JJ McCullough video today's MOST AMAZING VIDEO AWARD!!!!!!!!
Yeah this piece of candy I got 30 years ago has mold all over it. Weird.
This McDonald's hamburger I got 30 years ago looks just fine. Bread is slightly more stale, but that's it.
dude i remember i putted a biscuit in my school bag when i was three and after 2000 years i grabbed the biscuit back and it still taste good so
I embrace J.J.'s silver fox Jim Morrison era. ☺
If Morrison had lived to be 40, he might have looked like a fat drugged out JJ.
Specifically the last 10-15 years the amount of zero sugar soft drinks I feel like has been a big change from the past
Yeah I’ve seen Olipops and izze’s everywhere drinking some right now!
In the US, it's easier to find soda with artificial sugar than real sugar.
Have you noticed pretty much every new energy drink that comes out is sugar free? I really only ever drink Red Bull, when I rarely have an energy drink, because I cannot stand the taste of sucralose and other sugar substitutes.
At the same time, I remember in the '90s that virtually every major brand had a caffeine-free version which all now seem virtually defunct.
@@joelsmith3473 Yeah i feel like sugar free isn't the best example. its been around for decades, 70s i think. i'd say non-gmo and no artificial flavors is a better example
There has been one big revolution you missed in how we obtain food: the internet.
We used to buy cookbooks, now you can find any recipe for any cuisine for free. You can buy groceries online, and if that isn’t enough variety and you can import ingredients to your home from overseas. Food delivery used to be for Italian and Chinese, now it’s nearly every local restaurant. When you’re travelling overseas, you can research all the highest rated restaurants and dishes easily.
An interesting thing is the number of Thai restaurants vs the number of Filipino restaurants. Offhand, there are a lot more Filipinos in the US than Thais, and Filipino food is less aggressively spicy than Thai. But Thai food is vastly more popular.
One of the possible factors to this is that the thai government tends to promote thai restaurants worldwide in order to promote their culture/country to the international community
Even Jollibee is trying to enter the US market.
@@JonCrs10jollibees need to expand to Minneapolis/saint Paul because a lot of people whould love it there
Most Americans wouldn't know the difference between lumpia and a crispy spring roll. You can ask for thai spicy, but most places make it super mild. My favorite "Thai" place is actually Laotian. I always get the sausage with sticky rice. My kids get the pad thai because it is noodles with a sweet sauce.
@@maverick114e9by promote, do you mean actually financially subsidizing? Or do you mean just encouraging their ex pats to open them?
I've seen farm shares growing in popularity here in the Midwest. They're basically subscriptions to the produce from a nearby farm where you pay a lump sum at the beginning of a season and you get a sort of percentage share of the farm's total output for the season. Many of the farms near me that participate have as many as 30-40 dropoff locations around the city where the share participants can pick up their weekly share.
This sounds great ! Don’t think we have this in the U.K. but I’m sure it could get very popular !
I live in Indiana and get my beef and dairy this way. Im not a good cook but i havent made a bad meal yet. It being expensive also incentivizes you to cook more - no steak is as good as the grassfed beef raised 15 min away...
This video is great, but I’m still waiting for “How has JJ’s hair changed in the last 30 years?”
I feel like George Bush in that episode of the Simpsons. "Any questions not about my hair?"
@@JJMcCullough Ok but, unironically, we'd watch that video. Maybe you could frame it as an evolution or history of hairstyles? Just a thought.😉
this is the first video of yours i’ve ever seen. i think i’m in love with your mind. genuinely admire you
The last 3 minutes of your video was so fun to watch.
I feel so spoiled but also grateful that we’re living in an era where foods of all different kinds of ethnicities are available to us in restaurants or grocery stores.
Where else can I get Moroccan food for lunch and Burmese food for dinner?
I guess just a quick comment about the various eras of presidents that you showed near the start, I found it interesting that you use "Early" and "Late Victorian" as a term. I guess from an american-centric view, I would not think to use Queen Victoria for the US (despite the influence that she and her country had on the globe), and would instead use Antebellum and Reconstruction/Gilded Age for those two eras, despite the misalignment of the presidencies and those pre-defined eras. But I do love how you've come up with this concept of the three-decade eras of America.
I love your videos and hope to see more in the future. Take care! :)
I find Americans use "Victorian" a lot as a cultural adjective. People wouldn't say a "Gilded Age" dress or a "Gilded Age" attitude towards sex.
He's Canadian!😅
Victorian just sounds too good not to use, I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of people used the term without realising it refers to Queen Victoria.
But Victorian England was very culturally influential on the US, and the Gilded Age and Antebellum don't refer to cultural things, but economic.
@@TheOtherMwalimu Even Americans call it the Victorian Era.
You are so close to hitting one million! Congrats JJ. its nice to see you take off you deserve it. Don't forget about your pals back in Vancouver when you are a big and famous celebrity! Give us a little shout out once in a while lol ;)
Sincerely,
Fellow Vancouverite who hasn't found better Canadian made content since trailer park boys or corner gas.
I feel like every JJ video is just talking about a book he just read. And I'm here for it, I'm learning every time.
J.J.'s collection of increasingly specific history books is really funny to me. I'll never get over him citing a book entirely about the history of potato chip flavorings.
@@amelialonelyfart8848 JJ is an advocate for reading, which i appreciate, his videos are interesting because he isn't just looking up wiki info online to make a video
He’s one of the few TH-camrs who actually goes to the library and cites his real sources. Too many on here just regurgitate an online article
J.J. you're lookin like Luther from the Warriors and I'm here for it
YES thank you haha, I knew I wasn't the only one seeing it. The 80s hair J.J. is my favourite J.J. yet.
He looks like Brian May to me
I grew up being raised in all the food health fads. It was always fascinating to me how my boomer relatives were largely unhealthy in terms of having no aversion to the hyperprocessed overengineered foods whilst my gen X parents were gluten-free, vegan, organic, no preservatives. Both generations of my family are basically just products of their respective 30s.
I've flipped through my grandparents' old cook books from the 60s and 70s, and it made me grateful that our cuisine has moved beyond sweaty cubed ham suspended in miracle whip-infused jello molds....that's a real recipe, folks.
I'd still destroy a plate of deviled eggs, though.
No nostalgia for the Spam and asparagus aspic, huh?
I'll help you finish off the second plate before anyone else arrives.
This is perhaps a tie-in with the rise in ethnic food, but spicy food, both in prevalence and intensity, has seen a big increase in the last 30 years. This has led to a radiation in spicy flavors of snacks and sauces, spicy novelty foods such as the various "One ______" challenges, and the explosion in popularity of the Hot Ones talk show.
I love spicy food, but it's gotten out of control. Flaming Hot Cheetos are WOUNDERFUL. But now all chips have a flaming hot version. No idea who asked for flaming hot ruffles!
This extends to fast food as well. Seems every chain restaurant has some kind of spicy chicken variant.
I really wonder what factor has kicked off the hot/spicy trend here in the USA? Is it ethnic food or the fact Americans are tired of the bland/sugary foods and want something hot for a change?
@@quinnjohnson9750It's a combination of immigration from countries with spicier cuisines and performative masculinity.
I LOVE JJ, HE TEACHES ME SO MUCH
One of the trends in the later half of the "lesser 30" is the rise of meal kits and meal services. I don't know how many people use services like HelloFresh, Blue Apron, Factor, etc., but the very concept of such services would have been unimaginable when I was growing up in the 80s.
I feel like JJ underemphasizes the impact of the internet on the last 30 years, when he describes them as the 'lesser 30'. While it might me more gradual and subtle than any big changes from the 50s to 80s, I feel like it intensified a lot of aspects of how we experience culture overall.
I would agree it's made things more intense and efficient, but it's not comparable to the revolution of say, television.
@@JJMcCullough Or indoor plumbing, refrigeration, etc. If I had to give up internet or my toilet, I know which one I'm keeping.
@@JJMcCullough Was television a bigger revolution than radio, even?
@@ProfesserLuigi yes
@@JJMcCulloughI personally wouldn’t hesitate to call it revolutionary on a level on-par with or exceeding television. The last years of the ‘00s and the mass adoption of smartphones + social media in particular I believe are going to be seen as a seismic shift.
I think one of the biggest trends in Food that I’m seeing as a chef is a complete global decentralization of recipes. If a recipe looks good in France chefs all over the world will try and make it to see if it’s good. as a chef when I see something online, I make it for the staff meal at my hotel to see if it’s actually good and sometimes with a little bit of work, we actually start adding those items to the menu.
That's true even on the amateur level, one of the conveniences of the internet age. I see taiyaki in a show, order a specialized pan and have it delivered the next day. I see brigadeiros in a video game, having never heard of them before, and instantly found a recipe.
I think a big change in attitudes towards food came with Anthony Bourdain. He spearheaded eating real, authentic food from different cultures that didn't water itself down or pander to American taste buds, and his ideas have largely been adopted by middle class foodies/America in general. It's notable that a lot of ethnic cuisines- notably Chinese and Mexican food- were "Americanized" to be more palatable to American tastes, which created a whole new cuisine but also didn't expose American taste buds to the real deal. It's notable now how Americans are much more hungry for authentic ethnic food and that gives a market to ethnic cuisines from all around the world, not just the canon from 30 years ago.
Modern Mexican cuisine is still muddy in regards to authenticity because even if you eschew the Bell in favor of a taco truck a lot of what they're selling is still going to be Hispanic food from the American Southwest. It comes from a distinct, but no less authentic, Mexican-descended subculture.
RIP Anthony Bourdain
18:47 This is an inspired American food culture fusion. Maybe we can get something like this as a tie in when Shrek 5 comes out?
Only been up for an hour and already award winning!! Congratulations!!!
American Girl added two dolls to their “Historical” Line. Their story is set in 1999.
If the toy lines can call it history then it’s not “too soon” to talk about it
In Germany a car that is older than 25 years can get a special license plate whith a extra H (for historisch, historic in english) and less tax.
Its a crazy thing when a car model that you consider ‚normal‘ is suddenly part of history.
So older than 25 years is part of history
The target demographic of American Girl dolls was born in the mid-2010s, so it’s even more distant to them
@@sonkeschluter3654 A TH-camr did a video essay on the "historical event" of the Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown.
I remember when it was current events.
The internet was not a subtle economic change. It was possibly the single biggest economic change in the last 60 years.
7:59 I love the boldness of brands like Mountain Dew and Coca Cola that brand their artificial flavors with more abstract concepts like Purple Thunder and Dream Land. Artificial flavors are typically only named after they're invented (why artificial strawberry only bears a passing resemblance to the real thing) so on one level naming a different artificial flavor Dream Land isn't any less arbitrary
Kind of like how Mountain Dew Black was introduced as grape flavored, but when last brought back it said citrus flavored. Or how Mango MD is now a KFC exclusive flavor called MD Sweet Lightning
I had a Liberty flavored Mountain Dew recently. Tasted like melted blue Slushie, which I guess is appropriate enough for the US summer.
As a cook for 15 years even in the last 15 years it has changed so much. Food used to be just that not many cared too much about authenticity, gluten free (of course we had people who were celiac just not people who are wanting gluten free options because they think it's healthy), the virality of food (some fast food stuff of course did this but that was pretty much it). Now everything has to be either 100% authentic no matter what, gluten free because why not and extremely eye catching food even if they taste like crap if it looks cool people will eat it. It's a double edged sword because I do understand the want for all those but people take it to the absolute extreme to the point where you do one thing slightly different you can piss off so many people in each of those wants.
JJ comin through with another award winning banger
You made me do a double take on my snack that I am currently eating and drinking. Peach Mango sports drink with popcorn. While popcorn was my go to snack in the 90s, I don't remember peach mango anything during that time.
Great video! I’ve often thought about how food in America has become more accommodating over the last 30 years and how people now have higher expectations. I think the only thing I would add is that in addition to more diverse ethnic food choices in the Lesser 30, we’ve doubled down on our expectations on cuisines from the Greater 30. We now seek out fresh pasta, handmade tortillas, XLB instead of wonton soup, and different regional styles of pizza. We now order California rolls only to round out a sushi platter.
Food Trend: Food boxes delivered to houses to prepare yourself, in the last ten years.
PLEASE make more lesser 30 videos. This video was so interesting, if it doesn't get the views you want then don't push yourself but as a person you are so articulate and I'd like to see these themes in other projects you do. Definitely one of the best videos I've seen in a while.
The thing I am most surprised in this video was that the number of Vegans/vegetarians haven’t changed much in the last 30 years. I thought they were now 10% of the population like my younger sister.
Also I prefer the “20th century 30” and “The Millennium 30” to the greater and lesser 30 as not create an opinion of superiority in one of them.
I agree. JJ is understating the radical shifts of the past thirty years, and showing a clip of Steve Jobs' unveiling of the iphone when saying that this era has more "subtle shifts" almost made me laugh.
The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we live and even view ours lives, and that is just the one, big example.
I wouldn't be surprised if social media has made vegans and vegetarians more visible. Before it might have been something you kept to yourself and like minded peers, but now it's something you seem to tell everyone (and some who won't shut up about it).
@@knightshade2654 I think that’s still underestimating how dramatically life changed from 1960-1990’s. In 1960, 1/6 of American homes didn’t have plumbing. The Beatles were considered radical and dangerous. Microwaves hadn’t been invented yet, only 4% of households owned a dishwasher, the civil rights act was still a decade away, and women still couldn’t still needed a man’s approval to get a credit card. I think the last 30 years have seen crazy changes to society as well, but I don’t think they were equally radical departures.
@@Croz89 It's made a lot of groups seem more visible than they actually are. To this day the autistic population is about 2%, the trans population is about 1%, and the approval rating for communism is about 4%.
i personally think vegans now have a worse reputation in the 2000s it was new and trendy .
Great video, I would hence like to award it 'Best video about American food culture from a Candian perspective published on a Monday'.
Great video! Just keep em coming, I literally watch every single one! Maybe music or trends in literature could be a new topic?
This was a really amazing video JJ!
i take the lesser 30 more as like, an adjustment period for a lot of the big changes from the last 30 years. Like, taking a second to go over them as a society and tweak them to make them more stable and sustainable. Making a food analogy, it's like the 60s-90s was when we went to the grocery store and just impulse bought a bunch of stuff and the 90's 2010's is us trying to make room in our pantry/refrigerator next to the opened cereal boxes and tins of old beans.
Dude , this video is totally worthy of winning an award
Watched this on Nebula but miss the comments section of YT. Keep up the good work, JJ.
I've always loved your hair whether it was short or this crazy long. Great vid presentation once again sweetie🤟👏
I agree with that last bit for sure, we make indian food at home a lot because the ingredients are easy to come by and its easy to make, but i couldnt imagine trying to make indian food as a lower class household in missouri 50 years ago lol
One subset of novelty food that has gotten more attention lately is Instagrammable food, that is, visually distinctive treats suitable for showing off on social media. The US has seen plenty of examples of foods created for visual impact, such as the wedding cake, the banana split, and giant vegetables grown to win prizes at state and county fairs. Even eating as a form of content creation has precedents, such as the pie-eating contests that have also been a staple of fairs and similar events. The biggest difference, aside from the advances in physics, chemistry, and biology that have made possible an ever greater variety of fantastical foodstuffs, is the rise of a class of professionals who have made food reaction videos a major part of their portfolios.
Oh, wow. 1992 was the year before I was born. I'm surprised nutrition labels are that new. I always assumed that they had been around for decades before then.
I loved this video and I agree with all the points to be honest! I live in the U.K., and the same trends apply here, though higher % of people are now vegetarian or vegan. Some aim to cut down on meat, whilst not eradicating it completely from their diets.
Hope you’ll do more videos on the “lesser 30” era! 😊
what about home delivery through apps? I feel like it escalated so much in recent years... now there are times I go to my favourite (non-pizza) restaurant and it has more deliverymen than diners/takaway takers.
Many office workers get quotas for delivery apps and therefore order lunch through them regularly.
Yeah it used to be non existent but now we got grubhub,DoorDash,now even Uber has a food delivery app
Yes in the great 30 you could only get pizza and Chinese food delivered. Now every restaurant is forced to deliver to stay competitive
@@Maria_745
That's not just a result of the last thirty, but the last ten or even five. Any restaurant that didn't have online ordering in 2020 quickly installed it. Some of them, like where I worked, did so without allotting a staging location for online orders or additional staff/training.
I think that spiciness has also become a distinctive feature. The invention of Takis, or the TH-cam show Hot Ones, are good examples. Mexican Birria, along with other dishes that were less popular than tacos and avocados, have become more common in America too.
i lowkey want jj to make videos when he's like 80 idk why
I’ve only spent a year of my life in Canada but for some odd reason seeing the PC packages in the B roll from the grocery store made me miss it. Gotta get back to Canada sometime soon.
Still not convinced by the whole "greater/lesser 30" thing. We still don't have a ton of perspective on what the legacies of the "lesser" era will be.
I can give a funny anecdote around the point of fusing foods from diverse ethnic backgrounds. In my home town, a family opened a Japanese restaurant. The problem, however, is that when it started to take off, they did not have enough workers and so they hired members of our Mexican community. It only took a few months for them to add the standard Americanized Mexican foods to the menu. So, now, we have a place called Wasabi that serves great Mexican, wonderful Japanese, and amazing sushi, but has still kept them distinct.
I love how they play it up too. The dining room has Dia de los Muertos decorations mixed with traditional Japanese tapestries. It has become a staple of the little town.
Haven’t watched yet so I’m curious to see if one of your topics was the increased level of spicy food available within the U.S., as well as increasing Korean influence
Oh my! I'm absolutely in love with your current Jim Morrison hair style!!! I don't have a clue about what you're saying, though... I'm too distracted just looking as it waves along.😊
Where are the quirky desserts? Where is the croffle? The cronut? The extreme milkshakes?
nobody is really eating that stuff you live in a bubble
Those are the kind of foods that get a lot of social media attention but they're not something you see in most restaurants much less groceries. What I have seen a rise in is regular donuts with novel toppings and an increase in East Asian deserts via boba tea shops. There's a lot of mochi and ube going around desert shops here.
I brought an expanded taste for Korean food back from Peace Corps service in Korea in the early 70s. I already had some experience with Americanized [i.e. FAR less spicy🌶] Korean BBQ chicken taught by a Korean war bride to my best friend's family. I returned overseas as a teacher and brought back a taste for Japanese, Persian, European, Turkish and Arab Middle Eastern Cuisine. Many of our military personnel have continued to bring back a taste for better beer and wine, exotic food and wives. As the Romans probably observed and the French would say, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!" Thanks for another marvelous video JJ!
Two big things I would add are the impact of the internet and the impact of logistics/mechanization over the same period. I think this has led to something like a bifurcation of the restaurant business. One group of restaurants is trying to operate on razor thin margins catering to very price conscious consumers; they are all either dying out or blending together because they're all buying the same ingredients and selling the same products. Another group of restaurants is trying to cash in on their reputation using social media. Everybody in the middle is getting pushed into the decision, will they sell out and reheat sysco products, or will they shoot their shot at social media fame?
JJ McCullough goated fr
Fr fr no cap
Every time I watch one of your videos I forget that you sit on an exercise ball and it makes me laugh watching you bounce up and down
i’m wondering if nostalgia of past brands (e.g., the resurrection of twinkies and the proliferation of classic breakfast cereals) is also a dominant theme
"In the year 4545
You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you"
also important to note the growing importance of food related media. cooking shows have been around for awhile on cable television, but now its not just a few celebrity chefs, but thousands of food influencers, almost none of them classically trained. people are learning how to cook from youtube vidoes instead of their parents or any institution, some of which are high quality and informative, but many of which arent. its made the restaurant scene even more competitive and varied; it's boosted the prestige and knowledge of ethnic cuisine especially; but it's also made the restaurant industry and peoples personal tastes more susceptible to fickle trends. ive seen a lot of questionable things go viral, but also some very interesting things
@@Ponygorl I still don't know what the hell Pink Sauce was. The pink sauce I know of is Russian dressing, which is ketchup, mayonnaise, and relish.
lookin like a rock star
I know it's not the focus of his videos, but I love that JJ has such a good ear for what nostalgic little video game sounds would make something pop when it comes up on screen. I love even more that he doesn't just use all the same big name ones; this man used the fucking "lost a life" jingle from _Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers_ on the NES, a certified banger to be sure but I have never heard anyone use those sounds in a video. AND THEY SHOULD
How you can say the last 30 years had more subtle changes than the preceding 30 is beyond me.1993-2025 were immense/enormous cultural changes. Probably the most ever in human history. The ubiquity of the internet, for starters, but ubiquitous cell phone coverage even moreso. Many countries who didn't have the infrastructure for landlines hopscotched over that completely and erected cell towers to propel their populations into the 21st century from nothing before it.
Well, the present video is mostly focussing on North America, so the rest of the world flies under the radar somewhat.
It's about America. And the internet is overrated.
excellent analysis, the changing food scene is quite fascinating to reflect upon
Bro did Obama atrocious at 0:10
Look at Jimmy Carter's lips! 😂😂😭 I can't stop laughing
One of the reasons peanut allergies have risen is, counterintuitively, because we have withheld peanuts from babies. I saw a fascinating report on it recently that shows that babies with eczema are still exposed to peanuts, but through the skin (from people holding / kissing them) rather than through food, and the immune system freaks out about it and develops an allergy. The recommendation these days is to allow small doses of allergens in foods to babies.
The hair has almost overcome JJ'S entire face.
I love what's happening with your hair. Best hair style yet!
Is that jj or a very cutlraly aware poodle
12:45 there’s actually quite a bit of evidence that this is a consequence of city and urban living. Even when you control for these variables, studies have consistently demonstrated that children raised in rural areas are less prone not only to allergies, but to all sorts of autoimmune disorders. Nobody’s really sure why this is the case, exactly. Most seem to think it has to do with the bacteria and other microbes that live inside versus outside, but which ones are the cause is unclear.
They've been feeding us nothing… but… v… Vitamin C. I need a… dunk… dunkaroo…
Dunkaroo time
I feel like every time I watch a video of yours your hairstyle is significantly different.
I respect that. I'm way too conservative with my hairstyles.
I get super bored when my hair doesn't change.
14:10 JJ wtf is a Vaygan. It’s pronounced veegan
A vaygan is a vegan from central Canada or upper Midwestern USA
That old Gushers commercial in the outro retriggered a formative childhood memory for me.
Cant talk about food in the lesser 30 without discussing the costco guys, everyone loves the rizzler!
The Costco guys love em or hate everyone agrees that their Costco guys
@NolanTHEfoodie "Awh yeah, thats a boom, baby!"
@@TheRedBaron1917oh yeah this chockie chip cookie yum
Great video, Jim Morrison.
2025-2057: livin in pods and eatin bugs
Yes PLEASE!
Bugs more like cell grown meats from a vat please pass me the rhinoceros steaks
@@southcoastinventors6583Hell, pass the human steaks made from the host's cells
@@hailexiao2770 It will be done but the meat will be too salty and bitter to be edible.
I really really hope to see videos on the other 6 eras of American presidents/rulers!
Burton Cummings look is coming back strong these days. Looks good. Excellent analysis of the North American food journey post civil rights.
Can you try a less dated reference??
@@JJMcCullough There's an American woman. ;)
I think there will be an emphasis on growing and learning to cultivate home garden crops. The want for true food will evolve to change front lawns into food growing ventures.
I feel like a lot of the 'struggling vegan companies' narrative comes down to initial market oversaturation. Something like that was the case with early video games in the 1990s. Lots of small companies making a few questionable products that would nonetheless sell somewhat decently. Then a crush followed and Boomer media was happy to proclaim that video games were a fluke and human are over them. Didn't quite pen out like that. Consolidation of the market and economies of scale will make vegan mock products as or more affordable than non-vegan versions, despite a slue of state programmes pouring billions into animal agriculture to keep prices down, in the next decade or so.
Where I lived in Lincoln, NE, the local gas station was run by an Indian immigrant family that built their house above the convenience store and lived upstairs. Rather than typical gas station fare of hot dogs, pizza, and taquitos, during mealtimes you could get fresh naan, rice, and the entree of the day, plus samosas and soup available all day-smack dab in the middle of the American Midwest. Not only that, but the food seemed quite popular with the (mostly Hispanic) construction workers who would stop by around lunchtime.
You're the only other person besides my mother who pronounces "vegan" like you do except for my mother. She's in her early 70s and I'm in my early 50s, so I don't know if it's a personal thing or not. I always assumed she was so unfamiliar with the concept and had never heard anyone else say it. This is not a critique, just an observation.
Had a college prof who said it like this. Not sure where he was from but he was old as dirt.
I know a couple people who pronounce it that way. Both middle aged. I'm curious as to why.