Seth Hurwitz Celebrates 9:30 Club's 45th Anniversary With:
- Limited Edition Re-Issue and Expansion of its Long Sold-Out Coffee Table Book 9:30 - A Time and a Place
- Debut of a New Instagram Account Spotlighting I.M.P.'s Concert Photography Archives, @ItsMyPhotoDC
- 15th Pollstar Nightclub of the Year Award
WASHINGTON, May 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Since first opening its doors 45 years ago on May 30, 1980, the 9:30 Club has hosted more than 11,000 artists and nearly 8 million fans. That's a lot of music, and a lot of memories. That's more than 11,000 nights of irreplicable experiences; unique performances and interactions that each strike like lightning. And while you can't bottle lightning, you can photograph it.
Jim Saah has been doing just that for almost as long as the 9:30 Club has been open, capturing his first show at the original 9:30 Club on October 17th, 1982. When people picture the original 9:30 Club, with all of its grit and grime and myth and music, one name is synonymous with those images, and that's Jim.
"After sundown, '80s D.C. belonged to the punks and outsiders," said Saah. "The music and community were intoxicating, and the 9:30 Club was home base for it all. I must've photographed hundreds of shows there. I love experiencing the music while making visual art from it. I was more tuned into the whole scene through documenting it. It made me feel alive."
Jim hasn't stopped shooting since, so when The Atlantis, a near replica of the original 9:30 Club and a living, breathing tribute to the spirit and shape of his old stomping grounds was announced, he knew he had to see it. When he learned about The Atlantis' historic inaugural 44-show run of massive underplays kicked off by Foo Fighters on May 30, 2023, he knew he had to capture it.
"Sometimes you see these exhibits with photos of music legends and can't imagine how someone so talented happened to capture all that," said Seth Hurwitz, chairman of I.M.P. and owner of the 9:30 Club. "Well, we have our very own version of that here in DC. Jim Saah is an amazing talent that has chronicled music here for decades…and is still doing it! The same guy that took pictures of these bands the first time around is the one that took them here, for their return."
44x44x44 - A NEW BACKSTAGE PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION AT THE ATLANTIS
A sampling of Jim's legendary work from back in the day lines The Atlantis' backstage hallway that leads to the stage, while a newly unveiled exhibit in the backstage stairwell, 44x44x44, distills that grand opening series into a single shot per show. This exhibit honors those 44 years of 9:30 Club history through 44 incredible photographs.
"Witnessing those first shows at The Atlantis, from the intimacy of an acoustic set to the raucousness of a rock gig, showed that this 'new' club shines through it all," said Saah. "It's incredible to see the spirit of the old 9:30 alive and well here."
Jim captured every one of those 44 shows, except three. Ben Eisendrath, D.C. photojournalist and one of I.M.P. 's house photographers, filled in for those.
Now, for a limited time, The Atlantis invites fans to go behind-the-scenes for a rare peek backstage with two public viewings of the 44x44x44 exhibit on June 26th and July 13th featuring an exclusive look at The Atlantis' dressing rooms, access to limited-edition 45th anniversary merchandise, and the chance to enjoy a drink while being transported back to 9th & F St. NW circa 1980 via The Atlantis' historic rooftop re-creation. Space is limited, and first-come, first-served RSVPs are available here.
Can't wait that long? Sign up here for I.M.P.'s free loyalty program, Friends with Benefits, for an exclusive opportunity to RSVP for a special showing on June 18th. Plus, Friends with Benefits members receive free shipping for online merch orders, access to exclusive pre-sales, loyalty points that can be exchanged for tickets, venue merch, and refreshments, and a free 9:30 Cupcake for their birthday. For more information, visit https://www.930.com/friends-with-benefits/.
THE 9:30 CLUB BOOK REISSUED AND EXPANDED
In celebration of the 9:30 Club's 45th Anniversary, the long sold-out coffee table book 9:30 – A Time and a Place will be available for purchase once again. This limited edition expanded reissue features more than 100 new pages, capturing the full-circle creation of The Atlantis along with exclusive photos and artist messages from its grand opening series of 44 shows. The updated edition also includes a complete chronological listing of every show ever played at the 9:30 Club — from the original F St. location to its current home at 815 V St. — something fans have been requesting since the release of the first edition. A heartfelt memorial page honors the late Shawn "Gus" Vitale, the 9:30 Club's beloved lead sound engineer, with a tribute written by Ian MacKaye of Fugazi and Dischord Records.
Fans can head here to pre-order their copy today, browse special new vintage 9:30 Club 45th anniversary merch here, as well as in-person at The Atlantis' public exhibition viewings on June 26th and July 13th. Space is limited, and first-come-first-served RSVPs are available here.
NEW 'IT'S MY PHOTOGRAPHY' INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT (@ItsMyPhotoDC)
Over the years, I.M.P. has collaborated with a team of more than 200 concert photographers like Jim and Ben to amass an archive of more than 4,000 photo albums across its five venues; 9:30 Club, The Anthem, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Lincoln Theatre, and The Atlantis. That's a lot of lightning, and it's time to uncork the bottle.
Beginning today, fans are invited to follow I.M.P.'s latest project, It's My Photography, on Instagram at @ItsMyPhotoDC. It's My Photography is dedicated to cracking open the vault while inviting the audience to look beyond the barricade, seeking not just to share these snapshots of music memories but to platform the photographers who took them and pull back the curtain to provide a new perspective for fans who've always wondered what confluence of experiences and decisions led to capturing that shot.
Media Contact:Audrey Fix Schaeferaudrey@930.com240-876-1588
About the 9:30 Club
Located at 9th and V Streets, NW, in Washington, D.C.'s historic U Street neighborhood, the 9:30 Club has been the inimitable place bands aspire to play and music fans love to attend since 1980. It's the most attended club of its size in the world, serving D.C.'s vibrant local audiences while also drawing in patrons from across the globe. Gracing the stage have been legends like Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, Al Green, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, Chuck Berry, and James Brown; rising stars like Turnstile, Sabrina Carpenter, Billy Strings, Charli XCX, and Thundercat; and arena acts like Adele, Foo Fighters, CHVRCHES, The Weeknd, Stromae, The Smashing Pumpkins, Billie Eilish, Green Day, Kendrick Lamar, and Radiohead. The 9:30 Club has won multiple Top Club awards from Billboard, Rolling Stone and Pollstar.
About The Atlantis
Before the original 9:30 Club opened its doors, 930 F St. NW, was briefly home to another venue: The Atlantis. Now, The Atlantis is back. Located at 2047 9th St. NW next to the 9:30 Club, the new $10 million, 450-capacity venue is a near replica of the original 9:30 Club, with Foo Fighters christening the room on May 30, 2023. The Atlantis is "Where Music Begins," giving both established and burgeoning artists from Courtney Barnett, Jukebox the Ghost, and Yola to Knox, Flyana Boss, and The Last Dinner Party a new, intimate home to connect with fans. By partnering with r.Cup from the beginning, The Atlantis is the first venue to utilize fully reusable plastic cups for all beverages from day one, saving tons of single-use plastics from the landfill.
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He then posted the pictures onto his site with a giggly couple of paragraphs about the sins of whichever celebrity this was, and waited for the clicks to come in. And the clicks came. In 2008, the Miami New Times reported that Hilton's blog was one of the 10 most popular entertainment news sites online, attracting 2.6 million unique visitors and hawking ad packages for up to $45,000. When we gossip about famous people, we're usually trying to set the norms for how the rest of us should behave: be beautiful and kind by following the rules like this beloved star, but don't be annoying or trashy by breaking the rules like that one. In the 2000s, as gossip blogs and tabloids alike aimed to outdo each other with their gleefully nasty coverage, it seemed to be hard for anyone — least of all women, whether normie or celebrity — to exist without breaking some rule or other. Hilton went after Jennifer Aniston for being boring with just as much glee as he went after Lindsay Lohan for being messy. For the rest of us, also pointing and laughing along, celebrities became cautionary tales. We knew it wasn't safe for us to put a foot out of line in any direction — because look what happened if you did. —Constance Grady, senior correspondent Facebook Wall The first posts on my Facebook Wall, circa 2005, are some of the most embarrassing content I've ever produced online. They're remarkably sincere, positive, and clearly excited about this new thing called Facebook. But looking back at those snapshots in internet time — you can still see them if you know where to look — it's refreshing to remember how social media once fulfilled its promise to connect us. The Facebook Wall was an encapsulation of the internet culture of the time, which was, for lack of a better term, naive. The ability to put things online without knowing how to code was novel, and young people marveled at how the world was shrinking. Viral links on people's Facebook walls were goofy, not yet political or divisive. In case you've forgotten, the Facebook Wall was one of the first features of the website that Mark Zuckerberg launched from his Harvard dorm room in 2004. Kind of like a digital version of the whiteboards college students hung on their doors, the Wall provided an empty text box where your friends could leave you messages, post a link, paste some ASCII art, or ask you out on a date. But it quickly became much more than that. The Facebook Wall eventually evolved into News Feed, a constantly updated, scrollable list of your friends' activity across Facebook — one of the earliest examples of an algorithmically sorted feed that's infinitely long and, many would argue, the source of brain rot. But before all that, there was the simplicity of the Facebook Wall. If I had known what it would become, I might've paid closer attention to it. Instead, I was busy telling my crushes they got 'hit by the beautiful truck' with a jumbled but discernible collection of @ signs and underscores. How could I have known that posting like this would one day lead to the downfall of American democracy? It was so nice. —Adam Clark Estes, senior correspondent RuPaul's Drag Race While the 'point' of RuPaul's Drag Race is to crown a winner — the best drag queen in the competition — its cultural impact is exponentially more than a coronation. There is no show that has done more to mainstream LGBTQ culture and destigmatize queer lives than Drag Race. Before there were political meltdowns about drag story hour (or even legalized marriage for same-sex couples nationwide), there were people of all ages, genders, and sexualities watching and enjoying RuPaul Charles and his queens. There is no show that has done more to mainstream LGBTQ culture and destigmatize queer lives than Drag Race. Since premiering in 2009, season after season, the show has spotlighted gay, queer, and eventually trans people (initially, RuPaul said transgender competitors would 'probably not' be considered for the show), allowing contestants — many of whom are queer people of color — to tell their own stories. Drag is one of those things where everyone kinda sorta knows what it is: a performance where (historically) cis men dress as overtly feminine, even caricature-level women. It's a world better illuminated, though, when you learn about the lives and culture behind the costumes and makeup. Drag Race gave us the opportunity to see a queer person talk about the love of their life, or how the stigma of living with HIV makes it hard to fit into the community, or even how they think their fellow competitor has back rolls. Drag Race allows its contestants to share the joy, tragedy, triumph, failures, and comedy — the humanity — of their lives and invites its audience to smile, cry, celebrate, commiserate, and laugh along with them. This year, RuPaul's Drag Race celebrated its 17th installment. It still surprises every season. —Alex Abad-Santos, senior correspondent 'The Decision' I still remember nervously pacing the Las Vegas Sun's newsroom on July 8, 2010, as I watched basketball phenom LeBron James, the star of my beloved Cleveland Cavaliers, and sportscaster Jim Gray chit-chat before getting to the big reveal: Where was James going to play next season? Fifteen years earlier, Michael Jordan (to whom James is often compared as the greatest basketball player of all time) had announced his own career decision in a two-word press release. This 75-minute TV special, dubbed 'The Decision,' was a pageant dedicated to the free agency choice of one player, and nearly 10 million people tuned in. It was a garish spectacle in a time when we couldn't look away from garish spectacles. 'The Decision' borrowed from the reality TV playbook, and as a piece of pop culture, pushed the limits of what 'sports as entertainment' could really mean. Then we came to the tense and thrilling finale: 'I'm taking my talents to South Beach,' James said. I slumped in my office chair at work. Many critics objected to the way James made his choice known to the world, in a sit-down interview that was widely promoted by one of the most self-promoting brands on the planet (ESPN). Choosing a sunny locale with a glamorous team of stars over the Rust Belt only added to the distaste. It all seems a bit silly now. James has since won four titles — including one for Cleveland in 2016. He is perhaps the defining American athlete of the century, and the player empowerment he was exercising on that fateful night in 2010 has become the norm. But the free agency TV special itself would never be repeated. 'The Decision' was an audacious experiment — and a spectacular failure. —Dylan Scott, senior correspondent Lean In Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In barely had time to hit the shelves before the takes started coming. It was the kind of book that shortly thereafter became a genre unto itself: based on a viral TED Talk, espousing a corporate-friendly version of some liberal idea or other. The formula was nearly irresistible to a pop culture ecosystem newly enchanted with the liberal ethos of the Obamas, and simultaneously ready to embrace tech elites, as long as they said approximately the right things. The TED Talk-to-office book club pipeline was at its peak, and the proto girlboss was its bestselling protagonist. Lean In set the formula. It was a 'women can have it all' manifesto of sorts, explaining how Sandberg was able to have two kids and still be COO at Facebook, entreating other women to do the same. The think pieces were immediate and forceful. Today, in the wake of massive reputational loss at Meta and a damning memoir that accuses Sandberg of some seriously weird workplace behavior, Lean In is remembered mostly as a symbol of the worst excesses of toxic girlbossery. Part of its legacy, though, might just be as an avatar of the take economy. Lean In emerged before the digital media bubble popped, when every new event was fodder for waves upon waves of discourse. If Lean In became a symbol of many things to many people, it's in part because discourse made it so. —Constance Grady, senior correspondent Beyoncé's self-titled album When Beyoncé declared that she 'changed the game with that digital drop' on Nicki Minaj's 'Feeling Myself,' it wasn't just the usual hyperbole you hear in a rap song. Her 2013 self-titled album marked the start of her reputation as pop music's biggest rule-breaker — and not just because she released an album on a Friday instead of Tuesday. By surprise-releasing a complete visual album online in the middle of the night, she modeled what pop stardom would look like in the streaming age, with artists seizing new levels of control over their careers. With Beyoncé, she skipped the usual promotional cycle before an album release, including singles, press interviews, and televised performances. In a statement following the self-titled album's release, she said she wanted to 'speak directly' to her fans. 'There's so much that gets between the music, the artist and the fans,' she said. Seemingly, 'so much' meant the press. Even with a clean track record in the public eye, Beyoncé felt it was necessary to control any possible narratives that could emerge, letting her music and the album's lavish music videos depict the state of her marriage and new motherhood. Ironically, a few months after the release, she experienced a rare lack of control in public, when a video of an elevator fight between her husband Jay-Z and her sister Solange was leaked. Still, this level of image control has defined the latter half of Beyoncé's career, from self-submitted Vogue interviews to completely avoiding talk shows. Other musicians, from Drake to Taylor Swift, have followed suit in circumventing the standard avenues of self-promotion over the past decade. If a pop star is being interviewed nowadays, it's often by another celebrity. Traditional album rollouts are now considered a lost art, although it seems like younger artists, including Charli XCX and Sabrina Carpenter, are relearning the value of eagerly marketing their music. It turns out this sort of defiance only really works when you're Beyoncé. —Kyndall Cunningham, staff reporter Justine Sacco's ill-fated tweet For many people, the moment that begat 'cancel culture' occurred on December 20, 2013, when Justine Sacco, a PR exec, tweeted, 'Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!' just before taking off on an 11-hour flight from London to Cape Town. Besides outrage at its glib racism, Sacco's tweet embodied the peak era for social media virality. In 2013, the Twitter hashtag was still mainly used for audience commentary and trending topics rather than protest organization and advocacy. Onlookers watching her tweet go viral created the hashtag #HasJustineLandedYet — a schadenfreudian response to what seemed certain to be Sacco's inevitable firing, one that articulated the tension in the air (no pun intended) with her temporarily disconnected from social media, making the moment even more viral. The hashtag was the top non-promoted hashtag on the site for hours while her tweet bounced around the platform. Before her plane landed, her company, media conglomerate IAC, swept in to do damage control, and she was swiftly fired. The idea that one's life could be destroyed over something as minor (yet loud) as a tweet provided the kernel of paranoia that burnished hysteria at the idea of 'getting canceled.' In retrospect, Sacco's trajectory reflected the culture war narrative to come. Many felt sympathy for Sacco as a victim of public shaming, while others saw the incident as a cautionary tale about unprofessional social media use. Writing about Sacco in his 2015 bestseller So You've Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson compared her to a car crash victim and the apparatus of social media to an automobile instantly transformed into 'a jagged weapon of torture.' The idea that one's life could be destroyed over something as minor (yet loud) as a tweet provided the kernel of paranoia that burnished hysteria at the idea of 'getting canceled.' The concept swiftly morphed from a half-joking social media admonishment into a worst-case scenario of public retaliation that could happen to anyone, frequently envisioned as a tool of 'woke' leftist culture. For all the furor, rarely does the public shaming actually take root; even Sacco's employer eventually rehired her. —Aja Romano, senior writer Kim and Kanye's Vogue Cover It's rare that Anna Wintour is lauded for having her finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, let alone seeing into the future. But in 2014, when Vogue's editor-in-chief unveiled the magazine's April issue featuring rapper and fashion designer Kanye West embracing his then-fiancé, reality star Kim Kardashian, she seemed to know exactly where culture was headed. The cover served as a preview for their forthcoming nuptials while, more controversially, announcing their status as one of the world's most powerful couples. It was a move that exasperated the internet, from fashion media to regular Twitter users. While West (now known as Ye) was continuing to establish his dominance as an artist and entrepreneur, Kardashian was still filming a reality show and selling waist trainers on Instagram. The Vogue cover heralded Kim's entry into a more rarefied rung of celebrity, finally embraced by the media and fashion's usual gatekeepers. Ironically, Vogue may have needed the couple more to prove its continued relevance than the other way around. The anger around the cover was ultimately a panic about fame in a post-social media landscape, a war that was waged throughout the decade. What did celebrity even mean if a Kardashian could land on the world's most prestigious magazine? Did we really have to pay this much attention to influencers and reality stars? For many reasons, including the election of a certain president, it turns out we did. Now, the Vogue cover feels like a weird artifact, given the polar-opposite fates of Kardashian and Ye's celebrity and their former marriage. Ye is now best known for his rampant antisemitism, while Kardashian is a billionaire thanks in large part to her own fashion line. It turns out seeing a reality star on the cover of Vogue wasn't nearly as bizarre as things could get. —Kyndall Cunningham, staff reporter Hamilton Few cultural phenomena hit as hard as Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical about the once-underrated founding father who established America's banking system and was killed by political rival Aaron Burr during a duel. You might not look at that logline and think, 'rap battles, with race-swapped actors as patriots,' but these key ingredients infused energy and excitement into a tired history lesson. First unveiled in 2009, for the White House Poetry Jam, the show's connection with Obama-era feel-good, sometimes superficial progressivism was clinched from the start. Through Hamilton, hip-hop truly went mainstream, entering the playlists of NPR listeners who might have been encountering seminal rappers like Mos Def or Biggie Smalls for the first time through their onstage counterparts. When Hamilton debuted in 2015, everything about it seemed massive, from its artistic ambitions to the size of its fandom, to its ticket sales — from its cultural omnipresence to the scope of its reframing of history and the scale of debate about whether it was good or not. (It was.) You were not allowed to have mild feelings about Hamilton. Yet by the time Hamilton finally premiered on Disney+ in 2020, its influence seemed nearly over — a fall that was arguably a byproduct of its deep cultural oversaturation as well as the fact that, by 2020, the country was mired in far more consequential debates. Ultimately, the show was both a driver of Obamacore and a victim of the era's rosy poptimism — in retrospect, both hopelessly naive and deeply cringe. —Aja Romano, senior writer Get Out Horror has long been a useful vehicle for exploring our social anxieties. And yet, with the release of Get Out in 2017, it seemed like audiences were newly discovering what horror movies were capable of beyond pure entertainment. Jordan Peele's Oscar-winning directorial debut was novel in a few ways. It's one of the rare horror films to feature a Black protagonist and explicitly deal with contemporary race politics. Get Out also arrived in theaters during a particularly fraught time, a month after President Donald Trump's first inauguration. Many were trying to figure out exactly how Trump was elected after running on a stew of toxic racial resentment, even as many liberals debated the 'Black Lives Matter' movement. The film gave the culture a mainstream outlet to express their frustrations around topics like police brutality and white allyship. The villain in Get Out, notably, was not a stereotypical redneck. Rather, it was the supposedly well-meaning white liberal who, in the words of Bradley Whitford's character, would've voted for Obama a third time if they could. The film gave the culture a mainstream outlet to express their frustrations around topics like police brutality and white allyship. Get Out also caused a tangible shift in the film industry. Not only did it spark a Black horror renaissance and reignite an interest in arthouse horror films, but it seemed to change the way general audiences observe these movies. Thanks to Get Out's sly visuals like Froot Loops poured into cold white milk, horror moviegoers were primed not to just sit back and wait for jump scares. These days, they actively search for Easter eggs and subtext in every scene — no matter how silly these observations might be. For better or worse, Get Out represented what moviegoing could look like at its most engaging in the 2010s. —Kyndall Cunningham, staff reporter 'Despacito' Go to a coffee shop. Or for a walk in the park. Or get a drink at the club. At some point, you'll hear the syncopated beat of reggaetón — the undeniably danceable Caribbean, hip-hop-infused rhythm that's everywhere these days. But there's one song that catapulted the genre, and the rest of Latin music, to global superstardom. 'Despacito,' the 2017 smash hit by Puerto Rican artists Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, is instantly identifiable, opening with a strum of the Puerto Rican cuatro, a traditional guitar-like instrument, with a touch of reverb. It then builds into a cinematic, glossy exaltation of desire, as Fonsi describes how he wants to showcase his love slowly and passionately, and Daddy Yankee cockily raps. The music video now sits at 8.7 billion views on YouTube. Sure, Justin Bieber's feature for the remix helped bring the song to English-language audiences. But his verse remained in a breathily sung Spanish, breaking all sorts of notions that Latin music must incorporate English to successfully crossover. Before 'Despacito,' only two other Spanish songs had hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 in US history: 'La Bamba' (1987) and 'La Macarena' (1996). Tejana icon Selena Quintanilla's 1995 posthumous crossover album, Dreaming of You, was the first predominantly Spanish-language album to debut in the Billboard 200. These previous attempts, however, featured genres of Latin music that music executives considered more palatable, and arguably less obscene, to American audiences. Boy, were they wrong. There would have been no 'Despacito' without 'Gasolina,' the 2004 Daddy Yankee song that transformed reggaetón's reputation from that of the heavily policed underground to ubiquitous party music. The difference is that 'Despacito' had gone further than anyone could have imagined for a genre born out of frustration and defiance. In some ways, 'Despacito' paved the way for the massive success of reggaetonero Bad Bunny, who sings exclusively in Spanish and is one of the biggest artists in the world. 'Despacito' proved that good music transcends dominant culture, a reflection of how streaming platforms and global, genre-blending sensibilities defined the 2010s. I'll dance to that. —Izzie Ramirez, deputy editor, Future Perfect #MeToo It was 2017, and women in Hollywood had just begun to come forward publicly with reports of sexual assault by producer Harvey Weinstein. As the conversation grew, actor Alyssa Milano wrote on Twitter (now X), 'If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet.' Replies poured in, and the #MeToo hashtag quickly became a shorthand for reports of sexual harassment and assault by powerful men, not only in Hollywood but across industries. 'Me too' wasn't a new phrase — activist Tarana Burke had started a Me Too campaign 10 years prior to offer support and empathy to survivors of sexual violence. But the combination of high-profile (and, it should be said, often white, thin, and conventionally attractive) women speaking out against a wealthy, incredibly influential man catapulted the phrase and its accompanying hashtag to new heights. The time was ripe. Stories about the behavior of Weinstein and other powerful men had been passed around for years, open secrets begging for light. President Donald Trump had recently taken office for the first time, greeted by protesters in pussy hats drawing attention to his record with women. Those hats had been criticized, but they had yet to be adopted as a symbol of cringe, ineffectual activism — both anti-Trump resistance and feminist anger still held broad cultural sway. Neither force holds such power today, and #MeToo has inspired fierce backlash. But the movement led to real change, including increased worker protections and bans on certain kinds of nondisclosure agreements. And even though the days of hashtag activism are arguably over, #MeToo forever made a mark on the way Americans talk about sexual violence, consent, and power. —Anna North, senior correspondent Beauty YouTube Dramageddon No one outside of the YouTube beauty influencer community really understood how big it was or how much money you could make on the platform — until it all fell to pieces. The details are complex, but the YouTube meltdown known as 'Dramageddon' boils down to beauty influencer personalities Tati Westbrook and James Charles publicly beefing — with a few interludes from fellow controversial makeup mogul Jeffree Starr — over both private and professional business. This meant posting (now-deleted) videos to their millions of fans (Charles had roughly 13 million subscribers at the time, Westbrook had six million) with titles like 'Bye Sister' and 'No More Lies.' The videos reveal not only that their rivals had personal flaws — like saying inappropriate things to waitstaff at nice restaurants — but that the beauty stars were allegedly making millions of dollars in deals and collaborations with cosmetic brands. Each salvo and counter-salvo sent their follower counts on a rollercoaster journey, rocketing up and down with each new chapter. Millions of views came rolling in. But even with this popularity, the flood of eyeballs on the drama began to negatively affect both their brands. Westbrook even quit YouTube at one point, but has since returned. The next year, after he admitted to sending sexually explicit messages to minors, YouTube demonetized Charles (meaning he could not make money from his videos). Neither influencer has the same kind of clout they once did, and platforms like TikTok have overtaken YouTube when it comes to buzzy beauty content. For people not deeply invested in picking a side, the biggest shock was just how much personalities like Westbrook and Charles were being paid, the millions of subscribers they had amassed, and how willing they were to risk it all, just because they didn't like each other very much. —Alex Abad-Santos, senior correspondent Avengers: Endgame There was a time when even Stan Lee, the godfather of Marvel comics, couldn't have predicted that a relatively obscure character like Thor or the even more unknown Guardians of the Galaxy would become household names and draw hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. That success is a testament to Marvel Studios's grand design, a plan that reached a cultural apex with 2019's Avengers: Endgame. Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, had a brilliant idea: What if Marvel movies were structured like Marvel comic books? Every movie would fit into a bigger story, just the way that every issue of the source material had. An individual movie might be about Iron Man or Captain America, but it would also be part of a larger arc about the biggest threats in the universe. In 2012's The Avengers and 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, we'd see those threads come together. Every hero across a half-dozen movies (and their friends) would join up to save the world, over and over and over. All this money inspired rival studios to follow suit with connected universes and interlinking solo films — think the DCU and Universal's failed 'Dark Universe' (aka the monsters cinematic universe) — but no one has been able to replicate what Marvel did. That goes for the company itself, which is still rebuilding its own cultural presence, battling through a series of middling TV shows, off-screen controversies, and lower box office hauls, in a post-Endgame world. —Alex Abad-Santos, senior correspondent Zoom Prior to March 2020, the word 'zoom' didn't invoke much — maybe the PBS Kids show from the early 2000s. After the pandemic, the word will forever be synonymous with virtual connection. Yes, even if we are on a Google Meet or Microsoft Teams call, video chatting will forever be known as 'hopping on a Zoom.' The pandemic altered life in many ways, but among the most profound was the way we connect with others. In that dark period of Covid lockdowns, we turned to our screens for work, play, and everything in between. The reason Zoom became the web conferencing platform, as opposed to Skype or Webex, is because it was the easiest to use — all you needed was a meeting link. While remote work and school were the most obvious uses, Zoom was also a platform for friends to catch up (see: Zoom happy hours and game nights), for fans to see their favorite band perform from afar, for the betrothed to tie the knot in front of a virtual audience. Zoom meetings were attracting 300 million daily meeting participants by April 2020. Zoom perhaps epitomized and tipped the scales further in favor of the kind of seamless digital connection that defines the 2020s. The decade has been laden with tech transformations (see: the stunning rise of TikTok or the current AI boom). The irony is, as useful as this tech can be — and as Zoom certainly was in extraordinary circumstances — it's also an approximation of genuine IRL connection. Just ask anyone who had to blow out their birthday candles on camera in 2020. Although many of us still use Zoom during our work days, it's hardly anyone's choice for a hangout some five years later. —Allie Volpe, correspondent A controversial exclusion While putting together this list, we kept coming back to one debate: What artifact best captured the reality-bending tech of AI, which is already exerting enormous influence on our culture and society? In the end, nothing seemed to quite capture the shift, but senior correspondent Adam Clark Estes spent some timing thinking about what the advances will mean for the next 25 years. Read his piece here. The Stew Alison Roman's fans refer to her recipes like the way some people talk about pop stars, in familiar, definitive, often mononymic shorthand: It's 'The Stew' or 'Shallot Pasta' or 'Beans.' They talk about those meals like you're already supposed to know about them. And in 2020, it seemed like everyone did. The Stew, in particular, was an enormous viral hit. A kind of pared-back riff on chana masala, The Stew embodied The Bon Appetit and New York Times alum's signature style — rustic, slightly fancy, but not outrageously difficult; a sardonic Ina Garten for millennials. While those hits garnered a cult following, Roman's recipes really took off during the pandemic lockdown in 2020, when so many people had to cook for themselves in their own kitchens. It didn't hurt that her food was also photogenic, making them perfect for social media. The secret ingredient to Roman's success was Roman's unapologetic taste — she helped popularize spicy, salty, briney, tangy flavors in today's home-cooking and food culture and didn't have much patience for contradictory opinions. If you don't like capers, she thinks you need to grow up. Skip her site entirely if you don't love short rib. Anchovies aren't gross, but the people who won't even try them are. The secret ingredient to Roman's success was Roman's unapologetic taste — she helped popularize spicy, salty, briney, tangy flavors. But Roman's lack of filter got her in trouble, too. In May 2020, her sass landed her in a controversy, as she made fun of Marie Kondo and Chrissy Teigen for 'selling out.' The fact that both of her chosen targets were Asian women in the lifestyle space wasn't lost on the internet, and Roman eventually started a newsletter and left her job with the Times. Roman was also accused of culturally appropriating some of her recipes, including The Stew. Roman did apologize and appeared on creator Ziwe's confrontational Instagram Live show, another pandemic-era hit, to apologize (in a more snarky way) again. Roman found her footing and started her independent YouTube show Home Movies in 2021. The show and the newsletter both still run today. —Alex Abad-Santos, senior correspondent The Eras Tour The Eras Tour, a three-and-a-half-hour retrospective on Taylor Swift's career repeated over 149 nights in 51 cities, will go down in history for a lot of things. For one, it became the bestselling tour of all time, grossing over $2 billion. It also marked a new level of celebrity for Swift, who, at the beginning of the tour, had released 10 studio albums and was in the process of rerecording them in a highly publicized attempt to reclaim her catalog. Any disputes about Swift's relevance and impact as a musician were put to rest. It capped off a decade of cultural dominance for Swift, whose shift from country to pop with the 2014 record 1989 launched her into a different stratosphere of fame and success. The Eras Tour changed how we attend concerts, specifically stadium shows helmed by big artists. For almost two years, Swifties posted nearly every moment of the show on TikTok, from their themed outfits to surprise songs to the celebrities — like Tom Cruise and, of course, her then-new boyfriend Travis Kelce, vibing out in the VIP tent. Fans never ran out of observations to post, turning every moment into a spectacle and preparing future attendees for the entirety of the experience. Inevitably, this footage, no matter how mundane, dominated the news cycle. As much as Eras was a celebration of Swift's storied career, it was a testament to the extreme level of fandom she had cultivated. Fans managed to make a tour into a two-year-long live feed, a monocultural moment that can probably only be replicated by Swift. —Kyndall Cunningham, staff reporter The Joe Rogan Experience Joe Rogan is many things — a comedian, a commentator, and a contrarian; a reality TV star and martial artist turned host of the most listened to podcast in America: The Joe Rogan Experience. His fans say he's just asking questions, calling out liberal hypocrisy, and defending free speech. His critics use other terms: a conspiracy theorist and peddler of misinformation and anti-trans rhetoric, who platforms not just off-the-wall ideas, but dangerous narratives that cause real-world harm. There's truth in all these labels. There's another way to think of Rogan that may help put him in his rightful context for this decade: 'Joe Rogan is the Walter Cronkite of Our Era,' declared British satirist Konstantin Kisin for Quillette in 2019. 'Not one established newspaper or broadcaster can now compete with a popular YouTube host conducting a conversation from his self-funded studio,' he wrote at the time, reflecting on Rogan's three-hour-long interrogation of Twitter executives. Kisin's declaration — before the global Covid-19 pandemic, before the 2020 election of Joe Biden or the 2024 reelection of Donald Trump — might have been a bit premature. But he effectively predicted what Rogan would yet become: not just one of the most influential voices in politics, popular culture, and social commentary, but also a harbinger for a new form of media, communications, trust, and truth in a post-pandemic world. There is no monoculture in 2025, but for a huge part of America, the realm Rogan pioneered and steers is as close as we might get. Read the rest from senior correspondent Christian Paz here. Ozempic Ozempic was approved as a Type 2 diabetes medication in 2017, but despite its impressive effects as a treatment for chronic illness, it didn't start to capture the cultural imagination until a few years later. After the Covid lockdowns, celebrities like Adele and Mindy Kaling emerged looking notably and mysteriously thinner (though it hasn't been confirmed that either of them used Ozempic). In 2022, Variety reported that celebrities were obsessed with getting their hands on Ozempic — or its generic name, semaglutide — for its off-label use as an appetite suppressant and weight loss drug. By 2023, the gossip magazines were openly speculating on whether Kim Kardashian was on Ozempic. 'Life After Food?' asked New York magazine in a splashy feature on how Ozempic had worked its way into the entertainment industry and was trickling down to everyone else. Our Ozempic moment raised immediate and pointed questions about the era we were living in: weren't we past our collective obsession with thinness by now? Hadn't we escaped the anti-fat '90s and 2000s to embrace body positivity and health at any size? The immense popularity of Ozempic said no, our culture hadn't evolved past the desire to be skinny. We had only gotten better at hiding it. Now that thinness was within the reach of anyone who could afford it, many people and institutions decided there was no point in pretending they didn't care about skinniness any longer. Plus-size models started to disappear from the runways, and #SkinnyTok surfaced pro-ana tips into the For You pages of young girls. Out of the context of our cultural neuroses about body shapes, Ozempic is a wonder. Early evidence suggests it can offer promising treatment not just for diabetes and health complications related to obesity, but also for depression, addiction, and perhaps even Alzheimer's and cancer. It has already made scores of lives better. But as a cultural artifact, Ozempic is the excuse that let unabashed anti-fatness come roaring back.
