Fill in the blank with the appropriate rock band, TV show, movie, cartoonist, writer, fashion, food, etc.
“rocky horror picture show”
Radiohead.
I was living in a small city, had no cable (so no music videos) and wasn’t a big cd buyer (couldn’t afford it) so I listened to the only local radio station that played rock which was K106.5: “guitar based rock with a splash of new country-we’re the mix that kicks!” I suffered through horrific new country music just to hear them play this amazing british band I couldn’t get enough of. I remember asking all my friends about them and no one knew anything. 3 yrs later everyone knew them from OK computer.
Matt Groening (Remember *Life in Hell[/])?
Also, The World Wide Web.
The Internet. I was paying an ISP for a “shell account” before they developed Mosaic, the first web browser.
Pinkfloyd.
To me, Dark Side of the Moon is from their new era.
AOL (but I guess that’s never been cool). I was on QuantumLink on the Commodore 64.
And Mystery Science Theater 3000 – I watched from season 1 (but not the local shows, just the Comedy Channel).
Touched by an Angel. It used to come on before MADTV, and nicely killed the time until then. I thought it was a cute idea.
But if the band was on the radio…the show was on the main channel…the band’s previous records could be found in independent or mainstream record stores across the nation…the cartoon was syndicated…
HOW could you of liked it before it was cool? Many people obviously did already have enough emotions to swing it too you
Harleys. No that’s not quite right – they’ve always been cool. But I was into them before they were popular, or common.
Metallica. Chipotle peppers. Homebrewing. Iron Chef.
Also, Seinfeld. I watched it from the very first episode.
Hey, Vezer, I was into questioning the logic of new threads before it was cool.
Online services, for one. Had accounts with CompuServe (1988-1996), Delphi (couple of years in the late '80s/early '90s), America Online (several times off and on from 1989 or 1990 to 1995 or so, when I determined once and for all that no matter how many “new versions” they released, the company and service would always suck), AppleLink (Apple’s private online service for developers and partners), eWorld (Apple’s attempt to re-make AppleLink for the masses, made pointless by the rise of the Web at about the same time), and probably others I’m forgetting.
Online bill-paying, too, using CheckFree back in 1990-1995 (a subsidiary of H&R Block, who also owned CompuServe at the time – CheckFree used the CompuServe network).
PDAs, for another; in 1991, my boss gave me an HP95LX, a palmtop computer running DOS, with Lotus 1-2-3, calculator, address/phone book, text editor and software for synchronizing with a desktop machine built-in, an IR port for exchanging information with other HP95LX users and even an PCMCIA (PC Card) Type 1 slot. It would run most DOS programs, assuming the memory and graphics requirements weren’t too intense (128x240 pixel display, 16 lines by 40 columns scrollable to 80 – here’s another pic), sported a full set of alphanumeric and keypad keys (tiny, though not as small as those on the Blackberry), with special function keys for the built-in programs. It was an extremely cool little box, and I was extremely bummed when mine went missing (never did figure out what happened to it, whether it was lost or stolen). Same boss also sold me (at a huge discount) one of the original U.S. Robotics Palm Pilot 1000s (he bought one for himself, cracked the screen on it in the first week, but was already so crazy about it that he didn’t want to wait for a replacement, so he bought a second one and sold me the first one when it came back from being repaired).
Word processors. The original CP/M version of WordStar (dot commands, anyone?). WordStar 2000. Version 1.0 of WordPerfect. MASS11 under VMS on a VAX 11/780.
Dave Stevens and Bill Sienkiewicz. Somewhere, I still have a couple of the original Rocketeer issues, along with the original edition of Elektra: Assassin and all four Stray Toasters issues.
And, for that matter, The Straight Dope, which I discovered in 1987-88 in the pages of the short-lived Atlanta tabloid weekly Southline. Maybe not present at the birth, but definitely hip to it before some posters here were even born (depressing thought, that).
Mp3’s. The spoilt generation of Napster, Morpheus, and Kazaa could not possibly understand the horrors of trying to scrape through the crusty, mildew-infested underbelly of the Internet, hacking through shitty porn/spam/warez sites with a virtual machete, just to find that ONE elusive Yello song or FF3 track. And everytime you found a webpage with plenty of music, you had to download it like mad because, chances were, the site would be gone in a week.
In my day, we had to FIGHT to get our music, dammit!
O.A.R.
Norah Jones
Sneaker Pimps
Vespas
The Postal Service
Bowling styled shoes
Eurolights
Being pretentious
Iron Chef, dammit!
I guess for me it’s cartoons.
I’ve watched the following from the beginning.
“Space Ghost Coast to Coast”
Adult Swim
Spongebob Squarepants
someothers as well I’m sure.
MP3’s - Go-go gadget Hotline! Used to be able to sell people burned CDs for 12$ 
AOL - had my screenname since v1.0!
A bunch of bands…
On a somewhat related note…John Deere hats/shirts etc. are currently trendy. I didn’t know this, and, when I saw a John Deere shirt in a store, I jumped at the opportunity to support one of my favorite makers of lawn and turf equipment. Kind of makes me want to go out and buy a Jacobsen shirt or something.