Me too, if we define “cool” as “since the movies came out” – I know they were popular since long before I read them, though. 
Gosh, I hope not. Otherwise I would be cool, and we can’t have THAT!
I don’t think that I’m really into anything that is “cool”, but I’ve been reading A Song of Ice and Fire since the first printing of A Game of Thrones
The internet. I can’t cope with the people who’ve had since 1988 (I was all of a year old then) but I think I can say I had it at home before most people knew what it was. That was in 1994, I think.
Supermodels.
My sister and I loved Vogue magazine in the mid/late 80’s and had our favorite models. But we also scoured clothes catalogs for models we liked. We were so happy when we found out the name of our favorite J. Crew model–Linda Evangelista. The word “supermodel” wasn’t even around until years later.
Now I think these models are SOOOO egotistical and I sort of loathe them, but I do remember around 1990 when supermodels gained fame outside the fashion world and were regarded as cool.
Alternative rock of the 80’s, which became mainline pop of the late 90’s (you know, lesser known groups, like U2). I hate the new alternative rock.
Oh, yes, Jesus and good deeds. I’m so glad they’re cool nowadays!
Another old internet old timer here. Back in '93 I was connecting with a 1200 baud modem to a university CA*Net shell account.
Gosh darn it, I had to use freaking Gopher to find an open USENET server so I could print out alt.sex.stories content on my 9 pin dot matrix printer.
We won’t talk about using a 300 baud modem on a TRS-80 to connect to BBS’s. That was just painful.
Piercing. Maaaany years ago, I had to travel to London to get my first nose piercing at 15, and had a couple of cartilage piercings at the same time, all three pierced with a piercing gun. As far as I am aware, I was the first person to have a nose piercing in my (small) home city. I also pierced my own eyebrow as I’d seen an old photo of punks who’d had it done, but couldn’t find anywhere willing to do it. By the time I had my nipples and tongue done, I was on the fetish scene and the person having them done knew of specialist piercers. Now, it’s fairly routine to see mothers and their 13 year old daughters with matching labret piercings, and stores selling accessories for pre-teens will do cartilage piercings and sell belly button rings. I no longer wear anything in any of my piercings.
Dr Martens boots. Again, as a young’un, I wore them to school after copying old pictures of punks. Everyone laughed at me and I got smacked around by bullies some for wearing them. By the time I was in my final year, the school had banned them for becoming too popular.
Jane’s Addiction. Since 1988, freshman year of high school. In 1989 I got a T-shirt from the “Nothing’s Shocking” tour, the one of the two topless chicks sitting on the couch with their hair on fire. People at my high school would make fun of me when I wore it. Three years later, half the people in my high school listed them as their “favorite band.”
Whatever. Nothing’s Shocking wasreally their peak, anyway.
SexWax t-shirts
This thread sort of reminds me of those joke T-shirts that say
“I WAS INTO NSYNC WHEN THEY WERE UNDERGROUND!!”
I was into irony before it was cool.
Well, I was on the ARPAnet in 1979.
As for Lord of the Rings, I think you had to be pissed about the delay in the publishing of “Return of the King” in 1954 to really be considered into it early.
Grunge fashion. I was wearing high tops and torn flannel back when Seattle was just a sleepy Indian fishing village.
Queen, sort of. I was aware of them since “Bohemian Rhapsody”, but was too young to really appreciate it. The release of The Miracle brought them into focus for me. Keep in mind that though they stayed famous around the world, they were a bit of an oddity in the States, especially the bit of the midwest I grew up in. Add to that the impossibility of finding their albums anywhere after Innuendo came out, as Hollywood Records was gearing up for their big reissue program, and Queen might have been the Residents for all anyone I talked to knew about them. Case in point: A local musician who I thought had a great awareness of music (and he actually does, this bit aside) asked me, “Queen? Aren’t they that band with the homo singer?” :smack:
Long story short, and in better context: Spring '91, Freddie’s still alive, nobody in America’s buying Innuendo, their CDs aren’t on shelves, and I’m scouring every used vinyl shop I can for their stuff. Fast forward to March '92 and Wayne’s World. “Oh, I LOOOVVVE Queen! They’re my favorite band! I have their greatest hits!” :rolleyes:
I think I made my point. I’ll stop before I get on a Pit-worthy rant. 
old timey music (before O Brother)
24
Joseph Campbell
Iron Chef- Used to watch this on KTSF in the bay area as well. I thought the idea of a cooking competition like that was really neat, but when I mentioned it to many people none of them heard anything about it. Now, they have an American Iron Chef show, and when I mention ‘Iron Chef’ they think I’m talking about the bastardized American version of the show :mad:
SNL ran a skit lampooning Iron Chef. I watched it with a friend who had never heard of the show. The sketch was hysterical, with the competitor the American Bachelor Chef with his Shark Head Bagel Delight. I love his opening line “Yeah, Japan, we’ll kick your ass like we did in Vietnam!” 
My friend was totally wooshed.
Camo patterns- I used to wear my dad’s army field jacket in High School. I also occasionally wore some fatigues he gave me. People used to make hunting jokes at me when they saw me in the camo stuff. A few years later, I started seeing everything with camo patterns.
*1920’s Style Death Rays- Yeah back in 1919 me and my homey Tesla used to go down to the park and zap squirrels with our gnarly ray guns. Before you know it everyone and their mother were talking about it…:mad:
That was one of the coolest video too. I only saw it once. Late at night. Thankfully I wasn’t particularly annoyed when they became popular again after Wayne’s World.
Did Dragonball get cool? Well if it did it’s past by now. Anyway I read (had them read to me actually) the whole series beginning in 1989. Even watched some of the movies. Couldn’t understand a single word but it’s not like the dialog was essential to the plot. Also read a bunch of others from JUMP comics. Also some very weird adult comics. Behind the times for Japan but ahead for the US. It’s weird that I can buy it at any bookstore. In English even.
I can’t believe this hasn’t come up yet:
Homestar Runner! (link) It used to be something me and my friends would quote to each other all day long (“Are you a robot?”), to the confusion of all around us. I think they were only up to about 15 sbemails when I first found the site. Now everyone and his brother has a Strong Bad shirt/bag/hoodie and it’s sad because it’s lost its “underground” status. On the other hand, new merchandise seems to come out faster.
I formed my own mutual admiration society before I turned 7.