Many of these events weren’t really surprising. For instance:
> …the silly 80’s fad known as professional wrestling
> would not only not die out, but one of the leagues would
> eventually grow so powerful that it’d swallow up the
> others.
Professional wrestling has been popular and (for my taste) obnoxiously stupid since at least the '50’s. I’m not terrribly surprised.
> …some random Cuban boy who washed up on the shores of
> Florida would become the target of massive nationwide
> media coverage.
The Cuban-American community in southern Florida has been aggressively anti-Castro for a couple of decades. It’s not surprising at all that something like the Elian incident would eventually happen.
> …Dale Earnhardt would win the Daytona 500 in a walk,
> then die in that very same race a few years later.
Why is this surprising? Racing is a dangerous sport, and Earnhardt was known for taking chances.
> …Ralph Nader would be blamed for costing someone a
> presidential election.
See my later comments on the 2000 election. It was likely that there would be a third party in such an election, and it was only mildly surprising that Nader should be that candidate.
> …the long-awaited prequel to the Star Wars movies would
> finally be released, and a considerable number of fans
> would hate it.
Not surprising at all. Any film as eagerly awaited as The Phantom Menace could have only two possible receptions when it finally came out - either it was good enough that the satisfied fans drowned out the disappointed ones, or it wouldn’t be good enough, so there would be general disappointment.
> …cable TV would have a sports history channel, a food
> channel, and a weather channel.
Not remotely surprising. TV channels have been slowly proliferating for a couple of decades.
> …there’d be a successful women’s basketball league.
> …there’d be a successful soccer league. In America.
The only thing surprising is that it took so long. And I’m not sure if either league is successful even now.
> …an entire nation would be utterly transfixed with the
> story of whether or not the President did or didn’t have
> sex with some woman.
Sex scandals are common in American politics.
> …that the Soviet Union was about to break up
It was obvious since the early '80’s that the Soviet Union would soon either have to change its political system or collapse. It was obvious since that late '80’s that it was going to do it quickly rather than slowly.
> …that waistbands barely above the pubic bone would
> appear on young women across North America
No more surprising than any other random new fashion.
> …that “alternative” would become so mainsteam as to
> become acceptable in professional advertisment.
Not surprising, really. Advertisers have been co-opting supposedly “rebellious” trends for their own use for decades.
> …that AIDS would still be around.
It would have been surprising if AIDS had been cured completely. Most AIDS researchers said ten years ago that it was likely that any AIDS cure was a long way off.
> …the 2000 presidential winner would lose the popular
> vote by over 500,000 votes
The only thing surprising to me about the 2000 election was that anyone was surprised by it. Of course there would eventually be an election in which the winner in the popular vote would lose the electoral vote. It’s designed into the system. We’ve known for decades that the electoral college was a terrible idea, but we’ve been too lazy to fix it since, by our good luck, it hadn’t previously (in this century) screwed things up quite enough to actually get the loser in the popular vote elected.
> - A very strange new series (X-files) would become one
> of the most popular dramas ever.
Science fiction, fantasy, and horror shows have been having off-and-on cult popularity for most of the history of TV. I quit being surprised at the oddness of any popular show since Dark Shadows, a soap opera with vampires, became popular in the late '60’s and early '70’s.
> - the high school geeks would be the most successful
> members of the graduating class.
This is only surprising to people who are in high school at the time. It’s always been true that many of the most popular people in the class have gone nowhere because they weren’t willing to put in some real work to make their popularity count for something. It’s always been true that many of the geeks, not having wasted their time playing high school popularity games, become reasonably successful after high school.
> - John Travolta would also stage a comeback, get Oscar-
> nominated and become one of Hollywood’s A-list actors and
> get $20 million a movie (let’s disregard his current
> downward trend and just focus on the big comeback here).
Let’s not disregard his current downward trend. It was obvious by the early '80’s that Travolta was both great at acting and terrible at picking films to appear in. It’s not surprising that he has had such an up-and-down career.
> …a Michigan-based bookstore chain featuring an enormous
> variety of printed materials would become as ubiquitous
> as McDonalds. And they’d not only allow you to sit and
> read as long as you wanted before buying, they’d put
> chairs out to encourage you to do so.
As ubiquitous as McDonalds is an exaggeration. But, in any case, while living in England in the late '80’s, I noticed that two chains called Waterstone’s and Dillon’s were already changing bookselling by having huge, friendly stores. I told my friends back in the U.S. then, “When these chains or someone like them get to the U.S., they’re going to blow Waldenbooks, B. Daltons, and Crown out of the water.” By the time I got back to the U.S., eleven years ago, both Borders and Barnes and Noble were already beginning to have stores all over the U.S.