By mid-May 2022, the nostalgia engine was running at full throttle. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck had officially gone from "crypto-comeback couple" to "inevitable." While the formal wedding wouldn't happen until the summer, the paparazzi photos from that week were everywhere. Entertainment news cycles were dominated not by new movies, but by the idea that early 2000s romance was healing our collective trauma.
Jack Harlow was everywhere. His sophomore album Come Home The Kids Miss You had dropped two weeks prior, and by May 19, "First Class" was inescapable. You couldn't walk into a Target or a gym without hearing that Fergie sample. Meanwhile, Bad Bunny was about to drop Un Verano Sin Ti (which landed on May 6), and tracks like "Moscow Mule" were defining the pre-summer soundtrack.
On May 19, 2022, linear television was trying to hold the line during sweeps month, but streaming was fracturing the audience. Key observations from that week’s popular media landscape include: cumperfection 22 05 19 jess nova squid game xxx
Looking back, this date represents the "calm before the storm" of summer blockbusters (Top Gun: Maverick dropped a week later).
We were tired. We were coming out of a weird post-lockdown fog. We didn't want heavy dramas; we wanted reliable IP, nostalgic comebacks, and danceable beats. And that is exactly what the algorithm gave us. By mid-May 2022, the nostalgia engine was running
What do you remember watching on May 19, 2022? Was it The Kardashians on Hulu? The Staircase on Max? Or were you just replaying As It Was by Harry Styles for the 400th time?
Drop a comment in the time capsule below. Want more granular nostalgia
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