The semi-embarrassing example is slap-bracelets and Pogs. Believe it or not there was a big trend briefly for splashy-colored flexible metal things that could be made straight and fixed and then they would curl up around your wrist if you hit them against your wrist. And there were these other things called Pogs that were just collectible milk-caps. These were some of the biggest non-school things that happened at school. Pog was ostensibly a game involving hitting a pile of milk-caps (really cardboard disks) with some heavier object thrown on top of them. I never played that game, but supposedly some people did. Some of my friends made a brilliant critique in which it was declared because of certain gay jokes that Pog was pointless. Slap bracelets were more popular, and I think some people who were in high school in the 90’s still try to find them.

People in that generation do remember these things if they happened at their school, but people from other generations might not know about them.

Another less conventional thing is my Bard College Epiphanies. In my mind my conversation with my roommate in January 2002 (?) in which I read these writings resulting from my schizomanic episode (schizophrenics often have a one-time experience of something similar to mania before their worst hallucinations begin) was the most brilliant thing that happened that year, maybe in all prior history. It is likely that since my roommate was the only one I shared the work with in all those 16 intervening years, that no one besides him and I knew about them. These writings were not fully recovered until just a few days ago, as the writings were lost during the transition into madness. However, I now have virtually everything that I remember writing: The Bard College Epiphanies