Award Season is a highlight of the pop culture calendar. From MTV’s Video Music Awards in September through to the Academy Awards in March, we are treated to nearly six months of red carpet looks, tearful acceptance speeches and, if we’re lucky, a healthy dose of celeb drama. What better way to end the first season of Twenty Twenty than by looking at who won big in the year 2000, and dishing out some awards of our own. Let the show begin...This is our last episode of the series, and we want...

This week we’re hosting a special roundtable on everyone’s favourite mother-daughter duo, The Gilmore Girls. We’re joined by critic Zarina Muhammad, who is one half of art collective The White Pube, and Anna Leszkiewicz, Culture Editor at the New Statesman. Together we discuss Gilmore Girls’ timeless appeal and its second life as a streaming sensation. We’ll also look back at how the show was received at the time as well as the grittier themes of class and privilege tucked beneath its cozy...

Pure Shores by All Saints. Independent Women by Destiny’s Child. Can’t Fight the Moonlight by LeAnn Rimes. These chart-topping tracks are some of the year 2000’s most memorable pop hits — but none of them would exist if it weren’t for movies. Designed as marketing tie-ins for the original soundtracks to The Beach, Charlie’s Angels and Coyote Ugly, the legacies of these songs have outlasted the movies they were attached to. In this episode, we explore the increasingly entwined relationship...

Twenty years after it first launched, The Sims is still going strong. Much more than a nostalgic relic of the noughties, the game has a thriving community of fans. In this episode, Tara, a longtime player of the game, explains it’s enduring appeal to Simran — a self-identified Sims noob.We get into the tensions of escapism and introspection within the game and talk about the challenges of reflecting the ‘real world’ in a simulation. We’ll also ask: is The Sims “a beguiling capitalist fantasy”...

When Southampton teenager Craig David arrived into the mainstream with the help of production duo Artful Dodger in 1999, many considered him a poster boy for UK Garage. In his own work, he melded that 2-step sound with crooning R&B and even Spanish guitar to great effect. Born To Do It became the fastest-selling debut album ever by a British male solo act, a record the album holds to this day. So why was it that the following year he was snubbed at the BRIT Awards? Why, in 2002, was he...

The new millennium brought with it a fresh wave of optimism and excitement for the future. Zadie Smith's best selling debut novel White Teeth embodied this mood and symbolised a changing of the guard. Smith was lauded with critical acclaim and lavished with media attention — an overnight literary sensation at just 24 years old. With special guest Sharmaine Lovegrove, publisher at Dialogue Books, we explore the impact of the novel and the legacy of its author.Content Warning: Mention of...

The year 2000 saw the launch of two new reality TV shows. Big Brother made instant celebritiesof ordinary people and was deemed the most addictive show on telly. Faking It won two BAFTAs and took home an International Emmy, but remains a cult hit.In this episode, we discuss these two shows and what they can tell us about the UK at the turn of the 21st century. We also explore the concept of reality TV fame, then and now. CW: mentions of self-harmIf you're in the UK, you can watch all of...

“What matters is what you like, not what you are like" or so says Rob Gordon, the protagonist of High Fidelity. In this episode, we look back at the 2000 film starring John Cusack, and ask if there's value in the idea that our favourite songs, films and books reveal who we are. We talk about music snobbery, cultural gatekeeping and the politics of taste in the original film and the 2020 television remake starring Zoë Kravitz. Films and TV referenced in the episode:Say Anything (1989)High...

Kelly, can you handle this? Michelle, can you handle this? Beyoncé, can you handle this? It’s a roll-call so iconic, it’s easy to forget this wasn’t Destiny's Child’s original line-up. A decade after the band first came together under a different name, it was in 2000 that they found their final form after a brutal year of line-up changes and legal battles. We go back to relive the drama and think about how it laid the foundations for who Beyoncé is today.Got a favourite culture moment from...

Are you ready to back to the year 2000? Join two culture critics in their twenties, as they delve into the most memorable pop culture from twenty years ago.