I like to think of myself as fairly in tune with the modern Zeitgeist. I peruse The New York Times on a semi-daily basis, keeping up-to-date on current events (not to mention the cutting edge of crossword-puzzle technology), and I read the covers of trashy magazines while waiting in line at Wegmans, thereby gleaning not only the latest comings and goings of Hollywood’s hottest stars but also 107.38 NEW Ways to Please My Man in Bed (”To add some variety to your love life, try surprising your man by unexpectedly sticking a piece of dry ice down the back of his underwear! He won’t be able to sit for weeks!”). So it was with a certain smug confidence that I sat down with a few friends this past weekend to play the 1990s-themed version of Trivial Pursuit. After all, nearly half of my life transpired during the ’90s — I couldn’t help but know all of the relevant trivia. Or so I thought.

We tore open the box and set up the board. Instead of the usual circular playing pieces, there were four figurines: a cup of coffee, a PalmPilot-esque PDA, a certificate for “dotcom.com stock” and a grunge rocker. And instead of the usual six stodgy categories, there were six ultra-hip types of questions: “Hanging,” “Viewing,” “Wired,” “Oops,” “Trends” and “Important.” After admiring the shoddily-made game pieces and the “funky” typefaces on the board, we could no longer stand the suspense and began playing.

Half an hour in, nobody had answered a question correctly. We began accompanying questions with hints and telling each other which categories to choose based on which question the player would be most likely to answer correctly. Questions were read so as to make the answers as obvious as possible: “‘Which company sent its TIREless mascot on tour in 1994?’ No, it wasn’t Goodyear; Goodyear doesn’t have a mascot. A blimp doesn’t count as a mascot! No, it wasn’t Firestone either. The mascot is the something Man. It’s alliterative. It sounds like ‘Michigan.’”

It was unbelievably depressing — not because we all discovered how little we actually knew about the ’90s, but because we realized how the ’90s would actually be remembered: as a time of unshowered musicians, overpriced and overspiced coffee-related beverages, distracting pocket electronics and thousands of failed e-businesses. Having one category called “Important” implies that all of the other categories are unimportant, but this couldn’t be further from the truth; it turns out that even the “Important” questions are about insignificant trivia (yes, more insignificant than one would expect from a game with “trivial” in its name) cloaked as politically relevant. There was no “What 1996 act denied federal recognition of same-sex marriages?” (The Defense of Marriage Act.) Instead, there was “What thespian couple caused a stir by making out at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 1997?” (Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche. Didja catch the clever “thespian” pun?) The closest the game came to making a political statement was putting a question about the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide in the “Oops” category.

Is this how the halcyon years of our youth are really going to be remembered? As a series of sex scandals, popular haircuts, buggy Microsoft operating systems and synchronized group dances? VH1’s I Love the ’90s website doesn’t provide a picture that’s any rosier; interspersed amongst dreadfully unfunny references like “RUNNNN O.J. RUUUNNNNN!!!!” are discussions of the merits of Tickle-Me Elmo and other unfortunate trends. Other decades are remembered as times of great political upheaval and social progress — the Roaring ’20s, the Great Depression, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Sexual Revolution — but the decade of our adolescence is defined by short-lived products and sensationalized trivialities.

I suppose there is a silver lining to this dark cloud, however. For one thing, the fact that people were able to eschew political activism in the ’90s and focus on consumption is itself a sign of progress; sure, we were spending all of our time learning the Macarena, snapping snap bracelets and seeing how many pairs of slouch socks we could layer on our feet and still fit into our Keds, but that’s because we could (that is, until snap bracelets were banned from schools because one stupid kid sliced his wrist open or something). Conspicuous consumption was a luxury, and it was one that our forebears had not had.

More reassuring is the likelihood that 20 years from now, the ’90s will no longer be the object of our reminiscence and will instead be appropriately ignored. This is likely for two reasons: first, the fin de si�cle brings with it a wave of undifferentiated nostalgia, which means that the recent obsession with reminiscing about the past decade, the past month and even the past week is only a temporary occupation. (The downfall of VH1, which also airs Best Week Ever, will play a large role in the abatement of this unbridled retrospective-making.) We, too, shall have perspective.

Second, when this time comes, we will still be nostalgic for the good old days — but it won’t be the ’90s. Morris Holbrook and Robert Schindler, business professors at Columbia and Rutgers respectively, have conducted several studies looking at consumer nostalgia. Their studies showed that people tend to be fondest of the objects and cultural artifacts from their early to mid twenties. This means that the Gen-Xers will be the ones stuck eternally in the ’90s, wishing they could still wear pacifier necklaces and scrunchies, while our minds will forever return to the years we’re living now. They get Lorena Bobbitt, Monica Lewinsky and adding “NOT!” to the end of every sentence; we get the advent of cell-phone ubiquity, legitimate political corruption and a pop culture that revolves around snarkiness. Rarely am I so glad to live in troubled times.