In the bloom of 2009, Autostraddle burst forth into the world, full of ideas (mostly about Lady Gaga) and images (mostly of Lady Gaga). When I close my eyes and think about 2009, I imagine sitting on my aunt’s couch at 1 AM attempting to “live-blog” Dinah Shore weekend through emails from Alex, feeling like we were on a content treadmill that I simply could not afford to abandon for even a few hours. That is how most of 2009 reads to me: trying to live-blog something at 1AM.
But how well do YOU remember (the gay parts) of 2009? There is simply only one way to figure out, and it is by taking this quiz.
Hot tip for this quiz: if the question seems really hard, try the process of elimination with the potential answers. The harder the question the more likely it is that I stacked the answers in a way to facilitate your ability to answer it.
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Riese is the 40-year-old Co-Founder and CEO of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in California. Her work has appeared in nine books including "The Bigger the Better The Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image & Other Hazards Of Being Female," magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. Follow her on twitter and instagram.
Riese has written 3019 articles for us.
I got a lot of these right! But I’m still stuck on The Farm. The Farm??
I was thinking the same thing.
Pretty pleased with my 76% considering I was 16-17 year old living in rural Texas at the time. I got a lot more of the pop culture questions than the political ones, which tracks.
So no one was gonna tell me there’s a movie where Toni Child’s plays possible gay involved in some shenanigan where she kills an abusive man and sets out on a road trip with other possible alternative lifestyle women.
Is this the true reason she missed out on Joan’s engagement party?
OMG I JUST CHOKED!! COMMENT AWARD!
Is this the true reason she missed out on Joan’s engagement party?
LOL.
I love this response so much.
(Also, just FYI: Toni Childs is back on TV with a new show on OWN. Sadly, it looks very, very heterosexual.)
Ok no one is sharing their scores? But I got an 88%/ B, and you know what? Considering I was in the closet in 2009, I’ll take it!!
Quiz Grade: B
Score: 14
Percentage: 82%
Well, I seemed to get the pop culture ones right, but the American politics ones less so, and as I’m not American I’m upgrading myself to 100% and am feeling very pleased with my performance.
congratulations on a perfect 100!!
82% baby! Surprised how much I remember of 2009 given that I was very busy being in the closet then.
I got an E with 41% which is fair when being 14, but MORE importantly this quiz let me experience The Gaythering Storm for the very first time
when do humans achieve sentience? i thought it would be much earlier. but this quiz revealed to me that i retain almost no memory of this time whatsoever. (i was 13. 53%/E)
I got 15 right for 88%! Jeez, 2009 feels like a lifetime ago! I’m so old. 😖
Quiz Grade: A
Score: 16
Percentage: 94%
I had no idea I remembered 2009 that well. It was fairly formative though as that was the year I finally had to come out to myself. I only missed the question about the New England state, which for a 19 year old from rural East Texas stumbling my way out of the closet while also figuring out I had actually been a liberal the entire time, I guess it isn’t too surprising I would have missed that news. I had a lot of catching up to do lol
nice work!
I got a C & proud of it.
76% C, I was closeted and GLUED to the queer corners of the internet in 2009, so i really thought I would’ve aced this! It was hard!
I got an E but I did discover that New England isn’t a state, but a collection of States. Which probably wasn’t the lesson I was supposed to be learning.
I was out and gay married in 2009 and still only got a 59%. I blame parenting.
Weird that I simultaneously feel like 2009 was just five years ago and also 100 years ago.
I got a 76.
Exactly this! How is it possible that Sainthood and ArchAndroid came out more than a decade ago?? And yet also I had only been out for a year, and that time seems SO long ago.
(My comment above was supposed to be a reply to the comment above it, but the reply function seems to be broken? Cause I can’t get this one to work either)
I got a C, but like Sally above I’m not American so claiming at least a B.
71%? I was 29 in 2009. I am bad at standardized tests.
I got a C but I also discovered that I had completely erased NOM and The Gathering Storm from my memory, which was worth the price of admission. (They were definitely omnipresent for a while in my 2009!)
The problem: now I remember NOM.
A, 94%, slightly let down by Kate’s show. Looking it up now I have no memory of her hair like this at all!
65%D
Looks kinda like an emoji, don’t you think ? A smiling, addled person with Big Hair.
But I digress.
I couldn’t even make it 69% I mean, revoke my lesbian card or what !
I got a 9/17, which I’m not too sad about ’cause I was barely 5 in 2009 lol. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUTOSTRADDLE!!! <3
i too was a smart 5 year old so we have that in common
59%
In my defense, I was still very much a repressed ball of angst in 2009, and had little clue as to what was going on in the queer world.
A D! This has reinforced my belief that I simply don’t remember 95% of my life or any events I have lived through
Quiz Grade: C
Score: 13
Percentage: 76%
2009, what a time! I was surprised to score this highly, considering that I take the lack of a question referencing Skins season 3 as a personal insult and was distracted by it throughout. (I’m kidding – but Skins season 3 aired in early 2009 and Naomi/Emily made my heart sing that year!)
76% / C
That’s pretty good for where I was in 2009. That was my junior/senior year of high school and I was not out to myself in the slightest. I was vaguely aware of gay stuff in the news, but I was mostly aware of Glee. I was the perfect age for Glee and I loved it so much! (<\3 Naya Rivera <\3)
E/59%
The YA Fic was my only confident answer; it would however be an error to extrapolate my age from this :p
100%, hello! It is clear that being an avid AS reader back in 2009 has paid dividends. Still both bummed and elated that The Farm wasn’t picked up.
ok i got 41% and all the ones i got right were context guesses. BUT in 2009 i was 12, in buttcrack nowhere canada, had dial up internet and the only reason that I knew the word lesbian was because our neighbor had a neck tattoo and lots of “good friends”. shoutout to trina, thanks for teaching me how to play pool and also maybe being my ring of keys lol
Got 12%, Grade E. I spent the late 2000s through early 2010s living under a rock. In a cave. On Pluto. While Pluto was vacationing at Alpha Centauri.
Missed one question only because I wasn’t in the zone yet. Was an avid reader back then and remember being able to determine who wrote which article based on writing style before it was clearly labeled the way it is now. One of those highly specific skills I was cultivating at the time like being able to distinguish a Tegan song from a Sara one and knowing if a television show was filmed in Canada within three minutes. Clearly college paid off.
82%/B
Considering I was a very vocal “straight ally” high school senior/college freshman in 2009 who made a lot of self-deprecating jokes about my “extended tomboy phase” while experimenting with high femme looks (I also traveled with a group from my college to go to the March in DC with ally pins and a “straight but not narrow” sign), I’m pretty pleased with my score here
Quiz Grade: B
Score: 14
Percentage: 82%
Not bad! But my brain is apparently mushy
88% B Too ashamed to tell you which ones I missed [Ack, included Teagan & Sara’s album]
No mention of just about the only (cultural) thing I was thinkin about in 2009: Otalia! Otalia! Otalia! Otalia! [Olivia & Natalia on the final season (sigh) of “Guiding Light”. For all that they were handcuffed by CBS, still one of the most beautiful f/f love stories ever on U.S. broadcast (the kind w/o cable or streaming) TV]