Before We Were Awake

On cereal boxes, collective memory, and the strange shared grammar of food nostalgia

There is a particular quality of attention that only exists in the minutes before you’re fully conscious. A soft, animal alertness — present but not yet defended. Eyes open, brain still warm from sleep, the world not quite loaded. And for a whole generation of us, maybe two, this was the precise state in which we encountered our first text of the day.

Th…