OJ Simpson memories
The shared experiences that defined the OJ Simpson news in the 1990s will never occur the same way again
We don’t make “where were you when … ” memories like the old days, huh?
I suspect the shared experiences from those defining major stories of our lifetimes will never be the same, either.
Nowadays, when a massive news story develops, the question is no longer “where were you when you heard” but instead “who within your numerous Group Chats texted you the news?” or “where were you scrolling social media when you read it?”
The news of O.J. Simpson’s death yesterday brought two reactions across the country: those who remember every aspect of his famed low-speed police chase … or those too young to remember it and unable to comprehend the cultural significance of it all.
Which seems fitting because O.J. Simpson’s entire life divided people into two categories.
As a football player, OJ was:
The best running back in the NFL.
Or an overrated stat compiler who wasn’t helping his team win.
After his playing career, before he was infamous, O.J. was:
Beloved by Corporate America as a pitchman, and by fans who watched him as a sideline reporter and movie star.
Or loathed by those who knew the off-camera O.J. who sexually assaulted girls while he was at USC and routinely abused his wife.
When OJ was a suspect in the death of his ex-wife and her friend and led cops on a low-speed chase on a Los Angeles highway, you had people who:
Rushed to the streets, the highways, and overpasses, making signs to support OJ and cheering for him.
Couldn’t comprehend why anyone would possibly do that.
And then when the first verdict came, the not-guilty vote, it opened the eyes of the two radically different views of America:
The Black community who knew what it was like to experience police brutality and the planting of evidence, and was still thinking about the four cops acquitted in the brutal beating of Rodney King.
And the White community who couldn’t fathom the jury came back non-guilty.
I’m middle age, and us 80s kids and 90s college students can still remember when the “where were you?” took longer to figure out.
In 1986, the Space Shuttle Disaster, I heard at my locker between classes in Junior High. I never saw the footage until I got home from school and probably only saw it once on the local news.
In 1991, when Magic Johnson announced that he contracted the AIDS virus, I was in the very back of the crowded Common Room of the Olmeca dormitory at San Diego State University as about a hundred people watched on one TV in mostly stunned silence. My roommate’s name was Keyon. People called him EJ because his favorite player was Earvin Johnson. Everyone wanted EJ’s opinion about Magic.
In 1994, during the OJ police chase, I was driving north on I-5, from San Diego to Pleasanton. Over on I-405, O.J. was in the back seat as Al Cowlings drove south. So many people were clogging the highways and overpasses to get near OJ that I was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, even though I was on a different highway. What’s normally a seven-hour drive became an 11-hour drive. My car didn’t have a functioning radio. I listened to mixed cassette tapes the entire time. I vaguely recall hearing people outside my car window mentioning OJ’s name. I didn’t know what was happening until I got to my Dad’s, eager to watch the NBA Finals. Instead, I was captivated by the O.J. saga that night, the next day … and really the next two years of my life.
In the Summer of 1995, during the OJ trial, I was interning at ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn. ESPN aired live coverage of the trial every day and I watched on a routine basis all over ESPN’s campus.
In Oct.1995, for the OJ Verdict, I was the Editor in Chief of The Daily Aztec and coordinated our coverage of SDSU’s campus reacting to the news. I watched the announcement in our newsroom on our one small TV. We dispatched reporters around campus to gauge their reactions. I remember looking at the tie OJ wore that day and thought, “I own the exact same tie.” 1
Leading up to the verdict, I’ll never forget conversations with my roommate Lamarr Johnson, a Black guy from Los Angeles, as we discussed the case. Lamarr told me about experiencing police brutality, how common it was, how corrupt and racist some cops in Los Angeles could be.
As a White guy from the suburbs, this was all foreign to me. The complaints we had as teenagers were that Pleasanton cops were bored and hassled us for no reason. Planting evidence and racial profiling? I didn’t have a concept.
I still thought OJ was guilty and was surprised by the verdict, but wasn’t shocked by the split reaction on campus. Here’s the story reporter Jennifer Lanza filed for our student newspaper.
The shared experience of watching the verdict is what stays with me to this day.
I never knew a student with a cell phone. Maybe half the students had TVs in their dorm rooms. We had one small TV in our off-campus apartment. On campus, Monty’s Bar and a few of the dining establishments had small TVs. Those locations were packed with students and staff.
That was about it for viewing options on campus. I recall some students inside The Daily Aztec newsroom who were not on our staff. They just needed a place to watch the verdict. We all watched together. We reacted together. None of us had a phone capture any of it. Reporters came back to the newsroom with details of what they witnessed. Photographers went into a dark room to develop their images.
Nowadays, news like this would be consumed through our phones. We’d watch every angle of every video that someone captured with their phone and uploaded to TikTok, retweet everything on Twitter without knowing if it was true, and yell at strangers on the internet.
Back in 1995, some students cheered, and other students walked away solemnly.
How about you? Where did you watch The Chase and The Verdict?
UPDATE: I don’t know for sure if my tie was the same as OJ. I shopped at Express back then and I doubt OJ bought his tie there. But they sure looked the same. I kept that tie for a long time and coulda swore I still had it. After originally publishing this post, I found a photo of me wearing that tie to a throwback 1990s party a few years ago. Here is OJ right after Not Guilty.
What do you think, same tie?