Wow, that article is such a time capsule of 2011. The writers says "Avatar" and "Harry Potter" failed to bring America together the same way "Star Wars" and "The Matrix" did (that's....an opinion. But it's true that this was before "Avengers" in 2012 cemented the status of Marvel films in pop culture). And he makes the comment that "Facebook's not political" (wow, that didn't last).
Yeah, appropriately enough for a discussion about nostalgia I think they had a pretty rosey, over-simplified view of the past; I don't think "we" were "all on the same page" when it came to Nirvana, that was kind of the point. The Matrix wasn't Star Wars big; everyone alive and even vaguely plugged in at the time knows what "bullet time" is, but I don't know if that quite pushes it over the line, and if it does what about The Matrix made it a monoculture sensation in a way that was significantly different from the (then very recent) Dark Knight? And if The Matrix was a monoculture sensation in 1999, why was Jagged Little Pill in 1995/96 (which comfortably outsold Nevermind and all Prince albums) not? But an interesting insight into a school of though at the time nonetheless.