US Pop culture peaked in 1999-2001. Peak box office attendance and peak TV viewership occurred around that time.

Agent Smith agrees with you.

"The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization, because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization, which is of course what this is all about."