Infinite Jest - Subsidized Time

Subsidized Time

In the novel's world, each year is subsidized by a specific corporate sponsor for tax revenue purposes. The years of Subsidized Time are listed here, in order:

1. Year of the Whopper
2. Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad
3. Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar
4. Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken
5. Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster
6. Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office Or Mobile
7. Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland
8. Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
9. Year of Glad

Most of the events in the novel take place in the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (YDAU), and critics have debated which year this coincides with in the Gregorian Calendar.

Critic Stephen Burn, in his book on Infinite Jest, argues that YDAU corresponds to 2009: the MIT Language Riots took place in 1997 (n. 24) and those riots occurred 12 years before YDAU (n. 60). Also, if the "2007" in "Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office, Or Mobile" refers to the pre-subsidization-style numerical date convention, then YDAU (which comes two years later) is 2009.

It is also possible that YDAU is 2008, as Matty Pemulis turns 23 in YDAU (p. 682). Matty and Mike Pemulis's father immigrated from Ireland in 1989 when Matty was "three or four" (p. 683). If Matty had been three and four in 1989, he was born in 1985, which means he turns 23 in 2008. Also, James Incandenza was ten years old in 1960 (p. 157), which puts his suicide at age 54 in 2004, four years before YDAU (p. 142). And on page 63 the Enfield Tennis Academy is said to have been open as of YDAU for "three pre-Subsidized years and then eight Subsidized years," while on page 949 the character Hal recalls the March 1998 blizzard that came "a few months" after ETA opened. This means the Academy opened at the end of 1997 or very early in 1998 and Subsidized Time began three years later on 1/1/2001.

Another theory holds that YDAU is 2011. The most compelling evidence for this is Don Gately's age in the Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland (27). Gately was 9 during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, placing his birth around 1983. This identifies the Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland as 2010 and YDAU as 2011, meaning that Subsidized Time began in 2004.

But November 4, YDAU, falls on a Wednesday (176) and November 8 on a Sunday (325). If Subsidized Time is parallel to real-world time, this means that YDAU would be either 2009 or 2015.