Paq

So i was thinking...some people have been calling 2000-2009 the lost decade (unless things change quickly in the last year or so of the decade) and i was trying to figure out what people thought....

Like..what has come about in the last 9 or so years that will define the decade?

When i look at the 90's, i think: Easily accessible PC's, internet revolution, Grunge music, the last of GenX, a lot of angst, the start of globalization, ICQ and AIM, the simpsons were still watchable, Married with children, Dot com boom and crash, military action in somolia, the early 90's WTC bombing, timothy mcveigh and OJ simpson. Cell phones were just starting to come out and txting was not really an option or was really pricey. I also remember the backlash at the woodstock revival's $4 consumerist water....Oh, and water started being bottled and sold for more than any other drink in the vending machine...I also think of the rise and fall of the japanese sports car against the beginnings of the SUV craze. Anime was beginning to boom and internet porn was just starting. I also remember gas prices ranging from $0.80 to 1.05 for regular

2000's: i see: a dumbing down of news networks and society in general, GOOGLE, the rise of 'reality tv,' the beginnings of the social networking, web 2.0 stuff (facebook, myspace, twitter) cell phone txting, $100-150/month cell phone bills that seem normal, broadband becoming the norm...Then you have the rise of the 'cell phone pic' queens that pervade most porn message boards. After that, you get the rise of the truly amateur porn, basically a guy with a camera and a girl who will bang him. i remember the first scandals where someone would put up picks of their naked ex lovers...now it's pretty commonplace. The war on terrorism, the war on ideas , the rise of paris hilton (mainly what i mean with the dumbing down of society in general: we started to idolize those who are blatantly ignorant and proud of it...paris hilton and the oh so great "it says chicken of the sea..so is tuna a fish or chicken" jessica simpson) then you get to the rap/mainstream crossover which seems to have lost the social message of hte 90's music. it's debateable, but it's hard for me to find a song with a message anymore. Suggestions are definitely welcome. I also look at the housing boom/bust, the rise of $4 gasoline and $140/bbl oil, a president who seemed scornful of ideas...


So, i want to know: when you think of the 90's or the 2000's, what really stands out as defining those decades? I know i'm a bit nostalgic which is why i'm trying my best to understand what has come about in the last 9 yrs or so that defines the decade in either a positive or negative light. I just think there hasn't been much in innovation compared with how fast things moved in the 90's. I also realize these things do run in cycles with huge growth followed by contraction/consolidation, etc.

__________________
Live.

Chris

FuglyStick

For Americans, and for the rest of the world to some extent, 9/11 was easily the most defining moment of the decade, and then some. I remember watching it unfold, and thinking that everything would change, on a scale that things had not changed since Pearl Harbor. The 90's were between the Cold War and the War on Terror; in retrospect, it was one of the most peaceful decades of a century.

Socially...well, every generation is going to claim to be more ambitious and "right" than the generations that follow. The 90's where when Generation X joined the workforce, and they brought their unique brand of cynicism with them. They were screwed and they knew they were screwed--they weren't nearly as large at the Boomers before them or Gen Y after them, so they didn't have the numbers to sway social change, EXCEPT in the tech field, where their tech savvy brought the tech boom of the 90's.

As generational categories are arbitrary, I'd say Gen Y started to come of age around the middle of the 00's. Gen Y played a very large role in the election of Obama; college campuses everywhere were celebrating on election night. Unlike Gen X, Gen Y has the numbers to swing policy through the voting booths. Gen Y also seems to be a bit more narcissistic than their predecessors, perhaps comfortable in their position of clout. But the economic situation in the last years of the decade may end up tempering the perceived frivolity of the generation.

Of course, none of this is the opinion of a sociologist, just bouncing ideas around.

__________________
AZIZ! LIGHT!

Redlemon

I've been thinking about starting a similar thread for a few days, but I was going to call it "I Love the '00s". Because, like you, I can't really think of much that stands apart in the pop culture world from the last decade. I mean, we can't even decide how to pronounce '00. Is that the aughts? The naughts? The oh-ohs?

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

Poppinjay

The Nucular Decade

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

Cynthetiq

I think the 00s were the years we as a nation were most gluttonous. Everything was luxo and upscale, even things like Mac & Cheese got an upscale treatment. There's a restaurant here that sells nothing but mac & cheese and charges $7 a plate. Granted there is a PB&J place that does something similar but they've been around since mid-90s.

I'd even go so far as to say that the Boomers and the Xers all lived larger than they should have.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

little_tippler

I have heard it called The Noughties and I like the name.

Main events/markers I can think of:

Bush and the War on Terrorism. 9/11. Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. The economic growth of China, and now India. The boom in the art world of art from non-Western Cultures. Global warming. mp3 players. Hip hop and Emo becoming mainstream. Teen pop rock, Britney Spears-style. Life of Pi. The Davinci code. Blogging. Katrina. The Asia Tsunami. Wireless internet. Google, Amazon, and Ebay. itunes. Pen drives. The Human Genome Project. The Space Shuttle crash. The election of Barack Obama. Credit Crunch.

For me personally, it's also the decade I got on the TFP

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

flstf

2000-2009 = decade of speculation and crash
2010-2019 = decade of depression

Charlatan

The naughties are bracketed by 9/11 at one end and the economic crash at the other. It is filled with profligate spending on the part of government as well as the average person. It's as if we took the post 9/11 urge to go shopping way too much to heart.

I am only hoping that this new reality with a lack of cheap credit will knock some sense into us all.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Xerxys

Wow, I don't know what it means to the world, you see, I could give a shit less when I was 13-20 y/o about the world. Soz I never paid attention. Now I can only tell you what the '90 means to me ... nothing. Growing up was a non happening. I must have been dead till now.

Being an average C person is shit. No really it's worse than failing. College is when it all happened properly. I realized I was somehow smart (-ish) and can in fact be better than grades. Then my grades went up. Then I was pulled out of college and I live alone now.

/Rambling

'90 = Blurr. No money, motivation, devoid of taste ...
'00 = I was born. Along came SUV's and ambition. Viva la capitalisme!!!

Plan9

"...birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom!"

...

I submit we both wanted and deserved 9/11.

...

'90s were better.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

ametc

This last decade has seen a major change in the way society reacts to itself.

Families are becoming larger in the sense that all the Boomers are getting older and some are starting to live with their children or grandchildren. Also, friends are living with friends' families. And it's also getting more common for single parents to live with their parents. My family is a good example of all of these. My grandmother, my sister and her son, and my best friend are all living with me in my parent's house.

Also, society is not dumbing down. In fact.. we're getting a lot smarter. And that makes the media look like it's dumbing down. It's the same..we're just getting smarter. We have easier access to more information than ever before and this is both a good and bad thing. Bad because sometimes the information we may be getting may be propaganda or wrong.

This decade we have learned that authority figures have become incredibly corrupt and this has run down into how our children think and are taught. I've seen kids at my nephew's school questioning their parents and teachers more than they used to. Not questioning as in out of curiousity.. but questioning WHY they have to or should do something. They're interested in what kind of role their authority figures have over them.

We're also seeing a sexual revolution over the internet. There is way more amateur porn than there ever was. Porn stars are getting increasingly uglier for some reason. They cannot compare to some amateur stars at all.

Old people are not that old fashioned anymore. While working at a nursing home, there was a 90 year old telling me how she wanted to go to a rock show like her grandkids and rock out because she loved their music. (Really! haha) Boomers and "near Boomers" are soo not old fashioned.

Green living is IN.






This is probably the decade of information and experience. Not only do we "The more you know!.." we "The more you do!..". haha


The wierdest thing of all is how fast it passed.

~Melee~

The funny thing is that because of my age, these decades pretty are lining up with major periods of my life. I was born in late 1987, so most of my childhood was in the 1990s, and then once we hit this decade I hit adolescence, and in this upcoming decade I will be a college graduate off into the "real world.'

But from a less egocentric perspective, I kind of see the 1990s as a time of tech boom and the world getting used to the fact that we were no longer in the Cold War era. In a lot of ways it seemed like a decade, at least in the U.S, where we got just a bit too comfortable. This decade? I see it as a decade of awakening. Terrorism has come to the forefront of our minds. The economy? Not so great. The future somehow looks a bit more grim from right here.

biznatch

I wish that, once in a while, I could see this expression be employed correctly. Everyone seems to write and pronounce it "Viva", but it's "Vive." And "capitalisme" is a "male" word, so it'd be "le capitalisme."
I don't mean to be an ass, you were just the person I decided to rant my frustration to. Too many french expressions are used in the wrong way (maybe we deserve it).

---------- Post added at 01:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:33 AM ----------

back to thread:
It did pass incredibly fast. 9/11 seems like yesterday, although my thoughts on 9-11 have matured a bit as time has passed.

__________________
Check it out: The Open Source/Freeware/Gratis Software Thread

Xerxys

**Recovers**

OK, OK,

Vive le capitalisme Dammit!!

biznatch

Sorry, I thought about my post more today and realized I came through a little bit harsh. I guess I shouldn't let myself get frustrated so easily, .

__________________
Check it out: The Open Source/Freeware/Gratis Software Thread

Savinkov

I am intrigued by your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Seriously, my viewpoint mirrors yours. Well spoken, good sir.

My long-term fear is that the crash at this end of the decade may ultimately shape our future even more than 9/11 did at the other end of it. I pray that I'm wrong.

__________________
"What is the thing we crave most in life? The sense that someone somewhere remembers and loves us.
Even better if we love them in return. Anything can be endured if that idea holds fast." -- Martin Cruz Smith, RED SQUARE

Charlatan

My biggest fear is that we will learn nothing from the economic crash (after all aren't we repeating the same sorts of mistakes they made just before the crash of the 20s and 30s... same great loss just new flavours?) but will continue to be shaped by the fear that came after 9/11.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Xerxys

Er... OK. I know nothing about the '20's and the '30's depression .. (besides the fact that there was a depression at that point in time) but what exactly are we doing the same as before?

There was no information boom to prevent leaders from misbehaving very badly and countries were falling into revolutions far too many far too much at the same time in a very chaotic manner. Domino effect, where we think of the dominos as hurricanes!!

Surely were doing better .... ! Aren't we????? It can't be like this ...