What Happened to Decades?

Seriously, what happened to the idea of decades? We’re already halfway through the "20s," yet for the past twenty years, the cultural conversation has been dominated by "generations" instead. Here’s why that shift isn’t doing anyone any favors.
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[@TheAdamConover]

Visit groundnews.com/factually to stay fully informed, see through biased media and get all sides of every story. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through my link.

[@Danielspremiumhub]

2000e Hey Day 2010s back in day 2020s everyone high in America, everyone.

[@Illiteratechimp]

Prior to 2000 we called the 1900s-1910 the 'turn of the century" Wonder why that didnt come back

[@NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEJ]

@@Illiteratechimp Turn of the millennium was going around at the 2000's but that fell gone quickly as well.

[@NJGuy1973]

Kurt Andersen wrote a piece in 2012 about this in Vanity Fair. As he wrote, economies of scale have made innovation unprofitable. Starbucks and McDonald's all look the same, arent going to change, because changing 40,000 worldwide locations isn't profitable. And Old Navy an The Gap aren't gonna let hoodies and pocket t-shirts go out of style.

[@GTSongwriter]

SCREW GROUND NEWS.. I'M GETTING SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE SHOVING IT DOWN MY THROAT!

[@brianmclaughlan2546]

Radio stations for the past 25 years: "Playing the hits of the 80's, the 90's, and today!"

[@Hormiga59]

That's exactly what came to mind when I read the title of the video.

[@danielaguiar9807]

thats what I was thinking lmaoo

[@robspiess]

Lol, scrolling through the comments and you beat me by 30 minutes.

[@user-ge6dh3oo8k]

TRUE

[@MonieThu]

Everything since the 2000s is today 😭😭

[@foehammerTrance]

I would like to nominate the "Screaming 20s"

[@DonnyThaDealer]

@@foehammerTrance just before the whailing 30s.

[@nefariousyawn]

The scowling 20's

[@brianmcgee8414]

I was just thinking we could reuse the roaring 20's😂😅

[@alphagas]

I like crumblin' twennies

[@jackthorton10]

I prefer the roaring 2020s still

[@VoidVerification]

When the pandemic hit, some reactions in Germany were: "Oh no, not shitty 20's again." In Germany, the 1920's weren't "roaring". There was a post-WWI depression, hyperinflation, political violence and the rise of fascism. So, America, welcome to the German 20's!

[@manniking233]

Yup. And it's leading to similar circumstances. Yikes! (Not to remind you of horrifying memories but IJS...) 😢

[@shrihana9611]

yeah man. only the US was having a good time. India was flying sky high with ppl wanting the british to get the fuck out. and already several famines happened within the start of the 20th century.

[@roymackenzie-jy4lr]

The late 20s was OK, wasn't it? It was the Depression that caused the rise of fascism

[@lancecarlisle1749]

I'd say America is trying to speedrun the German 30's at this point

[@VoidVerification]

@roymackenzie-jy4lr The so-called "Goldenen Zwanziger" (Golden Twenties) only encompassed the second half of the 20s, and was only relatively stable as compared to the awful first half. They were still marked by political and social tension, relatively high unemployment, and the increasing influence of the Nazi party. Hardly a great time.

[@apanapane]

For the past 10-15 years or so, I have been saying that it feels like the decades aren't as distinct anymore as they were back in the day. I really enjoyed this video.

[@g8kpr3000]

I was telling my daughter this last year. Decades were distinct. But I feel like “the 2000s” is one 25 year decade.

[@daniel-vn4ql]

Things are not changing in society as they used to. the last 5 decades of the last century bought enormous change. Just look at the music. each new decade brought something new. the music of today could have been made any time in the last 25 years. The last time music was in any way different. was the early 2000s.

[@daniel-vn4ql]

@@g8kpr3000 yea 100%. its been just one long decade. Things might have began to feel different. But then covid started.

[@TheMiniatureManager]

Not gonna lie, I had no idea people weren't using decade names. I have been using "Early 2000s" and "Twenty Tens" for several years now. This was a very interesting and somewhat enlightening video. Thank you for throwing it together.

[@hellflame22]

W1❤❤

[@spearofhope2]

Don't worry bud, people are still using decade names. This is a rare bad take from Adam 😂

[@TheoFizylkl]

Nothing about seems to matter at all to me though am I alone about this? We are about to find out some crazy shit about our existence and he is talking about what to call the decades??!

[@TheoFizylkl]

I hope to God or God's or no gods or WHATEVER THE HELL THAT I'M NOT GOING CRAZY

[@TheoFizylkl]

I'm scared for real wtf is going on it feels like..... I've never been biblical and I've been a skeptic who has enjoyed Pokémon and dragonball and never really thought this shit was real and now they are talking about telepathic autistics orbs With Angels inside what is going on

[@StrongMed]

Another contributing factor to this phenomenon is the impact of digital media on culture. Until the early 2000s (or aughts, if you prefer), culture was largely determined by a handful of huge corporations deciding what television shows would get greenlit for the 3 main networks, what handful of presumed blockbusters would get promoted, which singers & bands to push on radio stations, and which toys/games would get marketed in commercials. The average person didn't really have too much choice in what media they consumed and fashion they adopted, and if they went against the grain, they immediately stood out in a way that may have been socially detrimental to them. In contrast, today there is more media produced every day on video sharing platforms like KZbin, blogs and microblogs, Spotify, and iTunes than one person could ever even look at. We no longer have a shared culture. The reason we will never have a "That 2010s Show" isn't just because we don't have a catchy word for the "2010s", but it's because everyone was doing their own thing. Even the mega-celebrities of today, like Taylor Swift, will never have the same cross-generational cultural impact of people like Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.

[@RikiGuitarist]

These feels like the more influential factors than not having an agreeable way to label these decades.

[@trackstarz]

This is it

[@rgsunderground]

We are not in a homogenized culture like we were in the 20th century. You used to be able to ask if you had seen the last Seinfeld episode, now you will have no one relate to the youtube video you watched last night. Also, people are able to find whatever niche interest or belief and live in that rabbit hole never experiencing what their co-worker or community experiences. We are in a fractured culture and any wording won't bring back the homogeny of the past. It's not a bad thing, It is just the way we are evolving with the internet.

[@StrongMed]

@ These days I can't even find people who have heard of some of my favorite shows and KZbin channels!

[@LuthienNightwolf]

This is exactly it. It’s the internet. We aren’t all spoon-fed the same media but instead we have access to everything out there, all the time, and there’s so much more of it. We don’t share the experience anymore because we can curate our own. Not having defined decades is a symptom, not the problem.

[@travishunter8573]

In the 2000s a lot of people just said the 21st century. Like "get with the times it's the 21st century" or "welcome to the 21st century" but you can only be new to a century for so long

[@wintersprite]

The 1900s were also “turn of the century”.

[@bbrake]

I was thinking this very thing, but like that went on way too long. I think I still hear the occasional "21st century" reference when people aren't just doing "generation" stuff

[@Aubreyb07]

As a current teenager this unlocked memories

[@MDestron2282]

Honestly, I still say this to my mom surprisingly often.

[@milesmartin9624]

And then in the 2010s, people would just outright say the year when telling people to get with the times

[@CayCr8s]

AMAZING take - a 2001 baby who keeps being told I don’t “REALLY” know what life was like in the early 2000s. I think people also forget that decades have fallout that bleeds into the next decade, especially for lower class people. I enjoyed a lot of things from the 90s simply because it was more affordable and attainable than some of the new things that came out during my childhood. But I could “never understand” because I wasn’t there. I’m not personally offended by that though, because I don’t need others to validate my experiences. It just goes to show that our concept of time is very very interesting

[@melissamartinez5252]

I’m a millennial and it really bothers me when I see other millennials saying the types of things that people tell u. I was born in 1990 but i also played with/watched things from the 80s (as well as 90s) as a kid and even beyond that. I have seen millennials say this to gen z before and I hate it! Why not accept a young person that is actually saying they can relate to the same things as us? Why keep forcing that divide?! Just know i find it nice when i read that a gen zer can relate to us in any way. 🫶🏻

[@DiemenAut]

I was born in 1988, so I can only remember the 90ies. But my childhood was so much influenced by the 80ies because of records and video tapes and the old Commodore 64 we still had in our basement.

[@smithsunleashed]

@@melissamartinez5252exactly. Was born in 03. I remember the 2000s and literally lived in it to know what its like. I hate it when people gatekeep certain years like that

[@malbrojay4740]

​@@smithsunleashed80s babies used to say the same things to people born in the early 90s.

[@Radien]

Heck, why stop there? As a choir and theater kid, I grew up on jazz some that dated back to the 20s, and Broadway musical across the entire last century. I'm even a big Pirates of Penzance fan, and that play was a hundred years old when they first recorded a movie version. And we're not even getting into Shakespeare....

[@johnnyonline]

You've convinced me. Starting today I'm living in the 20's. I'm telling my kids they're living through the 20's too. They're 20's kids, in the same way I was an 80's kid.

[@bodhixxx1]

your living in the non genitalia time of USA. when people are born without genitalia they are also born without any creativity or personalities just useless eaters.

[@XpertDrumCovers]

born in 96, crazy to think I'll never make it past the 80s

[@rockingbeat]

Sounds like they're flappers lol

[@josephvlogsdon]

I do feel like the 2000s had a specific vibe to them, even though it wasn’t as strong as previous decades. This wasn’t really in terms of fashion, but pop culture. I associate The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Christopher Nolan’s Batman very much with the 2000s. I also associate childhood shows like Avatar with the 2000s. The experience of renting DVDs in a rental store is unique to the 2000s. Visiting social media exclusively on a desktop is also something confined to the 2000s. I feel things didn’t really start to change until after 2012. The smartphone changed how we interacted with one another, making time move faster. I also think with all the sequels and reboots of the 2010s and early 2020s, it feels like we don’t have a pop culture anymore. We’re simply recycling things from the past. The 2000s started that trend, but it became worse later. We’re nostalgic for other people’s nostalgia. We’ve become stagnant as a culture.

[@sontho6995]

Do you think we'll recycle the 2000s? Turning Red is a 2022 film set in the 2000s.

[@alaynatillis5310]

@@sontho6995 we definitely already are doing that. I watched a movie with my friends recently that was supposed to take place in 2013 and I was like whoa we’re already telling these stories already.

[@harrylane4]

The 2010s also had a very distinct vibe to them compared to the 2000s. And I’m sure the post-Covid era and its “vibes” will be remembered as radically different from the 2010s. I don’t really see anything different, all of those decades were codified after they ended

[@everythingisterrible8862]

There's some notable events this decade. The resurgence of Vine as a trend in Tiktok. The collapse of liberal capitalism as they help their natural allies, the fascists, rise in power. It's kind of like the rawring 20's, an intermediary time period before the bottom drops out. I call it 'the miserable 20's', and they cover the period of around 2015 to ~2026. (Nobody ever said we were good at getting these things to fit into nice and even numbers.) The decade that will follow will be a trip... the electorate will have to either allow the millennials and below to FINALLY seize power, or they'll be suppressed even more openly and violently. And there's the whole machine god thing that normies have no idea whatsoever about, which will land like a meteor from out of the sky. We'll enter an age of techno-fascism/techno-feudalism, and *maybe* we'll reach a period of Star Trek communism... In the grand scheme of things, the fact that movies and TV shows aren't as popular as they used to be is kind of a sidenote from all the more important things going on. They weren't very popular in the thousands of years before the 1900's, either.

[@oliversissonphone6143]

The first half of the 90s was more different than the second half.. than the first and second decades of this millennium.

[@Publicistvideos]

I think another reason culture is changing more slowly is because everything is archived and available to watch and listen to online. For example it’s incredibly easy to stream music from the past and be inspired by it, but previous generations were kind of forced to make things up as they went along. In the 80s finding music was a difficult trek. Kids just made stuff up. Now every musician can figure out exactly what synth or guitar or chord progression a previous artist used. We’re chasing our tails now because everything is recorded and available.

[@FurkanKhan100]

Very well said! It ultimately leads to homogenization and loss of creativity, diversity, and versatility in culture. A sad truth of the modern times, I guess.

[@armouros]

yes we need to start leting go of the past . wile i like the music of the 80s and 90s i feel like iv bean hairing it for my hole life. some songs have become short hand for a feeling like in movies thay call it a nedle drop.... when things look bad but one person is trying "i need a hero" starts playing . when ther a big ackson seen "Thunderstruck" starts playing . we need to make room for new things an maby that by stop using things from the past.

[@MRTOWELRACK]

Fast fashion too has a played a big part in blurring aesthetics. There are still distinct eras to an extent though. The mainstreaming of hipsterism in the early 2010s felt like a big change.

[@PretendingToBeAHuman]

@@FurkanKhan100 I feel like this las less to do woth greater access to old art and more to do with algorithms pushing homogeneous content. If you want to make money on your art, you have to please the algorithm and it only picks up on very specific things that the corporate overlords deem to be profitable. Greater access to past art is a GOOD thing.

[@andrewthornton2884]

It's definitely a part of it. Take TV for example. Friends is very much a show of its time, 1994-2004. Yet because of the nature of streaming it's never really gone away. It's still one of the most popular shows now, 21 years later. People born after that show ended are about to be able to drink, but it's still an omnipresent part of our culture. Compare that to old shows of past generations. It isn't that shows ever (at least in remotely modern times) fully went away. There were still reruns and syndication. But old shows got relegated to daytime TV and later on late night TV ala Nick at Nite. There were only so many slots for things so as new popular shows came along, ended, and went into syndication they replaced things. Eventually shows slipped away. Those who really wanted them could go out and buy VHS tapes and later DVDs, but you had to seek them out. They stopped being a real part of the ongoing culture. That's simply no longer the case and the nature of how split up our culture is today means its really hard for anything to get popular enough to replace those old touchstones. There are so many channels and streaming service that make original content that we called the early streaming era the Golden Age of TV, and in some ways it was, but while there were a ton of great shows that had their fans and a lot of success, few of them were quite able to achieve the level of popularity that the most popular shows of the 60s-early 00s achieved. They also tended to be more structured, which makes it harder to drop into a random episode in the middle of the day out of context and enjoy them. Which means that the old shows don't get displaced. They stick around. The new shows that enter syndication are the ones that don't stick. Look at what's currently on Nick at Nite. Friends, Modern Family, and The Big Bang Theory. (That's it by the way, they used to play a ton of shows at once, now its three). They ended in 2004, 2020, and 2019. That doesn't seem THAT bad. But they were all long running shows. They debuted in 1994, 2009, and 2007. They're very much a part of an older culture. Shows like Mom, The Goldbergs, Young Sheldon, and Mike & Molly which all started later than any of the current shows and mostly ended after the current shows have come and gone. They mostly stuck around for a year, maybe two, because no one watched them over the old standbys. The same is true of other channels that show significant syndicated content. TBS mostly runs the same three shows, along with Young Sheldon and Family Matters which is from the 90s. The other shows in the past decade that stuck around the longest are probably Full House and Fresh Prince, again, two more shows from the 90s. These older cultural touchpoints can't be matched and so they have a very hard time going away.

[@LumberjackNick]

Thank you for spelling this out for me. It’s been bothering me for 25 years. There are adults now who have never lived in a proper decade.

[@jcf2322]

That broke my brain, the idea that the past is in front of you because you can see it, via memories, but the future is behind you because you can't see it and it is unknown. Wow.

[@coltynstone-lamontagne]

Yeah, totally different point of view and thinking about how we move forward through time, so that's in front of us!

[@charlie-obrien]

Yeah, the future is sneaking up on you from behind with a sack full of nickels...watch out 💥

[@janejones7638]

I didn't understand the concept until you explained it again.

[@santilie]

@@janejones7638 I believe he explained it very poorly in fact, I also didn't understand what he meant until I read it here again

[@clara_cross]

Also interestingly, English USED TO BE one of these languages where the past was in front of us. That's why the word "before" can refer to the past, but it can also refer to something being in front of you: "The angel appeared before my very eyes", and that was actually its original meaning. There are also languages like Chinese where time is vertical, with the past being below us and the future being above us. And some languages perceive time as a wheel that passes through your chest at its 6 o'clock position, so there's different moments in time at various points around you. It's actually really interesting. This is actually a whole rabbit hole once you start diving into it. Linguistics is fascinating. And you can find videos about it right here on youtube, too.

[@christopherfaulkenberry]

My grandma used to speak of the lead up to the Great Depression as being fast paced, then within a month of the 1929 stock crash she said it was like time slowed down, and she was scared before she passed in 2009 at 95. She said time started feeling the like it did before the ‘29 crash, and was worrying about a repeat. That was 20+ years ago and yet it feels like a week ago she was telling me these things. 😢

[@karenholmes6565]

If we think back on the early 20th Century we did not talk in "decades" about time. We had the Jazz Age, and then we had the "prohibition era", and then there was the Great Depression, and after that was WWI, and then WWII era. Even in the 1950s we had The Atomic Age. I think we talked about decades starting in the 1960s, but prior to that we didn't really talk that way. I think we did that retrospectively. If you think about why the "decade" became shorthand for time, perhaps it is because Boomers were coming of age and it was their generational speak? The Boomers changed everything almost overnight. I also think of the term "Millennial" as being an era, not just a generation.

[@NJGuy1973]

@@karenholmes6565 The 1920s were referred to as "the Roaring Twenties" as they were happening.

[@karenholmes6565]

@ Do you have sources for that? I am sincerely asking, since i wasn't alive during the 20s I have no idea whether it was in the zeitgeist to call it the "roaring 20s" until it was finished. It is really hard to judge what a decade is going to be until it is mostly over. My point remains, people weren't only referring to the decades in the early 20th Century. They referred to things as the "era". We did label eras for the bad things that happened in them. The Great Depression, the Prohibition Era, WWI Era, WWII era, interwar period. My point is that we only really did the entire "decade" thing in the 20th Century. I do not believe we did that before mid 20 Century to a great degree

[@Fortemois]

the stock market plus tariffs on other nations help cause the Great Depression, funny how things echo

[@Novusod]

Time is relative and your perception of it changes as you age. When you are 10 years old 1 year represents 10% of your life and so a single year feels like a long time. When you are 50 years old 1 year represents 2% of your life and feels like a drop in the bucket of everything blending together. As you age beyond that time can speed up or slow down depending on well you can remember things. If you forget your childhood and young adult years then time can feel like it is slowing down again. Because we record so much of our lives on social media these days not much ever gets forgotten so it feels like time is moving faster than ever now.

[@eggyvvka]

saying "Welcome to the 2020s" seems less triumphant and more defeated

[@adissentingopinion848]

Have a look around

[@NatT96Z]

Yes it does lmao

[@Roxor128]

Has the same kind of ring as if someone 95 years ago said "Welcome to the 1930s."

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

@@Roxor128 I think that's the issue I have with this. During the '80s and the '90s and the '00s and the '10s, I don't really remember referring to the current decade as being whichever one of those it was at the time, but we did refer to previous decades as such. There was a little bit of awkwardness in terms of how to refer to the '00s as it was the turn of the millennium but also as I personally prefer the naughties. From time to time, I hear people use this is the '90s as a sort of short hand for it being the modern era, but I don't remember any period of the last 40 years where I thought about the current decade as much as previous decades just because until you hit the end of one decade, or at least somewhere towards the second half, it's hard to really say what the decade really is. And arguably, what we think of as being a decade is more likely to be offset by about 5 years. The bigger issue is that in a lot of ways the music that is the backdrop to all of this has stagnated. A lot of people don't even remember what music they were listening to and quite frankly, most of it sounds pretty samey as there was a prolonged period where Dr. Luke and Max Martin wrote most of the hits and the music industry consolidated to the point where you didn't have the sort of variety that we had even in the '90s.

[@edu7979]

because it fucking is. we are doomed

[@Kornbread404]

people will spend 80% of the year scrolling on youtube and tiktok and then question where all that time went

[@darajoyce5514]

as somebody who did, yes

[@IPutFishInAWashingMachine]

There's just nothing to do anymore though

[@social_ghost]

Its really weird to me because like 2011-2014 feels firmly planted temporally in my head, but then like 2017-2019 feels forever ago, and then 2020 to now feels all melted together.

[@Billionth_Kevin]

those oddly specific time frames and descriptions make me think that's when you went to high school, college and beyond. If that is true you are completely on the nose with your descriptions and shouldn't feel bad about it in any way. HS is when we really start to experience everything for the first time and it absolutely plants the basis for our entire adult lives in a time frame. College or whatever college simulacrum takes that basis and we explore it for the first time, thus every time after that is a long time ago. Then its just life and you try to live time vicariously. Adults are the ones making trends, but young adults are the ones who decide which adults' trends are the most important ones. IE the beatles were from the greatest generation, but it was boomers who choose them as the voice of their generation. Same for basically every musician, artist, filmaker whatever. They are from our parents generation, but we think of them as ours. So Adam is dead on, complaining about generations instead of collectively agreeing on trends rips our ability to allow the newest adults to drive us forward through their choices

[@social_ghost]

​@ Funny enough I graduated High School in 2007 and college in 2010. Probably other reasons they stick with me but you still have a salient point.

[@vulcwen]

The covid time distortion is real.

[@kevexboy]

LoL literally same. The 2020s have been a blur to me.

[@user-vi4xy1jw7e]

​@@Billionth_KevinBeatles were from the Silent Generation, but I agree with your comment. This really plays into the whole "everything was better when I was young" too.

[@Juddyfresh]

It's not about the names we use. It's that our culture has gotten more fractured in the 21st Century. So there is no defining feeling we can associate with the 2010's, for example. Wheras in the 20th Century people watched the same shows, got the same news, heard the same music. "It feels as though the 1990s weren’t just the last decade of the 20th century but sort of the last decade, period - the last decade with a fully formed and recognizable culture of its own." Chuck Klosterman

[@jonjonruakere1030]

Planking and Harambe. You're welcome

[@thealternative9580]

Is that why sitcoms and animated sitcoms from 70’s-2000’s play on a loop?

[@thomasolson8417]

Capitalism. That's always the problem. People are just working to survive. There's no time to be creative. Everything is just focused on churning out profit-making garbage. I can't think of any good music or movies from the last 20 years. Fun is over because billionaires exist.

[@fehzorz]

2010-2014 feel so different to 2015-2019 to me. I think Trump and Brexit was a massive, society wide, "oh no" moment that completely changed the mood

[@philopharynx7910]

Heck, when a TV show becomes popular you have to check if it's on one of the services you have access to. "That sounds good, but I'm not on Apple TV." And the people that rotate between them usually end up months behind the discussion, plus they are usually trying to binge so much in a month that it becomes a blur.

[@greenweed3253]

This doesn't explain how only 2020-2025 feels like a time skip, and why all of us started thinking about this only now

[@travilpowell4086]

maybe its the drugs

[@handlemonium]

Because 2020-2022 was the three years COVID spirited away from us and the brief normality Biden bought us has now drifted back into the wackasswards world of Trump.

[@NickMak-m2c]

@@travilpowell4086 Sociality has changed. My town is empty, these are weird times. It's been like that since the late 00's though. Just feels like it's even more pronounced.

[@nickydashes]

The dark tower novels description of the world moving on is what this feels like. Time is static but sometimes almost slips. Morals are weird, there's no agreed sense of good and wrong/right, distance is off , facts change. Steven king described this

[@oceanexblve884]

I have been thinking about it since 2020. I let it slide because I feel like the year ending in five is the year that defines the decade. When you think back to the 2000 you probably think sometime around 2005, the 2010s you probably think 2014-16. So I was waiting till this year to see what would change and possibly define the 2020s. So far it doesn’t feel like it’s going to happen but I’ll give it till the end of 2026 .

[@CrankLucas]

Great video one point I just thought of while watching it again is the whole "get with the time" attitude of the 90's also relied on our outlook toward "the future" as in how we anticipated the dawn of a whole new millenium. Once we hit that mark that feeling faded away especially after 9/11 and all the events that ensued changed our collective outlook on life and what is important. Even same thing with 2020 but then Covid hit and entire decade has already started out bad. Just more food for thought!

[@LightInWater]

Thanks for giving voice to an idea that has been vaguely nagging me for years. The decade shorthand is a shared experience while the generation tag is the opposite. Excellent.

[@KaitlinGaspar]

oh wow that’s really well put

[@sumbinge]

Idk how other zoomers feel, but the decades have felt very distinct for me. '00s, personal electronics (particularly cellphones) were advancing exponentially '10s, social media was becoming mainstream and we saw influencers making careers off their platforms '20s, the entire beginning of my adult life has been a lot of doom & gloom.

[@kevinmccabe3984]

Good points but I’ve heard countless people describe the decade they live in as “doom and gloom” that includes the last two

[@mikaelamonsterland]

all of those are horrifically awful things that killed culture

[@SevenFootPelican]

But there aren’t clear and distinct aesthetics that set each decade apart. I think it has to do with media fragmentation and cultural fragmentation. The internet also paralyzes us and makes us hyper aware of ourselves as a species. I often say that with the internet we lost our ability for unique perspectives (which is what drives a culture forward and sustains optimism) and we’ve traded it in for an almost hiveminded like reality where all opinions and information on the internet forms into a large “vibe”. Cultural tastemakers also lost a lot of power between the late 2000s and today. Which means no one can commercially construct a coherent aesthetic for each decade anymore

[@octoberboiy]

Every year since 2020 has sucked for me. There were a few good years in the 2010s.

[@octoberboiy]

Every year since 2020 has sucked for me. There were a few good years in the 2010s.

[@tayloreh]

Mindblowing. You're so right. Decades unify, generations divide. We even call it a 'generational divide'.

[@fehzorz]

Sort of, but it's a bit more complex. I remember the gatekeeping about who the real "90s kids" are. Meanwhile my friends (in their mid 30s like me) who bought a house and had kids were proud of "entering their boomer era".

[@williamyoung9401]

Everyone's looking for the Generation to blame for all of this misery. "Because MY generation certainly isn't at fault."

[@schonkable]

I'm 48 years old, and obviously old enough to remember life in the 20th century. I feel that there was a generational divide in the 20th century, but it wasn't talked about like it is now. I confess that I find myself sometimes thinking "damn millennials" or "damn gen z's"!

[@kaboom9573]

I agree with the division part but being a bit older than him ('76 baby) I disagree with the idea that they have only a little value. Those cohorts actually represent SHARED experiences. They're about the events that those of us in a particular generation have in common. Yes, we cherish the things that make each of us unique, but it brings us together not apart. Try playing the sesame street pinball song around any genxer 😂. The difference isn't just how the dates rolled off the tongue but also the fact that American culture was less curated than today, so a much greater percentage of people were having similar experiences at the same time. That's why even gruff manly dudes over 40 know who about "The Golden Girls"

[@smithsunleashed]

@@williamyoung9401exactly. Why are they blaming an entire generation for that. Sometimes they blame kids

[@aaronlukewilson]

Thank you Adam. This has been in the back of my mind for 25 years and it's nice to feel like someone else gets it.

[@skootz24]

IMO, another big factor to this problem is social media and the homogenization of the internet (that thing that everybody spends their time on, and thus where we absorb our culture) shortening the lifespan of things that would otherwise be decade defining trends while we move on to the next viral TikTok challenge, as well as merging unique local cultures into a handful of monocultures.

[@ramshacklealex7772]

I strongly disagree. I think the internet has had the opposite of a homogenizing effect on culture; as it's become ubiquitous, it's led to a multitude of subcultures gaining prominence in place of the relatively monolithic mass-culture of past decades.

[@hopeo-w5961]

​@ramshacklealex7772 To counter your point a bit, though, while there are more subcultures, I think they are more visual/accessible to the public at large than they were in prior years.

[@adissentingopinion848]

​@@ramshacklealex7772 There's 2 parts: the lowest common denominator has become the key to generic, 7/10 content. Think MCU humor. Everybody is willing to pay, say, ~10 bucks for a generally popular book or magazine for an airplane flight. You have probably played at least one game of Fortnite or similar. However, we all have creators and hobbies we would sink thousands of dollars into. The fact that I regularly play an old 2012 Source game with the ~50 remaining player base means I'm not playing Call of Duty or WoW. I can't talk to people about how I miss Etika or Technoblade, even though they got millions of views on their videos. The communities are tight, but any mass appeal means attracting hordes of laypeople to crowd out the dedicated.

[@colt5189]

We used to have a shared culture as everything was distilled down where everyone were exposed to the same music, TV, magazines, fashion, etc. Since the internet, everything is fragmented, and so everyone lives in their own world. Plus there is a glut of things where trends or fashion can't stain the decade like it used to. i.e. pre-internet, I view each decade being defined by the major fashion trends of the era that would latch on. Now, there is so much stuff out there that everyone is doing their own thing compared to when everyone read the same magazines every month, or watched the same tv shows every week.

[@ColossalM]

@@ramshacklealex7772 I would say that has also had the effect of those subcultures becoming less defined and meaningful. As in, if you belonged to a certain subculture before, there was a stronger tendency to make it a bigger part of your personality, make it your entire social circle, and gatekeep who was a part of it. That's much less of a thing now. That's probably overall a much more healthy way to approach things, but it has the side effect of diminishing the relative importance of these subcultures and their defining characteristics. Now everyone just likes a bit of everything which kinda ends up looking like a monoculture in that there aren't discrete groups of people liking distinct kinds of things

[@damonisdad]

Man, I used to love watching Adam Ruins Everything as a kid. That was the beginning of my “radicalization.” I was very happy to stumble across this channel🤭

[@r0bophonic]

You mean back in the Teens?

[@calliecreates06]

​@@r0bophonic Yes, and the teens are far enough back to be people's childhoods now.

[@hannobonanoart]

Me too

[@joshs3916]

I was super stoked to rediscover Adam via KZbin last year. When the show ended, it was a bummer

[@irani544]

as a kid? oh my fucking god! I'm near my death.

[@TommyWalker1]

The big difference is that the internet ruined time and united cultures. Doesn't matter if it was posted 13 years ago or 13 minutes ago, it shows up on my KZbin homepage all the same. I can easily access most things from the past just as easily as I can new things. And like another commenter said, we all had a shared experience around media because we only had so many channels and so many popular things. Its not uncommon now to pick up a show that came out 7 years ago that I never heard of that was recommended by a friend. Decades vanished when the linear progression of time stopped pushing us all forward at the same rate and it's no challenge to revisit the past. I don't have to dig through old tapes in my attic to watch your CH stuff, I can just type it in. I think that's the real reason behind it.

[@rainbowglitterclit]

Cool point.

[@ahobimo732]

You nailed it. The internet is undoubtedly the key factor responsible for the change. It's the Great Equalizer. Time doesn't matter just like geography doesn't matter. Everyone everywhere is basically viewing and talking about the same shit.

[@nyxcole9879]

💯

[@kidwolf0015]

As a self-proclaimed "Internet Time Traveler"... I can confirm. One minute, I can be rocking out to a song from the 1920s and next I can watch a short/reel from 5 minutes ago... XD 😂 💀

[@dreadrockadrian]

Best rant! We didn't say pre depression or post depression. We said 20'3 and 30's. And we took that for granted. This post is so deep it would miss most. Our experience of time depends upon our language?? Whoa. Much like New England - Here's to the New 20's!

[@Dangic23]

From 2000 to 2025 Is all a blur because we are living through a never ending crisis.

[@Lastluke]

It’s just the most boring, drawn-out, mundane apocalypse possible.

[@invisibleshuffle]

@@Lastluke I call it the Unpocalypse.

[@Lastluke]

@@invisibleshuffle that is very fitting.

[@rusedgin]

Historically, Europe has always been in a state of perpetual crisis. The thing is, today’s fashion and culture are a blend of 70s, 80s, and 90s influences, making it difficult to pinpoint any defining characteristics. My sons and their friends listen to the same kind of music I did, dress the way I used to, and watch the same films. It feels as though time has stood still.

[@AMPProf]

No People just got Murdered in Gaza

[@dottysdokis]

"What would you wear to a 2012 themed party?" Shutter shades, a fake tape on mustache, a cheeky bacon-themed graphic tee? These are just off the top of my head.

[@liminali_]

Chevron stripes, owl necklaces, coral, teal, that one Arctic Monkeys logo cover, Ray-Ban wayfarers (eyeglasses, sunglasses or even with the lenses removed), Keep Calm and Carry On shirts or any other slogan tee (preferably in Helvetica), Jeffrey Campbell Lita booties, skater skirts, Coachella boho fashion, flower crowns and all. These trends were so memorable and recognizable that Tiktok made up a whole word for it: cheugy!

[@1happboy]

I feel like circa 2010-12 is also when classic meme culture started to really take off in the mainstream. Background memes with Top/Bottom text, trollfaces, nyan cat, leekspin, Loss all feel very reminiscent of the time.

[@lapetitefleur3482]

Literallyyyyy

[@whozypie]

@@liminali_ nonono not that word

[@NintendoPsycho]

Another waste of a year.

[@MattMcIrvin]

2000s = The War On Terror 2010s = The Great Recession (and aftermath) 2020s = The COVID Pandemic (and aftermath) My daughter actually *does* talk about these decades as decades with distinct styles, so I think part of it is actually that I'm getting old.

[@fehzorz]

Adam rails against the notion of defining time periods that way but the wider effects of those key events (as well as Trump/Brexit from 2016-2019) just seem so pervasive on the moods of those times to me

[@ryanrogers9457]

The problem is that those events either weren’t confined to the decade (like the War on Terror didn’t really end in the 2000s), or they were too short to define the decade. I feel like most people would think of the Great Recession as happening from 2008-2011 and COVID from 2020-2022, and the aftermath of those events is still hard to define.

[@purplepheasant4776]

These are just tragic events not themes

[@andrew66862]

It's all just post-9/11

[@scottellsworth1515]

This video touches on something fascinating, and I’d take it a step further: Naming isn’t just about retrospection-it’s a necessary condition for a time period to form its own distinct cultural identity. Without the linguistic shorthand that tells us “this is the 60s” or “this is the 90s,” we may not have recognized ourselves as living in a distinct cultural era, and as a result, no strong identity was ever formed. Language doesn’t just describe reality; it actively shapes it. The absence of a clear name for the 2000s and 2010s may have prevented those decades from solidifying into cultural movements the way past decades did. Instead, we experienced a kind of cultural drift, where trends and styles emerged but never crystallized into something we recognized as definitive while we were in them. Of course, other factors contributed as well-mass culture fragmented due to the internet, trends accelerated so quickly they never stuck, and the sheer variety of individual experiences made it harder to form a collective identity. But without a common name, there was no unifying banner for people to rally around, no clear moment of “this is who we are.” And maybe that’s why these past decades feel like they never fully became anything.

[@hannahdillie3402]

Thank you for articulating something I've been feeling for...about 25 years!

[@dalemsilas8425]

2000s baggy clothes? Flip phones? Black Berry? Ffs! Adam didn't do his research very well.

[@NickMak-m2c]

@@dalemsilas8425 He lived it lol you don't have to do research when you're old enough to have at least seen the 80's and 90's--it's a lack of community living and sociality that has stopped the fashion changes, imo. Not as much real-life interaction and so there's just not much as cultural reality.

[@dalemsilas8425]

@NickMak-m2c the 2000s were full of new fashion, tech, music specific to that time, to ignore all that just means you really had to have slept through it all. By the 2010s (twenty tens-- that's what it's called) 2000s fashion has morphed into what we have today. I mean, when was the last time you watched a dvd? He needs to do his research. I've lost the little respect I had for him.

[@NickMak-m2c]

@ Yeah that's true, I think it just felt altogether less different than the previous generations; but yeah the change to wiggerdom and baggy pants was something very pronounced. But it just felt like it glided into a kind of non-fashion/non-culture. At least not the way it was; of course it's its own thing--people just miss the old kind of way things changed.

[@NickMak-m2c]

@ Y'know?

[@Grenth091]

This aligns a lot with Mark Fisher's "Capitalist Realism", hauntology, the endless regurgitation of the present, and the death of potential futures which will never (or seem like they will never) come to pass.

[@ConSeannery1515]

That book also explains why we're so into nostalgia, because culture is rotting and creation of new things is becoming rarer. Scary stuff

[@steelguitar8587]

Not a week goes by that I don’t wonder what Mark would have to say about something I see or hear. What a missed voice.

[@garrenosborne9623]

Defo - easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism Why is that lets Imagine something better ..... metamodern all the way baby

[@millsnerd]

Came here looking for this comment.

[@EvelynNdenial]

"the death of potential futures which will never come to pass." sounds like a quote from disco elysium about the pale. which feels appropriate describing the world right now.

[@chairmanm3ow]

I saw another video on this that said that 80s music would have felt really foreign to people from the 50s but our music today would probably be incredibly accessible to people in the 90s. So we're not pioneering new trends regardless of whether or not we have the vocabulary to categorize them by their decade.

[@wokka6554]

I mean like you wouldn't have some 90s guy listen to something like extratone and be not weirded out by it?

[@nickb816]

I'm not so sure chairman. There are certainly trends that were considered fringe even a few years ago that are now mainstream. These would certainly be a culture shock to 90's music fans. Take charli Xcx's brand of hyperpop as one example, or the rise of previously obscure edm genres like phonk. Mumble rap and similar styles from the likes of artists like Lil Uzi Vert are also RADICALLY different from mainstream hip hop in the 90's.

[@thekingoffailure9967]

Listen to modern zoomer rap (not the popular stuff) It is not accessible to the 90s listener.

[@thekingoffailure9967]

It is also cringe but that is besides the point

[@thekingoffailure9967]

Skibidi

[@Kewlausgirl]

I think you are *almost* hitting the nail on the head here. We definitely are not able to differentiate time with the passing of decades as we used to, so now we are kind of stuck without being able to really tell the years apart. But, I think you were missing a few pieces of the puzzle in your argument. It's the reason WHY we are no longer using decades to tell the 10 years apart. It's actually something I mentioned to my partner before and during Covid. We started remembering the 2000s, being in school, then going to uni. How holy crap so much time has passed but there was no huge change between those years... Other than technology, everything else was only small changes in comparison - music, pop culture, and so on. But nothing that really defined that decade and made it stand out between 2000s and 2010s. But that was it! That was the difference! We have had no huge shift between each decade like we used to in the past. There was no defining moment that made the 2000s that way and then nothing in 2010 or after that made that decade really distinct. Think about it. Every decade had a huge shift within a few years of that decade and had its progression, but was superseded by something that has developed in the next 10 years. 20s, 30s and 40s were largely fueled by two Great Wars and striving peace after it... It started in the 50s but 60s was where the hippie vibe really kicked off. And with it music was experimented with and expressed differently to reflect the current mood or events at the time. But how did this work before the 1900s? The decades were a 20th century term to begin with. The years before that weren't really defined by sets of ten because this was pre industrialisation. The culture and mindsets were so so so much more rigid and culture took ages to change between the 1800s to late 1800s. I don't know exactly the defining eras between them because it's different depending on the country (UK, US, and then within Europe again). Hell Australia was still divided into regions and hadn't formed its own country yet! Lol. What I'm trying to get at is that our perception of time is also limited to our perception of change and progression. Our own evolving culture & society. So, it stands to reason that technology & the internet has been the largest change for us since industrialisation began. It's pushed our culture & society to advance faster than how we were originally progressing throughout the decades prior to that change. So we have the why - why decades are no longer a thing. But what do we have now? Well, I propose 'quinquennial'. 5 great increments. Yes, I looked the word up as I didn't know what the term for 5 years was, lol. 5 year increments. Perhaps we could coin it a "quintet" or something? I don't know what would be a good term for it like a decade. But 5 great increments seems to be the best way to determine the difference in our years now. For example, here's how I've been able to differentiate between the 5 year increments: 2005 - 2010: KZbin & Facebook just starting out. Laptops becoming more portable. Phones getting better. Clothes I don't pay attention to. I think this was when anime and geeky stuff became more popular lol 2010 - 2014 - KZbin & Facebook & snapchat. iPhone / smart phones actually becoming good. Game if Thrones taking off and Marvel movies. 2015 and onwards, Twitch, Twitter, Amazon, Netflix. Cryptocurrency. Game of Thrones final season & the controversy lol. Whether for or against the ending, it was still a huge impact. Marvel infinity war and defining super hero movies. But you know it depends on the stuff you were into lol 2020 - 2025 I like to think of as the Covid years. Beginning of Covid, post covid, post post covid lol. Remote working became a thing. 2025 - 2030 will be the Trump Thing That Happened. 😂 We have had so much progress within 5 years for so many fields: Medicine, science, technology, psychology, video games, cultural movements. Look at how much mental health awareness has progressed in just the past 5 years from covid! Anyhow I know this was a long post. But I really think it's the fact that we are progressing so much faster than the 10 year increments used to indicate in the past. That we have moved into a faster more progressive rate of change which is not noticeably a huge leap forward like it used to be within decades' progressions. Now it appears to be smaller bursts of progression that propels us forward within 5 years or a smaller passage of time. And by coining the term a Quintet or Quintury or something similar will help replace the decades way of differentiating time and will hopefully work to tell the different years apart better.

[@darthlobster]

I'm a linguist and have been explaining this to people for a while now. This is spot on!

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

He uses bad examples. If we were talking about 1900 and that decade or the 1910s how many of us would be able to come up with a particular image for those the way we did. We're at a point in the century where we had 2 decades in a row that don't have catchy names. Lacking a catchy name does make it a bit harder to do that, but the '00s were a lot of 9/11 related bullshit, the war on terror, the beginnings of the great recession and so many brown people being murdered because the US needed to justify the defense spending. The 2010s are admittedly a bit harder to characterize, but mostly because it was kind of a bland period for the first half and then a bunch of political turmoil as Trump couldn't figure out what he wanted to do and a bunch of social unrest related to the fraying of the social contract to a near breaking point. And honestly, that's not that much different from the previous century. The real question is whether any sort of consistent popcultural zeitgeist returns.

[@Novusod]

Time may have actually sped up though. Back in the day we used to count out the seconds by saying "One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi, etc." This was an accurate representation of seconds but not anymore. Counting out ten Mississippi takes 15 to 20 seconds and people don't use this counting technique anymore.

[@Memento_Mori_Morals]

​@@SmallSpoonBrigadejesus tysm for this comment... I have suffered memory issues from a bad seizure and have had a cognitive dissonance that surely I am forgetting MUCH more than I think.... now I don't think that, the damage isn't as bad as I thought till I saw this vid and your comment. tysm again.

[@Foinlavin]

I hate being that guy but this concept is a thing I've been talking to my friends about since the "mid-naughties" and none of them have ever agreed with me that decades as a concept are dead. It is so cathartic to hear you present this so well. Finally somebody agrees with me on this haha.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

I think they are to a large extent. The concept depends on being able to draw some sort of a reasonable line, the numbers were usually a bit off as the things we think of as being "The '70s" for example started a few years into the decade and continued a few years into the '80s. Arguably it's more aligned to what people born early in the decade remember as their earliest memories than anything else.

[@CaseyH321123]

I think the 2000s work for that decade

[@mattmorgan881]

@@CaseyH321123 Two-thousands would be everything from 2000-2999. It's like saying eighteen hundreds on a thousand year scale.

[@onelusciouslad7841]

@@mattmorgan881 Technically yes, but everyone knows what you mean when you say 2000s

[@AvaF1919]

​@@onelusciouslad7841 Agree. If I ever refer to the years 2000-2009 as a whole, I refer to it as "the 2000s." I tend to refer to 2010-2019 as the "2010s" ("twenty-tens"). So far, since 2020, I just refer to years individually.

[@CraigChrist8239]

4:35 "The Noughties" took off more in the UK. I watch a lot of UK TV and have heard it so much, thats what I call it now. For example, Big Fat Quiz of the "Noughties" Perhaps the reason it never took off in America is because Americans typically don't refer to 0 as "nought"

[@PeterLawrenceYT]

Yeah it was weird hearing him claim that "Noughties" didn't catch on when the term is so common here in the UK.

[@AdamYJ]

Yeah. When we say “noughty” we hear “naughty”. And like he said, it wasn’t very “naughty”.

[@Missiletainn]

Yeah, in the UK we use Noughts and Crosses, while they use Tic Tac Toe

[@mallockarcher]

I have heard the twenty tens here as well but it doesn't really roll off the tongue.

[@seabhactheshifty]

Ohh that makes sense. I've lived in the Netherlands for most of my life, but (British) English is still my "brain language," and we speak a sort of pidgin at home. We do call it the noughties, and I actually do have more specific associations with the decade. Emo/scene kids, all the XXXXTREME stuff? Extreme sports, fear factor type shows, energy drinks, sour candy. Music videos with max satuaration in some sort of mirror/lightbox. Nu metal and dubstep. Old internet/social media MySpace, MSN, Newgrouunds, message boards, lush/eyesore websites 😅

[@taneshamoore3266]

I literally googled decades cause I seen MTV spring break on TikTok & was thinking about the differences in decades & media (& how they don’t have those things for my generation); and fell deep in a rabbit hole, which led me here. The 2000s was such an inspirational time period. I use a lot of y2k futuristic images, ads, & etc for inspiration for graphic design; mostly because I was born 7/7/2000 & I love to take inspiration from things I grew up on (and would love to see today). People were scared of the future but also expected so much; because there were many people that collaborated to making the y2k an entry to futurism. Decades died out when people stopped caring about the possibilities the future has; and stopped having pieces of entertainment & media that shows them that.

[@matthewgilbert6394]

What also is a factor is we no longer have shared experiences. Our consumption of entertainment and world events is now fractured and individualised. We can't have a name for a common period of time if we don't experience a common period of time.

[@mouzurX]

Its not really entirely true though. Game of thrones, squid game both very common. I think the individual part is really from the 2020's onward and evolution of algorithms. Earlier though it was more generation based. A reason why we reason in generations, is that early internet culture was only experienced by younger people. Does your mom know nyancat? No but probably any millenial will.

[@billygoatguy3960]

"common" doesnt mean it defines a generation ​@@mouzurX

[@Princesilk347]

We all experienced the pandemic in some fashion. Same really with the Great Recession. Those were definitely world events we all experienced. And honestly we all seemed to experience Trump pretty heavily. I agree though consumption of entertainment/culture has changed and fractured. We don't really have a sitcom for this decade that everyone can point to and say they know about it (at least not ones that are new). We can't really point to more than a couple new movies we've all seen, there's no real defining fashion trends, we aren't all on the same social media apps or obsessing over the same foods, we don't have a defining health, beauty, or finance lifestyle we all agree is the new "it" trend, etc. I still think we experience many world or at least national events together (even if with different political leanings), but we don't have as defined of cultural touchstones to make a similar experience between people, even if they didn't participate in said experience.

[@turtleanton6539]

Indeed😮

[@moloko5]

@@mouzurX Yes but even the things that do break through and are seen by many people, like those two examples, are few and far between and aren't nearly as popular as a percentage of the public as they were before the internet. Which also makes me wonder about anything before 1920. Seems like the shared experience of decades that he is describing might be unique to the mass media age starting with films and radio and ending with the internet. I think prior to radio things were probably much more localized. With the advent of mass media everyone's attention was dominated by the evolving tastes presented to the whole country by a handful of media companies. Now everyone has their attentions diverted to a million things and we are microtargeted by algorithms that know us better than we know ourselves, which creates a kind of bland undefined mass culture if you try to zoom out and look at the big picture.

[@franklsuarez]

I call it the Roaring 20s, because we also have extreme wealth inequality.

[@anju5124]

I used to see people on the internet calling it as the "Rotting 20s", and I think they are also on point!

[@photoelectron]

roaring 20s bc everyone coughing hard into, all over the word even

[@samfeldman1508]

And polio is making a comeback.🤷‍♂️🤪😜😉😄

[@orsonzedd]

We should call it the dix-neufs because it still sucked dix-neufs

[@Carewolf]

The second gilded age.

[@dan445678]

I was homeschooled, and I struggle to remember when I did certain things as a kid. My friends that went to schools always sliced up their lives by grade. They'd change fashion from 8th to 9th, get a new set of friends, get into new activities. I've always thought that because I didn't have clear grade years to anchor important events in my childhood, my memory was a little worse and time went by faster. So this makes sense to me.

[@kaleomariz1000]

Oh my gosh!!!! This is video so necessary! I remember back in the day when there were cool documentaries on VH1 about cultural tendencies of the decades, and I was always wondering what cultural highlights of the 2000’s would be. ------------ I tried really hard to foster “decade awareness” in people’s minds but they are just to lazy to flex that muscle. 😓. I never caught on to the idea that “generation talk” is now what people define cultural tendencies instead of decades. Please let’s bring back decades.

[@Trafoder]

TimeGuessr, a game about pinpointing when a photo was taken, exemplifies this "blurriness" exactly. I can roughly guess the 90's or 70's or 40's based on the fashion and context, but the best I have for 2000 onward- the years I've actually lived through -is to look at corporate logos and the size of technology. Time periods are no longer defined by the people of the era

[@thekingoffailure9967]

Yikes on that last line 😬

[@deadeyedmillennialmedia]

And since we keep repeating art trends over and over we can’t tell through technology. Was this photo taken in 1995 or edited to look like it?

[@MsPeabody1231]

Fashion keeps repeating itself so it doesn't help.

[@ero1220]

Tell that to pooka shell necklaces with layered polo shirts, light jeans, and trucker hats

[@mikkicruz6099]

Omg you're right. I'm 40, I remember the conversations about what to call 2000-2010. I remember everyone saying "it's the 90s". You're so right about all of it.

[@blarneystone38]

As a younger millennial I’ve always had lots of nostalgia for the 90s, but I figured that was just natural because that’s when I was a kid. I figured everyone has nostalgia for whatever time happened to coincide with their childhood. But it’s been really interesting to see lots of zoomers exhibit that exact same 90s nostalgia, even though they weren’t even alive for them. I wonder if part of this is that we’re all longing for the feeling of living in a clearly defined time period. I forgot how often people said “it’s the 90s” back then, but it really was pervasive. I can see how that would be a very grounding feeling that we no longer have.

[@Skimmy404]

That is a good theory.

[@xiggywiggs]

there's something to that for sure! my son is 12 and he's more nostalgic for 'retro' games from the 90s like the gameboy and n64 than I ever have been! he's been badgering me to find an old working CRT tv somewhere so he can get the 'full' experience :P (also he wants to try the NES zapper we found in the garage)

[@photoelectron]

Regarding zoomers having 90s nostalgia, I was born 88, my consciousness developed in the 90s, but I have a mild nostalgia for the 80s and even a little bit for 70s from all the ppl doing 80/70s nosltagia content in the 90s, early 2000s: grown ups talking abt it, themed parties, movies, early internet surfing, I feel implanted some nostalgia for those eras in me.... like, I love a good 80s futurism aesthetic *pachaHitsRight.gif*

[@EdgeofNotion]

It could be that their patents' nostalgia rubbed off on them and that to most people the 90s seemed relatively peaceful.

[@MidnightSonnet]

I think kids today are tired of the constant bombardment of online life, if even subconsciously. They see the way we grew up and consider it a peaceful alternative. Some just long for boring summers of no internet. Just playing outside, playing video games, hanging out with friends a lot, and creating irl connections. Kids, unfortunately, don't have a lot of real life connections beyond their parents and maybe a friend or two. Most of their connections are through the internet. As a social species, we desire in person connections. Getting it through digital means is lonely and isolating. It's why Gen Z is called the loneliest generation. They were the first iPad babies. We were raised by the TV. Kids today are raised by an endless stream of fast paced entertainment.

[@seansen3468]

Love this video, I've thought about this concept in passing but never really looked into it. The way you put all this information together was awesome.

[@hyenatron]

The radio playing hits from the 80's, 90's, and now...

[@DonnyThaDealer]

@@hyenatron the biggest change? Social media on mobile devices

[@daltonwilliams1723]

Because majority of People from that era don’t listen to radio. They listen to what they can play on their phone.

[@Shiftarus]

@@daltonwilliams1723 most of the people who are listening to radio are people that have nothing else to listen to anyways. People at work or on commutes or at the beach etc. Its not as if the radio doesn't play songs from the 2000s and 2010s etc they do all the time.

[@hyenatron]

@@Shiftarus I think you missed a point. They say two specific decades, then generalize the last 25 years under now.

[@nametager7539]

Michael Jackson, Green Day, and Taylor Swift

[@crunchypickles33]

I think us using generations rather than decades makes us despise the older generations because instead of making fun of the decade we are making fun of the generation that went through it.

[@animeyay4]

I think it is making fun of them though. I'm a bit older and it irritates me when there's talk about "young people or gen whatever" because older generations did that to us and I remember how mad it made me. It's also a foolish thing to insult someone over. Kids don't know cursive? Is that a kids fault. No. Lazy asses in our generation didn't teach them it.

[@ODSTGeneralYT]

Well it works both ways, but yes.

[@MidnightSonnet]

​@@animeyay4 kids aren't being taught cursive anymore? Interesting. I thought it was a necessary thing to learn for adulthood when signing documents. If that was removed from school curriculums, I think that's less of a lazy thing and more of a dumb oversight by the school boards.

[@QWONIE]

@@MidnightSonnet Ngl cursive wasn’t taught unless you took the business class or you was one of the few kids who parents was teachers or just really professional

[@MidnightSonnet]

@QWONIE huh? Cursive was taught in public schools back in 3rd or 4th grade if I recall. We literally had tests and quizzes to make sure we were retaining what was taught. I remember being stumped by cursive lowercase 'z' for awhile. This was back in the 80s and 90s. My sister is 6 years younger than me, but cursive was still being taught in school when she went. When did schools stop teaching it?

[@djangokill65]

Mark Fisher talks about our cultural stagnation extensively in his book "Capitalist Realism" "In our capitalist societies, as technology advances, our culture deteriorates and we increasingly lose our sense of time and progress, becoming amnesiac consumers stuck in an endlessly recycled and rebooted past."

[@guthzammysara]

As soon as you said it, I knew what you were planning on diving into.. can't believe I've never thought of that. It makes a LOT of sense

[@benwasserman8223]

I think once the internet allowed us to chronicle/file every minute of every day per decade forever, the novelty of each decade being its own distinct era began to fade. That's just my observation.

[@colt5189]

It's simple. Pre-internet, everything was distilled down to where trends would take off and dominate society, thus defining the decade. After the internet, there is no shared culture anymore. Everyone lives in their own world. A movie comes and goes. Whereas back when I was a kid, a big pop culture movie comes out, it dominates and kids would talk about it for several years. Now kids are off in their own world, and so trends just don't stick or become dominate to leave a mark. Last fashion trend I can remember were the 2000's with women wearing low rider jeans and getting tramp stamps. Also the 2000's was when everyone decide to just get really short haircuts. Which hair had been getting smaller and smaller since the 70's when everyone decided to have really long big hair.

[@moloko5]

It's the internet not language around decades that killed it. Also, I think it was mass media during the 20th century that created the concept he's talking about. Were people talking about a shared cultural experience in the 50's, meaning the 1850's about clothing trends and the most popular television shows? Of course not. They had some sense of a broader culture through newspapers perhaps, but mostly they knew and cared about their own town or neighborhood. Now our attentions are microtargeted by algorithms and a competition to be relevant on an app and the big picture is just an undifferentiated mess of online tribes rapidly cycling to the next outrage.

[@MellowMutant]

Interesting

[@spiffybumbleteeth]

I disagree 🤷‍♂️ I’ve been saying “the 2000’s” and “the 2010’s” my whole life, so have my friends. We’re only 5 years into the 20’s, give it time. We weren’t talking about the 2010’s in 2017, we were still in them. I’ve been to a 2000’s themed party. We had flip-phones, midriffs, long-sleeves under t-shirts, and fake frosted tips. I think you’re underestimating both how much the internet has diversified culture (you really can wear anything today and people won’t bat an eye, whether you have an 80’s or a modern getup) and also how yes, time just moves faster when you get older and we lost a couple/few years to the pandemic

[@irwinmier8878]

same, but instead of a 2000s party, I went to a 2014 themed party!

[@dorothypierre754]

​​@@irwinmier8878 Omg yes! I was in middle school/highschool during this time, so 2010-2015 it's very vivid to me. Justin Bieber had been arrested in 2014, solidifying his transition from innocent sweetheart to hot badboy. One Direction were all the rage. Taylor Swift too. In terms of fashion there were hipster aesthetics like man buns, moustaches/owl/avocado motifs. Pumpkin spice and other Starbucks drinks were a cultural zeitgeist. Millennials were the young adults at the time and everyone was laughing at them for liking avocado toast and stuff. It was a good time.

[@MarcCabot]

I am so glad that someone else is overthinking the same things that I'm overthinking.

[@MattKissingerPersonal]

Hmm, I disagree. The 2000s had its own unique vibe-oversized belts, reality TV, the “it” girl, and all that. 2010-2012 felt a bit off, though. But then, as the teens rolled in, you got the Kardashians dominating, leisurewear taking over, and a chic yet minimalist style with lots of black, white, and gray. Simplicity really became key, and rap culture was huge.

[@PDCreative99]

That's the point. These time periods DO have distinct cultural elements, but they're not thought of in a neat bundle of a time period. It all blends together in most people's heads rather than defining a specific era that we can all collectively have a name for

[@bloxyman22]

Things definitely changed, but since we do not know what to call the current times these memories are not stored and organized properly.

[@whophd]

Back in 1994 I was interviewing my old school headmaster about to retire, and he rambled on (lovingly, on tape we were recording) and he gave an anecdote about “the seventies”. But a few words later, he stopped in his tracks when he realised we thought the 1970s. He meant the 1870s. I’ve still got the VHS - need to digitize it!

[@ThornForTheWynn]

Was he 130 years old?

[@Froggo9000]

​@@ThornForTheWynnLikely not. He was probably born sometime in the mid 1900s where the word 70s was used for the 1870s because the 1970s had not yet happened

[@stacyforsythe5738]

Your old school headmaster retired around the age of 120? Or was he just talking *about* the 1870s despite not actually having lived through them?

[@bskorupk]

@@stacyforsythe5738 The headmaster was probably speaking of stuff his parent's/grandparents generation was up to.

[@QWONIE]

@@bskorupk yup and he probably was exposed to that alot which gave him both fond and probably sad memories

[@matthewcreelman1347]

I think that we lack unifying cultural milestones. We have the pandemic, but there's very little in the way of music, books, fashion, television, movies, etc, that we ALL can associate the current time period. There's no "this is the 20s" vibe, because we have so many different 20s vibes.

[@colt5189]

Yeah, to sum it up. We used to have a unified culture where everything was distilled down to a few that would leave it's mark on pop culture, i.e. tv shows, toys, music, music videos, movies, tv shows. i.e. when a movie would come out in the 80's, we'd all talk about it for a couple of years. Just like how when Star Wars came out, it dominated pop culture for many years. Now, movies are just another thing that comes and goes and is forgotten, just like a youtube video.

[@chrisalex82]

I guess... we have among us

[@yasmingirl17]

Thanks to the internet and social media, we’re not all even watching the same content anymore.

[@highway2heaven91]

@@matthewcreelman1347 That definitely started to change around 1997 when most popular TV shows weren’t on the Big 3 networks anymore. During the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s there were huge rivalries between ABC, NBC and CBS. By the 90s more networks such as Fox and The WB (now CW) were becoming more popular as viewers started to get more choices. There were also dedicated channels for news and sports which also started to gain popularity. As time went on there were a number of hit TV shows that weren’t on the Big 3 networks (for example, the Disney/Nickelodeon rivalry) and didn’t have as much popularity as they shows of past decades as they were. By the 2010s the need for multiple channels went away as DVRs, streaming services and YT became more popular. TikTok would add to this in the 2010s. Similar shifts happened in music (The decline of the radio and the rise of music streaming) and fashion (The decline of the department store and the rise in smaller stores and eventually indie and online stores) This is the reason why there isn’t as much of a unified culture anymore.

[@fehzorz]

@@matthewcreelman1347 it was a lot easier when there were 3 TV networks and most people outside big cities with "scenes" got music from the radio. Now things are a lot more decentralized, for better or worse

[@TECfan1]

I think it's also important to note that when people lived in these iconic decades, they weren't thinking: "Wow the 80s is iconic! Look at my huge hair and neon pumps! Everyone will know the 80s!" They just lived through it and decades only became iconic years later as people felt nostalgia for them. One day youth growing up in these current decades will feel that as well.

[@Chris-lp2dk]

"Iconic!" Iconic. iconic.

[@xxEzraBxxx]

As one of my friend whose favorite decade is the 80s said “We didn’t realize it yet, we we’re just living life like normal”

[@tehm-tpc]

As someone who DID live through those, I'm gonna have to agree with Adam on this... as early as ~92 'the 90s' had already established itself as iconic to the extent that well.. you saw SOME of the clips but that was all the time. "It's the 90s, why you got a perm dawg? You going out for the Twisted Sister?" That was said to me in middle school! I don't even think Nevermind had dropped yet! XD

[@CleverAccountName303]

@@TECfan1 But people in the '80s knew they were different than the '70s.

[@mllejacquesnoel]

Yeah I do feel like the younger Gen Z kiddos have 2000s nostalgia that I, as someone who was a teen in 2005, do not share. So it might be something only visible to folks from the outside.

[@thelukestar619v2]

I think Adam understates the change in fashion over the 25 years, anybody who really follows fashion like that will know that from the 00's, early 10's, late 10's and 20's now, style has changed quite a bit. If you were dressing like the swag era now, it'd look out of place, like look at how rappers were dressing in the 2000's compared to now for example.

[@PalmelaHanderson]

I just call everything pre-pandemic as "the before times." It does kind of feel like it's been one long blur since 2020.

[@redixdoragon]

That's the new divider in our cultural understanding of time now. 9/11 and Covid, the disasters become the only markers. We can only remember when we didn't have to take off shoes and belts at the airport, or didn't feel like criminals when we took a flight. We can remember times before not masking up, not isolating at home or working remotely for some. It's going to take the next disaster to mark an era, cause culturally we're stuck in disaster thinking.

[@photoelectron]

frr, I already use it in casual IRL conversation, like trying to remember some event/thing "mmm, yea, sometime before covid" "that was just before covid" "feels like so long ago but was around the pandemic lifting, wtff", some paraphrased stuff i've said in this post pandemic lifing times.... also useful divider, 1st trump, 2nd trump presidency (not in favor or against, just using it as a time reference)

[@nielskorpel8860]

2001, 2008, 2020

[@chrisalex82]

​@@redixdoragon 2008 ? 2011 tsunami ? The arab spring ?

[@rileywilkins5151]

Well it also seems as a society (at least in the US, not sure about internationally) we haven't been able to move past the pandemic. The pandemic itself might be over (hopefully forever) but we haven't gotten to go through a reconstruction phase or whatever like they had to do after the Civil War. Not that we had an actual literal Civil War, We're still dealing with the political tensions, the psychological effects, the loss of identity, morale, etc. I wonder how society was able to bounce back from other disasters like the Great Depression, The World Wars, etc so well. Maybe it just hasn't been enough time yet ? What do you guys think ?

[@Alex-cw3rz]

It's very weird that everything is moving so fast yet nothing is changing in a tangible way

[@withheldformyprotection5518]

The lack of change contributes to the perception of fast moving time. The brain sets memories based upon new information (i.e. change), so when nothing changes we have no memory markers to gauge time against. For example, if one’s day-to-day is repetitive then it is difficult to remember what you did a week ago, but that rare big vacation is locked in memory and can be used to mark a moment in time to gauge its passage. The brain blurs repeating activity into a single event, so it seems fast upon reflection.

[@captainchaoscow]

Check out Jreg and his nothing ever changes concept. Thank me later.

[@loveableheathen7441]

If you think nothing is changing in a tangible way, then you need to leave the house more

[@Isaacthemaniac]

@@captainchaoscow nothing ever happens...

[@plateoshrimp9685]

Well, everything the is the same but worse.

[@evanpalmer2202]

Very insightful. On top of this, an explosion of streaming platforms and algorithmically driven feeds have pushed us into smaller subcultures, and memes and trends evolve so fast, that maybe it's harder for any particular thing to stand out on the scale of a decade. When you stand back, it mostly feels like chaos. That could be why shared tragedies stand out as truly defining moments or eras. Everything else feels so fleeting. I applaud your effort to reclaim decades, but I wonder if we'll need to start referring to smaller chunks of time, like "the early 20s", because decades won't have distinct enough character anymore.

[@owenbillo5513]

I very distinctly remember seeing everybody calling them the 00's, or "the thousands". And the aesthetic was digital everything. That being said, it wasn't as clear cut as the 70s or 80s, and everybody stopped caring when we entered the 2010s. We've also entered an era of reboots and sequels, where so much media is just nostalgia bait that we have nothing clearly new

[@vectornine]

As someone born in the 2000s it's completely normal for us to call it that at least in Australia. I've always assumed calling a decade the 80s or such didn't happen until that decade was already over as only a retrospective term instead of something you would call it during that decade.

[@andrzejsugier]

That's the thing - both the '00 and the '10 are done now. And we still don't have names for them. That's why we're starting to talk about it, most of us expected them to get named and better described after they were behind us.

[@Alana-vk4fs]

As another Aussie born that same decade I second this - we’ll say oughts and 2010s as those decades are over, and I assume 20’s will catch on more once they’re over

[@patriceescalle9709]

The video has several examples from 1990's pop culture of people saying, "It's the '90's"

[@JD-ny3vz]

People in the 90s would acknowledge it was the 90s

[@curtist6022]

Specifically remember "get with the times, it's the 80s/90s!"

[@ChillSyl11]

I think the advent of audio and video recordings in the twentieth century cemented its decades distinctly within our cultural memory - so we can't call the 2020s the "twenties" because the title already belongs to the 1920s. We have experienced countless "twenties" before (1620s, 1720s, 1820s), but most of us non-historians can't distinguish the 1820s from the 1850s and group pre-1900s time instead by centuries or by eras like the "Gilded Age."

[@fehzorz]

@@ChillSyl11 the only exception is "the gay 90s" (1890s) and "the 90s" (the 1990s) - both distinctive decades

[@milcahreyes5287]

Double Twenties is a better idea.

[@doomsdayrabbit4398]

​@@fehzorzFunny how the Gay 90's were way less gay than the regular 90's. I think someone switched around the names on us.

[@SevenFootPelican]

I agree. 20th century decades and the aesthetics associated with them are commercially-constructed products and probably not the default way of identifying periods of time

[@bucky5506]

You make really good points here. Another thing is we've been saying, "we're still doing this in 20XX?" since like 2015 or even earlier and that REALLY makes it feel like the years never change for me

[@KBos72]

This was so interesting to me. I had 2 thoughts. The first being that we started talking about "being in the wrong timeline" or the "bad timeline" or whatever the case may be. I think so much has happened in the past 10 years, from politics & pandemic, to AI & more politics. So, we seem to be describing the times we live in with intense feelings and a sense of losing connections - the traumatic events you talk about. We can't seem to shake the sense of doom we're having. That's become the "stand in" for our cultural touch points. The other thought is more of a side note, but you made me think about it when you brought up generations. As a Gen X'er, I've always thought it funny that Gen X was the first generation that included a letter, mainly because nobody could come up with a more descriptive name. Now, the Millennial generation looked like it was going to go back to having descriptions in their names. But, it seems we now are going back to letters. Gen Z, Gen Alpha...(are we really going to call them Gen Beta? They'll have such inferiority complexes.) So, now, we can't even come up with language that sticks for generations anymore. We're just a series of letters that all started with X.

[@josephinenilsson1541]

The whole video I was “yes, now it’s generations instead and it is much worse”, and then he said it! No one talked about generations when I was a kid in the 90’s. That wasn’t a thing, and all of a sudden it’s everywhere since about 10-5 years back.

[@CleverAccountName303]

Gen X was definitely a thing in the 90's. Actually that's the start of it. For example, Before that, people talked about the baby boom as a demographic anomaly and how it affected and will affect the economy in many ways, but they didn't talk about "boomers" as if they are all similar culturally like they did Gen X and following generations.

[@KenikoB]

@@CleverAccountName303 Yeah and they were definitely already deriding millennials in the late 90s as the new young people who were going to ruin everything

[@ericseiz3472]

I remember GenX as just a marketing slogan.

[@vipermad358]

Blame the media....and the public that does not think, but just parrots the media. IMHO: we are fucked as a nation and a people.

[@vipermad358]

@@ericseiz3472That's what it was. I am supposedly from that generation, but I didn't hear the term until I was in my freaking THIRTIES!

[@sagecollins6131]

As a gen Z, I've noticed a trend of us organizing time aesthetics but with shorter time spans like years/seasons/months. We do posts with year montages, mashups, and collages of pop culture moments and phenomena that go back to about 2014. Brat Summer was huge one of course and we have already started referencing back to it lately. Also we do have a bit of a decade grouping music-wise. A viral pop hits mashup of the 2010s called 100 Songs Mashup came out just before the decade ended and it's still strong in the collective Gen Z memory.

[@VaiOr6]

What happened to decades? 70s, 80s, 90s... and then 9.11 happened 🙊 Suddenly the party was over and since then the decades have been called war, crisis and inflation 🎉

[@robo5013]

There was war in the 70's, crisis in the 80's and inflation in the 90's.

[@GothamClive]

Inflation has been with us since forever. Vietnam, the Cold War, the first Gulf War, and so on, shows that wars have been with us all the time. Let's not get started with the oil crisis and acid rain. The cultural impact of the War on Terror isn't so different from the Cold War. What has changed is technology. The internet led to a cultural fragmentation and this means that there are no big trends anymore. Computer games and the internet took away a lot of the time and energy that was spent on fashion and music before that.

[@robo5013]

@@GothamClive I wonder why my reply got deleted when I said basically the same thing about the 70'-90's. That's YT for you I guess. Sounds like the OP is very young.

[@liambishop9888]

I mean in fairness, they had some pretty serious crises in the '20s, '30s & '40s too

[@colt5189]

Nah, what happened is the internet. We no longer were sharing a unified culture that revolved around a few movies, tv shows, toys, music, magazines, etc. Everything is so diluted since the internet, that nothing sticks to where you can identify the decade instantly in your mind. When I was a kid, when a big new movie would come out, we'd talk about it for several years because it would have such a big impact. That doesn't really happened today. One thing I've noticed, is there isn't strong fashion trends like there used to be. i.e. bell bottom jeans, denim jean jackets with patches, women suits with shoulder pads, big puffy hair of the 80's, etc. About the only fashion trend I can think of over the past 25 years was in the 2000's people generally going with real short hair and women wearing those low rider jeans with the tramp stamp tattoo on their lower back.

[@PurpleLemurs]

This is the most insightful video I’ve seen in a long time. Thanks!

[@Sn0wjunk1e]

Adam, im 26 and i still think about and talk about the past in decades. I refer to the aughts/2000's, the 20 10's, and the 20's

[@mikeocksthrobbin9404]

Same. I assumed the aughts and the 20-10s were part of common vernacular. Very rarely does someone ask me what I mean by aughts.

[@randomalleycat]

Another thing to consider when we look back on these 20s in the future, we always seem to look fondly at the 1920s when we talk about it or have "20s parties" yet we know there were plenty of horrible things that happened in that decade. So maybe after we get over the horrors, we can look at whatever good happened, which I'm sure I'll be able to think of at some point. Then again, we also don't seem to ever talk about the 30s, and maybe this decade will end up being more like that one.

[@thepagecollective]

I did a biography of my grandfather who lived through the 20s and 30s. I can tell you the difference was absolutely horrifying. One of the things I learned, and he was a modernist poet, is never get attached to any one of his fellow poets and writers that he knew in the Teens and Twenties, because it is just so depressing what happened to them in the thirties. There is a reason we don't talk about the thirties, especially if you are American. No place was hit harder for longer by the Depression than the US. And that was just one thing that was awful.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

Keep in mind that that probably didn't start happening until quite a bit later. It's not like a period of time like the '80s where for a large number of people it was pretty good at the time or the '60s where it was quite turbulent and traumatic, but there was at the same time a massive amount of progress in most areas and a vibrant art scene to satisfy just about any taste.

[@thepagecollective]

@ I don't think there was a decade as starkly and cleanly defined as the 1920s. I think the 20s invented the decade. I don't think the 30s could even compete. When my grandfather was writing his biography in 1937, the 20s were already defined as the Jazz Age, (they didn't have agreed-upon, named generations) as a time of wealth, exuberance, delirium, decadence and a sense of being lost. It saw the birth of mass youth culture, pop culture and a century dominated and defined by the latest music and fashion. I think that paradigm is well and truly over. It can't survive.

[@nospmohtracso]

the thesis doesn't really make sense if you think about it for like 2 seconds: - decades as a concept are just as arbitrary as generations, like why is 1980-1990 a useful grouping but 1984-1997 isn't? - "the eighties" or "the nineties" is just as much of a marketing term as "millenials" and "gen z" it was just designed to sell you 'best of the 70s' CD compilations instead of like baggy jeans. - the concept of a particular decade isn't a record of some cohesive shared cultural experience, the 20s is 'the era of flappers' but flappers were in a very underground scene, the 70s is 'the era of punk and disco', except punk and disco kids generally hated each other. You are just noticing how, over time, our perceptions of a decade become flattened out and the nuances become lost. Young people in the 70s were dressing differently and doing different things to old people in the 70s just as millenials and gen z do different things in the 2020s. - in the current moment "y2k" stuff is super popular and like, people are super keen to historicise the aesthetics of that era, we do have a very keen sense of what 'the aughties' were, we just don't refer to it as 'the augties' (and don't worry the 2010s will be next) - we literally do say an equivalent of 'get with the 90s', which would be "[current year]" - the reason we don't say "get with the 20s" is because that phraseology sounds really out of date, ironically.

[@OMJ_the_Show]

No. Adam's right.

[@NickMak-m2c]

The generational names increase cultural divides, whatever the reason is that they're so overused, we ought to stop. It's just not good for feeling like a united group.

[@purple_purpur7379]

i have never in my life heard anyone refer to it as the aughties but i do regularly refer to that era as the aughts

[@xxmizzevaxx]

Yeah, this video is so odd to me. The whole point of modern day being defined by traumatic events being a new thing is so odd to me because traumatic events were also a big way to categorize the 20th century. “Post-WWII,” the 70s being defined largely by the Vietnam War, the Cold War era. Idk, odd thesis, and really odd to suggest it’s forming some sort of divide.

[@brecky384]

You’re totally right about people saying the year instead of the decade now - I think the intention is different, though. Like “get with the 90s” is more like, “be cool.” “It’s 2025,” is more like “wtf is going on…”

[@GuyDandy]

I don't know, I can absolutely tell when the 2010s happened with music after 2000s.

[@Bat_Boy]

2000s, 2010s, 2020s...its all just undefined. The internet just made everything non-descript.

[@purplemarsmotionpictures]

if you google 2000's aesthetics/nostalgia or 2010's aesthetics/nostalgia you will see endless tiktoks, pintrest boards, reddit threads etc. It's still defined, just old people aren't interested in it because it's not our nostalgia, but young people have the same relationship to it like we have to the 90's and 80's

[@HOTD108_]

I think the internet is key here. Prior to the internet culture was more or less unified (at least within geographical contexts, obviously western culture was still different from eastern cultures but you get my point), but once the internet became commonplace, very quickly things splintered into increasing niche subgroups. Now of course, subcultures existed prior to the internet, but there was still an identifiable mainstream culture that could be used as a point of reference for pretty much everyone no matter what walk of life they were on. That's all gone now, there kind of is no such thing as "the mainstream" anymore; there's no one TV channel we all watch, no one celebrity we all follow, no one cultural event that is truly synonymous regardless of demographic/age range. I'm not saying this is inherently a bad thing, nor am I saying it's inherently good, it just is what has happened.

[@FrVitoBe]

Tho we have names for those who born at x time as gen z

[@stuckinthepast2462]

This is very true. You can easily define the 70's, 80's, etc... but you can't tell the difference between 2025 and 2018.

[@johnblaze6269]

Seriously, not much has changed lol

[@subjekt5577]

Eh, I can 00s: Iraq war, start of social media when it was still wild west-ish, PS2 and PS3/xbox360 era. Metal gear solid call of duty grand theft auto and gears of war. Music was emo and rap with a bit of pop resurgence, punk starts to disappear. Peak daily show and comedy Central. 10s: probably the weirdest one, we peaked in 2015. It's the boiling frog decade. We started off with mass legalizations in MJ and queer rights, Arab spring etc. the train of enshittification really started ramping up here, everyone starts selling out for polarizing content. Online culture goes from youth culture to dominant culture. Hyperpolarization by the end of the decade. 20s: we're broken. Covid, Russia invasion, insurrection, google is worthless (literally better results in the 00s), economy is in the trash for everyone but the ruling class

[@PeterLawrenceYT]

Post-Covid and Pre-Covid.

[@shinigamil4843]

I can't tell the difference from 2012 to this day tbh

[@hypomediocrity]

​​@@subjekt5577 that's nothing compared to the change before and after the internet, and that's nothing compared to before and after motion pictures, and that's nothing compared to before and after electricity. the innovations from the last few decades don't have nearly the same impact, in fact that impact has been lessening with each decade. there's been no real breakthroughs, no revolutionary changes when compared to the 20th century.

[@anju5124]

Adam, I LOVED THIS VIDEO! Really thought-shifting fr. So far, one of my fav videos. And WelCoME to the 20s!!!!!! 🎉

[@misho2250]

While I agree with almost everything you say, a large part of your view of the 2000s and 2010s most certainly comes from you being older. You bring up the nostalgic instant connections to 80s and 90s, but people born in the 2000s like me regularly discuss 2000s nostalgia and its iconic features. Your example of a 90s party vs 2012 party is also off. I honestly did not know two of the three outfit examples you suggested for 90s, but I instantly pictured multiple styles iconic for that time. Also, the fashion of The Office will obviously not look that weird today, since office attire as a whole barely changes, you could just as easily point to Chadler from Friends at work and see he is basically dressed like Jim or Michael.

[@Yrenne]

This was such a good video. I always wondered why it seemed like time had kind of "stopped" after we got to the year 2000 when so many of the previous decades had felt distinct in several ways. Definitely going to start calling it the 20s now!

[@danieltarczynski6559]

The real reason for the decades lack of distinctive feeling is largely due to the internet splitting culture. The names were largely irrelevant. The 2000’s/y2k era was the beginning of the end of monoculture and thus the end of the feeling of truly distinctive decades. The 2000’s to many still have a feel/vibe to them but it’s not nearly as strong as the 80’s/90’s and the 2010’s have less of a feeling associated with them as culture truly split and broke then

[@patrickgroening5664]

Call me crazy but I feel like the 2020s does feel more consistent culture wise than the 2010s. That’s just my opinion though. Maybe it could be that out culture has completely stagnated so nothing new is happening but i personally think the 2020s has more of a personality than the 2010s but only time will tell

[@AkerfeldtTveitan-yi4xm]

Such a good comment. The atomization of culture for different individuals ironically means the homogenization of time precisely because there are no distinct cultural trends to define a decade

[@iyaramonk]

Another factor for the passage of time is that we no longer are bored in the same way. We fill our time with scrolling, KZbin and podcasts and/or typing angrily at strangers. I wonder if kids today ever just stare into the ceiling, alone with their thoughts.

[@froggy_6716]

yes!!!! I feel like this is the #1 reason for how time feels like it is going by so much faster. I mean, everyone has heard of doom-scrolling.

[@eazydee5757]

That’s true. But there’s also a very big reason why that very few people ever discuss. For example, in North America, a lot of cities are built in such a way that there’s more spaces for cars to get around than there are for spaces for people to get around, socialize, and build connections with each other. Car-centric infrastructure is incredibly unsafe most of the time for both pedestrians and drivers, and going out can be a risky endeavor sometimes, and a lot of people are discouraged from traveling outside for that very reason. If you don’t have a car in these areas, you’re basically barred from participating in public and social life. People don’t want to stress out while driving and get stuck in traffic, so they find it easier to just stay home and only go out for basic needs. Basically, what I am trying to say is that people’s social needs are not properly addressed by the built environment, leading to people inevitably turning to social media as a way to fulfill their social needs. Not to mention that a lot of third places, places outside of home and work/school that is, are declining sharply because of the very reasons I just mentioned before. Personally I think a major switch to walkable neighborhoods, more third places, and also more greenery and green spaces, would be the most effective way to get rid of our social media addiction. I mean, it just seems to me and many others that the outside world is built in a way that life feels incredibly monotonous, which in turn makes people miserable, and social media is just a coping mechanism for that, so why not make the outside world a more fulfilling and better place? Staring into the ceiling alone with our thoughts soothes us all, but doing it excessively wouldn’t take too long to drive us crazy.

[@chrisalex82]

​@@eazydee5757 I aint readin all that (I hate cars too and long live trains)

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

I do think there is something to the notion that we have more control over our exposure to pop culture and to things that reinforce the notion that it's a given year and the opportunities to experience older things being somewhat limited. In the '70s all of the media that people were being exposed to was primarily of the '70s and opportunities to expose yourself to older stuff was limited to what content providers thought would be popular enough to keep producing or what you could dig up at a book store. Now, it's roughly as easy to experience the culture of decades past as it is the new stuff and far less of our experience is centered around watching the same TV shows. These days, even a massive hit TV show's finale will garner a fraction of what viewership the got for the finale of MASH or Cheers which were at the time massive events across most of the US.

[@NSMITH8516]

@@eazydee5757 yeah but that would get in the of the psychop wouldn't it

[@Goldenretriever-k8m]

Oh my God!! You are so right!! I have thought about this before but you really get into it and it makes soo much sense!

[@rebekahhiggins9002]

My biggest problem with using decade names is it feels like I can't use the 20s to refer to the 2020s because that name already belongs to the 1920s. For some reason my brain say it's not allowed.

[@tawksoul8489]

What about the 1620s or the 1720s or even the 1820s?

[@s13shaka]

@@tawksoul8489no.

[@bobwish8851]

@@tawksoul8489 see your point but I don't know culturally whats happening in the 1620s, 1720s, 1820, ect. while with the 1920s I can hear the roaring 20s jazz bands and see its glittery flapper dresses.

[@jatabo1574]

Hey, we are smart people. Would be just a matter of some marketing and thinking. Maybe calling these the neo-20s to distinguish them from the 1920s. Except maybe not so silly. But you get my point.

[@prohobbyist5872]

In 40 years we'll be calling 2020 the 20s, imo its just because its recent

[@HercuLync]

Aughts is a real term used to describe the first 10 years of a decade. 1900 - 1910 is also the aughts. You nailed why people stopped doing when you pointed out that when you say the 20s, you think of flappers. The 20s, 30s, 40s, etc... These nick names are all taken and we haven't come up with a new way to name them.

[@xiiiunmetal]

As a Sonic fan who's watched all the movies and played all the games, it feels like time moves faster in our fan community than it does anywhere else in real life, which already feels like it's moving fast, but I guess that's to be expected from the fast rat crew

[@Errenium]

whew! fast rat gang!

[@xephyrxero]

As a hardcore 90s Sonic fan, I feel like I fell asleep for 20 years, then finally woke up and stopped hitting the snooze button after Mania and the first movie came out. I didn't enjoy any of the 3D era Sonics. The gameplay never felt right, but at least Frontiers felt like a step in the right direction finally

[@xiiiunmetal]

@@xephyrxero did you play Sonic x Shadow Generations yet? Strong recommend, better than OG Generations

[@xephyrxero]

@@xiiiunmetal I played the original Generations, but not the revamp

[@xiiiunmetal]

@@xephyrxero can't recommend the new version enough, I think it's some of the best gameplay the 3D era has ever achieved. The newly added Shadow campaign is worth the asking price on its own.

[@AnnaL-ku9yw]

Thank you for giving voice to something I’ve been thinking about for the last 15 years or so.

[@metalisonline]

Spitting exactly what has been on my mind as of late! I myself haven't let the collective gaslighting get to my head on how our eras are defined. Hell, the 2010s felt like 2 separate decades, one half was the "Swag Yolo" era and the other half being all about "dank shitposts" and mumble rappers. However the unintended side effect of the language shift that I lowkey am a fan of is how instead of a vast majority chasing fashion trends, niches of decade-specific fans have been growing in prevailance. It doesn't take long to browse Instagram to find 20-something year olds posting themselves in 60s or 70s era garments. This includes yours truly as a lover of bell bottoms and fringe jackets. Why keep swapping wardrobes when you could find something you like and stick to it. On the flipside the terrible consequence of the time blending is the world of fast fashion where we waste money on low quality textiles from Shein and Temu only for them to gunk up the local landfill a week later. Future Proof made a couple of videos about these but we'll have to wait till their channel is reinstated in the US for some of us to give them a watch unfortunately.

[@deathmetalmusicals6759]

"Noughties" took off in the UK. And only the UK.

[@cosmosofinfinity]

Because they're naughty

[@rippingthestrings]

And australia too 🤭

[@Mogwhytho]

Yeah I'm from the UK, so if someone says "The Naughties" it invokes all sorts of images of fashion, music, technology, decor, and TV for me.

[@itsPenguinBoy]

Yah! The quintessential image of the noughties for me is Britney and Justin in infinity denim. But at the time it did feel like the long 90s.

[@Akkalia]

The noughties involved double denim, emo and scene

[@Ferinex_666]

I think it has to do with technology more than anything. Decades from the 1900s through the early 2000s each came with significant technological advances that drastically changed the way we lived our lives. Since the 2010s, that advancement has slowed due to Moore's Law no longer holding true. We're still seeing technological advancements, but they're not novel enough to trigger a societal shift, so now it just feels like every decade is the same.

[@Jinni_SD]

Tech doesn’t quite go far enough to explain fashion stagnation or other aspects of culture. And if anything, it does a great job of marking differences between 2010 and 2020 with differences in forms of media and how different medias proliferate into general pop culture

[@alexodonnell8799]

I’ve been saying this! Thanks for having a similar thought and expanding on it further, distilling it into a digestible 15 minute video on the internet!

[@shiretsu]

It just switched to a subscription model and we can’t afford it

[@AMPProf]

What who .. Copyright Trademark did You look it up.. Lawsuite

[@abbi3663]

I remember a radio station my mom listened to on the way to school used to say, "80s, 90s, 2k, and today" and thought how weird it was going to be when they needed to update that

[@photoelectron]

frr my guess is a constant adding current top 100 songs, tik-tok/spotify trending songs, in the future maybe there'll be like "direct to brainchip pop music" when visiting businesses or smt, then they start phasing out the popular, asked-for older songs... like 60s music is rarely a common radio theme in general stations, 50s unheard of; 90s will eventually start feeling like that, but maybe it'll take long bc the internet keeps everything alive for longer... but idk, just my vibes

[@Wizard_Sleeve_Warrior]

I've had this same feeling for a while now. Thank you for accurately articulating it for us. I appreciate your thoughtful insight. Keep up the great work. 🤘

[@Catcatboo1]

Bestie you are SO right, will be referring to the 20s as I should and will be looking for things to categorize in the changelog of eras.

[@ezradanger]

Organizing time by "traumatic events" was what i was expecting you were going to say right before you said that "generations" is the way we divide up time now. Id like to add, "generations" as a way to measure time also suffers from being less lrecise and a longer period of time than "decades". I think that also adds to the blurred perception of the passage of time.

[@julianbigelow2794]

100 years from now, history text books will need chapter for each month of 2020.

[@Alex-cw3rz]

I think the big issue with generational fashion is it divides people rather than showing a collective experience of this is what we saw. It's making us more fractured