I've said before, possibly not on DS, that culturally the decades don't necessarily end when the decade itself does. Hunter S. Thompson had a theory that "The Sixties" ended with Nixon being elected in 1972. By extension I think the 90's ended with 9/11 and the 2000's with Obama being elected (so culturally the 2000's lasted about 7 years).
Interesting. For me I think the 90s ended for me later than 9/11 - possibly around 2003/04 time (which was not too dissimilar to the late 90s), and the 00s ending last year with the Olympics. From a technology POV, in 2003/04, PS1's were still being sold, VCR's still there (although we did have DVD's), analogue, Sky starting to establish itself 5 or so years after going digital, widescreen was all the rage, much like the late 90s.
But honestly, since 2005, the years have blended and I see no significant difference, apart from technology, from 2005 to 2013. Barely anything has changed from my POV. I just find it unbelievable that 8 years have passed since 2005. Seems more like only 2-3 years.
I only look to the early 00s and particularly 2000-2004 with any sense of affection. 2005-2009 was distinctly unmemorable, 2010 and 2011 were also unremarkable, 2012 was a standout year for obvious reasons, and this year has sort of faded a bit. We're already in August and it feels like nothing much has happened, strangely.
2003 was definitely far apart from 2013, at least in the U.S. The internet was popular then (we reached 50% penetration in 2000), but not as pervasive of a force as it is today with social networking and all. Rap & R&B ruled the charts then, now it's dance-pop. Reality TV Most people over the age of 18 (and under 65) or so had mobile phones, but even a simpler smartphone would have been Jetsonesque then. The homosexualist and Green movements existed in the U.S. since the 1960's, but were far from what they are today. 2003 seemed to be a mostly conservative year in terms of US politics. The 2002 senatorial and gubernatorial elections the past November brought a lot of Republican victories and established a firm majority in both chambers and the 9/11 sentiment was still strong and most Americans backed the president going into Iraq (although there was a vocal anti-war minority), although 2003 also planted the seed for the present situation with the Lawrence vs. Texas decision decriminalizing sodomy in states where it was illegal, the first US state legalizing same-sex "marriage", corporate scandals, the Catholic priest child molestation scandal raging on, etc.
For me since 2009 all the years have meshed together and are indistinguishable from another. I can't figure out what year so and so event happened.
There's been a couple of times where I am signing something and need the date, I have to ask myself what year is it and have to think about it for a couple of seconds (but that's probably just me )
I haven't seen a great deal of fashion difference since 1996 till today.
The kind of attire you saw at a pulp/oasis and blur concert in 1996 is still the same kind of attire you would see on the street any day of the week.
There was a MASSIVE difference from what people wore in 1956 than 66 and again from 76 to 86 but 96 to easily 2016 almost no change at all.
It is just me or has there not been a different style/genre of music been created recently..... ? Before the 2000s we had pop, rock, punk, c&w, indie, grunge, metal, prog rock, dance, rap, reggae... Since 2000 we've not really had a fresh, new type of music. I blame Simon Cowell.
Cloths and hairstyles have been quite dull over the last 20 years, so I can see why people view the 50's, 60's and 70's as more 'colourful' eras than today. We also no longer have tv shows where 'the country watches together' because viewing figures are less than half what they used to be and women aren't fighting to get out of the kitchen like they were in the 50's and 60's.
I suppose the last 10 years will be regarded as the 'mobile phone and Facebook/Twitter' era and also the decade where there's been a growing Muslim population in the UK ( where I live in Derby, the last 5 years has seen an obvious increase in the number of minority groups )
I've said before, possibly not on DS, that culturally the decades don't necessarily end when the decade itself does. Hunter S. Thompson had a theory that "The Sixties" ended with Nixon being elected in 1972. By extension I think the 90's ended with 9/11 and the 2000's with Obama being elected (so culturally the 2000's lasted about 7 years).
I'm not sure in what sense the cultural boundaries of a decade can be pinned down to singular events like those. My own personal theory has always been one of "decade lag". By this I mean that the cultural persona of a decade, say the 80s, covers a period closer to 1983-1993 than 1980-1989. This is because we tend to associate much of a decade's early cultural phenomena with the previous decade, since for the most part they are continuations or extensions of the decade before. Brand new cultural phenomena take a few years to "set in" to the public consciousness, so the mid-to-late part of a decade tends to carry more cultural weight.
On the subject of the Noughties, I would say it was characterised by counter-terrorist discourse, closely tied with a heightened sense of awareness and apprehension of Islam in the public consciousness. Also present is the financial crisis, banker-villains, a sense of financial uncertainty (though this may have set in too close to the end of the decade to be a defining characteristic). In popular culture there is the likes of Big Brother and X Factor, and in technology we have seen the birth of mp3, the rise of Apple with its iDevices and the explosion of social media. I think a tapestry of those cultural phenomena is how we will remember the Noughties.
I always wonder about this. The decades seem to have merged into one era. I think maybe if we look back in a few decades time we might be able to distinguish between them a bit more.
I think its more noticeable in fashion that there doesn't seem to have been much change in the last 20 years or so as others have said. There have obviously been subtle changes but nothing major. If someone threw a 1920s party and asked people to dress up, you'd know what to wear, bobbed hair, flapper dress, pearls, etc and the same thing for 40s (hair rolled up, utility suits etc), 50s (rock and roll), 60s (long straight hair, minis etc), 70s (disco stuff, flares, even punk) 80s (big hair, shoulder pads, power dressing etc) but then from the 90s onwards it becomes very hard to find a distinctive "look" There is less of a "uniformed" look these days which could be a bad or good thing depending on your viewpoint!
You can't make that judgement when you still live in the time. It's only quite recently the 90s has had any discernible character. And even then it's usually go-to cliches like mainnstream music.
It could be an age thing with me but nothing stands out for me the last 13 years or so, in 10 years time I doubt I'll look back on the 2000's with any affection like I do the 90's, 80's 70's etc
Could be. But I remember when I was younger there seemed to be more in the way of youth culture. I'm thinking through the 80s and early 90s with things like punks, casuals, grebos, crusties, heavies, etc. Do any such groups exist now, at the risk of sounding like an old fart?
Did you not notice that massive thing called the recession which has blighted the teenies?
In the 00s the big thing was that housing became unaffordable and impacted on the standard of living of those who were not lucky enough to have bought previously so most of the younger generation have a much lower standard of living.
Technology has changed beyond measure. In 2000 most people still bought newspapers to get their news. I can remember everybody trying to watch big brother online on a slow buffering blurry connection. Now you can download games and movies.
Fashion has changed too, in the 90s it was all grunge, then Spice Girls and rave influenced, in the 00s it was all Sex and the City. Now it's just all a bit boring because we're skint.
In the 90s it was all guitar music - very few young people listen to that sort of thing now and rock doesn't really trouble the charts, it's all grime and EDM.
I think in reality OP, what you actually mean is that you've got so old that the changes in the decades pass you by because you're not really plugged into popular culture any more.
I was reading a book that said the noughties really began on 9/11 and ended with the 2008 financial crisis.
I do think 2013 is very different from 2003 but that might be because I was only 11 in 2003 and I'm now 21, so my life has completely changed (apart from the fact that I still live with my parents)! There's also the fact that the economy was in better shape and our lives didn't revolve around the internet.
I think its more noticeable in fashion that there doesn't seem to have been much change in the last 20 years or so as others have said. There have obviously been subtle changes but nothing major. If someone threw a 1920s party and asked people to dress up, you'd know what to wear, bobbed hair, flapper dress, pearls, etc and the same thing for 40s (hair rolled up, utility suits etc), 50s (rock and roll), 60s (long straight hair, minis etc), 70s (disco stuff, flares, even punk) 80s (big hair, shoulder pads, power dressing etc) but then from the 90s onwards it becomes very hard to find a distinctive "look" There is less of a "uniformed" look these days which could be a bad or good thing depending on your viewpoint!
Don't forget, people didn't dress that way throughout the whole of those decades, nor did everyone dress uniformly. Lots of different fashions came and went in the 60s, for example, but one or two became associated with the decade and this image has been compounded throughout popular culture over the following years. What we think of as "The Sixties" is a caricature we've been consuming for years so it's no wonder that a certain image is invoked by the decade, but the reality wasn't nearly so homogenous. The reason it's harder to think of the 90s in terms of caricature features is because it's recent enough for the variety to still be quite salient.
Everything since 2000 has felt broadly the same for me, with internet and mobile phone use widespread, reality TV and Simon Cowell's talent shows dominating television, plus gross-out/edgy/ironic/mock-documentary-style humour from comedians. Prior to that, I had a much finer sense of the differences between decades, and different parts of decades, with that going back from 2000 to the early 70s (I was born 1969).
Perhaps its to do with getting past 30, and so becoming somewhat less engaged and obsessed with what's up-to-the-minute in popular culture.
It could be an age thing with me but nothing stands out for me the last 13 years or so, in 10 years time I doubt I'll look back on the 2000's with any affection like I do the 90's, 80's 70's etc
The 2000s were pretty faceless, like the 2010s so far.
Exactly. I'm glad others can see what I mean too. You will remember well the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and know each of those decades had their own character about them.
As you say from 2000 into the 2010's and up till 2013, everything has felt pretty samey to me. With the internet age we're in now in full swing, the mobile phone age in full swing with all these people talking and texting on their phones walking along the streets. Yes of course mobile phone and internet technology has advance in the last 10 years, but it still all feels very same to me. Early 2000's and we had the dumbing down of the mainstream TV channels, which we still have now. In 2003 we had reality and talent shows like X Factor, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and Big Brother. In 2013 we still have reality and talent shows like X Factor, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and Big Brother and no end in sight of these shows coming to an end! And music wise it's much the same too, a lot of manufactured pop from talent shows, R 'n B and Rap music. Whereas in decades gone by we had music eras like the disco era in the mid 1970s, the Punk Era from 1976-1979, the New Romantics Era of the early 1980s, the acid house/rave era of the early 1990s, and the Britpop era of the mid 1990s.
For me yes, the 2000's are just flat, bland, and lacking any real charactor compared to those previous decades. They're lacking a "feel good" type vide. And I don't really think it's an age thing either, not to much extent anyway. I've seen from TV shows and films what it was like in the 60s, 50s, 40's and so on and can see each decade was very different. Though the 1900's appeared to be much the same as the 1910's. But from the 1920's on every decade was different.
Exactly. I'm glad others can see what I mean too. You will remember well the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and know each of those decades had their own character about them.
As you say from 2000 into the 2010's and up till 2013, everything has felt pretty samey to me. With the internet age we're in now in full swing, the mobile phone age in full swing with all these people talking and texting on their phones walking along the streets. Early 2000's and we had the dumbing down of the mainstream TV channels, which we still have now. In 2003 we had reality and talent shows like X Factor, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and Big Brother. In 2013 we still have reality and talent shows like X Factor, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and Big Brother and no end in sight of these shows coming to an end! And music wise it's much the same too, a lot of manufactured pop from talent shows, R 'n B and Rap music. Whereas in decades gone by we had music eras like the disco era in the mid 1970s, the Punk Era from 1976-1979, the New Romantics Era of the early 1980s, the acid house/rave era of the early 1990s, and the Britpop era of the mid 1990s.
For me yes, the 2000's are just flat, bland, and lacking any real charactor compared to those previous decades. They're lacking a "feel good" type vide. And I don't really think it's an age thing either, not to much extent anyway. I've seen from TV shows and films what it was like in the 60s, 50s, 40's and so on and can see each decade was very different. Though the 1900's appeared to be much the same as the 1910's. But from the 1920's on every decade was different.
It's like you've just ignored all the other replies you've got which point out the characteristics of recent decades and explain why they seem not to have a unique character and are just ploughing on with "the decades no longer have character".
Well, the last two and a half decades definitely have distinctive characters.
1990s. The end of European communism closely followed by the end of history (allegedly). The monopolar world. In general, a feeling that things might be improving.
2000s. The rude awakening. The realisation that the BRIC countries were on the way up and that the UK was on the way down. Discovering why relying on financial services and not industry might, just possibly, be a bad thing.
2010s. General unhappiness. Those still being paid a regular wage desperately clinging on to their jobs.
What do you see looking back to the 80's?, we had massive unemployment, strikes, wars, i could sit here detailing why it was so terrible just like you have for the present.
But overall it wasnt like that, the fashion, the music, the events like live aid, the movies, that decades character was defined by those things, and wasnt appreciated until perhaps 20 years later.
If you look at clips of TV programmes and at pictures taken in 2003 and compare them with now then you'll see that it is very different. Fashion has definitely changed, technology has changed. God I remember when it was novelty to have a camera phone, now everyone has them.
Music has also changed I think for the better, as the music of the early to mid 2000's was awful IMO.
In the 90's I can remember people saying that there was no distinctive look like there was in the 60's, 70's and '80's, but when you look back now you can see that there definitely was a 90's "look". We just didn't notice it at the time. With the passage of time it's become more apparent.
Did you not notice that massive thing called the recession which has blighted the teenies?
In the 00s the big thing was that housing became unaffordable and impacted on the standard of living of those who were not lucky enough to have bought previously so most of the younger generation have a much lower standard of living.
Technology has changed beyond measure. In 2000 most people still bought newspapers to get their news. I can remember everybody trying to watch big brother online on a slow buffering blurry connection. Now you can download games and movies.
Fashion has changed too, in the 90s it was all grunge, then Spice Girls and rave influenced, in the 00s it was all Sex and the City. Now it's just all a bit boring because we're skint.
In the 90s it was all guitar music - very few young people listen to that sort of thing now and rock doesn't really trouble the charts, it's all grime and EDM.
I think in reality OP, what you actually mean is that you've got so old that the changes in the decades pass you by because you're not really plugged into popular culture any more.
There were recessions in the 70s and 80s too. Standard of living and expectations have risen a huge amount since then. House prices are a joke, but i'd hardly call being deprived of one's own house as being skint.
If you look at clips of TV programmes and at pictures taken in 2003 and compare them with now then you'll see that it is very different. Fashion has definitely changed, technology has changed. God I remember when it was novelty to have a camera phone, now everyone has them.
Music has also changed I think for the better, as the music of the early to mid 2000's was awful IMO.
In the 90's I can remember people saying that there was no distinctive look like there was in the 60's, 70's and '80's, but when you look back now you can see that there definitely was a 90's "look". We just didn't notice it at the time. With the passage of time it's become more apparent.
What was the 90s look? I don't notice much difference tbh. Girls in general look a lot nicer - make up was a bit bland back then compared to now, as were some women's hair.
Someone from 2000 who travelled forward in time to 2013 would be in for quite a shock. Back then, digital TV was only just starting out, mobile phones were much bigger and less widespread, there was no such thing as social media, and no one could even conceive that an attack as devastating as 9/11 could even happen.
No such thing as social media in 2000? We had the likes of msn, icq, yahoo and aol messenger. Friends reunited was launched in 1999. There were plenty of forums around back then.
What was the 90s look? I don't notice much difference tbh. Girls in general look a lot nicer - make up was a bit bland back then compared to now, as were some women's hair.
There were a few looks. At one pont there was a lot of floppy hair and baggy clothes (see PJ & Duncan)
The TV show Friends is quite a good reminder of 90s fashion, specially the earlier seasons. In fact, it was responsible for one of the most 90s defining female fashion trends, the Rachel hairstyle.
No such thing as social media in 2000? We had the likes of msn, icq, yahoo and aol messenger. Friends reunited was launched in 1999. There were plenty of forums around back then.
None of those things were used by the masses though.
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Interesting. For me I think the 90s ended for me later than 9/11 - possibly around 2003/04 time (which was not too dissimilar to the late 90s), and the 00s ending last year with the Olympics. From a technology POV, in 2003/04, PS1's were still being sold, VCR's still there (although we did have DVD's), analogue, Sky starting to establish itself 5 or so years after going digital, widescreen was all the rage, much like the late 90s.
But honestly, since 2005, the years have blended and I see no significant difference, apart from technology, from 2005 to 2013. Barely anything has changed from my POV. I just find it unbelievable that 8 years have passed since 2005. Seems more like only 2-3 years.
I only look to the early 00s and particularly 2000-2004 with any sense of affection. 2005-2009 was distinctly unmemorable, 2010 and 2011 were also unremarkable, 2012 was a standout year for obvious reasons, and this year has sort of faded a bit. We're already in August and it feels like nothing much has happened, strangely.
There's been a couple of times where I am signing something and need the date, I have to ask myself what year is it and have to think about it for a couple of seconds (but that's probably just me
The kind of attire you saw at a pulp/oasis and blur concert in 1996 is still the same kind of attire you would see on the street any day of the week.
There was a MASSIVE difference from what people wore in 1956 than 66 and again from 76 to 86 but 96 to easily 2016 almost no change at all.
it has been a very bland 20 years for fashion.
I suppose the last 10 years will be regarded as the 'mobile phone and Facebook/Twitter' era and also the decade where there's been a growing Muslim population in the UK ( where I live in Derby, the last 5 years has seen an obvious increase in the number of minority groups )
I'm not sure in what sense the cultural boundaries of a decade can be pinned down to singular events like those. My own personal theory has always been one of "decade lag". By this I mean that the cultural persona of a decade, say the 80s, covers a period closer to 1983-1993 than 1980-1989. This is because we tend to associate much of a decade's early cultural phenomena with the previous decade, since for the most part they are continuations or extensions of the decade before. Brand new cultural phenomena take a few years to "set in" to the public consciousness, so the mid-to-late part of a decade tends to carry more cultural weight.
On the subject of the Noughties, I would say it was characterised by counter-terrorist discourse, closely tied with a heightened sense of awareness and apprehension of Islam in the public consciousness. Also present is the financial crisis, banker-villains, a sense of financial uncertainty (though this may have set in too close to the end of the decade to be a defining characteristic). In popular culture there is the likes of Big Brother and X Factor, and in technology we have seen the birth of mp3, the rise of Apple with its iDevices and the explosion of social media. I think a tapestry of those cultural phenomena is how we will remember the Noughties.
It's an age thing. You just miss your youth.
Could be. But I remember when I was younger there seemed to be more in the way of youth culture. I'm thinking through the 80s and early 90s with things like punks, casuals, grebos, crusties, heavies, etc. Do any such groups exist now, at the risk of sounding like an old fart?
Did you not notice that massive thing called the recession which has blighted the teenies?
In the 00s the big thing was that housing became unaffordable and impacted on the standard of living of those who were not lucky enough to have bought previously so most of the younger generation have a much lower standard of living.
Technology has changed beyond measure. In 2000 most people still bought newspapers to get their news. I can remember everybody trying to watch big brother online on a slow buffering blurry connection. Now you can download games and movies.
Fashion has changed too, in the 90s it was all grunge, then Spice Girls and rave influenced, in the 00s it was all Sex and the City. Now it's just all a bit boring because we're skint.
In the 90s it was all guitar music - very few young people listen to that sort of thing now and rock doesn't really trouble the charts, it's all grime and EDM.
I think in reality OP, what you actually mean is that you've got so old that the changes in the decades pass you by because you're not really plugged into popular culture any more.
I do think 2013 is very different from 2003 but that might be because I was only 11 in 2003 and I'm now 21, so my life has completely changed (apart from the fact that I still live with my parents)! There's also the fact that the economy was in better shape and our lives didn't revolve around the internet.
Don't forget, people didn't dress that way throughout the whole of those decades, nor did everyone dress uniformly. Lots of different fashions came and went in the 60s, for example, but one or two became associated with the decade and this image has been compounded throughout popular culture over the following years. What we think of as "The Sixties" is a caricature we've been consuming for years so it's no wonder that a certain image is invoked by the decade, but the reality wasn't nearly so homogenous. The reason it's harder to think of the 90s in terms of caricature features is because it's recent enough for the variety to still be quite salient.
Exactly. I'm glad others can see what I mean too. You will remember well the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and know each of those decades had their own character about them.
As you say from 2000 into the 2010's and up till 2013, everything has felt pretty samey to me. With the internet age we're in now in full swing, the mobile phone age in full swing with all these people talking and texting on their phones walking along the streets. Yes of course mobile phone and internet technology has advance in the last 10 years, but it still all feels very same to me. Early 2000's and we had the dumbing down of the mainstream TV channels, which we still have now. In 2003 we had reality and talent shows like X Factor, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and Big Brother. In 2013 we still have reality and talent shows like X Factor, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and Big Brother and no end in sight of these shows coming to an end! And music wise it's much the same too, a lot of manufactured pop from talent shows, R 'n B and Rap music. Whereas in decades gone by we had music eras like the disco era in the mid 1970s, the Punk Era from 1976-1979, the New Romantics Era of the early 1980s, the acid house/rave era of the early 1990s, and the Britpop era of the mid 1990s.
For me yes, the 2000's are just flat, bland, and lacking any real charactor compared to those previous decades. They're lacking a "feel good" type vide. And I don't really think it's an age thing either, not to much extent anyway. I've seen from TV shows and films what it was like in the 60s, 50s, 40's and so on and can see each decade was very different. Though the 1900's appeared to be much the same as the 1910's. But from the 1920's on every decade was different.
But overall it wasnt like that, the fashion, the music, the events like live aid, the movies, that decades character was defined by those things, and wasnt appreciated until perhaps 20 years later.
your opinion of it is far too personalised.
Music has also changed I think for the better, as the music of the early to mid 2000's was awful IMO.
In the 90's I can remember people saying that there was no distinctive look like there was in the 60's, 70's and '80's, but when you look back now you can see that there definitely was a 90's "look". We just didn't notice it at the time. With the passage of time it's become more apparent.
There were recessions in the 70s and 80s too. Standard of living and expectations have risen a huge amount since then. House prices are a joke, but i'd hardly call being deprived of one's own house as being skint.
What was the 90s look? I don't notice much difference tbh. Girls in general look a lot nicer - make up was a bit bland back then compared to now, as were some women's hair.
Thanks for the reminder ...
No such thing as social media in 2000? We had the likes of msn, icq, yahoo and aol messenger. Friends reunited was launched in 1999. There were plenty of forums around back then.
A lot of mainstream music is still awful, unless you're a Justin Bieber fan?
There were a few looks. At one pont there was a lot of floppy hair and baggy clothes (see PJ & Duncan)
The TV show Friends is quite a good reminder of 90s fashion, specially the earlier seasons. In fact, it was responsible for one of the most 90s defining female fashion trends, the Rachel hairstyle.
None of those things were used by the masses though.