The feel of the 2010's

[gremino]

There was no tangible shift from the late 90s to the early 00s, everything was just a glossier or more brutal continuation. Only later on could you distinguish the atmospheres and parameters that marked the noughties off from the 90s and the 2010s.

Late 90s early 00s were the Y2K era, the Playstation era. Thinking in terms of aesthetics and music, 2000s begun properly somewhere in 03/04.

I'd say that 2008 was still aughties, and it feels like the decade only ended in '12. This is again, based largely on aesthetics/music, but IMO after 2008 financial crash it took some time to settle down to new reality. I believe that in financial field there wasn't much investment going on for a while. Contrast that to one of the characteristics of 2010s, which was loose investment money for tech startups, giving birth for that decade's tech boom. Fashion-wise 90s revival was big in 2010s, and it was in full-swing in '16, whereas 2020s has seen the rise of YK2 revival.

 

[gremino]

The marriage of tech and lifestyle.

By the end of the 00s smart phones and Facebook had really blown up. They came out closer to mid 00s, but they didn't take off right away. First iPhone in 2007 flopped.

Maxi just beat me as I was typing, but these are key developments. Everyone being online is when the serpent really started swallowing it's tail and widespread narcissism became normalized. Also marks the end of decade long eras having a vibe. Everything started to congeal and dematerialize.

Can only imagine a net/tech backlash getting us out of this.

Popularity of Old Web might be one of the backlashes. In old web there's no notifications, thus you're not constantly in, no constant holiday photos to envy and feel bad about your life, no FOMO, no constant feed burying what you're sharing or no algorithm to please, thus denying your true self. Using old web was also more intentional: you went to explore the web, see what's new on the forums or to download, whereas in current social media web it's easy to sink into mindless feed scrolling. Intentional tech usage is important.

It's ironic how we imagined future to be this cool place where we use cool futuristic tech gadgets enhancing our lives, but now when we're in the future, it's this. Technological progress, but not a good progress. Should we go back to go forward?

 

[vershy versh]

The twin ghosts of Savile and Epstein, the haunted bookends of the 2010s.

I've been watching clips of Savile recently due to The Reckoning putting him back on the radar. I don't think enough emphasis is placed on that particular wound re: the UK's recent trajectory.

He's been mentioned now and then due to some on the right looking to use him against Starmer, but he's something of a footnote when we talk about conspiracy theory and the "post-truth" era. You see much more about Trump and social media and austerity and Russia, maybe Blair and Iraq from those who aren't quite so mired in the present, and I think we've lost sight of how deeply damaging Savile was, and continues to be.

'Haunting' really is the word. You can't talk about the lack of trust in British institutions, particularly the BBC, without talking about him, and all of that feeds into Brexit, into COVID, into the appearance of GB News and TalkTV, into the cultural fixation on paedophilia, into the decline of the Royal family, and God knows what else.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I've been watching clips of Savile recently due to The Reckoning putting him back on the radar. I don't think enough emphasis is placed on that particular wound re: the UK's recent trajectory.

He's been mentioned now and then due to some on the right looking to use him against Starmer, but he's something of a footnote when we talk about conspiracy theory and the "post-truth" era. You see much more about Trump and social media and austerity and Russia, maybe Blair and Iraq from those who aren't quite so mired in the present, and I think we've lost sight of how deeply damaging Savile was, and continues to be.

'Haunting' really is the word. You can't talk about the lack of trust in British institutions, particularly the BBC, without talking about him, and all of that feeds into Brexit, into COVID, into the appearance of GB News and TalkTV, into the cultural fixation on paedophilia, into the decline of the Royal family, and God knows what else.

By all accounts, the BBC gets off pretty lightly in The Reckoning; didn't see that coming haha

 

[...]

A report from the middle of the decade:

2012: Progress Report

We have raised a lot of money, we’ve made a lot of money, we’ve hired a lot of good people – but for me most importantly – we have spent our time well – and time is the ONLY thing…

atimeforfear.wordpress.com

 

[vershy versh]

Another marker of the 2020s beginning in 2016 is that was the year the Bank of England began the switch from paper to polymer banknotes.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Another marker of the 2020s beginning in 2016 is that was the year the Bank of England began the switch from paper to polymer banknotes.

Heh, 'member people freaking out because they contained homeopathic amounts of animal products?

 

[shakahislop]

2010s were a rare period of anti-war sentiment in the west, both on the part of publics and politicians. iraq and afghanistan looming large. everyone was against getting involved. that seems to have ended comprehensively now, everyone's taking sides, out for blood

 

[Clinamenic]

2010s were a rare period of anti-war sentiment in the west, both on the part of publics and politicians. iraq and afghanistan looming large. everyone was against getting involved. that seems to have ended comprehensively now, everyone's taking sides, out for blood

Personally I'm wondering how much credence there is to the notion that there are cycles of sorts here, that regional generations/populations who haven't experienced war (like most of US), but have unrealistic/romantic/academic perspectives about war and revolution, tend to feed/fuel the collective impulse toward war. All the more so if they're able to fuel on actual conflict just by militantly taking positions on social media, or even in protests, without putting themselves in any real danger (at least not compared to those actually involved in the war).

Anyway, just wondering if there is a social phenomenon similar to economic bubbles, but with pent-up angst and naive expectations of war/revolution being an outlet for that angst (again even if the consequences of war aren't felt by the terminally online western populations who engage primarily in a culture-signaling capacity).

 

[Clinamenic]

Sorta like that "strong men -> good times -> weak men -> bad times ->" meme, where easy times breed people who don't have a real sense of the consequentiality of their fueling the cultural dimensions of actual military conflicts.

 

[vershy versh]

There are a bunch of over-50s in England who talk as though they personally fought in WW2. The kind of people who were grilling Corbyn on whether he'd "push the button".

 

[Clinamenic]

There are a bunch of over-50s in England who talk as though they personally fought in WW2. The kind of people who were grilling Corbyn on whether he'd "push the button".

Haha yeah exactly, and in the US I specifically have in mind the militant culture warriors, right wing and left, who contribute combative discourse to online platforms, ya know exercising free speech and whatnot, but I think it all helps drive actual conflicts. With the US/west and the various Arab states fueling the online information/culture war around all this stuff, its like the actual conflict ends up becoming a proxy for globalized culture wars (in addition to being an actual war with actual victims/stakeholders).

 

[shakahislop]

this happened last week but its the spirit of the 2010s to me. ten cameras recording the same event, which is only happening because the cameras will be there. things happening in real space for the sake of the online space

 

[line b]

And diplo

 

[vershy versh]

From a recent LRB article...

Biographical time may have retained some shape, but political time has felt like a mess. The Brexit referendum still overshadows the present, while the coalition belongs to a different world. Nobody yet quite knows how to fit the lockdown years into their sense of themselves or society: neither a crisis nor an era, but some unnameable combination of the two.

Those fourteen years feel like a blur and certainly not like fourteen years. The Brexit referendum was almost ten years ago!

 

[dilbert1]

I happened to be in London when it passed, summer of ‘16. A friend who I was with reminded me tonight that we stayed just long enough to the point where all the currency we had to convert back had become severely devalued. I’ll never forget a man coming out onto the street from his burger shop distraught with his hands on his head in disbelief, approaching me and some guys I was with walking down the sidewalk. “Boys, have you heard?? My god!!”

 

[vershy versh]

I happened to be in London when it passed, summer of ‘16. A friend who I was with reminded me tonight that we stayed just long enough to the point where all the currency we had to convert back had become severely devalued. I’ll never forget a man coming out onto the street from his burger shop distraught with his hands on his hands in disbelief, approaching me and some guys I was with walking down the sidewalk. “Boys, have you heard?? My god!!”

Some of my mates were at Glastonbury during the referendum and said they woke up to it killing the mood as news filtered through the camp sites.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

From a recent LRB article...

This person appears to be generalising from one example; couldn't he have just left this in his diary and ditched his pretensions to omniscient mind-reading?

 

[IdleRich]

Was it an ambiguous decade?

Maybe

 

[IdleRich]

When i think of the 10s i think first of indie music. That comes immediately and most strongly. I also think of facebook, instagram and twitter.

This is obviously cos I'm a fair bit older than you, but to me in 2010s indy music is the last thing I think of, at that point it was deader than a door nail made of dodo feathers, just completely outside or or unrelated to anything ayome I or anyone I knew of would think about.

That's obviously not to say you're wrong. You are on the other side of the world, something like 15(?) years younger, just living in a different world. Just shows how hard if is to sum these things up when just two people have such utterly different views.