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I agree, I think the Arab Spring kicked it off. Then with a whole bunch of states and countries legalizing gay marriage, and the growing frustration with the war on drugs, I really think this is the true first decade of social media. People around the whole world are starting to get access to Internet
Probably. Facebook didn't start until 2004 and even then it was only available to a limited number of college students. YouTube/Twitter in 2005-06. So social media was only really big in the second half of the 00s, not as much in the first half.
Additionally many second and third world countries didn't get common computer access until the very late 00's. When I left Moscow in 2005, only around twenty percent of people I knew had computers. Now EVERYBODY has them. Also, Skype became really popular in 2010, and Skype really revolutionized the way we talk to people because it is almost like talking in person
I'm one of those hopelessly old-fashioned Gen X guys who has all the technology, works at a computer terminal all day, but am still organizing actual friends to get together to do actual stuff in the actual non-virtual world. I refuse to carry around a smart phone because the addiction to social media is so pervasive and has become so all-consuming since roughly 2010-2011 I'm like the last middle-class or higher holdout. I took my family of four on a ski/snowboard vacation in Steamboat Springs last week and we randomly ended up in some Asian fusion restaurant that was quite good. 60-80 people in there at 15-20 tables, literally everybody (except us) was looking at playing with their smart phones instead of talking/laughing with their family/date/whatever. So, yes, I'd say the 2010's have begun culturally. I'll keep the laptop, tablet, IPod, etc but the smart phones are just too over the top. By this time next year, I may be the sole holdout on earth. I'm determined there should be at least one human in the 2010's who doesn't check their smart phone every 3-5 seconds.
I'm one of those hopelessly old-fashioned Gen X guys who has all the technology, works at a computer terminal all day, but am still organizing actual friends to get together to do actual stuff in the actual non-virtual world. I refuse to carry around a smart phone because the addiction to social media is so pervasive and has become so all-consuming since roughly 2010-2011 I'm like the last middle-class or higher holdout. I took my family of four on a ski/snowboard vacation in Steamboat Springs last week and we randomly ended up in some Asian fusion restaurant that was quite good. 60-80 people in there at 15-20 tables, literally everybody (except us) was looking at playing with their smart phones instead of talking/laughing with their family/date/whatever. So, yes, I'd say the 2010's have begun culturally. I'll keep the laptop, tablet, IPod, etc but the smart phones are just too over the top. By this time next year, I may be the sole holdout on earth. I'm determined there should be at least one human in the 2010's who doesn't check their smart phone every 3-5 seconds.
I don't even own a smartphone and even if I did have one, I wouldn't check it every 3-5 seconds. Maybe every 3-5 hours. I don't know. I actually prefer the "actual stuff" to the "virtual stuff" and wish I could actually meet with people the old-fashioned way instead of only talking on an electronic device. That said, I do enjoy discussion forums very much.
A lot of forums on here discuss when decades came into their own in terms of culture. Some I've heard:
2000s began after 9/11
1990s began around 92 when Clinton takes office and music and fashion begin to move away from the 80s
1980s begin in 1983 when the economic malaise of the 70s finally goes away and trends like new wave and big hair come into their own
Has the 2010s began yet, and what ushered in the decade?
There needs to be a little bit of a correction with your 1980s section. New wave actually became popular in around 1981 and by that time, most disco fashion would be considered "uncool" by then. I agree with you about the 2000s beginning right after 9/11. The culture drastically changed after 9/11 too, from the happy teenybopper late 90s music of 1997-2000/01 to the mainstream rap and emo of 2001/02-2008. The 1990s should really begin in 1991 when Nirvana's Nevermind came out, but you are right that most of the "90s things" were not totally into effect until 1992.
The 2000s began in 2002 for me. Maybe in America it's a different story (no disrespect to the 9/11 victims). But 2002 life was very similar to late 90s.
Anyway, the 2010s started rather early - late 2010/early 2011....with the electronic dance music, CGI movies, social media, Youtube and fashion trends (men still have the high fade haircut from late 2010 & women still have the wavy, feathery hair)...
Additionally many second and third world countries didn't get common computer access until the very late 00's. When I left Moscow in 2005, only around twenty percent of people I knew had computers. Now EVERYBODY has them. Also, Skype became really popular in 2010, and Skype really revolutionized the way we talk to people because it is almost like talking in person
It's kinda crazy to think that even in the early 2000s, Russia was only about a decade out of the USSR days. People have a tendency of treating the Soviet Union like ancient history but in reality it wasn't long ago at all. 1991 is still less than 25 years ago.
Why all these threads suddenly on "is the year 2000 like 2012", etc? Who is bumping up this crap?
Seriously - this is turning into the pop culture forum, we mind as well close down the title of the forum....I count 7 of the top 15 threads on comparing the last 20 years culturally. It's not historically significant, do we really need 7 threads on it?
Let's at least get back to Civil War threads...does anyone read books about the Napoleonic Wars?
30s - October 29, 1929
40s - December 7, 1941
50s - Debatable - either Berlin Airlift, June 24, 1948 or Korean War June 25, 1950
60s - November 22, 1963
70s - Complicated, either January 1973, end of Vietnam War, or October 73, Arab Oil Embargo - leans towards the latter.
80s - November 4, 1979
90s - November 8, 1989
00s - September 11, 2001
10s - Not sure.
I freely admit these are political bookends not cultural ones.
The 10s could begin on either January 20, 2009 (Obama's presidency) or May 2, 2011 (day Osama Bin Laden got killed) politically.
i think we're going to have to wait until after this decade is over until we know what defined it. some say it was obama's election in 2008, but i don't know.
i can say that the end of last decade we saw the emergence of a lot of today's popular singers, and that social media started to take over at the end of last decade. ultimately i think the decade probably began 08-09. i don't think there has been a single event that i can say set the tone for this decade. we still have 6 more years of this decade so maybe it hasn't even happened yet, if at all. the things that stick out to me the most are obama's election and the financial crisis. like i said, in hindsight it will probably be easier to figure out.
so far it feels like the 2010s have just been an extension of the 2000s. there's still massive distrust in the government, global conflict, technology.
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