There were reactions against it, but it clearly was the dominant cultural force at the time. Discos were popping up all over the place, not just in big cities, it was playing on the radio all the time, and had several era-defining movies, as well as a significant presence in movies and TV that were’t specifically about disco. Hipsters and metrosexuals never had that kind of saturation.
Hell, hipsters pretty much defined themselves as being the “elite”, “You wouldn’t know this band/restaurant/drink” types. If anything they did became mainstream, they’d have dropped it like a hot potato.
In terms of color palates, it also feels to me like the 2000s and beyond were more towards beiges, browns, muted colors. I remember the 70s being full of avocado, and yellow, and weird oranges; 80s primary colors, 90s had neons and pastels, 00s feels like a shift toward neutral colors. Over the last few years, greige seemed to be the dominant color for indoor, and many has shied away from cheerful and festive colors. I’m not exactly sure where I’d break up these trends in the 00s-20s. Cars apparently only come in white, gray (silver included), black, and sometimes a muted, maroon/red. Actually, now that I think more about it, maybe around the 2010s, colors started coming back, though there still is that ubiquitous greige.
Various sites I found with a bit of looking suggest that black, white, gray, and silver now account for over 3/4 of car sales in the U.S., with red and blue lagging behind, and anything else tinier still.
I was in my 20s in the 00s, and metrosexuals were everywhere. And everyone was writing about them. It was especially seen in the stylings of European soccer players (which makes a bit of sense as an article referring to David Beckham as a metrosexual really elevated the term of modern popularity).
The biggest musical phenomenon was the emergence of Kanye West, who famously wore pink polos and sang about college when a lot of the rap world was mostly wearing muted colors and singing of gangs and violence.
One can also point to more acceptance of LGBTQ folks in the 2000s which made it more culturally acceptable to want to be well groomed as a man. Recall the original Queer Eye came out in 2003.
Also another male grooming change in the 2010s is the return of the beard as a perfectly common male facial hair style, even in professional settings.
Have you ever seen one of those “how to stage your home for sale” shows? The hosts walk in and sneer at things like the “1980’s ceiling lamp fixtures” and “1990 wall colors”. I wonder if anyone has noticed a show where they sneer at the “2000 features” - and what those features were.
Another thought, time periods defined by cars. I remember when people drove CARS. A pickup truck usually had a business sign on the door.
With the “soccer mom” Chrysler Caravan, the shift to SUV’s like the Ford Explorer, the shift to the gross SUV’s like the Expedition … and the 2022’s might be the beginning of the EV.
Yeah, and that I feel started in the 2000s with the hipsters. It was kind of a stereotype of the time, but then it moved into more mainstream looks. Like I even occasionally get a glimpse of people sporting mustaches-only, something that was not long ago only associated with 1980s Bears fans and porn stars.
Colorful dyed hair is another one that has become quite “normal” in the last decade or so, from grade school to middle aged and beyond women. I noted this earlier today picking up my 6-year-old from kindergarten and noticing both the occasional red/blue/green haired moms and the occasional grade school kid with them. I don’t remember anybody grade school aged having their hair dyed like this in the 80s (high school things started changing, though I went to a Catholic high school and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t allowed in ours or our sister school next door.) And the only middle aged women hair dye I noticed was the artificial copper red my mom’s Eastern European friends would occasionally sport.
And tattoos? Perfectly mainstream, though they started moving in that direction in the 90s, I think. But not like I see now. The pieces are much bigger, much more colorful, more unisex (in terms of who has the tattoos), and not just the old Irish clover on the ankle or the Deadhead symbol on the back of a calf.
I was in Chattanooga this past weekend, and I saw quite a few 20 somethings sporting those sort of mustaches. I had to do a double take.
Dyed hair is definitely more mainstream, but it doesn’t make it to the professional region that often. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it soon made it there. Blues and greens and purples are far more common - and a lot of times just a splash of that color in folks’ hair. Interestingly, in the progressive church realm I saw the splash of a different color thing (though only among female clergy) a LOT 5 years ago, but it seems to not be much of a thing anymore.
Yeah, a lot of times it’s just a streak of pink or something. Do people ever do just the ends? Because that’s something I’ve noticed, but not sure if that’s purposeful or just dye being grown out. I assume the latter.
ETA: Oh, and I wonder if Ted Lasso contributed to the popularity of that look, though I do remember seeing them here and again before that, and I feel like the look of Ted Lasso was not really done to indicate “stylishness.”
Interestingly enough this Esquire article indicates that the rise of the modern mustache may be tied to the mid aughts and an unlikely person… Justin Bieber:
It might have been the only color you noticed, but I guarantee there were middle aged women who dyed their hair more natural colors. But “medium brown” is not as obviously dyed as the color you mentioned.
Yes. My daughter liked having some pink or purple hair but didn’t want to commit completely, so she would just dye the bottom inch or two. She could then style it to hide the color if she wanted to.
Yes. Sorry for not being clear. I meant of “colorful hair dye” that I referenced earlier, and the copper reds I’m thinking of qualify as “colorful”, as in, unnatural looking. I sometimes forget people are not in my head as I type. I am very much aware of natural colored hair dye – my mom would do that (Revlon, IIRC. I think she vacillated between chestnut and auburn.) Hell, my high school girlfriend would dye her hair and eyebrows a lighter shade than her natural blonde.
Here’s one way, for example, for me how different 2022 was from 2002, and 2002 from 1982. My car.
My car in 2022 vs 2002 and how it differs for me: It has in-dash GPS. It has self-driving features (auto-adjusted cruise control, lane centering). It’s a hybrid. I can talk to it. If my phone is nearby, I can call anyone with it. I can listen to radio stations from around the world with it through the phone. Even without the phone, I could have satellite radio. I have live traffic information on it. I have a backup camera. It can tell me where the nearest gas station is when I run low on gas.
None of this my 2002 (or, rather, my 2004, which is the nearest car of that era I owned) could do.
Now, what is the difference between my 2004 car vs a 1982 car? Well, it’s safer. I guess it had regular cruise control (but I think that was around then). Oh! A CD player. The radio had a nicer digital display and interface, but offered little extra functionality. And … I’m having a hard time thinking of things beyond that. In terms of the driving, entertainment, and information, there was a huge gulf of difference between 2022 - 2002 and 2002 - 1982.
I sometimes think people forget just how different our everyday lives are now.
I’ve been pondering this lately. (Note what I said above about 2022/1992 having a greater technological gap than 1985/1955, so on one level I totally agree.)
I think part of the problem is that computers along with the internet are the first major business/consumer technology in modern human history causes people to question whether the costs outweigh the benefits. Cars? Home refrigeration? Radio? TV? These were no-brainers to the people of the time, though there were of course critics of TV and consumer culture in general.
Computers were and are a pain. You have to learn how to use them. You have to learn how to type. Old software replaces new software, and you have to learn that too. Excel crashes. Dial up speed sucks. Hard drive crashes. Get hacked. Identity theft. Data loss. Manage your passwords. Spam spam spam. Etc.
And then the whole internet and its ceaseless evolution. It’s fluid and plastic; as soon as you get used to one thing, it changes, and you must get used to another. Find a replacement, etc. Social media has gone from fun to toxic. Same thing with online dating. The small gets bought by the big and often tossed into the trash or turned into something you don’t want.
And I’ve barely touched upon the burdens that computers and the Internet impose at work.
Do I want to live without it? No, on balance it’s much better to have it than not. But the burden is still great.
So when I compare 2022 to 2002 in terms of that aspect of my life and how I perceive the world, it’s not all fun, and in many ways it’s become less fun and more toxic over the past two decades. And thus, it’s hard for it too feel different in a good way or more advanced. (Also, I don’t think anything truly technologically new has come along since Facebook and YouTube circa 2005. Sure TikTok, etc., are just new versions of stuff under the same plastic principle.)
Maybe I’m odd … but I don’t find any of that particularly burdensome. Changes were incremental. I came of age in the 80s and the home computers (VIC-20 onward) and I’ve never felt it difficult to make the steps up the technology ladder. All of it was just normal growing up type stuff.
Has it become more toxic? I mean, yes, in the sense that more of the average joe is exposed to it, and it’s more every day. But I remember shit really being toxic and awful when it was a complete free-for-all and the internet all looked like 4-chan to me. It’s at least a bit more policed, now, through the masses, although more of the masses participate in the garbage parts. But, yes, overall I can see that. Strength in numbers and people finding each other to promote their toxic beliefs.
And with Tik Tok – I think that is significantly enough different that it counts as a new technological and social phenomenon. I know it irritates the shit out of me, so it must be something significant.
Also, built-in entertainment centers with a space for a CRT television were a common feature of 2000s era homes, I believe.
My parents’ house is from that era; while it doesn’t have a full on built in entertainment center, it’s got this recessed space under the stairs where the TV was clearly meant to go (that’s where the cable hookups are). Except all but the smallest modern wide screen flat panel TVs are too wide to fit in that space. So they’ve got their TV on a stand in front of that space, with this useless empty space behind the TV.
I have missed a lot of the specific colors, it’s not the kind of thing I notice much but there were clearly favorite colors associated with the decades. I have noticed the change in colors generally over time, the earlier more saturated colors* before brighter and more versatile acrylic colors began to dominate. I think there’s been a change recently as print media has disappeared. You might be better at working that out, I don’t have great color perception.
*I don’t remember how or when I learned it but those used to be call ‘roto’ colors by some, I assume related to the color rotogravure pages in old newspapers. I wonder if anyone else is familiar with the term, or if is even correctly used. Looking up ‘roto colors’ doesn’t get me anything I recognize as distinctive.
[quote=“pulykamell, post:56, topic:965708, full:true”]
Maybe I’m odd … but I don’t find any of that particularly burdensome. Changes were incremental. I came of age in the 80s and the home computers (VIC-20 onward) and I’ve never felt it difficult to make the steps up the technology ladder. All of it was just normal growing up type stuff.[/quote]
Yeah, me too. We got our first home computer in 1985. I was head of the curve for a long while, and it was fun.
But I don’t like doing IT and the bother of solving little problems. I had a hard drive die on me in 2007 (a mess), and recently my Mac just died, but the data was recoverable. Stuff like that. I worry about my laptop getting stolen or, well, breaking again.
Yes, it has allowed the bad actors to come together very easily.
Definitely a new social phenomenon. But it too will pass away and something else will replace it, ad infinitum. And one could say that’s a good thing. But I find it disheartening to think of people getting so invested in things that won’t leave much of an impression on the future and that will barely leave a trace after they are gone.
And that’s not even because the material sucks. I love the YouTube channels I love, for example. But what percentage of content that exists on YouTube now will exist in 2030? People are pouring their souls into this stuff, and it will eventually just fade like vapor. I think we’ll end up have a much better record of 19th century content than 21st century content, say, 500 years from now, unfortunately.