I remember the 1970s. I remember most of the 1960s. At the time, everything looked new and sleek to me. It was hard to believe that new styles and new technology could come along and replace everything we had. Nothing looked cheesy to me. (Well, except for maybe leisure suits.)
Looking back now, it all looked cheesy. What could anyone have been thinking of?! The clothes, the hairstyles. I know they couldn’t help the state of the technology, that really was the most advanced they had, but while it looked cool then, it looks cheesy now.
How can something that looks so cool come to seem so retarded? And what do we have today that people will point back to and laugh at?
Granite and stainless steel will be the Avocado or Harvest Gold of the future. People will be saying “Remember when everybody got tattoos?” And all those scruffy men.
It’s the ultimate in cool, right? People line up for days to get the new model…
Well, looking cool now is going to look pretty damn retarded in the future.
"Wow–those idiots back in the 2010’s kept their eyes so focused on texting that they couldn’t do anything else.
They actually walked into walls, or onto busy streets, just like small children.
Geez—how stupid can you get?
But I suppose we shouldn’t blame them for their primitive technology–that’s all they had.
They hadn’t invented real communication chips like we have, that plug right into your brain."
But that’s in the far future.
For the more immediate future, the post above has it right. Stainless steel is going to look * a lot* worse than Avocado green. At least green adds some color to your home. Steel looks like an industrial laboratory or something
Stuff from the 70s-80s still looks cool and futuristic to me, probably because as a kid growing up all the scifi movies I watched were from the 70s-80s.
Unless we have Star Trek transporters or on-call near-instant taxi-like services people are still going to own transportation devices. And they’ll want a shelter to store them in.
Whether they’ll be called “cars” and whether we do something so primitive as “drive” them ourselves is a different matter.
I can still look at something from the 80s, such as a sweater with shoulder pads, and part of my brain says “No!” while another part says, “Nothing wrong with it.”
It is fun to watch the home remodeling shows and hear everyone bitch about things being dated.
I always think things that are made of one material, but look like something else aren’t going to age well. For instance, floor tiles that look like hardwood.
One thing we have recently seen become obsolete looking are computers that consisted of big towers and huge, bulky crt screens that took over an entire desk.
If there is one hideous trend from the last couple decades it is the graying out of homes. It used to be more common that if someone liked green or blue they would make their house that color. Now it has been ingrained on people to worry more about the resale value above anything they want or expressing individuality. Even when things are white they aren’t the bold, modern white of the 70’s. The natural color of bricks aren’t safe either and are often grayed out.
Often a 70’s building that has undergone renovation or had additions made will look older then it did before.
Most things with Art Deco designs from the 20’s still look modern to me, as does the 60’s and 70’s ultra modern designs. However, some of the things have become obsolete, like big, boxy cameras and rotary phones but their designs still have a futuristic flare.
High-tech things from that period like stereo equipment with simulated wood grain finishes look more dated. I kind of miss how some televisions and stereos were built to be nice pieces of furniture.
Those terrible, hideous platform high heels that make you look like you’ve got horse hooves. Like this. They’ve looked dated since the moment they were in stores.
This is how designers and marketers work. Clothing, cars, and appliances all have longer life spans than most companies who need to sell products like. So manufacturers compensate by constantly updating the look. It’s our nature as consumers to seek out the newest fashions and trends to impress our friends which, de facto, makes the older styles look old and out of date. And on and on and on. So the answer to your question is that everything we have today will look dated in 10 years time.
There’s a concept in animation called “The Uncanny Valley” that I think fashions fall into as well. The concept of the “Uncanny Valley” is that if an animation of a person is similar in appearance but with grossly exaggerated features such as large eyes or small noses then we tend to think of those drawings as very cute. But if they get too close to looking like a person but not quite close enough then we tend to find them repulsive.
With fashions, if we’re only a few years away from them, they just look dated, old, and kind of nasty. But after a certain number of years we don’t relate so well to them and can see them as cross sections of the time they are from. I wasn’t alive for the 60’s so I don’t have any first hand experience with the fashions and styles, but thanks to shows like Mad Men I think the 60’s look really cool. Those bright bold colors and clothing styles have a certain flair that I can understand why people liked them. Ditto for the Art Deco style of the 1920’s.
I was watching the sitcom “The Goldbergs” the other day (it takes place in the 80s) and at first I thought I was staring in disbelief at the sweater the mom was wearing. A fairly plain sweater with very large sequin flowers on it.
Then I realized it wasn’t disbelief, it was familiarity. I *totally *had a couple of those types of sweaters in the 80s, too!
