Resolved: 2001-2020 will not be distinctly remembered for style and pop culture

In My Humble Opinion
1

Important: My thesis is NOT that there is nothing good from this time period. My thesis is NOT that people will remember nothing from this period. My thesis IS that this large block of time will end up fairly indistinct and and inchoate in the popular imagination in terms of pop culture. And YES, that idiot Trump WILL be remembered, but that’s a different issue!

I’m starting the period at 9/11/2001 for reasons that should be fairly obvious (further, I don’t think it’s very controversial to see the 1990s as ending on that day). I’m ending it at 1/1/2020, but for all I know the issues I cite could continue past that.

Since the year 2000, we haven’t had a name for our decades. Were they the “Naughts”? No one ever really used that. Are we in the “Teens”? No one really says that. This lack of names is the first problem. It’s superficial, but it’s pretty big too. If people have a hard time simply identifying a decade in the future, it makes it rather hard to characterize it.

The time period 1900-1919 had the same issue, and is it coincidence that the only thing much identifiable from this period is WWI? We go from the “Gay '90s” to the “Roaring '20s” with little imagery from in between. It’s certainly also the case that there was not much yet in the way of recorded music or movies from this time period that seems modern enough for most people to get into. But the L. Frank Baum books like The Wizard of Oz begin in this period and are still popular, but I think most people would be hard-pressed to associate them with the correct decade.

Anyhow, the problems with style and pop culture since 9/11 run deeper than the naming issue. First of all, we have the whole style hasn’t changed since 1992 issue that has been dealt with on this board before. I just got back from Buenos Aires, Argentina, yesterday. How do people dress there? Just as they do in the US. Or anywhere. If I had to cite a few difference, women seemed to wear dresses a bit more and wear their hair longer in a simple style a bit more. Certain men’s hairstyles seem a bit different. But these are matters of averages and proportions. We have settled into a global style that also extends through time. We’ve found a comfort zone and are sticking with it.

I watch movies from 10 years ago, and I can’t tell what decade it is until there is some glaring “tell,” such as the type of cell phone people are using. As I’m watching Horrible Bosses (shit movie), I’m thinking, “Surely this came out in, like, 2006, maybe, because people are using non-smartphones, but, no, it has to be more recent.” Yeah, it’s from 2011. A year that I guess is now 7 years ago but seems nowhere particular in time. And there are certain style thingies that pop up and disappear. Example: Whale tail jokes in John Tucker Must Die (2006). It’s really weird to watch Gilmore Girls, since it’s from 2000-2007: our world, with the Internet and cell phones and everything, though before the Great Recession and Trump completed the transformation that 9/11 began and turned everything to shit.

So much for style. Any disagreement there? Yeah yeah, you can cite some changes, I’m sure, but the point is this: is anyone going to remember style from 2001-2020 in any distinctive way? Will they be able to distinguish 2000s style from 2010s style? I don’t think so.

Music. It’s not that there are no good songs. There are just no trends. The long tail has splintered tastes into a thousand shards. Again I ask: 2000s music was X, but 2010s music is Y? No.

And I know that decades are a false division, but branding.

Movies. It’s a big mush. I was watching the video for Linkin Park’s “New Divide” (RIP Chester), and it was in the 2nd Transformers movie in 2009. I would not have been able to tell you when that song or that movie came out. 2009 seems like a zillion years ago, but at the same time Bay is still shitting out Transformer movies, and they all seem the same, so nothing has changed.

TV. Yeah, it’s the “Golden Age of TV” or whatever, Game of Thrones, etc. People might end up having a vague impression of when that began, but I think it’s a trend that’s going to continue (miniseries on cable being the thing to watch), so I’m not sure the current time period will be all that distinct for that reason (i.e., it will be mushed into the 2020s). Still, here I am willing to grant that the rise of such shows is a distinctive milestone for the 2010s for those who care, just as the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 was an important dividing point.

For those who aren’t sold on my thesis yet, think of it this way. The year is 2060. People are looking back on our time. Do you really think there will be an image of the 2000s and 2010s that is really distinct from the 1990s? I doubt it. People will remember the election of Obama and Trump, sure, but think of the 1970s and 1980s (hell any decade from the 1920s onward), and political images are joined with a flood of distinctive style and pop culture images.

That’s what I got. Tell me what you think!

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Agree a little, disagree a little.

I actually think a lot of the reason we don’t think of these decades as having a clear identity is because many things are moving so fast and also because there’s so much choice out there.

So for example with phones, if you said “Imagine a 90s phone” then immediately I have an image of a big boxy thing with a long antenna.
If you say “Imagine a 2000s phone”, well, phones changed a lot in that time and there were a number of popular form-factors at any one time. No single iconic image comes to mind.

Similarly with fashion: there are many competing styles / subcultures going on at the same time, there isn’t one single trend everyone follows.

I’d say a simpler conclusion is just that it’s a language issue. We still don’t know how to refer to the first decade. And for the second decade “teens” doesn’t cover all the years, and “tens” might sound like you mean “10, 20, 30, …” in some contexts.

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Disagree. When I saw the OJ Simpson show from a few years ago, the clothing and hair style was fairly different from what we see now. Ditto watching Friends on Netflix. There are a few things which are the same, but many of those have come back in fashion after being out of fashion for years.

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Disagree. When I saw the OJ Simpson show from a few years ago, the clothing and hair style was fairly different from what we see now. Ditto watching Friends on Netflix. There are a few things which are the same, but many of those have come back in fashion after being out of fashion for years.

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My wife and I are re-watching Friends on Netflix right now, but we started in the middle seasons. We’re currently watching the shows from late90s/2000. I remarked to my wife how the styles are the exact same then as they are now*. She said, “Maybe to an old person like you; try saying that to someone in their teens or 20s.” Ouch. Is she right? Is my fashion sense just stuck in the late 90s/2000s? Or is style largely the same now?

That’s a 20 year gap. If, in 1998, you watched a show from 1978, there’s no way you could possibly say fashion is largely the same. But from 1998 to 2018? I say it’s largely the same, and not just cuz I’m “old.”

*Aside from the occasional belly shirt worn by Jennifer Aniston and overalls worn by Lisa Kudrow. Those look dated.

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(This was my +1 to the OP, at least as far as fashion goes.) I do disagree with the OP when it comes to television. I think this is the golden age for TV, and people will remember that Breaking Bad, Mad Men, GoT, etc. came out during this time.

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Some of the stuff from 1998 is back in fashion. But compare 1998 with 1994. Or 2003/2004 last season with today.

And 1978 is not a good example, since the most popular shows of that year were set in the 50’s.

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I’m not saying that it’s impossible to differentiate style today from that of the 90s or even a few years ago… but style today is not really distinct from that time.

Other example. Is the style from 1963 all that different from 1953? There was a zone of conservative, simple style back then that held from the late 40s until 1965 or so. I might be able to tell the difference in some cases but not others. It would probably be much easier for someone at the time to tell them apart.

Same thing for someone in the future. I don’t think anyone is going to have an easy time telling apart the styles of 2007 vs. 2017. I myself might not be able to tell apart any two given photos of people, but I would be looking for subtle (to the future) things like the big black glasses that came into fashion in the 2010s, other hipster stuff, etc.

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Three’s Company? All in the Family? Taxi? Good Times? The Jeffersons? The Incredible Hulk? Charlie’s Angels? Mork & Mindy? Barney Miller? Soap?

And yes, from 1994 to 1998 there was a shift. But I’m not seeing it from 2003/04 to today. Look at Veronica Mars, Entourage, Arrested Development. Are you saying the styles are that different from today?

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There seems to be this assumption that young people are super-fashion-conscious, but I never cared about how I looked (in detail) until my 30s. A lot of people just kinda wear what’s available and don’t think about it too much. It would be interesting to study how fashion-conscious people are by age.

In terms of potential fashion faux pas, I think we can identify two types of mistakes:

Positive: Wearing that which does not fit the times: If you wear a leisure suit from the 1970s unironically, that is a positive error. An early 2000s whale tail would be another. But a large percentage of clothes from the 1990s onward would simply look normal now.

Negative: Failing to wear the “latest” thing. And here is where I think fashion changed in the 1990s. The requirement to wear something special and distinctive was eliminated.

This wasn’t always the case. There was pressure in the past to have “new stuff” that looked genuinely different from that of the past (and this in turn created additional potential for positive fashion errors).

I think that’s why fashion works the way it does now. It’s very low-pressure, change is slow, and extremes have been mostly eliminated.

This wasn’t always the case.

11

Here’s a test. Pick a random episode of Friends (1994-2004) or How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) and show it to someone who has never seen the show. Ask them to tell you what year the show takes place in.

I can remember some specific fads like dubstep or skinny jeans. But they don’t seem as “generation defining” as grunge or bellbottoms in prior decades.

Then again, maybe that’s just because I’m old. For a college freshman, the 18 months where they listened to Nirvana and wore Doc Martin shoes with baggy flannel shirts is a much larger and more pronounced percentage of their life.

Since 2007, progress has mostly been measured in model of iPhone.

12

Yoga pants beg to differ.

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That really is the biggest thing.

I wonder if the trend will stick for the long term or if, 20 years from now, people will look back and think, “Wow, women were comfortable walking around with their ass checks so well-defined.”

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HIMYM can easily be dated by Barney’s suits, whose cut and colour tends to be of the latest fashion. You see him wear pinstripes, a favourite of the early and mid-2000’s, but fell out of favour in the 2010’s He also stops wearing three pieces (big in the 2000’s not so much anymore) late in the run. You never see him wear lighter coloured suits, fashionable now and the 1990’s but not during the shows run.

Facial hair in men has also changed quite a lot. In the 1990’s goatees were not uncommon, but most men were clean shaved. These days full beards are seen regularly. In addition a man sporting a stubble in no big deal even in a professional or formal setting. You don’t see that until the 2010 and never before that without it being a plot point on TV.

Yoga pants, tights, leggings were pretty common in the early 1990’s and not so much for 15 years after. I mean, I remember some people in the 2000’s making fun of them.

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I agree that our expectations of cultural change were set in the tumultuous 20th century, and cultural change in the 21st century hasn’t and won’t be so dramatic.

In the 20th century you had a really strong association of decades with styles and trends, because things changed so fast.

WWI in the teens
The roaring 20s
The Depression of the 30s
WWII in the 40s
The 50s economic recovery
The 60s cultural shift
The 70s meltdowns
The 80s

And…then things started to slow down. The 90s were not all that distinct from the 80s, not nearly as much as the 80s are from the 70s.

And everything since the 90s has been pretty much the same era. As you say, when they air a show from the 1970s, you know it. When they air a show from the 1980s, you know it. When they air a show from the 90s…well, if you check their phone or listen to see how many homophobic jokes they make, you can tell. But otherwise it’s not that different. And the 00s and 10s are pretty much the same.

So take for example, the “Back to the Future” franchise. When 1985 Marty goes back 30 years to 1955, he’s on another planet. But if 2015 Marty went back to 1985, the first thing he’d complain about is that his phone doesn’t work, and after rocking back and forth and sobbing for a few days over that, he’d adjust. 1985 is not a different planet, it’s different, but it’s the start of the modern era, just with shitty computers.

Or take the aforementioned “Happy Days”. It aired from 1974 to 1984, and was set only 20 years earlier, and it self-consciously depicted a world that no longer existed. In the 20 years between 1954 and 1974, America had been remade. And in the 20 years between 1954 and 1934, America had been remade. If you asked someone in 1984 if they expected America to be remade in the next 20 years, they’d probably have agreed.

Except that hasn’t really happened. The 30s remade America. The 40s remade America. The 50s remade America. The 60s remade America. The 70s remade America. But the 90s/00s/and 10s have mostly been muddling along, with some notable exceptions.

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Plus glasses. These days glasses are all the rage, especially large, big framed and horn-rimmed glasses. In the 2010’s those are very popular before they were the epitome or nerd or frumpy looks. In the 90’s and early 2000’s. glasses were either small oval and frameless or you wore contacts. These days wearing glasses is cool.

Take an example, in My Big Fat Greek Wedding pre-makeover antagonist, looks like this. Those glasses (for a folm shot in 2001 and set in the mid 1990’s) at the time those glasses said “meek and unfashionable frump”. Rewatching it last year, I was struck by the fact that these days glasses would be cosidered in style. For a reference, here is Chandler Bing in glasses, early 2000’s.

For the record, I am 33.

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I actually mostly disagree with the “muddling along” comment. It is true that its difficult to pin down a specific style of music or television that you can pin on this era. But I think the lack of large trends and splintering of markets is itself a “remaking” level cultural event. We’re not all watching the same shows and we’re not all listening to the same songs on the radio anymore, and the entertainment we consume is often a lot more niche and tailored to our specific tastes. If that persists it is a big change.

I also think that the difference between 2001-2020 and previous decades is largely overstated while there still exist people who are nostalgic for and have memories of those older decades.

The OP mentions 2060 and looking back at the 1990s and 2000s and not being able to distinguish the two. That’s probably true. But quite frankly they’re not going to be able to distinguish the 1960s and 1970s, etc. either, in much the same way that I couldn’t tell you what 1917 or 1817 contributed to the culture.

Those decades are still important to us because they exist in living memory, and directly influenced many people who still are alive. But I think a recognition of these decades in the popular culture will fade pretty quickly once no-one alive remembers them. Of course academics and professionals will happily be able to trace influences of current 2060 culture back through the ages, but at that deepness of analysis I don’t think the 2000s and 2010s are going to be this black hole of no culture. I think an objective look back will likely spot the changes and influences throughout.

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One notable exception being the explosive growth of technology that started in the mid 90s and continues to this day?

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One can only hope.

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Exactly right. The advances in technology that have basically resulted in an atomized culture is a massive, massive change. Everyone has their own little bubble they can exist in, which has (and will continue to) result in some really large changes for our society as a whole.

Saying that, though, I think there are some obvious differences. In the aforementioned Friends - the clothing, styles, etc. don’t look like current stylings (to focus on the male actors: the previously mentioned lack of any facial hair, as well as really loose and baggy clothing - clothes are far more fitted these days). Music has evolved to be quite different than the late 90s - electronic music is far more a part of the mainstream and rap has mostly conquered everything. The top rock acts have moved in more of an indie direction and incorporate far more of the aforementioned electronica than they ever did a couple decades ago. In addition Pop-Rock is no where near as popular as where it was even 10 years ago.