The '00s - a lost decade or what?

[23skidoo]

It was honestly only a month or so ago that it dawned on me that a decade is coming to an end, and the first decade of the 21st century, to boot (yeah, yeah, I know technically the 21st began with 2001). It really doesn't feel like it.

I know time flies, and it seems to fly faster as you get older. I honestly do feel as if the end of 1999 was yesterday. But it always felt significant to me when a decade ended. I was only 8 months old when the 1960s ended, but I remember how big a deal people made of the end of 1979. Similarly, the end of 1989 and, for obvious reasons, the end of 1999 were treated as huge deals by virtually everyone, of every age. Including me.

But now we're heading towards the end of the 00's and it seems as if most of us are just realizing that a decade is ending. We aren't seeing books on the 00's coming out the way we did with the 80s and the 90s. Fact is, no one really seems to care very much this time around. I know it's having zero impact on me. I'm not experiencing any of the nostalgia I usually experience as a decade ends. Except maybe a longing for the hair I had as the decade began.

Could it be that 1999 was such a significant year that it stole the thunder from 2009? Or could it be that, for so many people, the 00s were such a crappy decade they just want it done with?

Alex

 

[sidious618]

This decade certainly wasn't our best.

 

[Amaris]

This was a shit decade for me and a lot of my family and friends, too, so yeah, this decade can piss off. Here's hoping for a good 2010 onward.

J.

 

[Mr. B]

A lot of things happened, but culturally speaking... pretty vapid.

 

[Lord Garth]

Almost all of my adult life was in the 2000s. Two colleges, three main jobs, a bunch of temp jobs between the last two, a new place to live, a complete and total change of friends. 1999, to me, really does feel like a long time ago.

BUT

It was also a decade with a terrible economy (with collapses on opposite ends), 9/11, Katrina, two open-ended wars, it wasn't good.

Fashion aped the late-'90s until a few years ago. Now it's kind of a weird mix of '80s, plaid, (I'm guilty of these two but not the next item) and strange things like tight jeans that sag. Either have them tight or baggy, not both!

Rap looks more positive now than it did in the ghetto, gangsta '90s.

And Lady Gaga's okay. I don't get the big fuss about her music but I like her style.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Actually, I think a lot of stuff happened (especially in the technology revolution), but people still haven't figured out the impact yet because things move so fast. I know I didn't have a cellphone until I was 16 (I'm 22 now), but I've seen 10 year olds with their own cellphone these days. 6 years ago, youtube didn't exist. Twitter, facebook, Myspace, etc. all appear and disappear so fast that no one knows what to expect. There's concerns that we have only virtual social interaction (something nobody would have thought of 10 years ago when the internet was newer and the speed kinda sucked).

The 10 year mark doesn't mean as much to me as it did 10 years ago because the idea of the new millennium seemed to bring a lot of optimism about the future. But that's because the 90s were an optimistic time. The Soviet Union had been defeated and the economy was strong. It took us this decade to remind us that shit can still happen that slows us down. The only thing that gives me hope for the next decade began in 2008 (the election) and even that is starting to disappoint some people.

Some decades have a nice historical even to mark an endpoint (The fall of the Berlin wall ending the 80s, Woodstock ending the 60s, the stock market crash ending the 20s, etc). I don't think this one will have one. For me, 2010 is just the beginning of another year. New years can bring new optimism as well, but it's on a bit smaller of a scale.

 

[sidious618]

For me, 2010 is just the beginning of another year. New years can bring new optimism as well, but it's on a bit smaller of a scale.

I think the stock market crashing between late 2008 and early 2009, when the economy was at its lowest, was the end point of this decade. It was the payoff to a decade of absolute shit governing. Now, with the economy beginning to recover we enter a new decade tentatively but with the possibility of success.

 

[WillsBabe]

Could it be that 1999 was such a significant year that it stole the thunder from 2009? Or could it be that, for so many people, the 00s were such a crappy decade they just want it done with?
Alex

I agree that this is probably it, and also that there have been some pretty touch times over the last decade in the world. Also, the new millennium is just beginning so I think it might seem odd to be celebrating something coming to an end that has just started. OTOH, other than the end of the milennium I don't seem to have ever noticed there being a big deal about decades ending. Perhaps I just wasn't paying attention!

 

[Emher]

Overall it's been pretty crap and had a LOT of struggling and dire times in the latter half of it. First half was okay, seeing as most of it was spent in HS which I actually enjoyed most of the time.

Mostly I'm hoping that the next decade is better, but first and foremost that next year is better then this one. Otherwise I don't think I'll make it so far as to enjoy the entire decade.

 

[The Castellan]

Almost all of my adult life was in the 2000s. Two colleges, three main jobs, a bunch of temp jobs between the last two, a new place to live, a complete and total change of friends. 1999, to me, really does feel like a long time ago.

BUT

It was also a decade with a terrible economy (with collapses on opposite ends), 9/11, Katrina, two open-ended wars, it wasn't good.

Fashion aped the late-'90s until a few years ago. Now it's kind of a weird mix of '80s, plaid, (I'm guilty of these two but not the next item) and strange things like tight jeans that sag. Either have them tight or baggy, not both!

Rap looks more positive now than it did in the ghetto, gangsta '90s.

And Lady Gaga's okay. I don't get the big fuss about her music but I like her style.

This decade pretty much been about:

Patroit Acts
Really bad cops with tasers
Poopy economies
Reality TV
Big Brother
Paranoia and fearmongering
Iraq

I do have hope for the next decade, though. And I feel as a research about full disclousure on ET life coming soon....first we'll hear about bacteria or other sigle cell life, than ruins, and than intelligent life. And I'm looking foreward to 2012 as well.

I also hope to do even better in my body building training this coming new decade, as well as getting better ay my sprite art, my collecting, and doing better in the romance department.

And I'm a Lady Gaga fan, too. She's hot.

 

[RJDiogenes]

This has been a very strange and anomalous decade. Based on historical cycles, it should have been a period of social renaissance like the 20s and the 60s; looking forward to it, I even expected the century and millennium cycle to enhance that. Instead, it's been a decade of increasing anger and extremism; pop culture has continued its downward spiral into darkness that began with the Reagan Era. Maybe the century and millennium had the opposite effect than I expected. Maybe it was the terrorist attacks. I'm not really sure at this point. I'm just hoping that the cycle was merely disrupted a bit and the next decade will bring some color and life back to our culture.

 

[The Castellan]

For me, 2010 is just the beginning of another year. New years can bring new optimism as well, but it's on a bit smaller of a scale.

I think the stock market crashing between late 2008 and early 2009, when the economy was at its lowest, was the end point of this decade. It was the payoff to a decade of absolute shit governing. Now, with the economy beginning to recover we enter a new decade tentatively but with the possibility of success.

Now we gotta work hard to regain the freedoms, rights and privacies (Ironic how our last president was obsessed with 'freedom' in the middle east, while taking away alot of our own, eh? ); and protect the ones we still got.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

It was a good decade for gadgets, no doubt about that. We've given development of electronic toys priority over everything else. The problems of war, poverty, AIDS, cancer, etc etc etc are still with us, but we've got blu-ray, facebook, youtube, DVRs, ipods, iphones and 1000's of APPS to put on them!
We keep this up, and our future will be alot less Star Trek and alot more Minority Report.

Aside from the great strides we've made towards keeping ourselves entertained, this decade's been a huge disappointment. No doubt kids who grew up in the last ten years will look back on the 00's with fondness, but that's because they don't know what they missed. Kids are so cynical and jaded nowdays, and probably rightfully so. They don't know anything but endless war, crappy, disposable music, people getting famous for being famous, 8 years of George Bush wiping his ass with the constitution... And they've never known what it feels like to WAIT for something. It's all about instant gratification. Everything you want, you get it RIGHT NOW. As soon as a movie's finished, you don't have to wait to see it in the theater as it was meant to be seen, you can download a crappy workprint of it and pick it apart with other douchebags online before it even has a chance. Same with albums. There's no anticipation. As soon as you hear about it, it leaks, and you've got it. We've really lost something, and we can never go back. Having instant access to EVERYTHING is fucking kids up. I used to have to seek out porn as a kid, some lame copy of Penthouse Forum or a thrice-copied VHS tape, and that was IT! Nowdays ten-year-old kids have hundreds of gigs of the most twisted shit available at their fingertips, and they take it for granted.

 

[Kegg]

The whole thing unravelled near the end, but up til that point it was one of the best decade's this country has ever seen, or so I hear. One long boom that transformed the economy and our standard of living, faltering at the end, unfortunately, with a bust, but it hasn't rolled back things to pre-1990s levels.

I liked it quite a bit, and I'll remember it fondly. Technology and the internet and internet gaming and CGI fim and youtube and World of Warcraft; this was a great age for a reclusive nerd like me. The things I dreamed about as a child have become a reality today. Granted, I was 13 in 1999 and I'm 23 now, so it was... er... a decade where important stuff happened to me personally.

There's concerns that we have only virtual social interaction (something nobody would have thought of 10 years ago when the internet was newer and the speed kinda sucked).

And yet even in the late 1990s there was a plucky kid whose idea of time well spent was trawling through the internet. I remember how rapidly that bloomed, it was glorious.

 

[Jadzia]

This has been a very strange and anomalous decade. Based on historical cycles, it should have been a period of social renaissance like the 20s and the 60s; looking forward to it, I even expected the century and millennium cycle to enhance that. Instead, it's been a decade of increasing anger and extremism; pop culture has continued its downward spiral into darkness that began with the Reagan Era. Maybe the century and millennium had the opposite effect than I expected. Maybe it was the terrorist attacks. I'm not really sure at this point. I'm just hoping that the cycle was merely disrupted a bit and the next decade will bring some color and life back to our culture.

I'm reminded of another discussion board that I'm a member of. It doesn't have many members, only about 50 "regulars". And every time a person visits, it says "no new posts", and they move on. And sometimes weeks can pass, with everyone making daily visits, seeing no new posts and moving on.

(bare with me )

My point is that a good number of people frequent the forum, expecting other people to make threads and start discussions. And when somebody does break the ice (usually myself), the thread gets plenty of responses, often flowing onto the third or fourth page.

People want the discussions, but don't think that maybe they should be starting threads themselves. People expect too much to be done by "other people", feeling hope and optimism, yet ignoring their own capabilities.

Perhaps this true about much of this decade? In a world with technology and entertainment constantly emerging for us to "react to", people tend to wait for the next big thing to come along, with their own creative and intellectual potential being neglected.

 

[TheLonelySquire]

I think that the government seizing control of our economy will be looked back upon as a revolutionary point in our history, so this might mark one of those end of decade events a poster above referred to. I also believe the new decade will usher in a citizen's revolt against the socialist policies now being introduced in Washington. We've already seen the beginning.

On a personal level I loved the 00's. Got married, had a daughter, brought a home, and business is truckin' along. Hopefully everyone remains healthy..

 

[Kelso]

Almost all of my adult life was in the 2000s. Two colleges, three main jobs, a bunch of temp jobs between the last two, a new place to live, a complete and total change of friends. 1999, to me, really does feel like a long time ago.

Yeah, definitely. I graduated from High School in 1999. In 2009, I'm a husband/father/home-owner/etc. This has been a very significant decade for me. 1999 feels like a lifetime ago.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Aside from the great strides we've made towards keeping ourselves entertained, this decade's been a huge disappointment. No doubt kids who grew up in the last ten years will look back on the 00's with fondness, but that's because they don't know what they missed. Kids are so cynical and jaded nowdays, and probably rightfully so. They don't know anything but endless war, crappy, disposable music, people getting famous for being famous, 8 years of George Bush wiping his ass with the constitution... And they've never known what it feels like to WAIT for something. It's all about instant gratification. Everything you want, you get it RIGHT NOW. As soon as a movie's finished, you don't have to wait to see it in the theater as it was meant to be seen, you can download a crappy workprint of it and pick it apart with other douchebags online before it even has a chance. Same with albums. There's no anticipation. As soon as you hear about it, it leaks, and you've got it. We've really lost something, and we can never go back. Having instant access to EVERYTHING is fucking kids up. I used to have to seek out porn as a kid, some lame copy of Penthouse Forum or a thrice-copied VHS tape, and that was IT! Nowdays ten-year-old kids have hundreds of gigs of the most twisted shit available at their fingertips, and they take it for granted.

And they don't have to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow with no shoes?

 

[Zulu Romeo]

My point is that a good number of people frequent the forum, expecting other people to make threads and start discussions. And when somebody does break the ice (usually myself), the thread gets plenty of responses, often flowing onto the third or fourth page.

People want the discussions, but don't think that maybe they should be starting threads themselves. People expect too much to be done by "other people", feeling hope and optimism, yet ignoring their own capabilities.

Perhaps this true about much of this decade? In a world with technology and entertainment constantly emerging for us to "react to", people tend to wait for the next big thing to come along, with their own creative and intellectual potential being neglected.

To me it sounds like an over-representation of introvert and non-dominant personalities gathered together in one place, leading to social awkwardness, insecurity, perpetual self-awareness and shyness. Perhaps this could be a reflection of their real lives: a group of young adults reliant on technology (and parents ) to make their lives easier.

And yet there is still a certain generation who can still reprogram the old VHS recorder yet have no idea about what the point of Twitter is.


Anyway, enough of the Grumpy Old Zion: for me 2000-2009 was a decade of materialistic and social advancement, and personal and professional progression, but in the face of spiritual emptiness and emotional dissatisfaction. Yes, it was the decade when I became an Adult™.

In all honesty, however, I still feel the last 5 years or so have been just a complete blur - the same old routine, the same old responsibilities, etc. Nowhere near as exciting as the previous 10 years, where much progress was made and much excitement was to be had. However, in the light of said spiritual dissatisfaction, I did learn more about the world I am living in, throwing things I had experienced previously into sharp relief.

I expect the next decade to be the decade where I finally shape the life I want to lead.

 

[TheBrew]

And yet there is still a certain generation who can still reprogram the old VHS recorder yet have no idea about what the point of Twitter is.

I don't think anyone does.