The second decade of the 21st century: verdict

[Thursday]

It's fucking shit. The London Olympics were nice for 5 minutes

They were although, I kind of wonder, did it end up invigorating Brexiteers and the whole slide in that direction.

I remember George Osbourne getting booed at that and thinking "ahh we'll be fine, we're going to correct course next election".

[MoonDust]

The Queen did a parachute jump from a plane with James "Double-O" Bond. That was good.

[thenoise]

Pretty gay.

[MoonDust]

We also had THREE royal weddings. Wasn't all doom and gloom.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Yeah, it's one long load of blah for me. Two decades that don't even have names they're so nothing.

They do though, people call them the Noughties and the Tenties.*







*Okay, that last one's just me but I swear I'll get it to catch on eventually.

[Funcrusher]

They do though, people call them the Noughties and the Tenties.*

*Okay, that last one's just me but I swear I'll get it to catch on eventually.

The Aughts seems to be replacing the Noughties. This decade has no name.

[MoonDust]

The Tens. The Teens. The Beginning of the End.

[Blue Jam]

Good post Lemming. As to culture I reckon it will be a decade known for hipsters.

Nathan Barley first aired in 2005 (and Charlie Brooker created the character in 1999). All that's changed there is that that particular variety of hipster is more numerous and more visible. I remember when the first episode aired and critics were saying the target was too narrow and no-one outside a five mile radius of Hoxton would get it, now pretty much anyone living in any city or large town will have seen a craft beer bar or artisanal street food van and will recognise a Barley when they see one.

Hipsters must have been around since at least the 1950s, the really novel thing here is the way that "hipster" has become a perjorative. The original hipsters may have been a bit too cool for school but they were genuinely cool- they existed outside the mainstream, they had a nose for the new and obscure, and they "dug" it in a way that the squares could never comprehend. To call someone a hipster now is to suggest that they're a pseud and a poseur, pretending to like things to look cool, and trying to pass off their superficial interest as a deep understanding.

At the same time, pretty much the opposite thing has happened with "nerd"... I wonder why- it could be because of the current wave of techbro worship, but earlier decades had the space race and the cold war... what's so different about the 2010s?

I'd say the same about "geek", but I think pop culture geekery started to go mainstream much earlier. I'd pinpoint that to the late 1990s, with the Star Wars revival and possibly with things like Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

[MoonDust]

At the same time, pretty much the opposite thing has happened with "nerd"... I wonder why- it could be because of the current wave of techbro worship, but earlier decades had the space race and the cold war... what's so different about the 2010s?

What's different is that the nerds are the only people left who can save us from human-made apocalypse. Or so they think. Meanwhile the nerds are too busy thinking how to get to Mars before sorting shit out on earth first.

[bgmnts]

I'd say the same about "geek", but I think pop culture geekery started to go mainstream much earlier. I'd pinpoint that to the late 1990s, with the Star Wars revival and possibly with things like Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

I definitely think being a geek being totally and utterly ubiquitous earlier this decade, with the saturation of the superhero films and video games becoming normal.

I still remember being a child/teen and being a weirdo for liking X Men and playing video games. That was the early to mid 00s.

Now, NOT liking Marvel/DC or cosplaying or video games is a bit weird. This definitely happened in the past 6 or 7 years.

Its also the decade of new progressive terms relating to sexual orientation and gender identity; pansexual, non binary, genderqueer etc etc

[Blue Jam]

What's different is that the nerds are the only people left who can save us from human-made apocalypse. Or so they think. Meanwhile the nerds are too busy thinking how to get to Mars before sorting shit out on earth first.

I'm not so sure about that- environmentalism has been around in various forms for decades, and maybe this is me misremembering things, but I could swear the green movement felt much bigger in the 1990s, with Save The Whale, CFCs and the hole in the ozone layer, and several years before the climate change deniers popped up. People didn't seem to be looking to the nerds to save us all then.

On that subject, perhaps the targets and causes just change over the years- we've gone from CFCs and oilspills to plastic bags and avocado farming, and from Save The Whale to Save The Bees.

What was the big environmental cause of the 2010s, then? I'm thinking plastic, but that seems pretty recent.

[MoonDust]

I wasn't denying environmentalism was also big before the 2010s.

[Blue Jam]

I realise that- not attacking anyone here, just pondering aloud.

[MoonDust]

It seems that the big environmental cause of the 2010s was people realising nothing came of all the other environmental causes of the past few decades and, having learned nothing in the process and realising we're hurtling towards disaster, we've now hit the panic button.

It's like the modern CND movement. Change our ways or literally die.

[Brundle-Fly]

I'd say the same about "geek", but I think pop culture geekery started to go mainstream much earlier. I'd pinpoint that to the late 1990s, with the Star Wars revival and possibly with things like Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

And The X Files too. There were suddenly girls in Forbidden Planet when that was airing.

[Bingo Fury]

Scotland started to wake up and get real, that's one of the few positives I can think of about the dismal 2010s. The level of political awareness and engagement is on a different level from the previous decade - to the extent that a person of an optimistic bent could get the impression that we're gradually getting our shit together while our southern neighbours are losing theirs in spectacular fashion.

[Blue Jam]

And The X Files too. There were suddenly girls in Forbidden Planet when that was airing.

Oh yes, good one. I remember in the early 1990s everyone wanted to be a marine biologist when they grew up, then suddenly everyone wanted to be a forensic pathologist. The X Files made that job look a lot more glamorous than it probably is...

[Blue Jam]

I definitely think being a geek being totally and utterly ubiquitous earlier this decade, with the saturation of the superhero films and video games becoming normal.

I still remember being a child/teen and being a weirdo for liking X Men and playing video games. That was the early to mid 00s.

Now, NOT liking Marvel/DC or cosplaying or video games is a bit weird. This definitely happened in the past 6 or 7 years.

I remember the PSone being hailed as "the console that brought gaming out of the bedroom and into the living room", but I think you're right here- it feels like video games became socially acceptable for adults much more recently. In my last job there were two twats who thought I was childish and a bit of an oddball for admitting that I spent part of my first paycheque on the Xbox One I had promised myself, but they were, as I said, twats, and there were far more people who would hear that I had an Xbox and would want to compare games instead.

The superhero film thing is interesting too- as recently as the 2000s I remember being mocked for liking comic books and action figures- I don't actually like these things at all but people often assume I do, so I can remember the disdain people had for these things and the grown adults who enjoy them. Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings are another two things which would have seemed terminally sad in the 1990s but are now mainstream. Are tabletop boardgames mainstream yet? It feels like they're still on the cusp.

[Blue Jam]

I'm thinkng it might be fun to have a bit of a straw poll here... for each decade, what would you say was the single defining:

News event?
Technological development?
Musical genre?
Film genre?
Youth movement?
Political/social movement?
Environmental cause?
Pop culture icon?
Hate figure?
Clothing style?
Photograph?

??? Feel free to add some more categories...

[buttgammon]

Personally, it's been a pretty good decade but for the world at large, it's been a nightmare. We've stopped pretending to listen to each other and all of those political, economic and social improvements that were meant to keep advancing seem to have stagnated or reversed. Most notably, my generation will be a lot poorer than our parents' generation, and I shudder to think what things will be like for people who are only just becoming adults. In the very long term, the end of the old ideas of progress might actually be a good thing if it makes us realise that we were just buying into the myths of capitalism but as it stands, it's as entrenched as ever, despite failing on every level for the last ten years.

Culturally, it will be interesting to see what future generations take from this decade. It seems easy to compare the current period to the 1910s, a decade which is now synonymous with fragmentation, dissolution, complexity and extreme innovation in art. Sooner or later, people will start expressing our sense of crisis (if they haven't done so already, of course), and a similar movement may emerge.

Or maybe I'm entirely wrong and in 40 years time, a senile Peter Kay will be on the telly talking about how much he loved avocados, John Lewis adverts and ISIS.

[MoonDust]

D'you remember the Caliphate? There's always one Brother Knob'ed int there?

[ajsmith2]

The Aughts seems to be replacing the Noughties. This decade has no name.

I always got the impression that it was Americans who said Aughts, whereas Noughties was a UK thing.

[greenman]

Nathan Barley first aired in 2005 (and Charlie Brooker created the character in 1999). All that's changed there is that that particular variety of hipster is more numerous and more visible. I remember when the first episode aired and critics were saying the target was too narrow and no-one outside a five mile radius of Hoxton would get it, now pretty much anyone living in any city or large town will have seen a craft beer bar or artisanal street food van and will recognise a Barley when they see one.

Hipsters must have been around since at least the 1950s, the really novel thing here is the way that "hipster" has become a perjorative. The original hipsters may have been a bit too cool for school but they were genuinely cool- they existed outside the mainstream, they had a nose for the new and obscure, and they "dug" it in a way that the squares could never comprehend. To call someone a hipster now is to suggest that they're a pseud and a poseur, pretending to like things to look cool, and trying to pass off their superficial interest as a deep understanding.

At the same time, pretty much the opposite thing has happened with "nerd"... I wonder why- it could be because of the current wave of techbro worship, but earlier decades had the space race and the cold war... what's so different about the 2010s?

I'd say the same about "geek", but I think pop culture geekery started to go mainstream much earlier. I'd pinpoint that to the late 1990s, with the Star Wars revival and possibly with things like Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

You could argue the series ended up being both too late and too early, too late to really comment on the original smaller scale movement from the 90's but too early to pickup on it going far more mainstream.

[ajsmith2]

You could argue the series ended up being both too late and too early, too late to really comment on the original smaller scale movement from the 90's but too early to pickup on it going far more mainstream.

Also it's timing was a bit unfortunate I thought in that it just preceded the advent of social media, so that Barley's static website online presence looked antique very quickly. Early 2005, that's just a matter of months or at most a year before things like Youtube, Myspace Facebook starting to become ubiquitous. It was at the very end of Web 1.0.

[Twit 2]

2010 - The year of the worm. I lived in the earth then, waiting. We all did. Actually, perhaps it was just me. With my ganglia I swore I sensed others, but it was probably a nitrogen hallucination. I emerged at the arse end of the year, sodden and behind on the fixtures.

2011 - This one was a cracker. I worked as the laundry clerk for an eccentric scion. Each day I would receive sheets and do whatever it took to restore them to a state conducive to bed coddling. Sometimes he'd watch me do it through a grate, other times I would go to his suite for advice and find him wrapped in the previous week's sheets so totally that I'd have to hire mercenaries to chase him out. No one day was like another, the only constant was the semi-explained whiff of lemomgrass.

2012 - sex butler called Mr Bell.

2013 - lost all my legs in a mishap. Bit of a downer. Did my butlering on the trays, just slid about to be honest. Got new legs eventually, leading neatly to....

2014 - leg racer for Ducati.

2015 - Skipped this year, not even as a worm, just sacked it off. Lived on mites, sure, but I was just a person.

2016 - This was the year Aldi came to Britain. 'Aldi doin'?' it said, and we replied that we were well but would like fairly cheap goods to be sold by them to us. David Cameron won the Olympics.

2017 - Pm me for this one. Shhh

2018 - this is the year we find ourselves in. Hello!

[Clatty McCutcheon]

If someone travelled in time from 30 years ago to 2018, the most surprising thing would be that walking other people's dogs is a job nowadays.

Part of the gig economy innit.  Zero-hours contract dog walker is the archetypal 2010s job.

[Mister Six]

I'd say the same about "geek", but I think pop culture geekery started to go mainstream much earlier. I'd pinpoint that to the late 1990s, with the Star Wars revival and possibly with things like Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

X-Files, innit. Biggest show in the Western world was about UFOs and ghosts and conspiracy theories. Led to loads of imitators and ultimately other sci-fi/fantasy shows sitting comfortably in the mainstream. Next big step was Buffy although that wasn't as massive as it might have seemed from inside the fandom. And then Lord of the Rings, of course...

[Poisson Du Jour]

It's been awful. Before 2010 there were no bad politicians or wars or corruptions. After 2010 there's loads. Pretty sure that by the end of the year 98% of humanity will have committed suicide because of how bad everything is. The remaining 2% will mostly die from diseases spread by the giant piles of rotting corpses in the streets.

Personally I've done alright, great job, relationship, place to live, very fulfilled life - but then I read about the politicians and the wars and the corruptions and I realise that actually my life is very bad.

[Blue Jam]

It's been awful. Before 2010 there were no bad politicians or wars or corruptions. After 2010 there's loads.

I have often wondered if Cameron was actually worse than Thatcher. Maybe it's because I was too young, but I don't remember Thatcher doing nearly as much to dismantle the NHS and welfare state, I don't remember seeing so many homeless people, I don't remember food banks existing at all, and I don't remember people quite literally starving to death as a result of Thatcher's policies. My family struggled but I'm not sure we would even have survived under Cameron.

I was just thinking back to my earlier post about the defining things of each decade, and trying to decide which news stories were the biggest. For the 1990s I would have to say the death of Princess Diana- she was probably the biggest celebrity of that decade and the fallout from her death was off the scale- and to think that when the CoD pegs it it will be like that × a million, I can't even imagine how mad that will be.

For the 2000s it has to be 9/11, and it feels like everything has gone downhill since then- people have been more filled with hatred, we're more divided and "every man for himself", and everything feels a lot more hopeless.

For the 2010s I have to nominate Donald Trump's presidency, and I'd add that it's by far the weirdest era of history I've lived through so far. I still don't think I've fully accepted it- as much as I've obsessively read about it and tried to comprehend it, it still feels like a bad cheese dream.

I'm really hoping there's some kind of revolution soon, but with social media and the post-truth era it's like we've gone through the looking glass and there's no going back.

[Blue Jam]

Back to the whole geek thing: Right now Stan Lee's death is the top story on the BBC News site. I can't imagine that would have been the case had he died ten years ago.