What was the aesthetic of the 2000s? What was the aesthetic of the 2010s?

[Mister Six]

As pointed out in the Grand Theft Auto remakes thread:

Vice City was set in 1986 and released in 2002. If the same timeframe was applied now, it would be set in 2005.
Imagine anybody being hit by the waves of nostalgia we experienced with Vice City if they were playing a game set in 2005.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe 20 year olds these days think of 2005 as a completely different era in the same way that we thought 1986 was in 2002. But I really can't imagine why they would. Hoxton Fins? Lack of iPhones?

So yeah, what were the aesthetics and vibes of the 2000s, at least in the popular imagination? The 70s were all big moustaches, sunken seat-floors and burnt sienna. The 80s were pastels and greys, geometric shapes and squiggles, mullets and hairspray, shoulder pads and rolled-up suit sleeves. The 90s had baggy clothes, the revival of 60s psychedelic flower power and mods alike, and album covers with grainy photos of people or objects.

What were the 2000s, past the early nu-metal and Strokes indie bands? Bright colours and loose, relaxed clothes for women, I guess? Was there an overriding aesthetic, though? What about the 2010s? People with shitty little tattoos on their faces was a thing for about a year, I suppose. There was vaporwave, but was that ever more than an internet in-joke?

Had the internet just atomised the popular monoculture completely by the mid-2000s, or is it just that I was too old and distracted to notice shit? Although even then, in the 70s, say, weren't the middle-aged getting in on the overall aesthetic? Or was it just that the moustaches made everyone look older - especially the women?

Not sure what this is about any more. Fuck it, post.

[Vitamin C]

Everything's collapsed in on itself. Or something. This is a reasonably interesting post, which I saw on William Gibson's Twitter, about this phenomenon:

It's not about being nostalgic for the 90s, nor is it about being nostalgic for the early-2010s. Instead, it's about being nostalgic for being in the early-2010s being nostalgic for the 90s.

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-nostalgia-onion

[bgmnts]

Memes.

[TrenterPercenter]

Not sure what this is about any more. Fuck it, post.

No it is interesting; I've often wondered this as someone that never took on any of the 80s or 90s stylist trends (well not intentionally) I should have been well at home in the 2000s but it was just a nothingness.  Not sure if I have any answers but there is something perhaps about video quality that I'm sure I've seen mentioned; that advancements in video quality mean something to aesthetics of 2000s and then again in the 2010s.

I saw this the other day which is great and sort of has some stuff in about it regarding this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVlspd9hxFA

[ProvanFan]

00s - broadband and The bands

10s - fidget spinners and social unrest

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

EVERYTHING YOU SAY TO ME TAKES ME ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE EDGE

[Dr Rock]

Beards.

[madhair60]

EVERYTHING YOU SAY TO ME TAKES ME ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE EDGE

it starts with one

[ProvanFan]

I'd say the 00s and 10s were more everythingness than nothingness. Earlier eras are easier to define because the narrative was shaped by fewer people. You can't spoon-feed history to people anymore because we see it all now.

[bgmnts]

Can we actually really know what the aesthetics were for this decade or previous now? Don't we have to wait another decade first at least? Presumably, people in the 80s weren't thinking "that's so 80s!"

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Tbf from a British perspective an early to mid-00s game would have plenty of cultural material to work from.

I can't answer the 2010s but the 00s seems to now crystallise in my mind. The 80s and 90s were split by an epochal event which was the end of Communism and lots of cultural scenes that were so sensually different from each other.

You could argue the same with the 00s. 9/11and neocon politics, neoliberal excess. Internet takeoff from late 90s into early 00s. Britpop splintered into disparate scenes then expired, European dance music died, US centric music, more hysterical, heavier, more superficial, less nuance, took over. All ripe for parody. Greebos then skinny post-punk cunts, then brylcreem proto Hipsterism.

[checkoutgirl]

Was there an overriding aesthetic, though? What about the 2010s?

Maybe the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s are a bit of an anomaly. The last decade with any sort of aesthetic I can think of were the 90s and even that is a bit debatable. The last one with a clear aesthetic was the 80s. Can't think of anything after 2000. I'm old enough (42) to be able to hark back to the early 2000s as I was beginning my twenties but I can't really look back and cringe at any fashion, clothing or aesthetic that was of the early 2000s because I don't think it exists. I was just a kid in the eighties but I'm sure my mother would look back a bit embarrassed at what she wore, I've seen a few shoulder pads knocking about some people's wardrobes at home.

Fashions since 2000 just seems to be endless recycling of earlier trends, maybe two exceptions, Lady GooGoo's meat dress and guys letting their trousers slip down on purpose so you can see half or their boxer shorts, never really understood that one.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Generic, 2007 pop song, autotuned so all the voices sound weird

[JamesTC]

Could it be that the internet has enabled trends to live and die faster than ever before? You can't pin down a post-00s aesthetic because nothing stretched far enough across the decade to define it in the way other decades had.

[Mister Six]

Tbf from a British perspective an early to mid-00s game would have plenty of cultural material to work from.

I can't answer the 2010s but the 00s seems to now crystallise in my mind. The 80s and 90s were split by an epochal event which was the end of Communism and lots of cultural scenes that were so sensually different from each other.

You could argue the same with the 00s. 9/11and neocon politics, neoliberal excess. Internet takeoff from late 90s into early 00s. Britpop splintered into disparate scenes then expired, European dance music died, US centric music, more hysterical, heavier, more superficial, less nuance, took over. All ripe for parody. Greebos then skinny post-punk cunts, then brylcreem proto Hipsterism.

Was there an overriding aesthetic, though, like the orange-and-brown hues of the 70s, and the greys and pastels of the 1980s?

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

Surely the 00's will be remembered for hipster culture??  Tattoos, particularly sleeve tats became all te rage, as well as beards and plaid shirts,  tight jeans for men. 

[TrenterPercenter]

Can we actually really know what the aesthetics were for this decade or previous now? Don't we have to wait another decade first at least? Presumably, people in the 80s weren't thinking "that's so 80s!"

No but they were in 90s though i.e. looking back at the 80s and it was distinguishable.  The 2000s just beigely merged into the 2010s which then just beigely merged into 2020s (it's 2022 soon peeps!).

Music wise the 2000s were undoubtedly when Oasis started getting even more annoying and "The Bands" started which were largely all middle class white men.  I'd say the 2010s was when music became heavily infantilised with rave and dance culture becoming sanitised and made mainstream so that people that should never really listen to it could without being scared of being considered druggies; that and "the ballad" was rebooted thanks to X-factor.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

https://www.thefashionfolks.com/blog/21th-century-fashion-history-2000-2010/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_in_fashion

I was curious so I looked it up. I started the 2000s in college and alternated between "rock chick" and "whatever is handiest to throw on in the morning". After that I got fat and my personal aesthetic was "whatever fits but doesn't make me look 20 years older" (thank you, New Look). As a result I have no idea what "look" defines the 2000s, apart from the nu-metal/emo look. I do remember jeans in all different colours becoming A Thing later in the decade along with the return of Converse (I had a teenage sister).

[The Mollusk]

this trap snare hit blaring out of every car stereo and headphone for what seemed like a continuous decade

[TrenterPercenter]

There is very little variety going on past early 2000s from the wiki to be fair.

Perhaps "man bun" times in late 2010s but otherwise most of the wiki is things like "woman with slightly long hair" "man wearing all black clothes".

A lot of fashion is massively driven by pop culture and modern pop culture is a commercialised wreck in which artists can only try and separate themselves by dressing like sexy pantomime actors and futuristic-peados.  It's drivel; People were warned for years but we were told "it's just culture; don't be a hater" whilst culture just became a meaningless cultural mess; a hive mind of nodding dweebs desperately trying to be edgy whilst hiding their trust funds from view. 

It's fucked and with no counter culture now we've just got strident middle aged mums doing all of the heavy lifting when it comes to taking on the government; whilst the real engines of change, the youngsters, have decided a life in virtual reality and early death from obesity is more appealing than having to work for a minimum wage that buys you nothing whilst you slowly go mad engaging in a faux sham of a culture.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I was in the US most of that time and it was generally this kind of look. Also tight t-shirts with faded names of things like Jack Daniels or some fake university printed on them. Basically whatever they wear in the Final Destination films.



Same kind of thing in the 2010s but more mish mash of bright coloured 80s type look, more androgynous and the blokes with beards and Nazi hair.

[TrenterPercenter]

Picture says it all really; affluent air brushed white people but with a boho twist of them not being in their condos swimming pool.  They are basically on poverty safari aren't they.  Aspirational gap yah stuff; I remember it well.

[checkoutgirl]

Wearing big fuck off headphone cans not in a music production studio or during a DJ set in a techno nightclub but just out and about the town. Surely tiny small earbuds are much more practical, comfortable, discreet and not a waste of money.

So yeah, earphones as an overly expensive fashion statement is definitely post 2000 aesthetic. Thank you DR Dre.

[Zetetic]

Hot metal, burnt paper and plastic, burnt fuel, ozone, concrete dust.

[Petey Pate]

Everything's collapsed in on itself. Or something. This is a reasonably interesting post, which I saw on William Gibson's Twitter, about this phenomenon:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-nostalgia-onion

I saw this exact sentiment in a YouTube underneath some vaporwave track (forget which one), which was 'this makes me more nostalgic for 2011 than the 1980s'.

Generic, 2007 pop song, autotuned so all the voices sound weird

Remember watching this and finding it weird that 2007 was being treated as the past, despite it being a decade ago at the time.

[Mr_Simnock]

There is very little variety going on past early 2000s from the wiki to be fair.

Perhaps "man bun" times in late 2010s but otherwise most of the wiki is things like "woman with slightly long hair" "man wearing all black clothes".

A lot of fashion is massively driven by pop culture and modern pop culture is a commercialised wreck in which artists can only try and separate themselves by dressing like sexy pantomime actors and futuristic-peados.  It's drivel; People were warned for years but we were told "it's just culture; don't be a hater" whilst culture just became a meaningless cultural mess; a hive mind of nodding dweebs desperately trying to be edgy whilst hiding their trust funds from view. 

It's fucked and with no counter culture now we've just got strident middle aged mums doing all of the heavy lifting when it comes to taking on the government; whilst the real engines of change, the youngsters, have decided a life in virtual reality and early death from obesity is more appealing than having to work for a minimum wage that buys you nothing whilst you slowly go mad engaging in a faux sham of a culture.

Very daily mail

[Johnny Foreigner]

It was mostly a 2000s anæsthetic, to be frank. It went past me since I wore suits and ties and mostly went to classical concerts.

I liked Franz Ferdinand, though. Whatever happened to that whole new wave / post-punk revival thing? Some of it was rather catchy, in retrospect. There was still a decent goth scene as well, at least on the Continent.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Was there an overriding aesthetic, though, like the orange-and-brown hues of the 70s, and the greys and pastels of the 1980s?

I see what you mean.

There was a definite turn of the millennium look where films, pop videos etc all went futuristic. Cool blues, silvers. Probably doesn't fit the whole decade though.

[TrenterPercenter]

Very daily mail

Not at all; Daily Mail hate the gays; single mums and brown people; this uttershit fest was orchestrated by white middle class people that wanted to be cool but weren't; backed by corporations that wanted to sell shit to poorer people.

[Mr_Simnock]

Not at all; Daily Mail hate the gays; single mums and brown people; this uttershit fest was orchestrated by white middle class people that wanted to be cool but weren't; backed by corporations that wanted to sell shit to poorer people.

I'm refering to it's derisory tone and managing to get so much wrong