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

Started by Mister Six, October 11, 2021, 02:55:00 PM

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Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

Quote from: A Hat Like That on October 11, 2021, 05:02:24 PM
Mobile phones saw an advance a bit earlier, but the first iPhone is late 2007/early 2008 for the UK.
Oh no, I'm talking about mobile phones in general. Tiny screens that just about managed text messages and calls. As for social media, I was thinking more of Bebo and MySpace than Facebook. The first attempts at websites for keeping in touch with friends using your real human name (vs Livejournal which encouraged a pseudonym).

Thomas

Aesthetic of the 2000s was Anna Friel.



Don't think the 2010s had one. Foodbanks?

lipsink

2000s was fliptop phones and guys wearing those bags that have one massive strap that goes around your chest


mothman

Recently I've been dealing with the fact that the 2010s were mostly a blur for me, so much so that I've literally no idea what any of the aesthetics were. But when I think of the 00s, I think of the egregious mix of ratty-looking seventiesish haircuts and fashions such as brown suits (and, yes, the bootcut jeans) on show in, say, this Embrace video: https://youtu.be/MB2F6nagjKs or this one by OK Go: https://youtu.be/M1_CLW-NNwc


Video Game Fan 2000

the cultural obsession with trends and waves was itself a fad due to the institutional fascination with academic theories about flows and fluidity and will ebb away itself ahhhhhhh


lipsink

2020s so far is guys wearing beanie hats that don't cover their ears.



buttgammon

As I spent most of the 2010s studying and then teaching in universities, I saw lots of aesthetics and fashions come and go. I'm hoping to write a longer post but there were definitely a few distinct eras: in terms of clothing for example, we went from peak hipster to lumberjack beard twat and then sporty 90s revival. There didn't seem to be the degree of jniformity we might associate with previous ages but I'm also wary of generalising about times I didn't live in; despite being born in 1990, I can also identify plenty of different cultures and subcultures in fashion and music etc. from the 70s and 80s, for example, but I suspect it's easier for me to reduce those moments to cartoonist tropes because I didn't live through them.

evilcommiedictator


falafel

In the 2000s - Chrome, ovals, fleur-de-lys, purple and black, chandeliers, block colours, lens flare, music videos with shiny CGI machinery, skinny ties, indie bands wearing suits called The Something, everything was smoother and blobbier and more plasticky, I'm taking things like cars and kitchen implements, seemingly just because they could be, like we didn't properly rediscover edges and details until the following decade, PS2 graphics, Mean Girls, the Matrix, the beginning of digital video so everything has a weird grainy sharpness to it

Captain Z

Meow meow for the softies, ketamine for the hardcore.

(I did neither)

Beagle 2

Films went all yellow. Kind of yellowy beige. Yellowy beigey orangey. Bond is back and he's yellowy beigey orangey not like those old Bonds with their different colours that's finished now.

Mister Six

Quote from: Tikwid on October 11, 2021, 06:06:09 PM
I was just about to bring up the work of the Consumer Aesthetic Research Institute, which I think originally spun off from the Y2K Institute but now catalogues a much wider number of aesthetic trends in commercial media, going back all the way to the 1970s. It's fascinating going through the pages for different aesthetics (most of which they've coined unique names for) and recognising the styles from years gone by, even ones that were never really acknowledged in popular culture but still linger in your memories, a font choice or graphic motif that brings back a completely different era. Here's just a smattering of the 2000s and 2010s specific aesthetics they've catalogued:


  • Metalheart - early 2000s tech aesthetic, dark and glossy Matrix-esque 3D renders of robots, glass shards, fibre-optic cables, Gigeresque constructs and other computery forms
  • Frutiger Aero - late 2000s tech aesthetic, bright green and blue colours, water droplets, out-of-focus lights, eco-friendly approach
  • Corporate Memphis - mid-late 2010s corporate aesthetic that's gotten rare mainstream attention; sepia pastel colours, minimalist graphics, simple human figures with tiny heads (also a hallmark of Global Village Coffeehouse, its 1990s clipart-look predecessor)
  • Internet Awesomesauce - lasers, rainbows, explosions, cats, dinosaurs, and other wacky random things that were the hallmarks of late 2000s-early 2010s meme culture

This site is incredible, thank you for introducing me to this.

Mister Six


Captain Z

Quote from: Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse on October 11, 2021, 03:52:30 PM
Generic, 2007 pop song, autotuned so all the voices sound weird

Things like this are why I really enjoyed some of Bojack Horseman. It's a very good parody, but it doesn't reflect 2007 for me, more like 2009-10. It's probable that the US was a little ahead of this curve, as in the UK I associate 2007-8 with the peak and implosion of landfill indie and Radio2 alt/folk-rock[nb]K T Tunstall, Kate Nash, Katie Melua... all the different Katies[/nb].

2008-2012 has very specific aesthetic for me, a sort-of coked-up, ostentatious, HD-ready feel, soundtracked by brickwalled EDM noise that was initiated by Deadmau5 but turned up to 12 by David Guetta, Calvin Harris, Swedish House Mafia et al. All the lyrics are about having a good time in the club, where everyone is wearing Kanye West shutter shades. I know everyone gets a bit older and starts to think current music sounds shit compared to their youth, but I genuinely think those years were a low point. It was something of a relief when Pharrell, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson took over and music and culture seemed to calm down a bit.

Mister Six

I was contractually obliged to inflict house music on myself for a chunk of the late 2000s, and I'll say that David Guetta, while an utter bell, did some decent tunes, and Calvin Harris is a genuinely talented musician.

Rest of them can get in grave though.

Captain Z

Yes, it's probably unfair on those two, but they are the unfortunate umbrella names of the genre. I also spent a fair bit of time DJing back then, and hearing various other DJs play this seemingly every night probably contributed towards jacking it in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnJPQUDaVXQ

Quote from: Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse on October 11, 2021, 06:27:54 PM
Oh no, I'm talking about mobile phones in general. Tiny screens that just about managed text messages and calls. As for social media, I was thinking more of Bebo and MySpace than Facebook. The first attempts at websites for keeping in touch with friends using your real human name (vs Livejournal which encouraged a pseudonym).

No worries.

I see that spell 2005-07 when the next wave of technology/social media came through as a step change from what came before. Twitter's 2006, so within the same 2 year period. These tools are still the ones that are most used today.

The biggest win of the thread though is the link: https://cari.institute/aesthetics

absolutely wonderful. cheers.

PlanktonSideburns


gilbertharding

We can all (probably) remember when computers were beige. Now they're black, of course. Not sure when that happened, but I'm sure there was a time in between when they were a kind of matt silver. Was that the Millennium?

Inspector Norse

Quote from: lipsink on October 11, 2021, 08:31:44 PM
2020s so far is guys wearing beanie hats that don't cover their ears.

That's been going on for a decade. Part of the same style group as plaid overshirts, sleeve tattoos and beards.

George Oscar Bluth II

Quote from: buttgammon on October 11, 2021, 10:22:57 PMThere didn't seem to be the degree of jniformity we might associate with previous ages but I'm also wary of generalising about times I didn't live in; despite being born in 1990, I can also identify plenty of different cultures and subcultures in fashion and music etc. from the 70s and 80s, for example, but I suspect it's easier for me to reduce those moments to cartoonist tropes because I didn't live through them.

I think this might nail it. Like we who didn't live through it can sit here and say "the 80s, new romantics, neon, massive mobile phones" and someone who did will be like "yeah but what about the skinhead revival, football casuals, goths" or whatever none of which really fit in.

There isn't a 2000s or 2010's aesthetic yet because the culture hasn't agreed on what it is because we don't yet have 2000s and 2010s nostalgia pop culture nostalgia pieces. Suspect that'll change pretty soon.


H-O-W-L

Quote from: checkoutgirl on October 11, 2021, 04:21:52 PMSurely tiny small earbuds are much more practical, comfortable, discreet and not a waste of money

Every single one of these things is in fact the exact opposite of over-ear cans. The only validity of earbuds is discreetness and whether or not you want to go deaf earlier.