1980-90 and 2000-2010

[biggytitbo]

To me, 1980-1990 - that 10 years seems to represent an absolutely massive period of development in almost everything, music, film, tv, technology, society - almost everything between 1980 and 90 seems like a huge gaping wide span of time. Yet the same span of time - a decade, between 2000-2010 seems like nothing, barely months. What has really changed in those 10 years? Why does the 80s seem so incredibly eventful and the 2000s so not?

[katzenjammer]

It's your age, dear.

[biggytitbo]

I did think whether it was just because the 2000s are more recent in my mind, but surely that would make them seem more eventful? The 2000s to me seem like virtually nothing happened, yet the 80s seem like the most eventful decade ever.

[ThickAndCreamy]

Because it's the near past, it is just as eventful, you just don't think of it that way. It's a mixture of nostalgia, childhood and growing up that makes you think of the earlier decades so much. The same reason most people think the world is a better place when they were younger, it's because they were children and therefore it was a better world to them, even if to adults it was worse than before... and so the cycle continues.

You can reconsider the near past at such a short gap in time, you need decades to evaluate, consider and put into context the true developments of the decade. Same reason historians generally wait years before discussing the past, and why after World War Two the majority of theories and discussion talked about immediately after are ignored and seen as wrong.

Just consider the leaps in computer technology in the 2000's, to say it's not a massive leap in development is ignorant. You can't truly evaluate just how drastically the world has changed when the period of consideration is so short, there's no true context for it.

Most importantly though, you're most fond and strong memories are usually associated with being a child and this mixed with nostalgic impairs your view of the past drastically.

[dr beat]

Well, I for one remember the whole DvD thing starting to get popular around 2000.  I remember evidently being impressed by the fact that you could stick something in a player, and, rather than it doing its own thing and just, erm, playing, you got a whole menu with separate graphics and stuff, and that you could navigate around with the remote.

That for me was quite a thing.

[Danger Man]

404 Not Found

1980

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

2009


End of debate.

[biggytitbo]

Because it's the near past, it is just as eventful, you just don't think of it that way. It's a mixture of nostalgia, childhood and growing up that makes you think of the earlier decades so much. The same reason most people think the world is a better place when they were younger, it's because they were children and therefore it was a better world to them, even if to adults it was worse than before... and so the cycle continues.

You can reconsider the near past at such a short gap in time, you need decades to evaluate, consider and put into context the true developments of the decade. Same reason historians generally wait years before discussing the past, and why after World War Two the majority of theories and discussion talked about immediately after are ignored and seen as wrong.

Just consider the leaps in computer technology in the 2000's, to say it's not a massive leap in development is ignorant. You can't truly evaluate just how drastically the world has changed when the period of consideration is so short, there's no true context for it.

Most importantly though, you're most fond and strong memories are usually associated with being a child and this mixed with nostalgic impairs your view of the past drastically.

But I was on the internet in 2000 and I was playing 3d games in 2000 and I had a mobile phone in 2000. Sure they're all more advanced now that they were then, but they're essentially the same thing. Between 1980 and 1990 we went from virtually nothing to Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. We went from Are you been Served to Blackadder Goes Forth encompassing the entire gamut of alternative comedy between. 2000-2010 we went from the Office to well what? By 2000 The Fast Show was finished, yet in 2010 we're getting the Fast Show part 2 in Bellamy's People. It seems like comedy has gone nowhere in 10 years. Ditto with films. In 1980 we  were still within the world of crude stop motion from the 1930s. By 1990 James Cameron has unleashed CGI sfx in the Abyss and changed filmmaking forever. Between 2000-20010 how has that developed? Absolutely nowhere, if anything we've gone backwards.

[Talulah, really!]

To me, 1980-1990 - that 10 years seems to represent an absolutely massive period of development in almost everything, music, film, tv, technology, society -

No such thing in the eighties,

[biggytitbo]

She looks lovely there doesn't she? Thatch is the common thread the 80s but even she couldn't stop 1980 been separated by more than the average decease between 1990.

[ziggy starbucks]

Spoiler alert

the use of J. Clarkson is purely hair related, nothing else

[close]

[Ginyard]

She looks lovely there doesn't she?

She looks like a bodysnatcher alien.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

By 1990 James Cameron has unleashed CGI sfx in the Abyss and changed filmmaking forever. Between 2000-20010 how has that developed? Absolutely nowhere, if anything we've gone backwards.

Yes and in 1927 cinema entirely stagnated after Al Jolson said a few words.

[Talulah, really!]

The biggytitbo Years...

In 1980

I shit in a bucket

In 2000

I was on the internet in 2000 

In 2010

Pray God, he never combines the two.

[biggytitbo]

Spoiler alert

the use of J. Clarkson is purely hair related, nothing else

[close]

I didn't go properly bald until about 2007. I was doling pretty well hair wise when the planes hit the twin towers. (Shakes fist at George W Bush)

[biggytitbo]

The biggytitbo Years...

In 1980

In 2000

In 2010

Pray God, he never combines the two.

1984 - 12 in a bed romp with pissing cousins. I slept at the shallow end.
1985 - shit in a bucket years
1995 - At art college in hull

In effect, not really much progress in the 90s.

[Zero Gravitas]

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
2009

Surely:
Rasputin-Boney M.
'78 to be fair, but still!

[Bingo Fury]

Technologically, things only seem to have advanced in increments. There's nothing that's around now that would have seemed like magic or science fiction to anyone who was using the Internet or mobile phones in 2000. So I can identify with Biggy in that sense. The greatest shift in the decade, the thing that defined the decade, was 9/11 and its aftermath. I've felt like we've been living in a different world ever since. Pretty much everything that distinguishes the noughties from the 90s seems to have sprung from that event.

[purlieu]

The way the internet is seen and used is very different to me.  In 2000 only a certain number of people at school had the internet, Napster had just appeared and you could download one song, maybe two if you were lucky, before your 56k provider cut you off after two hours.  Now I don't know anybody who hasn't got at least 4MB broadband capable of download a band's entire discography in an hour or two.
MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, netlabels, free downloads, media pirating, BitTorrent, iPlayer and 4OD, free wifi on trains to use on your 500GB HD laptop as you speed from London to Manchester.  This is not the internet of 2000.

The distribution/pirating of media is probably the biggest thing there.

[Pedro_Bear]

Yeah, well... 2010 isn't even started hardly, all that cool shit is going to happen in the next few weeks thanks to ♪ Always~ I wanna be with you~ and make-believe with you And live in harmony, harmony - OH, LOVE ♫

[hpmons]

Now I don't know anybody who hasn't got at least 4MB broadband capable of download a band's entire discography in an hour or two.

Ooh, get you and your fancy friends.  I jump for joy when I see my "broadband" connection is at 500kbps.
(Then I weep as it goes down to 192kbps just before I download Lost).

_{I should point out that it's my fault for not doing anything about it, but I'm pretty sure this area can't have more than 1mb anyway.}

[Cubic Tube]

Time is speeding up.

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

there had been a paucity of ideas in the ladsr de ade. the whole decade can be summwd up by one date: 11/9/01. fick ot. i will post6 mopree pf my statemenyts on the marrer when i am in a fit state 2 do so

EFIT: PEAXW Y'ALL!!!

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

There is world of difference between films made in 1980 and films made in 1990 which i dont think is visible in films made in 2000 compared with those made in 2010. If i had never heard of Gladiator for instance and you showed me a high-res copy on blu-ray, i could quite easily believe that it was made last month. The same also seems to be true of video games - there's a quantum leap of difference between games made in 1980 and 1990, whereas the difference between '00 games and '10 games seems to be little more than subtle improvements in pixel shading and particle physics (to my untrained eye).

I dont think this all has to be brushed off with the claim that it's just age playing tricks on, if anything that would be to commit the fallacy that art, music, games, and films progress in a steady, linear-like fashion. As with evolution proper the reverse seems to be true - it's all leaps and spurts.

[rudi]

Well indeed. Currently the cultural/popular leaps are being made in the area of things like phones, musical hardware and, um, running shoes?

[Still Not George]

it's all leaps and spurts.

You've seen that movie too, then?

Actually, now I think of it, porn dissemination (hurr) technology has come along a very long way since the 80s.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Things that happened in the 00's:

* The steady intensification of neoliberalism leading to its ultimate collapse, the result (and indeed the true cost) of which is not yet clear.

* The rise to power of social resistence movements in South America, and the wholesale rejection of US political and economic domination.

* The rise and fall of the politics of fear and corporate greed, leading to widespread call for and realisation of political change in the US (albeit one which is being heavily resisted by entrenched corporate interests).

* The rise of non advertising-based television in the US from HBO, forcing other networks to comission high-budget intelligent and complex television in order to compete, alongside the rise of cheap and populist reality shows.

* Widescreen, Flatscreen and HD TV all arrived.

* A long, protracted war.

* The rise of cheap air travel.

* The global conquest of Manu Chao.

* Fox News and The Daily Show.

* The iPhone, Blackberry, MP3 players

* Wireless and broadband internet

* Massive rise of piracy and massive rise of cinema ticket prices, driving people to piracy, driving ticket prices up, etc

* Harry Potter and the return of popular children's books

* The rise of environmentalism and consiencious capitalism

* Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Youtube - and the resultant empowerment of the indivdual to impart information (leading to both organised and spontaneous mass protests and counter revolutions - see Burma, Iran, Venezuela and others)

Overall I think the Internet has been the most important thing of the 00's (other than the whole terrorist thing).  It wasn't invented then, but it didn't really make its impact until the arrival of broadband - which is definitely a 00's creation.

[Uncle TechTip]

By 1990 James Cameron has unleashed CGI sfx in the Abyss and changed filmmaking forever. Between 2000-20010 how has that developed? Absolutely nowhere, if anything we've gone backwards.

Um, the same man created Avatar? Hello??

[biggytitbo]

SB, some of those are definitely 00s developments but a lot of them actually happened in the 90s. HBO was already a hugely successful producer of stuff like Larry Sanders, Sex and the City, Oz etc before the 00s. Most of the BBCs output was already widescreen before 2000, MP3 players were around by the late 90s, Wifi and fast internet were late 90s too. There just doesn't seem to be anything massively new that came from the 00s the than more advanced versions of things that were already around. Social networking and blogging as you point out is probably the really big legacy of that decade.

[biggytitbo]

Um, the same man created Avatar? Hello??

Hello!

Whats Avatar? 3D has been around since the 50s and CGI the 80s. All Cameron has done is make an old idea work better than it has before. CGI in films has regressed this decade not developed. It might be technically better but the way its used is just becoming tedious. Forrest Gump and Jurassic Park actually look better than many modern films do because they used the CGI in an intelligent and artistic way to further the story. Now it just gets shoved down your throat for the sake of it.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

There just doesn't seem to be anything massively new that came from the 00s the than more advanced versions of things that were already around.

But that isn't really any different from any other decade.  Practically everything invented is built on top of or and advancement of what already exists.  The iPhone for example was a very important invention of the 00s, but really just built on top of what was already there.

Actually I was wondering if the IED is a 00s invention.  It had to have widespread mobile phone availability in order to work, which would have come about in the late 90s at the earliest for the countries where IEDs tend to be used.

I also have to say that computer special effects have come on a hell of a long way.  I remember thinking that the CGI in Titanic was spectacular when it first came out, but when I saw it again recently I thought it looked fucking awful.  It's easy not to notice how effective CGI is now, especially because a good director (eg Speilberg) will use CGI like any other tool and only use them if they look good enough.

I remember watching the introduction of the recent Harry Potter film with the spectacular fly through London's streets, realising it was only possible to do it with CGI, yet it looked utterly real.

Avatar is impressive in many ways, but the one place it still falls down is in the subtleties of CGI facial expressions - the hardest thing you can possibly do in CGI, because we're all so acutely aware of what a face should and shouldn't do.  I predict that in 10 years we'll look at it again and think the facial animation is shit.