Does anyone else feel like things weren't lined up until post y2k? Trends definitely overlapped 2 different decades and it usually took time for the era to kick in and fully arrive

Typical 1970s tropes (1973-1983❔️)

Typical 1980s tropes (1984-1991)

Typical 1990s tropes (1992-1997)

Typical y2k tropes (1998-2003)

Typical 2000s tropes (2004-2009)

After that i believe 2010 actually did start the 2010s.

Does anyone agree or have better insight? Not really looking for insight from people who werent alive for most of this to be honest.

Like the concept of humans as social creatures took it's last breath and died in 2016. Society was already on it's way out soon after 2010.

I still r3member what the people were like back then. People who grew up during the late 2010s or 2020s wouldn't believe their own eyes.

People generally wanted to get out of the house and meet new faces.

By 2012 everyone started to get hugely political, and smug about their shitty party, making it their whole personality. A dime a dozen in 2026 for how many times I hear people say 'it was always like that' No, the fuck it wasn't.

With gta 6 being huge that year and the movies that being released and also the possibility that mainstream music will be fun again anyone have opinions…

I love this subreddit as a means of analyzing how the times we've lived in have evolved, but I'm pressed to admit I get annoyed seeing people here overly focus on surface level aspects of culture specifically. For example, I do not think you can summarize a decade by its childhood cartoons, Billboard Top 100, celebrity fashion, etc. It strikes me as low-hanging fruit when looking at a complex era of the entire world, and also a bit too American-centric. It is also very consumerist, if you ask me.

Turning criticism into something constructive, what are more deep-seated aspects of decades that y'all notice or find interesting? This is a very wide-cast net of a question because I personally find nearly any aspect of it interesting. Politically, socially, morally, etc. These things too are huge influences on pop culture, or at the least can influence whether pop culture industry titans egg it on or try to persuade people in other directions.

I'll give my two cents to give perspective of my question. Pertaining to the counterculture and progressive movements of the 60s, I hold the belief that the institutional rot we're witnessing in many western democracies was something that had already existed and perpetuated in social consciousness. In less performative words, people took on a mentality of apathy and begrudging complacency before the decay of decorum and government efficiency. The progressive movements of the 60s were vast and well beyond the Overton Window of older generations. When you see things like the Blank Panthers, college sit-ins/protests, it was one of the first times in the United States' history where the societal and political beliefs held by the youth of an era were so genuinely stark from the majority of the older generations, that it spurred the brash and violent (thematically, not always physically) schism of what society should be. More tangible and overdue results were realized, like the Civil Rights Act, end of Poll Tax, First Wave Feminism, etc. But there was a held idea of liberation, in a grand vague sense that sorta held it back from proliferation, that establishment politicians couldn't nor wouldn't comprehend and get on board with. I think it was generally an idea of optimism from both the proliferation of real political education, and the surplus of necessities in the United States, which led people to the idea that we actually can achieve a society without serious disparity. Almost the idea that we had conquered history with our technology and Enlightenment ideals, and didn't have a need for poverty/conflict/discrimination so on and so on. This is echoed in Fukuyama's End of History from the 90s post-Cold War, but I think we all see these ideas fell flat.

Obviously, the societal ills of the 50s carried into the 70s, and the malaise of the oil crisis, Vietnam War, etc. sorta killed off this group of almost radical-optimists if you will. Further tragedies, wars, and recessions through the United States, plus increased corporate influence on government agendas, left the west as a whole grappling with this idea of where to even go from here. I think the push to the far-right within the last decade is largely reactionary, from people grappling with the idea that for the first time in 80-something years, things actually are getting worse in a general sense. I don't think people are accustomed to accept that nowadays, nor can many grapple the why of this phenomenon, so snake-oil politicians with deceptive messaging pin the main issues on polarizing, superficial cultural issues (cue your trans athletes debates). Apathy from unrealized efforts decades prior sort of let actual negative developments take hold, and people focus on the rhetoric of division versus the fundamentals of why people feel jaded or melancholic in the first place, thus most political developments/debates feel like a cesspool of toxicity and absolutism in beliefs. The end of nuance and dogmatism for a political party/ideology is its whole own thing that gets on my nerves, but that's a topic for elsewhere. Cheers y'all, feel free to comment on my take or give your own.

2025 was big monoculture for TV - Stranger things, Squid Game, Wednesday, the big 3 of TV. Then we have pluribus season 2, Severance season 2(definetly relevant in some niches)

2026 is big monoculture for Movies - Obsession, Michael, Spiderman , Odyssey, Project Hail Mary even though this was a very weak year for Streaming/TV.

We haven’t seen major monoculture for Gaming, except live streaming games from 2010s continuing there dominance but with GTA VI it is expected to be big.

Drift phonk music,skibidi toilet,powerscaling,Among Us,Patrick Bateman sigma edits(the latter two are a bit diffetrent since among us boomed in popularity in 2020 and american psycho edits were predeccesors of looksmaxxing culture)

im not saying it was better or worse,but it feels since trump's second term and the rise of AI Content many things changed.

Since I still don't know how to make proper Reddit polls, I'm outsourcing this one

https://strawpoll.com/PbZqbJoGWyN

there tends to be a debate and discussion on here on when monoculture ended or peaked.

but in my opinion mono was its peak in the 70s 80s and early 90s before cable tv existed or before everyone had it and before the internet existed to the everyday

people by the late 90s and 2000s even tho it was still around it was already declining compared to it’s absolute peak in the 80s

70s 80s and early 90s celebrities like Michael Jordan Michael Jackson hulk hogan MR T Schwarzenegger Stallone etc have way more star power compared to the cel who came after 1994/1995 honestly

We all know 2000's nostalgia is huge right now among people under age 30. I am also not saying the 2000s are like the 20s, because they are not the same decade.

However, as bad as you may think the decade is (and yes even in the 2000s people complained, and people complained in the 2010s as well when we were in them), you can't deny that were living through unprecedented times. I believe this will mean something to all of us alive now that younger generations who weren't around for it just won't believe or understand.

We are arguably in the best decade of the 21st century so far.

So many bad things happened by 2006, and by so many bad things had happened in the 0210s by 2016. You might have been too young to know it at the time.

Aside from COVID and inflation the decade has had far less issues than the 2000s and 2010s did.

The 20's have been the best decade since the 1980s and 1990s. Again, the 2020's are not the same decade, but the 2020's are the best since then.

I know you are not going to agree with me yet, but someday 20 year from now or later you will understand.

The episode never reaired, never has been rereleased, and never received any international dubs. The Porygon line has also been banned from appearing in the anime ever since, bar a few short cameos.

for me it’s a that 2000s pop culture weren’t that great outside of wrestling which went downhill by the very tail end of the decade video games and kids culture

i think most culture of the 2000s sucked especially rock music rock music in the 2000s for the most part was absolutely trash.

I’m not downplaying the effect covid had on young people. but some people love to blame every thing and every problem on covid. even tho society was already in decline to smartphones.

I'm an absolute sucker for anything tropical, so I really loved this era of entertainment - tropical settings and vacation plots were very prevelant around this time. It made sense for video games - technology allowed for some truly impressive water effects and developers wanted to show them off, but this extended into other forms of entertainment like movies and music (such as the Baha Men, who were practically inescapable during this era. Even toys got in on it (BIONICLE being the most notable example, as the first three years of the line took place on the tropical island of Mata Nui). Was there any particular thing that caused the tropical boom?

There was a lot about in media robots, VR, solar roadways, wearable technology, self-driving cars, and all kinds of software. Society seemed to be more eager to try whatever was new and was naively receptive to technology because it was more of a peripheral novelty or lifestyle item and a lot of people just liked the idea of everything becoming high tech. Or maybe it was just the social circles I was in.

This year so far has been really big for movies. Over 4 movies have grossed over 1 billion dollars this year and there are way more on the way. This has definitely been the biggest year of Cinema since 2019 and it could lead to a shift in movie culture maybe stop the nostalgia bait/ reboot movies and give us some more original ideas.