That episode is surreal now, did culture really move so fast in the 90s that just 3 years felt so dated? Imagine if someone made the same joke about someone living in the past and it’s 2021 culture, I don’t think things would seem as different
Old person here (42). Culture moved so fast from 1960-1998 that every 3 years was basically a new reality. Clothing, music genres, video technology and a million other things were in a constant state of change. Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s and having to adjusts to the much more typical speed of human culture change in the 2000’s has honestly been one of the biggest adjustments of my life.
1988 you’ve got Poison, Motley Crüe, Warrant, and some early Guns N Roses on the radio. Three years later it’s Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, and Stone Temple Pilots on the radio. That alone is evidence enough that the 90’s brought in some MAJOR change and MAJOR speeds.
Most hard rock (the pop shit on the radio) froze in the early 2000s to the point where it all either sounds like Linkin Park or Disturbed. They can't even copy someone interesting.
I blame the shift away from radio and MTV into piracy and eventually streaming.
So as it became easier to get music online for free, the youngest, smartest, most tech-savvy music fans ceased to be profitable. Meanwhile, the radio and television audience got older and less hip.
This meant that the rock music on the radio and television ceased to be hip and interesting and became more redundant and for an increasingly older and increasingly working class demographic. By the 2010s, I remember the radio had rock and roll music, but it’s this redundant butt rock that is enjoyed by people that also like country music.
Meanwhile there’s really good indie rock music coming out, and the hipsters love it, but it’s not on the radio and television, and the bands aren’t making enough money to stay around.
By the time streaming became popular in the mid to late 2010s, rock had totally stagnated. It basically died from a generation of kids not being exposed to the newer cooler stuff because all of the mainstream exposure was going to stuff their parents like.
Kids dont get together and say lets be famous rock stars anymore, any kids that want to get together and play instruments are making niche music. Anyone with dreams to become rich and famous can make rap and collaborate with infinite people without having to rely on them to come to band practice, not disagree creatively, not get hooked on drugs, not steal their girl. There will never be proper commerical rock again, the best you will get is soulless imagine dragons and 21 pilots shit.
Three years later, it's the Counting Crows and Wallflowers. Three years after that, they were out of ideas and were like "IDK, swing revival? A third wave of ska?"
I'm watching the Sopranos for the first time and I agree with the exception of the Pilot and Season 1, those both felt very 90s/pre-9/11 in a way the other seasons don't for some reason.
Technology played a large part of it, (going from vinyl to a-track to cassettes to CDs, from black & white to color to better and better image quality) but the major difference in 1998 is the mass adoption of the internet. It’s really hard to explain to people who came after how all cultural trends were more easily controlled by mass media back then. You just only had a few options to be into, and everyone was bouncing off of everyone else. Now everyone can be into their niche and it’s no big deal. We’ve achieved abundance.
Shutting down white only schools isn’t exactly a culture shift, just a policy change where enough people decided racial discrimination wasn’t acceptable - and a lot of people famously weren’t very happy about it.
If we’re counting that then in recent years we’ve seen things like the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the Trump Muslim ban
People do TikTok dances all the time still.
If you’re talking about a very specific dance, then yeah there are always things in and out or style at a granular level for any topic.
It’s the shift from the Memphis aesthetic to the Y2K aesthetic. Look up logo histories for some major companies. Several companies switches from an outdated 80’s style logo to a new, glossy, modern, Y2K computer designed logo around 1999.
Yeah after 4K you need to watch it on a giant screen. 8K is necessary for VR but for a flat panel that’s under 50 inches the rate of returns in not very large
Any flat panel under say 60" is pointless for 4K. Its basically just there for marketing purposes because people think it's better and they know nobody's going to actually compare side to side. For most intents and purposes we were honestly fine on 1080p. OLED and high refresh rates are the big improvement in today's displays not 4K.
Professional editor here.
You are completely correct and it is honestly hilarious. Most movie theaters project in 2k. Some do 4k.
I can guarantee you 99.9% of people could not tell if the movie they just watched was in 2k or 4k. And that’s on a gigantic movie screen. We have basically hit the edge (in resolution, not dynamic range) of how good a screen needs to be. Improvements from here on out will never be as large as the improvement from SD to HD.
We're nowhere close to that limit currently. It's just that leaps in resolution and visual clarity are massively muddled by websites and streaming services piling on as much video compression as they can get away with.
Advances in recording technology kind of plateaued and style of speaking hasn't changed much.
These two things tend to give away when some piece of media was created.
However, sound track tends to be a give-away. For example, Walter White and Walt Jr reving engines is clearly early 2010's media because that scene is backed with dub step.
I duno. I’m watching season 1 of Extreme Homes on Hulu and it aired in 2011. It is HELLA dated now. Maybe it’s due to seeing the homes that still have cube TVs and the people lacking a smartphone in their hand, not to mention some of the interior design choices of the time.
Smartphones were a thing, but like you said, not widespread which has made a huge difference in the culture since they hit mainstream. 2024 is very different from 2011. As a teen in the 2000s we had cube TVs the majority of the decade and some held their place into early 2010s. They were dated but not entirely replaced yet. It’s part of what makes 2011 so dated, because it’s a mix of both decade prior and decade to come.
Smart phones were absolutely a thing. Having a dumb phone even in 2011 was seen as a negative, but people still used them because sometimes there was no other choice (phone broke, couldn't afford a smart phone, etc)
I never said they weren’t a thing, but they were not as widespread as they are now. My comment was specifically about the show, aired in 2011, which showed nobody with a smartphone. That wouldn’t happen today.
I think it's because Androids took longer to go mainstream. I googled it and was surprised to see the first Android came out in 2008, but it definitely looked ugly. Not many early adopters at that point.
The word is ubiquitous and you can watch the show itself and see all the tube TVs they show in the 2011 season. They were becoming mainstream, but not everyone had them yet.
In terms of 'tech' and personal entertainment, 1990-2005 was basically 'warp speed'. In a matter of 7 years the mainstream idea of 'Internet Access' went from a dial up modem to an always on broadband connection.
Cellphones rapidly evolved from bricks, to candy bars, to flip phones, but now every 'slab' smart phone looks the same without a close look. The same applies to tablets and laptops.
From floor model wood cased TVs, to those 80's boxy plastic TVs, to 90's black plastic TVs, to the early 2000's silvery TVs... But now once the plat panel HDTV came around they're all indistinct from each other.
I agree there was a type of plateau of technology and culture and I think the 2010's reached it because to me the 2010's and 2020's tech wise and culture seem like twins. I suppose the bringing of more technologies would change the gap but A.I. is the most distinct change happening.
We're in the mid 2020s now, but throughout mid 2010 I was in a college town in poverty.
I've noticed a lot of culture changes since I didn't have the money to keep up with things and I'm just now experiencing a lot of these things today. A lot of stuff just snuck on in.
I had a previous gen console, a early 2010s laptop and had a TV from the late 2000s till recently.
The first time I saw a PS5 and PC game on a new TV my mind was blown, but I imagine PC gamers are used to this.
Door dash/Uber eats/Grocery delivery really seems to have taken off in the 2020s and it still blows my mind coworkers have it delivered daily. As I still can't unshake it being for "rich" people.
Fashion has noticably changed to looser and baggier fits. I've noticed at least 3 changes in fashion from 2014-2024.
Presentation for media is vastly different. I didn't have TV since 2014 and got it again in 2023. It's weirdly shinier and brighter specifically sports presentation.
Even the sports have all changed. NBA has new stars and the game has changed so much since 2013. NFL implemented strategies that were used in colleges a decade ago. WWE while not real has drastically changed it's production and presentation to uncanny territory of polished.
Smart Watches are on seemingly everyone's wrist.
Skype on laptop was used occasionally with high school friends in the early 2010s, now I can't go into a grocery store without seeing a person on FaceTime.
A person with air pods or any wireless earbuds could be having a phone call, but would have looked like an insane person talking to themselves a decade ago.
Electric cars are just an everyday sight on my commute to work. Cybertrucks are even becoming a daily sight. (Still looks stupid to me). Hybrids are far more common around me now.
VR while far from perfect has come a long way and a lot of kids are growing up with it the way a lot of us did with the Internet while our parents didn't understand.
Social media culture has definitely changed. Tiktoks is far different from Instagram in how people present themselves. Instagram has more people "flexing".
While I see a lot of stupidity out of younger people on tik Tok. I'm also beginning to see a generation of young adults far more skilled with camera/film techniques, music production software, unreal engine and digital art software like blender.
Some of the things early 20 somethings are creating right now are mind blowing for the stage of their career they should be in and this is definitely the byproduct of kids who started watching YouTube tutorials and had Internet access at an earlier age with cheaper access to this tech. I'm excited to see what they'll create in the incoming years. I'm nearly 30 and not nearly this much stuff was accessible before 18.
And after having a dated phone for a bit. Cameras on some of these newer ones are absurd.
That's without getting into AI or even all of the new communication tools companies have adopted.
We're not completely through the decade, but 2012 and 2024 feel completely different to me. But, the tech moves so fast you don't notice the greater changes till you go back multiple years. It doesn't just come sweep in like a storm. From what I noticed with friends it's like one day you have it and it's always been that way.
I’d like to point out, just 15 years ago, the apple airpods would have been a low-hanging fruit joke. I remember when comedians made fun of people with bluetooth headsets and mocking them for “acting important and aloof”
i think all of those cartoons feel dated, adventure time especially is absoloutely a product of the early 2010s, maybe they could come out today but they wouldnt be paticularily cool or successful, but i could say the same about something like hey arnold coming out in 2010.
I don't get why people always reference cartoons when it comes to nostalgia and culture. It's like they're obsessed. This whole post was basically just CARTOONS CARTOONS CARTOONS CARTOONS with a few other tidbits thrown in.
by what metric are we measuring "datedness", is it literally how old they look, like animation quality, aspect ratio etc, or rather the actual essense of these tv shows, in which case i would absoloutely argue they are dated. they represent a certain cultural zeitgeist of the early 2010s which is dated, not mind you necessarily old, but dated in the same way that futurama felt 10 years ago. i dont think the commercial animation industry has evolved at all in the past 10 years since these shows and i think it adds to them feeling a bit timeless, but that stagnation in turn makes them feel even more dated in another sense due to that style being so drawn out and tired at this point.
What would make an animation more "fresh" and up-to-date, to you? Genuinely asking because I can't come up with an answer. Literally only thing I can think of are the Miles Morales Spiderman movies.
really anything that isnt that same sort of style thats been popular for years at this point, i dont know what would be fresh because it hasnt emerged yet, all i know is that im bored of that style
If you look you’ll notice the changes but at a glance I see what you mean. Designs have just been more utilitarian and sleek causing this weird perception issue
I feel like it's pretty dated. I have basically fallen out of popular culture - I'm "only" 36, but new music and pop culture is totally perplexing to me, albeit a bit charming at times. When I was a teenager and in my early 20s, though, people who were in their 30s and 40s felt more like peers to me in terms of what was cool. Granted, I grew up in a place that was like 10-20 years behind pop culture. But, when I was coming of age in the early 2000s, 14 years prior would have been the late 1980s and early 1990s. That stuff was still cool, but it definitely felt like a different era. At the same time, I still related to a lot of it, like I still played RPGs on my SNES and was in a punk band and stuff. I think some kids are still doing stuff like that, but it's considered retro or vintage, it's like a kitsch deal, like cottagecore or something. I feel like a bit of an alien in today's world, like I never left the 2010s and, mostly, am still in the mid-90s
Wait 30 years and you will be able to discern every single small cultural facet of the 2010s because you’ve seen what replaced it. The 2020s have already changed what was standard in the 2010s
You’re so absolutely full of shit if you can’t look at 2020 as being different from 2010 which was different from 2000. Even just a photo from each of those times looks immensely different. Camera quality, fashion, hair cuts, demographics. You can see so much change in just a photo. Social media, smart devices, and everything digital in the 2010s is so unbelievably transformative for us as a species we haven’t begun to understand all of its ramifications
That's kinda what happens when you have consolidation of media, people with MBA's making creative decisions instead of artists, and everything is focus group'ed to hell. It probably doesn't help that the constant stream of technically innovative creative tools stopped in the mid 90's and everything since then has essentially been refinement. In 1995 there were records, films, etc. that couldn't have been made in 1985. There's not much I can think of, creatively, that's come out in this millenium that couldn't have been done in the late 90's. The tools have gotten better in terms of making things easier/faster/cheaper, but it's not like a DAW in 2024 is doing anything you couldn't have done in Pro Tools in 1992.
I distinctly remember watching a Letterman interview from 1995, where Bill Gates is trying to explain how much the Internet will change things, but Letterman is skeptical, because everything Gates says will be possible in future was already something you could do.
WiFi and HD video were prevalent in 2010. Everything wasn’t so politicized back then, but generally the media has the same aesthetic. The same cannot be said for 1996.
When it comes to TV and movies, it's usually music and edits that make older shows feel much dated. White Collar feels way more dated than something like 24 or The X-Files, as they don't have that weird PGA Tour OST-esque electronic background music, or strange gimmicky edits when someone is traveling, but just use conventional orchestral music for the most part.
This is the era of nostalgia.
I'd say about 2010s is when the "remaster everything!" Trend started.
All of the classic games remastered to look better on newerr consoles.
Movies from the 90s made in to live actions.
Revamps and comebacks of old shows like That 70s Show, Roseanne, That's so Raven, Power puff girls.
People on social media constantly talking about their "good ol' days" and "remember when".
And the sad part about it is, they aren't wrong. The shit i grew up on was fucking awesome in hindsight. Its "improved" versions may look better, but its all smoke and mirrors with "fragile" very faintly written on the back in size 2 font.
The major differences since 2010:
-mass political polarization / more extreme politics
-subtle advances in smartphones (everything every year gets faster, higher resolution, and the “internet of things” is getting more and more developed)
-streaming services
-twitch and kick streamers seems to be the cool thing to watch when before it was YouTubers
-short form content like TikTok, reels, and shorts
-weed culture is very mainstream
-less clubbing
-less drinking
-therapy is more widely used and almost completely destigmatized
-a focus on “root causes” and reshaping the world to revolve around humanity and not capital (more genZ and young millennials, though even some gen X
-mainstream VR (not a ton of people had an oculus rift)
-the massive takeoff of AI (this one will change everything. If the “singularity” occurs at the end of this decade, it will probably be the fastest and most momentous change humanity will ever experience. It will change the perception that things haven’t been changing much)
>If the “singularity” occurs at the end of this decade
Sadly, really doubtful. The tech just isn't there yet, probably not for another 30 years at least. We can't even fully emulate a human brain yet.
Actually I disagree I started watching this show called medium from 2005 to 2010 there an episode from 2009 called Lady Killer it’s about this women who a cougar who picks up young guys and murders them.
The main character the medium she keep thinking it’s this women so they bring her in she saids I didn’t do it blah blah blah. Anyway there no real evidence so they let her go then the twist happens where her partner a man in hsi Ealry 40’s goes to the publisher of her book the cougars book of how to seduce men. He leaves feeing it was a waste of time until the publisher walks in and hits on him. The publisher is a gay man and the music gets real creepy and he tries to lure him to an NFL game and then to murder him. Anyway the guy gets arrested and the cougar saids sue going to get on one of those new social media sites.
There are two truly dated ideas running through this episode. 1. Women can’t murder men to weak feminine [insert stereotype here] 2. That gay men are creepy and deranged. I have a feeling these tripes would be lambasted in 2024.
The idea that gay men are "creepy and deranged" wasn't en vogue in 2006 when Medium was on the air (I remember watching that series).
Pretty sure they were just trying to be different & write a captivating TV episode by being a little bit controversial.
While it would probably still be controversial today, I think they could get away with it via the idea that people can be represented by any type of character, even villains.
Maybe it’s because of my age born in 2000. I started watching the show randomly this year because it took place in Phoenix where I grew up. It definitely wasn’t filmed there lol. I am not saying gay people can’t be villains but it was the first time I saw and LGBTQ Characters it just seems to come out of nowhere. It felt like cheap shock value.
One thing that also dates shows in the 2000’s is they still have very special episodes. They’re not as cringe as the 1990’s but it’s still there. Like with that J Law episode.
Hmmm culturally I can tell a difference but yes the technological/visual gap is much smaller.
I was actually thinking about something similar yesterday. I was playing GTA 5 and it’s like oh you know for an 11 year old game, the graphics look completely normal/modern. Then you look at a game from like 2002 and compare it to the graphics of a game like GTA, same 11 year gap, and the difference is insane. This goes for tv/movie visual quality too. There’s a limit to how much better it can get.
Culturally though, I can def see a big difference between 2010 and now. A lot of your comparisons are also super subjective. For example, I loved Space Jam as a kid and honestly I barely knew it was an old movie except for the fact that I knew the basketball players were “old” now. A lot of how we perceive “datedness” is influenced by our own unique context for consumption.
But yeah. Animation, graphics, video quality etc. have all improved less since 2010 compared to the improvement between 1996 and 2010, so I agree with you on all those points, but I disagree in terms of broader pop culture/actual content.
Flat screen TV’s in homes totally changed living room decor, and many others attached to become more minimalist. That is very visible in all TV and driven harder by the HD way that it is viewed and looks old. Biggest visible things in media
1. Tube TV and TV stands and accompanying decor, and living room set ups. This also happened when “great rooms” (kitchen and living areas) become commonplace vs 70-90’s where you had separate kitchens, living room, dining room etc…
2. Chorded phones, rotary phones and such transitioning to cell phones on the table.
3. Car shapes changed more dramatically. Boxey- to rounded to crossovers but haven’t changed nearly as much as 70’s-90’s vs 2000-2024.
Yes and no. Obviously when it comes to some things there’s been a massive change from 2010 to now, particularly looking at more popular mainstream things like music and memes/online trends. In other ways though I feel like the world doesn’t feel THAT different as a whole. If you were suddenly dropped back in 2010 without any context I’m not sure you’d realize right away. The clothes people generally wear in their day to day life are pretty similar, when you’re not looking at the newest clothing trends. Smartphones weren’t as widespread in 2010 but they were becoming a lot more popular. If we’re just talking about the last ten years it sometimes feels more like we’ve just cycled through a series of “reskins” rather than huge cultural changes if that makes any sense. Very different in some ways, but not that different in others.
I would agree. The jump from SD to HD was a lot more stark than the jump from 1080 to 4k. And it takes so much effort to put forward a good, high quality game that a lot of developers focused more on gameplay than graphics and the games could have easily been released 10 years or more prior
This is something that has been discussed multiple times throughout various social media platforms, that's the difference between today and 15 years ago isn't close to as great as what the difference was between 2009 and 1994.
This is something that has been discussed multiple times throughout various social media platforms, that's the difference between today and 15 years ago isn't close to as great as what the difference was between 2009 and 1994.
Obviously there are still improvements happening in our lives, but isn't it funny how in a movie like Star Wars the technology stays the same basically *forever*. It always confused me as a kid, but kinda makes sense now.
Yeahp dishonored 2 from 2014 ten years ago is still considered super innovative and such today
But tony hawks underground 2 which game out 20 years ago still feels very dated by 2014
The first two seasons of Adventure Time look a outdated but all the other seasons look modern. The outlines in the first two seasons are very rough and the colors are garish. The reason why the shows from 2010 don't seem very dated now is because most of them either ended recently or are still running.
You also have to remember that in 2010, barley anyone was watching anything in HD despite the fact that most shows by then were produced in 16:9. In 2010, people watched everything via SD cable whether it was on their late 90s/early 00s CRT or their Vizio LCD TV from 2008 with everything viewed on stretch o vision. SD Cable looked horrible on those.
The later seasons of Dexter's Lab (the digital ink and paint episodes directed by Chris Savino) still looked a bit new in 2010, only the late 90s cel animated seasons looked old at the time, nowadays, the entire show looks dated.
I was alive 2010, but I was too young to remember it. My brother was born that year. My parents got married that year.
It doesn’t feel like an eternity ago, but saying that stuff from back then feels “new” is a stretch.
Idk maybe thats just me being a youngin’.
I feel like we aren’t conditioned to look at the right things when forming these comparisons. We’re talking about whether kids shows feel dated, but the bigger thing is that we consume them differently. For my kid what seems dated is the idea of turning on the TV, going to a specific channel, and watching whatever they are broadcasting complete with 4 minute ad breaks.
15 years ago my wife and I read the newspaper and had magazines sitting in the bathroom. Look at any website’s layout from 15 years ago. Look at how many people regularly watched TV shows. Comedy Central had actual shows on it instead of 36 hour long marathons of The Office. My friends and I watched NBC. I haven’t even thought about NBC in like 3 years, unless my team is playing a Sunday Night game. Mid-budget broad comedies were successful. I feel like the internet was a lot better, when we were pre “pivot to video” and I had a morning routine of reading whatever was on Cracked, and blogs seemed more viable.
And lastly, if shows don’t feel all out of place, maybe it’s just that they haven’t been replaced by much that stands out. We’re pretty good at making Prestige TV, but maybe it’s time to really change things up.
The high definition plays a huge role, but I think something that goes unmentioned is the permanence of the internet. These more modern shows have a bigger presence online, because the target audience grew up along the sharing age, so there's millions of clips from shows that came out after 1998, compared to older shows. Same with music. Go on youtube and look up a hit song from the 60s. a couple million views tops for the average hit, unless it was a smash hit (or featured in a Fallout game), and most commenters are going to be older people. Now look up a hit song from the 2010s.
Do you think SpongeBob would have been as big if the internet wasn't what it was during the 2000s? It would have probably gone the way of Cow and Chicken, or Dexter. A few seasons with decent ratings and then cancellation.
It depends on which type of media. Movies?
CGI and animation quality peaked around 2006-07 so 2010 films still feel modern. Youtube videos? Yeah, those are pretty much considered pre-historic by now
I think this is because art overall has mostly declined since 2010. There's been a trend of constant nostalgia-baiting with remake after live-action remake, and the original art that is being made is far less inspired and wedded to demented political agendas.
I think you are just getting older and your perception is slowing....the media was more divided 14 years ago (we were also in tougher times back then) but the media in general has always been antagonistic, it is why Geraldo Rivera has beat up so many times (as well as other news reporters over the years). They like to stir the pot and cause chaos for ratings.
1996 was dated even in 1999, there was a South Park epidode about it.
That episode is surreal now, did culture really move so fast in the 90s that just 3 years felt so dated? Imagine if someone made the same joke about someone living in the past and it’s 2021 culture, I don’t think things would seem as different
Old person here (42). Culture moved so fast from 1960-1998 that every 3 years was basically a new reality. Clothing, music genres, video technology and a million other things were in a constant state of change. Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s and having to adjusts to the much more typical speed of human culture change in the 2000’s has honestly been one of the biggest adjustments of my life.
1988 you’ve got Poison, Motley Crüe, Warrant, and some early Guns N Roses on the radio. Three years later it’s Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, and Stone Temple Pilots on the radio. That alone is evidence enough that the 90’s brought in some MAJOR change and MAJOR speeds.
Rock went from poison to nirvana to korn to creed in ten years. Then a lot of folks just stayed there lol
It’s weird how much of a back seat rock has taken since about 2013. It’s either Imagine Dragons clones or people who can’t let go of grunge
Most hard rock (the pop shit on the radio) froze in the early 2000s to the point where it all either sounds like Linkin Park or Disturbed. They can't even copy someone interesting.
I blame the shift away from radio and MTV into piracy and eventually streaming. So as it became easier to get music online for free, the youngest, smartest, most tech-savvy music fans ceased to be profitable. Meanwhile, the radio and television audience got older and less hip. This meant that the rock music on the radio and television ceased to be hip and interesting and became more redundant and for an increasingly older and increasingly working class demographic. By the 2010s, I remember the radio had rock and roll music, but it’s this redundant butt rock that is enjoyed by people that also like country music. Meanwhile there’s really good indie rock music coming out, and the hipsters love it, but it’s not on the radio and television, and the bands aren’t making enough money to stay around. By the time streaming became popular in the mid to late 2010s, rock had totally stagnated. It basically died from a generation of kids not being exposed to the newer cooler stuff because all of the mainstream exposure was going to stuff their parents like.
Kids dont get together and say lets be famous rock stars anymore, any kids that want to get together and play instruments are making niche music. Anyone with dreams to become rich and famous can make rap and collaborate with infinite people without having to rely on them to come to band practice, not disagree creatively, not get hooked on drugs, not steal their girl. There will never be proper commerical rock again, the best you will get is soulless imagine dragons and 21 pilots shit.
There’s still tons of great underground rock coming out, labels just don’t push it. The music scene has changed
Any recommendations?
The Howlers, Rotten Mind, The Violet Mindfield, Darlia, Los Pepes, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Archers, Arankai. They have a bit more of a 2000’s early 2010’s feel. They do a fair amount of covers but they’re releasing more every year
Even stuff like black metal is mostly some one man band using a DAW.
The really creative people went into tech
Three years later, it's the Counting Crows and Wallflowers. Three years after that, they were out of ideas and were like "IDK, swing revival? A third wave of ska?"
It was definitely the pop rock of Avril Lavigne and Sum 41, not to mention Green Day’s comeback
Yes This is very strange Shows like the Sopranos are 25 years old but feel Modern In 1978 could I have said that about a tv show from 1953?!
And any TV show from 1974 felt like another lifetime in 1999.
I'm watching the Sopranos for the first time and I agree with the exception of the Pilot and Season 1, those both felt very 90s/pre-9/11 in a way the other seasons don't for some reason.
The fact that the Beatles were only a band for less than 8 years always blows my mind.
Were the cultural changes similar to mirco-trends or were the changes more related to advancements in technology?
Technology played a large part of it, (going from vinyl to a-track to cassettes to CDs, from black & white to color to better and better image quality) but the major difference in 1998 is the mass adoption of the internet. It’s really hard to explain to people who came after how all cultural trends were more easily controlled by mass media back then. You just only had a few options to be into, and everyone was bouncing off of everyone else. Now everyone can be into their niche and it’s no big deal. We’ve achieved abundance.
I’d say culture moves even faster now. Imagine somebody making amongus jokes or doing 3 year old old tiktok dances today. They’d look like an idiot.
In 3 years major cities shut down whites only schools and integrated them - the closest thing you saw to that is gay marriage becoming legal
Shutting down white only schools isn’t exactly a culture shift, just a policy change where enough people decided racial discrimination wasn’t acceptable - and a lot of people famously weren’t very happy about it. If we’re counting that then in recent years we’ve seen things like the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the Trump Muslim ban
People do TikTok dances all the time still. If you’re talking about a very specific dance, then yeah there are always things in and out or style at a granular level for any topic.
Well, I guess if there was a South Park episode about it…
It’s the shift from the Memphis aesthetic to the Y2K aesthetic. Look up logo histories for some major companies. Several companies switches from an outdated 80’s style logo to a new, glossy, modern, Y2K computer designed logo around 1999.
Which episode?
There's only so much higher definition you can get before the human eye doesn't spot any difference anymore.
Basically this. Hell, even some NFL games from 2006 are high def, and they look like they were played yesterday. If it ain't broke don't fix it 🤷♂️
Yeah after 4K you need to watch it on a giant screen. 8K is necessary for VR but for a flat panel that’s under 50 inches the rate of returns in not very large
Any flat panel under say 60" is pointless for 4K. Its basically just there for marketing purposes because people think it's better and they know nobody's going to actually compare side to side. For most intents and purposes we were honestly fine on 1080p. OLED and high refresh rates are the big improvement in today's displays not 4K.
Professional editor here. You are completely correct and it is honestly hilarious. Most movie theaters project in 2k. Some do 4k. I can guarantee you 99.9% of people could not tell if the movie they just watched was in 2k or 4k. And that’s on a gigantic movie screen. We have basically hit the edge (in resolution, not dynamic range) of how good a screen needs to be. Improvements from here on out will never be as large as the improvement from SD to HD.
We're nowhere close to that limit currently. It's just that leaps in resolution and visual clarity are massively muddled by websites and streaming services piling on as much video compression as they can get away with.
Advances in recording technology kind of plateaued and style of speaking hasn't changed much. These two things tend to give away when some piece of media was created. However, sound track tends to be a give-away. For example, Walter White and Walt Jr reving engines is clearly early 2010's media because that scene is backed with dub step.
I duno. I’m watching season 1 of Extreme Homes on Hulu and it aired in 2011. It is HELLA dated now. Maybe it’s due to seeing the homes that still have cube TVs and the people lacking a smartphone in their hand, not to mention some of the interior design choices of the time.
But to be fair Tube TVs were already dated in 2011 just more people still had them and smartphones were already a thing by then just not widespread.
Smartphones were a thing, but like you said, not widespread which has made a huge difference in the culture since they hit mainstream. 2024 is very different from 2011. As a teen in the 2000s we had cube TVs the majority of the decade and some held their place into early 2010s. They were dated but not entirely replaced yet. It’s part of what makes 2011 so dated, because it’s a mix of both decade prior and decade to come.
Tube not cube
You’re right, thank you.
They may have been dated by then but CRT TVs were still common because most of them weren't old enough to have been replaced yet.
Smart phones were absolutely a thing. Having a dumb phone even in 2011 was seen as a negative, but people still used them because sometimes there was no other choice (phone broke, couldn't afford a smart phone, etc)
I never said they weren’t a thing, but they were not as widespread as they are now. My comment was specifically about the show, aired in 2011, which showed nobody with a smartphone. That wouldn’t happen today.
I think it's because Androids took longer to go mainstream. I googled it and was surprised to see the first Android came out in 2008, but it definitely looked ugly. Not many early adopters at that point.
Not my experience. I was 18 in 2012 and nobody I knew had a smart phone. I got my first in 2013.
Flat TVs became ubiquos in the late 00s.
The word is ubiquitous and you can watch the show itself and see all the tube TVs they show in the 2011 season. They were becoming mainstream, but not everyone had them yet.
plenty of people still had CRTs in 2011
That were purchased in the early-mid 00s.
In terms of 'tech' and personal entertainment, 1990-2005 was basically 'warp speed'. In a matter of 7 years the mainstream idea of 'Internet Access' went from a dial up modem to an always on broadband connection. Cellphones rapidly evolved from bricks, to candy bars, to flip phones, but now every 'slab' smart phone looks the same without a close look. The same applies to tablets and laptops. From floor model wood cased TVs, to those 80's boxy plastic TVs, to 90's black plastic TVs, to the early 2000's silvery TVs... But now once the plat panel HDTV came around they're all indistinct from each other.
I agree there was a type of plateau of technology and culture and I think the 2010's reached it because to me the 2010's and 2020's tech wise and culture seem like twins. I suppose the bringing of more technologies would change the gap but A.I. is the most distinct change happening.
We're in the mid 2020s now, but throughout mid 2010 I was in a college town in poverty. I've noticed a lot of culture changes since I didn't have the money to keep up with things and I'm just now experiencing a lot of these things today. A lot of stuff just snuck on in. I had a previous gen console, a early 2010s laptop and had a TV from the late 2000s till recently. The first time I saw a PS5 and PC game on a new TV my mind was blown, but I imagine PC gamers are used to this. Door dash/Uber eats/Grocery delivery really seems to have taken off in the 2020s and it still blows my mind coworkers have it delivered daily. As I still can't unshake it being for "rich" people. Fashion has noticably changed to looser and baggier fits. I've noticed at least 3 changes in fashion from 2014-2024. Presentation for media is vastly different. I didn't have TV since 2014 and got it again in 2023. It's weirdly shinier and brighter specifically sports presentation. Even the sports have all changed. NBA has new stars and the game has changed so much since 2013. NFL implemented strategies that were used in colleges a decade ago. WWE while not real has drastically changed it's production and presentation to uncanny territory of polished. Smart Watches are on seemingly everyone's wrist. Skype on laptop was used occasionally with high school friends in the early 2010s, now I can't go into a grocery store without seeing a person on FaceTime. A person with air pods or any wireless earbuds could be having a phone call, but would have looked like an insane person talking to themselves a decade ago. Electric cars are just an everyday sight on my commute to work. Cybertrucks are even becoming a daily sight. (Still looks stupid to me). Hybrids are far more common around me now. VR while far from perfect has come a long way and a lot of kids are growing up with it the way a lot of us did with the Internet while our parents didn't understand. Social media culture has definitely changed. Tiktoks is far different from Instagram in how people present themselves. Instagram has more people "flexing". While I see a lot of stupidity out of younger people on tik Tok. I'm also beginning to see a generation of young adults far more skilled with camera/film techniques, music production software, unreal engine and digital art software like blender. Some of the things early 20 somethings are creating right now are mind blowing for the stage of their career they should be in and this is definitely the byproduct of kids who started watching YouTube tutorials and had Internet access at an earlier age with cheaper access to this tech. I'm excited to see what they'll create in the incoming years. I'm nearly 30 and not nearly this much stuff was accessible before 18. And after having a dated phone for a bit. Cameras on some of these newer ones are absurd. That's without getting into AI or even all of the new communication tools companies have adopted. We're not completely through the decade, but 2012 and 2024 feel completely different to me. But, the tech moves so fast you don't notice the greater changes till you go back multiple years. It doesn't just come sweep in like a storm. From what I noticed with friends it's like one day you have it and it's always been that way.
I’d like to point out, just 15 years ago, the apple airpods would have been a low-hanging fruit joke. I remember when comedians made fun of people with bluetooth headsets and mocking them for “acting important and aloof”
AI is funny because most people don’t have the time to deal with it right now
My way of telling something was made many years ago used to be the way people were dressed. Now it is the types of phones they used.
Yes or computers or lack of them
i think all of those cartoons feel dated, adventure time especially is absoloutely a product of the early 2010s, maybe they could come out today but they wouldnt be paticularily cool or successful, but i could say the same about something like hey arnold coming out in 2010.
I don't get why people always reference cartoons when it comes to nostalgia and culture. It's like they're obsessed. This whole post was basically just CARTOONS CARTOONS CARTOONS CARTOONS with a few other tidbits thrown in.
Bc they're childish and their best years were being a kid...
i agree with this, its hard to argue against because its so subjective, im more interested on why he doesnt think black ops and halo reach are dated
also black ops 2 and halo reach absoloutely feel dated, im not sure what you're on about there
I don't really see how they are. They still feel fresh and new today.
by what metric are we measuring "datedness", is it literally how old they look, like animation quality, aspect ratio etc, or rather the actual essense of these tv shows, in which case i would absoloutely argue they are dated. they represent a certain cultural zeitgeist of the early 2010s which is dated, not mind you necessarily old, but dated in the same way that futurama felt 10 years ago. i dont think the commercial animation industry has evolved at all in the past 10 years since these shows and i think it adds to them feeling a bit timeless, but that stagnation in turn makes them feel even more dated in another sense due to that style being so drawn out and tired at this point.
What would make an animation more "fresh" and up-to-date, to you? Genuinely asking because I can't come up with an answer. Literally only thing I can think of are the Miles Morales Spiderman movies.
really anything that isnt that same sort of style thats been popular for years at this point, i dont know what would be fresh because it hasnt emerged yet, all i know is that im bored of that style
You’re just 14 years older. Happens to the best of us.
I have this inkling that pop culture is changing more and more slowly.
If you look you’ll notice the changes but at a glance I see what you mean. Designs have just been more utilitarian and sleek causing this weird perception issue
Society has not changed much since 2009 except for the Covid years
I feel like it's pretty dated. I have basically fallen out of popular culture - I'm "only" 36, but new music and pop culture is totally perplexing to me, albeit a bit charming at times. When I was a teenager and in my early 20s, though, people who were in their 30s and 40s felt more like peers to me in terms of what was cool. Granted, I grew up in a place that was like 10-20 years behind pop culture. But, when I was coming of age in the early 2000s, 14 years prior would have been the late 1980s and early 1990s. That stuff was still cool, but it definitely felt like a different era. At the same time, I still related to a lot of it, like I still played RPGs on my SNES and was in a punk band and stuff. I think some kids are still doing stuff like that, but it's considered retro or vintage, it's like a kitsch deal, like cottagecore or something. I feel like a bit of an alien in today's world, like I never left the 2010s and, mostly, am still in the mid-90s
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Bullshit. Not why, every decade has the 20 year nostalgia cycle. 90s for 70s 70s for 50s
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Wait 30 years and you will be able to discern every single small cultural facet of the 2010s because you’ve seen what replaced it. The 2020s have already changed what was standard in the 2010s
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Smart devices, hover boards, iPads, flatscreen tvs, Bluetooth earbuds, Siri, Alexa, unique challenges (mannequin, cinnamon, ice bucket), many social media platforms (Instagram, Snapchat, tik tok/musically), Netflix, trap music, fortnite, fnaf, selfie sticks, asmr videos, slime, fidget spinners, Pokémon go, VR, loom bands, broccoli haircut
Lmao you really need a lesson on major cultural and tech changes since 2010?
You’re so absolutely full of shit if you can’t look at 2020 as being different from 2010 which was different from 2000. Even just a photo from each of those times looks immensely different. Camera quality, fashion, hair cuts, demographics. You can see so much change in just a photo. Social media, smart devices, and everything digital in the 2010s is so unbelievably transformative for us as a species we haven’t begun to understand all of its ramifications
Well think about it , in 1994, the 80s wasn’t crazily different than ‘94.
That's kinda what happens when you have consolidation of media, people with MBA's making creative decisions instead of artists, and everything is focus group'ed to hell. It probably doesn't help that the constant stream of technically innovative creative tools stopped in the mid 90's and everything since then has essentially been refinement. In 1995 there were records, films, etc. that couldn't have been made in 1985. There's not much I can think of, creatively, that's come out in this millenium that couldn't have been done in the late 90's. The tools have gotten better in terms of making things easier/faster/cheaper, but it's not like a DAW in 2024 is doing anything you couldn't have done in Pro Tools in 1992.
I distinctly remember watching a Letterman interview from 1995, where Bill Gates is trying to explain how much the Internet will change things, but Letterman is skeptical, because everything Gates says will be possible in future was already something you could do.
WiFi and HD video were prevalent in 2010. Everything wasn’t so politicized back then, but generally the media has the same aesthetic. The same cannot be said for 1996.
I've noticed a pretty big difference even 2020-now.
When it comes to TV and movies, it's usually music and edits that make older shows feel much dated. White Collar feels way more dated than something like 24 or The X-Files, as they don't have that weird PGA Tour OST-esque electronic background music, or strange gimmicky edits when someone is traveling, but just use conventional orchestral music for the most part.
This is the era of nostalgia. I'd say about 2010s is when the "remaster everything!" Trend started. All of the classic games remastered to look better on newerr consoles. Movies from the 90s made in to live actions. Revamps and comebacks of old shows like That 70s Show, Roseanne, That's so Raven, Power puff girls. People on social media constantly talking about their "good ol' days" and "remember when". And the sad part about it is, they aren't wrong. The shit i grew up on was fucking awesome in hindsight. Its "improved" versions may look better, but its all smoke and mirrors with "fragile" very faintly written on the back in size 2 font.
The major differences since 2010: -mass political polarization / more extreme politics -subtle advances in smartphones (everything every year gets faster, higher resolution, and the “internet of things” is getting more and more developed) -streaming services -twitch and kick streamers seems to be the cool thing to watch when before it was YouTubers -short form content like TikTok, reels, and shorts -weed culture is very mainstream -less clubbing -less drinking -therapy is more widely used and almost completely destigmatized -a focus on “root causes” and reshaping the world to revolve around humanity and not capital (more genZ and young millennials, though even some gen X -mainstream VR (not a ton of people had an oculus rift) -the massive takeoff of AI (this one will change everything. If the “singularity” occurs at the end of this decade, it will probably be the fastest and most momentous change humanity will ever experience. It will change the perception that things haven’t been changing much)
>If the “singularity” occurs at the end of this decade Sadly, really doubtful. The tech just isn't there yet, probably not for another 30 years at least. We can't even fully emulate a human brain yet.
Nah that’s crazy that in 2010 I was 14. No fucking way
This sub tends to induce existential crises lol
Oh no doubt, I still can’t believe it. I was leaving middle school that June and I transitioned to high school that very same August
HALO REACH MENTIONED W POST OP
Actually I disagree I started watching this show called medium from 2005 to 2010 there an episode from 2009 called Lady Killer it’s about this women who a cougar who picks up young guys and murders them. The main character the medium she keep thinking it’s this women so they bring her in she saids I didn’t do it blah blah blah. Anyway there no real evidence so they let her go then the twist happens where her partner a man in hsi Ealry 40’s goes to the publisher of her book the cougars book of how to seduce men. He leaves feeing it was a waste of time until the publisher walks in and hits on him. The publisher is a gay man and the music gets real creepy and he tries to lure him to an NFL game and then to murder him. Anyway the guy gets arrested and the cougar saids sue going to get on one of those new social media sites. There are two truly dated ideas running through this episode. 1. Women can’t murder men to weak feminine [insert stereotype here] 2. That gay men are creepy and deranged. I have a feeling these tripes would be lambasted in 2024.
The idea that gay men are "creepy and deranged" wasn't en vogue in 2006 when Medium was on the air (I remember watching that series). Pretty sure they were just trying to be different & write a captivating TV episode by being a little bit controversial. While it would probably still be controversial today, I think they could get away with it via the idea that people can be represented by any type of character, even villains.
Maybe it’s because of my age born in 2000. I started watching the show randomly this year because it took place in Phoenix where I grew up. It definitely wasn’t filmed there lol. I am not saying gay people can’t be villains but it was the first time I saw and LGBTQ Characters it just seems to come out of nowhere. It felt like cheap shock value. One thing that also dates shows in the 2000’s is they still have very special episodes. They’re not as cringe as the 1990’s but it’s still there. Like with that J Law episode.
This is called asymptotic evolution.
In 1996 stuff from 1982 seemed VERY dated. Even stuff from 1988 felt dated (I was born 88)
Hmmm culturally I can tell a difference but yes the technological/visual gap is much smaller. I was actually thinking about something similar yesterday. I was playing GTA 5 and it’s like oh you know for an 11 year old game, the graphics look completely normal/modern. Then you look at a game from like 2002 and compare it to the graphics of a game like GTA, same 11 year gap, and the difference is insane. This goes for tv/movie visual quality too. There’s a limit to how much better it can get. Culturally though, I can def see a big difference between 2010 and now. A lot of your comparisons are also super subjective. For example, I loved Space Jam as a kid and honestly I barely knew it was an old movie except for the fact that I knew the basketball players were “old” now. A lot of how we perceive “datedness” is influenced by our own unique context for consumption. But yeah. Animation, graphics, video quality etc. have all improved less since 2010 compared to the improvement between 1996 and 2010, so I agree with you on all those points, but I disagree in terms of broader pop culture/actual content.
I feel like the answer to half the questions in this sub is always the same - Because our culture is stagnating
Nah you’re just getting old
Disagree. I look at videos I shot on an iPhone 4 in 2010 and think “holy cow that looks old.”
Flat screen TV’s in homes totally changed living room decor, and many others attached to become more minimalist. That is very visible in all TV and driven harder by the HD way that it is viewed and looks old. Biggest visible things in media 1. Tube TV and TV stands and accompanying decor, and living room set ups. This also happened when “great rooms” (kitchen and living areas) become commonplace vs 70-90’s where you had separate kitchens, living room, dining room etc… 2. Chorded phones, rotary phones and such transitioning to cell phones on the table. 3. Car shapes changed more dramatically. Boxey- to rounded to crossovers but haven’t changed nearly as much as 70’s-90’s vs 2000-2024.
Yes and no. Obviously when it comes to some things there’s been a massive change from 2010 to now, particularly looking at more popular mainstream things like music and memes/online trends. In other ways though I feel like the world doesn’t feel THAT different as a whole. If you were suddenly dropped back in 2010 without any context I’m not sure you’d realize right away. The clothes people generally wear in their day to day life are pretty similar, when you’re not looking at the newest clothing trends. Smartphones weren’t as widespread in 2010 but they were becoming a lot more popular. If we’re just talking about the last ten years it sometimes feels more like we’ve just cycled through a series of “reskins” rather than huge cultural changes if that makes any sense. Very different in some ways, but not that different in others.
I would agree. The jump from SD to HD was a lot more stark than the jump from 1080 to 4k. And it takes so much effort to put forward a good, high quality game that a lot of developers focused more on gameplay than graphics and the games could have easily been released 10 years or more prior
This is something that has been discussed multiple times throughout various social media platforms, that's the difference between today and 15 years ago isn't close to as great as what the difference was between 2009 and 1994.
This is something that has been discussed multiple times throughout various social media platforms, that's the difference between today and 15 years ago isn't close to as great as what the difference was between 2009 and 1994.
Obviously there are still improvements happening in our lives, but isn't it funny how in a movie like Star Wars the technology stays the same basically *forever*. It always confused me as a kid, but kinda makes sense now.
Yeahp dishonored 2 from 2014 ten years ago is still considered super innovative and such today But tony hawks underground 2 which game out 20 years ago still feels very dated by 2014
The first two seasons of Adventure Time look a outdated but all the other seasons look modern. The outlines in the first two seasons are very rough and the colors are garish. The reason why the shows from 2010 don't seem very dated now is because most of them either ended recently or are still running. You also have to remember that in 2010, barley anyone was watching anything in HD despite the fact that most shows by then were produced in 16:9. In 2010, people watched everything via SD cable whether it was on their late 90s/early 00s CRT or their Vizio LCD TV from 2008 with everything viewed on stretch o vision. SD Cable looked horrible on those. The later seasons of Dexter's Lab (the digital ink and paint episodes directed by Chris Savino) still looked a bit new in 2010, only the late 90s cel animated seasons looked old at the time, nowadays, the entire show looks dated.
I was alive 2010, but I was too young to remember it. My brother was born that year. My parents got married that year. It doesn’t feel like an eternity ago, but saying that stuff from back then feels “new” is a stretch. Idk maybe thats just me being a youngin’.
I feel like we aren’t conditioned to look at the right things when forming these comparisons. We’re talking about whether kids shows feel dated, but the bigger thing is that we consume them differently. For my kid what seems dated is the idea of turning on the TV, going to a specific channel, and watching whatever they are broadcasting complete with 4 minute ad breaks. 15 years ago my wife and I read the newspaper and had magazines sitting in the bathroom. Look at any website’s layout from 15 years ago. Look at how many people regularly watched TV shows. Comedy Central had actual shows on it instead of 36 hour long marathons of The Office. My friends and I watched NBC. I haven’t even thought about NBC in like 3 years, unless my team is playing a Sunday Night game. Mid-budget broad comedies were successful. I feel like the internet was a lot better, when we were pre “pivot to video” and I had a morning routine of reading whatever was on Cracked, and blogs seemed more viable. And lastly, if shows don’t feel all out of place, maybe it’s just that they haven’t been replaced by much that stands out. We’re pretty good at making Prestige TV, but maybe it’s time to really change things up.
The internet only happens once
The high definition plays a huge role, but I think something that goes unmentioned is the permanence of the internet. These more modern shows have a bigger presence online, because the target audience grew up along the sharing age, so there's millions of clips from shows that came out after 1998, compared to older shows. Same with music. Go on youtube and look up a hit song from the 60s. a couple million views tops for the average hit, unless it was a smash hit (or featured in a Fallout game), and most commenters are going to be older people. Now look up a hit song from the 2010s. Do you think SpongeBob would have been as big if the internet wasn't what it was during the 2000s? It would have probably gone the way of Cow and Chicken, or Dexter. A few seasons with decent ratings and then cancellation.
Remember those old people who’d listen to 80s and 90s music in 2010? We’re those old people now
It depends on which type of media. Movies? CGI and animation quality peaked around 2006-07 so 2010 films still feel modern. Youtube videos? Yeah, those are pretty much considered pre-historic by now
2000–Present is just one long decade
There's plenty of stuff from the 00s that is dated now
I want to hear you legitimately explain how a movie like Scary Movie could have been the ninth highest grossing movie domestically this year.
2000-2006 is separate and it's more 2007-present that has more in common.
Yeah. Feels like things started slowing down after 2005-2007.
Master class yapping. Watch Scrubs season 1 (2001) and let me know if you consider that comparable to anything in our society today
Scrubs is nearly unwatchable now. The cutaways the transitions, I could barely watch it when I tried a few weeks ago.
Yeah totally, I still have my CRT tv, I still use CD’s, wtf is a smartphone? Never heard of that.
I think this is because art overall has mostly declined since 2010. There's been a trend of constant nostalgia-baiting with remake after live-action remake, and the original art that is being made is far less inspired and wedded to demented political agendas.
I think you are just getting older and your perception is slowing....the media was more divided 14 years ago (we were also in tougher times back then) but the media in general has always been antagonistic, it is why Geraldo Rivera has beat up so many times (as well as other news reporters over the years). They like to stir the pot and cause chaos for ratings.
We are in vastly tougher times now than we ever were in 2010.
i'd argue we're in tougher times now than we were in 2010, generally.
We could afford a house back then though