this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Decadeology
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The 2000s as a whole was a decade of transition into the 2010s, by the end of the decade we left behind most of the 80s-90s things.
There were definitely lots of 90s leftovers up until the mid 2000s.
Web 2.0 became mainstream in the mid 2000s, by the time YouTube appeared as well as broadband becoming more accessible. Although some Web 1.0 content lingered until the end of the decade.
That's because we've undergone drastic cultural and technological changes in the 2000s. It was the transition to the digital era the way we know it today. The birth of social medias, the death of VHS and Blockbuster, online gaming becoming mainstream. The way we connected with people changed in the 2000s. We've also started to became more aware of social differences and accepting as a result. The were massive political changes across the globe.
The 90s took their sweet time to disappear because it was the last decade before the massive changes the 2000s brought.
While this makes sense, how does it explain why there’s a sense that the debates prior to the 90s rolled over more discretely? Why would it seem like the 90s lingered more?
Your answer implies that a relative acceleration occurred in the mid 2000s and it’s the contrast around that acceleration that creates the perception. If true, we’re there other periods of relative acceleration or deceleration?
Perhaps I might be wrong or this is just how I'm interpreting it through my own experience but I noticed almost a "struggle" for some people to let go of what they were so used to back then as the 2000s made their way in. Almost finding it difficult to adapt to the inevitable changes to come.
Economically, many countries in the Eurosphere faced the challenge of having to adapt to a new currency which took a few years to fully settle in. Not only that but the difference in the entire economy due to this change have forced people to adapt faster than they could mentally and financially keep up, that alongside everything else that was going on at the time.
Naturally, people would tend to hold on to whatever was left to keep from the times prior, as a safety blanket. The ones that didn't fully embrace the changes held on dearly to whatever was left from the 90s. The things they could actually manage to retain despite the rest of the other inevitable changes which no one had any control over.
Within time, eventually people did manage to embrace most, if not all the changes made in the early and mid 2000s and fully let go of all the 90s left overs.
I remember around 2007-ish, I posted on my personal webpage (static HTML) that I had a (landline) phone to sell for a couple bucks. Within the afternoon, I had an email from someone asking when they could come pick it up. I think we might have been some of the last 2 people to do a transaction that way haha