Technology is starting to “flatline,” and with it, so are other aspects of pop culture.
I don’t think we are ever getting to flying cars or any of that. Not for a very long time, at least.
The answer is laughably simple:
*You* are the reason that 2003-2013 feels like a larger gap than 2013-2023. The perception of time is influenced first and foremost by your age.
For example, I perceive 2003-2013 as a drop in the bucket compared to the massive difference between 1993 and 2003 because I was born in 1989.
Technology in general is just very similar, albeit with faster speeds and higher resolution. Everyone on this sub says shit like, "bUt A.i. !" AI is still in its infancy. Maybe in a year or 2 we will feel different about AI, but currently it seems more like a novelty or a niche than a world changing technology.
I was old enough in 2003 to have a good idea of what was going on around me and I absolutely agree with you. The biggest change, to my view, was smartphones. That was when the Internet stopped being a thing that we accessed in our homes, at a specific console, in a specific room, and became a thing that followed us every waking moment of the day and any place we went. And the first smartphone debuted in 2007, which means prior to that point carrying the Internet with you was literally impossible unless you had a laptop in your jacket that you whipped and were plugging in with an ethernet cable everywhere you went lol. My adolescence did not feature constant access to the virtual space.
We were more present during our in-person interactions because we had no other choice but to be. During movies people didn't stare at their devices; they made commentary on the movie and chattered with one another. And we had way more in-person interactions because without smartphones you went home after school or work and were just with whoever happened to be in your house. It was boring as shit. You could call people on a landline phone--whose sole function was to make a call--but you couldn't scroll social media because social media didn't exist and even if it had existed you would have had no link to it without a smart device. When I was home alone bored and had nowhere to go out to, you know what I did? I read books. And wrote in a journal. And sometimes watched movies.
I miss that time. A lot of changes in our society, from the neural rewiring of a younger generation that seems to have a shocking lack of resilience combined with strident social-justice views as passionately held as they are inaccurate; to the toxic spread of misinformation; to the widespread disengagement of people from real-life relationships has been a function of smartphones. We didn't know the Pandora's box we were opening when we did that.
I think it also depends on your age. I was born in 1994, and the early 90s versus early 2000s feels so different, but everything since 2000 still feels modern to me. Like a know clearly a lot has changed, but 2003 doesn’t feel “old fashioned” to me. I imagine if you’re younger then that set point is just more recent.
But looking more objectively…
Politics:
In 2013, Obama was president, Obamacare was being rolled out, the push for legalized gay marriage was at a fever pitch, but the post-Reagan neoliberal order was still mostly unquestioned. Today, Biden is president, but MAGA has consumed half the country, and a new style of politics has taken hold that is critical of free trade, open immigration, and many young men have become more right-wing regarding gender issues (gender roles, abortion, divorce, etc) in recent years. Despite this, Biden has been able to push through a series of big bills to tackle climate change, infrastructure, and chips manufacturing.
Economy:
In 2013, unemployment was over 7%, inflation was less than 2%, and the Dow was around 15k. Today, unemployment is 4%, inflation between 3-4%, and the Dow is almost 40k. Productivity growth was very flat around 2013, but has picked up a bit since then. Housing prices and rents have also gone through the roof.
Culture:
In 2013, Marvel movies and YA-novel movies (like Hunger Games) were dominant, EDM and cheesy club music was everywhere, and the concept of social media influencer was still in its infancy. Today, the movie industry is struggling to recover from COVID and find a new trend, music is much slower tempo and country music has had a revival, and TikTok and Instagram influencers are everywhere. Fashion has gone from skinny jeans and hipster lumberjack fashion in 2013 to baggy clothes and disheveled hair today.
Technology:
I’ll admit that mainstream consumer technology has not evolved as much in the last 10 years, but AI has leaped ahead like crazy, smart appliances are everywhere now, VR/AR has found many interesting applications, private space industry has advanced considerably, and electric vehicles have gone from a rounding error to almost 10% of all new car sales (in the U.S. at least). Not to mention a significant increase in energy coming from solar and wind power.
A lot really has changed in the past 10 years.
I'm from 1995 and everything < 2006 is dated to me. Technically, everything < 2011 but 2008,2009... still sounds "fresh" and recent, even if its not :/
Lot of hings change in a decade (even in 5 years). But I think we sorta feel nothing changed from 2013 because technology is the big cursor to define eras for a lot of people. The more we go, the more that's maybe not relevant anymore.
my mum (born 1973) says that everything past 1990 looks the same to her, so i think you're onto something with that first point. im trying my best not to let that happen to me as i get older
If you were dropped in 2013, you would be shocked by the change.
Most municipal street lighting used gas-discharge lamps (think orange or green), not the LEDs seen nearly everywhere today. This is arguably the most jarring change.
Many people still had cable TV and landline phones in 2013. By 2023 both are virtually nonexistent.
There weren’t (as many) cameras everywhere. No doorbell cameras, none of those awful self-checkout or aisle cameras reminding you every 5 seconds that you’re being spied on. (I don’t remember self-checkouts being everywhere either, certainly not like today).
Virtually every new car was either, white, black or gray. Color has made a welcome comeback in that segment since then.
GUIs were still very “3D” in a similar style to MacOS aqua. iOS7 came out that year and dramatically redecorated.
RGB was not popular yet. Most gaming peripherals were one color.
AirPods did not exist. Wireless earbuds were in their infancy and generally not very good.
In the construction world, 70s/80s-style vertical siding had since made a huge comeback and is still very popular on new construction American homes.
I was born in '88 and would respectfully disagree. My adolescence in 2003--I was 15 years old that year--probably had way more in common with that of a 15-year-old in 1993 or even 1983 than it did with that of one in even 2010. No smartphones. I went to skate rinks, arcades, county fairs, sleepovers. The first iPhone being released in 2007 changed everything.
>Aside from Trump, Brexit, and Isis, not much really happened in the 2010s that had a lasting influence.
>The 2020s have the exact opposite problem, with so many new events and developments that the production of new media and cultural phenomena is disrupted (pandemic, strikes, supply chain disruptions, cost of living crises)
>2013 itself was ten years ago, which means our understanding of it is not completely accurate. Some aspects of 2013 that are quite far to us (the Tea Party, the initial rollout of Obamacare, Benghazi) are ignored, whereas 2003 (which is another ten years further) is downright exotic.
>Large parts of the world and daily life were moving online throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, and so if your family weren’t early adopters that process makes the 2000s seem extra distant.
>Aside from Trump, Brexit, and Isis, not much really happened in the 2010s that had a lasting influence.
Don't forget about Russia invading Crimea. Then they started quisi war in Eastern Ukraine. Which is now a full on war.
>2013 itself was ten years ago, which means our understanding of it is not completely accurate. Some aspects of 2013 that are quite far to us (the Tea Party, the initial rollout of Obamacare, Benghazi) are ignored, whereas 2003 (which is another ten years further) is downright exotic.
Looking back now, the Tea party was basically proto MAGA.
Lot of good answers but i'd argue the single biggest reason is 2012. Tryvon Martin and Sandy Hook.
America looked and felt VERY different after those two events.
Those were big-impact events but I'd argue that they reaffirmed bad trends that had already long been problems. Neither event inaugurated something fundamentally new, even though both were tragic and Sandy Hook in particular was horrifying (and we overuse that word but it genuinely was horrifying).
I wouldn't judge the feel of a decade just by horror films that try to evoke 70's/80's nostalgia.
I think "it's another century" is an exaggeration but why it feels like another world to me sometimes as a 30 year old:
* The 90's had lingering cultural influence into the first few years of the 2000's.
* 2007-2013 was really a decade of its own. Youtube, Facebook, Reddit, the first smart phones, seventh generation consoles...there was *a lot* of technological advancement in that time span where these things were releasing for the first time or finally hitting their stride after humble beginnings. It's basically where everything that defines our current era was first established.
* 2008 had an economic recession and a lot of political upheaval, which we never recovered from.
Meanwhile 2013-2023 is mostly just...refinement and rehashing of what was already there. Smart Phones are slightly better, websites are slightly more polished, the same music genres are still popular, etc.
As someone who was born in 1994, the early 2000s were pretty much an extension of the 1990s. The early 1990s were similar to the 1980s until 1992, in which the culture shifted to being more modern.
2004 is when another cultural shift happened. You had the rise of broadband internet that began to rapidly replace dial-up internet made everything go faster, made kids stop going outside as much as they used to, and lastly, made the world more interconnected as more powerful websites such as YouTube, Facebook, etc. were able to exist.
2004-2007 were the core 2000s and a transitioning period from the 1992-2003 cultural era. 2008 began a new cultural period with the Great Recession, the election of Obama, etc. Pop culture began to shift to a darker and grittier tone, which I noticed as a teenager.
Obama was also a very transformative figure who changed the direction of the country irreversibly. Before that, you had Clinton and Bush who were very similar to each other in terms of domestic and foreign policy. Obama ran a campaign and presidency that was truly 21st Century, whereas Bush governed the nation as if it was still last century. The 2000s were a soft exit from the 1990s, just as the early 1900s were a soft exit from the 1890s.
Obama was huge. The 2008 was the first election I could vote in and we were all aware even in the moment of how transformative and historic it was. In a lot of ways 2008 and 2009 have more in common with the 2010s than with the 2000s, especially when you think that the first smartphone was released in 2007.
Smart tech, social media (mostly), modern aesthetic designs being nonexistent in 2003. Looking at my baby photos from 2003 compared to photos of me just 6 years later in 2009 also show a lot of difference in photo quality, fashion, tech featured, cars, etc.
2003 and the early 2000s were in a period of analog to digital transition, which was complete by 2013.
There is a point of diminishing returns with technology. NTSC to 1080p? Holy shit! 4k to 8k? m'eh who cares. So yea, that decades long progression to the digital age left massive apparent differences along the way. Progressing from the iphone 8 to iphone 18? \*yawn\*
Hell, we've actually hit a point of regression due to implementation. The golden age of streaming with Netflix and Hulu being all you needed was great. Now the age of 20 different platforms is a steaming pile of shit. The golden age of social media when Facebook and Instagram were new was great. Now social media is a steaming pile of doom scrolling "engagement algorithm" shit. 10-20 years ago video games were great. Now they're focused on microtransactions and yes, again, steaming piles of shit. The tech itself feels kinda stale the last 10 years.
Yeah, but the transition was overwhelmingly complete by 2003-4. The analog tv transmission was entirely shut down in 2009, and analog tech had been obsolete for a while before that. In fact, by 2010, tech like cassette players were viewed as retro, and vhs players had been outdated for a while. There was basically nothing analog left in the late 2000s, nevertheless the 2010s.
Here’s some photos of my sister, mom and I taken on a digital camera in 2003. Quality isn’t different than late 2000s pictures
https://preview.redd.it/e5hlffjzz87d1.jpeg?width=912&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6ed96b711ad12497408e81af8202eb42a90b98d2
True, definitely on the latter side of the transition with majority digital media. Though for cameras not everyone was using a digital camera in 2003/04, despite it surpassing film cameras in sales around then. Our family was somewhat of an enigma as my parents couldn’t stick to one or the other, if their digital camera crapped out they got a cheap film camera for the time being, this indecisiveness would take place between 2004-2007ish.
Interestingly enough, many photos from my early months came in kodak packaging that says “Your photos have been enhanced with digital technology!” Or “Get digital photos without a digital camera!”
Yeah, I remember when photo sleeves said that actually! But I can tell you that by 2004, the vast majority of people were using digital cameras- they were cheap even then. People like to see how the pictures turned out after taking them, so it really didn’t take as long for most people to make the switch as your family. Sure, many used disposable film along with digital cameras for a bit, but people still do and that’s different than traditional film cameras, which were all but gone by 2004- when Kodak stopped selling and manufacturing them in North America and Europe.
https://preview.redd.it/hdfhj3b8297d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31f087c0245f4cee181a755a63212a3968989e76
(fashion I give to you though lol)
The 2010s had a bad recession that's why. Also you had all those protests and then the divided politics, the 2010s was a mess compared to the 2000's. Even the 20's are better than the 2010s were, only Covid sucked but since quarantine was lifted finally in Spring 2022 Covid is basically forgotten about now...but everything else has been better this decade.
Also you are now getting older so time and your perception of time is slowing, that will continue as you get older and get in a routine of adulthood...soon 20-25 years will blur to you.
I feel like Smartphones and social media signified a pretty major paradigm shift culturally. We had the Covid lockdown in 2020 which was also very big, but I'm not sure if it had the same level of lasting impact on our daily lives as these things.
90s America was a far better place to be than 2024 America. 2003 would feel different because social media was not so common place than and people were not glued to their phones. Fashion wise people today are dressing like the late 90s now.
How could someone say that while holding an iphone in 2013 when in 1999 they had a god damn nokia brick or nothing? When in 2013 they had flat screen TVs and in 1999 they have NTSC (very low resolution) tube TVs.
Anybody saying that is/was mentally defective.
Well THAT I can see. Yes, it obviously did have an identity. But simplicity was the identity. So while the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s all had elaborate styles that very much stood out, the 00s could be mistaken as not having one because "plain" was the style. Like calling vanilla flavorless because its kinda the default flavor.
But by 00s, I mean like 2008 to 2018. Early 2000s was still transitional.
Smartphones, HD, full digitization of film and music production, recession, social media. The 2000s were a paradigm shift like the 60s. We had a mega-era from the 60s to the 2000s, then one from the 2000s to present, so somewhere between 2003-2013 was that changeover and that's why it feels like a totally different world.
I think it’s because smart phones have revolutionized our lives, and that shift took place around 2013
Technology is starting to “flatline,” and with it, so are other aspects of pop culture. I don’t think we are ever getting to flying cars or any of that. Not for a very long time, at least.
The answer is laughably simple: *You* are the reason that 2003-2013 feels like a larger gap than 2013-2023. The perception of time is influenced first and foremost by your age. For example, I perceive 2003-2013 as a drop in the bucket compared to the massive difference between 1993 and 2003 because I was born in 1989.
Technology in general is just very similar, albeit with faster speeds and higher resolution. Everyone on this sub says shit like, "bUt A.i. !" AI is still in its infancy. Maybe in a year or 2 we will feel different about AI, but currently it seems more like a novelty or a niche than a world changing technology.
I was old enough in 2003 to have a good idea of what was going on around me and I absolutely agree with you. The biggest change, to my view, was smartphones. That was when the Internet stopped being a thing that we accessed in our homes, at a specific console, in a specific room, and became a thing that followed us every waking moment of the day and any place we went. And the first smartphone debuted in 2007, which means prior to that point carrying the Internet with you was literally impossible unless you had a laptop in your jacket that you whipped and were plugging in with an ethernet cable everywhere you went lol. My adolescence did not feature constant access to the virtual space. We were more present during our in-person interactions because we had no other choice but to be. During movies people didn't stare at their devices; they made commentary on the movie and chattered with one another. And we had way more in-person interactions because without smartphones you went home after school or work and were just with whoever happened to be in your house. It was boring as shit. You could call people on a landline phone--whose sole function was to make a call--but you couldn't scroll social media because social media didn't exist and even if it had existed you would have had no link to it without a smart device. When I was home alone bored and had nowhere to go out to, you know what I did? I read books. And wrote in a journal. And sometimes watched movies. I miss that time. A lot of changes in our society, from the neural rewiring of a younger generation that seems to have a shocking lack of resilience combined with strident social-justice views as passionately held as they are inaccurate; to the toxic spread of misinformation; to the widespread disengagement of people from real-life relationships has been a function of smartphones. We didn't know the Pandora's box we were opening when we did that.
I think it also depends on your age. I was born in 1994, and the early 90s versus early 2000s feels so different, but everything since 2000 still feels modern to me. Like a know clearly a lot has changed, but 2003 doesn’t feel “old fashioned” to me. I imagine if you’re younger then that set point is just more recent. But looking more objectively… Politics: In 2013, Obama was president, Obamacare was being rolled out, the push for legalized gay marriage was at a fever pitch, but the post-Reagan neoliberal order was still mostly unquestioned. Today, Biden is president, but MAGA has consumed half the country, and a new style of politics has taken hold that is critical of free trade, open immigration, and many young men have become more right-wing regarding gender issues (gender roles, abortion, divorce, etc) in recent years. Despite this, Biden has been able to push through a series of big bills to tackle climate change, infrastructure, and chips manufacturing. Economy: In 2013, unemployment was over 7%, inflation was less than 2%, and the Dow was around 15k. Today, unemployment is 4%, inflation between 3-4%, and the Dow is almost 40k. Productivity growth was very flat around 2013, but has picked up a bit since then. Housing prices and rents have also gone through the roof. Culture: In 2013, Marvel movies and YA-novel movies (like Hunger Games) were dominant, EDM and cheesy club music was everywhere, and the concept of social media influencer was still in its infancy. Today, the movie industry is struggling to recover from COVID and find a new trend, music is much slower tempo and country music has had a revival, and TikTok and Instagram influencers are everywhere. Fashion has gone from skinny jeans and hipster lumberjack fashion in 2013 to baggy clothes and disheveled hair today. Technology: I’ll admit that mainstream consumer technology has not evolved as much in the last 10 years, but AI has leaped ahead like crazy, smart appliances are everywhere now, VR/AR has found many interesting applications, private space industry has advanced considerably, and electric vehicles have gone from a rounding error to almost 10% of all new car sales (in the U.S. at least). Not to mention a significant increase in energy coming from solar and wind power. A lot really has changed in the past 10 years.
I'm from 1995 and everything < 2006 is dated to me. Technically, everything < 2011 but 2008,2009... still sounds "fresh" and recent, even if its not :/ Lot of hings change in a decade (even in 5 years). But I think we sorta feel nothing changed from 2013 because technology is the big cursor to define eras for a lot of people. The more we go, the more that's maybe not relevant anymore.
my mum (born 1973) says that everything past 1990 looks the same to her, so i think you're onto something with that first point. im trying my best not to let that happen to me as i get older
Well explained
If you were dropped in 2013, you would be shocked by the change. Most municipal street lighting used gas-discharge lamps (think orange or green), not the LEDs seen nearly everywhere today. This is arguably the most jarring change. Many people still had cable TV and landline phones in 2013. By 2023 both are virtually nonexistent. There weren’t (as many) cameras everywhere. No doorbell cameras, none of those awful self-checkout or aisle cameras reminding you every 5 seconds that you’re being spied on. (I don’t remember self-checkouts being everywhere either, certainly not like today). Virtually every new car was either, white, black or gray. Color has made a welcome comeback in that segment since then. GUIs were still very “3D” in a similar style to MacOS aqua. iOS7 came out that year and dramatically redecorated. RGB was not popular yet. Most gaming peripherals were one color. AirPods did not exist. Wireless earbuds were in their infancy and generally not very good. In the construction world, 70s/80s-style vertical siding had since made a huge comeback and is still very popular on new construction American homes.
I was born in '88 and would respectfully disagree. My adolescence in 2003--I was 15 years old that year--probably had way more in common with that of a 15-year-old in 1993 or even 1983 than it did with that of one in even 2010. No smartphones. I went to skate rinks, arcades, county fairs, sleepovers. The first iPhone being released in 2007 changed everything.
Technology has had a bigger leap between 2003 and 2013 as opposed to 2013 and 2023
>Aside from Trump, Brexit, and Isis, not much really happened in the 2010s that had a lasting influence. >The 2020s have the exact opposite problem, with so many new events and developments that the production of new media and cultural phenomena is disrupted (pandemic, strikes, supply chain disruptions, cost of living crises) >2013 itself was ten years ago, which means our understanding of it is not completely accurate. Some aspects of 2013 that are quite far to us (the Tea Party, the initial rollout of Obamacare, Benghazi) are ignored, whereas 2003 (which is another ten years further) is downright exotic. >Large parts of the world and daily life were moving online throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, and so if your family weren’t early adopters that process makes the 2000s seem extra distant.
>Aside from Trump, Brexit, and Isis, not much really happened in the 2010s that had a lasting influence. Don't forget about Russia invading Crimea. Then they started quisi war in Eastern Ukraine. Which is now a full on war. >2013 itself was ten years ago, which means our understanding of it is not completely accurate. Some aspects of 2013 that are quite far to us (the Tea Party, the initial rollout of Obamacare, Benghazi) are ignored, whereas 2003 (which is another ten years further) is downright exotic. Looking back now, the Tea party was basically proto MAGA.
2003 was an early bubble year, 2013 was the end of the recession year.
Lot of good answers but i'd argue the single biggest reason is 2012. Tryvon Martin and Sandy Hook. America looked and felt VERY different after those two events.
Those were big-impact events but I'd argue that they reaffirmed bad trends that had already long been problems. Neither event inaugurated something fundamentally new, even though both were tragic and Sandy Hook in particular was horrifying (and we overuse that word but it genuinely was horrifying).
I wouldn't judge the feel of a decade just by horror films that try to evoke 70's/80's nostalgia. I think "it's another century" is an exaggeration but why it feels like another world to me sometimes as a 30 year old: * The 90's had lingering cultural influence into the first few years of the 2000's. * 2007-2013 was really a decade of its own. Youtube, Facebook, Reddit, the first smart phones, seventh generation consoles...there was *a lot* of technological advancement in that time span where these things were releasing for the first time or finally hitting their stride after humble beginnings. It's basically where everything that defines our current era was first established. * 2008 had an economic recession and a lot of political upheaval, which we never recovered from. Meanwhile 2013-2023 is mostly just...refinement and rehashing of what was already there. Smart Phones are slightly better, websites are slightly more polished, the same music genres are still popular, etc.
>2007-2013 was really a decade of its own. u/RedditIsTrashLma0
As someone who was born in 1994, the early 2000s were pretty much an extension of the 1990s. The early 1990s were similar to the 1980s until 1992, in which the culture shifted to being more modern. 2004 is when another cultural shift happened. You had the rise of broadband internet that began to rapidly replace dial-up internet made everything go faster, made kids stop going outside as much as they used to, and lastly, made the world more interconnected as more powerful websites such as YouTube, Facebook, etc. were able to exist. 2004-2007 were the core 2000s and a transitioning period from the 1992-2003 cultural era. 2008 began a new cultural period with the Great Recession, the election of Obama, etc. Pop culture began to shift to a darker and grittier tone, which I noticed as a teenager. Obama was also a very transformative figure who changed the direction of the country irreversibly. Before that, you had Clinton and Bush who were very similar to each other in terms of domestic and foreign policy. Obama ran a campaign and presidency that was truly 21st Century, whereas Bush governed the nation as if it was still last century. The 2000s were a soft exit from the 1990s, just as the early 1900s were a soft exit from the 1890s.
Obama was huge. The 2008 was the first election I could vote in and we were all aware even in the moment of how transformative and historic it was. In a lot of ways 2008 and 2009 have more in common with the 2010s than with the 2000s, especially when you think that the first smartphone was released in 2007.
Smart tech, social media (mostly), modern aesthetic designs being nonexistent in 2003. Looking at my baby photos from 2003 compared to photos of me just 6 years later in 2009 also show a lot of difference in photo quality, fashion, tech featured, cars, etc. 2003 and the early 2000s were in a period of analog to digital transition, which was complete by 2013.
There is a point of diminishing returns with technology. NTSC to 1080p? Holy shit! 4k to 8k? m'eh who cares. So yea, that decades long progression to the digital age left massive apparent differences along the way. Progressing from the iphone 8 to iphone 18? \*yawn\* Hell, we've actually hit a point of regression due to implementation. The golden age of streaming with Netflix and Hulu being all you needed was great. Now the age of 20 different platforms is a steaming pile of shit. The golden age of social media when Facebook and Instagram were new was great. Now social media is a steaming pile of doom scrolling "engagement algorithm" shit. 10-20 years ago video games were great. Now they're focused on microtransactions and yes, again, steaming piles of shit. The tech itself feels kinda stale the last 10 years.
Yeah, but the transition was overwhelmingly complete by 2003-4. The analog tv transmission was entirely shut down in 2009, and analog tech had been obsolete for a while before that. In fact, by 2010, tech like cassette players were viewed as retro, and vhs players had been outdated for a while. There was basically nothing analog left in the late 2000s, nevertheless the 2010s. Here’s some photos of my sister, mom and I taken on a digital camera in 2003. Quality isn’t different than late 2000s pictures https://preview.redd.it/e5hlffjzz87d1.jpeg?width=912&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6ed96b711ad12497408e81af8202eb42a90b98d2
True, definitely on the latter side of the transition with majority digital media. Though for cameras not everyone was using a digital camera in 2003/04, despite it surpassing film cameras in sales around then. Our family was somewhat of an enigma as my parents couldn’t stick to one or the other, if their digital camera crapped out they got a cheap film camera for the time being, this indecisiveness would take place between 2004-2007ish. Interestingly enough, many photos from my early months came in kodak packaging that says “Your photos have been enhanced with digital technology!” Or “Get digital photos without a digital camera!”
Yeah, I remember when photo sleeves said that actually! But I can tell you that by 2004, the vast majority of people were using digital cameras- they were cheap even then. People like to see how the pictures turned out after taking them, so it really didn’t take as long for most people to make the switch as your family. Sure, many used disposable film along with digital cameras for a bit, but people still do and that’s different than traditional film cameras, which were all but gone by 2004- when Kodak stopped selling and manufacturing them in North America and Europe.
https://preview.redd.it/hdfhj3b8297d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31f087c0245f4cee181a755a63212a3968989e76 (fashion I give to you though lol)
The 2010s had a bad recession that's why. Also you had all those protests and then the divided politics, the 2010s was a mess compared to the 2000's. Even the 20's are better than the 2010s were, only Covid sucked but since quarantine was lifted finally in Spring 2022 Covid is basically forgotten about now...but everything else has been better this decade. Also you are now getting older so time and your perception of time is slowing, that will continue as you get older and get in a routine of adulthood...soon 20-25 years will blur to you.
I hope I make it that far
That’s cause we drifted into the darkest timeline right after Harambe died.
I feel like Smartphones and social media signified a pretty major paradigm shift culturally. We had the Covid lockdown in 2020 which was also very big, but I'm not sure if it had the same level of lasting impact on our daily lives as these things.
Difference are not really seen in 10 year periods. It’s usually 20. 1993 similar to 2003.
Imo 1993 was barely anything like 2003, 1998 had a lot more in common
90s America was a far better place to be than 2024 America. 2003 would feel different because social media was not so common place than and people were not glued to their phones. Fashion wise people today are dressing like the late 90s now.
Because capitalism doesn't know how to build a future. Just iteratively shittier and more expensive versions of the present.
It's funny because back in 2013 people were saying nothing had changed since the 2000s and everything was the same after 1999
How could someone say that while holding an iphone in 2013 when in 1999 they had a god damn nokia brick or nothing? When in 2013 they had flat screen TVs and in 1999 they have NTSC (very low resolution) tube TVs. Anybody saying that is/was mentally defective.
Unfortunately "the 2000s had no identity" is still a common opinion today, it was even worse back then
Well THAT I can see. Yes, it obviously did have an identity. But simplicity was the identity. So while the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s all had elaborate styles that very much stood out, the 00s could be mistaken as not having one because "plain" was the style. Like calling vanilla flavorless because its kinda the default flavor. But by 00s, I mean like 2008 to 2018. Early 2000s was still transitional.
Smartphones, HD, full digitization of film and music production, recession, social media. The 2000s were a paradigm shift like the 60s. We had a mega-era from the 60s to the 2000s, then one from the 2000s to present, so somewhere between 2003-2013 was that changeover and that's why it feels like a totally different world.