Were the 2010s a blur? - (putting the "zoom" in "zoomer")

[ToroidalBoat]

I've mentioned it before, but it seems like the 2010s were a blur to me. Events and trends of the early 2010s still seem recent - like that 3D TV craze or this site changing from "CWCki Forums" to "Kiwi Farms". The 2010s felt like maybe 3 years at most.

* 2010 - 2012: the year of Occupy and "the end of the world" because Rapture and something Nibiru 2012.

* 2012 - 2016: the year of GamerGate - as well as rising woke, social media, and smartphone cultures.

* 2016 - 2019: the year of Clown World and Orange Man Bad.

And I think there are many - if not most - who think the 2010s zoomed by.

Were the 2010s a blur to you? Why do you think they were a blur if they were?

 

[oldTireWater]

It's part of getting older. Subjective time really does start to speed up.

 

[Some Badger]

History happens in slow motion; only time will tell if the twenty-teens were a blur or not. While I agree with @oldTireWater that the feeling of the last decade feeling like a blur simply comes from age, if there was a definitive blur that society collectively felt looking back, the commercialization and widespread adoption of the internet by businesses and news outlets most definitely contributed to it.

The oversaturation of both information and misinformation coupled with social media centralizing user congregation kinda killed everyone's attention spans, so things like Kony 2012, Occupy, GamerGate, GameStonk (not a 2010s phenomenon but you get the idea) and the like were all flashes in the pan that couldn't keep the attention of most people unless they were autistically invested in the phenomenon long after it ceased from relevance, usually a month at best. The reason you might think the last decade feels like a blur is because a lot of stuff was happening and being documented at the same time, on the same 2-3 media platforms.

Frankly, social media in general felt like a slog to scroll through after Trump got elected and it lasted throughout his entire presidency (and still lasts to this day thanks to covid). The 2016 election broke a lot of people, and a lot of those people happened to be terminally online and will never shut up about the Orange Man until the end of time. 2014 was probably the last year I really enjoyed going online tbh

 

[Sithis]

More a haze for me. Drugs are bad, kids.

 

[Solar Eclipse Paradox]

Every event that ever happened in the 2010s seems to be a distant memory within months especially when the year ends. There's hardly really anything that memorable or worth wanting to remember that happened in the decade giving the impression that it has gone by so fast. The only thing you really knew that was happening that decade was everything progressively getting worse.

 

[Cabelaz]

Yeah it was fucking uncanny. Everything post 2014 felt like a autistic sprint to the finish, while the 2000's felt like a slow burn.

 

[Finder]

It's just what happens when you get older. The 90s feels like yesterday for those of us who can remember them clearly, the 2010s were nothing special in this regard imo.

I do think the internet and everything on demand may make time seem like it's going quicker even for younger people though. I mean what do you have to wait for now? There's no delayed gratification anymore.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Yeah it was fucking uncanny. Everything post 2014 felt like a autistic sprint to the finish, while the 2000's felt like a slow burn.

Agreed, starting around 2014 and especially 2016 it seems like time started moving by absurdly fast, I can't fucking believe 2014 was as long ago as it was already.

 

[The Last Stand]

I don't recall much from the early '10s until Trump. It all blurred together as "normal." Then when Trump came in, "normal" wasn't a thing anymore.

 

[draggs]

Well, yeah most of the 10s are a blur. Same with all of the 00s. Drugs do that.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I don't recall much from the early '10s until Trump. It all blurred together as "normal." Then when Trump came in, "normal" wasn't a thing anymore.

Normality was already starting to take a holiday before Trump came along though, I remember people started getting weird in 2014, but 2014 and 2015 were downright normal compared to 2016 and beyond.

 

[L50LasPak]

The early portions of the decade when I got out of high school and left for college all full of hope and bravado not so much. 2016 onward that I spent in a nearly perpetual drunken/hung over stupor? Yeah, more or less.

 

[Lurkio]

Yeah it was fucking uncanny. Everything post 2014 felt like a autistic sprint to the finish, while the 2000's felt like a slow burn.

Honestly, while I think it's part of due to just getting older, I also think this is part of too.

The late 2000's/ early 2010's saw the end of the "Wild West" era of the Internet, and whether you think that was for better or for worse, it was something to watch unfold. But after that, everything just gradually...slowed down. Nothing really happened under Obama after his first 2-3 years in office, and Trump was either cock-blocked from every sweeping change he tried to make or just ended up giving up and complaining on Twitter. I think "complaining" is probably the best word to describe the middle-latter half of the decade, because boy do I remember a lot of complaining going on post 2013/2014, but nothing really changed because of it. It was all talk and no action, and that doesn't exactly kick-start huge events that'd leave anything memorable...outside of the 2016 election of course.

Also, I swear every content creator got lazy in the second half of the decade. I noticed all the franchises and major content creator's I used to love just...slowed the hell down on making stuff around 2013/2014 for some reason, and the ones that didn't just sort of...went to shit. Part of me thinks it due to things like social media, lets plays, and streaming, which I believe many content creators (particularly Internet ones) put too much time into because it's quick and easy money, but it's content that doesn't really stick with people (basically popcorn entertainment). The other part I think is due to society, as a whole, has just become...less encouraging of creativity. You can't do anything risky or edgy without someone getting pissed off and trying to rake you over the coals for it, and anyone who tries to toe the line to a "T" to not piss people off ends up making something so bland and uninspired it ends up flopping. There's a bit more to it then that, but that's the long and short of it from the entertainment end.

It's kinda hard to put into words, but the best way to describe it I guess was that the early 2010's was the end of a cultural renaissance with the Internet and the rest of the decade was everyone just pandering around in a particularly dull-ass status quo.

 

[Juan's Sombrero]

Not really? I mean, I can remember a lot of things back in the 2010s pretty vividly. Granted, none of the bullshit we're dealing with these days was ever prominent or even mainstream. Then again, I'm starting to see trends changing.

If any of you guys ever thought that history started around 2016, I don't even know what to tell you. Plenty of idiots seem to think that the past never happened or that Donald Trump hijacked it. Imagine, a single guy triggered an entire generation into becoming idiots on all sides. I don't know whether to lament or admire that.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

It's part of getting older. Subjective time really does start to speed up.

Like others said, I think it's age "time acceleration", but there's also the tech over-saturation and Current Year crazy, it can seem faster to even people not old enough to remember the pre-9/11 world.

 

[Serbian Peacekeepers]

I think its because we have yet to really look back on the 2010s , im sure someone during the 90s felt the same way during the 90s as we do now.

 

[Maurice Caine]

I've mentioned it before, but it seems like the 2010s were a blur to me. Events and trends of the early 2010s still seem recent - like that 3D TV craze or this site changing from "CWCki Forums" to "Kiwi Farms". The 2010s felt like maybe 3 years at most.

* 2010 - 2012: the year of Occupy and "the end of the world" because Rapture and something Nibiru 2012.

* 2012 - 2016: the year of GamerGate - as well as rising woke, social media, and smartphone cultures.

* 2016 - 2019: the year of Clown World and Orange Man Bad.

And I think there are many - if not most - who think the 2010s zoomed by.

Were the 2010s a blur to you? Why do you think they were a blur if they were?

Why do people define it solely by these events? It was so much more that I think I'd have to pause a little to make my own little retrospective. Now, answering the thread's question, no.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Why do people define it solely by these events?

they were big on the internets

 

[Lemmingwise]

3 reasons, some repeated.

1. As you get older, you deteriorate. Every experience becomes less impactful.

2. We ignore / forget the times when it looks history might go a different direction. A lot of events like islamic terrorism are suddenly null events in the face of medical dictatorship / pandemic.

3. Smart phones destroyed people's attentionspan even further than the TV did.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

The GameStop incident and the 14 BLC fire seem like they happened about couple of years ago.

But they happened over half a dozen years ago.