Meanwhile, it turns out that being in a real decade now with a readily comprehensible name brings new responsibilities. People were never comfortable saying "the tens," " the teens" or, god forbid, "the aughts" with any sort of conviction so instead we've spent the past twenty years floating in a vast directionless cultural drift. What was the defining aesthetic of The Aughts? We were never told.
On the one hand, this probably means we've spent the past two decades living more honestly. Marketing departments were never able to sell anyone on the concept of an Aughts or Teens, therefore nobody knows what was the dominant style they were supposed to consume. On the other hand, it has also felt a bit like being stuck in a vortex where our perception of the passage of time is flattened... perhaps into a circle, if you like. For example, see here.
The Wonder Years aired from 1988 and 1993 and depicted the years between 1968 and 1973. When I watched the show, it felt like it was set in a time long ago. If a new Wonder Years premiered today, it would cover the years between 2000 and 2005.Anyway since we're about to get back in the mode of pretending there's some sort of unifying spirit to the arbitrarily defined age we're all living our otherwise disparate and isolated lives through, this also means we're going to have to ret-con themes onto the preceding period as well. Luckily we already have Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine theory so we don't have to work very hard at it. The disasters of the 2000s, the big endless war, the financial crisis, Hurricane Katrina, Avatar, etc. led directly to the broken infrastructure, inequality, privatization, gentrification and cultural destruction that have characterized the 2010s in, well, in many places, but certainly in New Orleans.
So, you know, welcome to the 21st Century. We're finally here. The first thing we'll have to do in the Twenties is figure out whether or not we can survive it.
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