i have a very silly poll for you all
statement: the 2020s basically started in like 2017 or 2018
agree
disagree
reasons for:
there's a very tangible difference between early-mid 2010s and late 2010s
there was a 2017-2022 period of greater international political awareness, protests, and social change
while dividing media eras by decade usually works unreasonably well, it doesn't seem to for the year 2020
eg the era of streaming dominance started in like 2016-2017 and that change in medium has continued to dominate the media landscape for tv shows and movies
similarly the nintendo switch had a big impact on the video game landscape as of 2017
reasons against:
pre-covid and post-covid is a pretty significant milestone
decades are usually ten years long
alternative responses to the same reasons for:
maybe come up with a name for the 2020s plus the last few years of the 2010s? idk what that'd be though
ignore it, who cares
covid hitting a numerical decade line really hamstrings things. but you're right, i feel like 2015 internet had more in common with 2005 internet than 2020 internet. some era name might fit better. i think the core shifts were in how we use social media, access news and information, and connect with non-local people. something like "websurfing era" vs "doomscrolling era" though personally i am not a huge fan of the term doomscrolling in most contexts
hmm, yeah those factors definitely do make it clear that it's very useful to delineate early vs late 2010s in cultural and media analysis, definitely reassures me that im not just reading into things
i've been thinking about this since i made the poll, and i think the problem is: most decades are pretty coherent as a group of years, including the 2000s and 2020s, but less so the 2010s, which gets overshadowed by cultural / political (peak of metoo and blm, post-gamergate, post-trump, social media relevance on politics, lots of stuff internationally) and technological (streaming era, handheld home consoles) shifts in its latter half
so you get: 2000s, 2010s part 1 (which arguably ends in 2016 or 2017), 2010s part 2 (which arguably ends in 2022 or 2023), and the 2020s
leaving three questions:
what should the weird period be called?
when does the shift occur (should be clear for a specific usecase, i'll go with 2017 here)?
should it be bundled into the 2010s (2010-202x, 202x-2029), the 2020s (2010-201x, 201x-2029), or cut out of both (2010-201x, 201x-202x, 202x-2029)?
i think the answer to each of those questions depends on the usecase, unfortunately it's too useful (and linguistically easy) to have the 2020s in their entirety to make a universal claim D:
