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During the 90s, did people refer to present day trends as "[90s ___]"? People have started using "2000s" to describe the 2000-2010 decade. For example: "music

During the 90s, did people refer to present day trends as "[90s ___]"? People have started using "2000s" to describe the 2000-2010 decade. For example: "music of the 2000s" https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=music%20of%20the%202000s,music%20of%20the%2090s https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=music%20... But that only became necessary in the past few years, before that you could just call it "pop music" I think decades blur together enough that it takes a few years before people are comfortable generalizing them into a single term.

baldfat 9y ago
Absolutely and they were defined super quick. It meant plaid shirts and grunge pretty quickly. I think the 90s were easy since the 70s and 80s were so quirky. We haven't changed a lot in the past 27 years as much as 1977 to 1994. I blame it on the Internet and global shared experiences in media. Even the accents have died. Now I'm not complaining them Boston Accents were horrible!!!
jerf 9y ago
'During the 90s, did people refer to present day trends as "[90s ___]"?' Yes, although X-TREME!!! would have been considered an acceptable synonym, appropriately inflected.
deelowe 9y ago
yep. "The 90s" was used extensively during the period to refer to all sorts of things. We knew what 90s fashion was as it was occurring (hammer pants, fanny packs, extensive use of teal, hypercolor, etc...)
dwringer 9y ago
I think the problem stems also in part from that while the 1900's and 1910's may have been called the 'oughts and 19-tens or 19-teens, those terms aren't extremely common today and "twenty-teens" also sounds strange. "twenty-tens" sounds to me a little bit like you're referring to the year 2010 in plural since the year is in recent memory. I will be very much surprised if "20's" does not come to refer to the 2020's; even more so if "30's" doesn't make it.
nothis 9y ago
I have two theories. On the one hand, it seems like people tend to be hopelessly bored with the "last decade" (people only started giving a shit about the 90s like 5 years ago). On the other, I find decades to have become more and more boring since the 60s. The 60s invented so much (I'd argue youth/pop culture and the very "decade" category itself). The 70s had bellbottom pants and disco music (it's more of a pity-category that we even bother to name it). The 80s at least had MTV. The 90s... it's "my" decade, in a way, but I already struggle to even come up with stuff. It's like an off-brand 80s. The 2000s? Heck, did anything even happen in the 2000s? 9/11? MySpace? ...? It's hard to objectively judge stuff you're currently in but the 2010s look boring as fuck right now. Like, I couldn't come up with a single thing, culturally, the 2010s should be remembered for. Hipsters? They're just stealing everything cool from previous decades! I feel like one of the other posters here is right: Pop culture is becoming less and less homogeneous, it's just picking what you like from any source you like. It's remixes of remixes and weird niche stuff celebrated for 3 months before people move on to the next shit. 10 years might simply be way too long to stay consistent, nowadays, while the smaller changes are too subtle to matter as a "category".
- soulchild 9y ago
  In the 90s, Techno/Rave music became big, forever changing the music landscape. And of course the Internet started to go mainstream.
- dTal 9y ago
  > I couldn't come up with a single thing, culturally, the 2010s should be remembered for. Um... smartphones? And the massive cultural shifts that accompany that?
rabboRubble 9y ago
We absolutely did refer to the 90s as "the 90s" during the decade. A couple of anecdotes. I got my first corporate email account in the 90s. The 90s were also a boom decade the economy was blazing hot, radically different than the 80s, and we knew it. So with the new access to email and the blazing economies, we sent around listicle emails with the title of "You know it's the 90s when". Classic listicles include: - You eat standing up. - Your dining table is a flat filing surface.

baldfat 9y ago

Absolutely and they were defined super quick. It meant plaid shirts and grunge pretty quickly. I think the 90s were easy since the 70s and 80s were so quirky. We haven't changed a lot in the past 27 years as much as 1977 to 1994. I blame it on the Internet and global shared experiences in media. Even the accents have died. Now I'm not complaining them Boston Accents were horrible!!!

jerf 9y ago

'During the 90s, did people refer to present day trends as "[90s ___]"?' Yes, although X-TREME!!! would have been considered an acceptable synonym, appropriately inflected.

deelowe 9y ago

yep. "The 90s" was used extensively during the period to refer to all sorts of things. We knew what 90s fashion was as it was occurring (hammer pants, fanny packs, extensive use of teal, hypercolor, etc...)

dwringer 9y ago

I think the problem stems also in part from that while the 1900's and 1910's may have been called the 'oughts and 19-tens or 19-teens, those terms aren't extremely common today and "twenty-teens" also sounds strange. "twenty-tens" sounds to me a little bit like you're referring to the year 2010 in plural since the year is in recent memory. I will be very much surprised if "20's" does not come to refer to the 2020's; even more so if "30's" doesn't make it.

nothis 9y ago

I have two theories. On the one hand, it seems like people tend to be hopelessly bored with the "last decade" (people only started giving a shit about the 90s like 5 years ago). On the other, I find decades to have become more and more boring since the 60s. The 60s invented so much (I'd argue youth/pop culture and the very "decade" category itself). The 70s had bellbottom pants and disco music (it's more of a pity-category that we even bother to name it). The 80s at least had MTV. The 90s... it's "my" decade, in a way, but I already struggle to even come up with stuff. It's like an off-brand 80s. The 2000s? Heck, did anything even happen in the 2000s? 9/11? MySpace? ...? It's hard to objectively judge stuff you're currently in but the 2010s look boring as fuck right now. Like, I couldn't come up with a single thing, culturally, the 2010s should be remembered for. Hipsters? They're just stealing everything cool from previous decades! I feel like one of the other posters here is right: Pop culture is becoming less and less homogeneous, it's just picking what you like from any source you like. It's remixes of remixes and weird niche stuff celebrated for 3 months before people move on to the next shit. 10 years might simply be way too long to stay consistent, nowadays, while the smaller changes are too subtle to matter as a "category".

soulchild 9y ago
In the 90s, Techno/Rave music became big, forever changing the music landscape. And of course the Internet started to go mainstream.
dTal 9y ago
> I couldn't come up with a single thing, culturally, the 2010s should be remembered for. Um... smartphones? And the massive cultural shifts that accompany that?

rabboRubble 9y ago

We absolutely did refer to the 90s as "the 90s" during the decade. A couple of anecdotes. I got my first corporate email account in the 90s. The 90s were also a boom decade the economy was blazing hot, radically different than the 80s, and we knew it. So with the new access to email and the blazing economies, we sent around listicle emails with the title of "You know it's the 90s when". Classic listicles include: - You eat standing up. - Your dining table is a flat filing surface.