The 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s were unique decades. If you see an old movie, you can easily pinpoint in which decade it was made because of the fashion, hairstyles, music, cars, architecture.
A student of mine pointed this out to me yesterday. Each decade was uniquely distinct. But the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s don’t have this distinction!
Except for smaller phones and other electronic details, there is not much difference in cars, music, fashion, hairstyles, between 2000, 2010, 2020 and 2024. People in the distant future won’t be able to tell the difference.
If you watch a TV Show that started in the 2000s and was still going in the 2020s you’ll notice the lack of change. Is it 2005, 2014 or 2024? Except for the Tesla car or the way the laptop looks, you couldn’t tell the difference.
Remember the long side-burns and bell-bottom pants in the 70s? And the psychedelic guitar music? And the long cars? The weird wallpaper?
The beehive hairdo in the 60s? The soft, optimistic music? The authoritative voices of radio announcers?
Where has our uniqueness gone? Is this a sign that the desire to stand out, to be individual has lessened over time? Are we more hive-minded? Does it have something to do with the rise of social media? Did time stop in the year 2000?
I don’t have an answer. What do you think?
