r/decadeology

Scene - United States Of America 🇺🇸
Swag - United States Of America 🇺🇸
Shamate - China 🇨🇳
Brohoe - Dixie South / Southwest 🇺🇸
Alay - Indonesia 🇮🇩
Jejemon - Phillipines 🇵🇭
Colorido - Brazil 🇧🇷
Flogger - Argentina 🇦🇷
Pokemoné - Chile 🇨🇱
Fjortis - Sweden 🇸🇪
Krocha - Austria 🇦🇹
Tecktonik - France 🇫🇷
Truzzo - Italy 🇮🇹

(Ones that are not on here)

Poppare - Sweden 🇸🇪
Wixa - Poland 🇵🇱
Party Rock - United States / New England 🇺🇸
Haady Gyaru - Japan 🇯🇵

I feel like Scene related / inspired subcultures & substyles is kinda the last wave of alternative niches overall but anyways let me hear your thoughts and stories about this era?

I think we all know that there is a certain iconic image of periods like the "Mid 20th Century" (Let's say 1945-1965), which is roughly imagined as the modern aesthetic of the 1950s and guided and influenced chiefly by the GI Generation and early Silent Generation. Whether one is nostalgic for or critical of the era the image persists of suburban homes, nuclear families, cultural stability/conformity, early rock and roll, naive earnestness, poodle-skirt+bobby Sox, clean-cut swagger, etc.

This is of course, something of a stereotype, assembled from bits and pieces of what was actually present then and things people have exaggerated or invented. But it is very interesting and powerful imagery and basically unshakable now.

I've long been curious about the formation of such an image and how it may occur in my lifetime. What will people bring up in sort of a lazy way when they want to hand wave about how old fashioned and corny the current era is, or when they want to selectively nostalgize it?

I feel like it might roughly center on the 2010s, focus on Late Gen X, Millenials and early Gen Z, (especially Millennials; "Millennial" has been the byword for 'young person' for most of this century so far). It will probably be some mix of hipster aesthetics, swag aesthetics, early (particularly Vista era) internet aesthetics, mocking cynicism, Disney adults, forced whimsy, the curly hair+big glasses+septum piercing look, the Jack Doherty sort of t-shirt+chains+shorts look, and probably some currently derided stuff like McMansions or the Corporate Memphis/GloboHomo artstyle.

I'm interested in other opinions. What do you think it will be?

I was just watching a documentary about the Beatles, and I couldn't stop laughing at how some people reacted to their hairstyles back in the 1960s. Looking at them today, their hair doesn't even seem that long, it looks pretty normal by modern standards. It made me wonder why so many older people were so offended by it. Men had worn long hair throughout history, so why did the Beatles' hairstyle cause such outrage? Was it simply because they challenged the traditional image of how young men were expected to look, or did it represent something bigger, like changing social values and a younger generation rejecting old fashioned norms? I think it's pretty fascinating how something as simple as a haircut could spark so much controversy lol. I mean even teenagers were kicked out of school for having The Beatles haircut which is actually crazy to think about. Today, it's hard to imagine anyone causing that level of public reaction just by growing their hair a few inches longer.

SpongeBob, The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Scooby-Doo are all cartoons that EVERYONE knows. Even if you haven't watched an episode of any of these, you can recognize/name the characters or describe what the show is about. The proliferation of memes and short clips certainly helps.

I think Bluey is probably monoculture now, as it's something that everyone is familiar with, even people who don't have kids. It transcended its target audience and became a cultural phenomenon, the likes of which have not been seen for a long time.

Additional thoughts:

• No, Digital Circus is not monoculture. It's extremely popular online, but it's not watched or recognized by Linda in HR or your grandpa.
• Neither is Invincible or The Owl House or Gravity Falls, or even MLP FIM. Most average people only recognize the 80s My Little Pony toys, and the most mainstream media exposure that FIM got was news reports saying that the Bronies were weird.
• I honestly wonder if Avatar: The Last Airbender is monoculture, because it's something that people on the street recognize, not just terminally online fandoms. You could make the argument that more people associate "Avatar" with the bald kid with air powers than the James Cameron blue people movie. But this is likely dependent on age, because your grandpa probably doesn't know who the bald kid is.
• Betty Boop, Popeye, Woody Woodpecker, the Pink Panther, Yogi Bear, and The Flintstones are all interesting, because most people (except Gen Alpha) recognize the names and images....but none of them can name a single episode of any of these. Plenty of people remember Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry short plots, but nobody remembers anything that happens in a Woody Woodpecker short. They only recognize his laugh. Woody Woodpecker is like 10x more popular in Brazil than in the US. As for The Pink Panther - people only know his theme song and the fact that he doesn't talk, that's it. He's more of a mascot than an actual character. Some people might be able to name the painting short, which won an Oscar. Betty Boop is also more of a merchandise character; she is mostly recognized as an "old cartoon character who was a sex symbol and says 'boop-oop-a-doop'".
• Popeye fares better - most people know his laugh, that he gets his powers from spinach, that he has a rival named Bluto and a girlfriend named Olive Oyl.
• The Flintstones - younger people only recognize Fred Flintstone because of the Pebbles cereal and vitamins.
• Mickey Mouse is also very interesting - EVERYONE knows who he is and what his voice sounds like, and they can also recognize his friends. But nobody can name a single Mickey Mouse theatrical cartoon except for Steamboat Willie. Mickey Mouse is only known for being Disney's mascot. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is his most popular TV series, but that's a preschool show, and not exactly one that's watchable for adults the way Bluey is.
• TMNT might count - everyone knows their names (their names are arguably better associated with them than with the Renaissance painters) and that they eat pizza and are totally radical. But most people only recognize the 80s cartoon.
• Transformers might also count, but again, most people only recognize the 80s cartoon as well as the Michael Bay movies. And the average person can only remember Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, and maybe Starscream.
• Now that I think about it, Phineas and Ferb might also count. Like Scooby-Doo, it has a repetitive episode formula that most people can recite ("oh, Phineas and Ferb have a big idea, oh Candace tries to bust them, oh Perry fights Doofenshmirtz," etc)
• He-Man is genuinely only popular with old people.
• PPG, Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Lab, Ed Edd n Eddy, Courage, Rugrats, Ren and Stimpy, Hey Arnold, Rocko's, Kim Possible, DuckTales (mostly the original), maybe Ben 10 - I'm not sure honestly. They were all very popular, especially with Millennials and older Gen Z, but I'm not sure anyone outside of them knows what these are.

What do you think?

I loved skeuomorphic style layouts.

I think something about having that curtain shut awakened something in people.