r/decadeology

Here's my take:

Politically: 5/10

Cultural: 2/10

Technological: 2/10

Overall: 3/10

Post is pretty much in the question, but I think it was around 2015-2018 the shift started. Basically, when did the internet become less edgy, vile, and absolutely despicable and become moderated and less reliant on shock

I am connecting dots that most people are too comfortable to look at.

You can see the signs:

• Tariffs and hardcore protectionism
• Tribalism making a comeback
• Volatile economies, constant inflation, and currency devaluation
• Division, hatred, misery, and social fracture at levels not seen in generations.
• I even notice people not being able to use air conditioning or heating because of how expensive bills are, or unable to eat meat because of food prices, basically just living in homes like people before World War I
• I even saw stories of mothers making their kids take baths using melted snow, something that would only be common in the 19th century.
• Romanticism and Realism has basically returned with people obsessed with "authenticity" and "vibes" and basing their logic on what they see and what's physically working instead of some distant study and academic.
• Even things like looksmaking and everyone trying to stoic and "not cringe" is reminiscent of everyone trying to be composed and serious in photos and portraits.

It’s starting to feel like the people running society genuinely want to return to the 19th century, specifically the stratified, dirty, hierarchical, low-trust, pre-modern part where the elite live in relative luxury and everyone else knows their place.

And the thing is… I’m increasingly convinced cottagecore is a psyop. What started as a quirky aesthetic is being mainstreamed at the exact moment they’re pushing policies that make actual modern comfort harder to afford. Romanticizing drafty cottages, oil lamps, and “simple living” while energy prices skyrocket and housing gets worse. It’s the perfect psychological preparation: make the decline look quaint and Instagram-friendly, saying “Don’t you want to live like this? So cozy! So authentic!”

The establishment don’t want a futuristic high-trust civilization but a world where the masses are poor but “grateful” for their rustic little lives, while the elite keep the real technology, comfort, and power for themselves.

The 19th century was a brutal world of inequality, child labor, disease, and short lifespans for most. But for the people at the very top it was great.

The people in charge are trying to reset to a version of the past where they stay on top and the rest of us stay in our lane.

View Poll

As we see more nostalgia for the 2000s, a simple thought kept circling in the back of my head was if the 1990s were the “peak”, then what was the 2000s?

Before the 2000s could even start, the fear of Y2k was everywhere, but then nothing happened when the clock hit midnight. Workers across the globe worked tirelessly to make sure computer systems were updated, but when I was a child the common understanding of Y2k was that it was an overblown hoax. Bill Clinton signed the U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000 into law, which led to China entering the WTO. This law was the actual nail in the coffin for US manufacturing. Yet, you will constantly hear that it was NAFTA that shipped jobs overseas and ruined everything even though it was China being allowed in WTO that was the final death blow.

In Nov 2000, we had the super infamous Bush-Gore election. An election that may be the most important one for the last 30yrs. The Supreme Court on a power trip that they themselves knew they could never be allowed to do again, the subverting of voting, the massive backlash and protests that have been largely somewhat forgotten, Gore believing he needed to “save” the soul of the nation and conceding etc. Then within less than a year of the “election” 9/11. The only memory I have of 9/11 was coming home earlier, my mother crying while watching the TV and begging me to go upstairs and play in my room. Not even 2 yrs into the decade and we have some much going on and yet somehow  it was only going to get worse with the war on terror. Bush and salivating neocons across this nation decided to use a terrorist attack to justify destabilizing the middle east and killing hundreds of thousands if not millions.

There is so much that went wrong in the 00s, from Kerry's mediocre campaign against Bush in 04, Katrina, the financial crisis and the start of the painful slow recovery that ended the decade. I could make several substack articles or several youtube videos dissecting and analyzing how much of a mess the 00s were, may I will who knows?

As I watch 00s nostalgia start to rear its ugly head, I am also watching that mess of a decade being flattened and its issues being glossed over and I hate it. I hate how there is somehow a yearning for the 2000s. I need the 00s to be remembered for what it actually was, it was a not a last hurrah or decade worth yearning over, it was a gigantic mess.

It began in 2007 then her smashing the car and shaving her head broke the news, I think that was one of the last pre social media celebrity events

But when did that era end