2008 Vs 2009 - what year was better?

Music-wise, I'd probably go with 2008.

Personal-wise, 2009 was more fun.

Neither were great years for pop-culture, in all honesty. If I had to pick between the two, however, I would go with 2008. I do have mixed feelings towards the year though. 2008 was the first year in which rock truly started to show signs of fatigue and as someone who listens to rock almost exclusively, it was pretty disappointing for me at the time. I can remember listening to The Getaway Plan's "Where The City Meets The Sea" on Video H!TS for the first time and thinking to myself that rock wasn't as popular as it used to be. Rock songs had typically made up a large proportion of the show's playlist in the past, but there were only a small handful of rock songs played on that day.

I was also never a fan of the Electropop movement. For all the faults of pop music during the 2000s, at least the one thing it had going for it was the variety of different genres/styles that were represented on the Top-40 charts. When electropop emerged towards the second-half of 2008, it was pretty much the death knell for rock and diversity on the charts in general. Many people argue that the breakthrough of electropop was the "breath of fresh air" that was severely needed at the time. I actually don't disagree with that sentiment, but I feel as though the benefits that came as a result of it's emergence were only felt in the short-term. Music has never been as diverse as it was prior to 2009. Electropop saturated the charts during the Early 2010s, while EDM and Trap have had a huge presence on the charts during the Mid and Late 2010s. This is pretty alarming. I mean, 2009 is over a decade ago now and the state of music has never recovered to how it was prior to then.

Music aside, I think 2008 was generally a decent year for movies. "Iron-Man" would have to be my favourite movie from that year. I actually went and saw it at the cinemas when it came out and it seemed like such a novelty at the time. The casting was great, the storyline was engaging, and it also had a clever/witty sense of humour. It put the vast majority of the superhero movies from the Early-Mid 2000s (besides the Toby McGuire "Spiderman" series) to shame. I also thought "The Dark Knight" was quite good as well (especially with Heath Ledger's performance), but I personally preferred the "Iron Man" movie. Other movies I liked at the time were "WALL-E", "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" and "Kung Fu Panda".

In regards to TV, as much as i'm ashamed to admit this, but one of my favourite shows at the time was "The Biggest Loser". My Mum and I would watch it together and it was something I always used to look forward to watching. I also used to watch The Simpsons at 6pm almost every weeknight on Channel Ten. 2008 was the year that I stopped watching current/new cartoons. I felt as though Nickelodeon had declined around the second-half of the year and I was never much of a fan of Cartoon Network or the Disney Channel, so instead, I turned to watching cartoons from the '60s. As a result, I started to watch cartoons such as "Wacky Races" and "The Flintstones". This wasn't a big deal for me at the time, because I had already liked and enjoyed watching cartoons from the '20s-'50s before then. 

Moving on from discussing pop culture, my personal life at the time was reasonably good, for the most part. I wouldn't necessarily say that 2008 was leaps and bounds better for me personally than what 2009 was, but it was better in some regards. I fell in love for the first time around the beginning of the year and my "de-facto" relationship (we both had feelings for each other, but it wasn't a proper relationship as such) with the girl who lived in the house behind me would last until my last year of primary school (2011). We would hang out with each other during class, so much so that the other kids in the class began to joke about it.

Everyone in my class had to vote for who they wanted to see as the SRC school representative for the class and I received six votes, which was the highest amount of votes anyone had received. Unfortunately though, there was another boy in the class who received six votes, which meant that we were tied for the most amount of votes. As a result, my teacher voted for who she wanted to see and she voted for the other kid, which was so disappointing for me. I missed out on becoming the SRC representative because of my teacher.

As I briefly alluded to though, my personal life wasn't particularly good at times. It was the first year where I truly became aware of my Dad’s drinking and smoking habits. I can remember one occasion where my Mum dropped me off to his house and he had been up all night, just browsing the internet on his desktop computer. About a month later, My Dad had promised me that he would stop smoking and I believed him at first, but just two months after he promised me he would stop, I spotted him smoking on the back balcony when I stayed over at his house one night. I also didn't like the man my Mum started to date at the time, not because I didn't want my Mum to date anyone, but rather for the fact that I just didn't like him as a person. It was a really difficult situation for me; he was the first person my Mum had ever dated since my parents split-up (back in Late 2000) and I wanted my Mum to enter a relationship with someone, so I just had to bite my tongue and not say anything. They eventually broke up a year later and my Mum has now been with her fiance' for almost eight years, so it all worked out well in the end.

One thing that particularly stands out about 2008 is watching the Beijing Olympics and also collecting the limited edition Olympics glasses from McDonalds (which I still own). Fortunately, my primary school had installed the interactive whiteboards before the Beijing Olympics began, so we actually watched some of the Olympics coverage during class. It made class-time a lot more interesting, that’s for sure! For Christmas 2008, I received a Nintendo Wii and a limited-edition Nintendo DS Lite. The only reason why I received a DS was because my Gameboy Advance SP had been smashed by a baseball earlier in the year and it was too badly damaged for it to be repaired. My Mum had gave me the option of either getting a PSP or a Nintendo DS Lite, but I chose the latter, because my two cousins already owned DS’ and I would be able to play Mario Kart with them.

I'd say that 2008 was the year where my interest in the media really flourished. Although I had been making my own mock TV Guides since Early 2006, 2008 was the year where I began to hypothesize my own TV channels and programs. I have several drawing books which are full of mock TV Guides. To add on from that, whenever my Grandparents, two cousins and I went on a day trip, I would use my Grandparent’s video camera and pretend as if I was commentating on TV. I particularly liked Channel Nine's "We ♡ TV" on-air package and I actually think it played a part in developing my interest in the media. My favourite video games at the time were "Runabout 2", "Happy Feat" (a GBA SP game based on the movie), "Wii Sports", "Nintendogs", "Deal or No Deal" and "Burnout 2: Point of Impact". I've never been much of a gamer (as you can probably tell by my selection of games ), however I did enjoy playing those games from time to time.

The emergence of Electropop was pretty much a double-edged sword. It created the perfect recipe for rock to be phased out in the mainstream, because rock music itself wasn't in a particularly healthy state at the time. For instance, the Emo scene had amounted a lot of backlash at the time due to the fact that it began to be seen as something which promoted self-harm and death. I remember that by 2008, the word "Emo" had more of a negative connotation to it than it did positive. Of course, it also didn't help matters that Nickeblack (who were still one of the biggest bands at the time) were largely seen as being a joke and were ridiculed so much.

yeah 2007 for the most part had the same feeling until the Iphone came out


But people GLOSSING over the fact by mid 2008 people were grasping for a new era

I have to make a PDF guide book I am serious

I see

There were definitely some sucky aspects to the era. Nobody will deny the economy was awful. As for politics, even though Bush was president people were so anxious for him to leave. I remember there was a push to vote for Obama. It repeated itself again in 2020 when everyone wanted to vote for Biden. I’m sorry your personal life sucked at the time. I liked the era though as a whole, although I WAS eight years old so I do have more rose-tinted glasses.