What do you like/dislike about the 2010s?

Dislike:

Certain aspects of social media. It really does change people, and usually not for the better. It’s very addictive, anxiety provoking, narcissistic, and so many other things. I really do think growing up with it has kind of messed up my mind in some way and the same goes with my generation. There are certain things I like about it but I’ll talk about that in the other section.

Mumble rap. I tried to get into it. I really did. I used to hate it because I associated it with my sister and her annoying friend group. I’ve learned to kind of accept it for what it is but it took a while. Still not to my liking.

Everything is a “series.” I just can’t get into it. It hard enough for me to get into pop culture as it is, I rarely have the attention span to get into a whole series. I felt kinda left out cause people would constantly talk about Marvel, Lord of the Rings, all these really popular things and I just didn’t really care. Maybe that’s just my own fault though.

Certain things were just so cringe. The “SJW” thing and “Anti-SJW” thing, early Instagram with the duckfaces and Kim Kardashian obsession, the tumblr hipsters who would romanticize self harm, influencers, Hypebeasts.. need I go on?


Like:

Social media has some upsides, too. Minority voices can be heard more. It has allowed people in many countries to stand up to their government. People can organize in large groups and have the power to say anything they want, for better or for worse. There is more media available than ever before. I have honestly learned more from the internet than from school and I cannot imagine not having access to all the YouTube videos and posts I do. My worldview would be totally different. So yeah, thank god for 2010s YouTube and Reddit.

Music and movies are so easily attainable. I can’t imagine ever going back to CDs or even digital downloads. Streaming is far superior in every way.

Better human rights overall. I feel like more people care. We have made such big strides is social progress. That’s really why the backlash is so big, cause we’ve just progressed too fast for some people. It’s pretty incredible.

I like the overall vibe. Don’t know how exactly to describe it. I guess I like the minimalism and simplicity. Anything else feels outdated.

Things I like:

* The production standards for new movies and television shows are excellent, CGI has come such a long way even when compared to what it was like during the second-half of the 2000s. We truly are living through something of a golden age at the moment when it comes to television.

* Streaming. I like the fact that I can choose to listen to any song from around the world at any time of the day. It also doesn't matter if I miss one of my favourite shows on TV, as I can watch it on a streaming service whenever I want. 

* There's a lot of division in the world at the moment, but so much progress had been made in the 2010s in regards to accepting and embracing people from minority backgrounds. 

* I can easily tune out of current fads if I wish to. With the internet now being more accessible than ever, I don't have to listen to the horrible songs on the Top-40 charts or choose to engage with any other trend currently popular if I choose not to. 

* The indie scene of the 2010s. 

* The Marvel Cinematic Universe. I feel so lucky over the fact that those movies came out during my teens. 

Things I dislike:

* The lack of variety on the Top-40 charts. People criticise the '80s for the exact same reason, but at least you had adult-contemporary, hair-metal, new wave etc. at various points of the decade to balance things out. It wasn't all synthpop. In regards to the 2010s, however, electropop, EDM and mumble-rap had such a strong stranglehold over the entire mainstream music scene of the decade, that there literally was very little else on the Top-40 charts. 

* The overabundance of reboots, sequels and superhero-based films. Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy quite a lot of these films, but there was a ridiculous amount of them in the 2010s.

* Rock's absence from the pop cultural zeitgeist. As a huge rock fan myself, I hated the fact that I spent my teens during a time when rock was not only perceived as passé, but was not even making a dent on the Top-40 charts whatsoever. It was such a kick in the teeth. When I was 9 years old in 2008, some of the biggest songs of the year were rock songs (e.g "Sex on Fire", "Shake It") and I mean, these were songs that legitimately received the most airplay on the radio. Fast forward four years to when I became a teenager in 2012, there was only one non-indie based rock song that charted in that entire year and that was "Lonely Boy" by The Black Keys. I would have loved to have driven to a rock concert as a teen with my group of friends in the car and go have a great night out. That opportunity was taken away from me. 

* There wasn't a generation-defining album. Teenagers of the noughties had albums such as American Idiot, The Black Parade and The Eminem Show. You really can't make any valid comparison in regards to the album releases of the 2010s.

* The internet culture. It just makes me lose my hope in humanity more and more, and I hate how immature most of it is too. Seeing people overuse words like "bruh" and "imma" is a huge pet peeve of mine. That's not to mention how RiDiCuLoUs PhRaSeS lIkE "hold my beer", "nek minnet" and "damn daniel" are. 

* Smartphones. I know they have their positives too, but I hate how reliant people are on them. They're also making us less intelligent as a society. 

* How tumultuous they were for politics and current events. We had lone-wolf terrorist attacks on a global scale, the rise of ISIS and far-right ideologies, the Ebola crisis, the inauguration of Donald Trump as US President, among other things.

* Mumble-rap. 

One thing I loved about the 2010s is I don’t get as bored as easily. If you don’t have cable TV you don’t have to be stuck being bored on a weekend afternoon because all there is on the 6 channels you can pick up with rabbit ears is Golf, Infomercials, Old ladies quilting, or some movie from 1993 you don’t care about. Even with just a over the air antenna due to the many digital sub channels there’s is at least something to watch. Granted that started in the Mid/Late 2000s but there wasn’t as many channels as there is today.

And if you don’t like those, there’s many streaming platforms out there that will cater to your interests.

You read about a band somewhere online and you’re interested in and you want to hear what they’re all about. All you got to do is open up a music app and their whole discography is right in front of you. (After a short commercial first)

I think it’s how easily things became accessible during the 2010s. Before that you had to go one some sketchy website to find these sort of things.

Plus the portability of it all. That’s why I don’t hate smartphones, people tend to throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to them. It’s the apps you download and put on them is the problem, not the phones themselves. 

Things I like:

-Streaming services
-Slim fashion
-The music
-Video Games

Things I dislike:

-Over abundance of movie sequels
-Edgy meme culture
-Polarization in politics
-Over reliance on smartphones

Like:

- Streaming services
- The invention of sites like these
- Electopop of the early 2010s
- The technological advancements

Dislike:

- Memes were just awful by the end of the decade
- Music of the mid-late 2010s was atrocious
- The political division during the late 2010s
- The microtransactions that infected video gaming