Name the top 5 biggest transitional shift YRS of the century

I wouldn't consider 2020 a shift, a few changes sprung up in latter 2020, but not enough. But you could feel things were very different on so many levels in 2008-2009, tech, movie style, fashion, politics, attitudes were very different to a few earlier even if there were still some solid connections and trend continuations from the mid 2000s. I remember even summer 2008 feeling very very different than just a few years earlier, it felt like we were finally breaking away from an earlier era and entering something new.  

We are describing popular culture shifts, it's a pop culture forum even with all the aftereffects of corona it didn't create a pop culture shift. Were there noteworthy economic, social devastations? Lifestyle and social changes? Yes I wouldn't call it a shift in this regard, unless you want to lump in 1000s of things unrelated to pop culture. I also tend to associate a shift with some kind of progress or positive event that leads to new fresh change directly related to the style of era culture. 

Politically? Covid just increased the left and right pre-existing divide on a number of topics. Biden in office, didn't create a new waves with a new movement or shift in politics like obama did that has direct impact on the pop culture zeigest of the late 00s/early 10s, nor did trump fanbase and left vs right late 10s divide go away at all. 

Corona marked a change for obvious reeasons, but I wouldn't compare the effects of corona to those of the great depression, or what people go through in devastated or war-torn 3rd world countries. For most people, who weren't hit with the virus, it's just working from home and taking extra precautions, and not going out as much, and an increase in unemployment, worsened economy and mental health issues.

Pop culturally, a few changes were felt here and there between mid 2020 to today, compared 2019 which were subtle, not as visible and fewer, but nothing groundbreaking or shift-worthy imo. 

We are describing transitional shifts. Which aren't just pop culture. When it comes to transitional shifts, big world altering events like COVID are much more relevant than what plays on the radio or what movies come out.

 

It's a pop culture forum where we also discuss decadeology and transitional shifts. When we talk about shifts that isn't just pop culture. That is also politics and life changing world events. That's how it's always been in the decadeology-sphere. 

No one in these circles solely talks about pop culture when discussiong cultural era. As evident by this very thread since many people are including 2020 and 2001 which are only really notable for the dramatic event that shifted society as a whole rather than a shift in pop culture. Go on reddit or inthe00s or any other decadeology type board and they'll always say years which had the biggest dramatic world events had bigger overall shifts than other years because of that. Even years without a life changing shift but a huge change in pop culture like 2015 are overlooked. This world isn't just about consuming pop culture, current affairs are more relevant and important to everyone over 18. People are more worried about terrorism or COVID or a big recession than what is playing on the radio or what games are coming out.

Nope. Pop culture is pop culture, many people clearly confuse pop culture with world social, environmental or scientific  etc shifts, doesn’t matter how often or where and for long… also not everyone is saying we mean “shifts of society as a whole”, many agree 2020 is the mostly the same as earlier. You can’t paint everyone’s opinion as one monolithic entity. Many non-pop culture events can strongly influence pop culture and world events or politics can be discussed freely in pop culture forums. If you want to go into look into things changing the world by year then you need to have a different lens and go into everything from physics, nasa, medicine etc to weigh the value of these changes

Just because x amount of people think something doesn’t make it valid, nor can one make generalizations. 

No most people will assume unrelated events with little to no bearing on the decade culture are pop culture, which is the point i'm making. I recall getting into such discussions where the claim was x political topic is infact pop culture etc. Another sort of off topic example is the claim of September 11 being responsible for kicking off the early 2000s pop culture.

Never have I heard anyone say, "it's not pop culture but I think it's important anyways". It is a pop culture forum. Also once again just because it happens , still makes it off topic, and you can't generalize everything, people will often have different reasons behind the intent of mentioning a shift, its not monolith where everyone is on the same exact page with their intent, but people tend to think any political, world events, or particular discovery or catastrophe it's part of the pop culture zeitgeist regardless. 

The focus is not world event shifts on these these forums. Its pop culture, people think unrelated events or world shifts are automatically pop culture.

A decade era shift is a series of turning points/notable changes closely related to overall decade identity, it's not just a single event or a few trivial aspects of pop culture.