It was such an intriguing decade for me (all decades are, but I'm speaking from experience). I spent all of my teen years in the 2010s (I was born in 2000), and I had a rocky life during it. My mom died in 2014, I now have a stepmom who's an asshole to me, I failed four times in on my driving tests before I passed, and I graduated high school this year.
Pop-culture wise, the shift from early 2010s optimism in the western world to the late 2010s bleakness was astounding to me.
Early 2010s (2010-2013): I fervently watched shows like Regular Show, Adventure Time, iCarly, Victorious, Gravity Falls, and the Amazing World of Gumball during this era. I also remember playing with my DSi and later 3DS systems.
I've played the Wii, with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort being my primary games to play with.
Obama was president (and re-elected in 2012) during this era, and even though I wasn't a fan of his policies in retrospect (like the drone strikes), most people from all sides seemed to get along with civil discourse.
The Arab Spring and Occupy movements were also huge parts of the current events.
The music scene was a lot more diverse ranging from EDM (Avicii, Calvin Harris, etc.) to indie rock music (Gotye, Foster the People, etc.) to electropop (Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, etc). It was honestly a great time for music for me since there were so many memorable bops like "Call Me Maybe", "Gangnam Style", "Somebody You Used to Know", and "Get Lucky".
By 2013, smartphones were pretty much commonplace, and we had internet trends like hashtags and Vine. Meme music became mainstream when Baauer's "Harlem Shake" skyrocketed to #1 on the Billboard charts, and I didn't enjoy the trend at all. I found the random dancing to be pretty stupid.
Mid-2010s (2014-2016): At first, it was personally a low point for me considering that my mom passed due to liver disease, and it made me become quite depressed for the following months until I had counseling and improved my grades (I actually had straight A's for the first time in 7th grade).
Pop music started to become more inspired by EDM and it became darker in tone with an anti-pop sentiment to it (Thanks, Lorde
). Rock music became relatively non-existent in the mainstream charts, although I did enjoy songs like "Take Me to Church" by Hozier and "Stressed Out" by Twenty One Pilots on the radio.
Trap music became more popular, with artists such as Drake and Fetty Wap getting major airplay with "Hotline Bling" and "Trap Queen".
Dance crazes were also part of trap music (which I hated) like the Whip and Nae Nae, or hitting the Quan. Ugh.
I actually had my first smartphone by 2015 (it was a Galaxy S4, which was slow most of the time).
Black Lives Matter became a massive movement after the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, and Eric Garner.
The mindsets of people leading up to the 2016 U.S. election were filled with rage, hatred, sadness, happiness, and just polarization overall (which still happens to this day)
Late 2010s (2017-2019): Trump is president, and now everyone is involved into politics, whether you were political or not. People grew more divided than ever, and protests and riots ensued before and after his inauguration. I was honestly a staunch supporter of him at first because of his populist statements and persona. But now I've become more cautious with some of his ideas and his part in the ongoing impeachment showdown.
Hip-hop became the most popular genre in the U.S. with EDM pop not having the strong force it once had. Nowadays, the mainstream charts became stagnated with typical trap/mumble rap or pop that really isn't interesting anymore (except for songs like "Old Town Guy" or "bad guy")
I graduated high school this year with honor roll and got my first job.
So, yeah, that's pretty much my life in the 2010s in a nutshell.
). Rock music became relatively non-existent in the mainstream charts, although I did enjoy songs like "Take Me to Church" by Hozier and "Stressed Out" by Twenty One Pilots on the radio.