When did each decade truly begin?

As we all know, decades dont really get known for what they're most well known for until a few years in, but when would you say the 80s-2020s began (people born earler can chime in with their decades as well).

80s-I'd say 1983, kind of late in the decade, but thats when a lot of the stuff the 80s is known for debuted or got big.

90s-This one is tricky as 1990-92 is almost its own "mini" decade that doesnt resemble the 80s or the mid-late 90s (just look at commercials or music videos from that time period). Still, I guess 1992, 93 at the latest.

2000s-9/11 is too easy and obvious of an answer, I'd go with 2002 as to me as I started seeing some changes in pop culture and such around that time.

2010s-Another tough one, since again, the decade seems split between the Obama era (which started in 2009, but for the purposes here we'll go with 2010-2016) and the Trump era (2017-2017, but I started noticing changes around 2016, mainly involving Trump).

2020s-The decade still hasnt ended, and 2020 kind of threw a monkeywrench into everything, but I suppose we can begin with 2021 since that was kind of like the true beginning. Of course, by 2030 we may think differently.

Post your own thoughts on this.

The 2010s feels like two distinct half-decades, with 2015-16 being a transition between the relatively normal first half and more chaotic and politics-heavy second half, with the Trump campaign opening floodgates for a lot of fast changes and exposing cracks in modern society.

So far the 2020s has been a period of absolute insanity and extreme unpredictability almost right from the start (only January was relatively normal). Possible starting points would be March 11, 2020 (the day COVID was formally declared a pandemic) or January 6, 2021 (the first major hint that the biggest problems of 2020 are not going away anytime soon).

Unfortunately, COVID has defined the 2020s more than anything else so far. So if there's any moment that "feels" like the beginning of this decade for me, it would be March 2020 when it was declared a pandemic.

A great Mascot Mook.

Interesting this topic should be brought up now because since it came out a year ago I've been reading Chuck Klosterman's The Nineties: a Book a lot, and he makes the same point that decades don't begin and end at the same point culturally as they do technically. His choice for the spiritual end of the '90s was 9/11, which I agree with because it's such a before/after moment, but he counts the beginning of the '90s in spirit as the release of Nevermind, whereas I think it's the end of the USSR. I consider Reagan's inauguration as the start of the '80s and the declaration of Covid as a pandemic as the start of the '20s. I think it's harder to pick a cultural boundary between the '00s and '10s, especially since Trump's rise later in the '10s cuts the decade in half. That's why I think one good starting point for the '10s is the point in early 2011 when Trump started with the birther crap.

Edited by MDLuder on Feb 22nd 2023 at 3:52:40 AM

In retrospect, I think 2012 was around the point when the 2010s first started gaining an independent identity from the 2000s. The reelection of Obama in the context of the Tea Party's rise, Obama becoming the first American president to openly support gay marriage while in office, the killing of Trayvon Martin, the Sandy Hook shooting and its redefining of the gun control debate, Disney's buyout of Lucasfilm, and the various developments in online communities (memes and otherwise) did much to set the stage for the next eight years, both politically and culturally.

Of course, some of the stuff in that list is much lighter than the rest, but in hindsight it was still pretty important in terms of laying the groundwork for the image of the 2010s.

Be kind.

Let's see...:

The 60's is hard because outside of JFK everything else was a zombie version of what was going on in the 50's. It was defiantly started by the time of his assassination, though. It ended sometime between the Manson murders and the initial days of the Watergate scandal.

The 70's was probably between the aforementioned murders/scandals and MTV's First Day.

The 80's lasted from MTV's First day to the release of Nevermind. The fall of the Soviet Union can be another starting point.

The 90's obviously started with Nevermind, but I wouldn't say 9/11 ended the 90's, but rather 2004. Some aspects of 90's culture were still around and had yet to be replaced, plus social media/Web 2.0 didn't really exist at the time of the attacks. (if they did, barely anyone used them.)

The nameless decade lasted from the rise Web 2.0 in 04/05 to... I'm going to go with the person above me and say 2012. By then only old people in the first world weren't on social media, and all of the other aforementioned things.

The 2020's is probably the only decade that started on time.

Edited by Smasher on Feb 25th 2023 at 8:21:54 AM

I dont know if Nevermind had THAT much of an impact. Even as it relates to music, it only really affected rock music, other genres like rap or country just kept on plugging on with only minor changes (ie, younger stars in country, which was inevitable, or gangsta rap getting bigger).

Sociohistorical consensus leans in favor of it doing the most work to represent Gen X disillusionment with the establishment of 1980s hypercorporatism, so I can see why it gets so readily painted as the true start of the '90s.

If you ask me though, I think 1992 was just as important as 1991, if not more so; not only did it illustrate that what happened in 1991 actually had an impact, but it also had a few of its own key events that set the tone for the last years of the pre-9/11 world.

• While the Soviet Union dissolved at the end of 1991, thus ending the Cold War, the following year marked the start of the Bosnian War, which turned the Yugoslav Wars from a couple isolated conflicts to an actual phenomenon and the biggest consequence of the Soviet Union's downfall.
• At the start of 1992, Nirvana out-charted Michael Jackson and in doing so (re-)established the legitimacy of youth populism.
• In the spring of '92, the LA Riots forced people to confront anti-Black racism in a post-Civil Rights world, opening new discourse about race relations in America and leading to a push for improved Black representation.
• Bill Clinton was elected president that fall, which both ended the dominance of the Reagan school of conservatism and legitimized neoliberalism as the main ideology of world politics.

Of course, all of these focus on the US and Europe, so the story may be different in other parts of the world.

Edited by bowserbros on Feb 26th 2023 at 11:52:10 AM

Be kind.