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The New '20s

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The Twenty-Twenties or Two-Thousand (and) Twenties. (Either way it's okay for us.)

As The New '10s discussed concerning the 2010s in order to distinguish it from the 1910s, so will the current decade be considered as such in order to not confuse it with the 1920s.

Not much can be said about this decade yet— since it just recently began and mostly feels like a continuation of the last decade so far (as with the beginnings of decades past) —except for one thing; a novel coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2 for short) that originated in China near the end of 2019 began to spread rapidly across the world, quickly causing a major socio-economic impact unseen since the Great Recession in the late 2000s, if not since World War II. Millions around the globe became infected with a new disease (coronavirus disease 2019, a.k.a. COVID-19). For most, it's a mild illness that inflicts you with flu-like symptoms, but the unlucky people who find themselves with severe symptoms are left literally gasping for air note . Because the disease is already infectious during the two-week-long incubation period, it's considered a far greater threat than its most comparable predecessor, the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak (also caused by a strain of coronavirus), and countless countries have implemented quarantines to try and slow down the spread of the virus.

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We've yet to see how much of a long-term impact it will make on human society, but the ensuing quarantine in many countries is already causing prospects of a second Great Depression in the wake of the massive stock market crash and unprecedentedly high unemployment rates that the pandemic has already caused, as plunging revenues left business, especially ones that cannot operate without face-to-face human interaction, with no ways to pay their employees. Should COVID-19's impact be severe enough even if quarantine ends within the first half of the 2020s, it's possible that the pandemic may be the defining moment of the decade, much like how 9/11 defined the 2000s or the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump defined the two halves of the 2010s, and indeed some analysts are already projecting it to be the next big cultural and political "reset" button.

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See Also: Turn of the Millennium, and The New '10s.

Examples of Media set in this decade:

    open/close all folders 

    Unclear/Several years 
  • The Aquatope On White Sand starts in summer 2021 with a timeskip to April 2022, and the epilogue takes place around 2024.
  • The prologue of Black Bullet is set in 2021 during the Great Gastrea War, with present day events taking place ten years after, following humanity's defeat in the war.
  • The climactic scenes of Click take place from 2023-2029.
  • Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex both start in 2029 and expand to 2032.
  • How I Met Your Mother has flash forwards to 2020 during Ted, Marshall and Lily's college reunion, Marshall's campaign as District Attorney in an unspecified year, and the titular mother dying in 2024.
  • Weathering With You takes place mostly in 2021, with its epilogue taking place three years later in 2024.
  • One edition of Metropolis dates the events to 2026. The other versions place it in 2000, 3000, or simply do not assign a year.
  • Sword Art Online starts in 2022 and continues until at least 2026.
  • The First Encounter Assault Recon series takes place around 2025 or so, though no definitive time-frame is given other than that the third game is set nine months after the first two, and so may have passed in to 2026.

     2020 
  • Annihilation Earth is set in 2020.
  • The global conflict of Battlefield 4 is fought during 2020.
  • Most of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm takes place during the first half of the year, just before and also during the COVID-19 pandemic (which is revealed to have accidentally been Borat's doing).
  • Code Name Phoenix is set in a peacefully unified world of 2020.
  • Crysis takes place in August 2020.
  • Cyberpunk 2020, as you can probably guess by the name, is set in the year of 2020.
  • Dark Angel: The second half of Season One and first half of Season Two are set in 2020.
  • The Doctor Who episodes "The Hungry Earth" and "Cold Blood" (that marked the return of the Silurians to the New Who series) are set in the small Welsh hamlet of Cwmtaff in 2020.
  • Endgame begins on August 2nd, 2020.
  • EndWar takes place in 2020.
  • Future X Cops begins in 2080, but then its main characters time-travel back to 2020.
  • The Mini-Comic in Heartstopper called Adoption is set in June 2020.
  • As the name says, Iron Man 2020 is set in this year, with Arno Stark taking Stark Industries and Iron Man's armor after the death of Tony Stark and becoming the new version of this superhero (set in Earth-8410).
    • This comic later got a successor of the same name set in the main Marvel universe in January 2020.
  • The opening of IS Defense tells us it is set in 2020.
  • The Mitchells vs. the Machines takes place in late September 2020, as shown through the timestamps on the home video montage.
  • Pale takes place in 2020, roughly six years after Pact.
  • The alien invasion of A Quiet Place overwhelms the world within the first three months of 2020, and the film is set immediately after.
  • Raid 2020 is set in the titular year.
  • The mecha boxing of Real Steel takes place in 2020.
  • Reign of Fire is set in the England of 2020, 20 years after the dragons' awakening.
  • Sealab 2020 is set in, well, 2020, and it focuses on the crew and their exploits around the said underwater research center.
  • Stranded follows the first human expedition to reach Mars, which occurs in 2020.
  • While Terminator: Dark Fate opens in 1998, the rest of the film occurs in 2020.
  • Time Commando is technically set in 2020, but your enemies come from every other time period due to time-distorting vortex.
  • To no-one's surprise, Titanic 2020 is set in the titular year.
  • Yesterday (2002) is set in 2020 on the Korean peninsula, which has been unified by then.
  • Knights Of God takes place in 2020 when the United Kingdom is ruled by a fascist religious order.

     2021 
  • BNA: Brand New Animal takes place in 2021 as Michiru is confirmed via ID to have been born in 2003 and has her 18th birthday in the 4th episode.
  • The world of Johnny Mnemonic is beset by a global pandemic and hooked on the virtual internet in 2021.
  • Resident Evil Village: Looking at a baby picture of Rose in Chapter 1 reveals that it's set in February 2021, 4 years after Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, as Rosemary is stated to be six months old and was born in August 2020.
  • Sealab 2021 takes place one year after its predecessor, focusing instead on the hijinks of a crew full of crazies, idiots and Dr. Quinn.
  • In The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "On Thursday We Leave for Home", the rescue ship Galaxy 6 commanded by Colonel Sloane arrives on the planet V9-Gamma in order to bring its 187 inhabitants back to Earth. The settlement's leader Captain William Benteen decides to stay behind. It is also mentioned that Los Angeles is the biggest city in the world.
  • In The Outer Limits (1963) episode "The Invisible Enemy", the M-1 is sent to Mars to assess the feasibility of colonizing it in the future. However, its crew never returns to Earth as they are killed by a Sand-Beast. The final transmission received by Earth is one of astronauts screaming.
  • Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. mostly takes place in 2021, after a prologue set across 2014-2015.
  • The epilogue for Your Name is set five years after 2016, placing it in 2021.
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     2022 

     2023 

     2024 

     2025 

     2026 

     2027 

     2028 

     2029 
a key date in the early films of the franchise, being the Robot War-stricken Bad Future time-travellers initially come from.
  • Vulcan's Hammer takes place in 2029.

Works made or continuing during the 2020s:

Art

Asian Animation

Eastern European Animation

Film — Animated

Hanguk Manhwa Aenimeisyeon

Pinball

Radio

Sports

  • The rebooted XFL, Vince McMahon's own football league, had its inaugural season in the spring of 2020. After being cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, the league was sold off. Its new owners plan to start up again in 2023.
  • The rebooted USFL, owned by Brian Woods under a new company name after the previous USFL owners let go of most of that league's trademarks in 2014, will hold its inaugural season in the spring of 2022. For its inaugural season under the revival, all eight teams playing in that season, including the Birmingham Stallions, will play their games in Birmingham, Alabama under two different stadiums.
  • The Summer Olympics will be held in Tokyo in 2021, Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028. This will be the first decade in which all the host cities had previously held the Games (Tokyo hosted the 1964 Games, Paris did it in 1900 and 1924, and L.A. held the 1932 and 1984 Games).
    • The Winter Olympics will take place in Beijing in 2022 and Milan / Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2026. This decade will mark the first time a city has hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics (Beijing having previously hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics). Cortina is also a repeat host, having hosted the 1956 Winter Games by itself.
  • The men's FIFA World Cup will be held in Qatar in 2022 and in the United States alongside a number of games in Canada and Mexico in 2026 (the U.S. hosted the 1994 Cup and Mexico held the 1970 and 1986 championships). The FIFA Women's World Cup host for 2023 is set to be announced in June 2020, with candidates being an Australia/New Zealand joint bid, Brazil, Colombia, and Japan. None of the candidates have hosted the women's edition, though two have hosted the men's edition (Brazil in 1950 and 2014, and Japan alongside South Korea in 2002). The 2027 women's host is likely to be announced in 2024.

Theatre

Theme Parks

Web Animation

Web Original

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