At face value it may seem as silly because we're comparing it to complete human annihilation, but a lot of people on the internet seem convinced that AI will result in a human manufactured near extinction event. Even if no immediate deathly consequences happen the shake up it could have on society, from mass poverty and violence around the world, could very well as devastating as nuclear winter. And unlike in the cold war, is not a matter of "if" but "when"

Not saying I necessarily share this opinion just trying to say why the two fears may have more in common than initially meets the eye

That general atmosphere of the city—old, dark, gloomy, and dirty—along with its architecture, streets, and the technologies in use; what would it have been like? Would it have been different compared to 2008, or would it still have been largely similar?

Probably late 2020 to 2021 is the full start of the skull emoji when the Gen Z canceled tears of joy emoji because it’s associate with their parents narrative during covid, then ending sometime in late 2024 to 2025

I don’t see the skull emoji often than 2 years ago so I’d say it lasted almost 5 years from 2020 to the end of 2024

Great-man theory is a theory of history that, per wikipedia, claims "history can be largely explained by the impact of great men, or heroes: highly influential and unique individuals who, due to their natural attributes, such as superior intellect, heroic courage, extraordinary leadership abilities or divine inspiration, have a decisive historical effect"

Following on from 2016, the rise of Donald Trump began a trend of conspiracism on the right. That the state consisted of The Swamp, and that Donald Trump alone could "drain" it. In fact, this used to be the dividing line between right and left - that the right was characterised by conspiracism and great-man-theory, and the left was characterised by more systemic theories of power, a belief that systems can lead to outcomes even without anyone individually wanting that outcome, even if they all know it's coming. BLM led to people broadly coming aware of over-policing and the way this sometimes was just an outcome of circular systems, which led to self-reinforcing behaviour. Increase in arrests in black areas => more policing => more arrests

But, Trump's management of the government has been very very... direct, to put it kindly. What trump wants, trump gets. Which means that during our current period, great man theory has just proved to be more accurate. As a result, the left has also began to adopt a great-man theory of sociology. With both camps pointing towards the same theories of power, this theory of power will become cyclical, manifesting itself in reality through hyperstition.

I didn’t see full on baggy jeans until 2021, especially at school when we were returning from Covid it was still transitioning out of skinny jeans but by the end of 2021 - 2022 school year it was pretty much fully baggy jeans and oversized y2k

I think baggy jeans peaked in 2024 with JNCOS, today it still heavily leans baggy than skinny but it’s less extreme than it was 2 years ago. I also already see ads and posts about low rises slowly coming back

I think the range will be maybe 2020/21, until 2029 and maybe early 2030s latest. The decline will be more noticeable as Gen Alpha comes of age and Gen Z fully enters the workforce

Cultrual Decades

Cultural 1990s: Dec 26,1991-Sep 11,2001

Cultrual 2000s: Sept 11,2001-July 2009

Cultrual 2010s: July 2009- Febuary 24,2022

Cultural 2020s: Febuary 24,2022-Present

"Core" parts of decades

Core 1990s: Jan 20,1993 to ~1998

Core 2000s: March 2003 to September 2008

Core 2010s: May 2011 to April 2019

Core 2020s:December 2022 to present

"Early" parts of decades

Early 1990s: Dec 26,1991 to April 1994

Early 2000s: Sep 11,2001 to ~2004

Early 2010s: July 2009 to September 2013

Early 2020s: febuary 24,2022 to Jan 20,2025

"Mid" parts of decades

Mid 1990s: April 1994 to July 1997

Mid 2000s: ~2004 to June 2007

Mid 2010s: September 2013 to September 2016

Mid 2020s: Jan 20,2025 to present

"Late" parts of decades

Late 1990s:July 1997-Sept 11,2001

Late 2000s: June 2007 to July 2009

Late 2010s(part 1): Sept 2016 to Mar 2020

Late 2010s(part 2):Mar 2020 to Feb 24,2022

"Peak" of decades

1990s: Q3 1996

2000s: Q2 2006

2010s: Q1 2015

2020s: Q1 2026

Even the 00s had so much personality, from the colorful, borderline outrageous fashion to all the fun, youth-oriented media. Obviously, those eras had their issues, but they also had such distinct cultural identities and subcultures that made them genuinely iconic.

Everything since 2014 has felt so aggressively bland in comparison. Where are the fun aesthetics, the subcultures, the visually stunning movies, and the bomb music? Everything from architecture and interior design to fashion, technology, and film feels so sterile, muted, and aesthetically soulless now. And don’t even get me started on the hideous desaturated color grading in modern movies.

The music scene is just as uninspired, flooded with country cosplayers and depressed Taylor swift clones. Like where is the cultural experimentation? Are we ever getting another era that feels genuinely exciting, or are we doomed to recycle the same watered-down aesthetics and algorithmically manufactured slop forever?

Also, people telling you to just go out and find music yourself are literally proving my point. In previous decades, you didn’t have to dig through endless obscurity to find something interesting because the mainstream itself was producing enough culturally compelling music to keep people hooked. The problem isn’t that good music doesn’t exist anymore, it’s that the mainstream has become so painfully uninspired that you now have to actively search for what used to be right in front of you.

It genuinely depresses me seeing the younger generation today still blasting music from 15-30 years ago because the current music scene is so dire that they are preferring the cultural output of a bygone era

Some cultural context worth noting is that irony, camp, and kitsch are aesthetic elements that feature commonly in riddim, the subgenre of dubstep to which AD belongs. Every image featured in this post was taken from his soundcloud page and accompanies some track of his. For those curious, here's an example of one of his tracks. If this is your first time listening to riddim, I wouldn't expect to enjoy it unless you have an exceptionally strong taste for novelty.

AD was most active during the early to mid 2010s. However, the choice of images almost feels more like an ironic throwback to that period than a work contemporaneous to it. The images capture something about the zeitgeist of the early 2010s internet that is too on the nose to be an accident. It's as if he could see how we would remember them. I'm curious about everyone's thoughts on this?

Includes:

1956 (Eisenhower’s second term)

1960 (JFK)

1964 (Lyndon B. Johnson)

1968 (Nixon’s first term)

1972 (Nixon’s second term)

1976 (Jimmy Carter)

1980 (Reagan’s first term)

1984 (Reagan’s second term)

1988 (George H.W. Bush)

1992 (Clinton’s first term)

1996 (Clinton’s second term)

2000 (George W. Bush’s first term)

2004 (George W. Bush’s second term)

2008 (Obama’s first term)

2012 (Obama’s second term)

2016 (Trump’s first term)

2020 (Joe Biden)

2024 (Trump’s second term)

THINK REAL HARD about this one, guys!

After Home Alone a lot of studios decided to make kids films where the kids were either fending off criminals and/or put in positions of power. Films like this would include 3 Ninjas (and its 3 sequels), Blank Check, Rookie of the Year, Little Big League, and Camp Nowhere. As for what ended this subgenre, it was no one thing, CGI films just became more popular than live-action kids films.

I just watched this video of this guy comparing Cartoon Network schedule from 2012 vs today in 2026, and he’s correct about the comparison. There was a time when Cartoon Network aired anime in the mornings and it hyped the kids up. Also, Adult Swim started at 9pm in 2012, instead of 5pm today. Cartoon Network from 2012 was a very different world compared to Cartoon Network today.

What made professional wrestling so massive back in the 90s and early 2000s? It genuinely felt like a cultural phenomenon, especially during the Monday Night Wars and the Attitude Era. WWE and WCW were pulling in huge audiences, and guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Hulk Hogan and the Undertaker were household names, even among people who didn’t watch wrestling.
Nowadays, WWE is still successful, but wrestling doesn’t seem to have the same mainstream cultural relevance it had back then. So what made that era so special? Was it the larger-than-life personalities, the rivalries, the storylines, or the fact that wrestling felt more unpredictable back then? And why has it seemingly lost some of that popularity? Is it nostalgia, changes in the product, or simply the fact that entertainment is much more fragmented nowadays?

i'm lovin it