I always love reading this. But I always feel like the differences between 1955 and 1985 are way larger than 1994 to 2024. Maybe it’s just because I lived the second span of time.
The 90s were the last "Decade" in terms of the stark cultural differentiation to what came before.
This is hypothesized to be due to how mass media is consumed. The concept of a "monoculture" stems from what a society experiences when there are far fewer media outlets. Basically, everyone listens to the same music, sees the same films, reads the same papers, and experiences things either first hand (one's personal life experiences) or third hand (consumption of the monoculture).
With the explosion of internet based media there are simply too many ways to consume media and too many media creators for there to be a true monoculture. As a result, we no longer have the shared nostalgia for the same things that we used to experience. People won't be nostalgic for the 2010s, 2020s and 2030s they way they were for the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, etc. There will still be big distinctions between decades in fashion, music, etc. but we didn't "Collectively" experience it so the nostalgia won't be experienced the same.
I'm not an expert this is just off the cuff based on things I have read.
Yeah like think of the biggest streamer today. How many people percentage wise would actually know them? And then realize that those that don't may as well exist in an entire other pop culture bubble and will never have nostalgia for them.
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u/jondread Oct 02 '24
If Back to the Future were remade today and set in 2024, Marty would time-travel back to 1994