Why I'm obsessed with this decade

There’s something about the year 2007 that I can’t get over.  

Right before the onset of the Great Recession, the America George W. Bush presided over was a country that had seen such economic prosperity that allowed the unapologetic glamour of California culture to go mainstream.

For us millennials, this was the time of Escalades, Laguna Beach, Fergie’s “My Humps”, MySpace, shockingly skinny bikini bodies, fur-line hoods, flip phones, Abercrombie and plenty of other horribly gaudy things we’d rather forget.

But with the onset of the Recession, all of that changed.

Suddenly we weren’t the material girls of the 2000s. Instead the reality of unemployment, poverty and — most of all — uncertainty totally changed the mood of the country.

The 2008 presidential election cemented this shift with the election of Barack Obama, and ever since we’ve been trying to get over the hangover of what were America’s drunken years.

This shift was best shown in how dramatically pop culture changed. No longer were Paris Hilton or Britney Spears what ladies aimed to be.

Instead, the quirky, individual, alternative archetype personified by Zooey Deschanel became the norm. Thrifting became a thing. We moved on from only wearing tennis shoes to revisiting dressier shoes that started with Sperrys to the Oxfords and Wingtips that are so popular today.

For a little while, we got over the flashy pop of the 2000s, too, and instead found some comfort in the quiet angst of indie music that reflected the mood of a more restrained America.

It’s this sort of change that has me fascinated with the 2010s, our current decade. The tectonic shifts that occurred from the year 2000 to the year 2009 make me wonder what the remainder of this decade will look and feel like.

Our country is currently grappling with a cultural and political divide so deep we’re likely to look back on it with a mix of regret and bizarre fascination.

As America rapidly changes, there are factions resisting change tooth and nail. The Tea Party particularly exemplifies this resistance by its animosity to this change that is bringing the struggles of historically disenfranchised groups such as women, blacks, Latinos and the LGBT community to the forefront of society.

Culturally, these groups have also taken pop culture by storm. Hip hop has become the rock ’n’ roll or the disco or the grunge of this decade.

Fashion is slowly slipping away from the preppy aesthetic of bands like Fun., popularized in the earlier part of the ’10s, to the more minimalistic and rugged style that brands like Urban Outfitters and American Apparel are popularizing. We’re living in the age of the smartphone, and most recently, America seems to be on the edge of bringing cannabis culture to the mainstream.

Needless to say, the times are changing. We’re not even halfway through this decade.

And I can’t wait to see where we go.

­— edsalas@indiana.edu
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Eduardo Salas
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