It feels like so many things happened in 2008 that led to the foundations of 2010s culture beginning. I find the 2008 shift to be kind of under-discussed on this subreddit as I consider it to be the biggest shift of the 21st century and it rivals 1964 in how so many things were going on during that timeframe.
2001, 2008, 2016 and 2020 are the most impactful years of the new millennium so far
I think 2025 is there for Americans. Globally it’s been a pretty average year but in America is been a lengthy shitshow.
2025 is bad because it’s in the present. And it may shake out being absolutely cataclysmic, but a lot of folks are too young to have ridden out the slow gathering storm clouds and massive crash of the Great Recession. It fucking sucked.
Tea Party republicans were dicks with a dispute was if the feds should keep unemployment benefits 99 weeks in 2010- but states didn’t start cutting people off in until LATE 2011. There was also the whole sequester thing.
That’s 2 years after the recession ended. Thats how bad it was. The whole avocado toast, liberal arts major barista trope took off during this dour era.
My parents sold their home in late 2006. This was in a very desirable area where we moved after SE Iowa collapsed during the Carter and early Reagan years.
That house did not get back up to their selling price in value until 2018.
And this is a growing and desirable suburb of Chicago. Maybe this was an outlier but 2015-2018 was typical.
Yeah it’s crazy to think kids born after 9/11 are now graduating college. They were a little too young and shielded from the shit show that was rising.
My favorite coworker was born after 9/11 and she has a master's degree and runs a major program at work 🙃
Well including the class of 2024 and 2025 as well
I bought my house in 2007 and it was underwater until Covid. I refinanced in 2020 and had to pay pmi on it for a year because I was still financing greater than 80% of the value.
What was truly painful was that after all of the bailouts, the government forced the banks to refinance all of those bad loans, and if you had one of those loans and missed or were late on a single payment, they had to adjust your mortgage to the current value of the home. Many homeowners were fortunate and had thousands upon thousands of dollars forgiven. For those people who fulfilled their obligations like me, who struggled to make sure to not miss any payments, and make those payments on time, all we got was a refinance to a little bit lower rate. I think mine went from 7% to 6% or so. I argued with the bank that it’s bs that the people that were irresponsible and bought more than they could afford got a bailout while the rest of us got screwed. Almost 20 years later it still pisses me off.
Epstein and Kirk are more than enough to add 2025 to the list imo.
Not even close. Events like 9/11, the 2008 crash, and COVID absolutely upended life and the news cycle for very long times.
9/11 resulted in the creation of the TSA, Dept of Homeland Security, and Patriot Act (in the U.S.), while also starting the War on Terror, plus revamped security measures around the world.
2008 crash cratered economies around the world, caused public debt to spiral upward across many countries, triggered a growing wave of populist anger on the left and right wings which then grew throughout the 2010s.
I think 2020 needs less explanation given its recency, but needless to say that upended life globally for years.
The Epstein files stuff and Kirk’s shooting are only historical footnotes so far. If the Epstein stuff actually goes anywhere big and isn’t successfully suppressed by Trump, then maybe it’ll become a history-making event, but that’s to be determined.
Epstein and who?
Never seen a more textbook example of recency bias lol
Sure, but the USAID cancelation is legitimately like... 60% as bad as COVID. That kind of global devastation is absolutely noteworthy.
Its bad because its the beginning of the end
Been a huge year here in Aus as well.
Mayhaps, but like I said there’s no global events really. Like 2020 had Covid racing across the world, 2001 has the launch of the iPhone and the beginning of the modern smartphone
iPhone did not launch in 2001,
iPod, sorry, still revolutionary
Just wait. Trump is running the US like one of his businesses. It’ll take a couple years to deplete the funds. Then the ripple effects will come.
This is said every single year
Some recency bias on this analysis
2025 is like 2017
I disagree because 2016 was much more significant than 2024
I mean, It's first year that Trump Won, Always chaos Like this
America is the world, it being the unipolar hegemon.
2025 is gonna be there with the Trump administration throwing the world balance out of whack. It's gonna be three more years of tariffs, wars and other destabilization, which have lots of rippling effects on other continents as well.
And I'm saying this as a European who is tired of all the American-centric talk in this sub.
And if it ever comes to a WW3, the 2022 invasion of Ukraine will be considered the starting point.
In the long term I think you're right, but I don't think it will be discussed as much without a major event like 9/11, the recession, Trump's election or Covid
Dude, I’m from the US and I’m tired of all the American-centric talk.
yea that's what happens when our main goal since WW2 was to put ourselves directly in the middle of everything
Russia hasn’t had a swift victory in Ukraine so I don’t believe you have to worry about WW3. The battles are different now & it seems to be more political, economical, & covert/online. The AI race might change things if one superpower has a significant leg up on another but we’ll see how that goes over the next two years
I’m saying this as an American who’s sick of hearing Europeans complain
Complaining about Europeans complaining is a fruitless endeavor my friend.
https://preview.redd.it/9mnuafd66u8g1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1a944d4e8a250ad712b7acee9636a93eb982e457
Then fix your damn country while your president is fucking up mine, thank you very much.
It’s not. Even with him taking over this was a tame year compared to last
Great. When I was 7, 13, 22, and 26. Zero hope 🤣 every time there was a chance to try, CHOP CHOP at the ankles
Tbh, every single year of the 2020s has felt more impactful than any in the 2010s.
Agreed this is a solid take
So…over time things change and some years see more things change than others?
2007 is really impactful but specifically for video games.
I was 14 in 2008 and it did indeed feel like a cultural shift was in the air at the time but now looking back at it wasn’t necessarily for the better in my opinion
Recessions generally aren’t!
I was 24. agreed
I was 14 as well and I don’t think the actual cultural shift happened in 2008, but rather it was fully completed then. The culture started becoming darker in 2005 and the recession in 2008 was simply the peak of it.
I look back at 2008 fondly now, even though it was a bad year for me, simply because the recession era was the last time I still felt some sort of childish innocence.
The culture definitely shifted and it was overall quite positive to live through, we’re just experiencing the backlash to that cultural shift now.
well, no
people felt it then
For me it feels like things started changing post 2012 with the worst of it building since 2020. Like shit has been rough since 2019 and hasnt let up.
Cambridge Analytica poisoned internet culture
Cambridge Analytica was just the tip of the iceberg, we’re trending towards dead internet theory more and more everyday with paid users pushing political agendas and corporate products from all sorts of organizations.
You misspelled Facebook
I dont know what that is lmao
Steve Bannon's pet project to radicalize everyone using algorithmically targeted ragebait. It worked and played a great deal in the 2016 election, and was tested against two different elections prior in different countries . Chris Wylie is a whistle blower who wrote an in-depth book on it called Mindfuck. I can send you the book if you want just DM me.
Ooooohhhh. I think I've heard some stuff about it but not enough to recognize its name. The algorithm crap has taken over everything and has ruined people's ability to think critically. Its insane!
2013-19 felt like a slow descent into madness and life post 2020 has been recovering from that descent. Everyone over talked to seems to unanimously agree 2012 was the last good year before it all changed.
I’ll add to 2008 pop culture: This the year Britney Spears was illegally forced into a conservatorship, which lasted 13 years.
That is not a major impact event
I would argue that the illegal containment of Britney Spears created room for newer chapters of pop culture to flourish. Lady Gaga’s first big headline was being a writer for the first Britney album released under constraints. She would not have had that opportunity if Britney was busy promoting her previous album and going through a public custody battle
Almost immediately after the conservatorship was implemented, TriStar management began to take over as Britney’s representation. The initial funds for that company, during that time. are argued to come from Britney’s estate; which the success of The Kardashians, under TriStar, became exponential.
Imprisoning the most famous celebrity of the past decade had a huge effect on the media industry .
Yeah I feel it totally popped off for other artists like Gaga, Katy Perry, Rihanna, etc
And maybe should have lasted a little longer.
Her new videos are really sad
Or shorter but with actual therapy instead of personal jail time.
I think she needed people that actually cared about her. A short conservatorship with therapy/healthy time away from the spotlight so she could sort out the custody battle.
Making “cringe” posts on the internet isn’t punishable by life in prison.
The conservatorship is what mentally got to her. She definitely did not need it, she needed time away from the spotlight, therapy and time with her kids.
The conservatorship and the people who were upholding it caused her mental decline. Her father caused her both childhood trauma and continued adult trauma via control, stripping her of her freedom and rights, financial embezzlement, and essentially a medical lobotomy. Add the pressures of massive stardom starting in her youth and the sexualization by the media and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
No, she did not need that conservatorship she needed people in her life that cared about her and weren’t constantly exploiting her, she needed extensive mental health treatment, and she needed a break from the pressures she was under of being a sexualized workhorse and cash cow for her family. She was basically enslaved and abused for 13 years of course she doesn’t know how to acclimate to her newfound freedom you don’t just come out of a situation like that automatically thriving and well adjusted.
It was modern day slavery. She was literally being forced to work explicitly against her will why her dad and others profited.
This undoubted contributed to what we see from Britney today, and because her family weaponized the medical system against her numerous times, she no longer trusts it and might never seek the real help she has always needed.
courtney love said some interesting things
but seems the comments are erased
Bro have you heard of therapy
Obama was a great president, but without him we don't get Trump.
I think we will still be feeling the after effects of his victory over McCain in 15-20 years time.
Obama was an okay president, I think, but he was so underwhelming in terms of performance. His likability and charisma are what save him in his overall score. There was so much potential yet so much of a let down in the end. And yes, Trump supposedly got all pissy and vengeful because Obama goofed on him at a ceremony, which sparked his run in 2016.
Well I mean, he dealt with a Republican house for most of his time.
Who were very actively and deliberately obstructing him and Dems
Obama's biggest issue was that he was/is too smart. And he knows it. He falls into the trap that smart people, including smart people in politics, fall into all the time. He assumes that people with other perspectives are simply misinformed rather than coming from a place of genuine disagreement. It wore on a lot of people. Especially people in areas that were hurting. That includes people who voted for him twice.
He did something that politicians should never do: Pointed to macro metrics and implied you should feel it in your bank account. And people weren't, so eventually they tuned him out. That's why Dems lost the Rust Belt.
Ironically, Trump is doing the same thing as we speak. But out of delusion rather than hubris.
Obama was great only in comparison to the other presidents of the 21st century. He is decidedly middling otherwise.
Trump has been floating a Presidential bid every 4 years since 1988. He actually ran in 2000 before pulling out. He tried to run again in 2012 but was slapped down so hard by Obama he had second thoughts.
Trump has tapped in to a rich vein of anti-immigration sentiment in America, something that far predates Obama (think Rush Limbaugh in the Clinton/Bush era). Obama maybe supercharged their hatred, becoming the personification of the majority’s fear of losing power, but the trendlines are still there without Obama.
How many decades was Trump actually a Democrat ?
About a decade? A quick glance says he changed five times. GOP-Reformist-Democrat-Independent-GOP.
I guess he settled on GOP because that side is easier to grift?
2008 was the year I finished school, entered Uni and my country declared that we are going to be poor as fuck until I die. So at least for me a lot changed.
Obama and the financial crisis: sure. These had a global impact. But the rest, to me, doesn’t seem seminal. I mean, a pepsi rebrand? Iron man?
How is Iron Man not seminal? It started the MCU.
Definitely affected the entire entertainment industry to this day whether you like the movies or not .
Only if one cares. It doesn‘t have an - at least somewhat - objective impact. It wasn’t even the most successful movie of 2008. In the us, it came second. Worldwide, it was only in 8th place.
It started the obsession with cinema “universes” and majority of big budget releases needing to be linked to existing IP - along with the massive growth of superhero popularity
The Pepsi rebrand was one of the first high-profile rebrands of the “modern flat design” that became ubiquitous in the 2010s. Iron Man launched the MCU which defined 2010s movie culture and became the highest grossing franchise ever.
Even the Megan Fox scene where she fixes a car in Transformers felt more more impactful than Iron Man lmfaoo.
Spotify and Netflix were nothing burgers at the time. The introduction of VEVO on YouTube felt more impactful than the launch of Spotify(i know vevo is a 2009 thing); I didn't even hear of Spotify until 2011.
I first heard of Spotify around 2017/2018
Spotify originally launched in 2006, but only reached the US around the 2010s, I think.
Idk. I’m not from the US. But I’m pretty sure it got popular around mid to late 2010s
Yes! I got my account in 2011 and I’m from the US.
Netflix was definitely not a nothing burger. It revolutionized the way we watch movies/TV overnight. Blockbuster went out of business so fast after that. Everyone was getting DVDs in the mail. It was pretty crazy imo.
The film that launched the MCU wasn't impactful?
So what? Everything was a western at one time, no one cares anymore. Then later everything was a superhero movie for a bit, now no one cares anymore.
No one may care now, but it did define Hollywood for a decade (2008-2019). The MCU will definitely always be associated with 2010’s pop culture much like Star Wars with the early 1980’s
I think it’s less them being actually relevant and more the seeds of what’s to come being planted then. It’s around 2012-2013 when all those actually blow up and become relevant but they got their start in 2008
The poster is trying to depict the inception of multiple extremely significant corporations that now have global power and have affected the lives of many. 2008 is when many started to emerge and in general was when a significant tech shift started to occur which is why it’s such a pivotal year.
The Tesla Roadster was the first mass production car to have lithium-ion batteries and to have a range of 200 miles. It was also when electric cars started to become aspirational (being in the body of a Lotus certainly made them cooler than other hybrids/evs).
Teslas may be borning now, and led by a weird megalomaniac, but this was a big shift.
Out of all, the true largest impact has been the app store
On too of the financial crisis and the election of Barack Obama you have the release of the first iPhone, release of Facebook/Twitter to the public, Netflix launches its first television streaming platform, Tesla’s first car is released. Literally smartphones, social media, streaming, and modern electric cars all got released in a short window, 2007-2008 is arguably the most important year of the century.
It’s because they planted the seeds for Flat Design and the MCU respectively. I’d say both don’t fully go into full swing until about 2012ish, but the seeds were planted then
https://preview.redd.it/24mprxrpsr8g1.png?width=1477&format=png&auto=webp&s=ff049bc9930b035da25c07814b8bc30f078ae5ed
lol !!!!
I agree it was a absolute shift year, we are still seeing the affects of the recession which worsened even more after Covid
To be fair 2008 really kicked off the 2010s in influences. But alot of these aren’t culturally relevant anymore. Most Electropop artists, Facebook, and MCU are now culturally irrelevant. Flat design already peaked
I wouldn’t say Facebook or the MCU are culturally irrelevant now.
Facebook the app maybe isn’t the place to be for folks under 50 but a ton of our older folks are on the app constantly. Not to mention instagram being owned by Meta, which also is still very well known.
The MCU while definitely not what it was 6 years ago still has some legs. Spider-Man and guardians do really well still, and with Doomsday and Secret Wars coming I imagine those movies will still get butts in seats even if they aren’t high quality.
electro pop wasn't even new
I would also agree in a lot of ways. Even Strauss & Howe (or at least Neil Howe) mark 2008 as the official start of the Fourth Turning/Crisis period that we are currently in and it makes sense given that a lot of social upheavals and economic distress that we’ve experienced had its roots back in the late 2000s.
Interesting. To me it was around 2006.
Why 2006?
Comments are annoying asl. OP is talking about the cultural impact of the MCU and that the MCU started with Iron Man.
No one cares about your personal opinion or enjoyment of the series, or how impactful it is in YOUR life. It was globally impactful, particularly for the entertainment industry. Whether good or bad is debatable and not the point.
Recession, Obama, and the racism/birther/conspiracy culture that followed.
Nobody cares about Obama and his birth certificate except for Americans. The financial crisis affected the whole world.
The 'Obama isn't American' hoax was an early taste of the absolute shitton of propaganda, misinformation, fake news and media manipilation we would be seeing in the following decades. The growing spread of social media and it becoming more and more sophisticated made manipilation like this more and more efficient.
I have some relatives that migrated to the U.S. since the 1980s. By 2008, they were forwarding chain emails about Obama being an agent of foreign power to being an anti-Christ.
That culminated into the election of Trump and to his second term now which has had a lot of ramifications for the world
Yawn
Pepsi really did fall off hard after 2008.
Don’t forget about 808s and heartbreak which was highly influential in hip hop
Yeah, I forgot to include that, sorry.
It gets overlooked a lot now but you can draw a straight line from Sarah Palin to modern conservative politics.
Remeber when the president ran on a platform of hope and optimism? I miss the Obama era.
This again?
"My President is Black" - Young Jeezy (2008) https://youtu.be/Z9afKPN3-J4?si=Kd70ggj1XVbmryVW
My Lambo's blue
You're so 2000 and late
The Democrats were furious that Obama stole the nomination from Hillary. The voters havent controlled the DNC since according to DNC leadership.
I told my dad to invest in Netflix around then, he laughed at me and said “blockbuster will always exist for old people like me, we need to rent in stores.” Sigh. I would have absolutely balled out from investments had I been born a decade or so earlier, could have saved myself from major college debt and been an onlyfans star had I been born a decade later. Sigh
The 2010s is one of the only decades that culturally began before the previous decade ended - and 2008 is absolutely the epitome of that.
The 2000s started early as well by that logic
Also GTA 4 set up what GTA 5 and GTA 6 would become. GTA 5 became the biggest entertainment product in history and GTA 6 will probably surpass GTA 5.
WHERE IS BRITNEY SPEARS’ 2008 SMASH HIT ALBUM CIRCUS AT!!!! /j sorta 🤪
Don’t tell the core zoomers this. They get a panic attack every time you tell them that Late 2008 and 2009 were more like the early 2010s haha
Yeah, as someone who belongs in the latter end of the Gen Z spectrum, 2009 felt more like the proto-2010s than what people imagine as the 2000s. I feel like the people who say otherwise aren't aware of what core 2000s culture was like.
https://preview.redd.it/cnhvxou8gv8g1.png?width=716&format=png&auto=webp&s=253a5fd333c5313f8c1280007f153a738dc7d20d
Remember when Netflix would send dvds to your house?
In 2008, The United States of America, a country built by enslaved Africans who became Black so as to distinguish them from the ownership class of whites, elected it's first ever Black president. This drove all the closet white supremacists in the country crazy, and they've been trying to turn the country fascist ever since.
Thank you for saying the thing out loud. Seems like no one wants to acknowledge this
The song “2008” by Cleopatrick discusses this exact thing. Great song too.
Emulating Our Aesthetics Is Weeiiiiiiirrd As Fuck ( the video )
Did someone say Change (2008)?
I vividly remember my mom saying “where’s the birth certificate” “was he even born her” and also believing the conspiracy that Michelle was transgender
I saw Katy Perry at warped tour in 08’ she had blown up that whole summer so it was a treat to see her live back then. Humble beginnings lol
It is really crazy that Pepsi surpassed Coke in overall revenue when I recall coke literally being the US company with the highest revenue along with Microsoft in like 2003 (it was a factoid in the coffee table book "Top 10 obf Everything" lol) when Pepsi wasn't even on the list. They diversified like a mother fucker!
We are really due for this era to get more attention. I think there is a great recency shroud on things by historians to avoid the present by a generation in discussions.
I feel like Obama was, despite being the first black US President, was the last President to be an establishment-friendly people pleaser. The Democrat party peaked with him, like the pre-Trump Republicans did with Reagan.
American Dream.... Dream more idiots...
A lot of the problems with monopolies started under Obama. It was his administration that encouraged horizontal mergers.
We can trace the issues back to Reagen and the Overton shift that birthed Bill Clinton. It definitely didn't start with Obama.
Even before Reagan, Carter started that stuff too.
Unbelievable, that OP could have chosen that particular year. It could mean that that point in time inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance. Almost as if it were the temporal junction point for the entire space-time continuum. On the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence.
Oh fuck, everything changed way earlier than that. But who is keeping track?
Also, Bethesda introduced "Horse Armor DLC"
lol
With the arrival of streaming, the birth and popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, yes, 2008 did make a huge change.
Great Recession had a huge impact on 2008.
God I was so happy then. I was fifteen, but damn was I happy.
When Pepsi changed their logo to look like Obama's logo.
I did a cross-country move as a kid in 2008, and that combined with everything in this post made for arguably my biggest cultural shift of all time, even compared to shifts in my adulthood. I remember more of that year than I even do of some recent years…
I think there is a strong correlation between the rise of the smartphone (namely the iPhone(introduced 2007)), social media addiction, and the current divide we are seeing. And interestingly enough, nobody really seems to talk about it.
My guess is if you made a line graph showing access to smart phones, social media engagement, and social and political division, those lines would probably follow very similar and sharp increasing lines.
I firmly believe we’re not going to get much better at working together and seeing past lies and bullshit unless we willingly say goodbye to social media. It is poison to our minds, it has been used to turn us into addicts, and once addicted it was weaponized against us to drive us apart. And now we’re at a point where people freak out whenever banning tik tok is discussed. And why? Oh, I don’t know — because all of your info from it is collected directly by the Chinese government. But who cares, cause you can watch a 11 year old dance
Most importantly, I was born
Bring back physical keyboards on phones!
So much for their 1.2 billion dollar rebrand- they changed from that logo two years ago and I just now learned it was supposed to be a smile.
Everything changes every year, some more than others. Sure, 2008 was impactful but not nearly as much as 2001 or 2020
2008 was the start of the 2010’s
Yeah it's when everything truly became shit. The very infancy
This is the year I graduated high school! You forgot Tha Carter III. That album was everywhere and probably contributed to how popular rap became in the 2010s.
Besides Obama what else happened in 2008? I don't remember it being very eventful.
Crazy, I had no idea so much impactful things were going on at the same time. Never thought about it much.
Back before TS started making good music and before stopped making “sophisticated” kidz bop.
what ?
Before 2012, it was “good” for yung teenz but really no one else. After that, she grew up and stopped making high school drama junk.
what do the mean by “cosmic theories” in the Pepsi rebrand? I did graphic design just never heard that term..
Its when we found out everyone on the block was a jive ass turkey!
I had a great year 2008, though for totally unrelated reasons.
Ahh the year I graduated high school and started college. Wild time.
It’s a turning point
It was certainly a big one.
Well you know there was a global financial disaster right?
2008 was the year a bunch of kids at my school got an early history lesson on racism in America when people near our school hung dummies of Obama and his family from their trees.
MySpace was shooting itself in the foot. My therapist (yeah I have one suck it) said he got Facebook back in 2006. It was a growing platform at that point and it was only a matter of time before it happened. The recession had nothing to do with it. Same with Netflix. Netflix launched streaming in 2007 and was already doing mail in and blockbuster was on a downfall. Half these “2000s icons” were killing themselves.
That being said many of the artists that were popular in the 2000s were still thriving in 2008-2009 like Beyonce, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Kanye West, the Black Eyed Peas, and Justin Timberlake were all doing well.
God the Pepsi rebrand document was so pretentious.
I was 16. H1N1 was my biggest problem. I got the vaccine, never got sick - didn’t know anyone that got sick. Continued on with life like normal because it was. Live in Canada so we didn’t feel the recession as much as down south. Very fortunate. One of the best years of my life.
Obama is a bullshit artist. The slider phones were GREAT phones. They should bring them back. Make them slightly bigger or whatever.
Music Streaming apps like Spotify didn’t really take off until like 2012, and even back then there was a lot of competition like Songza, Shazam, SoundCloud, and Bandcamp but by 2015 it was clear that Spotify pretty much dominated the market at this point. Eventually Songza was merged into Google play music and eventually into YouTube music, Shazam became more niche especially with Apple, and SoundCloud and Bandcamp became places for people who don’t even have a label.
Definitely a game changer of a year.
You bring these similar topics up every other day. It is being talked about.
When Millennials Started Cosplaying Our Growing UP
WE E E I I I I I I I R D lol !
Everything changed after 9/11. If you really want to give it a date that’s the date.
For 2001, it was more of a political shift while a lot of late 90s pop culture remained while a lot of aspects of 2000s pop culture died around the 2008 shift. If you want to read more about this, check out this comment which explains it better.
Everything changes constantly.
You mean that we had an actual president? Yes, yes, we did
Pluto moved into Capricorn. 2025 has been the first year when Pluto was totally in Aquarius
then it all changed for the worse in 2016 and hasn't gotten better since
Citizens United was and still is a huge root problem, enabling corruption.
The last image pisses me off. Wall Street didn’t need a f’ing bailout. If those bailouts were funnelled into building a stronger social safety net, the country would have been better off.
what is pic 15?
I was 23 in 2008. I definitely look back on that as a turning point where there is a “before” and “after” phase.
I didn't use Spotify until like 2014
2008? GTA 4 reference?
Obama we miss the drone king