The 2000s - The Decade from Hell

It CAN get better. There are ways:

1) Cut back on the fucking materialism already. For example, you don't need to update yourself with a new Asscrackberry every six months just because you can play Zaxxon on the new one. You don't need a full living room set for your FUCKING PATIO. With the money we save, think of all the lapdances, roulette and weed you could blow that on. At least you'll be having fun, instead of standing at a crowded bus stop trying to look important.

2) Enough with the SUV's. I'm not Captain Planet, but we are raping and murdering the Earth. Escalades are for rich people and assholes. If you're not one, just buy an Equinox and you'll be gassing up at a minimum 5 day span, for only $40 a pop.

3) Eat a salad on occasion. Red Meat is the food of the Gods and the Barbeque is one of the best inventions since the wheel, but you don't need Food Inc. to tell you that eating fast food three times a week (or pretty much at ANY chain for that matter) is basically just like poisoning yourself. Exercise. Join a team, even if it's just drunk softball. Think healthy and you might live to see 2020 and bitch about this upcoming decade with the rest of us.

4) Don't let the robots get you. The horrible, horrible robots.

In fact, you gave us all a good idea:

Alt-Focus: How else can we make this upcoming decade a better one?

 

This is pretty much me too.

 

It definitely hasn't been my favorite decade, but I've grown quite a bit in the last 10 years. I started out as a naive, impulsive, 18 year old drunken idiot, and transformed into a fully grown, mature, 28 year old drunken idiot. I joined the military, went to school, had more fun than I ever had pre-2000, drank ungodly amounts of alcohol, slept with loose women, went to war, bought a house, and found a career that I actually enjoy.

I agree with the previous posters about the music. The deeper I got into this decade, the more I missed the 90's. Remember when MTV regularly played music videos of Soundagarden and Alice in Chains? We didn't realize what we had.

 

Albeit scattered through with bright moments, this decade has been one of major suckage.

Started out with the non-event of Y2K when I was just itching to get all Red Dawn and live a little. Got laid off from amazon and washed up in school just before 9/11. I remember sitting in my Humanities class wishing a fucking DC9 would come rocketing through the window and spare me the hysterical diatribes of the radical left fueled by the "teacher" who just sat there smirking in her African headdress quoting Malcom X.

The beginning of 2003 saw me completely out of work and money. Had to live off credit cards and subsisted on ramen and baked potatoes. Finally got a decent desk job and spent the whole year getting on my feet until Halloween night when, drunk and dressed like a low-rent robot, I checked my bank account and learned it had been emptied. Months later, the bank reimbursed me but not after I bounced a zillion checks buying cheap groceries.

Fast-fwd three years later, and someone steals my cat of 8 years off my porch. Next, my mom came within a cunt hair of bleeding to death on a casino floor from a perforated ulcer. So I decided to pack my bags and come back to Vegas.

Got a cool job as a valet but eventually uncovered a skimming operation being committed by management. This eventually lead to my dismissal at the end of '08. Spent the first half of '09 looking for work until my money ran out and I was evicted by a constable waving a flashlight in my face at 9am. Over the summer my arms broke out in mysterious blisters. Had to wear long sleeves in triple-digit heat. Got them treated and am just starting to pay my bill. The doctor recommended I stop drinking for 90days so they could get a fresh look at my liver. Which I did, but I never went back and now only drink beer 1 or 2 days a week, liver be damned.

Just a month ago I FINALLY got a job. I'm now a bellman but the tips are shit this time of year. My company has a generous tuition reimbursement program I hope to take advantage of.

Tonight I am typing this after having just returned from the vet to my frickin' parents' house where I currently "live" (though I realize I am lucky to have this option). Vet told me I need to have a biopsy done on my pet's gum to look for "suspicious tissue". This will inevitably elongate my stay here on borrowed time, but ultimately it's the right thing to do.

I fear things will only get worse before getting "better", ie, when I will be in an apartment, mostly out of the financial red and writing to kill the boredom instead of drinking. But for now I am resolved to hang in there though I am aware of the fact that I am being sighted in the crosshairs. I remain hopeful but feel like I am climbing taffy steps toward a warm light that keeps receding. Enough out of me.

 

Born in '75, so I've seen some shit. The 2000s have sucked ass in a big way for me:

Met and lost three great loves.
Sold two houses under bad circumstances, taking a dive on each one.
Fought a rearguard action against the government for 8 years, and lost.
Had to give up my dog.
Had a son (good) to the wrong woman (psycho).

No, repeat, no country songs written about my circumstances.

 

For me, this decade has seen me off in a VERY different direction from where I thought I would be in the beginning.

Where I saw myself: Single, in grad school for music, working in music, busy as hell, slightly lonely

Where I am: Married, going back to finish my undergrad, working a less-than-ideal job, trying to get into a field I never saw myself getting into in high school, loved and cared for by a great group of friends and family

All in all, I'll take what I have and consider myself a very lucky (and overall happy) man.

I will say, I miss the music from junior high and high school though. 90's music was awesome.

 

Born in 1987. I had my childhood during the 90s so of course my understanding of the world at the time was rudimentary. The 90s seemed to be very much defined by fads and a growth in materialism that set the stage for the 2000s. Kids used to always brag about whether they had the newest gaming system, how expensive their clothes were, or how hip the newest music they were listening to was. Pogs, yoyos, and beanie babies. I still can't believe the prices some of that crap sold for.

I feel like I had a great childhood. The first house I remember living at was in the country, where during the winter, no one was within a mile of us. Of course I had friends and we had 'sleepovers' every weekend. Any time of year was focused on outdoor activities. In the winter we sled and sometimes had our father curve out a path with the snowmobile that forced you twist and turn all the way to the bottom. Today we hardly get enough snow in Minnesota to even bother buying one. In the summer people visited from down south or had cabins nearby for weekend getaways. We fished, hunted, did skiing, and I kept a zoo of animals in my garage with everything ranging from salamanders to snapping turtles. One of my favorite activies was to just go exploring in the woods and stake out a good spot for a tree house. I can't help but feel like those days are dying out.

I spent 6 years of the 2000s in Beijing and while it was great to see how much the city changed in those few years, it was depressing to see complete disregard of sustainability for short term growth. There's days when it's partially dark in the city just because the smog blocks out the sun. I'm talking about noon. Garbage litters the streets in every direction and going to a high school that cost $20,000+ per kid per year really showed how tied up we are in our material possessions. Maybe a recession will give us time to take a step back and give more consideration to the important things in life.

This is a bit long and sorry if I'm sounding like a hippy, but we have a lot to improve on; mainly our culture.

 

Decades have had loose nicknames/monikers for years.

The 60s were the "we" decade. The 70s were the "me" decade. The 80s were the "greed" decade.

There's little agreement on what the 90s were. I heard one news report at the end of the 1990s where someone suggested they might be remembered as the "concern" decade, because of all the causes that sprung up in the hangover following the 80s. I don't think that one worked out so well.

My vote for the 90s was the "nothing" decade. The defining cultural icon of the 1990s was Seinfeld, a show, literally, about nothing. And culturally, not much else happened. Oh, sure, we saw the early rise of the Internet, but you have to remember that by the end of the 1990s the Internet was a cesspool of useless crap. Geocities, the blink tag, and a venture capital orgy supporting the stupidest business models known to man.

As such, the 2000s might be remembered as the Digital Decade, when the Internet finally became really useful for everyone. But that's pretty optimistic.

I don't think it was the Decade from Hell, as Time put it. My vote:

We should call the 2000s The Uh-Oh Decade.

This is the decade when the first bills showed up for all the credit we took out in the 1980s and 1990s. This is when the margin calls started coming.

There was just as much, if not more, talking about environmentalism and global warming in the 1980s as there is now. But in the 1980s we blithely ignored it, figuring that we'd get around to fixing those things eventually. In the Uh-Oh Decade of the 2000s, people started looking around and going, "um, guys...I'm not so sure we can actually fix things anymore."

Same with health care. And foreign policy (9/11?) And the economy. Financial instruments made of pure fantasy that made everyone rich in the late 1990s and early 2000s finally collapsed the whole goddamn system under its own weight. Instead of just taking our lumps, tightening our belts, and holding people responsible for their actions, what did we do? We stole from the few decent people who didn't fuck everyone over and borrowed against the future a little more, printing gobs and gobs of money to ease the fall and try to prime the pump for the next go-round. How many times are we going to be able to get away with it? Not too many more.

The 1970s started a trend of us mortgaging the future to pay for enhancing the present. And it looked like it was working for 20-30 years. But the future is here now, and we are no longer able to borrow enough against today's future to pay the bills of the past AND keep improving our present. Something has to give, and this is the decade when I think the cracks in the strategy started to show.

 

I'm surprised that you're just about the only person to bring up the '70's and '80's when interest rates were well into double digits, terrorism was new uncharted territory and probably pretty scary, pop music sucked, jeans were awful, and people were dying all over the place. Further, there was a huge fear the the earth would freeze. Carter was sure to screw America for all it was worth. Well, we got through it and we'll get through this. When my folks bought their first home in the mid '70's, the bank asked for 20% down, which seems pretty fair and reasonable. I can't imagine how much heartache we would have saved if the bank looked at a lot of first time home buyers and said "Sure, we'll loan you $350,000. Just bring us the $70,000 and we'll be all set. What's that? You don't have $70k? Well, how much do you have? Nothing? Have a great day."

 

As I actually remember the 70s, if you did this poll then ...

we are sitting around in constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Terrorism sucks and all, but the constant seemingly very real threat of instantaneous vaporization kind of sucked more.

right around this time of year (tomorrow actually) America would have a whole bunch of hostages seized in Iran. And there was nothing we could do about it. All we managed to do was crash two planes in the desert trying to rescue them.

3 hour+ lines to get gas, if gas was even available a few years before.

double digit interest rates, coupled with double-digit inflation.

how about investing? The Dow was up 29. Points. Not percent. On 1/2/70 the dow was at 809. On 12/29/79 it was at ... 838.

How about crime? Lets stick with NYC. 1979 violent rapes - 5,394. 2008 - 2,801 (with a population increase of almost 2 million people). 1979 murders - 2,092, 2008 - 836.

Disco. Seriously, that shit was really popular. So were roller skates.

The decade started off w/ Richard Nixon resigning just prior to being impeached. And not because he put his dick in a fat girl, because he was a criminal and tried to rig an election. His VP had already resigned. Due to bribery.

Lets see, what else, oh, we got our asses kicked in a war half way around the world fought for no good reason (this sounds vaguely familiar) which resulted in 59,000 dead Americans. Best part? When the soldiers came home WE TREATED THEM LIKE SHIT. As if it was somehow their fault ... for BEING DRAFTED. Nice.

TV consisted of 3 channels. There were basically no video games, although pong showed up at some point. Ford manufactured a car that exploded on impact.

And to follow up on what VanillaGorilla and DrFrylock were saying, securitization was invented in the 70s. Which is what got us into this financial mess we're now in.

 

All of this is true. The 70's were a very sleazy time. You're talking a bout a decade where cocaine was the coolest thing going (along with plaid polyester bell-bottoms). The gas scam was basically a fake panic button where they told everyone we were "running out of gas", so they jacked the pricesto the roof and people waited all day in the hot sun to fuel up. When the public found out it was a scam, the companies basically said "So what, you fell for it, fuck you and you can't do anything about it."

"Dazed and Confused" indeed.

 

70s: first 7 years of my life, pretty much cake
80s: lots of fantastic stuff mixed in with some serious family dysfunction. My favorite decade, pop culture nostalgia-wise.
90s: college and initial adulthood years. This is the decade I would do all over again if I could and make major changes. I was an idiot.
2000s: my daughter came along in 02, and she's my world. It wasn't until 2005 that I did something about the mess I got into in the 90s. I had to go through (and put others through) a world of hurt, but we're a lot better off than if I had done nothing and kept my head in the sand. I'm so much happier now than I have been in years and I'd like to think I understand myself a lot better. If my self-esteem were a corporation and I bought stock when I entered the 80s - I may have had to sit on it for 2 decades, but it's finally paying off big dividends.
2010s: please don't be an idiot again. I don't want my stock to tank.

 

I was born in '75, and this decade has been a blur. I mean, really: I ended up a deli clerk in 2000, moved to Vegas, became a public leech, and seemingly a month after nothing happened on Y2k the decade is over. The 90s were about bad music and figuring out what to do with my life, the Aughts were about... Wait, they're over?

 

I think the 2000's should be referred to as "The Tucker Max Decade." You know, like the 80's was "The Al Franken Decade."

As for the 70s, the decade that gave us disco also gave us epic works from Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, The Stones, and The Who just to name a few. It's not my fault you're listening to the wrong 8-tracks tapes.

 

The Good
The 2000's was a significant decade for me, especially the latter half. I was born in 1981, graduated high school in 2000, and went off to college that year. Started dating a high school colleague in 2000 before graduating HS, and we eventually got married in 2007- I never had the philandering college experience many of you had or are having, but the one thing I treasure every day is the stable home life and bright future I think we have together.

I also started building a pretty decent career, in a part of Finance that actually CREATES value for companies and protects the interests of shareholders and employees alike. I've been conservative with money, and managed to put a premium on optionality in life over instant gratification. Many of my friends who bought houses in 2005 are shitting their pants right now. One thing I've learned is that buying anything new, in a world where the internet creates very efficient second-hand markets (for electronics, cars, books, furniture) is an awful waste of money. Take that GDP!

The Bad
Had to fight the big C off in 2007, and lost a nut in the process. This has still scarred me to this day, but makes me thankful for the things I do have, and effectively scared all the fear out of me for the rest of my life. If you can answer the question "what's the worst that can happen?" and the answer isn't "Die!", then you should go for it.

Like many, I lost my grandparents, and more troubling, as a kid who idolized my parents my whole life, realized they are not infallible and don't have the answers to everything in life.

As for world events, and generational outlook, I'm fairly pessimistic about our society's ability to pull itself up off the mat, especially in an era for both political parties where the answer to all problems seems to be providing handouts at the expense of future productivity. This type of approach can only work for so long, but then again, the US Economy is so damned big that maybe there is more capacity than I think for re-mortgaging over and over again.

 

For me personally, the last two decades have been a stark contrast.

I started off the 90's by getting married in 1990 (at the ripe old age of 19) - This decade I started off by getting divorced in 2000.

Last decade I started off being a doormat to an ex husband - This decade I started off by having my own place for the first time ever.

I ended the last decade (97) welcoming three of my children at once, 3 months early, going through the preemie nightmare for 100+ days, and finally bringing home my beautiful daughter - This decade I'm ending it by preparing to send that same ex preemie to high school!

Last decade I didn't work because my ex-husband liked me at home - This decade I am an ICU nurse who goes home at the end of every shift with a sense of pride and achievement.

Last decade I tied myself up in knots wondering what everyone else thought of me - This decade I couldn't give a fuck.

I just realized that at the end of the next decade one of my kids will be finished University and the other one will be just about finished. I think i'll end the next decade with a drink or 10 for a job well done!

 

Fuck the rest of the world, I enjoyed this decade.

Had a beautiful daughter born in 04.

Had chef Thomas Keller call my dish "the most perfect plate of pasta" he'd ever eaten.

Became less obsessed with opening my own restaurant and more obsessed with being a great father.

Established myself professionally with people I respect and admire.

Helped write the menu to two restaurants that achieved Michelin star status.

Watched my oldest daughter flourish into a lovely young woman.

Bought property (which diminished in value the second I bought it, but why focus on the negative).

All in all, I look forward to the next decade and whatever it might bring.

 

In 1999 I was 16, so I'm not really the same person. Some of the past few years have been the Years from Hell, but I wouldn't call the entire decade shitty. There were lots of good things with the bad.

Personally, the last 10 years has been about growing up and beginning to figure it out. I'm 26 and I feel like I'm just now cutting out the bullshit and contemplating the big questions. Significant events that I've learned a lot from/I'm still learning from include the deaths of several loved ones, moving 1,000 miles to a city knowing nobody, living paycheck to paycheck, working with people from vastly different backgrounds, a personal crisis, a couple of loves that didn't work out, and picking up the pieces from said crisis.

When I was younger I thought I knew that material things didn't really matter. I thought I knew that receiving validation and praise from others was pretty insignificant and meaningless. I was above that. Looking back, I didn't really know these things because I tried to be perfect all the time. I wanted to please everyone in my life so I could be a good, pretty girl. Being talented and achieving a dream didn't result in infinite happiness. Maintaining a 4.0 GPA didn't result in happiness. Rocking at my job and getting praise from co-workers and supervisors didn't fulfill me. Over the last decade the universe has led me through these experiences and forced me to look at myself and others differently. I think I've been cycling through this same lesson for years. I thought that if I just acheived x everything in my life would be perfect. It's taken me multiple times around to look at what the universe has held in front of me the entire time. Finally, I've genuinely realized that being happy and having a meaningful life comes from something other than achievements and validation from people who do/don't really matter to me.

Most people are going through the same thing, and some people never figure it out or don't want to. We're seeking happiness from places and things that will never make us happy. As for society in general, I think that the next few years are going to be very dark and bleak, but I think we will come together and humanity will rise again. I am optimistic about the 2010s.

 

Obviously being young I can't say for sure, but this (and I mean the end of the decade) strikes me as one of the first times the young feel thoroughly betrayed by the previous generation. Obviously I'm aware that youth has always contended with the generation before them, but until now it has always seemed more in the sense of "We understand your belief is genuine, but your social constructs are outdated/wrong." That's not what I'm feeling right now; I'm feeling that we have been actively screwed by actions on a wide scale that the previous generation knew weren't right. For much of recorded history society has been about making the world a better place for one's children. Obviously this goal has failed to be achieved often, but the recent past strikes me as the first time a society has actively and knowingly mortgaged their children's future so they could aggrandize themselves.