Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The decade that dares not speak its name

Does anyone else think it's weird that there is no common way in which everyone refers to the decade we're currently in?

I remember in the '80s and '90s we relentlessly tossed the decade around as a signifier. ("Welcome to the '90s, Mr. Ba-unks," for instance, or those "Totally '80s" CDs.) But no one really knows what to call this decade.

Back in 1998ish I remember having a conversation in which a friend thought these would be called "the Oughts," as in "the class of Ought-5," from The Music Man. I think I've occasionally heard people say "the Two-thousands" or "the oh-ohs," but only random individuals, and never from an authoritative source like a newscast or a pop culture reference.

Will we name this decade retroactively, once we've reached "the teens" and all the college kids start to reminisce about how cool/lame their childhood shows and music were?

Or are we just going to, collectively as a society, never reference this decade again?

1 comment:

  1. You always find good things to ponder like this :o). I agree that it's strange to not have a name for this decade. Maybe eventually it will be called "the turn of the century," like we do with the early 1900s. It's hard to believe the first decade of this century is almost over...we really are getting old!

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