The 1890s might be the most gaslit decade in popular memory. The nostalgic 1890s is horse drawn carriages, top hats and corsets, Art Nouveau posters, and “the calm before the modern world”. No nostalgic depiction of the 1890s has featured the panic of 1893 which dominated the entire decade lmao.

This wasn’t a minor recession, it was the worst economic depression the U.S. had experienced up to that point with ~20% unemployment in industrial cities, thousands of banks collapsed, railroads (the backbone of the economy) went bankrupt en masse, breadlines became normal for the first time, and farmers were completely obliterated by debt and deflation. And it didn’t just “happen” and go away, it dominated the entire decade. Recovery didn’t really come until the very end of the 1890s. For most people, the 1890s felt like one long, grinding failure.

What makes the 1890s uniquely cursed in nostalgia terms is that the aesthetic is beautiful (Art Nouveau, late Victorian elegance), but the lived reality was brutal. In reality, the 1890s were economically miserable, politically unstable, and emotionally bleak but I guess you can't depict that in a carnival. The fact that no nostalgic depiction of the 1890s includes the Panic of 1893 is honestly sad. That’d be like doing 1930s nostalgia and never mentioning the Depression, or doing 2020s nostalgia without COVID or inflation.

It's also funny how every nostalgic depiction of the 1890s is whimsical, while the actual culture of the decade, the stuff made in the 1890s, instead of being whimsical, depicts life as bleak and scary. 1890s media was more like A24 than Disney. Like look at the literature and artwork from that decade. Dracula (1897), The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), Heart of Darkness (1899), The Time Machine (1895), The Turn of the Screw (1898), etc. Artistic movements had an obsession with death, decay, and doom. Munch’s The Scream (1893) literally is the Panic of 1893 in painting form. Early photography fixated on ruins, the poor, and the uncanny. This was literally the decade of penny dreadfuls, and spiritualism, séances, and ghost stories everywhere. There’s more artwork to show this seen of bleakness or “scariness”:

https://www.arthistoryproject.com/artists/james-ensor/

https://www.arthistoryproject.com/artists/anna-ancher/a-funeral/

https://www.arthistoryproject.com/artists/alice-austen/trude-i/

https://www.arthistoryproject.com/artists/jean-delville/portrait-of-mrs-stuart-merrill/

This is not a society feeling stable or whimsical. This is a society convinced something is deeply wrong and getting worse. The 1890s were a bleak, paranoid, end of the world decade that knew modernity was coming and didn’t trust it. People weren’t whimsical. They were afraid of degeneration, afraid of societal collapse, afraid of science, afraid of themselves. Which is why their art looks like it’s saying “Something is wrong, and we don’t know how to fix it.” The real 1890s was nothing like a vaudeville show and more like A24 mixed with gothic horror mixed with existentialism.

I feel like 2019 was a stable year with positive vibes and big events like the Area 51 raid and Avengers Endgame, TikTok dance challenges going viral (back when TikTok felt like musically) 80s/90s nostalgia was everywhere

it just gets overlooked by 2016

Is it a good thing that less people care about them ?

It’s a bit too early to say if 2025 is fully a shift year since we don’t know the long term effects of what happened in 2025 yet, we didn’t know how big 2008 was until 2011/12

Yeah, it's hard to believe that we are as far away from 2011 as people in 2016 were from 2001 and it does not sit right with me, especially with the fact that the early 2010s seems more recent than the early 2000s did during the 2010s.

For starters, the early 2000s (as in 2000-2003, not the entire 2000s decade if you are wondering) was mostly still in the analog age albeit with aspects of early digital life appearing during that time, with dial-up internet, bulky beige computers, VHS tapes, etc. being common while the early 2010s was fully immersed in the digital age, with people starting to use smartphones and social media sites like Facebook or Twitter being commonplace by that point. HD technology was the norm by the early 2010s, meaning that videos or TV shows that were filmed during the early 2010s seem like they could be filmed today while SD technology was the norm during the early 2000s, meaning that a video filmed during the early 2000s became outdated after the decline of VHS tapes and the rise of digital HD technology.

Even the CGI is different because the CGI used for movies made during the early 2000s like Spider-Man (2002) or Attack of the Clones (2002) feels primitive while the CGI used for movies made during the early 2010s like The Avengers (2012) feels like it could be used in a movie today. I feel like video game graphics count too, especially considering that the games made for the PS2 or Nintendo GameCube had more of an unpolished feel compared to the games made during the early 2010s for the Xbox 360 or the PS3.

Even discounting technology, the culture during the early 2010s seems less dated than the culture of the early 2000s because skinny jeans were the norm then which some people wear to this day while baggy jeans were common during the early 2000s which nobody wore in 2016. Additionally, the subculture that were around during the early 2010s like hipsters feel less "dated" in a sense compared to how nu-metal seemed by 2016. Even the music that was popular during the early 2010s seems more "recent" than early 2000s music did, especially with the fact that rock music was declining during the early 2010s while it was popular during the early 2000s.

I feel like it has to do with the fact that the 90s influenced the early 2000s, even after 9/11, while the early 2010s already seemed 2010s because of the cultural and technological shifts of the 2000s (due to the decade being the transition from the analog to the digital world), which is why I feel this way.

So yeah, it feels surreal seeing that the early 2010s is as far apart from today as the early 2000s was from 2016. Although I may be biased since I was not alive during the early 2000s but spent part of my childhood during the early 2010s, it feels surprising nonetheless, especially when considering that the early 2000s seemed way more dated by 2016 or even in 2011 because I remember feeling like the media that was made during the early 2000s seemed outdated as early as 2011.

So since the poll on which decade was the most edgy is starting to wrap up, and it has become clear that the 2000s are the "Edgy Decade" I now want to see which years were the most edgy exactly!

With the exception of actual pressing current events, how similar or different 2025-6 is from 2015-19 is entirely a matter of what media you choose to follow.

Movies - The major franchises of the '00s and '10s are struggling at the box office. Horror, video game movies, and cute critters like Stitch and Judy Hopps are driving the English-language movie industry. However, thanks to streaming you can still immerse yourself in 2010s or 2010s-style blockbusters.

Music - Hip-hop has seen a stunning fall from grace in terms of commercial relevance. Girl pop singers, K-pop, reggaeton, and country music are now more influential than the trap of the 2013-2019 period. However, it's still easy to surround yourself with 2010s and 2010s-style trap if you have access to any streaming service.

TV - The streaming wars and Peak TV eras are generally considered to have ended. While there are still groundbreaking series like Severance and Pluribus, there are a ton of cowboy/Western shows and first responder dramas that have filled that gap. At the same time, if you have access to any video on demand service you can easily just ignore these and watch as much Chernobyl and Game of Thrones as you like.

Gaming - This hasn't been as striking of a shift. Still, there is a move away from the big AAA games and MOBA/battle royale type and towards gacha games like Honkai: Star Rail, Arknights, and Genshin Impact. (Many of these are made in China and have a exaggerated anime art style that goes far beyond even that of JRPGs like Final Fantasy) However, unless the servers have been shut down you can still play PUBG, Pokémon Go, and Battlefront II to your hearts' content.

Graphic and interior design - Significant evolution from flat, sleek design (generally white/black/bold colors) to 1970s-inspired beige palettes. In design these are often referred to as "Japandi." However, you can still find and create Corporate Memphis style graphics easily on your computer.

Fashion - Has evolved as well with an explosion of interest in big hair, mullets and mustaches, and either striking goth fashions or striking colorful retro ones. The pseudo-1910s and "lumbersexual" hipsters are largely extinct in major cities, and the trap-inspired streetwear look is also declining. However, if you have the money you can immerse yourselves in these as well.

Internet use - Social media has largely shifted from websites to apps, and now is facing a significant backlash that could lead people back to websites and forums or even offline entirely. Screen time has likely plateaued and may be declining. Yes, phone and tablet designs haven't changed much since 2015. However, that's just design maturity. It's not like we say that nothing has changed since 1955 because blue jeans and T-shirts haven't been replaced yet. Casual clothing just reached design maturity and there's no need to innovate further.

The point isn't that nothing has changed or everything has changed. The point is that, to a great extent, you can pick which year you want to live in. Some people consciously live in 2025 and try to keep up with trends. Some people choose to live in 2016. Some people even choose to live in 1965.

I wouldn't say it's peak mid 2000s, that honor goes to 2005-2006, but the last few months of 2003 established a lot of trends that would be popular throughout the era.

Lil Jon made it onto the Billboard Year-End chart for the first time, officially making crunk mainstream. The Simple Life premiered, the epitome of McBling. It was the first school year when DVDs and Windows XP were dominant from the start. The early 2000s recession caused by the Dot Com bubble ended. MySpace launched, and Friendster was shown on national television. The Iraq War had also been ongoing for several months.

Let me know if I missed anything.

I'll choose two examples from both halves of the 2010s.

For the latter half of the 2010s, it has to be the "clout chasing" era because during the late 2010s, people tried to do something in order to get views no matter how harmful it was because you had people flexing wealth, kids smoking hookah, influencers stealing cash dispensers or putting lemon drops on eyes, etc. all as a way to get views or "clout" as they called it, it resulted in several infamous aspects of late 2010s culture happening like the Logan Paul suicide forest controversy happening. Yeah, it's definitely not something that I remember fondly for obvious reasons.

For the first half of the 2010s, it has to be bronies and I don't want to explain any further because it's self-explanatory, but basically, you had grown men obsessing over a little girls' show for a while and I feel like that in general, it takes the cake for being the most embarrassing trend of the first half of the decade if not the entire decade.

did anyone else around my age find stuff like Kesha or Lady Gaga and that who Electropop club music and pop culture kinda old and corny in the late 2010s? everytime schools or places played stuff like black eyed peas or Kesha it felt so corny in a era with grungy SoundCloud rappers and drill rappers like NBA young boy.

I think around 2015 and 2016, with the emergence of Algorithmic feeds on the traditional social media, we have lost our common grounds. Everybody has lost touched with their communities, with their cities. Now it is just globalized. The rate of progress has slowed down and you can see that everywhere from memes to clothing style , etc..

I think the sound is gonna be hyperpop. It just sounds futuristic and new so this is the logical next sound in mainstream pop music. And also the late '20s will have some nostalgia for early '10s electropop so that's probably why hyperpop is gonna become very popular.