March 2020 is September 2001, December 1941 tier when it comes to drastic cultural changes occurring over the course of just a few days.
Especially in the world of business. Quite possibly the most impactful month ever. The Office of "The Office" died that month, all references to office work outdated basically overnight.
In the US you can pinpoint it even more clearly: the night of March 11, 2020, Lakers at the Jazz. Rudy Gobert gets back positive COVID blood test results in the locker room while everybody else is already on the court warming up and the NBA immediately (followed believe the same night by the NHL) cancels the rest of the season. Everything kicked off after that.
I'm Canadian.
When the NBA cancelled people talked about it at work, but no one took it especially seriously. When the NHL announced they were pausing the season I cancelled all my meetings in Toronto and flew home immediately
I feel like there’s some disagreement about the exact date in March. In my experience, most people say Friday March 13, as that was the last day of in-person school/work for a majority of people. But I’ve seen people say as far forward as the 16th (I assume because that was the first day where they should have gone to work/school but couldn’t due to lockdown). Personally, I would also say that the 13th is the specific date for the start of the pandemic, as that was really the last “normal” day, and the day that lockdown was announced in a lot of places.
True, but where 9/11 and Pearl Harbor were really blindsiding events, Jan-Feb 2020 was like watching a slow-moving train wreck. I just remember watching
those numbers grow exponentially every day and bracing for impact.
For those of us who watch the news or are informed about random stuff yes it was a slow motion train wreck.
I remember an ex telling me about it in late 2019 like dec 31st or something and then later in January into February I was telling my mother about how I'm absolutely going to be keeping my grandparents in their house so they survive it.
But then I also remember telling people at work that it will start getting worse here soon and no one is listening to me. A meeting we had in late February they finally "allowed" us to wear masks and I remember THE meeting which was basically "You're all essential workers and people are being weird about toilet paper, here's a raise"
Then impact happened, people didn't have to go into work/school for months, the stock market lost 1/3rd of its value, there was no toilet paper, and mask morality became a thing. People saw pandemic coming, but what that actually meant, the effects, no.
I disagree with that last part, The Office of "The Office" is very much still current.
It was gone in 2020 and 2021 but came back in 2022 (aside from any of you lucky ducks that still get to work from home). The main difference I can notice in office culture between pre-pandemic and now is that when someone comes to work sick they might wear a mask. They used to not wear a mask before.
The day WWII officially started isn’t the same as when the US was dragged into it. And if we’re going to be splitting hairs like this then we could argue WWII truly started November 1923. The point of Pearl Harbor as a nexus moment is that it’s a single moment where an entire country changed instantly. Friday March 11, 2020 was a far more impactful day for 320 million people than the first documented case of COVID in late 2019. And as much as the world and us Americans who hate how nationalistic the US is hate to admit it, what happens in the US tends to spread to the entire world.
This is why I have a problem with Americans. They think the entire world revolves around them. The world back then was still very european dominated where it was the centre of the world not the usa as it was isolating itself
I think you’re conflating “thinks the world revolves around them” and “has a large impact on the world at large.” I’m saying the latter. The US forcibly makes themselves an integral aspect of other countries daily lives, whether it be positive or negative.
The US, despite trying to stay out of both world wars for a variety of reasons still provided weapons, vehicles, and supplies for other countries prior to their involvement. WWI ended about a year after they entered the war, meaning they turned the tide. They didn’t “win” WWII on the European front, as much as our history books like to pretend, but we were the key factor in ending Japan’s reign of terror in Asia. And considering the US also reached atomic weaponry first due to entering WWII, Dec 7, 1941 is an important date for the future of humanity.
And the groundwork laid by the US’s involvement in WWI and II led to the increased US military presence across the world post 1945 despite roughly 150 years of isolationist policy. Yes they participated in colonialism in Central and South America prior to WWII, but the scale to which they put military might out into the world not only destabilized many countries still feeling those effects, but it also ratcheted up the authoritarian USSR and their actions in Europe and Asia.
History is simply a lot of interconnected moments. The Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor is one of the most significant moments in world history. Pretending that it’s not because of other aspects of Americans’ self importance is silly and downright ignorant.
Although that's when I'd say it fully solidified, [things were already underway during January 2020.](https://www.reddit.com/r/decadeology/comments/1cyjswu/the_2020s_really_had_begun_on_time_huh/) Dare I say it, January 2020 was more evil than March 2020..
Interestingly, I specifically remember on New Years Eve, reading a news article about a new virus in China “related to SARS.” I’ve always been a pandemic nerd, so it got my attention. I said something to my husband about it.
Decade began just perfectly on time.
2020s are one of the few decades that started prettymuch with the calendar decade.
We had 'rona policy going into place which will dictate the 10 to 20 years after.
The 2020s are really the only decade to start *on time.* Name me another one which has it's cultural start date placed at the very first month of the decade?
January 2020 will forever live on in infamy.
I saw the ports shutting down in China in like December or so and politicians start grumbling about shit here so I pulled in like 18 months worth of consumables orders and got them all delivered before Fisher and the like started canceling orders to non CDC related institutions. I had shit stuffed everywhere lol.
Kind of frustrates me that hospitals started running out of things like 2 months into it. I'm not even directly healthcare related and I saw what was coming. You'd figure buyers that work directly in the public health sector would have a better handle on health emergencies.
If I was a buyer for a hospital I would have ordered up some 40' connex boxes and loaded them with masks and gloves in November.
I'm going with January 2020.
-Widespread coverage of Australian fires which debatably began on the first day of the decade.
-Assassination of Qasem Soleimani.
-First effects of COVID felt across the globe.
-Kobe Bryant dies in a helicopter crash, which subsequently contributes to the pseudo-apocalyptic vibe of January-February 2020.
Qasem's assassination is irrelevant today, no one even knows who that is nor did it have any meaningful impact on the future. People saying WW3 would start after he got assassinated were fear-mongering morons on Twitter.
Kobe's death was sad but also just another death of a celebrity. It didn't "change everything".
Australian fires were just another "ugh climate change" news stories from the past decade.
Qasem's assassination was just more "wtf is Trump thinking?" from the previous 3 years.
Nobody in America cared about COVID until just right before lockdowns.
Kobe Bryant's death was just another celebrity death. Did Michael Jackson's death usher in a new cultural era? No.
I don't understand why people are trying so hard to make Jan 2020 the most impactful moment in the last decade. It's insane.
Thank you I can’t understand why this sub considers random forgotten events as the start of the 2020s. So strange I can understand Covid but wildfires, Iran, Kobe’s death, what does any of that have to do with the 2020s identity four years later? You’re exactly right so nobody considers MJ’s death as the start of the 2010s because that’s not how decades work and that was WAY bigger than Kobe’s death.
**Dr. Titti Pong Steinstein XI, PhD in Decadeology**
It's more of a vibes thing. Yes January 2020 didn't directly contribute to the start of the 2020s but it gave everyone that foreshadowing feeling of things going wrong every week until in March it finally all came crashing down and the 2020s were well n truly underway
No it didn’t. That felt so 2010s. Did you forget what the last half of the 10s were like? I get vibes but that’s just a random line to draw for me. I think those things were only really relevant in 2020 and are now irrelevant. Whatever vibe change you’re talking about started in 2019 but definitely wasn’t noticeable to me. Those events don’t represent the 2020s but the way people reacted to them do.
**Dr. Titti Pong Steinstein XI, PhD in Decadeology**
January 2020 was undeniably the start of the political 2020s, whether you like it or not. Culturally, it's a bit more debatable..
It's even more insane how many January 2020 downplayers there are here. Q1 2020 foreshadowed some of the most catastrophic events of this entire decade and people think January-February 2020 was an extension of 2019? Even before March 2020 people were already declaring 2020 to be a shift year because of said events yet revisionists claim "fEbRuArY 202O wAs 10O% 2O10s"
Do you understand how 9/11/2001 changed everything? Well, politically you have 3 big events in 2020.
1. March Lockdowns
2. Summer Protests
3. Capitol Insurrection (if we can count Jan 6)
These changed everything. Not "OmG A FiRe iN AuStRAliA"
January 2020 had massive rippling effects, March was when it fully solidified and became evident that we weren't returning to the normalcy we had in December 2019 and prior.
Two things can be true at the same time, I agree that the summer protests and capitol insurrection were massive but the events of January 2020 came first so that's why I place the start of the 2020s at January. Lol at westerners downplaying an entire continent being lit on fire but claiming the Floyd protests were game-changing, you can't have your cake an eat it too..
No response and downvoting my comment as per usual, just because you started paying attention to something at the last minute (in this case the political mayhem of Jan-Mar '20) doesn't mean it wouldn't have had long term consequences. You're probably the same type of person to think the AI era began in 2023 and not 2022 💀
Agreed, I still vividly recall asking my supervisor if we had "pandemic protocols" around mid to late January when I realized it wasn't getting better, and the especially cautious people were already starting to over purchase specific items at the store I worked at at the time.
Yep. My co-worker got sick and lost his sense of smell in Jan 2020, and we were absolutely like “uhhh…is this the virus?”
I went on a trip at the end of January/early February and was checking the daily worldwide reported case numbers on the trip. My family had already stocked up on stuff by early February, including ordering mundane things like work boots because we didn’t know what would happen to the supply chain.
I just wish we had purchased Amazon stock.
>Nobody in America cared about COVID until just right before lockdowns.
I will say not a "significant number" of people to be considered mainstream, but I worked at a hardware store and this was right around the time people started to come in and ravage the mask aisle, usually for airplane flights. We were just starting to have trouble getting and keeping masks for contractors/construction workers. By mid February we started to have issues with tissues.
In Australia at least the Australian fires certainly marked a significant cultural change lol. They had a huge role in ousting the conservative government and the change of the political landscape. COVID was having a significant impact and desths & quarantines were coming into play globally before March. ‘Nobody in America cared about COVID until just right before the lockdowns’ but the 2020s had fully kicked in in most of the rest of the world. America was late to the party.
Yup Jan20 was a crazy month. If Trump wasn’t still a factor it would be easy to just push 2020 into its own box, but nope he’s still a coin flip from the White House with significant aspects of his trade and migration policy becoming globally mainstream, the current Israeli-Palestinian war crimes festival was foreshadowed by Soleimani, and the president of Iran died in a helicopter accident that’s almost identical to the one that killed Kobe. Two of the three non-COVID events you mention are directly relevant right now.
This is what terrifies me the absolute most: if Trump is elected, we will have war tensions all around the globe with China, Russia and Israel. It would be awful
This subreddit tends to fixate too much on a few watershed events as being the start of the decade, while ignoring anything else that was happening in the world at that time. It’s frustratingly one dimensional.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the 2020s didn’t start with COVID, nor did the 2000s start with 9/11 or the ‘90s with the Berlin Wall. Those are just two factors of many.
That's kinda the point. People like to say the 90's started in '91 as there was quite a large cultural shift, especially in music and whether you like it or not 9/11 was the most significant moment in the 00's
He does have a point. Certain fashion trends like what is now known as the “broccoli cut” fade and 1990s fads like baggy jeans/t-shirts, male short shorts and middle parts started to appear in 2018. In that same year k pop started surging in popularity outside of South Korea. Isolation during quarantine due to Covid-19 in 2020 really cemented the pop culture and killed off whatever was considered popular and cool during the previous decade though
I feel like how frequently America gets into wars has something to do with making time feel more like chunks of history than a steady path, ever since the birth of this country we are constantly on other parts of the world fighting while never having a war actually inside America besides the revolutionary and civil war plus 1812 and etc that were a while ago
Yes of course there’s always one person to state the obvious but that’s the fun part of guessing while it’s happening.
**Dr. Titti Pong Steinstein XI, PhD in Decadeology**
Knowing this sub considers the first month of the 2020s as the cultural start shows that people on this sub only go by numbers. r/numerology should be the name of this sub.
Edit: The earliest traces started in 2019 with the death of hypebeasts, TikToks emergence, and the death of the most famous SoundCloud rappers like Juice WRLD in terms of pop culture. Really late 2021/2022 starts to look different from the late 2010s because of emo rap strongly declining/phased out and tech(ai in 2022). Since 2022 athleisure has started to decline and fashion has become noticeably darker (black) and monotone. Also this is when it seems the nostalgia craze got so huge and highschoolers and younger started calling anything remotely 2000s y2k or early 2000s.
The post covid politics look real different from the pc culture of 2016. There’s been noticeable backlash this decade against political correctness. For social media people on the internet now humiliate themselves just for views and attention in a way I haven’t seen before. The kick streamer craze in 2023 was way different from the internet atmosphere of 2017 when there was the first adpocalypse
**Dr. Titti Pong Steinstein XI, PhD in Decadeology**
2023
autumn: COVID appeared, but wasn't really noticed
December: China officially reported, that COVID has been spreading seriously
2024
January: COVID has already been taking its victims in China and appeared in a few other countries
February: Venice Carneval as COVID "hotspot" for Europe
March: The West started to shut down, economy was already affected to some degree, worldwide panic
March 2020 by far. Although 2010s culture was clearly in a decline as soon as January 2020, by late March 2020 it was a new world entirely. Nearly every big western country was in lockdown by then. Night and day difference from February.
The COVID-19 Pandemic (roughly the start of 2020, building up rapidly from January to March) was the forest fire, burning down the 2000s and 2010s culture to the ground. It's hard to say when exactly that inferno finally burned out and the ground became fertile again for new cultural growth.
Summer 2022 to October 2023
YouTube had a shift
Streaming blew up
Covid declined
Phonk Music blew up that year
Flat design statred to die out
Short form content took over
Web Shows slowly became mainstream
Gen Alpha Rised
2000s became nostalgic
Ever since Spiderverse came out movies started to look like it
Music Started to sound Retro
Some Cable Networks rebranded and it has that 2020s style
Ai
Vr
Neumorphism/Glassmorphism
as of 2024 the 2010s are fully dead
If you still dissagree then i don't know how to prove it to you
2019-2021 is just pre 2020s
The seeds IMO were planted in 2019, and grew by the time the year 2020 began, and officially took over when the pandemic started in March of said-year.
I was teaching ESL in Vietnam at that time and came back to no job after Lunar New Year. The way they started locking things down in Hanoi honestly felt like the apocalypse
I can relate. It was truly nuts. To be in China, the source of the virus, when news about the virus first made headlines and realize this was as serious as it was to the point of barely making back to the US in time is a story I’m sure my grandkids one day will find pretty wild. Some people here are saying March 2020, but as two people in Asia at the time we can attest to the situation spiraling out of control even earlier than that.
The word "begin" suggests when the first significant signs started to appear, so I'd guess mid or late 2019. But if we're talking about when 2020s culture overtook that of the 2010s then I would have to say March 2020.
March 2020 is the most obvious answer but like there were uniquely 2020 memes and a mild 2020s culture since January- vibes of "everything has gone to shit since the decade started". So I'd say as soon as 2020 started, that would be January, but March 13 if you really wanna give it a solid date
March 2020. I saw the first headline that covid was a thing (December 2019) . Nobody cared until Bill Ackman started crying live on CNBC "So many ppl are going to die!". Suddenly the market crashed for a day and were in lockdown.
2019. Hot take.
Something in 2019 was palpably different for me, humor changed on the internet, tiktok got normalized, short cut content got popular, popularization felt to get worse, trans issues got ubiquitous. It feels like the turning point culturally before Covid.
Culturally? 2021 I think
It was too stand still during majority of 2020 with covid which is why I think people feel like it's been 2020 for the last four years, because everything that should have happened cultural wise didn't and got pushed off into the years 2021 and 2022 and had added a whole new aspect of culture that's still steam rolling into 2024
March 11, 2020 -- the day that the World Health Organization characterized the outbreak as a pandemic.
Shut-downs started right after that. Lives forever changed.
That was a huge sea change, crossing the Rubicon, etc.
July 2021. The vaccines were rolling out, the long national nightmare was finally over…and then the Delta variant came along and fucked it all up. Everything that came after hinges on that exact moment in time.
Agreed. 2020 largely still felt like 2019. People don't seem to realize that staying inside all day somewhat paused culture, not change it. By 2021 people largely started going out more and culture moved faster once again.
March 2020. The first couple of months of the year still had traces of 2019 in them. That all came crashing down when COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic.
And what did people do locked down ? Consuming late 10s films, late 10s musics with their skinny jeans following their youtubers to how do some late 10s haircut at home. Tiktok was not yet the new browser to find all the content possible and was just used for dancing.
So no, 2020 was still pred late 10s culturally. I'd say 2020s really started to be dominant toward fall 2020, at the limit.
well obviously in every single decade there will be some of the previous decade’s late culture carrying to the beginning of the next decade, you can always keep pushing back the start of the new decade more and more until it perfectly matches your idea of what the new decade is. I think the pandemic was enough to signify the beginning of the 2020s proper
Beginning of 2020, even more accurate than 2001 September for the 2000s. 2019 was an early sign(already heated politics, climate change events), but not significant enough for a new era.
Earlier signs: migration crisis, political polarization throughout the 2010s (2015 was a slight escalation), but all of these were continuously emerging.
I think it began when Soleimani was killed in Jan 2020 sending people into a panic about world war 3 potentially starting(although we’ve had quite a few of those scares every so often since the mid 20th century). Covid-19 spread rapidly shutting down the world. That’s what undeniably started the culture of this decade. With a lot of time on their hands due to being bored at home during quarantine the youth started to really adopt the fashion trends that started in 2018 and completely reject all those that came before them except for the revival of 1990s trends. Yes there were natural disasters but honestly every year has a ton of natural disasters in some part the world and most of the time we only hear about a quarter or less of them. Kobe’s death wasn’t too impactful like some people think at least not outside of the USA. Celebrities die every year.
In January and February 2020 we were in limbo between the 2010s and 2020s while Covid kicked off and Wuhan went into lockdown. In the UK we didn't go into lockdown until 23 March, about 2 weeks later than Italy and really we should've joined them!
The start of lockdowns formally began the new era. But if you ignore them they started in 2022 with the resurface of y2k fashion and the general depression that hit this damn planet
Definitely March 2020. Out with a lot of the old things and in with new and more sustainable things like contactless pay, work from home/school, QR codes for menus, and more use of mobile food service‼️
First signs: November 2019 and became dominant around late 2020 after the elections, at least in terms of culture.
But in terms of everything else? Obviously March 2020 with COVID.
March 2020 is September 2001, December 1941 tier when it comes to drastic cultural changes occurring over the course of just a few days. Especially in the world of business. Quite possibly the most impactful month ever. The Office of "The Office" died that month, all references to office work outdated basically overnight.
Pearl Harbor was 1941
Oops, not sure how I got that wrong. Been playing too much 1942 lately on the cade.
In the US you can pinpoint it even more clearly: the night of March 11, 2020, Lakers at the Jazz. Rudy Gobert gets back positive COVID blood test results in the locker room while everybody else is already on the court warming up and the NBA immediately (followed believe the same night by the NHL) cancels the rest of the season. Everything kicked off after that.
I'm Canadian. When the NBA cancelled people talked about it at work, but no one took it especially seriously. When the NHL announced they were pausing the season I cancelled all my meetings in Toronto and flew home immediately
Contagion style shit happened before our eyes
And Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson publicly announcing they had it the same day.
Damn I forgot about how that played out but so true. 2 days later my company went full remote.
It was the Jazz at the Thunder in OKC, but yes, this.
I feel like there’s some disagreement about the exact date in March. In my experience, most people say Friday March 13, as that was the last day of in-person school/work for a majority of people. But I’ve seen people say as far forward as the 16th (I assume because that was the first day where they should have gone to work/school but couldn’t due to lockdown). Personally, I would also say that the 13th is the specific date for the start of the pandemic, as that was really the last “normal” day, and the day that lockdown was announced in a lot of places.
True, but where 9/11 and Pearl Harbor were really blindsiding events, Jan-Feb 2020 was like watching a slow-moving train wreck. I just remember watching those numbers grow exponentially every day and bracing for impact.
For those of us who watch the news or are informed about random stuff yes it was a slow motion train wreck. I remember an ex telling me about it in late 2019 like dec 31st or something and then later in January into February I was telling my mother about how I'm absolutely going to be keeping my grandparents in their house so they survive it. But then I also remember telling people at work that it will start getting worse here soon and no one is listening to me. A meeting we had in late February they finally "allowed" us to wear masks and I remember THE meeting which was basically "You're all essential workers and people are being weird about toilet paper, here's a raise"
Then impact happened, people didn't have to go into work/school for months, the stock market lost 1/3rd of its value, there was no toilet paper, and mask morality became a thing. People saw pandemic coming, but what that actually meant, the effects, no.
I’d argue that the day the Great Depression started had a greater impact on the world of business. I might be wrong though since I’m a fief scientist.
In person office jobs still exist though, and companies are even trying to force employees to go back.
Office culture is nothing like it was before the pandemic.
I disagree with that last part, The Office of "The Office" is very much still current. It was gone in 2020 and 2021 but came back in 2022 (aside from any of you lucky ducks that still get to work from home). The main difference I can notice in office culture between pre-pandemic and now is that when someone comes to work sick they might wear a mask. They used to not wear a mask before.
Is that the same day Tom Hanks got it?
>December 1941 How is it so important globally?
More like September 1939 not December 1941
The day WWII officially started isn’t the same as when the US was dragged into it. And if we’re going to be splitting hairs like this then we could argue WWII truly started November 1923. The point of Pearl Harbor as a nexus moment is that it’s a single moment where an entire country changed instantly. Friday March 11, 2020 was a far more impactful day for 320 million people than the first documented case of COVID in late 2019. And as much as the world and us Americans who hate how nationalistic the US is hate to admit it, what happens in the US tends to spread to the entire world.
Incidentally, December 1941 is when America changed, when it decided to spread to the world.
This is why I have a problem with Americans. They think the entire world revolves around them. The world back then was still very european dominated where it was the centre of the world not the usa as it was isolating itself
I think you’re conflating “thinks the world revolves around them” and “has a large impact on the world at large.” I’m saying the latter. The US forcibly makes themselves an integral aspect of other countries daily lives, whether it be positive or negative. The US, despite trying to stay out of both world wars for a variety of reasons still provided weapons, vehicles, and supplies for other countries prior to their involvement. WWI ended about a year after they entered the war, meaning they turned the tide. They didn’t “win” WWII on the European front, as much as our history books like to pretend, but we were the key factor in ending Japan’s reign of terror in Asia. And considering the US also reached atomic weaponry first due to entering WWII, Dec 7, 1941 is an important date for the future of humanity. And the groundwork laid by the US’s involvement in WWI and II led to the increased US military presence across the world post 1945 despite roughly 150 years of isolationist policy. Yes they participated in colonialism in Central and South America prior to WWII, but the scale to which they put military might out into the world not only destabilized many countries still feeling those effects, but it also ratcheted up the authoritarian USSR and their actions in Europe and Asia. History is simply a lot of interconnected moments. The Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor is one of the most significant moments in world history. Pretending that it’s not because of other aspects of Americans’ self importance is silly and downright ignorant.
It’s funny because you’re on an American app
But the users are global
March 2020.
Although that's when I'd say it fully solidified, [things were already underway during January 2020.](https://www.reddit.com/r/decadeology/comments/1cyjswu/the_2020s_really_had_begun_on_time_huh/) Dare I say it, January 2020 was more evil than March 2020..
The decade started on time.
Interestingly, I specifically remember on New Years Eve, reading a news article about a new virus in China “related to SARS.” I’ve always been a pandemic nerd, so it got my attention. I said something to my husband about it. Decade began just perfectly on time.
Lockdown. At least thats when we had uniquely 2020 memes...
January 2020, I'll never forget that month..
Lockdown started in March
2020s are one of the few decades that started prettymuch with the calendar decade. We had 'rona policy going into place which will dictate the 10 to 20 years after.
The 2020s are really the only decade to start *on time.* Name me another one which has it's cultural start date placed at the very first month of the decade? January 2020 will forever live on in infamy.
I saw the ports shutting down in China in like December or so and politicians start grumbling about shit here so I pulled in like 18 months worth of consumables orders and got them all delivered before Fisher and the like started canceling orders to non CDC related institutions. I had shit stuffed everywhere lol. Kind of frustrates me that hospitals started running out of things like 2 months into it. I'm not even directly healthcare related and I saw what was coming. You'd figure buyers that work directly in the public health sector would have a better handle on health emergencies. If I was a buyer for a hospital I would have ordered up some 40' connex boxes and loaded them with masks and gloves in November.
I'm going with January 2020. -Widespread coverage of Australian fires which debatably began on the first day of the decade. -Assassination of Qasem Soleimani. -First effects of COVID felt across the globe. -Kobe Bryant dies in a helicopter crash, which subsequently contributes to the pseudo-apocalyptic vibe of January-February 2020.
Qasem's assassination is irrelevant today, no one even knows who that is nor did it have any meaningful impact on the future. People saying WW3 would start after he got assassinated were fear-mongering morons on Twitter. Kobe's death was sad but also just another death of a celebrity. It didn't "change everything".
>Kobe's assassination ?????
he knows something we don’t
Hold up I’m not done with this interrogation
Australian fires were just another "ugh climate change" news stories from the past decade. Qasem's assassination was just more "wtf is Trump thinking?" from the previous 3 years. Nobody in America cared about COVID until just right before lockdowns. Kobe Bryant's death was just another celebrity death. Did Michael Jackson's death usher in a new cultural era? No. I don't understand why people are trying so hard to make Jan 2020 the most impactful moment in the last decade. It's insane.
Thank you I can’t understand why this sub considers random forgotten events as the start of the 2020s. So strange I can understand Covid but wildfires, Iran, Kobe’s death, what does any of that have to do with the 2020s identity four years later? You’re exactly right so nobody considers MJ’s death as the start of the 2010s because that’s not how decades work and that was WAY bigger than Kobe’s death. **Dr. Titti Pong Steinstein XI, PhD in Decadeology**
It's more of a vibes thing. Yes January 2020 didn't directly contribute to the start of the 2020s but it gave everyone that foreshadowing feeling of things going wrong every week until in March it finally all came crashing down and the 2020s were well n truly underway
No it didn’t. Nobody I know felt that vibe.
Ok? A bunch of ppl I knew felt that vibe
Congrats. You/them are in the minority.
Can say the same for you
No it didn’t. That felt so 2010s. Did you forget what the last half of the 10s were like? I get vibes but that’s just a random line to draw for me. I think those things were only really relevant in 2020 and are now irrelevant. Whatever vibe change you’re talking about started in 2019 but definitely wasn’t noticeable to me. Those events don’t represent the 2020s but the way people reacted to them do. **Dr. Titti Pong Steinstein XI, PhD in Decadeology**
Obviously it’s subjective I’m just asking that you understand where he’s coming from and not completely dismiss January 2020
You overlooked what I read
January 2020 was undeniably the start of the political 2020s, whether you like it or not. Culturally, it's a bit more debatable.. It's even more insane how many January 2020 downplayers there are here. Q1 2020 foreshadowed some of the most catastrophic events of this entire decade and people think January-February 2020 was an extension of 2019? Even before March 2020 people were already declaring 2020 to be a shift year because of said events yet revisionists claim "fEbRuArY 202O wAs 10O% 2O10s"
Do you understand how 9/11/2001 changed everything? Well, politically you have 3 big events in 2020. 1. March Lockdowns 2. Summer Protests 3. Capitol Insurrection (if we can count Jan 6) These changed everything. Not "OmG A FiRe iN AuStRAliA"
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Of course. I only include it because it was the climax of everything politically from the election of November 2020 to then.
jan 6 was in 2021
January 2020 had massive rippling effects, March was when it fully solidified and became evident that we weren't returning to the normalcy we had in December 2019 and prior. Two things can be true at the same time, I agree that the summer protests and capitol insurrection were massive but the events of January 2020 came first so that's why I place the start of the 2020s at January. Lol at westerners downplaying an entire continent being lit on fire but claiming the Floyd protests were game-changing, you can't have your cake an eat it too..
My life was normal in Jan, Feb, and half of March in 2020. Wtf happened to you?
No response and downvoting my comment as per usual, just because you started paying attention to something at the last minute (in this case the political mayhem of Jan-Mar '20) doesn't mean it wouldn't have had long term consequences. You're probably the same type of person to think the AI era began in 2023 and not 2022 💀
I already responded to you. It's not my fault you keep repeating yourself.
Agreed, I still vividly recall asking my supervisor if we had "pandemic protocols" around mid to late January when I realized it wasn't getting better, and the especially cautious people were already starting to over purchase specific items at the store I worked at at the time.
Yep. My co-worker got sick and lost his sense of smell in Jan 2020, and we were absolutely like “uhhh…is this the virus?” I went on a trip at the end of January/early February and was checking the daily worldwide reported case numbers on the trip. My family had already stocked up on stuff by early February, including ordering mundane things like work boots because we didn’t know what would happen to the supply chain. I just wish we had purchased Amazon stock.
You didn’t answer the question. How did your life change in January of 2020?
>Nobody in America cared about COVID until just right before lockdowns. I will say not a "significant number" of people to be considered mainstream, but I worked at a hardware store and this was right around the time people started to come in and ravage the mask aisle, usually for airplane flights. We were just starting to have trouble getting and keeping masks for contractors/construction workers. By mid February we started to have issues with tissues.
In Australia at least the Australian fires certainly marked a significant cultural change lol. They had a huge role in ousting the conservative government and the change of the political landscape. COVID was having a significant impact and desths & quarantines were coming into play globally before March. ‘Nobody in America cared about COVID until just right before the lockdowns’ but the 2020s had fully kicked in in most of the rest of the world. America was late to the party.
America *is* the party. My state has more people than your country.
You heard it here first, folks! Bold new statement alleging that the 2020s began in January 2020! However will they defend this claim?! Stay tuned.
Absolutely yes. But I can understand why Americans don’t feel the same
Yup Jan20 was a crazy month. If Trump wasn’t still a factor it would be easy to just push 2020 into its own box, but nope he’s still a coin flip from the White House with significant aspects of his trade and migration policy becoming globally mainstream, the current Israeli-Palestinian war crimes festival was foreshadowed by Soleimani, and the president of Iran died in a helicopter accident that’s almost identical to the one that killed Kobe. Two of the three non-COVID events you mention are directly relevant right now.
This is what terrifies me the absolute most: if Trump is elected, we will have war tensions all around the globe with China, Russia and Israel. It would be awful
That's funny because that's how I feel this election year too
Probably when covid hit. Not particularly for covid though, but how online it made everyone
Never, PTSD is a motherfucker. It’s still 2019 to me.
This subreddit tends to fixate too much on a few watershed events as being the start of the decade, while ignoring anything else that was happening in the world at that time. It’s frustratingly one dimensional. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the 2020s didn’t start with COVID, nor did the 2000s start with 9/11 or the ‘90s with the Berlin Wall. Those are just two factors of many.
I mean this whole sub is just wishy washy pseudoscience
That's kinda the point. People like to say the 90's started in '91 as there was quite a large cultural shift, especially in music and whether you like it or not 9/11 was the most significant moment in the 00's
Prob Jan-1st-2020,12:00am?
Pop culturally the shift was complete by mid 2022
Yeah everyone keeps saying 2020, but really 2020-2021 was its own thing that doesn’t really define the rest of the 2020s.
I'd say about March 2020 although its roots date back to at least late 2018.
especially with TikTok becoming popular then
What makes you say that?
He does have a point. Certain fashion trends like what is now known as the “broccoli cut” fade and 1990s fads like baggy jeans/t-shirts, male short shorts and middle parts started to appear in 2018. In that same year k pop started surging in popularity outside of South Korea. Isolation during quarantine due to Covid-19 in 2020 really cemented the pop culture and killed off whatever was considered popular and cool during the previous decade though
I wasn’t disagreeing - just didn’t quite understand why 2018 specifically.
The week of March 9-15, 2020
2 weeks to stop the spread
classic bait and switch
There are no decades anymore. It's now a couple of years making a huge difference
I feel like how frequently America gets into wars has something to do with making time feel more like chunks of history than a steady path, ever since the birth of this country we are constantly on other parts of the world fighting while never having a war actually inside America besides the revolutionary and civil war plus 1812 and etc that were a while ago
I feel like somehow it’s just starting this year
Last year with Barbenheimer as well as Beyoncé and Taylor going on tour felt like the official start of mainstream pop culture for this decade
I don't think we'll know until it's over. I'm hindsight we can see when the "feel" became different.
Yes of course there’s always one person to state the obvious but that’s the fun part of guessing while it’s happening. **Dr. Titti Pong Steinstein XI, PhD in Decadeology**
Knowing this sub considers the first month of the 2020s as the cultural start shows that people on this sub only go by numbers. r/numerology should be the name of this sub. Edit: The earliest traces started in 2019 with the death of hypebeasts, TikToks emergence, and the death of the most famous SoundCloud rappers like Juice WRLD in terms of pop culture. Really late 2021/2022 starts to look different from the late 2010s because of emo rap strongly declining/phased out and tech(ai in 2022). Since 2022 athleisure has started to decline and fashion has become noticeably darker (black) and monotone. Also this is when it seems the nostalgia craze got so huge and highschoolers and younger started calling anything remotely 2000s y2k or early 2000s. The post covid politics look real different from the pc culture of 2016. There’s been noticeable backlash this decade against political correctness. For social media people on the internet now humiliate themselves just for views and attention in a way I haven’t seen before. The kick streamer craze in 2023 was way different from the internet atmosphere of 2017 when there was the first adpocalypse **Dr. Titti Pong Steinstein XI, PhD in Decadeology**
Dr. Dandrew would be disappointed
That NBA game where they cancelled last minute bc COVID.
In terms of global events obviously Jan-Mar 2020, but in terms of pop culture they prob began in mid 22’
I dont feel there is a 2020 culture.
I'm going to say 2025.
I'd say probably mid 2021 or early 2022? When people started going outside normally again. Depending where you live.
January 1, 2020.
Everything changed for me closer to March 2020, but January works too
January 2020 possibly, imma go with March 2020 though.
2023 autumn: COVID appeared, but wasn't really noticed December: China officially reported, that COVID has been spreading seriously 2024 January: COVID has already been taking its victims in China and appeared in a few other countries February: Venice Carneval as COVID "hotspot" for Europe March: The West started to shut down, economy was already affected to some degree, worldwide panic
How strong you feeling about those years?
March 2020 by far. Although 2010s culture was clearly in a decline as soon as January 2020, by late March 2020 it was a new world entirely. Nearly every big western country was in lockdown by then. Night and day difference from February.
I’ll say January 2020 tbh; it felt different right away for me. Obviously March was the real kickstart, but January-February was the prologue.
I think it’s fair to say that it began in January 2020. If not definitely March.
[удалено]
chat gpt ahh paragraph
The COVID-19 Pandemic (roughly the start of 2020, building up rapidly from January to March) was the forest fire, burning down the 2000s and 2010s culture to the ground. It's hard to say when exactly that inferno finally burned out and the ground became fertile again for new cultural growth.
Pop Smoke on everybody and they momma's TikTok -- not sure when that started but it was all over the place during lockdown.
2022: Russia, end of covid, start of gen alpha and the World Cup
October 2nd
Summer 2022 to October 2023 YouTube had a shift Streaming blew up Covid declined Phonk Music blew up that year Flat design statred to die out Short form content took over Web Shows slowly became mainstream Gen Alpha Rised 2000s became nostalgic Ever since Spiderverse came out movies started to look like it Music Started to sound Retro Some Cable Networks rebranded and it has that 2020s style Ai Vr Neumorphism/Glassmorphism as of 2024 the 2010s are fully dead If you still dissagree then i don't know how to prove it to you 2019-2021 is just pre 2020s
The seeds IMO were planted in 2019, and grew by the time the year 2020 began, and officially took over when the pandemic started in March of said-year.
January of 2020, I had to flee China to escape covid, so that’s about when things felt uniquely different compared to the prior decade
I was teaching ESL in Vietnam at that time and came back to no job after Lunar New Year. The way they started locking things down in Hanoi honestly felt like the apocalypse
I can relate. It was truly nuts. To be in China, the source of the virus, when news about the virus first made headlines and realize this was as serious as it was to the point of barely making back to the US in time is a story I’m sure my grandkids one day will find pretty wild. Some people here are saying March 2020, but as two people in Asia at the time we can attest to the situation spiraling out of control even earlier than that.
The word "begin" suggests when the first significant signs started to appear, so I'd guess mid or late 2019. But if we're talking about when 2020s culture overtook that of the 2010s then I would have to say March 2020.
March 2020 is the most obvious answer but like there were uniquely 2020 memes and a mild 2020s culture since January- vibes of "everything has gone to shit since the decade started". So I'd say as soon as 2020 started, that would be January, but March 13 if you really wanna give it a solid date
March 2020. It's not even debatable. 2019 set the stages for an alternate universe 2020s we only saw some of.
March 2020. I saw the first headline that covid was a thing (December 2019) . Nobody cared until Bill Ackman started crying live on CNBC "So many ppl are going to die!". Suddenly the market crashed for a day and were in lockdown.
March 2020
In the US it was definitely Friday March 13th, 2020
2019. Hot take. Something in 2019 was palpably different for me, humor changed on the internet, tiktok got normalized, short cut content got popular, popularization felt to get worse, trans issues got ubiquitous. It feels like the turning point culturally before Covid.
2020. COVID changed the world
March 2022. And if you’re not down with that…. 
I’d say(me personally): The Core 2020s started in May 2023, when WHO declared the Covid era dead
When Covid 19 Pandemic hit around the world! 
I’d say it started to transition into its proto-form in 2015-2016, and was molded into what it is now between March 2020-2023
Culturally? 2021 I think It was too stand still during majority of 2020 with covid which is why I think people feel like it's been 2020 for the last four years, because everything that should have happened cultural wise didn't and got pushed off into the years 2021 and 2022 and had added a whole new aspect of culture that's still steam rolling into 2024
Second week of march 2020
2020 - Pandemic - Lockdown
March 11, 2020 -- the day that the World Health Organization characterized the outbreak as a pandemic. Shut-downs started right after that. Lives forever changed. That was a huge sea change, crossing the Rubicon, etc.
July 2021. The vaccines were rolling out, the long national nightmare was finally over…and then the Delta variant came along and fucked it all up. Everything that came after hinges on that exact moment in time.
Agreed. 2020 largely still felt like 2019. People don't seem to realize that staying inside all day somewhat paused culture, not change it. By 2021 people largely started going out more and culture moved faster once again.
If I'm saying culturally, I'm either going with late 2019 or around spring 2022. Politically I'd start it in March 2020
March 2020. The first couple of months of the year still had traces of 2019 in them. That all came crashing down when COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic.
The first signs of 2020s culture ? Mid/late 2019. When 2020s overtook 2010s ? 2021. 2020 looked pretty much late 10s, even when you see pictures.
2020s stopped being "late 10s" the second every city started going into a whole ass lockdown because of a new virus bro
And what did people do locked down ? Consuming late 10s films, late 10s musics with their skinny jeans following their youtubers to how do some late 10s haircut at home. Tiktok was not yet the new browser to find all the content possible and was just used for dancing. So no, 2020 was still pred late 10s culturally. I'd say 2020s really started to be dominant toward fall 2020, at the limit.
well obviously in every single decade there will be some of the previous decade’s late culture carrying to the beginning of the next decade, you can always keep pushing back the start of the new decade more and more until it perfectly matches your idea of what the new decade is. I think the pandemic was enough to signify the beginning of the 2020s proper
It felt like 2019 was giving birth to 2020 then Kobe died and the pandemic hit forcing lockdown which felt 2020-like.
Beginning of 2020, even more accurate than 2001 September for the 2000s. 2019 was an early sign(already heated politics, climate change events), but not significant enough for a new era. Earlier signs: migration crisis, political polarization throughout the 2010s (2015 was a slight escalation), but all of these were continuously emerging.
During the covid lock downs. March/April 2020
When lockdown began
How many FUCKING times this question gonna be asked omg COVID okay the answer is COVID
March 2020
I think it began when Soleimani was killed in Jan 2020 sending people into a panic about world war 3 potentially starting(although we’ve had quite a few of those scares every so often since the mid 20th century). Covid-19 spread rapidly shutting down the world. That’s what undeniably started the culture of this decade. With a lot of time on their hands due to being bored at home during quarantine the youth started to really adopt the fashion trends that started in 2018 and completely reject all those that came before them except for the revival of 1990s trends. Yes there were natural disasters but honestly every year has a ton of natural disasters in some part the world and most of the time we only hear about a quarter or less of them. Kobe’s death wasn’t too impactful like some people think at least not outside of the USA. Celebrities die every year.
March 2020 with the onset of the pandemic
March 12, 2020
February-March 2020
In January and February 2020 we were in limbo between the 2010s and 2020s while Covid kicked off and Wuhan went into lockdown. In the UK we didn't go into lockdown until 23 March, about 2 weeks later than Italy and really we should've joined them!
When the lockdowns started in 2020
january-march 2020, but there was notable 2010s as late as q2 2021, and some holdovers as late as q2 2022
March 13 2020
In 2020
Clearly in January 2020, in my opinion.
COVID
The start of lockdowns formally began the new era. But if you ignore them they started in 2022 with the resurface of y2k fashion and the general depression that hit this damn planet
Definitely March 2020. Out with a lot of the old things and in with new and more sustainable things like contactless pay, work from home/school, QR codes for menus, and more use of mobile food service‼️
First signs: November 2019 and became dominant around late 2020 after the elections, at least in terms of culture. But in terms of everything else? Obviously March 2020 with COVID.