The 90s Were The Last Real Decade

You know you are officially aging out of the cultural conversation when people start getting nostalgic for stuff that just happened. 

I know there are young people throwing "2000s-themed parties." But what does that even mean, really? What is the visual shorthand there? Low-rise jeans, a Razr flip phone, the Homeland Security threat level changing color?

That wasn’t a theme back then. That was just a Tuesday.

The dirty secret of the 2000s is that we didn’t even think our own decade had an identity while we were living it. Our best parties were 80s-themed. The 2000s wasn’t an aesthetic; it was LimeWire destroying the family computer while Akon played on a pair of desktop speakers that buzzed every time your cell phone got a text.

The 1990s was the last time a decade managed to pull off an actual distinct vibe, and honestly, just barely. It squeaked by on neon windbreakers and Pokémon cards. Since then, the concept of a "theme-worthy decade" has completely collapsed.

Think about what a 2010s party would look like fifteen years from now. What’s the costume? You show up dressed as a defunct YouTuber and do the mannequin challenge. The entire social dynamic would just be people walking around hitting each other with dark irony: "Man, 2019 is incredible, I cannot wait to go to a packed movie theater every weekend for the next four years." You’d wear a novelty shirt that reads: "I should be securing a 3% fixed-rate mortgage right now instead of learning the Gangnam Style dance."

And don’t get me started on what our current era is going to look like to future nostalgists. Nobody is going to throw a 2020s party. No one wants to spend a Saturday night standing precisely six feet away from the snack table, nursing a sourdough starter, and doomscrolling on an app that Congress is actively trying to outlaw. Maybe you'd get a laugh handing out NFTs as party favors.

We need to make an executive decision as a culture and just sign an extension on the Roaring Twenties. Give the flappers and the jazz bands another hundred-year lease on the '20s name. They earned it, and frankly, we have nothing better to put on the flyer.