2010s pop culture retrospective

[Tokuopolis]

Lots of TV shows and film series came or are coming to a conclusion this year (e.g. Star Wars, Avengers, X-Men, Game of thrones, Gotham, How to train your dragon, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Steven Universe, Star vs the forces of evil, The Lion Guard). With that in mind, and with the decade coming to a close soon, what do you think of the 2010s in terms of pop culture? What did you like or dislike? What trends and patterns did you notice? What were your favourite films and tv shows from this decade? What did you think of the music? What were your favourite video games?

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

My hot take: 2010s were a great time for animation and super hero movies but a shit time for popular music.

[Karevka]

There seemed to be a revival of 80's cultural items. Two big examples are Stranger Things and Ready Player One with so many callbacks to the 80's, 90's and even early 2000's. Music has become very diverse because of the internet, allowing lots of music from any, place, time or genre to be shared widely which to be honest is a reason why K-Pop (no matter your opinion on it) became so big. If there's one thing to be noticed it's the rise of more diverse casts in movies and TV. Black Panther has a mostly black cast and deals with issues like nationalism. The 2010's have been weird, turbulent and transformative time for pop culture.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Black Panther has a mostly black cast and deals with issues like nationalism.

Bad example considering Black Panther runs off a setting, characters, and plot points that were first developed in the 60s.

[Karevka]

Ok boomer.

[Voxija]

I believe that 50 years in the future, the 2010s will mostly be known for memes and crazy politics. If I go forward in time and ask my eventual grandkids when, for example, Moana or Black Panther were released, they will love those movies but have no idea what decade they came out.

[Bear Stearns]

2010s pop culture is almost just entirely nostalgia for other time periods because everyone knows we have nothing to look forward to.

Also internet culture becoming a lot more sophisticated than the Wild West it was in the early 2000s.

[New haven america]

Ok boomer.

This is how you quote people.

And they're not wrong, Blank Panther and almost everything surrounding Wakanda was developed in the 60's.

[Aureumterra]

Slower hip-hop, meme culture, Minecraft for the 2010s

I predict the ‘20s to be dominated by EDM and house, which is already skyrocketing

[Tokuopolis]

Rebeltaxi's 43 worst cartoons of the decade

[Nuroblav]

As many have touched on: the quality of music in the mainstream has taken a turn for the worse. I've found at the moment that to find good music these days involves going out of the mainstream a lot of the time (Passenger is a good musician I found from round where I am). I've noticed that grime has become more popular here in the UK. Not quite sure what the 2020s hold but I predict an increase in the popularity of grime music (not sure how popular it is elsewhere) or just modern rap in general as well as trap which seems to be getting popularity.

I've also noticed a bigger push for diversity in movies and TV. This is fine, but sometimes overdone. Take the most recent series of Doctor Who for example. I noticed diversity practically being forced, with some episodes having that as their only purpose rather than giving us an exciting story.

Still, just my opinion.

[Indo-Malaysia]

My hot take: 2010s were a great time for animation and super hero movies but a shit time for popular music.

This is accurate

2010s pop culture is almost just entirely nostalgia for other time periods because everyone knows we have nothing to look forward to.

Also internet culture becoming a lot more sophisticated than the Wild West it was in the early 2000s.

I kinda preferred the Wild West Internet era

Slower hip-hop, meme culture, Minecraft for the 2010s

I predict the ‘20s to be dominated by EDM and house, which is already skyrocketing

Eh.. won’t be as good as the Early 90’s scene

[Tokuopolis]

Does anything define the 2010s as a decade?

2010s animation retrospective

top 10 cartoon shows of the 2010s

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Black Panther has a mostly black cast and deals with issues like nationalism.

Bad example considering Black Panther runs off a setting, characters, and plot points that were first developed in the 60s.

Pretty much. Pop music didn’t really shine much in the 2010s. I can’t think of any band or artist of note that was or that has been actually good.

[Wales Republic]

It really feels as though the 2010s has had no distinct "culture" of its own. Pretty much every pop culture phenomenon of this decade has been either based on something that already existed, or on nostalgia for a previous time. Not much that is truly "new" has entered the mainstream.

[Tokuopolis]

It really feels as though the 2010s has had no distinct "culture" of its own. Pretty much every pop culture phenomenon of this decade has been either based on something that already existed, or on nostalgia for a previous time. Not much that is truly "new" has entered the mainstream.

Some might the same was true of the 1990s

[Kowani]

It provided people an opportunity to complain about music while forgetting that their own era had the same problems.

[Tokuopolis]

Rebeltaxi's best and most underrated cartoons of the decade

Before 2020, watch this

Before 2020, watch this as well

[Cappuccina]

It provided people an opportunity to complain about music while forgetting that their own era had the same problems.

True.

Though, I'll agree that most mainstream music of the 2010's was ass (atleast here in the States), that doesn't mean this decade didn't have good music. The internet has, and another poster mentioned, made it easy for people to immerse in the music of other nations, and also has given life to an underground scene that's never been stronger.

[Nuroblav]

It provided people an opportunity to complain about music while forgetting that their own era had the same problems.

True.

Though, I'll agree that most mainstream music of the 2010's was ass (atleast here in the States), that doesn't mean this decade didn't have good music. The internet has, and another poster mentioned, made it easy for people to immerse in the music of other nations, and also has given life to an underground scene that's never been stronger.

Yeah the music here has been shit too. Then again, who knows what we'll remember from this decade. In my opinion, the mainstream has gone to shit but that doesn't mean the quality of music is decreasing outside of it.

[Sylvai]

Generally speaking, this was a pretty good decade for video games, movies, and TV shows. I do notice that the political polarization of the decade has permeated into corporate pop culture--by which I mean, a lot of companies are monetizing polarization by creating polarizing ads and names for this-or-that show that focuses on diversity. Diverse representation in pop culture has gone up, which is great, but unfortunately, it's also being politicized largely for the sake of profit, which I find unfortunate.

I don't really like where pop music has gone in the past decade (although I totally respect people who do), but I have to say this was a good decade for music as well. The amount of music out there now from all sorts of genres and artists is incredible and should be appreciated. It's getting easier to put your stuff out there thanks to the Internet. I've very much enjoyed the indie music of this decade as well--it's exactly my sort of jam.

edit: jesus christ I kept writing year instead of decade sorry

[Das Kaiser Reich]

At the start of this decade America was still more or less a unified country. Now its basicly falling apart heading to civil war. Social norms have collapsed. Political correctness has gotten out of hand to the point that everything has to have some form of unrealistic and out of place "Diversity" am example would be black female Nazis in a WW2 game like Call of Duty. Musically in the mainstream this decade was as awful as it could get. TV shows like game of thrones where overrated.
In 2010 things where not to bad. Now in late 2019 its Trans this women that.
White people are evil because of their skin color. And some other special interest group complaining about how hard life is. technology is getting out of control 2010 people had flip phones. Now everyone and their dog is on a "smart device " corporations that have no right to be involed in politics are now shoving their BS some banks are revoking people's accounts for wrong think. Services like Google are monopolies that abuse and censor people who disagree with them. But Pornograhy is left unchecked. More people are on drugs than ever before. Hollywood is run by perverts and are blackmailed by pedophiles. Who bribe the clowns we call politicians
The verry same evil and sadistic clowns in DC now are the same evil and sadistic clowns as their where in the 90s. It's almost 2020 and we still don't have flying cars jetpacks laserguns cures for all of those diseases or all other things we were supposed to get by 2020
And on a personal note a few of my best friends died this decade.
The 2010s where a crappy decade but I fear the 2020s will be a lot worse.

[Nuroblav]

Das Kaiser Reich does raise a good point about forced diversity in the media. It isn't needed at all.

[Celritannia]

Well, I was one of the emo kids, and saw the slow decline of the fashion and genre from roughly 2012/3. Sad times.

But I think this decade has also been the first to symbolised the internet as a place that has helped culture spread far greater.
Before the 2010s, people uploaded memes to the internet. But now, memes have become part of the cultural landscape in real life thanks to the internet.

[Nazariles]

I view the the pop culture in 2010s as extremely diverse, but the 2010s still has some main characteristics: the nostalgia for previous decades (1970s, 1980s in TV series such as Stranger Things, 1990s fashion made a comeback), and the dominance of the Internet (memes).

But I am quite curious about how pop culture and fashion is going to evolve in the 2020s? More nostalgia and futurism?