I understand not every decade was a clean break, but each decade has fairly distinct defining properties. It feels like most of the 21st century has been a single run on with smaller changes. I know sometimes the definitions don’t come into focus until later, but I’ve been around since the 80s and I can distinctly remember the changes between the 80s, 90s and 00s.
Tons of reasons.
- You lived through them. There is a continuity in your mind, rather than a dissociated aesthetic.
- Survivorship bias takes time. We think of bell bottoms for the 60’s, even though there were many other pant styles. Over time, specific things become iconic of an era.
- The internet and mass media flattened and accelerated trends.
DrBob@lemmy.ca 16 hours ago
Your impression of those decades is influenced by styling and design.
Photos of actual people on the street show a lost less variation between the 1950s, 60s, and 70s than you might imagine. But when stylists want to cue the era they dial up tropes that are instantly recognizable. Bobby sox and poodle skirts are instantly recognizable as 1950s style, but it probably applied to only a small geographical area in a few urban areas. Similarly the greaser stereotype was not widespread. But now you’d believe that half of high schools were wearing white t-shirts and leather jackets.
I lived through the punk scene. Half the people at the shows I went to look like they were part of a varsity basketball team. We had one friend who had spiked hair and people would cross the street to avoid him. The styling now would have you believe that most young people were decked out in eyeliner and bondage pants.