Editing 1849: Decades

{{comic
| number    = 1849
| date      = June 12, 2017
| title     = Decades
| image     = decades.png
| titletext = In the 90s, our variety radio station used the tagline "the best music of the 70s, 80s, and 90s." After 2000, they switched to "the best music of the 80s, 90s, and today." I figured they'd change again in 2010, but it's 2017 and they're still saying "80s, 90s, and today." I hope radio survives long enough for us to find out how they deal with the 2020s.
}}

==Explanation==
From the 1960s to the 1990s, it was common to group eras by decades. Fashion, music, and other cultural trends that changed relatively quickly were often defined by those decades.  People casually and commonly referred to "the sixties", and so on, to separate these periods.

This pattern broke down after 1999, because it didn't naturally lend itself to an analogous phrase for the year from 2000-2009. A number of different terms have been proposed and used: "the {{w|Aughts}}", and "[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-66199129 the noughties]" had been used for 1900-1909, but have an archaic flavor that may not work for everyone. "The "{{w|2000s}}" and "the millenium" are ambiguous and clunky. None of these terms ever became popular enough to become a consensus term. Similarly for the period from 2010-2019, terms like "the 2010s" and "the teens" have been used, but not widely accepted. 

The practical upshot of all of this is that verbally splitting time periods into clear decades simply became less obvious for the periods since 2000. While people still refer to earlier time periods by decades, it is far less common to do so when referring to recent years. The roll-over text gives the example that we still refer to "music of the '80s and '90s" (although the comic omits the apostrophes that might normally indicate the missing century digits), but rarely refer to "music of the 2000s" or something similar. 

The time-line in the comic stretches into the future (as of the time of publication), and uses question marks to present uncertainty over whether the decade-grouping trend will return in the 2020s. On the one hand, such was a well-established custom, and we once again have clear language for it. On the other hand, after largely abandoning the custom for 20 years, it is far from certain that people will adopt it again. 

What isn't mentioned in the comic, but may be relevant, is that, in the absence of those decade categories, it has become more common to refer to time periods and the people who grew up in them by somewhat arbitrary generational categories: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millenials, Gen Z, and so on. This has provided an adequate substitute, since youth culture in the 2000s and 2010s has been more commonly defined as {{w|Millennials#Cultural_identity|millennial culture}}". There are drawbacks to this (both because the terms are more loosely defined, and because they often come with negative connotations), but these trends may have become sufficiently ingrained that they could displace the older decade-based divisions.  

The title text gives the specific example of [[Randall]]'s local radio station dividing music by decades, and points out they simply started talking around the decades from 2000 to 2019. He implies that whether they resume this pattern in the 2020s will be a good indicator of whether this speech pattern will resume, but expressed doubt whether radio will last long enough to find out. This is a jab at the radio industry, which has been in decline for a long time as it has faced increasing competition from other communications technologies. While it is unlikely that the radio industry will cease to exist in the near future, further decline seems probable. 

==Transcript==
:[A timeline across the top of the box marks decades from 1960 to 2030, the labels are above the line and the ticks marking each decade are below.]

:[Label: 1960]
:60s Music; 60s Fashion; 60s Movies; 60s Culture

:[Label: 1970]
:70s Music; 70s Fashion; 70s Movies; 70s Culture

:[Label: 1980]
:80s Music; 80s Fashion; 80s Movies; 80s Culture

:[Label: 1990]
:90s Music; 90s Fashion; 90s Movies; 90s Culture

:[Label: 2000 and 2010]
:[Items grouped over two decades.]
:Fashion; Culture; Music; Movies

:[Label: 2020]
:[The text is in light grey font.]
:<font color="grey">20s Music?; 20s Fashion?; 20s Movies?; 20s Culture?</font>

:[Label: 2030]

:[Caption below the panel:] 
:It's weird how for 20 years we stopped grouping our cultural memories by decade because "2000s" is ambiguous and and "Aughts" and "Teens" never really stuck.


==Trivia==
*Randall has by mistake, written "and and aughts" in the caption for this comic, instead of "and aughts".

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Time]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Language]]