Aesthetically, has pop culture really changed much since the late 90s

Firstly, I need to emphasise LATE 90s here for those picturing Will Smith's high top or a Liverpudlian in a florescent shell suit.

So I've been on a bit of a 90s nostalgia binge lately when it comes to moves, last couple of weeks I've found myself watching Fight Club, American Beauty, American Pie and the Big Lebowski.

Something hit me, these movies haven't really aged, especially in comparison to those from the 70s and 80s, obviously those decades are further away, but the way they stand out doesn't reflect the time scale.

Same with music, the likes of garage and dubstep have been and gone, but pop still sounds the same, Beyoncés songs sound he same as 90s Destiny's Child, and Lady Gaga may as well be Madonna. Foo Fighters still absolutely dominate scene and, in general, the genre hasn't progress too much from that grunge era.

Obviously technology has changed, the bulky TVs and phones really stand out, but other than jeans getting slimmer and beards getting longer, AESTHETICALLY, has much really changed?

I think the internet, which is incredibly pervasive in society compared to the 90s could actually be a cause of this freezing of pop culture.

New trends used to flourish in certain cities then slowly spread, but the internet and increasing globalisation has somehow homoginised world culture making it harder for culture to evolve.

70s


80s


90s

Yeah they've gotten way sluttier

Its ace

NickSCFC wrote:New trends used to flourish in certain cities then slowly spread, but the internet and increasing globalisation has somehow homoginised world culture making it harder for culture to evolve.

PARKLIFE

Mafro wrote:

NickSCFC wrote:New trends used to flourish in certain cities then slowly spread, but the internet and increasing globalisation has somehow homoginised world culture making it harder for culture to evolve.

PARKLIFE

And we're done here

I suspect that we don't really notice a lot of things about the decades whilst we're living through them, it's usually several years later that we look back and see how different things actually were back then.

I also think that we're currently in an era in which we're used to seeing a vastly diverse variety of cultural influences that we have become far more individual than previously and as such no one particular aesthetic style is especially dominant.

Mafro wrote:

NickSCFC wrote:New trends used to flourish in certain cities then slowly spread, but the internet and increasing globalisation has somehow homoginised world culture making it harder for culture to evolve.

PARKLIFE

Seriously though, I think it's changed just as much as it has in previous decades, possible more.

I think this is affected greatly by the lens because when here we mostly focus on screen based media we are not really loking properly at product or vehicular design, which has changed considerably. When looking at cinema for example, we've seen total adoption of cinema standards such as widescreen and high definition presentation on every device from TVs to computers and now smart devices. It's largely derivative aesthetic, with one of high resolution film or digital footage graded to look more like film using digital technologies that try to achieve similar aesthetics to those inherent in 90s and prior productions. This might be because as genres are formalised they become stylistic choices rather than innovations. The closer to realism you get with the technological means available, the more nostalgia you generate for more traditional aesthetics. The same thing has happened with pixel art indie games.And so without considering that loop, you can indeed observe that aesthetically not much has changed, while the truth is that technology and aesthetics have come full circle to not cancel one another out but arrive at an equilibrium where both can be leveraged without one being detrimental to the other. I would say that moving forward artistic fusion is more and more possible, making genres almost irrelevant, at times. A good example if this is indie productions like Kung Fury (which borrows heavily from video games) or Cuphead (that obviously harks to 1930s squash and stretch animation, despite the technological anachronisity and challenge) and even some high budget mass market productions like Pixels.

This is also affected by new media becoming multi billion dollar businesses that are risk averse and seek preservation of profit, you only really see innovation from perhaps 0.5% of the 5% of media that makes it to mass market penetration. The only thing that is likely to change this is digital distribution and independent channels, but so far there has been little to reduce the cost of production other than screen media, and that won't really happen until manufacturing is democratised as well. We also have a problem with education geared towards following and in some cases innovation happening at such a fast rate of consumption or turnover that it is not really noticed, consumed in small amounts or increments. In other words, there are less "big breaks" than before, that don't come as of much a surprise, and instead a lot of smaller, lower key innovations and cultural adoptions that won't perhaps be noticeable for longer periods than just a decade while the influence disseminates.

So tldr 90s = rapid acceleration of technical arts
00s = pinnacle of technical arts
10s = plateau of technical arts, nostalgia

Green Gecko wrote:I think this is affected greatly by the lens because when here we mostly focus on screen based media we are not really loking properly at product or vehicular design, which has changed considerably. When looking at cinema for example, we've seen total adoption of cinema standards such as widescreen and high definition presentation on every device from TVs to computers and now smart devices. It's largely derivative aesthetic, with one of high resolution film or digital footage graded to look more like film using digital technologies that try to achieve similar aesthetics to those inherent in 90s and prior productions. This might be because as genres are formalised they become stylistic choices rather than innovations. The closer to realism you get with the technological means available, the more nostalgia you generate for more traditional aesthetics. The same thing has happened with pixel art indie games.And so without considering that loop, you can indeed observe that aesthetically not much has changed, while the truth is that technology and aesthetics have come full circle to not cancel one another out but arrive at an equilibrium where both can be leveraged without one being detrimental to the other. I would say that moving forward artistic fusion is more and more possible, making genres almost irrelevant, at times. A good example if this is indie productions like Kung Fury (which borrows heavily from video games) or Cuphead (that obviously harks to 1930s squash and stretch animation, despite the technological anachronisity and challenge) and even some high budget mass market productions like Pixels.

This is also affected by new media becoming multi billion dollar businesses that are risk averse and seek preservation of profit, you only really see innovation from perhaps 0.5% of the 5% of media that makes it to mass market penetration. The only thing that is likely to change this is digital distribution and independent channels, but so far there has been little to reduce the cost of production other than screen media, and that won't really happen until manufacturing is democratised as well. We also have a problem with education geared towards following and in some cases innovation happening at such a fast rate of consumption or turnover that it is not really noticed, consumed in small amounts or increments. In other words, there are less "big breaks" than before, that don't come as of much a surprise, and instead a lot of smaller, lower key innovations and cultural adoptions that won't perhaps be noticeable for longer periods than just a decade while the influence disseminates.

So tldr 90s = rapid acceleration of technical arts
00s = pinnacle of technical arts
10s = plateau of technical arts, nostalgia

Parklife?

Don't look back in Anger

Ironhide wrote:I suspect that we don't really notice a lot of things about the decades whilst we're living through them, it's usually several years later that we look back and see how different things actually were back then.

I also think that we're currently in an era in which we're used to seeing a vastly diverse variety of cultural influences that we have become far more individual than previously and as such no one particular aesthetic style is especially dominant.

Growing up in the late 80s/early 90s I remember back then anything from the 70s stood out as jarring and embarrassing.

Fast forward 20-30 years and looking back at the late 90s just doesn't have the same effect.

I think with globalization there's less room for outside influences. Go to any major city around the world outside the middle east and all the young people dress the same.

NickSCFC wrote:

Ironhide wrote:I suspect that we don't really notice a lot of things about the decades whilst we're living through them, it's usually several years later that we look back and see how different things actually were back then.

I also think that we're currently in an era in which we're used to seeing a vastly diverse variety of cultural influences that we have become far more individual than previously and as such no one particular aesthetic style is especially dominant.

Growing up in the late 80s/early 90s I remember back then anything from the 70s stood out as jarring and embarrassing.

Fast forward 20-30 years and looking back at the late 90s just doesn't have the same effect.

I think with globalization there's less room for outside influences. Go to any major city around the world outside the middle east and all the young people dress the same.

I'm not so sure, whenever I head to mainland Europe (particularly Eastern) I think that there is a lot of fashion that seems to have been stuck in the 80s compared to the UK/US.

The 90s were fairly conservative - not necessarily the right term, but the trends certainly they weren't as flamboyant or visibly "showy" as the 70s or 80s so it is always going to be easier to draw parallels between now and the 90s than with either the 70s or 80s as they had more examples of "out there" looks and trends.

floydfreak wrote:Don't look back in Anger

Mafro wrote:PARKLIFE

Tsk, get a load of you Common People.

This is because it's actually still the year 1999. The world will end on January 1st 2000 due to the millennium bug and we're inside a computer simulation running at 100x speed in the hope that technology in the simulation will advance sufficiently for the scientists in 1999 to develop a cure for the world's computers.

NickSCFC wrote:

Ironhide wrote:I suspect that we don't really notice a lot of things about the decades whilst we're living through them, it's usually several years later that we look back and see how different things actually were back then.

I also think that we're currently in an era in which we're used to seeing a vastly diverse variety of cultural influences that we have become far more individual than previously and as such no one particular aesthetic style is especially dominant.

Growing up in the late 80s/early 90s I remember back then anything from the 70s stood out as jarring and embarrassing.

Fast forward 20-30 years and looking back at the late 90s just doesn't have the same effect.

I think with globalization there's less room for outside influences. Go to any major city around the world outside the middle east and all the young people dress the same.

sorry Nick, i just dont agree.
when you watch some late 90s/early 2000s shows the fashion is (to my eyes) hideous: frosted tip hair, Rachel cuts, baggy, ill-fitting clothes (on men and women), and i also think there is some variance in current clothing. for example i can always spot Spanish/Italian visitors cos they have different taste in shoes to most English young people.

NickSCFC wrote:Growing up in the late 80s/early 90s I remember back then anything from the 70s stood out as jarring and embarrassing.

Fast forward 20-30 years and looking back at the late 90s just doesn't have the same effect.

I think the clue there is that you are comparing what you as a young man thought of 20 year old fashion, with what you think of 20 year old fashion now you are older.

You’d have to ask people under 25 what they think of late 90s fashion to see if they think it jarring and embarrassing.

I do partially agree with you though. A lot of young people I know love 90s music and like retro gaming. I am not sure they go out dressed in the same clothes as the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys though…

Try watching quiz shows on Challenge from the early 2000s, or even 2008-2010. There has been a pretty major change in fashion trends etc. over the years.

Nick still has curtains confirmed.

Tsk, get a load of you Common People.

Moggy wrote:

NickSCFC wrote:Growing up in the late 80s/early 90s I remember back then anything from the 70s stood out as jarring and embarrassing.

Fast forward 20-30 years and looking back at the late 90s just doesn't have the same effect.

I think the clue there is that you are comparing what you as a young man thought of 20 year old fashion, with what you think of 20 year old fashion now you are older.

You’d have to ask people under 25 what they think of late 90s fashion to see if they think it jarring and embarrassing.

This x1000. Our view is that not much has changed, but for young people the changes are huge. Especially now that their parents probably grew up in the 80's/90's, which makes them even more sensitive to those changes.

To give you an idea of how much kids notice change, I remember waiting for the elevator a few months ago and overhearing some kids, must have been 12-13 at the oldest talking about how awful the graphics in GTA IV were

WTF are you kids doing playing GTA and WTF are you kids complaining about! Maybe they were playing the console version.