Take off the nostalgia goggles. Every decade has different aesthetics, you just don’t notice the changes while they’re happening. Nor do they perfectly line up to nice, round numbers. 1981 looked a lot like 1978, while 1986 very clearly had that 80s vibe the 80s were known for. The late 90s had a lot in common with the early 2000s to the point we were saying the same things back then. Then 2010s going on into the 2020s may not seem like they had a particular style, but they do and we won’t know it until it’s 2045.

I think a lot about the music of this era. The 2010s had a large amount of influence from dubstep, drone, and other club genres. Bass drops became more popular between 2012 and now. Billie Ellish, for example, is a pop artist that has more in common with Suuns than she does Katie Perry. Years from now, people will be able to pick out songs from 2017 based solely on their style the same way you can tell something was made in 2007 or 1977.

2010s was where the trend moved away from skeuomorphism and towards flat minimalist design. The timeline makes even more sense if you demarcate by US presidential terms, so 2013-2020 instead of 2010-2020. Once upon a time, it was considered good design to make whatever button your program had to actually look like a physical button that it was supposed to represent. Just compare Windows XP/Vista/7 and Windows 8. Logos also underwent this shift. Just look at how they massacred my boy.. 2010s was when “uh aktually, an entirely empty white room is the peak of aesthetics” became a thing. Marie “does this spark joy” Kondo released her book in 2011 after all. In the early 2010s, we still had flip phones and Blackberries that all had physical buttons, but those were pushed aside for “minimalist” smartphone which had few buttons. Before the 2010s, sleek minimalist design was purely an Apple thing, but throughout the 2010s, the Applefication of design spread until everything had to be flat and minimalist by the 2020s. Corporate Memphis is just the end result of this flat minimalist design and around the time when the public began to turn against it.

The reactionary nature of nostalgia aside…

Making electronics with transparent parts is good because it is a reversal of this phenomenon where the mechanical nature of devices is obfuscated from the consumer. A modern smartphone is designed as though it was ashamed to be a machine, a black box with a screen on one side and a camera on the other. While these do not explain themselves to the user they are open as to what they are, a collection of circutboards and switches and wires arranged in a way that serves a purpose. They are something created with intention, rather than having been produced out of nothing.

That being said, transparent plastics tend to be less durable than their opaque counterparts, which definitely contributed to the end of the trend.

I feel like ever since the early 2010s, the general cultural aesthetic has shifted to be whatever is the least “offensive” to the largest group of people, while also being incredibly bland to be as cheap to produce as possible. I do really miss more vibrant and varied aesthetic in popular culture.

The 2010s do have a distinct vibe, it’s just that ever since the recession everything has been generally gloomier and instead of 80s neon graphics and palm tree decor / 90s mtv chic / 00s semi-self-aware sleaze we’re stuck with variations on 2010s batemanesque minimalism

(also it sucks that the 80s were when aids, crack, and the neoliberal transition were most devastating bc it easily had the coolest sensory vibes out of any modern decade)

Man, Nintendo was doing some heavy lifting on the vibes front this era

I think the need to have a shared monoculture is a deeply reactionary way of thinking that prevents us from developing human empathy. You don’t need to say “Bazinga” at the same time as another person in order for you to relate to, care for, and understand strangers. I think the yearning for monoculture in people 25-40 is a mirror of boomers who complain that they cannot relate to kids anymore because nobody really believes in the pledge of alligence or some such other “things r different” nonsense. Yeah I haven’t played Hoop and Stick 3, we don’t need to play the same video games to relate to each other.

It’s a crutch for a brutal culture where you are too scared to show a modicum of openness or vulnerability with other humans because deep down you need to be reassured that they won’t scam/harm you simply because they believe in the magic words of Burgerstan. People are uncomfortable with change and things they don’t know because we’ve built a society where change often begets material vulnerability in people, and information and even cultural media have become a weapon to be used against others.

Monoculture was never good, it simply was. Also despite this being a real aesthetic trend, you should also remember that the vast majority of consumer technology produced at the same time was not clear plastic tech. If anything the monoculture of tech products of that era was that gross beige that yellows in about a year or two. It’s just not aesthetic enough to remember, and in 10 years everything just defaulted black. I’ve actually never seen a clear plastic Dreamcast/ Dreamcast controller IRL. I’ve been a tech guy forever and despite knowing about it, I only know of 1 person that had actually experienced the Dreamcast internet. This is very much nostalgia bait vs actual how things were.

To put it into perspective for one of those phones with clear plastic, there were 10,000 of these

I really miss the diversity in phones shapes and sizes.

Forget RETVRN….We should ASCEND.

Bring back clear plastic tech

Edit: but make it repairable so it doesn’t end up as ewaste immediately

I have a trailing sense of nostalgia as I age. When I was in my teens, the 90s felt like a distinct time period but the 00s didn’t. In the late 00s and early 10s I had a hard 90s nostalgia phase. As I get older I have that same feeling for the later decades. 00s had a vibe. 10s definitely had a vibe. I am beginning to even think wistfully about the late 10s. 2018 had a vibe for sure.

Also a lot of the ways we define aesthetics of a decade is by consumer products, especially once you get into the 80s, 90s, and beyond. It’s also how we define nostalgia. You don’t just remember being a kid, you remember the old brands and the things those brands sold. That’s kind of a weird way to define the march of history and culture.

I didn’t have hope for the future back then. Weirdly I have more hope nowadays. Was at that age back then and am that different age now I suppose

Hoping for a comeback.

The switch 2 is a disappointment skin wise.