The Aughts (The 2000s, 2000-2009)

almost as if the plea to just "google it" that used to proliferate more widely have finally been internalized (at least by most of us)

I have no idea what the aughts were to me (outside of depressing political stuff). I feel like expanses of time have been more difficult to delinneate or sum up as shared culture (or 'culture') has slowly fizzled away. There hasn't been a Thrillers or a final episode of M*A*S*H to unite us for some time now.

The last episodes of Friends, Frasier, and Everybody Loves Raymond were all pretty big.

American Idol dominated the overall '00s tv ratings.

in the UK: going to university because you want to learn vs going to university so you can get a job.

decent into plutocracy
mainstreaming of indie

digitisation of any/all content for personal consumption / globalisation of everything would be the two defining/most interesting characteristics impo. the earnest fashion for declaiming that your generation invented/perfected cruelty/war/environmental destruction/idiocy/poverty/corruption/discrimination is the least interesting characteristic that ppl seem to think was emblematic but rly wasnt

American Idol OTM

* the Bourne films
* Fight Club and V For Vendetta take over as signifiers of iconoclastic cool among high school seniors, et al.

Who were the most bankable stars in the 2000? I was thinking Russell Crowe but then I looked over his filmography and apparently I imagined that. Maybe the peak of Clooney as movie star but obviously he has a strong 90s presence.

Pitt at start, Damon/clooney axis, depp at end, Downey Jr since, maybe?

jolie throughout, maybe?

Emma Watson's films averaged 900mil in box office :)

Ornaldo Bloomps' aughts films grossed $6.5 billion

- Social interactions fully transactional - whether it's likes, RTs, whatever.
- Economy(ies) at event horizon where 100% of financial movements occur in One Percenter land. In terms of economic significance, the rest of us are as important and tolerated as picnic ants.

Oh man, Will Ferrell will be in there for sure - Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega Nights - none of those have gone away at all. Ben Stiller also did shockingly well for himself, with Zoolander, Dodgeball, Along Came Polly... and both of the first two Meet the Parents films - inexplicably - were top ten for their years, as was Night at the Museum (!).

I guess it was nice that comedies could still even make the list back then - that's actually a big shift in the 2000s that might go unmarked by history. Now it's all big epics, superheroes, and animated things, and so far in the 2010s the only essentially comic top ten grossers are Men in Black III, which is borderline action/scifi, and The Hangover II. From 2001 to 2010 there's My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Men In Black II, Bruce Almighty, Meet the Fockers, Hitch, Night at the Museum, The Simpsons Movie, Mamma Mia!, Hancock (really?), The Hangover... plus non-CGI-blockbuster-style action and adventure pictures like Ocean's Eleven and Twelve, Mr. and Mrs Smith, Bad Boys II, I Am Legend, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, and Minority Report, and odd things like Signs and Passion of the Christ... none of which I can imagine making the top list today. Not saying any of those are precious underdog gems crushed by the blockbuster onslaught - - - just that what kind of thing makes a blockbuster has shifted, though this also has to do with the growing Asian market, etc.

Brokeback Mountain, Avatar, and Passion of the Christ for "event" films, btw.

nolan killed light cinema the bastard

Jackson and Gore Verbinski, as much or moreso.

Thing that sticks out as most different to me was the existence of Borders. I used to spend a lot of time there, amazed by the variety of magazines and wondering who on earth read them all (I can't help but think the magazine selection killed them more than books, cafe, films and music). I remember a point where there must have been like 6 or 7 magazines about vintage monster movies on the go. Shitloads of arty fashion magazines. Also remember seeing a fascinating magazine about cutting edge theatre set design.
Remember in the early 00s looking in the classics section and most of them were £1.50, this truly shocked me but it wasn't long before most of them were raised to regular book prices.

MySpace definitely.

2010s will be noted for the atomization of culture fostered by the internet

orange and teal

Although Fellowship of the Ring felt like the first true 21st century blockbuster. Maybe a case for Gladiator, but it feels more like a late-90s film by comparison.

Radiohead and globalisation [Started by Billy Dods in September 2001