I’m glad to see this sub is alive on Lemmy!
I think a bunch of 90s culture lived through a good portion of the 2000s as well. For example up until 2003 there was this “post Y2K vibe” going around, something that didn’t feel exactly like the Y2K in looks but more of an empty shell of it. Lots of 90s stuff was still around and used up until 2005, even technology wise.
CRT TVs with VHS still being dominant in 2005, internet 1.0 still. Despite seeing the 2000s developing its own identify, it felt like the 90s were still lingering around in one form or another. That’s how it felt for me in the south of the US.
Unlike other decades, like the 80s for example were completely gone in 1990 and the 2000s were gone in 2011. There’s just something about the 90s that was somehow hard to get rid off.
While this makes sense, how does it explain why there’s a sense that the debates prior to the 90s rolled over more discretely? Why would it seem like the 90s lingered more?
Your answer implies that a relative acceleration occurred in the mid 2000s and it’s the contrast around that acceleration that creates the perception. If true, we’re there other periods of relative acceleration or deceleration?
Perhaps I might be wrong or this is just how I’m interpreting it through my own experience but I noticed almost a “struggle” for some people to let go of what they were so used to back then as the 2000s made their way in. Almost finding it difficult to adapt to the inevitable changes to come.
Economically, many countries in the Eurosphere faced the challenge of having to adapt to a new currency which took a few years to fully settle in. Not only that but the difference in the entire economy due to this change have forced people to adapt faster than they could mentally and financially keep up, that alongside everything else that was going on at the time.
Naturally, people would tend to hold on to whatever was left to keep from the times prior, as a safety blanket. The ones that didn’t fully embrace the changes held on dearly to whatever was left from the 90s. The things they could actually manage to retain despite the rest of the other inevitable changes which no one had any control over.
Within time, eventually people did manage to embrace most, if not all the changes made in the early and mid 2000s and fully let go of all the 90s left overs.