The “Decade” has ended, and Americans are or are not optimistic
Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy for My Shirt” is to the 1990s what Kelis’s “My Milkshake Brings All The Boys to the Yard” is to the “Oughts”. Every decade brings itself this basic trope in pop culture. I am not sure what the equivalent song is for the 1980s — maybe Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax”, but that song is a bit too more overt in its suggestions.
And so with that I exhaust my thoughts on the previous decade’s popular culture debris.
It is interesting to note a contradictory polling result. Americans believe that this next year will be be better than the last, and they also believe the nation is heading in the wrong direction. It’s a symptom of rather loosely defined framing, I suppose.
Strikingly, people who otherwise don’t fall for the decade-trope are giddily accepting it, thinking they can mentally cut off “The Decade from Hell”. It’s a curious enough contruct. Woe to the Sports Franchise who wins a bunch of Championships, but wins them straddling the end of one decade and the beginning of the next — for the “Team of the Decade” moniker will go to that team that wins multiple championships in the proper ten year span. The Los Angeles Lakers are the Team of teh Oughts, for they won four champions to the Spurs’ three champions in the years 2000-2009. But, the Spurs won 4 against the Lakers’ 3 in the years between 1999 and 2008. Dagnabit, the Spurs suck.