I have a few guilty pleasures in life, and most of them are directly related to the Food Network, but one of them comes around every year at this time.
Best of the Year Lists
I keep track of everything I read, watch, and listen to throughout the year, and then I post my favorites and argue with people about theirs--sometimes ruining friendships in the process.
It's...a lot of fun.
But this year, the list output from just about every publication and thinkpiece-creator has doubled because we're also closing out the decade.
And I gotta tell you--
I am not mentally fit to assess this past decade.
Now, I really can't remember if this is how I felt leaving the last decade, because I feel like we just dismissed having to assess that one due to our inability to give it a cute name.
The aughts? No, thank you.
All I know is that this time around, I can't possibly go back and look at what movies came out when and which album is now ten years old and accept the fact that 2010 is about to be the past when I still haven't come to terms with the fact that 2005 reallyyyyyy isn't thaaaaaaaaaat long ago.
Is it a problem I have facing my own mortality?
Probably.
But it's also the feeling that this decade didn't seem to have a personality the way the 70's, 80's, and 90's did.
Of course, I have a historian as a friend who says that we shouldn't be allowed to do a deep examination of a certain time until everyone who lived during it is dead, but websites that want you to click on 10 Worst Daytime Emmy Red Carpet Looks of the Decade respectfully disagree.
Whether we like it or not, for a lot of us, this entire decade was anchored by 2016 when every celebrity you ever loved died and politics became an ongoing trauma with fresh salt poured daily for that extra tang of anxiety.
Before that, things were...Okay, I guess?
I mean I can rattle off a few movies and television shows that everybody talked about, but culturally speaking--
What pieces of art defined this decade?
What artists spoke for the masses?
Which book indicates who we were?
If there's one overarching trend, it seems to be that things go back and forth, and that sticking the landing seems to have become a generational quandary.
As I was making my Best of Just This Year You Can't Make Me Think Further Than That List, I realized that so many of the television shows I watched were half-brilliant and half-unwatchable. Quality consistency seemed to be elusive to even our best and brightest. It felt like it was hard to get really excited about things, and yet people claimed to be more excited than ever--myself included.
This was the decade of hyperbole. Of "I can't" and "Greatest ever" and "The Worst."
People wanted history to happen, and they weren't willing to wait around for it to occur organically.
If something looked like it might be a masterpiece, then it was manifested into being a masterpiece, whether the paint was smudged or not.
Culturally, we were insisting that these times were important. And, of course, they are. Just like every other time has been important.
But if the hope was that we would be sitting in a movie theater watching the next Dog Day Afternoon or Jaws, reading the next Fear of Flying, or sitting in our living rooms as the next "Who shot JR?" appeared, then...it felt like we were out of luck.
Even someone like me, who mocked Game of Thrones relentlessly, was glad that there was something tying us all together now that network television has surrendered to streaming.
We have content saturation and seemingly no communal cultural experiences anymore. It's overwhelming and frustrating and helps to increase disconnect rather than diminish it.
In fact, disconnect has become one of our favorite themes.
We know we're doing it, and no matter how much we address it in our music and film and art, it seems like we just can't bridge the gap. Or that we're actually disinterested in bridging that gap, because then--
What would we talk about?
This was the decade of no bad publicity. Maybe worse. Maybe this was the decade of "Bad publicity is the best publicity."
This is the decade where everybody with a cell phone became a comedian and a political pundit. Where you were born with a brand. Where fame has lost its last shred of cultural currency.
These past ten years have erased any lingering doubt that anything--artistically speaking--is impossible.
A television show five people liked in 1994 that got cancelled after two weeks is getting a reboot on some streaming service you've never heard of and to watch it, you just have to pay five dollars a month and own a phone only Old Navy sells.
That musician who used to refuse to sing that song everybody likes even though it was their number one hit is now hosting a reality show competition where they sing it every episode and even released a holiday version.
A movie is finally getting a sequel after thirty years and wow, it's actually good, wow, it's better than the original, wow, we're going to get five more sequels now, and some of them are going to be bad, but the fifth one is going to be so transcendent, it'll win the Oscar even though no movie like it has ever won the Oscar and then thousands of people will write about it why it's a huge problem that the sixth movie in a series like that could win an award that used to mean something and does it still mean something and does anyone care when there are so many more important things to be focusing on in the world than art?
That last part was hard to write, but it's permeated everything.
Spending even five seconds writing something like what I'm writing now seems like a way bigger waste of time than it ever did until the latter half of this decade rolled around.
Movies now have to justify their existence as it pertains to either the greater good or pure, unbridled entertainment.
Things aren't allowed to be half-important or sort of relevant.
They either need to speak to the moment or proudly state that they're not trying to speak to the moment or shut up altogether.
This was the decade where you had to know who your audience was, their age, their background, their income bracket, and the car they drive before you even thought about creating something.
Am I crazy or did we used to just create and then let the thing we created find the audience whoever they are and wherever they were?
This is the decade where we became more thoughtful--and that's a good thing.
But this is also the decade where we did a lot of overthinking.
This is the decade where everything became a thing.
No holiday was left unturned because we couldn't afford to not celebrate whenever the opportunity was presented to us.
No awards show was left untweeted about.
Nothing went unnoticed except stuff that really should have been noticed.
This was the decade where we wondered who was watching the stuff that we weren't watching and felt a slight paranoia that there were people out there--probably, most likely, lots of them--who were willing to spend hours of their lives investing in CSI: Cyber or The Big Bang Theory or other artifacts that seemed, objectively, quite terrible.
It made us angry that these things all the important people agreed were bad not only existed, but were thriving. How dare they.
This was a decade of anger.
Of lashing out.
All that hyperbole.
Not enough to just dislike something, you had to hate it and be clever about it.
This was a decade where nobody remembers Dorothy Parker and everybody is ripping her off left and right.
This is a decade of the quick laugh. The memes. The guffaw rather than the long, sustained, breathless laughing that you can't do by yourself.
How fitting that a form of humor has developed that doesn't require other people when this decade has been one of isolationism.
Where you tell other people you're laughing even when you haven't really laughed in weeks. Months, even.
This is the decade where narrative cohesion was everything and nothing at all.
The type of slip-ups we'd forgive old sitcoms for (She had a daughter in Season Two, and then four daughters in Season Five) is now no longer acceptable, even though we're willing to say something is a reboot, which means you can erase six out of the seven movies in a series, and then start from scratch, and it's perfectly fine.
This is the decade that stopped trying to fix the problems of the past and said, "Never mind. We'll just start over. Let the past have its problems. There's nothing we can do about that."
This is the decade--was the decade--is the decade where "is" and "was" are interchangeable. Where "time is a construct" is no longer something you'd only hear at a planetarium, but from a toddler. Everything is a construct now. Nothing is tangible. Nothing has definitive properties. This was--is--a fluid decade.
This was the decade where endings vanished. If a show has a series finale, then comes back, then ends again--what do you call that? The second finale? Does that even work? And who's to say it won't come back again?
Can a decade that established that "endings" are something we invented to mark time but are now done away with ever, itself, end?
This is the decade where we all became Ray in Ghostbusters. Closing our eyes and realizing that clearing our heads is too difficult, so maybe if we just pick the least dangerous thing we can think of, we'll be okay, only to realize that there isn't a person or thing on this earth that can't be weaponized or poisoned under the right set of circumstances.
This was the decade of titanium cynicism. Where people parlay soulless-but-sassy Twitter accounts into HBO deals. Where showing any semblance of a spirit gets you labeled "precious" or "sappy" or "quaint." We've always battled the idea that hardness = strength and softness = vulnerability, but this was the decade we lost the battle, partly because the soft among us have franchised their softness. They've cheapened it. It's unattractive, but in an entirely new way.
This was the decade where we made ourselves cry.
This was the decade where we were more aware than ever how emotional manipulation works and yet lined up to subscribe for it ever time a new trailer came out for a live action version of a movie we liked when we were kids.
This was the decade of addiction, and in the creative sector, nostalgia was the drug of choice.
This was the decade where Hollywood terminology became a day-to-day lexicon.
Where China got to decide whether or not two men could kiss in a movie.
Where the first question we ask after someone's been accused of rape is "Okay, but how long should it be before we let them make another movie?"
Where a concert was something you had to save up three paychecks to attend.
Where what you like determines who you are.
When people had enough and having enough still seemed like it wasn't enough.
This is a decade I don't know what to do with.
This is a decade that doesn't feel like mine.
It doesn't feel like I lived through it. It feels like I careened through it like a car with no brakes and no headlights traversing an icy road at night.
It feels as though I should just be glad I made it to the other end when so many didn't.
And what does it say about me that I did?
If you're wondering why I'm mixing up culture with the overall experience of being during these last ten years, it's because culture is the main way I take stock of where I've been and where I am and where I'm going.
And right now I have no idea where I've been, I'm vaguely aware of where I am, and I'm terrified of where I'm going.
So that's my decade.
Hard to put all that into a Best of List, but maybe I'll give it a shot all the same.
Or maybe I'll just tell you all to go watch Dope, Veep, and read On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and call it a day.
That won't tell you what it was, but then again--
What would?
Best of the Year Lists
I keep track of everything I read, watch, and listen to throughout the year, and then I post my favorites and argue with people about theirs--sometimes ruining friendships in the process.
It's...a lot of fun.
But this year, the list output from just about every publication and thinkpiece-creator has doubled because we're also closing out the decade.
And I gotta tell you--
I am not mentally fit to assess this past decade.
Now, I really can't remember if this is how I felt leaving the last decade, because I feel like we just dismissed having to assess that one due to our inability to give it a cute name.
The aughts? No, thank you.
All I know is that this time around, I can't possibly go back and look at what movies came out when and which album is now ten years old and accept the fact that 2010 is about to be the past when I still haven't come to terms with the fact that 2005 reallyyyyyy isn't thaaaaaaaaaat long ago.
Is it a problem I have facing my own mortality?
Probably.
But it's also the feeling that this decade didn't seem to have a personality the way the 70's, 80's, and 90's did.
Of course, I have a historian as a friend who says that we shouldn't be allowed to do a deep examination of a certain time until everyone who lived during it is dead, but websites that want you to click on 10 Worst Daytime Emmy Red Carpet Looks of the Decade respectfully disagree.
Whether we like it or not, for a lot of us, this entire decade was anchored by 2016 when every celebrity you ever loved died and politics became an ongoing trauma with fresh salt poured daily for that extra tang of anxiety.
Before that, things were...Okay, I guess?
I mean I can rattle off a few movies and television shows that everybody talked about, but culturally speaking--
What pieces of art defined this decade?
What artists spoke for the masses?
Which book indicates who we were?
If there's one overarching trend, it seems to be that things go back and forth, and that sticking the landing seems to have become a generational quandary.
As I was making my Best of Just This Year You Can't Make Me Think Further Than That List, I realized that so many of the television shows I watched were half-brilliant and half-unwatchable. Quality consistency seemed to be elusive to even our best and brightest. It felt like it was hard to get really excited about things, and yet people claimed to be more excited than ever--myself included.
This was the decade of hyperbole. Of "I can't" and "Greatest ever" and "The Worst."
People wanted history to happen, and they weren't willing to wait around for it to occur organically.
If something looked like it might be a masterpiece, then it was manifested into being a masterpiece, whether the paint was smudged or not.
Culturally, we were insisting that these times were important. And, of course, they are. Just like every other time has been important.
But if the hope was that we would be sitting in a movie theater watching the next Dog Day Afternoon or Jaws, reading the next Fear of Flying, or sitting in our living rooms as the next "Who shot JR?" appeared, then...it felt like we were out of luck.
Even someone like me, who mocked Game of Thrones relentlessly, was glad that there was something tying us all together now that network television has surrendered to streaming.
We have content saturation and seemingly no communal cultural experiences anymore. It's overwhelming and frustrating and helps to increase disconnect rather than diminish it.
In fact, disconnect has become one of our favorite themes.
We know we're doing it, and no matter how much we address it in our music and film and art, it seems like we just can't bridge the gap. Or that we're actually disinterested in bridging that gap, because then--
What would we talk about?
This was the decade of no bad publicity. Maybe worse. Maybe this was the decade of "Bad publicity is the best publicity."
This is the decade where everybody with a cell phone became a comedian and a political pundit. Where you were born with a brand. Where fame has lost its last shred of cultural currency.
These past ten years have erased any lingering doubt that anything--artistically speaking--is impossible.
A television show five people liked in 1994 that got cancelled after two weeks is getting a reboot on some streaming service you've never heard of and to watch it, you just have to pay five dollars a month and own a phone only Old Navy sells.
That musician who used to refuse to sing that song everybody likes even though it was their number one hit is now hosting a reality show competition where they sing it every episode and even released a holiday version.
A movie is finally getting a sequel after thirty years and wow, it's actually good, wow, it's better than the original, wow, we're going to get five more sequels now, and some of them are going to be bad, but the fifth one is going to be so transcendent, it'll win the Oscar even though no movie like it has ever won the Oscar and then thousands of people will write about it why it's a huge problem that the sixth movie in a series like that could win an award that used to mean something and does it still mean something and does anyone care when there are so many more important things to be focusing on in the world than art?
That last part was hard to write, but it's permeated everything.
Spending even five seconds writing something like what I'm writing now seems like a way bigger waste of time than it ever did until the latter half of this decade rolled around.
Movies now have to justify their existence as it pertains to either the greater good or pure, unbridled entertainment.
Things aren't allowed to be half-important or sort of relevant.
They either need to speak to the moment or proudly state that they're not trying to speak to the moment or shut up altogether.
This was the decade where you had to know who your audience was, their age, their background, their income bracket, and the car they drive before you even thought about creating something.
Am I crazy or did we used to just create and then let the thing we created find the audience whoever they are and wherever they were?
This is the decade where we became more thoughtful--and that's a good thing.
But this is also the decade where we did a lot of overthinking.
This is the decade where everything became a thing.
No holiday was left unturned because we couldn't afford to not celebrate whenever the opportunity was presented to us.
No awards show was left untweeted about.
Nothing went unnoticed except stuff that really should have been noticed.
This was the decade where we wondered who was watching the stuff that we weren't watching and felt a slight paranoia that there were people out there--probably, most likely, lots of them--who were willing to spend hours of their lives investing in CSI: Cyber or The Big Bang Theory or other artifacts that seemed, objectively, quite terrible.
It made us angry that these things all the important people agreed were bad not only existed, but were thriving. How dare they.
This was a decade of anger.
Of lashing out.
All that hyperbole.
Not enough to just dislike something, you had to hate it and be clever about it.
This was a decade where nobody remembers Dorothy Parker and everybody is ripping her off left and right.
This is a decade of the quick laugh. The memes. The guffaw rather than the long, sustained, breathless laughing that you can't do by yourself.
How fitting that a form of humor has developed that doesn't require other people when this decade has been one of isolationism.
Where you tell other people you're laughing even when you haven't really laughed in weeks. Months, even.
This is the decade where narrative cohesion was everything and nothing at all.
The type of slip-ups we'd forgive old sitcoms for (She had a daughter in Season Two, and then four daughters in Season Five) is now no longer acceptable, even though we're willing to say something is a reboot, which means you can erase six out of the seven movies in a series, and then start from scratch, and it's perfectly fine.
This is the decade that stopped trying to fix the problems of the past and said, "Never mind. We'll just start over. Let the past have its problems. There's nothing we can do about that."
This is the decade--was the decade--is the decade where "is" and "was" are interchangeable. Where "time is a construct" is no longer something you'd only hear at a planetarium, but from a toddler. Everything is a construct now. Nothing is tangible. Nothing has definitive properties. This was--is--a fluid decade.
This was the decade where endings vanished. If a show has a series finale, then comes back, then ends again--what do you call that? The second finale? Does that even work? And who's to say it won't come back again?
Can a decade that established that "endings" are something we invented to mark time but are now done away with ever, itself, end?
This is the decade where we all became Ray in Ghostbusters. Closing our eyes and realizing that clearing our heads is too difficult, so maybe if we just pick the least dangerous thing we can think of, we'll be okay, only to realize that there isn't a person or thing on this earth that can't be weaponized or poisoned under the right set of circumstances.
This was the decade of titanium cynicism. Where people parlay soulless-but-sassy Twitter accounts into HBO deals. Where showing any semblance of a spirit gets you labeled "precious" or "sappy" or "quaint." We've always battled the idea that hardness = strength and softness = vulnerability, but this was the decade we lost the battle, partly because the soft among us have franchised their softness. They've cheapened it. It's unattractive, but in an entirely new way.
This was the decade where we made ourselves cry.
This was the decade where we were more aware than ever how emotional manipulation works and yet lined up to subscribe for it ever time a new trailer came out for a live action version of a movie we liked when we were kids.
This was the decade of addiction, and in the creative sector, nostalgia was the drug of choice.
This was the decade where Hollywood terminology became a day-to-day lexicon.
Where China got to decide whether or not two men could kiss in a movie.
Where the first question we ask after someone's been accused of rape is "Okay, but how long should it be before we let them make another movie?"
Where a concert was something you had to save up three paychecks to attend.
Where what you like determines who you are.
When people had enough and having enough still seemed like it wasn't enough.
This is a decade I don't know what to do with.
This is a decade that doesn't feel like mine.
It doesn't feel like I lived through it. It feels like I careened through it like a car with no brakes and no headlights traversing an icy road at night.
It feels as though I should just be glad I made it to the other end when so many didn't.
And what does it say about me that I did?
If you're wondering why I'm mixing up culture with the overall experience of being during these last ten years, it's because culture is the main way I take stock of where I've been and where I am and where I'm going.
And right now I have no idea where I've been, I'm vaguely aware of where I am, and I'm terrified of where I'm going.
So that's my decade.
Hard to put all that into a Best of List, but maybe I'll give it a shot all the same.
Or maybe I'll just tell you all to go watch Dope, Veep, and read On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and call it a day.
That won't tell you what it was, but then again--
What would?
Comments
Post a Comment