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Adam Pearson's avatar

Very interesting. It’s been popular lately to attribute the real stupidity of the 2010s to the smartphone and therefore mark 2012 as the year the decade truly begin, but some of these 2011 incidents prove this not very the case. It would interesting to see a timeline like this going from 2007 (the mass adoption of Facebook) to 2010.

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DeepLeftAnalysis🔸's avatar

Looking forward to reading more 21st century history. The Kramer n-word incident, for example [2006?].

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True Discipline's avatar

I may try to do a timeline of events that led up to the period I am covering, but I am not as familiar with that period.

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Rob's avatar

Remember Don Imus?

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plermpt's avatar

the "nappy headed hoes" incident was 2009 I think. Great memory! RIP Don

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Rob's avatar

What's interesting about that is I would call it political correctness rather than woke. Social media being the main difference which gave woke an all pervasive feeling that PC never had, but it also wasn't just that. I honestly feel like losing the gay marriage battle demoralized and deligitimized the type of conservatives who were really manning the gates against the horde in the 90s and 00s, causing the line to break and the deluge to arrive.

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Rob's avatar

I distinctly remember fall of 2006 because of the year of high school I was in

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plermpt's avatar

yeah, maybe the fall out from that comment lasted 3 years....

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Rob's avatar

Turns out it was April 2007. I remembered some kid laughing about it in my biology class and the teacher was like "you gotta be careful of what you say nowadays Jack," it was just the spring of that school year instead of the fall.

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Katherine Dee's avatar

This is great! One thing I don’t think I saw was Your Fave Is Problematic. I would also maybe add ONTD! & the beginning of Black Twitter.

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True Discipline's avatar

What is ONTD?

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Stetson's avatar

Great to create these catalogs of online cultural events as they're easy to forget but leave larger subconscious imprints.

The "Great Awokening" felt in full force in run up to 2012 election on college campuses. It was getting very hostile by that point. It was still mostly among the do-gooder/striver left-liberals on campuses (not necessarily the dominant campus ethos), but there was already a lack of pushback dynamic that let it keep marching forward. Even as early as 2010, I would get admonished SJW-style for promulgating normie liberal talking pointing in casual settings or the school paper.

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João Correia's avatar

I'll always remember some crucial background for these, the 2000s Bush wars for Gen Xers and the 2009-11 crisis for millenials, and the subsequent hipster culture of one upmanship that made a lot of contrarians (Left wing metaphysics is "anti natural", etc.).

Also there was this striving culture post crisis to be an entrepeneur and science would help achieve "excellence", that was the corporate talk of the time, you even saw in movies of the 2010s this excitement, the 2014 Interstellar, then the progressively dissapointed "i cant/couldnt get into science" with the Lost in Mars diversity entryism and the Bullock space fail. So there was a transition from failed entrepeneurship reset after the crisis for many, who then turned into this politics as entertainment/team cultism.

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Jack Johnson's avatar

Macklemore inclusion very correct. That whole album is the protowoke, although it seems incredibly unsubtle after ten years of refinement.

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tim's avatar

If it was not for Anita Sarkeesian I probably would be still a progressive

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Crimson's avatar

Never seen a lefty talk about the appalling influence of porn on language culture dating. Honestly never. Please show me if I missed it.

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