In 2008, there was a painting contest in my office for "Vision 2020". Going off-tangent I painted- My Daugther's room in 2020. I am tickled thinking of it, as we are stand at the door of 2020.
But looking backward, I find these notable things of this decade. These are remarkable, changed human lives, made real impact. They might have seemed chaotic while it happened. Nevertheless they have been the most influential.
Plastic bans - Plastic bag ban has picked up across the globe. When some of the hipster sites talked about Plastic straw & its impact, I was skeptical, having seen the wide & wasteful use of plastic cutlery, single use plates & glasses, bags & paper napkins. Only when I saw my kids & their friends refusing straws, I felt hopeful. I visited US in 2002 and my very first experience was a super-mart grocery shopping. The number of flimsy plastic bags for my few items was shocking. Being new & first timer in US, I thought it was the norm. India was still using designer jute grocery bags, which changed slowly. In the past few years, I have seen most shoppers in USA carrying shopping bags, and even reusable mesh bags for vegetables. Only a formal plastic bag ban in India around 2017, got it back to using shopping bags & mesh bags for veggies. Impact on the outdoor cleanliness is visibly noticeable.
In the fashion world, the unique thing that picked up in 2010s is the High-low fashion. Tops with short hemline in the front, but flowing long till the floor in the back. This wonky design would have been a comic abberation before, but it took off in this decade. Soon everything was high-low - dresses, tunics, kurta, what-not. Other assymtric designs are an offshoot of high-low. In 2019, they have started talking of sustainability - of repeating clothes worn on multiple occasions, of reusing clothes. That's a good trend which hopefully picks up in the next decade.
Home cooking picked up big time in US, I think in 2010s. Driven by all the cooking shows (Masterchef Australia being the baap, Tarla Dalal & Sanjeev Kapoor in India) and health consciousness. Before that, I clearly remember the pride with which everyone said "Oh I don't know to cook at all,", "I only know to boil water" or "I burn water too". USA eateries as such, have perfected the franchisees systems, packaging & preservation of cooked foods.
* Beginning with food bloggers, now there was an explosion of recipes, on every magazine sites and eventually dedicated food sites. MSM picked it up from blogger popularity and created dedicated food sections which included well produced recipes articles & videos. I am particularly fond of the short videos where everything moves in fast forward. Who needs to spend 30 minutes through a video when 5 minutes will do. All we need to know are the ingredients & sequences.
* I would credit these sites for using & propagating indigenous grains again like Ragi, Jowar, Bajra. These had been driven to the limited use, thanks to spread of wheat during 1960s Green Revolution.
* The other key thing is localization of ingredients. Previous decades gourmet cooking meant, exotic ingredients sourced from other countries. Or baking - which is a standard list of flour, eggs & butter in every single dish. Now healthier cooking meant, dishes had all kinds of veggies, poultry & seafood.
* Though home-cooking trend must be in reverse in India. Previous generation (ladies) took pride in cooking up the most complicated as well as daily fare. But in this decade, thanks to long working hours, huge variety of eatery's & take outs and available cooks, home cooking is at a low than eating outside or outside food.
Food Sustainability makes an entrance in food & cooking area as well - which means
* source locally grown & seasonal veggies & other ingredients;
* source extra food from establishments (restaurants, weddings, events) and divert it to food banks or the needy, directly & efficiently.
* retail of imperfect looking veggies & fruits, in grocery stores
* promote buyers to use reusable grocery bags & mesh-bags for produce.
For a space sci-fi enthusiast, I got Interstellar & Martian (book & movie). But the brilliant real-life excitement was the first-time Black-hole picture. Wow ! I consider this the height of photography lifecycle - considering the distance and complexity.
Self-driving cars are not just in sci-fi but became very popular in real-life. It was not some high-price prototype. Many people were actually buying & using them and making those car companies richer. Tesla being the grand-daddy of all. But I also saw hands-free driving on Volvo & such.
GPS was an arbitrary white-paper I had written in 90s. In 2010s, it progressed from a default gadget for cars/vehicles to a default app in smartphones (Apple Maps & Google Maps, Waze). Today I wouldn't go for a walk or run in unknown route without a GPS to guide my return.
Now an inconsequential thing, phone which is in our palm all the time, was not the case in the beginning of the decade. IPhone driven smartphone device improvements and resulting apps being created for those devices, is responsible for people with there noses in the left hand (holding the phone). And subsequent entry of phone in multiple (rather all) areas of life. It has influenced people in loads of ways.
Kodak stopped the film roll production in the beginning of the decade, because Digital cameras had taken over the world. But once the smartphone camera spread, it was literal picture explosion. There were more pictures taken every minute than in previous decades put together. Everything has been clicked. If storage is a concern, then lot of cloud solutions are in place. My concern is how would humans manage these pictures ? - coming from my challenges managing personal family photo collections. My personal choice will be to go back to Digital cameras.
Smartphones in hand has also meant a death of home phones. Home phones had a graph of being the most wait-listed item, rotatory dial, punch numbers, see-through case, cordless and VoIP phones. Now they are getting discontinued not soon enough. Since nearly all members of the house have a cellphone, home phones are just an unnecessary expense.
In the previous decade, Streaming or digital platform for movies & shows were there with Smart TVs and laptops. But the viewership boomed in 2010 with smartphone. No person or schedule or conversation is devoid of streaming. Same goes for gaming industry.
Along with smartphone spread social media usage - almost like wildfire.
* This was the golden age for conspiracy theorists. Everyone wants to voice their opinion. A written down opinion has more impact & is forever than a verbal statement.
* Social media opened mouths but divided souls. Biggest example is the divisive & polarizing opinions about Politics & everything else. Most highlighted during 2016 USA elections and 2014 India elections.
* Mental health & hand wrists of all have been impacted at varying degree. FOMO, depression, time-wastage are well-known side-effects.
* It gave birth to a whole new job profiles (Youtubers, Influencers).
* On a positive note, it is generating work for a set of artists, in different area, everywhere. Every kind of artist had a platform to showcase their work.
* Creativity has gone bonkers with click-baity headlines, because clicks translate to revenue.
* Hashtags # might seem like a trivial thing, but they have brought attention to issues and mobilized crowd supports in times of need (like floods, other natural disasters).
* Memes are new way to communicate and to document our times.
* While education is great, falling into a Wiki rabbit-hole, is just a time-waste. All the info may not be useful at all.
While Artificial Intelligence (AI) was an imaginative sci-fi concept in the entire 20th century, it came alive this decade. It reached common parlance thanks to Facebook, but turns out all of technology industry has been developing it all along. In social talks, news op-eds & dystopian TV shows, it is being talked negatively. I am just glad, none of the dystopian AI Robots nightmare have come true yet :) It's only negativity is access to personal behavior of all and that knowledge being used by corporations, to market or advertise their products to a precise target audience.
Internet boom became a way of life in this digital decade. Its actual reach to most of humanity and its wide variety of use in every single aspect of life happened this decade. So much so, its impossible to imagine life without internet (of all kinds 3-5G or Wifi). This decades generation doesn't know a life without internet. Even if we give up social aspect of internet, there is also e-governance and nobody can stay cut-off from government. It would be like giving up electricity.
For a peripheral cricket watcher, I was pushed even further outside. IPL completely took over along with other non-stop touring. Which meant there are way too many matches to keep track and too many players to know.
I remember as a child, there would be lot of PSA looking for volunteers to record books on tapes for blind schools. Now Audio Books are mainstream. Its for the busy professionals who are on the road and have less time to be tied down to a physical book yet want to dredge through them all for knowledge. There are numerous commercial apps to play them and free ones from library. I feel Podcasts & music boom must have been the catalysts for audible books. I truly hope the benefits reach the blind folks too.
A chunk of movies this decade were Sequels & Franchise movies. Hindi Film Music was progressively marked by Recreations. Jhankar Beats & Remixes gave way to Recreations.
Both of these were driven by collective 90s nostalgia, which peaked in this decade. Speaking of 90s, the music cassette has vanished. It was downhill last decade, thanks to DVDs. But this decade its truly gone, due to music streaming & all. All that remains, is it as pop art motif.
This decade was truly the future that was predicted throughout all sci-fi literature in the past centuries. As we stand on the edge, at the start of new decade, I can't decide what new to expect. Vision 2050 could be a good brain exercise to pursue.
Wish you all a very Happy & Prosperous New Year !
But looking backward, I find these notable things of this decade. These are remarkable, changed human lives, made real impact. They might have seemed chaotic while it happened. Nevertheless they have been the most influential.
Plastic bans - Plastic bag ban has picked up across the globe. When some of the hipster sites talked about Plastic straw & its impact, I was skeptical, having seen the wide & wasteful use of plastic cutlery, single use plates & glasses, bags & paper napkins. Only when I saw my kids & their friends refusing straws, I felt hopeful. I visited US in 2002 and my very first experience was a super-mart grocery shopping. The number of flimsy plastic bags for my few items was shocking. Being new & first timer in US, I thought it was the norm. India was still using designer jute grocery bags, which changed slowly. In the past few years, I have seen most shoppers in USA carrying shopping bags, and even reusable mesh bags for vegetables. Only a formal plastic bag ban in India around 2017, got it back to using shopping bags & mesh bags for veggies. Impact on the outdoor cleanliness is visibly noticeable.
In the fashion world, the unique thing that picked up in 2010s is the High-low fashion. Tops with short hemline in the front, but flowing long till the floor in the back. This wonky design would have been a comic abberation before, but it took off in this decade. Soon everything was high-low - dresses, tunics, kurta, what-not. Other assymtric designs are an offshoot of high-low. In 2019, they have started talking of sustainability - of repeating clothes worn on multiple occasions, of reusing clothes. That's a good trend which hopefully picks up in the next decade.
Home cooking picked up big time in US, I think in 2010s. Driven by all the cooking shows (Masterchef Australia being the baap, Tarla Dalal & Sanjeev Kapoor in India) and health consciousness. Before that, I clearly remember the pride with which everyone said "Oh I don't know to cook at all,", "I only know to boil water" or "I burn water too". USA eateries as such, have perfected the franchisees systems, packaging & preservation of cooked foods.
* Beginning with food bloggers, now there was an explosion of recipes, on every magazine sites and eventually dedicated food sites. MSM picked it up from blogger popularity and created dedicated food sections which included well produced recipes articles & videos. I am particularly fond of the short videos where everything moves in fast forward. Who needs to spend 30 minutes through a video when 5 minutes will do. All we need to know are the ingredients & sequences.
* I would credit these sites for using & propagating indigenous grains again like Ragi, Jowar, Bajra. These had been driven to the limited use, thanks to spread of wheat during 1960s Green Revolution.
* The other key thing is localization of ingredients. Previous decades gourmet cooking meant, exotic ingredients sourced from other countries. Or baking - which is a standard list of flour, eggs & butter in every single dish. Now healthier cooking meant, dishes had all kinds of veggies, poultry & seafood.
* Though home-cooking trend must be in reverse in India. Previous generation (ladies) took pride in cooking up the most complicated as well as daily fare. But in this decade, thanks to long working hours, huge variety of eatery's & take outs and available cooks, home cooking is at a low than eating outside or outside food.
Food Sustainability makes an entrance in food & cooking area as well - which means
* source locally grown & seasonal veggies & other ingredients;
* source extra food from establishments (restaurants, weddings, events) and divert it to food banks or the needy, directly & efficiently.
* retail of imperfect looking veggies & fruits, in grocery stores
* promote buyers to use reusable grocery bags & mesh-bags for produce.
For a space sci-fi enthusiast, I got Interstellar & Martian (book & movie). But the brilliant real-life excitement was the first-time Black-hole picture. Wow ! I consider this the height of photography lifecycle - considering the distance and complexity.
Self-driving cars are not just in sci-fi but became very popular in real-life. It was not some high-price prototype. Many people were actually buying & using them and making those car companies richer. Tesla being the grand-daddy of all. But I also saw hands-free driving on Volvo & such.
GPS was an arbitrary white-paper I had written in 90s. In 2010s, it progressed from a default gadget for cars/vehicles to a default app in smartphones (Apple Maps & Google Maps, Waze). Today I wouldn't go for a walk or run in unknown route without a GPS to guide my return.
Now an inconsequential thing, phone which is in our palm all the time, was not the case in the beginning of the decade. IPhone driven smartphone device improvements and resulting apps being created for those devices, is responsible for people with there noses in the left hand (holding the phone). And subsequent entry of phone in multiple (rather all) areas of life. It has influenced people in loads of ways.
Kodak stopped the film roll production in the beginning of the decade, because Digital cameras had taken over the world. But once the smartphone camera spread, it was literal picture explosion. There were more pictures taken every minute than in previous decades put together. Everything has been clicked. If storage is a concern, then lot of cloud solutions are in place. My concern is how would humans manage these pictures ? - coming from my challenges managing personal family photo collections. My personal choice will be to go back to Digital cameras.
Smartphones in hand has also meant a death of home phones. Home phones had a graph of being the most wait-listed item, rotatory dial, punch numbers, see-through case, cordless and VoIP phones. Now they are getting discontinued not soon enough. Since nearly all members of the house have a cellphone, home phones are just an unnecessary expense.
In the previous decade, Streaming or digital platform for movies & shows were there with Smart TVs and laptops. But the viewership boomed in 2010 with smartphone. No person or schedule or conversation is devoid of streaming. Same goes for gaming industry.
Along with smartphone spread social media usage - almost like wildfire.
* This was the golden age for conspiracy theorists. Everyone wants to voice their opinion. A written down opinion has more impact & is forever than a verbal statement.
* Social media opened mouths but divided souls. Biggest example is the divisive & polarizing opinions about Politics & everything else. Most highlighted during 2016 USA elections and 2014 India elections.
* Mental health & hand wrists of all have been impacted at varying degree. FOMO, depression, time-wastage are well-known side-effects.
* It gave birth to a whole new job profiles (Youtubers, Influencers).
* On a positive note, it is generating work for a set of artists, in different area, everywhere. Every kind of artist had a platform to showcase their work.
* Creativity has gone bonkers with click-baity headlines, because clicks translate to revenue.
* Hashtags # might seem like a trivial thing, but they have brought attention to issues and mobilized crowd supports in times of need (like floods, other natural disasters).
* Memes are new way to communicate and to document our times.
* While education is great, falling into a Wiki rabbit-hole, is just a time-waste. All the info may not be useful at all.
While Artificial Intelligence (AI) was an imaginative sci-fi concept in the entire 20th century, it came alive this decade. It reached common parlance thanks to Facebook, but turns out all of technology industry has been developing it all along. In social talks, news op-eds & dystopian TV shows, it is being talked negatively. I am just glad, none of the dystopian AI Robots nightmare have come true yet :) It's only negativity is access to personal behavior of all and that knowledge being used by corporations, to market or advertise their products to a precise target audience.
Internet boom became a way of life in this digital decade. Its actual reach to most of humanity and its wide variety of use in every single aspect of life happened this decade. So much so, its impossible to imagine life without internet (of all kinds 3-5G or Wifi). This decades generation doesn't know a life without internet. Even if we give up social aspect of internet, there is also e-governance and nobody can stay cut-off from government. It would be like giving up electricity.
For a peripheral cricket watcher, I was pushed even further outside. IPL completely took over along with other non-stop touring. Which meant there are way too many matches to keep track and too many players to know.
I remember as a child, there would be lot of PSA looking for volunteers to record books on tapes for blind schools. Now Audio Books are mainstream. Its for the busy professionals who are on the road and have less time to be tied down to a physical book yet want to dredge through them all for knowledge. There are numerous commercial apps to play them and free ones from library. I feel Podcasts & music boom must have been the catalysts for audible books. I truly hope the benefits reach the blind folks too.
A chunk of movies this decade were Sequels & Franchise movies. Hindi Film Music was progressively marked by Recreations. Jhankar Beats & Remixes gave way to Recreations.
Both of these were driven by collective 90s nostalgia, which peaked in this decade. Speaking of 90s, the music cassette has vanished. It was downhill last decade, thanks to DVDs. But this decade its truly gone, due to music streaming & all. All that remains, is it as pop art motif.
This decade was truly the future that was predicted throughout all sci-fi literature in the past centuries. As we stand on the edge, at the start of new decade, I can't decide what new to expect. Vision 2050 could be a good brain exercise to pursue.
Wish you all a very Happy & Prosperous New Year !
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