It’s 2010, we are now officially in the ‘Teenies’, and what a decade the last ten years has been. This is the decade that brought us the internet, the instantaneous access of all people to all the world’s collective knowledge, and My Chemical Romance. It was the decade of Live 8, which was like Live Aid, only Freddy Mercury was dead and instead we had Coldplay. We changed the world that day, through Coldplay’s dulcid tones, and now there’s no more famine or racism or whatever that was about. Something about people clicking their fingers, I don’t really remember. Anyway, Africa was saved and now we have Barack Obama. So, here’s the top five Cultural Phenomena of the Last Decade, the top five things that will define us in the minds of our children, and in the minds of future robot historians.
5) Judd Apatow Films
Some filmmakers define a generation. The 40’s had Orson Welles. The 60’s had Alfred Hitchcock. The 80’s had that gay fella that made Top Gun. We have Judd Apatow. I know what your thinking, that I’m about to launch into a scathing, cynical, holier-then-thou rant about how Apatow films aren’t funny, that it’s just infantile, sex-obsessed pot humour, and, well, it is. But that’s what makes it brilliant. Rarely do films ever show literal dozens of drawings of penises, talk constantly about penises, and basically base the entire narrative around the protaganist’s penises (penii?). Only two films I’ve ever seen have had that kind of focus on the male member, and only one of them is readily available in Chartbusters. And only one is brilliantly funny, where as the other one makes me want to cry a little.
Apatow films have not only changed audiences, that is to say, changed our generation, they’ve changed the way films are made. Kevin Smith, who more then any other filmmaker summed up the angst of the 90s in his own unique style, made his last film to mimic an Apatow production to tempt the box office gods. Granted, his film’s have always been the place where dick jokes go to die, but this time it had the word ‘Porno’ right in the title. And these are the biggest hits of our decade - fuck ‘Rosebud’ - we’ve got McLovin.
4) Reality TV
You know what’s better then Reality TV? That’s right, nothing. Sure, ‘Celebrity Jungle Anus Eating Show’ is tropical hoot. Who doesn’t love ‘Big Brother; Balding Racist Edition’. I know nothing gets me through the cold, lonely evenings like that one ‘We Take Anorexic Bitches in Various Degrees of Undress and Make Them Prance Like Sexy Monkeys for Your Wanking Pleasure In The Misguided Hope Of Getting A Next Top Career Show’. Catchy.
To fully appreciate the 2000’s you have to watch film’s like EdTV or the Truman Show, in which the plot depicted a hellish objectification of the individual for the audience’s entertainment, and consider that when these films were made they were not meant to be a fucking satire. Now we have Flavor of Love 2, where clock enthusiast Flavor Flav must find true love - Again!
3) The Cyberweb
There are times I really think we take the Internets for granted. Instantaneous access to all the information in the world. Seriously, all of humanities accomplishments at your fingertips. And by that, I mean a wank-bucket full o’ porn. Back in the 90’s, if we wanted to see boobs, we had to work for it. Buy a deck of cards with nudey ladies on it but pretend at the till that they’re just normal cards. Staring doe eye’d at the VHS cover of Striptease in your local VideoWorld. Actually buying the Sun. But no longer. On Google, if you can spell it, it exists. You’re the boss. You say “Midgets”, and the Internet says “How high?”. You say “Underwater Amputee Lesbian Pre-op”, and sure, the Internet will feel a little dirty afterwards, but it’ll sort that shit right out. And won’t even point out that it doesn’t make sense, that’s how good a friend the Internet is.
Seriously, here is a test. Stop reading this for a second. Did you ever wonder who played Sharkboy in ‘Sharkboy and Lavagirl’? No, of course you didn’t, no-one did. But you can find out in about two seconds. Seriously, go do it. I’ll wait here. I won’t write anything funny until you get back, or, indeed, at all. Go on. … Are you back? Who played him? Actually don’t tell me, I don’t care.
But seriously, think about this for a second. No longer is intelligence defined by how much you know. If you have a laptop and can spell Wikipedia, you know everything. Intelligence is now the processing speed, the comprehension, the aplomb applied to what is now universal knowledge. The Internet changed the definition of ‘smart’. All that, and it got ‘Snakes On A Plane’ made. Surely, the Internet is some sort of Tron-like Messiah.
2) Twilight
‘There Will be Blood’? There Will be Boredom. ‘Borat’? Bore-at. ‘The Dark Knight’? The Dark… It’s boring. Forget what every other news source, publication or right-thinking man says. This is the film of the decade.
Stephanie Meyer had the unmitigated, heavy-flowing genius to re-imagine the Vampire, not as a terrifying spectre of the night, an ethereal hunters who stalks the living for his pray, but as a sparkly faggot in a tree. Edward Cullen sums up the man of the 2000’s - sensitive, emotive, and with the physique of a fourteen year old girl, the same demographic he paradoxically appeals to. He is the anti-Sparta, the antidote to macho heroes of the 80’s and 90’s - no longer does a protagonist have to tear Alan Rickman limb from limb to be an international heartthrob- he just has to climb trees really fucking fast.
At first glance, it’s difficult to see why women everywhere invest so much in this book, in particular Edward. Granted, Bella, the female protagonist, is basically a large cut-out for ‘your self-loathing face here’, but why do women find the idea of a 100 year old man creeping into your house at night and watching you sleep attractive? I’m 21, and I get nothing but hassle.
I could say that the whole phenomenon is evidence of the paradoxical alienation felt in an ever more inter-connected society, and that the personal identification of being ‘special’ and ‘unique’ bears more weight then ever before, and that it reflects an increasingly isolated female youth lost in the anxiety of a sex-crazed society, but I won’t say that. I won’t say that because that’s a load of wank and chips. It’s shite. It’s a fad, it’s yo-yo’s, it’s Yugi-Oh, it’s a third fad starting with Y. It’s the worst kind of trash, it’s emotional manipulation. On new copies of ‘Wuthering Heights’ there are now stickers saying ‘Bella and Edward’s Favourite Book’. I wish that was a fucking joke. I think in a sad, yet strangely beautiful way, this sums up our decade - trash, but bloody brilliant trash.
1) Twilight; New Moon
See above, but this time there’s fucking werewolves. You know that werewolf kid played Sharkboy out of Sharkboy and Lavagirl? I know, right? Fucked up.
Jacob, seen here with the vagina from 'Teeth' on his chest.
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