The viral trends and social milestones that defined the past decade
Presidential campaigns became online memes, ride-share apps our go-to transport and a wave of crazes from planking to the ice bucket challenge filled our social feeds. Here are the trends that took over in the past decade.
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The internet and smart phones might not have been new developments this decade, but the way we used them certainly was.
Presidential campaigns turned into online memes, physical music disappeared, jobs were taken by computers, ride-share apps became our go-to transport, dating apps changed the way people interacted romantically and “the cloud” knew more about us than we did — because absolutely everything we did was documented.
RMIT psychologist lecturer James Collet says the 2010s marked an era of “hyper connectedness”.
“People have this ongoing record of their lives, but also one that they curated so they could choose how to present themselves to others,” Collet says.
He says the fear of missing out (FOMO) morphed into a “fear of missing opportunity” as crazes became much more interactive with the Harlem Shake, planking, the Ice Bucket challenge and Pokemon Go all embraced by millions of people around the globe.
“Social media obviously existed before this decade, but in the past 10 years it became much more of a visual soundtrack to our lives,” Collet says.
“In the past we’ve had online viral phenomena like Grumpy Cat and the ‘leave Britney Alone guy’, but this decade saw society participate in these social media sensations.”
Collet says that there were both positives and negatives from the rise of social media.
“Social media has been good in allowing the masses to speak out about what matters to them and allowing grassroots-level voices to be heard,” he says.
“Social media was integral in achieving really positive social changes like the Black Lives Matter movement in the US, marriage equality in Australia and the #metoo movement.
“But social media is a double-edged sword, and for every group that promoted something morally good, there was group that were racist or excessively patriotic in nature; groups where outrage was a predominant currency or vilified people — at times incorrectly — and without the time to calibrate and correct it.”
Collet adds that the 2012 launch of matchmaking app Tinder has become synonymous with modern dating and the term “swipe right” had significantly changed the way people interact socially, offline.
“Nowadays it’s not as socially acceptable to go up to someone in public and flirt or ask them out,” he explains.
“In fact, it’s almost socially unacceptable to form a romantic connection outside of online dating.”
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