I firmly believe 2009 was the "last hurrah" for the 2000s and that the decade ended right on time.  Though by the 2008-09 school year many early '10s trends were emerging, I believe the year was still predominantly '00s and was a nice bookend to a great decade.  Here are the reasons why.

1) Emo/scene fashion was still in style and long hair on guys was still prevalent
2) We were at the tail-end of the post-grunge era
3) 2009 was the last year having a MySpace instead of or in addition to a Facebook was common
4) Windows XP and Vista were still dominant on PCs during 2009; Windows 7 didn't come out until the very end of the year
5) 2009 was the last pre-Android year and the last year where smartphones were a novelty gadget as opposed to a must-have accessory
6) The financial crisis, the economic recession, and the War in Iraq, all Bush-era issues, were the big political issues of the day
7) Ringtone rap i.e. Soulja Boy was still popular in '09
8 ) Logo t-shirts and apparel i.e. A&F, American Eagle, Aeropostale, etc were still quite popular in '09
9) The term "EDM" had not caught on yet.  You had electropop and then "techno", a catch-all name for electronic music during the '00s
10) American Idol, Lost, and Desperate Housewives were among the most popular shows that year
11) The 2008-09 season was probably the peak for The Office
12) Dick Clark rang in the New Year in 2009.

What else can you think of that was prevalent in '09 that is more associated with the 2000s than the '10s?

The 2010-2011 school year was the most significant transition for me. All of a sudden everyone turned up with an Android or an iPhone after the Christmas season of 2010. I still think personally 2010 was the bridging gap between the 2000s and the 2010s. By 2011, memes exploded and a large portion of people in my eighth grade class went on Facebook. The first social media inspired phrases primarily of the 2010s came up during the fall of my 2011-2012 school year such as "SWAG" or "YOLO". EDM music became prevalent as it was playing in my gym lap runs and lunch dance showdowns and mentions and use of smartphone apps became an everyday thing in our social lives by the end of 2011.

If I had a penny for every thread that talked about whether 2009 was more 00s or early 10's, I'd be the richest person in history.

* Gordon Brown was still the British Prime Minister, before the Tories took over in 2010.
* The Wii was still a big deal, with New Super Mario Bros. Wii being an enormous commerical triumph.
* There was no Walking Dead tv series yet.
* Blu-rays were still more popular than Netflix movies.
* YouTube only entered its classic era around the last third of the year, when HD Vevo music videos flooded the channel and HD became more popular in major shows.
* The Marvel Cinematic Universe was still not firmly established yet. No MCU movies came out in 2009, and the two released the previous year were still widely regarded as stand-alone flicks.
* The live action fairytale reimagining craze was still not around yet. Instead, you had Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia franchises continuing on.
* Avatar only got released at the very end of the year, so the modern 3D IMAX cinema fad wasn't in yet.
* Twitter was only marginally popular, not a primary source of celebrity news and information.
* It's debatable whether Disney was out of its post-Renaissance age. Both Bolt and The Princess and the Frog are debated over their era placement, but one thing that was certain was that Disney was still not a primary player in the animated movie industry, which was still dominated by Pixar and DreamWorks. The 2010s have been all about Disney, Pixar, and Illumination Entertainment, with DreamWorks still relevant but well past its glory days.
* Adventure Time had not yet arrived to revolutionize the then-fatigued television cartoon industry.

Omg this topic again?

Omg this topic again?


It's not exactly the same.  Most threads on 2008 and 2009 discuss the 2010s trends that were already establishing themselves at that point in time.  This one is dedicated to the '00s trends still in place that people today tend to overlook when looking back.  Instead of discussing how similar that era was to 2017, this thread is discussing what is different.

I firmly believe 2009 was the "last hurrah" for the 2000s and that the decade ended right on time.  Though by the 2008-09 school year many early '10s trends were emerging, I believe the year was still predominantly '00s and was a nice bookend to a great decade.  Here are the reasons why.

1) Emo/scene fashion was still in style and long hair on guys was still prevalent
2) We were at the tail-end of the post-grunge era
3) 2009 was the last year having a MySpace instead of or in addition to a Facebook was common
4) Windows XP and Vista were still dominant on PCs during 2009; Windows 7 didn't come out until the very end of the year
5) 2009 was the last pre-Android year and the last year where smartphones were a novelty gadget as opposed to a must-have accessory
6) The financial crisis, the economic recession, and the War in Iraq, all Bush-era issues, were the big political issues of the day
7) Ringtone rap i.e. Soulja Boy was still popular in '09
8 ) Logo t-shirts and apparel i.e. A&F, American Eagle, Aeropostale, etc were still quite popular in '09
9) The term "EDM" had not caught on yet.  You had electropop and then "techno", a catch-all name for electronic music during the '00s
10) American Idol, Lost, and Desperate Housewives were among the most popular shows that year
11) The 2008-09 season was probably the peak for The Office
12) Dick Clark rang in the New Year in 2009.

What else can you think of that was prevalent in '09 that is more associated with the 2000s than the '10s?


nah late 2008

100% agreed. Thank you for being a voice of reason!


I firmly believe 2009 was the "last hurrah" for the 2000s and that the decade ended right on time.  Though by the 2008-09 school year many early '10s trends were emerging, I believe the year was still predominantly '00s and was a nice bookend to a great decade.  Here are the reasons why.

1) Emo/scene fashion was still in style and long hair on guys was still prevalent
2) We were at the tail-end of the post-grunge era
3) 2009 was the last year having a MySpace instead of or in addition to a Facebook was common
4) Windows XP and Vista were still dominant on PCs during 2009; Windows 7 didn't come out until the very end of the year
5) 2009 was the last pre-Android year and the last year where smartphones were a novelty gadget as opposed to a must-have accessory
6) The financial crisis, the economic recession, and the War in Iraq, all Bush-era issues, were the big political issues of the day
7) Ringtone rap i.e. Soulja Boy was still popular in '09
8 ) Logo t-shirts and apparel i.e. A&F, American Eagle, Aeropostale, etc were still quite popular in '09
9) The term "EDM" had not caught on yet.  You had electropop and then "techno", a catch-all name for electronic music during the '00s
10) American Idol, Lost, and Desperate Housewives were among the most popular shows that year
11) The 2008-09 season was probably the peak for The Office
12) Dick Clark rang in the New Year in 2009.

What else can you think of that was prevalent in '09 that is more associated with the 2000s than the '10s?

I firmly believe 2009 was the "last hurrah" for the 2000s and that the decade ended right on time.  Though by the 2008-09 school year many early '10s trends were emerging, I believe the year was still predominantly '00s and was a nice bookend to a great decade.  Here are the reasons why.

7) Ringtone rap i.e. Soulja Boy was still popular in '09

Soulja Boy was irrelevant in '09.


* YouTube only entered its classic era around the last third of the year, when HD Vevo music videos flooded the channel and HD became more popular in major shows.
* It's debatable whether Disney was out of its post-Renaissance age. Both Bolt and The Princess and the Frog are debated over their era placement, but one thing that was certain was that Disney was still not a primary player in the animated movie industry, which was still dominated by Pixar and DreamWorks. The 2010s have been all about Disney, Pixar, and Illumination Entertainment, with DreamWorks still relevant but well past its glory days.
* Adventure Time had not yet arrived to revolutionize the then-fatigued television cartoon industry.

1) Which Vevo video in 2009 was in HD? I can't find a single one higher than 480p.
2) Pixar is well past its glory days as well. They've never before put out so many blunders and so few successes in such a short amount of time.
3) Adventure Time revolutionized CN, not the TV animation industry as a whole which, in 2009, had much better shows airing.

Soulja Boy was irrelevant in '09.

“Kiss Me Thru the Phone” was a gigantic hit that year.

1) Which Vevo video in 2009 was in HD? I can't find a single one higher than 480p.

I guess it’s just that they were widescreen, consistently existent, and not crappily muddled as was normal in the mid-to-late 2000s

2) Pixar is well past its glory days as well. They've never before put out so many blunders and so few successes in such a short amount of time.

They’re not quite as untouchable as they were from 1995 to 2010, but they’re still clearly one of the primary competitors in the animation industry. Finding Dory and especially Inside Out prove they’re still easily capable of releasing universally acclaimed motion pictures.

3) Adventure Time revolutionized CN, not the TV animation industry as a whole which, in 2009, had much better shows airing.

2009 was superior? I thought the general consensus was that 2009 was the absolute nadir of animated television since the 70s dark age. Also, it wasn’t just CN that got a boost from Adventure Time, it was also largely responsoble for making shows like Gravity Falls, BoJack Horseman, and Rick and Morty possible. The bright, simple, thin-lined animation style and atypically diverse range of themes, both of which are core elements of definitive 2010s cartoons, really all began with Adventure Time, which also did much to kill anime as the primary influence on tv animation, as had been the case throughout the noughties.

“Kiss Me Thru the Phone” was a gigantic hit that year.
I've not heard it outside of youtube. And it rarely appears on billboard lists.


I guess it’s just that they were widescreen, consistently existent, and not crappily muddled as was normal in the mid-to-late 2000s
Sub-HD video can be widescreen.


They’re not quite as untouchable as they were from 1995 to 2010, but they’re still clearly one of the primary competitors in the animation industry. Finding Dory and especially Inside Out prove they’re still easily capable of releasing universally acclaimed motion pictures.
Huh? I've not heard particularly glowing reviews about Finding Dory.


2009 was superior? I thought the general consensus was that 2009 was the absolute nadir of animated television since the 70s dark age.
When in the world was it decided that one of the most well received years for animation, was now somehow the worst?

This website drives me insane sometimes...


Also, it wasn’t just CN that got a boost from Adventure Time, it was also largely responsoble for making shows like Gravity Falls, BoJack Horseman, and Rick and Morty possible. The bright, simple, thin-lined animation style and atypically diverse range of themes, both of which are core elements of definitive 2010s cartoons, really all began with Adventure Time, which also did much to kill anime as the primary influence on tv animation, as had been the case throughout the noughties.

2009 gave us brilliant shows like Wakfu, Wolverine and the X-men, Metajets and Huntik. The only people I've come across that talk negatively about late 00's cartoons are those that never actually watched cartoons around that time, and therefore aren't familiar with the better shows. Or those who only had access to CN and think CN carries the entire global animation industry.

If there is a general consensus on anything, it's that people who watched Nicktoons Network, Teletoon, Discovery Kids and Jetix/Toon Disney back in the late 00s agree that they were superior network blocks to the majority of cartoon channels on TV now. Complex, well written shows were as abundant in 2009 as in 2010 onwards.

I've not heard of the decline in anime-influenced cartoons in recent years being regarded as a good thing, as many complain about the lack of action cartoons on TV right now compared to 10 years ago. Not to mention many modern comedy cartoons resembling sitcoms. Anime-influence, on the contrary has reportedly benefited western cartoons in the storytelling and animation department, which is how we got Avatar, Teen Titans and Wakfu as they were.

I've not heard it outside of youtube. And it rarely appears on billboard lists.

Not sure if it's because you're from Canada, but it reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was #19 on the year-end chart that year. It also did quite well in the UK and New Zealand. Technically speaking, that's not too far off from "Crank That's" success.

Sub-HD video can be widescreen.

Most early YouTube videos were 4:3, unless they were letterboxed or something.

Huh? I've not heard particularly glowing reviews about Finding Dory.

94% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 84% audience score. Not as good as the original, but certainly enough to suggest Pixar is still one of the major players in animated feature films.

When was that consensus? 2009 gave us brilliant shows like Wakfu, Wolverine and the X-men, Metajets and Huntik. The only people I've come across that talk negatively about late 00's cartoons are those that never actually watched cartoons around that time, and therefore aren't familiar with the better shows. Or those who only had access to CN and think CN carries the entire global animation industry.

Are those semi-obscure shows that were more popular in Canada than the United States, similar to K-OS for music? I've never heard of any of them.

If there is a general consensus on anything, it's that people who watched Nicktoons Network, Teletoon, Discovery Kids and Jetix/Toon Disney back in the late 00s agree that they were superior network blocks to the majority of cartoon channels on TV now. Complex, well written shows were as abundant in 2009 as in 2010 onwards.

2009 was in-between Last Airbender and Legend or Korra, and a time when it was mostly either middle-of-the-road junk or flat-out awful programs that dominated major network showtimes. Anime also didn't really have a cash cow in the West anymore.

I've not heard of the decline in anime-influenced cartoons in recent years being regarded as a good thing, as many complain about the lack of action cartoons on TV right now compared to 10 years ago. Not to mention many modern comedy cartoons resembling sitcoms. Anime-influence, on the contrary has reportedly benefited western cartoons in the storytelling and animation department, which is how we got Avatar, Teen Titans and Wakfu as they were.


I'm not saying 2010s cartoons, influenced by Adventure Time, are superior to 2000s ones, influenced by Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon. I simply mean they explore themes differently and have drastically changed visual styles. Whereas 2000s animation was largely dominated by dark, semi-realistic designs with deep influences from anime semi-maturity, 2010s shows have been bright, simple, and popping, but with intricate ideas that often get explored into vast detail.

We've had a lot of threads on 2008/2009 lately. I'm just going to repost what I said in another thread. ;D


At the beginning of the year (2009), the iPod Classic was still the coolest device on the block, I talked to my friends on MSN everyday, I still had an SDTV in my room, my computer was on Windows XP, George Bush was still president, MySpace was still more popular than Facebook in the US, only 2 or 3 people had an iPhone in my grade out of ~400 or so students, about 20% had a Blackberry, the other 40% some sort of slider or feature phone, and the other 40% didn't even have a phone (I grew up around working class neighbourhoods though). Britney Spears, Usher, All-American Rejects, Linkin Park, Beyoncé had presence on the charts.  I remember in the summer on the last day of school (June 2009), I and most people brought a digital camcorder to record and take pictures of the event, instead of using their phones like most would today.

By the end of the year though, the iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch and iPod Nano/Shuffle were clearly the hottest thing, MSN was far less active, Facebook was clearly established and even Twitter was gaining ground, there were no more SDTVs in my house (and 3DTVs were the next big thing ;D), I had a netbook on Windows 7, Obama was firmly entrenched, about 10-15% of people in my grade had an iPhone (sounds little, but 15% is almost 1 in every 6 people, so somewhat common and a part of daily life), and far more had a Blackberry at that point. Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, and Kesha (at the beginning of 2010) were clearly the biggest pop stars now, and everyone was going to the theatres to watch Avatar. The early 2010s had clearly arrived. It was a very long year with a lot of changes. :D

I saw a home video of me at a birthday party back in February 2009 and every single person was recording with a digital camera. I saw my mom with a flip phone in her hand.

I firmly believe 2009 was the "last hurrah" for the 2000s and that the decade ended right on time.  Though by the 2008-09 school year many early '10s trends were emerging, I believe the year was still predominantly '00s and was a nice bookend to a great decade.  Here are the reasons why.

1) Emo/scene fashion was still in style and long hair on guys was still prevalent
2) We were at the tail-end of the post-grunge era
3) 2009 was the last year having a MySpace instead of or in addition to a Facebook was common
4) Windows XP and Vista were still dominant on PCs during 2009; Windows 7 didn't come out until the very end of the year
5) 2009 was the last pre-Android year and the last year where smartphones were a novelty gadget as opposed to a must-have accessory
6) The financial crisis, the economic recession, and the War in Iraq, all Bush-era issues, were the big political issues of the day
7) Ringtone rap i.e. Soulja Boy was still popular in '09
8 ) Logo t-shirts and apparel i.e. A&F, American Eagle, Aeropostale, etc were still quite popular in '09
9) The term "EDM" had not caught on yet.  You had electropop and then "techno", a catch-all name for electronic music during the '00s
10) American Idol, Lost, and Desperate Housewives were among the most popular shows that year
11) The 2008-09 season was probably the peak for The Office
12) Dick Clark rang in the New Year in 2009.

What else can you think of that was prevalent in '09 that is more associated with the 2000s than the '10s?

Spot on on all of them. For 3, it was also the last time that there was any variety in the mobile industry, where in this decade, you only have 2 operating systems dominating the mobile market. Setting standards is great (remember the whole myriad of chargers that you had to buy for each phone back then?), but it shouldn't mean a duopoly has to take place.


I find smartphones convenient - it allows you to catch up on emails as well as texts and the like, with receiving emails being better value for money if you expect a lot of messages. Depending on your tariff, receiving texts can get expensive, and depending on how you work your phone, emails might stay online only, although phones these days tend to have it cached on your device.


I wish 1 can come back, and overall any androgynous fashion.


I also believe that Windows 7 should have been released earlier on.

I firmly believe 2009 was the "last hurrah" for the 2000s and that the decade ended right on time.  Though by the 2008-09 school year many early '10s trends were emerging, I believe the year was still predominantly '00s and was a nice bookend to a great decade.  Here are the reasons why.

1) Emo/scene fashion was still in style and long hair on guys was still prevalent
2) We were at the tail-end of the post-grunge era
3) 2009 was the last year having a MySpace instead of or in addition to a Facebook was common
4) Windows XP and Vista were still dominant on PCs during 2009; Windows 7 didn't come out until the very end of the year
5) 2009 was the last pre-Android year and the last year where smartphones were a novelty gadget as opposed to a must-have accessory
6) The financial crisis, the economic recession, and the War in Iraq, all Bush-era issues, were the big political issues of the day
7) Ringtone rap i.e. Soulja Boy was still popular in '09
8 ) Logo t-shirts and apparel i.e. A&F, American Eagle, Aeropostale, etc were still quite popular in '09
9) The term "EDM" had not caught on yet.  You had electropop and then "techno", a catch-all name for electronic music during the '00s
10) American Idol, Lost, and Desperate Housewives were among the most popular shows that year
11) The 2008-09 season was probably the peak for The Office
12) Dick Clark rang in the New Year in 2009.

What else can you think of that was prevalent in '09 that is more associated with the 2000s than the '10s?


13) Law and Order was still on NBC.

Not sure if it's because you're from Canada, but it reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was #19 on the year-end chart that year. It also did quite well in the UK and New Zealand. Technically speaking, that's not too far off from "Crank That's" success.
Apparently it peaked around the 60s/70s on the Canadian Hot 100 for about a week. But even watching US programs, I never heard it being played.


94% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 84% audience score. Not as good as the original, but certainly enough to suggest Pixar is still one of the major players in animated feature films.
Its widely known that Rotten Tomatoes algorithms can be questionable at times. Finding Dorey almost never comes up in discussions of recent good Pixar films.


Are those semi-obscure shows that were more popular in Canada than the United States, similar to K-OS for music? I've never heard of any of them.
Wakfu has an 8.6 on IMDb based on 533 votes, Wolverine: 8,241 votes, Huntik: 350 votes. Those are "semi-obscure"? K-os had 3 big singles abroad. That's obscure? Stromae's "Alroes en Dance" is probably obscure too, right?
All this tells me it's that you never payed much attention to TV and music at the time and probably don't know what shows and songs made the rounds then, much less cartoons on children's networks.

2009 was in-between Last Airbender and Legend or Korra, and a time when it was mostly either middle-of-the-road junk or flat-out awful programs that dominated major network showtimes. Anime also didn't really have a cash cow in the West anymore.
Someone who refers to called Wolverine, one of the highest rated shows of the decade, as "semi-obsure" must have questionable accuracy.

Ok, so now Breaking Bad, Lost, Modern Family, The Office, Mad Men, Scrubs, Supernatural, Prison Break, 24, CSI, House, Desperate Housewives, Glee, Grey's Anatomy, How I met Your Mother and iCarly are middle-of-the-road-junk? 
Cartoons like The Boondocks, Ed, Edd and Eddy, Futurama, Ben 10: Alien Force, Storm Hawks, FlapJack, Chowder, Ironman Adventures, Wolverine and the X-men, Spectacular Spiderman, Mlaatr, Huntik, Three Delivery, Making Fiends, Metajets, El Tigre, Making Fiends, Phineas and Ferb, Spliced, Wakfu and Totally Spies are bad shows now? Because someone who didn't watch any of these shows in their prime says so?
At this point, saying most people would beg to differ would be an understatement. I was 12 in 2009 and people my age were definitely talking about the next episode of Wolverine and Huntik.
Even worse. Anime like Naruto Shippuden, Bleach, Yugioh, One Piece, Bakugan, One Punch Man, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Pretty Cure and friggin Soul Eater were not cash cows here?!

Lmao at the mention of Korra, probably the least anticipated sequel to a show of Avatar's pedigree, ever.  ;D


I'm not saying 2010s cartoons, influenced by Adventure Time, are superior to 2000s ones, influenced by Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon. I simply mean they explore themes differently and have drastically changed visual styles. Whereas 2000s animation was largely dominated by dark, semi-realistic designs with deep influences from anime semi-maturity, 2010s shows have been bright, simple, and popping, but with intricate ideas that often get explored into vast detail.

This can easily be applied to 00's cartoons too. General art style shift is typical every 10 or so years, and only has so much bearing on the quality of the show. The bold definitely applies to 00's action cartoons. You literally just described two sides of the same artistic coin.

Not sure if it's because you're from Canada, but it reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was #19 on the year-end chart that year. It also did quite well in the UK and New Zealand. Technically speaking, that's not too far off from "Crank That's" success.


I am starting to wonder if much of the lingering '00s culture that was popular in the US during 2008 and 2009 was less popular or not popular at all in Canada.  That would explain why people like Slim95 believe we were indisputably into '10s culture by late 2008.  If you get rid of the lingering emo, post-grunge, and ringtone rap that was still popular during the final two years of the aughts in the US, the perspective definitely makes more sense.

I am starting to wonder if much of the lingering '00s culture that was popular in the US during 2008 and 2009 was less popular or not popular at all in Canada.  That would explain why people like Slim95 believe we were indisputably into '10s culture by late 2008.  If you get rid of the lingering emo, post-grunge, and ringtone rap that was still popular during the final two years of the aughts in the US, the perspective definitely makes more sense.

Generally, it's always been the other way around. Canada is usually 2 years behind other countries on cultural movements. Ringtone rap was never really popular here. But post-grunge, pop punk, Gangsta rap, Alternative rap, mid noughties politics and TV were still huge here by early 2009.

Generally, it's always been the other way around. Canada is usually 2 years behind other countries on cultural movements. Ringtone rap was never really popular here. But post-grunge, pop punk, Gangsta rap, Alternative rap, mid noughties politics and TV were still huge here by early 2009.


We're usually faster in technology though. Americans still use the magnetic strip to pay with credit cards instead of NFC (much less chip and PIN). I pay for my bus/train fare with my phone by waving it in front of the fare reader for a second, we're like 20 years ahead of the US on that now LOL. Broadband got popular here in 2000/2001 too. VHS was extinct by the end of 2003. Facebook got popular in 2007, Twitter in 2008, WhatsApp (which most of America hasn't even heard of) in 2015. Only thing I can think of is that we didn't get Netflix until 2012, and Google Play Music not until 2014, while the US had Netflix/Spotify since 2010.

We're usually faster in technology though. Americans still use the magnetic strip to pay with credit cards instead of NFC (much less chip and PIN). I pay for my bus/train fare with my phone by waving it in front of the fare reader for a second, we're like 20 years ahead of the US on that now LOL. Broadband got popular here in 2000/2001 too. VHS was extinct by the end of 2003. Facebook got popular in 2007, Twitter in 2008, WhatsApp (which most of America hasn't even heard of) in 2015. Only thing I can think of is that we didn't get Netflix until 2012, and Google Play Music not until 2014, while the US had Netflix/Spotify since 2010.


WhatsApp got popular here in NZ years ago.... Although most of the other things we seem slower

We're usually faster in technology though. Americans still use the magnetic strip to pay with credit cards instead of NFC (much less chip and PIN). I pay for my bus/train fare with my phone by waving it in front of the fare reader for a second, we're like 20 years ahead of the US on that now LOL. Broadband got popular here in 2000/2001 too. VHS was extinct by the end of 2003. Facebook got popular in 2007, Twitter in 2008, WhatsApp (which most of America hasn't even heard of) in 2015. Only thing I can think of is that we didn't get Netflix until 2012, and Google Play Music not until 2014, while the US had Netflix/Spotify since 2010.


Facebook got popular in 2007 in the us,  Even late 2006 people were starting to discover facebook.

WhatsApp got popular here in NZ years ago.... Although most of the other things we seem slower


Yeah, I was talking to some Germans/Dutchfolk and they said WhatsApp got popular there in the late 2000s which is insane to me. Most of Canada was still on BBM or MSN mobile then. ;D


Facebook got popular in 2007 in the us,  Even late 2006 people were starting to discover facebook.


I meant Facebook overtook MySpace in 2007. In 2007 it was all Facebook no MySpace.

We're usually faster in technology though. Americans still use the magnetic strip to pay with credit cards instead of NFC (much less chip and PIN). I pay for my bus/train fare with my phone by waving it in front of the fare reader for a second, we're like 20 years ahead of the US on that now LOL. Broadband got popular here in 2000/2001 too. VHS was extinct by the end of 2003. Facebook got popular in 2007, Twitter in 2008, WhatsApp (which most of America hasn't even heard of) in 2015. Only thing I can think of is that we didn't get Netflix until 2012, and Google Play Music not until 2014, while the US had Netflix/Spotify since 2010.

I don't remember ever hearing the word "twitter" until 2010, and I consumed alot of media back then. Even Facebook only seemed to gain popularity over myspace in late 2008.

Apparently it peaked around the 60s/70s on the Canadian Hot 100 for about a week. But even watching US programs, I never heard it being played.

It peaked at #10.

Its widely known that Rotten Tomatoes algorithms can be questionable at times. Finding Dorey almost never comes up in discussions of recent good Pixar films.

Well, by Pixar standards, it can be easily argued it's not really a good film, but was it really as underperforming as something like Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, Ice Age: Collision Course, Norm of the North, or Trolls? It still grossed $1 billion and got objectively positive reviews. Whatever you think of the movie, that certainly doesn't suggest Pixar's cultural irrelevance.

Wakfu has an 8.6 on IMDb based on 533 votes, Wolverine: 8,241 votes, Huntik: 350 votes. Those are "semi-obscure"?

Aside from Wolverine and the X-Men, yeah, those fit the semi-obscure definition, meaning plenty of people did in fact remember them, but they were still never as culturally significant as Chowder, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Phineas and Ferb, or other late 2000s cartoons. X-Men also only aired for one season.

To be fair, having been in high school at the time all of these shows came out, I wasn't the right age to really notice or appreciate them the same way I distinctly remember growing up with Jackie Chan Adventures, Code: Lyoko, and Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?, but it's certainly not accurate to compare any of them to Adventure Time or Steven Universe in terms of overall cultural impact.

K-os had 3 big singles abroad. That's obscure?

What 3 big singles? Wikipedia doesn't say his songs charted anywhere aside from Canada.

Stromae's "Alroes en Dance" is probably obscure too, right?

Aha, this was a soccer hit! It may have been a gargantuan international single, topping several European charts and doing respectably in other countries, but in the United States, it only charted on the US Dance/Mix Sow Airplay cart, and even then, it peaked only at #19. So yes, speaking as an American, it was definitely obscure.

All this tells me it's that you never payed much attention to TV and music at the time and probably don't know what shows and songs made the rounds then, much less cartoons on children's networks.

It's really hard to fairly compare when the two of us live in different countries and likely had different types of friend circles at the time.

Someone who refers to called Wolverine, one of the highest rated shows of the decade, as "semi-obsure" must have questionable accuracy.

I can only speak from personal experience. I may not have grown up with most of this stuff, but whereas I definitely heard plenty of people bring up stuff like Phineas and Furb and Kanye West's Graduation album in high school, I never stumbled across K-OS at any school assemblies or on the radio, nor were there really a lot of articles about Wolverine. I'm sure plenty of other high schoolers did know about them, but it still seems to me the things you're invoking weren't as culturally relevant as the stuff I've mentioned being huge in the 2010s.

Ok, so now Breaking Bad, Lost, Modern Family, The Office, Mad Men, Scrubs, Supernatural, Prison Break, 24, CSI, House, Desperate Housewives, Glee, Grey's Anatomy, How I met Your Mother and iCarly are middle-of-the-road-junk?

What? When did I ever specifically imply I was referring to live action shows as part of television's dark age as well? Those shows were all hugely popular for a reason, far more so than any cartoon that peaked in the late 2000s.

Cartoons like The Boondocks, Ed, Edd and Eddy, Futurama, Ben 10: Alien Force, Storm Hawks, FlapJack, Chowder, Ironman Adventures, Wolverine and the X-men, Spectacular Spiderman, Mlaatr, Huntik, Three Delivery, Making Fiends, Metajets, El Tigre, Making Fiends, Phineas and Ferb, Spliced, Wakfu and Totally Spies are bad shows now? Because someone who didn't watch any of these shows in their prime says so?

Maybe it is just an age difference. Like I said, I was in high school in the late 2000s, so unlike you, I wasn't able to appreciate all of these shows with open arms, but it just really seems like the general consensus was that cartoons were not doing as well in the late 2000s as they were in the early and mid 2000s. Aside from ones that were on back when I was a kid, I didn't grow up with these shows, so I can't offer a fair personal perspective, and frankly, they might even become more positively regarded than the late 90s/early 2000s kid shows in hindsight as time continues to progress.

At this point, saying most people would beg to differ would be an understatement. I was 12 in 2009 and people my age were definitely talking about the next episode of Wolverine and Huntik.
Even worse. Anime like Naruto Shippuden, Bleach, Yugioh, One Piece, Bakugan, One Punch Man, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Pretty Cure and friggin Soul Eater were not cash cows here?!

Canada seems to have been a much more successful country for anime than the United States was as a whole. Really though, anime has always had a huge fanbase in the West, even to this day, but my point is that there wasn't as much stuff crossing over to more mainstream circles, meaning the "hip crowd," the same way everybody was talking about Pokémon in 1999 and everybody was into Yu-Gi-Oh! in 2002.

Lmao at the mention of Korra, probably the least anticipated sequel to a show of Avatar's pedigree, ever.  ;D

Well, there's a show that aired when you were in high school. If you were talking to somebody born in the early 2000s or something, it's likely the roles of this conversation would be reversed.

This can easily be applied to 00's cartoons too. General art style shift is typical every 10 or so years, and only has so much bearing on the quality of the show. The bold definitely applies to 00's action cartoons. You literally just described two sides of the same artistic coin.

Well, there are some periods in which cartoons are simply more culturally significant than in others. The 2000s as a whole, even the late 2000s, were a far more successful time for television animation than the 1970s and early 1980s.

It peaked at #10.
It's at #60 on the 2009 year-end Billboard chart. Doesn't show up in 2008 at all.

There's also these practices common in the 90's and 00's. Kiss Me through the Phone got no publicity here. I was there, and certainly old enough to know what was making the rounds in our entertainment capital.

Well, by Pixar standards, it can be easily argued it's not really a good film, but was it really as underperforming as something like Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, Ice Age: Collision Course, Norm of the North, or Trolls? It still grossed $1 billion and got objectively positive reviews. Whatever you think of the movie, that certainly doesn't suggest Pixar's cultural irrelevance.
I'm not speaking from opinion, I'm speaking from what I've heard about the film, and how many mentions it gets in media conversation, which is often few.


Aside from Wolverine and the X-Men, yeah, those fit the semi-obscure definition, meaning plenty of people did in fact remember them, but they were still never as culturally significant as Chowder, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Phineas and Ferb, or other late 2000s cartoons. X-Men also only aired for one season.
Wakfu is semi-obscure?! Literally every cartoon news outlet has mentioned that show atleast once. Even it's English dub kickstarter has nearly 6,000 backers! Imagine how big the non-backer fanbase is.

Cow and Chicken was never as culturally significant as Phineas and Ferb, didn't stop it from making every 90s cartoon list imaginable. 80s cartoons like He-man or GI Joe were held in high regard during the 80s nostalgia wave despite neither attaining the cultural status, during their run, of 90s shows like the Powerpuff Girls or Batman the Animated Series.

Why does it matter how many seasons X-men aired? It still has thousands of fans on one website alone. Nickelodeon is notorious for cancelling shows with huge followings that don't match SpongeBob's success.

To be fair, having been in high school at the time all of these shows came out, I wasn't the right age to really notice or appreciate them the same way I distinctly remember growing up with Jackie Chan Adventures, Code: Lyoko, and Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?, but it's certainly not accurate to compare any of them to Adventure Time or Steven Universe in terms of overall cultural impact.
There's your answer. Your experience isn't an indicator of the quality or popularity of those shows among their target audience. I personally didn't discover Digata Defenders by myself as I initially wasn't into those types of shows at the time. I moved to a different school around the time it debuted, and the new class I attended introduced me to the show and it's online flash game counterpart on the Teletoon website. The whole class was into it.
The show had a toy line, an online RPG with subscription and a video game tie in. Teletoon and Jetix promoted it heavily with ongoing marathons and an surprisingly active forum on its website.
You're using Nickelodeon logic where if a show doesn't attain SpongeBob prestige, like Avatar, it isn't popular.


What 3 big singles? Wikipedia doesn't say his songs charted anywhere aside from Canada.
Crabbukkit at #90 in Germany, Man I used to Be at #52 in France, and Sunday Morning at #40 in Greece and NZ(mostly due to a Vodafone ad).
K-OS was known to tour Europe frequently at the time, so obviously he had a sizable fanbase there.


Aha, this was a soccer hit! It may have been a gargantuan international single, topping several European charts and doing respectably in other countries, but in the United States, it only charted on the US Dance/Mix Sow Airplay cart, and even then, it peaked only at #19. So yes, speaking as an American, it was definitely obscure.
These statements conflict. So is your criteria for a year-defining hit single/album based on US charts only, or international charts. Logic tells me international charts should dictate the sound of the year since more humans are familiar with a song than any one country. But it might help for your to clear up your stance.


It's really hard to fairly compare when the two of us live in different countries and likely had different types of friend circles at the time.
This.


I can only speak from personal experience. I may not have grown up with most of this stuff, but whereas I definitely heard plenty of people bring up stuff like Phineas and Furb and Kanye West's Graduation album in high school, I never stumbled across K-OS at any school assemblies or on the radio, nor were there really a lot of articles about Wolverine. I'm sure plenty of other high schoolers did know about them, but it still seems to me the things you're invoking weren't as culturally relevant as the stuff I've mentioned being huge in the 2010s.
See replys #3-5. Plenty of children's shows and songs that seem marginally relevant now to an adult can become decade defining later on when the bulk of kids that experienced those things grow up and voice their childhoods.
Conversely, I remember when Austin Powers was the number 1 talked about film. It used to be everywhere. And songs like Barbie Girl used to get parody after parody. Nowadays people seem to pretend like they never existed, much less were popular in the late 90s.

What? When did I ever specifically imply I was referring to live action shows as part of television's dark age as well? Those shows were all hugely popular for a reason, far more so than any cartoon that peaked in the late 2000s.
2009 was in-between Last Airbender and Legend or Korra, and a time when it was mostly either middle-of-the-road junk or flat-out awful programs that dominated major network showtimes.
Sounds like you were talking about major networks in general showing "middle-of-the-road-junk".


Maybe it is just an age difference. Like I said, I was in high school in the late 2000s, so unlike you, I wasn't able to appreciate all of these shows with open arms, but it just really seems like the general consensus was that cartoons were not doing as well in the late 2000s as they were in the early and mid 2000s. Aside from ones that were on back when I was a kid, I didn't grow up with these shows, so I can't offer a fair personal perspective, and frankly, they might even become more positively regarded than the late 90s/early 2000s kid shows in hindsight as time continues to progress.
You still haven't shown me where this general consensus was made. I've been hearing mixed impressions heavily depending on what networks people had access to, how often they viewed those networks, what appealed to their tastes, how old they were, and just general biases. I've heard nothing but positive comments regarding Disney, Nickelodeon, Teletoon, Discovery Kids and Jetix's showtimes in the late 00s. The last one especially.

Canada seems to have been a much more successful country for anime than the United States was as a whole. Really though, anime has always had a huge fanbase in the West, even to this day, but my point is that there wasn't as much stuff crossing over to more mainstream circles, meaning the "hip crowd," the same way everybody was talking about Pokémon in 1999 and everybody was into Yu-Gi-Oh! in 2002.
It's not a coincidence that the Pretty Cure franchise took off in the west around the same time Futari wa was dubbed into English and distributed around major networks in Canada, the Europe, and the US. Same with Soul Eater on Funimation and Adult Swim. One Punch Man on Adult Swim. And Bakugan in general. Precure and Bakugan are known cash cow franchises.


Well, there's a show that aired when you were in high school. If you were talking to somebody born in the early 2000s or something, it's likely the roles of this conversation would be reversed.
Many Avatar and Nick fans found that this review accurately voices their opinions about that show. Despite the frequent sarcasm, he does make legitimate points.
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It may have been popular with it's main target audience during its airing, but it was not the critically acclaimed success you make it out to be.

Well, there are some periods in which cartoons are simply more culturally significant than in others. The 2000s as a whole, even the late 2000s, were a far more successful time for television animation than the 1970s and early 1980s.

2000s animation in general was more culturally significant than the 1970s and 80s as a whole. The 2020s will make this more known.

I don't remember ever hearing the word "twitter" until 2010, and I consumed alot of media back then. Even Facebook only seemed to gain popularity over myspace in late 2008.


In early 2009, my school made a Twitter account for important announcements, and a lot of my classmates were using Twitter then. Also, Twitter was the second biggest social media site after Facebook then, so I'd be surprised you hadn't heard of it. :o

Facebook overtook MySpace in 2007 in Canada. I actually made a thread about that long ago (http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php?topic=52971.msg3349360#msg3349360)

Spongebob was about as far as I got with kid culture and I never really liked that.  Anything after the time Spongebob and Pokemon were popular, I am pretty much unfamiliar with until we get to the Hannah Montana era, since that was so inescapable.

In early 2009, my school made a Twitter account for important announcements, and a lot of my classmates were using Twitter then. Also, Twitter was the second biggest social media site after Facebook then, so I'd be surprised you hadn't heard of it. :o

Facebook overtook MySpace in 2007 in Canada. I actually made a thread about that long ago (http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php?topic=52971.msg3349360#msg3349360)

I've linked these stats multiple times as well. Twitter had a very low young person userbase in 2009. Especially compared to MySpace and Facebook. 
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/08/twitter-not-so-popular-with-the-young-people/

I was in Grade 8 during the 2008/9 school year, and that year still felt very 00s in a lot of ways looking back. The only thing 10s about it that I can remember were Obama becoming president, but even then the music and fashion still felt pretty 00s, and most kids didn't own iPhones or other smartphones yet, most of them still had those LG phones with the keyboard flip out, and keep in mind I went to school in a wealthy area of California at this time.

I was in Grade 8 during the 2008/9 school year, and that year still felt very 00s in a lot of ways looking back. The only thing 10s about it that I can remember were Obama becoming president, but even then the music and fashion still felt pretty 00s, and most kids didn't own iPhones or other smartphones yet, most of them still had those LG phones with the keyboard flip out, and keep in mind I went to school in a wealthy area of California at this time.


The whole vibe was over tho, The economy crashing destroyed the vibe

13) It was literally in the 2000s