In 1999 - 2000 many facets of pop culture from music, celebrity fashion, upcoming technology, to the Y2K scare made that era feel very futuristic. It doesn't seem like 2019 is going in that direction. 2009 didn't feel so futuristic either, so I'm wondering if we'll ever have another era that replicates that atmosphere.

I asked people does 2019 sound futuristic and most said no. I'm just itching for some upbeat futuristic excitement tbh. 2006 felt more 'futuristic' than the current era and that was smack dab in the middle of the decade.

2020 sounds pretty futuristic to me. 2019 does not.

It’s going to be hard to replicate the Y2K atmosphere though. That was the dawn of a new century and millennium. Changing from 1 to 2 was a big deal. We are pretty lucky to have experienced it.

Big technological advancements will occur but much like most of the 20th century (i.e TVs, radio etc) we’ll just get used to it really quickly without ever thinking ‘wow, this is the future’. Western society went from no TVs to almost 100% TV penetration very quickly.

I doubt it.

We already saw that perfect "futuristic" also without it potentially being "this sh!t is try hard" Its basically impossible to see it replicated since, today is already "futuristic". If it does re-fruition, only the new target audience will see it.

I would say the Y2K era was the last time we had both a strong economy and a general spirit of optimism in our society at the same time.  That alone makes it a special era.

The 80s seemed pretty futuristic compared to the dark 70s.

Y2K seemed pretty futuristic compared to the dark 90s.

I'm sure we will have something similar again, but probably won't know it right away.  It's another 20 years, history may repeat itself.

2020 sounds pretty futuristic to me. 2019 does not.

It’s going to be hard to replicate the Y2K atmosphere though. That was the dawn of a new century and millennium. Changing from 1 to 2 was a big deal. We are pretty lucky to have experienced it.

Big technological advancements will occur but much like most of the 20th century (i.e TVs, radio etc) we’ll just get used to it really quickly without ever thinking ‘wow, this is the future’. Western society went from no TVs to almost 100% TV penetration very quickly.


Depends where you live. In the US, Britain, West Germany, Canada, France, it was pretty quick to evolve. But penetration of TV was slower than it was for the adoption of the Internet/smartphones. Many people in South Africa didn't have TV until well into the '70s/'80s. And TV itself evolved as time worn on, from small black & white screens without even a UHF dial to color and the remote control to cable TV and VCR capability to stereo sound, sophisticated menus, to HD and Internet compatibility to Smart TVs that can function like assistants and simply be multi-purpose stations like a lot of "futuristic" movies of the '60s/'70s portrayed.

I'll bet 1900 seemed pretty futuristic at the time, when things like the automobile, electricity, early motion pictures, subways, and the telephone started to become adopted pretty quickly, and the original "futurism" movement occured not too long afterwards, along with the rapid withdrawal of cultural movements like romanticism, impressionism, and Victorianism. But it took until sometime in the 1920s for the 20th century to begin to feel distinct from 19th IMO for obvious reasons such as radio, widespread auto & electricity adoption, motion pictures as an "industry", aviation even if not yet commercial, and jazz music in contrast with the waltz, minstrel and folk ballads, and Romanticism-style classical music. We'll see what the 2020s bring in terms of advancements like commercial space travel, improved self-driving vehicles, AI, VR, and maybe even the discovery of aliens. The thing is the planets seem to line up (or almost line up) for such predictions only around once a century, but of course, Earth has limited resources, so its possible that man has "maxed out" on its innovation, or will very soon.

I don't know if other people agree, but the late 2000s/early 2010s felt futuristic too. It felt like I was buying life changing technology every year. Online console gaming, smartphones, the expansion of WiFi and 4G internet, proliferation of streaming services. The Internet of Things makes every otherwise banal device feel like the future.

I would say the Y2K era was the last time we had both a strong economy and a general spirit of optimism in our society at the same time.  That alone makes it a special era.


And for us who are older, there's room for biasness. Its impossible, bruh.
I don't know if other people agree, but the late 2000s/early 2010s felt futuristic too. It felt like I was buying life changing technology every year. Online console gaming, smartphones, the expansion of WiFi and 4G internet, proliferation of streaming services. The Internet of Things makes every otherwise banal device feel like the future.


The whole 2000s perfected "futuristic" You have to let the phenomenon happen on its own. It will never happen now tho because we're constantly trying to predict it.

Would anybody agree with me that today, the American collective mindset is far more backward-thinking than it used to be?  The Y2K era was a very forward thinking, optimistic time.  The late 2000s had some of that as well.  Today it seems like we are obsessed as a society with returning to a mythological "good ole days."  In 2000 we were looking forward towards a better future and in 2019, we are looking backwards at a glorious past.

I thought the 2020s would be futuristic because in technology because I was hoping for Holograms since 2011, and it didnt happen yet. Sure, 8K TV is already on the way, but 1080p is still the standard, I dont care if there are 1080p hologram displays, It would be cool even just to see what it's like, through a demo. Self-driving cars haven't happened yet too! Even tubes through buildings for train transportation, none of those happened. The 80s really did overestimate the 2010s... Sure, there are voice assistants and Virtual Reality, and smartphones that 80s kids hoped for, but it's far from what we expected.

Welp, let's wait until the Y2K1H era lol (2097-2101).  ;D ;D ;D

Would anybody agree with me that today, the American collective mindset is far more backward-thinking than it used to be?  The Y2K era was a very forward thinking, optimistic time.  The late 2000s had some of that as well.  Today it seems like we are obsessed as a society with returning to a mythological "good ole days."  In 2000 we were looking forward towards a better future and in 2019, we are looking backwards at a glorious past.


Yes, I agree today's collective mindset in the U.S. is backward-thinking in the sense that there's no general consensus anymore that bettering people's lives, reducing inequalities and toning down hatreds, and empowering ordinary people through allowing them greater rights and enabling their economic security should be a basic assumption of our culture. The progressive ideas that gained momentum around the turn of the twentieth century and became dominant in political systems of industrialized countries during the Depression and during and after World War II have been under sustained attack by reactionaries since the 70s and 80s, but even into the Y2K era there was a widespread assumption among people that we need to progress as a society in the sense of serving the public well-being. Even politicians still talked about such things, even though what they said was lip service.

Now we have a mixture of cynicism among those who still want that progress, on the one hand, and emboldened extremists who want to undo much of the better part of the legacy of the twentieth century, on the other hand. It's become clear that the political system no longer cares about the lives of ordinary people and is operating according to the priorities of different elite factions without any deep thought to the consequences for the public. Even the concept of "the public" as a political bloc and major player that political minds must account for is just about dead, and the focus among politicians now is not how to appease the people by serving the general interests within the constraints thrown up by powerful elite interests but rather on how to manipulate, lie to, and carve the population into ever finer groupings that can be swayed to vote for one phony candidate or another. "The public" became a big deal during the Enlightenment and especially in the 19th century as the franchise was expanded and democratization gained steam. So the intellectual and rhetorical foundations of twentieth-century progressivism are not the only decent legacy getting ripped down; the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries' progress is also being undermined.

It looked like we were heading towards that back in the late 00s/early 10s but then hipsters came and destroyed all that :P. I do have hope that the 2020s will look very futuristic especially since the 2020s have been considered the ~future~ for a long time.

I don't know if other people agree, but the late 2000s/early 2010s felt futuristic too. It felt like I was buying life changing technology every year. Online console gaming, smartphones, the expansion of WiFi and 4G internet, proliferation of streaming services. The Internet of Things makes every otherwise banal device feel like the future.
I'm totally with you on that. When I had my frist Android phone in late 2009 man did I felt I was in the future. Funny enough, Enimen reference 2020 in his 2009 song we made you at the end of the song.

2008-2010 felt futuristic. The skeuomorphic glossy aesthetic, blue LEDs on every appliance and computer, you had smartphones that literally had see-through keypads. Movies like WALL-E, Avatar, Star Trek 2009. Mirror's Edge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO8a7qzTJz8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEbretrjgh4
But then smartphones became standard and hipsters took over :(

2008-2010 felt futuristic. The skeuomorphic glossy aesthetic, blue LEDs on every appliance and computer, you had smartphones that literally had see-through 
But then smartphones became standard and hipsters took over :(


I'm sorry, but somebody here needs to come up with a valid definition of "futuristic" before we can go any further. AstroPoug comes closest so far. INVARIABY, when someone says "futuristic" here," what they are implying is the late 1950s/early 1960s, mid-20th Century, fictional, sci-fi images of the future. "The Jetsons", "Lost in Space" with shiny silver clothing, jet packs, flying cars, moving sidewalks, Googie architecture, Rosie the robot. It's amazing how that stuff stuck. For heaven's sake! SIXTY YEAR OLD images are "futuristic"? Look closely at  "The Jetsons" and "Lost In Space". Everything is wired, everything is plugged in. And not even modern wires, but those old curly cables like land line telephones. Oh, they use those too. We moved beyond all that ages ago. The old JFK-era  "space age" was a glorious time of optimism, but it's outdated now and I have a feeling the future is going to be much darker and more dystopian. So much for shiny silver suits. That "old future" still depicts everything as brick-and-mortar, and as three dimensional solid things like vehicles, etc,  but, even though I don't like it, the future is things like Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse. The future is even less privacy than we have now. "The age of privacy is over" Zuckerberg once boldly declared. I don't know how we ever let THAT goofball take over everything. Dystopian!

I'm sorry, but somebody here needs to come up with a valid definition of "futuristic" before we can go any further. AstroPoug comes closest so far. INVARIABY, when someone says "futuristic" here," what they are implying is the late 1950s/early 1960s, mid-20th Century, fictional, sci-fi images of the future. "The Jetsons", "Lost in Space" with shiny silver clothing, jet packs, flying cars, moving sidewalks, Googie architecture, Rosie the robot. It's amazing how that stuff stuck. For heaven's sake! SIXTY YEAR OLD images are "futuristic"? Look closely at  "The Jetsons" and "Lost In Space". Everything is wired, everything is plugged in. And not even modern wires, but those old curly cables like land line telephones. Oh, they use those too. We moved beyond all that ages ago. The old JFK-era  "space age" was a glorious time of optimism, but it's outdated now and I have a feeling the future is going to be much darker and more dystopian. So much for shiny silver suits. That "old future" still depicts everything as brick-and-mortar, and as three dimensional solid things like vehicles, etc,  but, even though I don't like it, the future is things like Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse. The future is even less privacy than we have now. "The age of privacy is over" Zuckerberg once boldly declared. I don't know how we ever let THAT goofball take over everything. Dystopian!

I myself am not a Big Tech fan at all either. In fact, the takeover of Big Tech could help us explain why the 2010s ended up being unfuturistic as a whole (when it comes to pop culture/aesthetics). That said, I think the Y2K era did have what you're talking about. The kind of optimism for the future coupled with depictions of the future that are mostly now being seen as simultaneously dated and nostalgic. What killed it, was, of course, mainly a mixture of the dot-com burst and 9/11 killing off all optimism, resulting in the rise of McBling and emo aesthetics.

I myself am not a Big Tech fan at all either. In fact, the takeover of Big Tech could help us explain why the 2010s ended up being unfuturistic as a whole (when it comes to pop culture/aesthetics). That said, I think the Y2K era did have what you're talking about. The kind of optimism for the future coupled with depictions of the future that are mostly now being seen as simultaneously dated and nostalgic. What killed it, was, of course, mainly a mixture of the dot-com burst and 9/11 killing off all optimism, resulting in the rise of McBling and emo aesthetics.


Yes, but the accoutrements of Y2K future were not the same as the Space Age future. The Y2K future had more to do with the potential of the internet, and, as you point out, every young person out of college (or dropped out of college) starting a dot com. Even if the optimism was there, the accoutrements were not. As is shown by constant comments on this site, people STILL default to the old "Space Age" future, routinely calling shiny silver fashions and such as "futuristic", rather than "retro" which is what they should rightfully be called. There was once an entire "futuristic fashion" thread here, and every bit of it was still that old Lost In Space shiny silver suit (and related) thing.  People somehow still think this 60 year old thing is the "future". I don't think anyone now considers Y2K era fashions (or architecture) as "futuristic".

Yes, but the accoutrements of Y2K future were not the same as the Space Age future. The Y2K future had more to do with the potential of the internet, and, as you point out, every young person out of college (or dropped out of college) starting a dot com. Even if the optimism was there, the accoutrements were not. As is shown by constant comments on this site, people STILL default to the old "Space Age" future, routinely calling shiny silver fashions and such as "futuristic", rather than "retro" which is what they should rightfully be called. There was once an entire "futuristic fashion" thread here, and every bit of it was still that old Lost In Space shiny silver suit (and related) thing.  People somehow still think this 60 year old thing is the "future". I don't think anyone now considers Y2K era fashions (or architecture) as "futuristic".

Lots of people find Y2K era things like the fashion to still be futuristic. I think people nowadays view Y2K era futurism the same way they view Space Age futurism, as well as 80s cassette futurism. It's considered futuristic in regards to the overall aesthetic and vibe, but also obviously retro, a product of a more optimistic time.

Lots of people find Y2K era things like the fashion to still be futuristic. I think people nowadays view Y2K era futurism the same way they view Space Age futurism, as well as 80s cassette futurism. It's considered futuristic in regards to the overall aesthetic and vibe, but also obviously retro, a product of a more optimistic time.


What's 80s cassette futurism? I bought as well as traded (Grateful Dead bootleg-like) many cassettes in the 80s and it didn't seem particularly futuristic. In fact it seemed pretty current for the time. In fact, the homemade or home drawn covers or track lists we would sometimes put on the cassettes seemed charmingly homey rather than futuristic.

I see that you are describing Space Age futurism and Y2K futurism as essentially nostalgia now even though I guess it's still called "futuristic" (this is the type of thing we need to clearly define). I get that. Where I disagree with you is that there seem to be people (again judging from this site) who do not distinguish between "futuristic" and "retro" (or "retro future" we might say), and actually think the old Irwin Allen silver suit vision of the future from 1964 is still literally "futuristic". Like they're actually waiting for flying cars as if it could be a functional thing. Hey, if ya want a flying car, charter a plane. It's the closest you'll get. Just because something never happened or remains unmanifested does not mean it's still "futuristic", as in it's still to come. And at least one person here (possibly more) once posted that they still see "moving sidewalks" as something futuristic, or to come in the future. Hey, go to any number of airports and you'll see them. Sometimes broken down too. I'm not sure how practical they are for everyday use in urban areas though, or rural for that matter. Some things once thought "futuristic" are abandoned or remain unmanifest for a reason.

What's 80s cassette futurism? I bought as well as traded (Grateful Dead bootleg-like) many cassettes in the 80s and it didn't seem particularly futuristic. In fact it seemed pretty current for the time. In fact, the homemade or home drawn covers or track lists we would sometimes put on the cassettes seemed charmingly homey rather than futuristic.

I see that you are describing Space Age futurism and Y2K futurism as essentially nostalgia now even though I guess it's still called "futuristic" (this is the type of thing we need to clearly define). I get that. Where I disagree with you is that there seem to be people (again judging from this site) who do not distinguish between "futuristic" and "retro" (or "retro future" we might say), and actually think the old Irwin Allen silver suit vision of the future from 1964 is still literally "futuristic". Like they're actually waiting for flying cars as if it could be a functional thing. Hey, if ya want a flying car, charter a plane. It's the closest you'll get. Just because something never happened or remains unmanifested does not mean it's still "futuristic", as in it's still to come. And at least one person here (possibly more) once posted that they still see "moving sidewalks" as something futuristic, or to come in the future. Hey, go to any number of airports and you'll see them. Sometimes broken down too. I'm not sure how practical they are for everyday use in urban areas though, or rural for that matter. Some things once thought "futuristic" are abandoned or remain unmanifest for a reason.


TBH I think only boomers would really consider Space Age futurism as "futuristic" without questioning how dated it is. Perhaps because I primarily hang around younger people, but this mentality is widely mocked among my generation. There's literally memes that go "we'll have flying cars in the future", and then showcase what the present ended up becoming. At the same time, there were many in the Y2K era who thought the future would be all chrome, blobby electronics, and everyone would be connected together in cyberspace. Not all that different from the Space Age era. But after 9/11, that optimism for the future was pretty much dead. These days, young people tend to be rather jaded about the future, likely explaining the lack of futurism we've seen so far throughout the 21st century. As I mentioned, the Frutiger Aero days of 2008-2010 was as close as we got, and that too can be explained by rapid advancements in technology (namely smartphones and social media).

As for Cassette Futurism, it seems you genuinely don't know what I'm talking about, so I'll provide some links that'll hopefully give you a clue of what I'm talking about:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CassetteFuturism
https://www.reddit.com/r/cassettefuturism/
https://www.are.na/evan-collins-1522646491/cassette-futurism

Futurism was a big thing in the 80s, and it became that way after Star Wars came out. It was a constant throughout the decade too. The decade ended with Back to the Future Part II, which itself had a retrofuturistic vision of the world that has since come to pass. That movie alone is proof this kind of overly optimistic view of the future is far from exclusive to the Space Age. Hell, even the 20s had tinges of this with things like Metropolis.

Here's an example of what might be considered mid-20th Century futurism, although, to complicate things a bit, it is based on a style from the 19th Century.

Octagon houses were actually popularized by a man named Orson Squire Fowler in the mid-1800s, but there are a handful of modern examples. Back in the day, they were thought to provide more natural sunlight, provide more space, and stay cool in the summer. These days, most people are into them simply because they look cool.

Suffice to say, in the mid 20th Century, this house, even though based on an earlier model, would have been considered "futuristic". Today, of course, it would be considered "retro".

https://www.cluttermagazine.com/sites/magazine/files/styles/node-detail/public/field/image/octagon.png?itok=yof8MnIy