It’s finally the 2020s. After 20 years of not being able to refer to the decade we’re in, we’re all finally free—in the clear for the next 80 years until 2100, at which point I assume AGI will have figured out what to call the two decades between 2100 and 2120.
We now live in the 20s! It’s exciting. “The twenties” is super legit-sounding, and it’s so old school. The 40s are old. The 30s even more so. But nothing is older school than the Roaring 20s.
We’re now in charge of making this a cool decade so when people 100 years from now are thinking about how incredibly old-timey the 2020s were, it’s old-timey in a cool appealing way and not a boring shitty way.
It’s also weird that to us, the 2020s sounds like such a rad futuristic decade—and that’s how the 1920s seemed to people 100 years ago today. They were all used to the 19-teens, and suddenly they were like, “whoa cool we’re in the twenties!” Then they got upset thinking about how much farther along in life their 1910 self thought they’d be by 1920.
In any case, it’s a perfect time for one of those “shit we’re old” posts.
So here are some New Years 2020 time facts:
When World War 2 started, the Civil War felt as far away to Americans as WW2 feels to us now.