To me, this decade seems almost completely bankrupt of any real gold standard markers of excellence in film, music, art, or culture of any kind.  You could point to most decades of past, and while probably missing some bases, point out what cultural contributions those decades had made to the general advancement of American Culture specifically, and maybe even world culture if the individual things were important enough.  You could look at certain eras and see what influences they had on people, and what movements arose out of them, and what style of things people appreciated.  Is that completely gone now?  I can't honestly look back at the last ten years of culture and see much worth remembering.  Am I being fair?  Am I shining up the past too much?

You're too close, and your vision's blurry.  You can't see the cultural signs of a decade while you're still in that decade.  You have to wait at least another ten or so years and then look back.

People in the 80's didn't think that leg warmers or wild hairdos were signs of their decade's culture, it was just shit people did.

The one thing that'll stand out, at least in this country, is how conservative culture became.

I think the Bush to Obama thing will be pretty remarkable in the future years. This decade was presided over by a proud C-Student who didn't believe in science. He pushed the boundaries of the Constitution with the executive powers he assumed, and I think this will be interpreted as a reaction to the biggest terrorist attack on the US yet. I think 9-11 will stand out as the Pearl Harbor of our time. We're a much more militant society now. Like Mosh said, we've become heavily conservative as a nation and to a lesser degree worldwide. Now we've got the first black president and we're in debt to our eyeballs. Al of these will likely be part of the 2000s chapter in the textbooks.

Apart from that there's the further spread of the internet where dial-up has become a relic and they've sent those cruddy-but-indestructible PCs to Africa for children to surf the web (I want one of these machines). There's blu-rays now, we finished the Human Genome Project and began work on the Neanderthal Genome Project. There's the hipster culture, rhythm games and MMORPGs took off, Consoles gaming shifts online, we all got laid (a remarkable thing if you think about it), and then there's the secret message to this post...

Agree with Doormouse on technology and erosion of civil liberties.  Also agree on hidden message.

This is the decade of Twitter and Facebook.  The people that are coming into adulthood now will expect information to be open and freely available.

If you've ever read David Brin's Earth, we're tracking to his projected society nicely.

Fucking emo too.

You're too close, and your vision's blurry.  You can't see the cultural signs of a decade while you're still in that decade.  You have to wait at least another ten or so years and then look back.

People in the 80's didn't think that leg warmers or wild hairdos were signs of their decade's culture, it was just shit people did.

Agreed.

Also, I can't remember where I read this, I think maybe on Deadspin, but someone was arguing that the first 2-3 years of any given decade really belong to the previous one, culturally. I think that makes sense. The early 90's were definitely pretty 80's, etc.

True enough.  Though I thought of it more as a recovery from the 80's, the influences were still there.  When I think of the early 90's I think of the corporate sellouts of the 80's getting older and beating drums out in wilderness camps trying to get in touch with their "primal self" again. 

Still as full of shit, just a different flavor.

Internet and connectivity

You're too close, and your vision's blurry.  You can't see the cultural signs of a decade while you're still in that decade.  You have to wait at least another ten or so years and then look back.

People in the 80's didn't think that leg warmers or wild hairdos were signs of their decade's culture, it was just shit people did.

Agreed.

Also, I can't remember where I read this, I think maybe on Deadspin, but someone was arguing that the first 2-3 years of any given decade really belong to the previous one, culturally. I think that makes sense. The early 90's were definitely pretty 80's, etc.

I cut my mullett off in 1990. Doing that marked a clear line between the 1980's and the 1990's. I was already listening to the stuff that was about to get very big in the next year or so, having left the 1980's hair metal wankers in my dust (and losing most of my friends in the process). I got online a year and a half later, so was pretty much ahead of the game there, even though I'd been playing with BBS's for a short time, I left them for dead too.

Now the trick for me is to get on the next wave before it hits. I kinda think I might be too old for that.

We need a new Sex Pistols, not more Arctic fucking Monkeys.