Everyone knows the feeling of coming home after a long hard day of elementary school, or getting in the car to go to the store, when the infamous radio would come on, playing some of the best dance, pop and rock that the decade had to offer. Looking back now, it seems that 2010 was the best decade for mainstream music.
When the radio started playing Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA,” Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night” or even Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You,” kids couldn’t help but start to dance. Nowadays there is lackluster music like Selena Gomez’ “Calm Down”, Lil Naz X’s repetitive song “Old Town Road”, along with Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings”. It seems like current songs miss that certain allure that older music had. Sure, people might just chock it up to nostalgia, and nostalgia is a powerful way to make older things seem better, but it was just better. 2010 was much more simple than today.
In 2010, kids were watching “Bubble Guppies” and “Wild Kratts” on PBS Kids, the iPhones 4, 5 and 6 were releasing, the most popular YouTube series were “Markiplier” and “PewDiePie” and the best social media was Vine. Now, Generation Alpha is watching “CocoMelon,” most kids have iPads not even three feet away from them, and Vine has long since disappeared in favor of TikTok. Some argue that Covid altered how these kids grew up, but really, it’s just the simple fact that the world is getting oversaturated and kids these days are growing up with a lot of things spiraling around them.
If someone were to play 2010s music for a child, they’ll be infatuated with it, dancing and singing along just like kids of the past used to. If someone plays them 2020 music, they might or might not sing along, depending on the song. Looking even father back, if someone played 2000s music for a kid of today, they won’t know the song. Kids now bn,don’t really have anything good to grow up on, whether it be TV shows or even the music they listen to.
No one can really say one decade is truly better than any other, as that is factually impossible, but it seems that the 2010s were just easier times for everyone. If someone were to ask an adult, they will most likely say that the 80s, 90s or up to the 2010s were their favorite years. Ask a middle or high school student and they’ll say the 2000s and 2010s were their favorite, and if someone ask an elementary schooler, they might say 2019 was the best, since 2020 was just horrible for everyone.
In this upcoming generation of kids, the oldest is 11 years old. They are the children of millennials, or Gen Y, but will be heavily influenced by their parents and their own chronic being online, but Gen Z being more involved with politics, and are already seeing what Gen Z is doing to change the world for the better. Some may think that Generation Alpha is embarrassing, doing and saying things like “Skibidi,” “Gyatt” and “Rizzler” along with trends like “Mewing,” but there have been other dumber stunts pulled by generations past, and everyone is just starting to notice it as they get older, like the older folks in someone’s life say to them.
Boomers, or people born 1946 and 1964, used to do booth stuffing, where teens used to try and pile into phone booths and survive to tell the tale. Millennials had trends like man-buns and Instagram filters. And Gen Z had the “Devious Licks” and “Tide Pod” challenges along with riots and social justice movements. As Gen Alpha ages, they will grow out of these random and weird challenges as they start going out into the real world.
If Gen Z really wants to feel like a little kid again, Spotify user Silver_Studios and thousands of others have created playlists to transport everyone back to that simpler time.
