The Squelching ‘20s

“It suxx that I was born in 2047. I wish I’d been a 2020s kid!”

I want to preface this by saying that I’m not a bitter or mean person. Whenever someone says something like that, it generally means that they’re about to say something wildly cruel, ignorant, or insufferable.

I promise that this isn’t the case. (This time, anyhow.)

Let me start back at the beginning — that manufactured quote, about life in the 2020s — and life as it’s going to be perceived by future generations.

I try not to fall back on pessimism, but it’s safe to say that we’re living through some wild times right now. In spite of that, in twenty or thirty years, our kids (or our grandchildren, or perhaps even our great-grandchildren) are going to romanticize life in the ‘20s. 

But these are not the Roaring ‘20s. These are the Gasping ‘20s, the Sobbing ‘20s, the Squelching ‘20s.

Certain things have made life in the 2020s so … disconcerting. There are many lovely things happening right now that are worth celebrating — but there are plenty of trends that are less than swoon-worthy.

The same way that Millennials have cringed over photos of their Spandexed, bemulleted, and acid-washed ancestors? Generations Beta and Gamma will scream-laugh when they see an IG Reel featuring their grandpa’s gas-guzzling, vinyl-wrapped, Carolina-tilted Ford F-250 Super Duty. They will hoot and holler when they see their meemaw’s Shein dresses and Fashion Nova janties.

And I’m not a hater — I swear! After seeing The List — a compilation of the side effects of pregnancy, meticulously logged by a young TikTok user — I felt like I could do something similar. I wanted to start a catalog-slash-index of the worst trends/moments/crises of the 2020s.

And so I did.

Here’s a running list of things that have made the 2020s less than romantic:

1. anti-intellectualism 
2. artificial intelligence, misuse of
3. cryptocurrency
4. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
5. dogs inside restaurants
6. facial-recognition technology, abuse of
7. fast fashion 
8. high-beam headlights
9. hostile architecture 
10. housing crises (mortgages, rent, and homelessness)
11. hydraulic fracturing 
12. inclement weather, higher frequency
13. insurance ads, unfunny
14. insurance companies, greed
15. janties/jiapers
16. low-rise jeans, revival of
17. main character syndrome
18. Marvel movies, ubiquity of
19. mass shootings
20. media illiteracy 
21. monthly subscription services
22. multi-level marketing schemes
23. non-service animals, service vests on 
24. opioid crisis
25. over-the-shoe bodysuits
26. pandemics
27. pivot-to-video
28. plastic, single-use 
29. politicians, authoritarian 
30. price gouging
31. public health crises
    1. See pandemics and opioid crisis.
32. push notifications 
33. road rage, increasing 
34. Shein
    1. See fast fashion.
35. side hustles
36. spam callers/text messages
37. streaming services, enshittification of 
38. SUVs, increasingly large
39. tip creep, self-service checkouts and
40. tornadoes and tropical storms, increasing prevalence of
41. Twitter, downfall of
42. vaccine denial
43. vindictive landlords/AirBnB hosts
44. wage gaps

I believe that the only way we’ll be able to counteract the worst of this stuff is by talking about it, so … let’s not sweep it under the rug. Let’s acknowledge it. Let’s talk about it.

And in the meantime, I’ll keep adding more entries to this list.