Party Rock Anthem
Angry Birds
Silly Bandz
Call Me Maybe
Gangnam Style
YOLO: You Only Live Once
Beats By Dre Headphones
Adventure Time
Aztec Print Clothing
Stick On Nails
Snapbacks
Windows 7
Nintendo 3DS
Playstation 3
XBOX 360
What Does The Fox Say
Rubber Band Bracelets
The Regular Show
Nyan Cat
Roblox
KONY


Silly Bandz were more of a late 2000s into early 2010s fad. The fad died out in the early 2010s. I guess it’s debatable whether you see  2010 as the start to the 2010s or 2011 as the true start to the 2010s.

Silly Bandz were more of a late 2000s into early 2010s fad. The fad died out in the early 2010s. I guess it’s debatable whether you see  2010 as the start to the 2010s or 2011 as the true start to the 2010s.


The Silly Bandz became popular by the early 2010s and many schools banned them because they are too distracting.

The Silly Bandz became popular by the early 2010s and many schools banned them because they are too distracting.


Right. Silly Bandz became popular by the early 2010s.

I guess it is all up to the spectator to decide whether Silly Bandz was a 2010s fad or 2000s fad. I see it as a late 2000s fad.

Flipnote Hatena

Playing Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360, and my DSi

Watching Cartoon Network shows like Gumball, Adventure Time, Regular Show, and Sym-Bionic Titan

Movies I enjoyed like Despicable Me, Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and its sequel, and Wreck-It Ralph

Early 2010s YouTube (Smosh, Ray William Johnson, nigahiga, etc.)

Fun electropop party music

Wow,  I sure do miss this era a lot. I also think that the late 2010s and early 2020s will have rose-colored nostalgia when young kids are coming of age in the future. Wouldn't that be interesting? They'd remember floss dances, fidget spinners, emo rap, trap, Nintendo Switches, etc.  :o

The emo and scene aesthetic.

LMFAO
Avicii
Calvin Harris' aggressive synths
Rihanna's Loud & Talk That Talk Albums
Katy Perry's Teenage dream phase
Lady Gaga's electro style
Usher's Electro-R&B songs
Fireflies
Bruno Mars' Grenade/Billionare phase
Gangnam Style
Pretty much any song popular in 2010-Early 2013.

Windows 7
Xbox 360
iOS 5-6 & iPhone 4
Skeuomorphism
Halo 4
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3
Angry Birds
Minecraft Pocket Edition LITE
Old Roblox

I could go on with this list for hours so I'm stopping here.

This is the era when I kind of stopped paying a lot of attention to pop culture because I was passed college age by this point and it felt like culture was being aimed at those a few years younger than me. I will say that something I do miss from the early '10s is that it's the last era when social media was still kind of a novelty and hadn't completely taken over culture the way that it has over the last 5 years or so.

LMFAO
Avicii
Calvin Harris' aggressive synths
Rihanna's Loud & Talk That Talk Albums
Katy Perry's Teenage dream phase
Lady Gaga's electro style
Usher's Electro-R&B songs
Fireflies
Bruno Mars' Grenade/Billionare phase
Gangnam Style
Pretty much any song popular in 2010-Early 2013.

Windows 7
Xbox 360
iOS 5-6 & iPhone 4
Skeuomorphism
Halo 4
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3
Angry Birds
Minecraft Pocket Edition LITE
Old Roblox

I could go on with this list for hours so I'm stopping here.


These things just make me miss me the era so much.  :\'(

I think I also remember more kids playing outside my neighborhood than now, because that happened to me back then with my neighborhood friends.

The music.

MTV was closer to its roots in the 2010s. The 2010s were a good time to watch music videos and listen to the radio.

Don’t get me wrong, I love early to mid 2000s MTV shows, but it was relieving to see music videos and Beavis and Butthead on MTV again.

I was in college from fall 2009 to spring 2013, so my college experience really encompassed the early 2010s. I wouldn’t say I “miss” these things necessarily but I wanted to take the opportunity to flesh out the early 2010s as I experienced them. Here are some pop culture memories and notable moments that stand out from each year.

Freshman year (2009-2010)
-Entering college I still had my red Motorola RAZR that I’d had for two years.
-People were having Jersey Shore watch parties during my first semester.
-Everyone was freaked out by and waited in long lines to see Paranormal Activity in theaters
-Lady Gaga was the biggest thing in music. I’d first heard of her during my last semester of high school in the spring of ‘09 but people were definitely still hyping her a year later.
-Owl City’s “Fireflies” and Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” were popular songs.
-Avatar was taking the box office by storm
-Chat Roulette was really popular in early 2010

Sophomore year (2010-2011)
-Inception and The Social Network were big movies at the beginning of the year.
-Facebook and Twitter were pretty much the only social media sites anyone my age used.
-Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream is an enormously popular album
-Everyone was playing Fruit Ninja, watching Tosh.0 and listening to Party Rock Anthem
-Students took to the streets and started a campus wide rally to celebrate the news of Bin Laden’s death in April 2011.
-The long awaited Scream 4 hit theaters
-This might be the earliest year I remember memes becoming trendy with Bad Luck Brian, Philosoraptor, and rage comics

Junior year (2011-2012)
-Adele was huge.
-The Hunger Games is very popular.
-You couldn’t escape “Somebody That I Used to Know” and “Call Me Maybe” that spring.
-I’m not sure if it was just a certain social circle I hung around, but country music seemed to be gaining popularity among college students.
-Tumblr was very popular.
-“YOLO” and “swag” are popular slang terms.
-KONY 2012

Senior year (2012-2013)
-I’d say a good majority of college students had smart phones by this point.
-Instagram and Snapchat were taking off.
-Sandy Hook shooting shocks the nation, and everyone was starting to take notice of the rise of mass shootings covered in our media, having been stunned by the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting the previous summer.
-“Gangnam Style”, “Thrift Shop”, and “Harlem Shake” were trendy songs.
-The Mayan Calendar ends, but our existence survives.
-Boston Marathon bombings.
-Netflix was establishing itself as a major player in media by producing original content like House of Cards.


I’m sure I could come up with more if I thought about it longer.

I was in college from fall 2009 to spring 2013, so my college experience really encompassed the early 2010s. I wouldn’t say I “miss” these things necessarily but I wanted to take the opportunity to flesh out the early 2010s as I experienced them. Here are some pop culture memories and notable moments that stand out from each year.

Freshman year (2009-2010)
-Entering college I still had my red Motorola RAZR that I’d had for two years.
-People were having Jersey Shore watch parties during my first semester.
-Everyone was freaked out by and waited in long lines to see Paranormal Activity in theaters
-Lady Gaga was the biggest thing in music. I’d first heard of her during my last semester of high school in the spring of ‘09 but people were definitely still hyping her a year later.
-Owl City’s “Fireflies” and Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” were popular songs.
-Avatar was taking the box office by storm
-Chat Roulette was really popular in early 2010

Sophomore year (2010-2011)
-Inception and The Social Network were big movies at the beginning of the year.
-Facebook and Twitter were pretty much the only social media sites anyone my age used.
-Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream is an enormously popular album
-Everyone was playing Fruit Ninja, watching Tosh.0 and listening to Party Rock Anthem
-Students took to the streets and started a campus wide rally to celebrate the news of Bin Laden’s death in April 2011.
-The long awaited Scream 4 hit theaters
-This might be the earliest year I remember memes becoming trendy with Bad Luck Brian, Philosoraptor, and rage comics

Junior year (2011-2012)
-Adele was huge.
-The Hunger Games is very popular.
-You couldn’t escape “Somebody That I Used to Know” and “Call Me Maybe” that spring.
-I’m not sure if it was just a certain social circle I hung around, but country music seemed to be gaining popularity among college students.
-Tumblr was very popular.
-“YOLO” and “swag” are popular slang terms.
-KONY 2012

Senior year (2012-2013)
-I’d say a good majority of college students had smart phones by this point.
-Instagram and Snapchat were taking off.
-Sandy Hook shooting shocks the nation, and everyone was starting to take notice of the rise of mass shootings covered in our media, having been stunned by the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting the previous summer.
-“Gangnam Style”, “Thrift Shop”, and “Harlem Shake” were trendy songs.
-The Mayan Calendar ends, but our existence survives.
-Boston Marathon bombings.
-Netflix was establishing itself as a major player in media by producing original content like House of Cards.


I’m sure I could come up with more if I thought about it longer.


That's an awesome summary. What shows did you watch during the early 2010s that you liked or loved?

That's an awesome summary. What shows did you watch during the early 2010s that you liked or loved?


I liked and was still watching reality TV competition shows that carried over from the ‘00s like American Idol, Survivor, and America’s Next Top Model. American Idol was still pretty big during the 2010 and 2011 seasons but I can tell you by the time the 2013 season rolled around the show was feeling very “direct to video”. Audiences were moving on to The Voice I guess. Survivor aired its Heroes vs. Villains all-star season in early 2010 which is widely considered one of the best in that series (which is still going.) Other early ‘10s shows I watched in college included Glee, Dexter, AHS: Murder House and Asylum, and that was about it.

Remember how popular plaid shorts were for guys in the early ‘10s? It’s been some years since I’ve seen anyone don a pair of those. You might stick out if you wore them now. Plaid shorts and skinny jeans were the ‘10s update on the khaki shorts and looser fitting jeans of the ‘00s.

I liked and was still watching reality TV competition shows that carried over from the ‘00s like American Idol, Survivor, and America’s Next Top Model. American Idol was still pretty big during the 2010 and 2011 seasons but I can tell you by the time the 2013 season rolled around the show was feeling very “direct to video”. Audiences were moving on to The Voice I guess. Survivor aired its Heroes vs. Villains all-star season in early 2010 which is widely considered one of the best in that series (which is still going.) Other early ‘10s shows I watched in college included Glee, Dexter, AHS: Murder House and Asylum, and that was about it.


That's nice to hear.  :)

My favorite shows at the time were Adventure Time, Regular Show, Victorious, Amazing World of Gumball, Gravity Falls, MAD, and the ill-fated Sym-Bionic Titan.

Remember how popular plaid shorts were for guys in the early ‘10s? It’s been some years since I’ve seen anyone don a pair of those. You might stick out if you wore them now. Plaid shorts and skinny jeans were the ‘10s update on the khaki shorts and looser fitting jeans of the ‘00s.


The first time I saw those I thought someone came to school in their boxers.

The first time I saw those I thought someone came to school in their boxers.


The first time I saw them was actually all the way back in 2005. I was in eighth grade and my friend showed up to lunch wearing plaid shorts and I thought they looked funny. I kind of gave him a hard time about it and he assured me that they would be very trendy in a few years. Sure enough, I did notice a few more people wearing them around 2008 and by 2011-2012 they were pretty much the default shorts style for men. I myself had a few pairs which was ironic considering I made fun of them years earlier :D

It was actually very similar with skinny jeans. I noticed those for the first time in 2005 as well. During the summer I was in the arcade at the movie theater and two guys a little older than me were both wearing them, which perplexed my friends and I. Pretty sure they were early adopters of the emo subculture. When I started high school in the fall, there was a kid in my class who wore them and he was made fun of and called “Girl Pants” by some of the guys in our gym class  :-\\ This was the crowd of dudes who wore size XXL t shirts and baggy shorts and thought they were ghetto even though they were white working/middle class suburbanites. Anyway, fast forward to the early tens and it’s not just emo and lgbt guys wearing them, MOST guys were wearing them. I got my first pair in the fall of 2010.

The early 2010s era was the last popular time for seventh gen. Classic games came out this period like Red Dead, Portal 2, Mass Effect 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Black Ops, Super Meat Boy, Skyrim, and tons more.

All great games to me.

EDIT: I forgot Minecraft, lol.  ;D

I miss Angry Birds, Lorde, Bastille, Gotye, Carly Rae Jepsen, the time before the fake and attention seeking IG influencers, I prefer normal models/playmate pageants!. I even miss 1D. Seriously. Music and music videos were better. Basically what ppl have mentioned already like Win7 etc...

Before words like "influencer" were so used.

I also miss early 2010s cars - they were usually less overstyled and more stylish (e.g. the 2013 Rav4 vs the current one, or the 2011 Focus vs the froggy new one). Now cars look like Darth Vader's mask, too OTT.

Sweden & Western Europe being safer (Malmö was a better place circa the 2013 Eurovision song contest).

We also no longer have our version of American/Pop Idol (it was better than The Voice & The X Factor)