The Decade According to 9-Year-Olds

So much has defined this past decade, but imagine what it would be like if the past 9 years were the only years you had lived through. Yahoo! News editor Allison Louie-Garcia spoke to fourth graders in Orange County, Calif. to get some perspective on the '00s from those who have only experienced it. From naming the biggest celebrities, to discussing computer habits, to explaining 9/11, these 9-year-olds' answers--often funny, sometimes sobering, always candid--offered a clear snapshot of life in the 21st Century.

Category:

Entertainment

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• decade
• according
• to
• nine
• year
• olds
• 2000s

[nhatkhoi13]

lol they nvr heard of britney spears. "isn't that the girl that shaved her head?" lol

[IBMeddling]

Wow, I didn't know what a terrorist was until I was an adult. Times have changed.

[VictimOfBoredom]

@FuckingStanz There are plenty of new things going on in music in this era—you just don't seem to like any of it. To use some obvious examples, songs like "ET" and "Just Can't Get Enough" are undoubtedly sonically without precedent—like it or not, that makes them new. ;)

For those not afraid of pop music, there's plenty going on. Give it a whirl—John Cage will still be there when you get back.

[FuckingStanz]

@VictimOfBoredom Well that's exactly the point, theres nothing new or original anymore. The 2000s was all about pillaging the past. Whereas in the 90s, there was something new around every corner.

[VictimOfBoredom]

@FuckingStanz Considering there are thousands of retro-oriented musical acts who play in same styles as their inspirations from the 90s and prior, I'd say there's nothing that existed in the 90s that isn't still being made now, with the only notable difference being that it's obviously inherently no longer groundbreaking or innovative. Not to mention all the folks who debuted in the 90s (or prior) and are still making the same music...

[FuckingStanz]

@VictimOfBoredom Well you listed mainstream 90s artists. The underground scene in the 90s beats the underground scene of today as well.

[VictimOfBoredom]

@FuckingStanz I personally can't even stand to listen to most of the artists I listed, even if some of them (namely, Tool) used to be my favorites, and I'll take 2000s music over them any day. Their music served their time well, but the same thing over and over again gets boring ("retro" nostalgia just leads to acts like Puddle of Mudd and Avenged Sevenfold), and just as we're no longer the same as we were pre-9/11, neither should our music remain stagnant and unchanging.

My 2¢.

[FuckingStanz]

@VictimOfBoredom Even the bad artists you listed were far superior to the 2000s best mainstream offerings.

The 90s were objectively better. Or perhaps 'less shitty'. Deal with it.

[VictimOfBoredom]

@FuckingStanz There were plenty of people who thought grunge (Kurt Cobain was the emo kid of his day), pop-punk (Green Day was their Jonas Brothers), and pre-nu-metal (i.e., Slipknot and KoRn) were all utter garbage, not to mention the actual pop music by the likes of 'N Sync, the Spice Girls, and Britney Spears.

90s music wasn't all Tool, Radiohead, and the Black Crowes.

MMMBop. Never forget.

[FuckingStanz]

@VictimOfBoredom Yeah it's your choice if you want to have quality audio and search out intellectual content, and hardly anyone these days does it. One of the great things about the 90s was quality content was pushed on average people.

And the music industry is not doing fine, lmao.

[VictimOfBoredom]

@FuckingStanz

"large storage of low quality mp3s. Really not that impressive."

It's your choice if you decide to fill a three-terabyte hard drive with low quality mp3s. Really not the computer engineers' fault.

The Internet is flooded with more knowledge—cultural, historical, scientific, social, technical, and everything else—than has ever existed at any point prior in the entire history of mankind.

The music industry is doing just fine—popular music has always been crass.

[FuckingStanz]

@VictimOfBoredom Most of technological 'breakthroughs' of the 2000s were related to communication devices, or large storage of low quality mp3s. Really not that impressive. We had the internet and cell phones in the 90s, the difference was it wasn't all 12 year old girls using them. The internet is flooded with stupidity, Facebook, Myspace, all narcissistic and very unhealthy for kids. Not to mention the music industry is now a borderline PORN industry. Good influences :|