The two royal eras that made our world
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- Опубликовано: 9 мар 2024
- The reigns of Victoria and Hirohito (Showa) two monarchs who symbolized deeply consequential cultural eras. What era are we in now?
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Yet another instance of Japan and the UK being oddly comparable.
They really do have a LOT in common, despite their obvious differences. They are both densely-populated highly urban island monarchies at the geographic fringes of Eurasia at a similar latitude that have more influence on the rest of the world than might be expected given their populations.
@@MatthewTheWanderer-- And, not to be forgotten, they both drive on the left-hand side of the road, unlike their neighboring countries. 😊
@@MatthewTheWanderer I know it's false, but I've played with the idea before that the main reason that they diverged so much is the success/failure of their mainland conquers in the Normans and Mongols. The Normans won and were eventually kicked out of France to only have the UK while the Mongols lost (twice) and basically had to retreat all the way back to the steppe.
@@ADADEL1 Well, Japan certainly was more isolationist than Britain, anyway.
@@markmh835 Yes! And they seem to have developed this odd quirk independently of each other.
For years, I understood the Godzilla series to be separated into "Showa" and "Heisei" eras, but had no idea that they were connected to the reigns of Emperors.
Ironically, the first Godzilla film of its Heisei era released in the Showa era (1984).
@@mysticalmonotremeand heisei era ended in 2010s I think and the millennium era is just heisei part 2
There’s a new emperor on the throne, Naruhito. So it’s the Reiwa era. So it’ll be Showa, then Heisei, then Reiwa.
Freak’n wow. Didn’t even notice.
@@theshenpartei the heisei era ended in 1995 and the millennium era started in 1999
Hirohito is a weird mirror image of Ethiopia's Haile Selassie. Where Hirohito was the figurehead of Japan's darkest days whose reputation was remediated, Selassie was one of the first noble figures of resilience during the war who was (in my opinion) unjustly disrespected and cast down by his society post war. Imagine if someone like Charles De Gaulle was overthrown then died from a suspiciously botched surgery then hastily buried under a toilet.
I mean, sometimes people just don't have a good second act. The former king of Spain, Juan Carlos I, who saved Spanish democracy at a critical moment, was a similar guy whose reputation got worse with time.
@@JJMcCullough While he wasn't a perfect ruler and I'm not a proper expert on Ethiopian history, I'd still put Selassie down as a broadly "good" leader with a lot of admirable qualities who presided over hard times in an underdeveloped country.
Considering how hard the Soviets carried the Derg in overthrowing him, and what became of Ethiopia afterwards, I wonder if any Ethiopians are nostalgic for him. He is a person held up by others as the literal Second Coming of Christ after all.
@@JJMcCullough It's interesting when that worse 2nd half occurs in a different area of the world. Take the Marquis de Lafayette - he's usually held up as one of the heroes of the American Revolution. But his conduct during the French Revolution means that he has a far less shining reputation in his homeland.
@@linkmaxwell An ocean's distance tends to be a decent way of making one's reputation a little muddled.
@@KAPTAINmORGANnWo4evaHaile Selasee did himself in. His actions towards the Eritreans and his constant massacres of protests while attempting to maintain feudalism in the modern day resulted in a situation where when the Somalia invaded the country was to busy dealing with rebellion and young officer mutiny to stage an effective resistance
I think a lot of people in North America feel like 9/11 was the end of our "Showa Era". You see a lot of people cite it as what they feel like a turning point in our culture.
Honestly, the 2000s felt like transition years between now and those times, back then was a lot of growth and now feels like a time of stagnation.
I would say there have been three huge shifts in my lifetime: October 1973, September 2001, and March 2020.
The image of the US as a safe and untouchable nation was shaken by the 9-11, but it started before. The early 1990s had the highest rate of crime in US history, something that shocks a lot of young people who just assume crime is worse now. Also 1999 is the year of the columbine shooting which seems to have set off school shootings as common.
Personally I attribute a lot of this to the decrease in Christian values in American culture. I understand that is considered controversial for some, but a lot of scholars including Historian Tom Holland (not the actor) have made the same point
@@benjaminwatt2436 I agree with you about the decline in Christian values, but it's not just because the number of families going to church has declined. I know someone who has been a first-grade teacher for decades. She told me that when she started teaching, she could tell on the first day of the school year which kids went to church and which didn't. She said that in recent decades, that's no longer true. Even the Christian families aren't instilling Christian values in their children any more.
I'm guessing you're a good bit younger than me, because the Columbine shooting did not set off a wave of school shootings unlike what had gone before. I remember about the same amount beforehand. I did some research, and I've found that the amount of such tragedies actually goes back more than a century. What has changed is how media reports it. In that sense, Columbine was an anomaly. I've never seen any other such incident where the names of the perpetrators were burned into the memory of public consciousness as in that incident. The real problem is that the media isn't reporting the news--it's pushing an agenda. Maybe you remember the name Dylan Roof. He's a white man who went into a black church and shot the place up. It was all over the news. About a month later, there was a similar incident where a black man shot up a white church. The media didn't utter a peep about that. You can't trust mainstream media. You have to find alternative news sources if you want to get some idea of what the truth is about what's going on.
@@benjaminwatt2436Maybe all that stuff with those priests around the mid 90s had something to do with that? I don’t blame people from abandoning such “values”.
Nothing has really changed since 1066
You’re right. Back to the mill I go
“William the Conqueror likes this message”
I would argue that early home computers were an extension of middle class luxury, and it wasn't until the expansion of the Internet to home computers in the early 90s that they began the transition from luxury items to a core part of the household.
Fair. That's how long it took the McCulloughs to get one at least.
Until the invention of the internet home computers didn't do much of anything that most people had any real use for. Even today, most people don't use their home computers for much of anything beyond as a way to get onto the internet.
@@minuteman4199
but do they do much of use with the Internet.....??? 😅
My dad got a computer early but from what I can remember, it was basically as a status symbol.
I came here to say this. Personal Computers and CD software might have premiered in 1984, but people were still using floppies for a solid decade afterwards.
Even Windows 95 was available to upgrade your BIOS with was available on 16 floppies vs one CD ROM (look up LGR’s upgrade of his 486 to Windows 95 for a more detailed history and walkthrough) 😮
Nostalgia is a very strong emotion, even people like me in there mid 20s are hyper nostalgic for the 2000s from when we were growing up
I usually glow up at night.
@@majorramsey3k fixed it, I hate autocorrect
I want to make a video about this at some point… the degree to which your generation is trying to consciously invent nostalgic tropes for itself
Near the end of the school year on year when I was substituting for the counselor in charge of in-school suspension at a high school, I had a small group of predominantly 9th grade boys, around 15ish, who were having a reflective conversation near the end of the day. They were waxing nostalgic about the "good old days" of elementary school, teachers, recess,.... I was dying, but I couldn't let on and interrupt that priceless moment!✌️😎🍏
@@erinmac4750 I remember being nostalgic for middle school when I was in high school, elementary when I was in middle school, earlier elementary and preschool when I was in elementary, and life before school when I was in preschool.
I thought that pattern would just keep going on indefinitely; always feeling nostalgia for the previous thing, but as time went on I stopped being nostalgic for anything after my mid-teens. Of course I still have some fond memories from times since then, but I don't have any nostalgia for the era or culture.
I think the modern era we're living in today starts in 2012. Cell phones connected to the internet existed well before the iPhone (Remember the blackberry?). The iPhone was revealed in 2007, but was very limited in connectivity. 2012 was when phones using 4G data became widely adopted in the US, allowing for the EXPLOSION in smartphones.
Without the smartphone explosion of 2012 there's no BLM, short form video, Angry Birds, video essays, VLOGs, and selfies among other cultural revolutions.
I think 2012 is a decent year to mark the start of the American digital age as we know it today, but I think it might be better to move the date back a little further to, say, 2010 or 2011. I say this mostly because, as seen during the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movement, even primitive internet technology, smartphones, and social media platforms were already spurring massive social and political change in the US and abroad. I can't speak to specific dates for when the internet began to be a massive cultural force, but I at least remember that RUclips was already pretty big prior to 2012, and so I think it wouldn't be a stretch to say that the internet was already a massive cultural and societal force by 2010ish if not earlier.
@@coletakkish4389, The world isn't America, 2012 coincides with a smartphone boom worldwide
I disagree that 4g was such a major change. Maybe for video streaming but not for other phone based stuff. I think that 2008 with the release of iPhone appstore then android (with Google maps and) with play store was the turning point.
@@coletakkish4389 or 2020 if we're going trough year to trough year in the Brent th.bing.com/th/id/R.44b1f42688909dd61265b9d28df26db8?rik=LToL8VAqqkA7Bw&riu=http%3a%2f%2fwww.tititudorancea.com%2flib%2ffx%2foil_brent_weekly_alldata566.png&ehk=uIfslxQB05%2fbv9Wshg1P1B7JrQHmvgd6K6fX3xIignQ%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0
@@nuzayerov Thank you for informing us of what we already knew. Ah, lecturing "dumb" Americans. Does it ever get old?
In Sweden we talk about ”rekordåren” - ”the record years”. Similarly to the French example it lasted from 1945 until around 1973. I would not say that the nostalgia around it is as heavy, it is more viewed from the lens of how “things just used to be good”. The end date is hard to pinpoint, some would argue it’s 1968 when the long time prime minister Tage Erlander stepped down, but I think 1973 is more fitting. It marks the start of the opec crisis and subsequent economic downturn, but also the first election since the 30s where the Social democrats did not win an outright majority in the parliamentary elections and quite fittingly to link with your examples, the death of the old King and the start of our current Kings reign. The previous one being a strong figurehead who was widely respected by Swedish society and more importantly by the left as well, while the new King was a 27-year old partier.
Excellent video that made me reflect on my own country!
I'm 18, I wasn't alive in any of these years, but whenever I hear about the recent past it always strikes me that 1984 specifically comes up very conspicuously often, and not just because people were aware of the Orwell book. I definitely agree that it seems like a very pivotal year that could be used to mark the end of one era and the beginning of another.
I was alive in 1984, and at it didn't seem like the changing of an epoch, either at the time or reflecting on it later. I've been editing this post several times with several different dates as "epoch markers," so I'm not confident enough to state a good alternative.
In the West, I tend to see a distinction between the "glorious 30" and/or "mid-century," compared to the last quarter of the 20th century. 1945 is an obvious beginning date, with an end date of perhaps 1969 or Fourastie's date of 1973. The 1960s were a very turbulent time, politically, but also full of optimism and idealism. This culminated with Woodstock and the first manned Moon landing in 1969. Less than 70 years after the wright brothers first flew a powered aircraft, humans walked on another celestial body! Free love would surely last forever!
And then, people got bored and jaded and became more cynical. Space budgets were slashed and hippie culture began to fade. The United States, superpower of the West, had to accept that it couldn't defeat an underfunded but committed enemy fighting for their homeland. The West's stance towards Communism began to soften, as staunch anti-communist Nixon visited China to begin normalizing relations. And then, with the oil-shock recessions and Watergate, the optimism of the 60's was gone.
And for the era that came after? I'd say it was mid-70's until 9/11/2001. One might call it the "Neoliberalism era."
I agree with this take broadly. Culturally I think 1945 to the late 60s is a pretty coherent unit up to the cultural upheavals of the 1960s. The 1970s represent a sort of transitional period but I think by the early 80s you have pretty strong continuity to present day culture (video games, the rise of blockbuster movies including directors and franchises like Star Wars or Indiana Jones that are still active today, frank discussion and depictions of sex in movies etc., political correctness, cable TV etc). The popular culture that emerged in the 1980s solidified in the Nineties and 2000s with the post Cold War economic boom. Even 9/11 and Great Recession had only modest impacts on this culture but the increasingly hegemonic nature of social media on the Internet has shifted it in the late 2010s. So I see the current era since 2015/6ish (Gamergate, rise of Trump, streaming) as a transitional period from the 1984-2014 "neoliberalism era".
@@TheEmperorCho I thought about including a transition period from about 1973 to the early 80's. In car culture, that time is often called the "Malaise Era" (from a well-known Jimmy Carter speech) and I think it works for the broader culture too.
You may be onto something about the "neoliberalism era" lasting longer than I posited. I may have been giving too much weight to political trends pre- and post-9/11 (anyone remember federal budget surpluses?)
nostalgia isn't what it used to be
That's what they all say
I member.
That "showa era" bar having a Nintendo 64 from the late 90s and an HDTV triggers me lol.
Nintendo 64s are easier to research than their predecessors.
@@SlapstickGenius23 famicoms are plentiful and well kept in Japan.
I've generally considered the period between 1989 and 2001 to be a distinct "no man's land" between the Cold War and the Modern Era. I call this period between the Fall of the Wall and the Fall of the Towers the "end of history", after the famous Francis Fukuyama book that reflected a very triumphalist attitude in the West and a period of general optimism. I think, at least in an American context, September 11th was a sort of wake-up moment that broke the idea of an endless march towards prosperity under the banner of liberal democracy. It also coincides with the beginning of the internet as a player in American culture, although it wouldn't become dominant until around 2017 or so.
Agreed
It was an optimism but also with a mix of ennui. Generation X was sort of defined by its listlessness, and shows like "Daria" and movies like "Office Space", "Fight Club" and "The Matrix" (all coming out the last year of the 90's) asked if our prosperity had come at the cost of our individuality, if not our humanity. Though interestingly, in the latter case, the Matrix is said to encapsulate a setting (which would be contemporary to 1999) because any further in history and humans would begin to reject it.
People will romanticize every era that was in the past, but I can see the appeal in the 90's in particular. The lack of an existential threat to the U.S., conveniences of technology that had not yet begun to eat into our attentions or ability to make careers, a move towards diversity and equality without it it suggesting a radical upturning of society. Film buffs also to talk about it being the era where movies could be prestigious and extremely popular. It is never that simple in real life, but it's not hard to distill into a power point presentation.
@@RABartlett I have yet to meet a Canadian who doesn't think the 90's was the peak of civilization. We were wealthy and prosperous, things functioned.
People who say it's rose-tinted glasses are just gaslighting us. I was there. Shit didn't used to suck like it does now.
I’d keep 1989 as the pivotal year of inflections. The Showa Emperor died and Japan reached its economic apogee. The Berlin Wall fell and Europe was finally being reunited. The USSR started to unravel in that year. All the nasty Cold War “hot” wars in undeveloped nations sputtered out as money was no longer available to keep them going. This peace finally reigned in large parts of the world. The golden age of the 1990s was just getting started in the US, with American triumphalism a dominant theme in US and global culture. It seems like a great year to commemorate the end of an era.
I must say, 90s and 80s nostalgia seems to have had something of a comeback in the UK, particularly with the miserable cost of living crisis
This, everything was better in 90s Britain… Britpop, better house build quality and better quality of life in general
I've been saying for years now, it's never going to get better than how it was during 80s/90s, approx 9/11 and especially manifested in 2008 its been downhill ever since....
@@TrueMithrandir
We have much better lives now than the 80s/90s, and especially the 9/11 period.
@@IkeOkerekeNews I really don’t agree that our lives are better now than in 90’s Britain 😅 My dad supported us on a single income from his job at Sainsbury’s and the house we lived in in the 90’s is worth a million pounds today. Needless to say, we lost the house in the ‘08 crash
Conservatives have habit of that 😅
Question for my German friends: do you guys have a term for your post-1945 growth era?
Wirtschaftswunder
Wirtschaftswunder until the late 60s
Bonn Republic (political term but sometimes also as a cultural and nostalgic term) 1949-1990
@@alexandert.6501 what does it literally mean?
@@JJMcCullough Literally translates to "economic wonder"
@@JorgeAlbertoJerezor "economic miracle".
I mean, if we're talking about how an era ended when computers gained more mainstream relevance as PCs, I think that the period between 1945 and 1984 (1985 if we want to do a solid, round 40 years) should be named something among the lines of "Post-war Analogue Tech era", at least if we're looking at technology and the impact it has on pop culture around that time given the predominance of things like vinyl records, cassettes, TVs, cars, videocassettes and so on
With this definition, we can maybe call the years that came the "Digital era" and maybe we can slice this era into smaller bits depending on the different technology advancements, such as the introduction of tactile screens or AI into the mainstream
In Poland we also split modern history before and after 1989 - end of communism and beginning of democracy was watershed moment for culture, politics, economy, etc.
The end of the cold war was a very important shift in Europe. And it was followed by 20 peaceful years, until the financial crisis, followed by national populism and the war in Syria.
Well that is a bit of a reductive summary if you ask people from Moldova, Georgia or exyugoslav countries im not Sure they'll agree that 1990-2010 were more peacefull than the following decades
I feel like the death of Harambe could be the start of the modern era. Everything just seems to have gone downhill from there.
This harambe bullshit is so stupid. That gorilla did not signify anything for the world
"Hirohito the Peaceful" lol
what war???
he was indeed a pacifist so...lol
I mean, he only wanted the best for Japan, which is fair.
@@Adam-326 yeah, who cares about the mass crimes against humanity in Korea, China, Philippines, etc. he just "wanted what was best for Japan". Kinda like that Austrian fellow who led Germany, or the caterpillar mustache man who led the Soviet Union 😂
@@Adam-326 He also greatly improved Korea and Manchuria when Japan took it over
I would say our current cultural era began in 2007 with the release of the iPhone. The "Information Age" as we know it did not really begin until we all had relatively cheap devices that could access the internet from anywhere at any time. Social media was the killer app that had so many people purchase smartphones in such a short span of time. Within 10 years we went from nobody owning smartphones to nearly everyone owning a smartphone.
For the West, it feels like the 90s should still be included in that "golden era", the end of the Cold War created an optimism that things would get better, before we got hit with the triple threat of War on Terror, Climate Change and Global Recession.
I would also add that during the 1990s in the USA (the Bill Clinton years), the conditions were just perfect enough for the government to balance its Budget and run a surplus for the first time in 30 years -- until the Republicans came along, granted huge tax cuts for their rich friends, and blew up the Budget to run the TRILLION DOLLAR deficits we have today. God help our children. Blame the GOP. 😒👎
Back when I was a history major in the 1980s, the favored new hypothesis professors liked to throw around was that World War 1 and World War 2 were essentially the same war, with an extended time out between them. And this does make sense, as the issues that gave rise to the first war were still largely unresolved by the start of the second; the second war effectively eliminated *most* of them, and those it didn’t (such as European Imperialism) pretty much withered and died as a consequence of the way things changed during the war.
While it’s not 100% accurate, I’ve always liked looking at it this way since it tends to emphasize the interbellum years, which generally don’t get enough attention, and I feel like when you’re looking at world-altering events that utterly irretrievably end the old status quo, it’s best to see them as part of a continuity, rather than discrete events.
So, yeah, I think you’re right about how the future will look at the first half of the 20th century
I think it's no coincidence that just like the Showa, the Victorian era came right after the bloodiest period the world have seen (Napoleonic wars).
Millions of people gave their life in battle in each of those periods because they knew that winning those wars means dictating the future of global culture, economy, politics centuries forward.
The emperor method of dating is still present on Japanese currency, you can easily find it on any yen coins
he said in less formal contexts. currency is issued by the government
@@raiisleep yeah obviously but I don’t think most people would think of getting change back from the cashier at a convenience store as a formal occasion
This may be outside the scope of your question, but I often considered the years around 2012 in particular to be a unique cultural dividing line, since that was around the time things like smartphones and modern social media felt like a commonplace thing to me. They existed before, but it didn't feel like they formed the sort of cultural infrastructure they do now until that point. It feels like the time between the Showa/80s and then was its own unique era I don't often hear talked about.
2012 marks the endpoint of GenX as Youth as far as marketer’s concerned. Millennials took over that year and we’re just a short few years away from handing over the mantle to GenZ.
OMG that's what I commented. YES! Smartphones had existed before, but that was the year it became widely available to the American masses.
2012 also felt like the end of the Obama-era optimism that Millennials seemed to express. With Occupy Wall Street showing plenty of left-wing discontent, social media becoming much bigger, as well as skinny jeans and big square glasses becoming popular (and I'm aware that skinny jeans aren't very popular anymore), it feels like the beginning of our current era in a lot of ways.
I feel like maybe it should be 2016, as that's when the internet, social-media driven culture machine really demonstrably overpowered the older modes of social consensus
It will be interesting to see if decades from now the reign of Queen Elizabeth II is viewed with a similar nostalgia to the Showa era. It might depend on how significant AI becomes and how far it is considered separate to simple computing, The Queen's death being the same year that ChatGPT and Midjourney launched (2022) provides a neat ending/beginning point.
Good point!
I think she was around for so long that a lot of time would have to pass, in order to be viewing history in a really “big picture” sort of way
@@JJMcCulloughHer era will be seen as the era of de-colonialism and the end of the British Empire, and the return of the UK as being just another European country, as it had been for 800 years prior to the Seven Years War in the 1750s.
@@Alex_PlanteYes, but the British Empire and its status as a global superpower pretty much disappeared by the early 60s, if not before, so you have like 60 extra years of her reign in which the UK was very clearly just another Western European country. To call the reign of Elizabeth a transition period, as you do, should mean that the most important thing and the thing that englobed most of her reign was the dissolution of the Empire, and that's not the case, because she reigned for far longer than just that
@@Alex_Plantefor instance, I think that any year in the Showa era fits into the category of "Post-war good times" or something among those lines, but a year in Elizabeths reign like 2010, definetely doesn't fit in the "Era of decolonialism" category
1:59 JJ, I really hope you will make a video on this topic, the pros and cons of nostalgia. As many of our age group are getting older, there's a natural tendency to want to revisit the "good old days" in sepia-toned memories - but I think there is a not so good, even potentially hazardous possibility of people getting stuck in that mindset, that the past was obviously better, and live their lives in the present pining for a past they can't ever have again. It seems like, taken to the extreme, this is a potential source of depression and sadness for many of our age group.
Another very interesting and related topic I would love to see you cover is why nostalgia pulls at our emotions so strongly - yet commercial products giving us the things we're pining for seem to often fail because no one buys them. A couple of examples in terms of media are MTV Classic and Nickelodeon's various attempts to sell their old shows as a separate block/network (The Splat/Nick Rewind, etc.). In short, it seems that people want to be nostalgic about a thing, not to actually experience that thing itself again. I really think that would be a very interesting topic to explore.
1984 feels a bit too early as the "computer year".
I'm surprised to learn that CDs existed in 1984, cause I don't think I saw a CD until the 90s. Certainly we used casette tapes and records to listen to music for quite a while. Every computer and every videogame console I encountered continued to use cartridges or floppy disks for several years after 1984. I do remember the transition from 5 1/4 floppy disks to 3 1/2 floppy disks, that happened in the late 80s, but I'm not old enough to remember 8 inch floppy disks. And at any rate, the storage format frankly isn't that big of a deal; if you need to insert 10 disks, you insert 10 disks, it gets the job done. And...I haven't used a CD in years.
1983-1984 was also the two year period of the US videogame console collapse, where nearly every retailer stopped stocking console videogames, which wouldn't really end until 1985 when the NES was released. Which to me is another strike against 1984 as the year. I would want to go either earlier than this electronic recession (1982) or later (1985+).
I'm not sure what year or what technology to pin this on, but two I can think of are substantially later. The development and public release of the world wide web (1991) --specifically http. a few college professors sent emails over internet for years before 1991, but http was game changing. Alternatively, the development and production of the blue LED (1993) which is now used in every TV and every computer monitor--laptops and smartphones would not be able to produce blue or white without this LED, they would only be able to produce green, red, and yellow. Screens that could produce all colours would not be portable, they would still be the big boxy monitors.
In India computer phase excited in 2010s.i was lucky to have pc in 2009.now it's people having laptop. Showa period ends here in 1991 as liberalization, privatization and globalization took place that year. Foreign companies entered here with joint venture or collaboration with local companies. Japanese companies with indian collaboration had full monopoly in bikes and car sector (auto sector), nokia(70%) Motorola,samsang in phone. Microsoft and us companies in computers.titanic was highest grossing hollywood movie in India at that time.
I always saw the Second Boer War, which ended in 1902, as the last Victorian war. And not just because it literally was. The goal of the Great War and the tactics used were too far removed from the colonial conflicts emblematic of the Victorian age to draw a comparison. I see the Victorian era as Britain increasingly isolating itself from affairs outside of empire, culminating in Lord Salisbury’s “splendid isolation” in the latter part of the 19th century.
"Victorian" was the name of that era in English-speaking countries.
In Germany that era is mostly known as the "Wilhelmine Era", named after the emperors of the German Empire, Kaiser Wilhelm 1 & 2.
That epoch is mostly known because of its architecture, the stressed and depressed living conditions in German cities which for many became unbearable because of the Industrial Revolution and overcrowding. It was also internationally known because of an aggressive foreign policy by the German Empire in which a sizable colonial empire was established, the 2nd biggest navy and Germany became heavily militarized in the name of Kaiser Wilhelms "Weltpolitik".
When J.J brought out “Slouching Toward Utopia”, it is the third/fourth book he mentioned that I also read. I felt J.J being one of my fav RUclipsrs and think so much alike because we consume the same media
It’s great isn’t it.
It's the Age of JJ, we're just living in it!
I'm an elder zoomer... I think you hit the nail on the head choosing 1984 as the threshold for the Era.
For me, the correlation to George Orwell's novel of the same name draws a somewhat eerie yet thought-provoking similarity to today's cultural paradigm.
As far as what's happening today... beats the hell outta me 😂
As a 1998 born, 1989-2001 was "The long 90s", The 2000s really ended in 2008 and the 2010s basically had the Obama era, The Trump era and the current era is the 2020s post-Covid era. With Covid being an interregnum.
1991, although I might be pulling a JJ here and just going with my birth year. The USSR and Yugoslavia collapsed, the World Wide Web was launched, the first Gulf War led to a reorganising of geopolitics around the Middle East, and apartheid in South Africa was repealed. Two seemingly minor events compared to those, but that set the tone of the year, are the death of Freddie Mercury, an icon of the music of the past few decades, and the discovery of the first planet outside our Solar System, symbolising a new scientific era as well. It's hard to pick a specific year though, as the collapse of communism, the rise of instant communication, and a growing awareness of climate change all seemed to be a gradual late 80s-early 90s thing.
In 2008, I wrote a blog post about the launch of Chrome. The first version was thought to be rather shoddy but I called it "Googles first shot across the bough in it's war to unseat Microsoft." The iPhone was first launch later that year. Also 2008 saw China's first attempt to overturn the one-child policy as there was Worldwide notice of the fertility downturn effects.
I believe the Showa age ended on 25 December 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and our new cultural age began on 11 September 2001 with terror attacks on NYC and DC.
I know this may seem a little too political but hear me out. I’ve always looked at 90s as period that was carefree, fun and optimistic. The Cold War was over, Apartheid which was the big bad of the second half of the 20th Century was also over and there just was such optimism for the coming new millennium.
However, 9/11 destroyed that optimism and caused Western society to become much more pessimistic and conspiratorial. The 2008 Great Recession then added to that and rise of surveillance capitalism crowned it off in around 2012 leading us to our current cultural place.
I think people exaggerated the impact of 9/11. Obviously it was awful, but even in the US life mostly went along normally after a year or two. If anything mid 2000s pop culture was full of bland optimistic content.
In the case of Britain, I actually find 1901 a good cut-off date. This was right before the Boer War, the first major monkey wrench in British self-confidence. It was also before the country had to face that Germany and the US were outstripping it in economic dynamism, a trend accelerated during the first years of the 20th century. The country gets a reprieve in history accounts because it was on the winning side of both world wars. But its reliance on an antiquated colonial system and a general complacency among its elites meant decline had already been well cast by 1945.
What you were saying about Queen Victoria's lifespan in relation to the distinct culture of the era named after her was interesting. We have this collective habit of fixing historical figures into a particular iteration of themselves, and in doing so projecting certain values and broad concepts we associate with their time periods. This can lead us to make the mistake of dismissing their younger or twilight bookending years, almost as if they were different people, and by extension dismissing how much our popular associations/assumptions with time periods were still developing and even contested back at the time.
I always thought Churchill was a good example of this retrospective idolisation. He's overwhelmingly remembered as the man who defended Britain during WW2 and highly revered by the average English person, but I think a lot of my fellow Brits sometimes forget that public opinion of the guy during his life was pretty divisive. They also tend to forget that he was in the sixties at the outbreak of WW2, and he was perceived as something of a political anachronism in that period, a product of unabashedly imperialist late Victorian sensibilities and actually quite an anathema to the political consensus of his contemporaries.
Yeah, people forget that Churchill faced a non confidence vote in the middle of the war, he was also voted out by a landslide before Japan surrendered.
Content has been even better than usual recently! Really enjoyed this one
As someone from the U.S.A. who grew up in the 2000's and 2010's, I'd say the current era started somewhere within the years of 2007-2009. You're spot on with the introduction of smart phones. But I'd also point to the political therefore cultural changes of those years as well. Namely the economic... thing of 2008 and the election of Barack Obama. How accurate that is to the impact of culture outside the U.S. is uncertain to me however.
8:27 His camera shifts slightly at the exaxt moment he talks about shifting the dates on the timeline. This is the film making techniques that make his video award-winning.
Oh my god the magitek factory theme drop just made my day.
I think people of the future will have nostalgia for our current time in history because this is the earliest moment in which we have things like youtube and social media. What did the common person think of the first Buster Keaton silent film? What were everyday people's reactions as the world wars started? We have written accounts, but not nearly the volume of information that we have now and they aren't all saved in one place like on the internet. People in the future will be able to watch videos from long dead content creators as if they just released them yesterday.
You’re right, but I think it is also possible that some of this stuff could get lost. A lot of the early Internet is already lost.
I LOVE the Showa Era. Im so excited its popular now. Man, I gotta get over there now while everything's cheap!
The new cultural age started around 2012, with the popularization of social media.
Due to smartphones. Myspace and AOL were HUGE in the 2000s but Facebook was able to move to smartphones, giving it a MASSIVE reach.
Instagram and Snapchat were able to replicate the success due to smartphones.
@@PASH3227 I was jealous of my older sister when I was a kid. She would always hog the computer, using myspace until the darkest hours of the night. Her life was somewhat consumed by social media and keeping up appearances, but never to the extent of someone nowadays.
You're right, having the supercomputer in our pockets changed everything. Before it was just a couple hours at night, now it's an all-consuming thing. My sister couldn't pee while swiping on her phone back then.
I’ve always been fascinated with eras and the start and ending definitions of them. For instance, since I associate the 1940’s with the WW2 era, I’ve always looked at what the mid century or “fifties” era as lasting from about 1946, the end of the war, to about 1964, which was when the free speech movement began on American college campuses, the civil rights era started and the Vietnam War began to escalate. Then came “the Sixties” which ended in about 1973 with the oil embargo, a global recession and the end of American involvement in Vietnam.
Then again, having been born in late 1963, I have trouble even figuring out whether I’m a late Baby Boomer or an early Gen Xer. 😊
Honestly, I'd push it back to 2008. A lot of late 80s, 90s, and early 2000s things and culture are very similar to the stuff pre-1980s if not just in a different vain and that the major cultural shift to the era we're in now was only possible after the Great Recession. It is certainly true that things just haven't been the same since then and haven't really been able to go back.
Great video, thank you friend JJ!
Oh, another video about things that I didn't know I needed! Thanks again, sir!
The internet age works for me. Of everything that's happened over the past several decades, that is the biggest change point, reflected in so many aspects of our world.
I was born in 1997. To many people, 2007 is just before the financial crisis. To me, it's when the first Transformers movie came out, and that somehow turned into an era marker for my memory.
I think we began this era after 911 to covid. And now we are on the second half of this era.
I'd also say that 9/11 was the end of the last remains of this more confident and free 20th century era. After that, the world just became more insecure, sensitive and shallow. Living standards for the middle class were still ok until the 1st hit in 2008 then the pandemic put another nail in the coffin.
Personally, for the United States, I think the post-war years lasted from 1945-1973, as the oil crash destroyed the keyensian economy, beginning a short era from 1973-1980 with stagflation before the economy was replaced with more moneterist throught in 1981, leading to the neo-liberal era of 1981-2008, before the recession led us to the post recession era of 2008-2020, which, of course, ended when covid hit.
Always love your videos.
Been awhile since I've watched one of your videos - the hair and lighting are working well for ya. Looks good.
the 90s are definitely near their peak nostalgia right now
If you ask us has Italians, we will say the period of the first republic versus the period of the second republic. The first republic died in 1992 (with the Mani Pulite case), in which all the major parties fall. there was also the fall of communism has a mainstream idea and the end of the economic boom experience until that point. that led to also to the fall of the cultural industry in Italy(like Italian cinema) that never recorded. The period of the second Republic is perceived as a time of decline and cultural stagnation.
Reason why movies set in Italy have always a 60s 70s feeling (es Pixar Luca)
Interesting. Did the political system literally change?
@@JJMcCullough well, technically no, in Italy we use it in the wrong way, not like the French (which symbolizes a constitution change). Our political system remained the same ( but also we don’t have an elector law in the constitution so it does constantly change). But all the major party ended up falling apart like the Christian democracy ,the communist party, the Republican party, the socialist party and blah blah blah the only one remaining was the northern Lega.
Post-war era was really divided in 2 sections: pre oil crisis (until 1973) and the technological age (1970-2001). 9/11 was really the end of all the things people are nostalgic about the 20th century. I noticed insecurity, polarization and internet cultures took root in the aftermath of this.
Fascinating
Could you do a video on the history of jazz, please JJ
I feel like the 20th century truly ended on september 11th 2001.
Excellent Video J.J.
Another banger
Where you’ve been man? Good to have you back
Born in Showa 37 (1963), I lived through the rise of the computers and Internet. I would argue that the Internet had a bigger influence in changing society. In the beginning, the PC was just seen as a tool/appliance like a TV. It wasn't until the Internet started growing (around 1995) that society really started to change.
I was thinking about this some more. The feeling I had around 1995 concerning the Internet, is the same feeling I have today about AI. In 1995, we sensed the possibilities and the Internet exploded from that point forward exponentially. Somehow, I think in 2030, we will look back and not recognize the AI we have today. It will seem so primitive.
Shining reign of peace???
would be interested to see a video on Meiji era nostalgia which is most comparable to Victorian era. In Meiji era Japan first modernised and became imperial power.
Its interesting how the British went from defining eras based on their monarchs to not really doing that anymore. I think it reflects the British view of royalty in general.
The British monarchs just haven’t reigned at the right times for their reigns to sync up with anything important since Victoria. They tried to make the “Edwardian era” a thing then gave up because it was too arbitrary
This is happening everywhere...Gen Z here in the USA is obsessed with older technology like VCR's, rotary telephones, old TV's, CD's, DVD's, floppy disks, etc.
Did you watch?
From what I've seen people in the UK perceive the Victorian era as predating her actual ascension, not proceeding. I've seen a lot of people view it as 1815 to 1914, less so defined by the Industrial Revolution than Britain's time as the global hegemon. But I suppose that fits into your views on global vs national contexts. (It's also pretty interesting how war and conflict influence how we remember certain eras more than pretty much any other factor.)
Also, I think this current era began with 9/11. (At least in the Western world.) A lot of the things people like to see as important contemporary Western issues like the growth of technology, political radicalisation and the "death of privacy" can be traced back to the response to the attacks.
I have to disagree about nengo, the Japanese imperial reign name system. I travel to Japan frequently and went to college there. The dates on visa applications, displayed on busses and trains, and on displays are usually in nengo. When I went to college there in the 2000s I had to give them my birth year in nengo on official documents.
As I said, in formal contexts.
omg!! is the daruma new? love
it
Interesting topic
Showa pop music is probably my favourite style of music, nice work J.J. ❤
I could say that an era of recent memory in Greece was the one between the fall of our last military dictatorship in 1974 up until the start of the economic crisis of 2009. Although it could probably be further subdivided into sub-eras, I feel that this is a period a lot of (older) folks will talk about today. It was a period of general prosperity, social change and economic growth, which ended somewhat suddenly and ushered a new era of instability and uncertainty, that hasn’t really ended.
The 1980 election of Reagan I think acts as a solid ending date. Really marked the start of the new Conservative Party and has the bonus as occurring roughly at the same time as the computer becoming mainstream. I’m not sure how well this time market applies to other western countries though-Thatcher was elected in 1979 so it might fit well with the Brits.
We all know that the end of the world was 1999 and we’re all now living a postmodern simulation of what we think the world is in the 21st century - but not what it actually is…
I feel like, while we don't have a good name for it, the Liberal government of 1949 to 1972 in Australia pretty neatly captures the cultural moment of postwar economic good times and the Whiltam govt which succeeded it makes thr transition away from this era even starker
Fun little fact: 1984 is also the year The Return of Godzilla came out and is part of Godzilla’s Heisei Series despite coming out in the Showa Era, so marking that as the end of Showa’s cultural era fits.
Any division of time into discrete sections is by necessity imprecise. Time being a flowing state where changes happen gradually means that only in hindsight can we say “oh this was that or this particular era” . Kind of like diving groups into gen x,y,x etc it’s shorthand that always falls apart when you try to precise
I would love to see a video where you recommend your favorite books on culture/society. The handful of books you have mentioned in your videos seem quite interesting.
The biggest defining influence of our modern times is the internet, and particularly the mobile use of internet, so I would lean towards either 2007 (launch of the iPhone) as the start of our current era/end of the previous, or to be more neat about it perhaps the year 2000 instead?
5:54 The "Three Sacred Treasures" is actually a reference to three semi-mythical objects owned by the Emperor which are "proofs" of his divine origins and right to reign:
1. The sword "Kusanagi no Tsurugi"
2. The mirror "Yata no Kagami"
3. And the jewel "Yasakani no Magatama"
These imperial regalia are securely protected, with only the Emperor and select Shinto priests being allowed to hold and even see them. If they are presented in a formal function such as at the first public appearance of an Emperor after his ascendance, only two of them are presented and are wrapped so they are hidden from public view.
Naming these three home technology "miracles" after literal imperial treasures was no surprise.
Another award winning video!
I think cultural time definitions happen in however people define their ‘good story’ - or at least the story they choose to remember. The music scene between 1980 and 2000 was very influential for me (being born in 1974). The housing crisis in 2008 wrecked me and I lost everything I had built as an adult by 2015 - so that era is my influential economic era.
In 200 years, historians will look back fondly on the culturally significant years that were the J.J era
Similarly to Hirohito dying in January, Victoria dying in 1901 means you can basically generalize the entire 19th century (Give or take a few decades at the beginning) as Victorian and the coming centuries with a clear post-Victorian division.
In fact, I was taking part in a quiz and one of the questions was how many 20th century British monarchs have there been and Victoria was omitted to make her death date cleanly align with the centuries I suppose (as well as Edward VIII but that's understandable).
another banger award winner
J.J.: I don't know how you can say the "era" after the Showa Age has "not proven itself to be consequential." I would assert that the rise of the Internet and then the WWW in the mid-1990s changed EVERYTHING. Gates, Besos and Jobs realized before most of us that it would change communication, commerce and government -- and it has. The post-Showa Era has hardly been inconsequential. It has literally shrunk the planet.
I feel like the elizabethan era is a good era similar to the showa era, starting post-war in the 50s, and including the late 20th century and ending right at the start of AI advancements and reaching the limits in technology. also, during her reign, many changes in the world such as social norms, cultural values, and the complete fall of the british empire occurred during her reign
Tbf, showa does look pretty good.
fun fact, *Shōwa Day* (昭和の日) is annual public holiday in Japan held on April 29. It honors the birthday of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito).
I don’t know if it’s the only type around, but I see a lot of Gen X nostalgia atm. Being Gen X myself I can understand why: we’re getting old, and we have money to spend. 😆
I finally have a name for the era I obsess over the most, thanks man
JJ is like a modern time philosopher, except we can see his thoughts taking shape in real time. In another video, we saw him talking about the two great periods of society and now they have names
I think you should do a extended video sequel on this topic about ‘Showa’ eras…
I will never not be mildly confused about, yet pleased with having nostalgia for time periods I never experienced in person.