Now we are getting somewhere. Official. We just need to find out which authority said that and when, and then the answer will be truly decided. This thread can be pointed to, should anyone try to ask this question again. And we will know for sure, that Nirvana is indeed officially responsible for killing the 80s.

LOL what?! It premiered in 1991!

80's as a decade ended 12/31/89 and 90's as a decade ended 12/31/99 but culturally it's not so easy to say. I was born in 1992 and when I look at pictures from that time when I was born my mom and everybody else's clothes and hairstyles still look to be very much in 80's style and when you compare clothing styles for example from 91 to 97 there seems to be a difference. Then when you compare styles from early 00's they have more in common with styles from late 90's than the styles from early 90's has.
So I'd say that 80's ended culturally in the early 90's and then 90's culturally ended in the early 00's
These cultural transitions between decades can often be seen from movies from those times. It seems that 80's started 81-83 but between 80's and 90's the transition seems to have been slower so it's really hard to put a year on it but it was probably sometimes between late 91 to early 93. And same way it seems to me that 90's ended around 01-03 so I guess you could consider any decade culturally ending couple years after it has actually ended...

Eh, Youtube was nothing in 2005...same with wikipedia. Fledgling stages for those.

Facebook was a phenomenon with the college students in 2005, and they were the only ones allowed on at that point.

The problem with this sort of topic is it's subjective and everyone is just trying to speak in generalities.

I can definitely recognize an "80s sound" in music, though. Even if I've never heard a song before, I can tell within the first few bars it's an 80s song. Well, the one exception to this is "What I Am" by Edie Brickell. That doesn't sound 80s.

Probably in mid-late 1991. The 80s were killed by Nirvana (I'm not saying that Nirvana is bad, but that was when 80s culture ended and 90s culture began in my opinion. Nirvana was a very good group that will never be forgotten).

Yeah, that was kind of a joke and of course I did not mean that literally. However, grunge is the first form of music that was considered distinctly 90s, and Nirvana is considered my most to be the flagship of grunge music, and "Smells like Teen Spirit" was their first mega-hit. The truth is that alot of 80s culture, including the music, persisted well into the chronological 90s. You still had a lot of what I call bubble gum rap with bands such a Bel-Biv-Devo, Another Bad Creation and Chris-Cross and of course DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were still going strong. Also many of the classic 80s hair bands were still filling stadiums through the early 90s and few new ones such as Slaughter and Firehouse even popped up in the early 90s and did very well. Maybe it would be more accurate to say the the cultural 90s began with the premier of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and that the two cultures coexisted for a few years (with is usually the case early in a decade). Honestly, I think the 80s persisted to at least 1993 and maybe into 1994 but I remember 80s culture being pretty much gone by 1995.

When did 2011 actually end? I think it lasted until March 2012.

When did Friday May 24 2013 actually end? I was up til 3 last night, so 3:30 AM May 25.

Cultural shifts are gradual. This seems to be a high-level concept for some people. It's much like age. A 20 year old is not much different from a 19 year old, from 18, 17, 16, 15, 14 etc. But 20 is vastly different from 14.

When I was about 26, I saw some teenagers on the street. I don't see teens very often, so I was stricken by the notion, "people born in the 90s are having sex!" That was my first and only "omg I'm getting old" moment. Going by the headlines I see on pop culture websites these days, many people are not able to get past this. Yeah, time is fucking passing. That's how the world works. It's really very simple.

Decade descriptors are sometimes good for describing a particular trend, be it in film or fashion or music. Taking it any more seriously than that and applying it to everything and dictating that some massive, all-encompassing shift was this day or that is something I just cannot understand. Respect the calendar rollover. Decades do not overlap. Nor do they act like walls that keep everything here and there, or bulldozers that push everything along.

Would you consider house music and new jack swing more of an 80s thing or a 90s thing? Stuff like Black Box, Technotronic, Neneh Cherry, Paula Abdul, Dee-lite, Milli Vanilli, C+C Music Factory, etc. That kind of music was cool for a few years there from 1989 to '93 but was pretty outdated after that.

The 80's ended in 1991. The Big Hair was faded out, Hair Metal faded out, and Grunge took over the charts.

The 90's ended when shitty boy bands, teen pop, and nu-metal took over the music scene in the late 90's/early 2000's.

The first Home Alone began filming in 1989? Anyways I don't think the first Home Alone has a super 80s or 90s vibe, overall it's definitely seen as a 90s thing but I see it somewhat in between myself. It looked very old during the mid/late 90s, the first one anyways.

Technically from 1980-1989. In practice/reality from 1980-1991.