That's the kind of "question" one asks when they are trying to make somebody out to be stupid. It's a natural tactic for somebody to try when they are upset, but it usually doesn't work very well. On top of which, "So in other words" and "Gotcha" are clear indicators that the question mark is sarcastic.

Well, I already know that you don't understand nuance. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you expect other people don't, either.

So in other words, I'm misguided because of something you pretended I said. Gotcha.

2007 and 2009 were in different ballparks. ... different presidents is a substantial change

One was a democrat, one was a republican. One was related for a former president, the other was recognized as the first black president.

If I said 3 + 3 = 6, would that just be an opinion too? If I said France is a country, is that just an opinion too?

Pong and Pacman generated nationwide crazes for years and changed socializing and hobbies for significant portion of the population. Angry Birds did not do that. It was a craze for a month or two, prior to which smart phones were already hugely popular. Angry Birds did not sell hardware to more than a handful of people. It is not historically significant. People STILL care about Pacman today. No one will care about Angry Birds in 2038.

As to your thing about presidents, that fact alone also is not transformative. I don't think there was all that much difference between 87 and 89 (Reagan and Bush), or 76 and 78 (Ford and Carter).


Nooo...it's an opinion that party and family and race of presidents bear as much importance as you are ascribing.

It's pretty rare for any one year to be so drastically different in an overarching scale than two years before or after that they should be termed different periods. Such rare examples would be: [before and after the Great Depression started] [before and after WWII ended] [before and after MTV started broadcasting]. Do you think that the first inauguration of Barack Obama is as important as those things? At the time, I thought that it could possibly become so. But now, I don't think it is. The NSA surveillance business in the news over the past few days is something that started in its current nature in 2006. US still has troops overseas, wages still in stagnation, racial strife and urban segregation still plague the nation, etc. I love to listen to Obama speak, but US is largely in the same place it was six years ago. So is most of the rest of the world. I wish that were untrue as much as anybody, but it's not. And most changes that have occurred (such as Greece financial crisis, microtransactions empowering poor people in Africa/crowdsourcing, Windows were not centralized in 2008 or 09, and had little if anything to do with PotUS.

Taking the short view: we've had the real estate collapse, but anybody who cares and couldn't see that coming in 2006 wasn't very observant. I think Wii was significant in 06, but that also fizzled after it was inundated with shovelware. Anyway, era delineation inherently requires the long view, and I am not convinced that a single video game and a new president mean the adjacent years are "different ballparks". You could be right, but your examples are poor. Even if they were better, they are not numerous or comprehensive enough to prove your assertions.

Welcome, "new member". Thanks in advance for constructing your bold claims with intelligence and care.

Stake, stop responding to the fool. He only keeps coming back because he has a sickness for needing to get the last word and make others agree with him. If you stop responding, he'll go away.

for reasons unknown.

Stake, stop responding to the fool...

I think it's difficult to pinpoint the beginning and end of the cultural 90s.

For example, Home Alone and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air were definitley around by the beginning of 1991. Then again, Macgyver ran into 1992, and Cheers into 1993.

Grunge had died culturally by 1998 but the pre-9/11 era has a very different feel to say, 2005/06.

Shake N Steak I actually agree with you for once. I see little difference in the zeitgeist over the past 8 years or so. Just a continuation of the same things. I think you'd have to go back to 2004 to find trendlines measurably different from those of now. In 2004 the Internet was more basic and there weren't (m)any smartphones, and the pop culture was still largely following the same trends it was during the mid to late 90s.