I'd say that the overall transition from the Modern 2010's and Classic 2020's gets a bit rocky in terms of when it started AND ended because we're literally not far removed from the era at all, so I don't truly know and maybe my perception will change.
I was confident that August 2, 2018 was the start of the transition into 2020s culture because of the US launch of TikTok (a 2020s social media app), but honestly, I think that might be a bit of a stretch because:
- It wasn't immediately a mainstream hit.
- The Summer of 2018 was still very 10's.
It may be a potential date, but honestly, I think that's too early. So I will not include it.
If anyone does think it did start with the launch of Tiktok, let me know in the comments. The transition definitely started sometime in the 2018-2019 school year. And I think after further reflection, that the entire year of 2018, rather than a slight majority of it, belongs with the core 2010s, although barely, because you could argue late 2018 still being the start of the 2020s to some extent. I'd say March 2019 was the start of it and you'll see why.
When it ended is even more ambiguous to me. IMO, it has to be during the 2022-2023 school year with the rise of AI, thanks to the ChatGPT release at the earliest. Events like that, the Andrew Tate arrest in Bucharest, Romania, the Silicon Valley Bank filing for bankruptcy, and whatnot could also be considered. The latest is probably when COVID is no longer considered a worldwide pandemic. I know some would argue 2024 (and we'll see if the 2024 shift is big enough for the 2020s to fully begin by then), but overall, I feel like we're already in the core 2020s at this point. Honestly, I might shorten the transition tbh and go with ChatGPT because 2023 was the first year that truly felt like the 2020s.
I guess ultimately, maybe (mid to) late 2018-early 2019 could be like a "post-core" period that doesn't really fit in the transition but arguably could, and vice versa for late 2022-early (to mid) 2023 as being "pre-core", but maybe I'm thinking too hard about this. 2019-2022 definitely belong in the transition, though, and those years are what I'm going to focus on the most.
If anyone disagrees with when this period started, then let me know in the comments. And by the way, take this list with a grain of salt. I don't expect it to be perfect. In a few years, I might update this list. So the transition officially spans from March 1, 2019 with the release of Da Baby's debut album through November 30, 2022 with the release of ChatGPT.
This is gonna be much longer so this will probably be done in two or three parts. Let's begin.
https://preview.redd.it/zn20yn13pdec1.png?width=320&format=png&auto=webp&s=30de1dbf78e873939adb98fddcf36d2d6995cad6 The release of Da Baby's album 'Baby on Baby' - March 1, 2019
The release of Da Baby's debut album really skyrocketed him to being one of the most popular artists of the time, and the songs on this album sound noticeably different from the industry standard from 2016ish-2018. It sounded like something that would define the upcoming decade at the time. Now, not so much.
https://preview.redd.it/dexgbba2pdec1.png?width=335&format=png&auto=webp&s=e2d7633abef4c0b67f5cf5f40a9b6f102a66acab The release of the Airpods (2nd Generation) - March 20, 2019
Technically around the tail end of 2018, the 1st Generation Airpods became affordable and a bunch of people started to get their hands on it, but the 2nd Generation ones technically came out right as the spring began, effectively discontinuing the 1st Generation model. Throughout the first half of 2019, the Airpods became a huge trend and there were tons of memes surfacing of how "YOU'RE POOR" if you didn't have Airpods, since mostly upper middle-class kids had them at the time. Now, it's not cool anymore since literally everyone owns a pair (including me, which I'm using as I'm typing this lol). It would easily replace regular headphones and earplugs as the hearing device to play audio from in the 2020s.
https://preview.redd.it/yhki6091pdec1.png?width=313&format=png&auto=webp&s=5e17043b80773a17d63f4b8d53c74d7ee3f2e972 The release of Billie Eilish's song "Bad Guy" - March 29, 2019
Billie Eilish's debut album
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, followed by her #1 hit "Bad Guy" would release the same day. She was already popular in 2018 but her song "Bad Guy" would essentially make her the hottest breakout star in Hollywood, reaching levels of fame that Lady Gaga reached 10 years prior. The song had a mix of electropop, dance-pop, and trap-pop. Her album in general also included pop, avant-pop, and art pop. Her music was very different than a lot of the mainstream music at the time, and sounded like a new decade of music was approaching us at the time. 2019 was definitely the year of Billie Eilish.
https://preview.redd.it/vujs9a20pdec1.png?width=313&format=png&auto=webp&s=1efd717f70a412aa9663ea95af1ee26ea67db2d7 The release of Lil Nas X's song "Old Town Road" (Billy Ray Cyrus remix) - April 5, 2019
The reason why I'm doing the remix instead of Lil Nas X's original solo version that released on December 3, 2018 is because that one wasn't really that popular. It was around but wasn't getting much traction, and nobody remembers that version anyway. Columbia Records got a hold of the song and Billy Ray Cyrus decided to do collab on it, and it blew the freak up in the spring of 2019. This song would legit skyrocket Lil Nas X to mainstream success instantly. Lil Nas X seemed to be one of the artists to launch us into the 2020s era of music.
https://preview.redd.it/i8aaco0zodec1.png?width=1382&format=png&auto=webp&s=3ca81944ba4efa742cfa36cb53aa1b3ed522c2ae Avengers: Endgame releases in theaters - April 26, 2019
This movie was truly the end of the original MCU era that started in 2008, as well as the original Avengers era that began with their first movie in 2012. The Avengers finally defeated Thanos, Iron Man sacrifices himself to save the Avengers, resulting in his death, and his funeral would see the Chris Evans version of Captain America that we are familiar with ride off into the sunset, passing the torch Anthony Mackie's character. If there was the latest possible time that you would want to stretch the core 2010s, this right here is it. You can't further than that.
https://preview.redd.it/1muiwx6yodec1.png?width=2560&format=png&auto=webp&s=049789da654b9e2842befc590a346c3e1a538257 Game of Thrones comes to an end - May 19, 2019
The end of another HBO classic
Game of Thrones was the basically the general end of the 2010s HBO age (despite
The Walking Dead still airing afterwards) and the further dying of 2010s television and a new era was upon us. The series unfortunately would also be tarnished because of his horrible series finale, which sucks but it is what it is.
https://preview.redd.it/fd7vsbexodec1.png?width=2048&format=png&auto=webp&s=ac81c256e2ac22ba2a7d9e54b63a0421b7ccb022 The Toronto Raptors win the NBA Finals - June 13, 2019
This NBA Finals win is very notable to mention because this represents the first time that LeBron James, the face of 2010s NBA, missed the NBA Finals in 9 years, since 2010, and the Kawhi-led Toronto Raptors defeat the Golden State Warriors superteam, winning their first-ever championship, effectively ending the GSW dynasty (at least temporarily), killing off the 2010s era of superteams (THANK GOD!), as both Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant would go out of the series with injuries, resulting in Klay being out for nearly 3 years and KD leaving Golden State and heading to Brooklyn, missing the entire 2019-2020 season. And later on, Stephen Curry would get injured in the next season, missing a full year, leading to the Golden State Warriors being the literal worst team in the league along with the Cleveland Cavaliers, something that was literally not imaginable a year and a half prior when both teams were still at the top. Bonus fact: Kawhi would immediately get traded to the Los Angeles Clippers. So much for being on top, Toronto.
https://preview.redd.it/j5feazewodec1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=03dbecc8a085aab90c927e5c4875e857c122d3d6 Euphoria premieres on HBO - June 16, 2019
Speaking of HBO, a new show called Euphoria debuts, starting a new era for HBO. This show would become one of the most popular shows to watch in the early 2020s, as another teen drama where the characters go through extreme situations.
https://preview.redd.it/1pnssjevodec1.png?width=1242&format=png&auto=webp&s=57a69b4fe36b66c3193a47f565bfce41e7112acc The death of Cameron Boyce - July 6, 2019
Star of "Descendants", "Jessie", and "Grown Ups" Cameron Boyce would pass away at the tender age of 20. This was a huge blow to the fans of those franchises (mostly teenagers), and IMO, 2010s culture as well because Cameron Boyce defined a lot of 2010s kids' childhoods in those roles and his death would close the chapter to a lot of their childhoods in a brutal way.
https://preview.redd.it/oypt7uduodec1.png?width=220&format=png&auto=webp&s=a1f74802c34da71e748f9b317237b797fceb521d The Boys premieres on Amazon Prime - July 26, 2019
Highly-acclaimed show
The Boys would debut on Amazon Prime in the summer of 2019 and would become one of the most popular shows in the early 2020s. This show would represent the beginning of 'superhero fatigue' as people are tired of a seeing a "goody-two shoes" superhero kicking bad guys' asses and saving people, and this series gives us a real plot twist, with a character who looks like your average superhero but he's the true villain, while the characters who look like typical villains are the real heroes of the story. Crazy, right? And this is a streaming show, by the way. This just shows how big streaming would become, going into the next decade.
https://preview.redd.it/r7cd2vktodec1.png?width=240&format=png&auto=webp&s=36a1da935e6ce10d49e69b58c327bfc96b081ca5 The growing popularity of TikTok - roughly Summer 2019
Launching in the US in the previous summer (2018), TikTok would experience some popularity throughout the 2018-2019 school year with trends like "Hit or Miss", e-boys and e-girls, and whatever cringy song-dance trend blew up (all my friends considered it cringe at the time), but around the summer of 2019, the app would really gain some major notoriety, and by the 2019-2020 school year, it would become mainstream with the "Ok Boomer" girl, the D'Amelio sisters (Charli & Dixie), Addison Rae, Bryce Hall, and the Hype House in general.
https://preview.redd.it/38d3i2lsodec1.png?width=316&format=png&auto=webp&s=05a326967f85cf3b03f84a4448599d865441af9b The release of Kanye West's album 'Jesus Is King' - October 25, 2019
The release of this album would represent a shift in Kanye's creative direction, incorporating Christianity into his music, in a more reverent way rather than mocking it, most likely due to his supposed conversion to the Christian faith.
https://preview.redd.it/ffzdl9brodec1.png?width=759&format=png&auto=webp&s=9c718e95b6856939521a5e62888e2491dc0d70b8 The launch of Disney+ - November 12, 2019
The launch of Disney+ would be the turning point to when streaming OFFICIALLY took over cable television (or COVID was), and truly begin the streaming era, heading into 2020, and it would not be the only new streaming platform to follow. This one would really make Disney Channel irrelevant as they add nearly their entire Disney catalog into this one streaming platform, and more, as well as debuting this first exclusive Disney+ show
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.
https://preview.redd.it/5temcedqodec1.png?width=850&format=png&auto=webp&s=d7a21066d57a222082025fb018ef2c386009362a The death of Juice WRLD - December 8, 2019
Soundcloud rapper Juice WRLD would die at the tender age of 21 after suffering a suffering a seizure from a drug overdose in an airport in Chicago, Illinois. His death would be a blow to the hip-hop community. XXXTentacion's death was just as a big and resulted in the beginning of the end of the original Soundcloud rap, and it was just hanging by a thread afterward but Juice's death was the complete death of the original Soundcloud rap movement, as a community, as Patrick Cc: would describe himself. Hip-hop was going through a very transitional period around this time.
https://preview.redd.it/1wdjhk3podec1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=38c911c268b92347c098ffb18ed334e09bd495e0 COVID-19 is officially discovered in a lab in Wuhan, China - December 12, 2019
A cluster of patients in China’s Hubei Province, in the city of Wuhan, begin to experience the symptoms of an atypical pneumonia-like illness that does not respond well to standard treatments. This would be the first cases of this new discovery that happened in December 2019, hence the name "COVID-19", as it happened in the year 2019.
https://preview.redd.it/12wf3j9oodec1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=14308d3a4399ee1c4723aecbc691fd1932509d5b The assassination of Qasem Soleimani - January 3, 2020
As the year of 2020 had begun, not even 3 days in, an Iranian military officer named Qasem Soleimani, who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), would be assassinated around 1:00 a.m. local time by U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport. This would cause a lot of fear among US citizens, fearing that we would go into World War III (this was the beginning of the WW3 fears that would be consistent with the 2020s decade so far), and teenagers would start WW3 memes on TikTok, trying to laugh off a situation that seemed very serious at the time, but it ultimately was nothing.
https://preview.redd.it/jfh7odbmodec1.png?width=733&format=png&auto=webp&s=09b2038f4fcad948449dfc2b0c9fc78f93c8ecf6 The unexpected death of Kobe Bryant - January 26, 2020
Not only did we start off the year on a negative note with the WW3 memes, but this year would get even darker and it wouldn't even be a month yet. The 41 year-old retired NBA star and his 13 year-olddaughter Gianna were among nine people in a helicopter that crashed near Calabasas, California. A college baseball coach and his wife and daughter were also killed. Every single person who was on that helicopter died that fateful day. This news would shock the basketball world in a way that has never been seen before. And not even the basketball world, it shocked all of Hollywood and the entertainment world. Screw it, the entire world. It was that big. The funeral a month later would have a huge viewership. I still can't believe that Kobe is gone to be honest.
https://preview.redd.it/vn2imn6lodec1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=8e4639f1ef160657ecc060c2c450d346217090af The death of Pop Smoke - February 19, 2020
Pop Smoke's death would be another shock to the hip-hop world in the winter of 2020. He was murdered in his LA home for his jewelry by a 14 year-old teenager. He was killed before he could even hit his prime, which sucks. Juice WRLD's death killed a whole musical genre, but in the case of Pop Smoke's death, it was the complete opposite. His death would cause drill music to skyrocket in popularity, especially by the summer of 2020. He would become even more popular posthumously, collaborating with some of the most established artists.
https://preview.redd.it/g1g4zkhjodec1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=9c22d3801685724522dad6635bcb7c7f88f9a1a1 The release of Call of Duty: Warzone - March 10, 2020
This Call of Duty game would be one of the most popular console games of the quarantine era (besides GTA V, Fortnite, and NBA 2K20), keeping millions of teenagers occupied throughout the year, being home all day.
https://preview.redd.it/y0v4rcbiodec1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=f286ab17cbd74a65c4c94825049532868f0de98a The WHO declares the coronavirus as a worldwide pandemic - March 11, 2020
Dubbed as 'The Day Everything Changed Forever', Wednesday, March 11 would be that day in the 'Year From Hell' that is 2020. First of all, before we get to the obvious, Joe Biden won the primaries in a few states the previous night, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual abuse, and president Trump bans travel from Europe.
Now for the moment(s) you've all been waiting for: Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson test positive for coronavirus (I say the 'coronavirus' because back in 2020, it was more popular to call it that instead of COVID-19 until like a year later) and then Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert apparently catches the coronavirus as well, postponing the OKC Thunder game to a later date. It was already taken seriously in the months leading up to it as the first US case was found on January 21, and thousands of schools would close in the weeks following up to it, but March 11 was when the WHO would globally declare it everywhere, resulting in March 13 being the very last day of in-person school for K-12 schools across the country. March 15 would be the first official day of the lockdowns that would last a whole two years.
This is considered the de-facto TURNING POINT as to when the 2020s culturally begun for most people. Nothing more needs to be said about that.
Other events that also had an impact that happened around this time period (give/take):
- Musical.ly and Chinese app TikTok merge and is now titled 'TikTok' (August 1, 2018)
- Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse releases in theaters (December 14, 2018)
- NLE Choppa's "Shotta Flow" ft. Blueface releases (January 11, 2019)
- Steven Universe comes to an end (January 21, 2019)
- Big Bang Theory comes to an end (May 16, 2019), putting an end to a 2010s-defining show.
- Rod Wave's song "Heart on Ice" releases (May 31, 2019), representing a change into melodic rap becoming more popular.
- New Orleans Pelicans center Anthony Davis gets traded to the Los Angeles Lakers (June 15, 2019) for Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart and three first-round picks.
- The 2019 NBA Draft (June 20, 2019) @ the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, New York, with the top two draft picks (Zion Williamson & Ja Morant), being propped as the future of the NBA for the next decade.
- The original The Amazing World of Gumball series comes to an end (June 24, 2019), minus the special series of episodes afterwards.
- Roddy Ricch's album Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial releases (December 6, 2019), with his hit "The Box" coming out the same day.
- Doja Cat's hit-single "Say So" releases (January 17, 2020), which would be the one of the first out of many songs that blew up thanks to TikTok, and also started the trend of retro-pop that would be popular in the 2020s decade with its 70s and 80s undertones (the song was pop, disco, and pop-rap).
- Fashion goes through a noticeable change, becoming more oversized and loose again.
This is the conclusion of the part 1. Stay tuned for the part 2, which will get really juicy.
"But wait, OP, why are you continuing? The 2010s are dead, remember? COVID killed it." Not quite. The 2010s still needed to fully shed off, but I do understand the severity of COVID-19.
I hope you enjoyed it and I would appreciate it if you would comment on these, as well as the other two.
Part 2:
March 2020 to February 2022 Part 3:
March 2022 to May 2023