Comments on: The Search Decade

Comments on: The Search Decade http://snarkmarket.com/2009/4591 The stomping grounds of Tim Carmody, Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. It's a long-running conversation about media, journalism, technology, cities, culture, design, books, music, movies, the future and the past. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:58:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Tim Carmody http://snarkmarket.com/2009/4591/comment-page-1#comment-7940 Tim Carmody Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:51:50 +0000 http://snarkmarket.com/?p=4591#comment-7940 I always like Aughts rather than Naughts. If anything, they're "the Naughty Aughties," although you're right, they weren't very naughty. "Search Decade" doesn't really solve this problem; it's an analogue of the "Me Decade," not "the 70s." Really, it's not so much the Search Decade as the Lost Decade. If generations and weekends can be lost, so can decades. Where's bin Laden? He's lost. What have we been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? We were lost. What the hell happened in New Orleans? Bush's face told the story -- we were lost. Where's that guy Paulie and Christopher tried to kill in the Pine Barrens? He's lost. What happened on Sept. 11th? We lost - and some of us more than others. What was the best show in broadcast TV this decade? LOST. A lot of people lost in the eighties and nineties, but other people benefitted. That's the decade we started with, but now all that value is gone, an illusion. Lost and irrecoverable. After the post-Cold War, new-economy end-of-history 90s, this decade gives us struggles but no narratives, disorientation without a slowing of velocity, the slow disintegration of old industries without an emergence of clear replacements. We're not searching. We're drifting. The fact that Google's been able to index most of the driftwood is a blip, an epiphenomenon. It's the symptom, not the sickness. I always like Aughts rather than Naughts. If anything, they’re “the Naughty Aughties,” although you’re right, they weren’t very naughty. “Search Decade” doesn’t really solve this problem; it’s an analogue of the “Me Decade,” not “the 70s.”

Really, it’s not so much the Search Decade as the Lost Decade. If generations and weekends can be lost, so can decades. Where’s bin Laden? He’s lost. What have we been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? We were lost. What the hell happened in New Orleans? Bush’s face told the story — we were lost. Where’s that guy Paulie and Christopher tried to kill in the Pine Barrens? He’s lost. What happened on Sept. 11th? We lost — and some of us more than others. What was the best show in broadcast TV this decade? LOST.

A lot of people lost in the eighties and nineties, but other people benefitted. That’s the decade we started with, but now all that value is gone, an illusion. Lost and irrecoverable. After the post-Cold War, new-economy end-of-history 90s, this decade gives us struggles but no narratives, disorientation without a slowing of velocity, the slow disintegration of old industries without an emergence of clear replacements. We’re not searching. We’re drifting. The fact that Google’s been able to index most of the driftwood is a blip, an epiphenomenon.

It’s the symptom, not the sickness.

]]>