Will we miss this decade in future?

A reflection on memory, decline, and the paradox of progress.

Nostalgia is a curious thing. We long for moments that were never perfect, yet feel sacred in hindsight. The 1980s brought us synth-pop, VHS tapes, Saturday morning cartoons, and the Cold War. The '90s gave us grunge, analog adolescence, and the golden age of gaming. The early 2000s, awkward as they were, still offered something raw, exploratory, a pre-social media innocence. These decades, flawed and fractured as they were, are now wrapped in warm tones and filtered light.

But what will we remember about this decade? Will we one day wax poetic about a time when online spaces were filled with TikTok dance trends, algorithmic doomscrolling, and emotionally bankrupt influencers selling crypto or skincare in the same breath? Will we feel a warm pang in our chest at the memory of AI-generated content, synthetic friendships, and culture wars fought in 280-character bursts?

The very idea feels absurd. But the darker question is: what if we do?

Memory and decline

There’s a growing sense, quiet, but palpable, that something is off. That something fundamental has been lost. Not just in a “we’ve grown up” sense, but in a deeper, cultural, existential way. Entertainment is louder, but emptier. Products are faster, but flimsier. Information is abundant, but wisdom is scarce.

And then there's music. Once a reflection of societal spirit and artistic brilliance, music has become algorithmic, synthetic, and disposable. Where are the layered compositions, the complex structures, the emotional journeys that used to define an album? Replaced, mostly, by shallow loops, overproduced vocals, and soulless beats designed to trend for a week and vanish. The idea of an artist pouring their soul into a record feels almost quaint, talent replaced by virality, studio musicians replaced by presets. Music, once a sacred craft, is now often just sonic wallpaper.

Since the 2010s, we’ve witnessed a peculiar phenomenon: the simultaneous acceleration of technology and the dumbing down of everything else. Phones became smarter, while the content we consume on them became more forgettable. Video games grew more cinematic, yet somehow lost the soul of those pixelated classics that made us feel something real. Films now cost hundreds of millions to make, but many feel like corporate paste, churned out by committee.

What’s left behind is a culture of immediacy and disposability. Eternal beta services. Albums that sound like AI was the producer. Content that vanishes the moment it scrolls out of view. And yet… it’s all marketed as progress.

We’ve confused abundance with quality. There’s more of everything, more shows, more music, more platforms, more tools, and yet it feels like we’re being offered less. The magic of discovery has been replaced by endless recommendation feeds. The sense of wonder we once felt browsing through albums at a record store or flipping through a game manual has been replaced by swipe fatigue. Even physical design, once an art in itself, has succumbed to minimalist sameness, sterile and soulless.

There was a time when things were allowed to breathe, when artists, developers, and creators had the freedom to fail, to experiment, to build slowly. Now, everything must be instantly successful. Test groups decide movie endings. TikTok trends dictate what a song should sound like. Tech launches are prioritized not on readiness, but on buzz. And behind it all, marketing departments spin mediocrity into miracle, promising revolutions that never arrive.

The irony is that we’ve never had more power as consumers, more options, more access, more voice, yet somehow, we’re served a watered-down version of culture, curated not by taste or talent but by analytics. Nostalgia hits harder not just because of memory, but because it reminds us of a time when things were made to last, not just physically, but emotionally. We weren’t just entertained. We were moved. And now, with all our progress, it’s fair to ask: moved by what?

The age of manufactured memory

One of the most sinister consequences of this cultural downgrade is that we may not even notice it happening. We are being taught to remember things that weren’t meaningful, and to forget what was. Memory is no longer personal; it is curated, fed back to us through “On This Day” algorithms and nostalgia reboots engineered to exploit sentimentality.

It’s not that there is no beauty in today’s world. It’s that it’s increasingly rare to stumble upon something authentic, something handcrafted, something human. And when we do, it feels like a glitch in the system, a reminder that things used to be different, and maybe better.

We are also living through a time where the past is constantly romanticized, and the present never feels like enough. Ironically, we’re obsessed with nostalgia now, more than ever before. But nostalgia used to be a symptom of distance. Today, it’s a business model. Everything is a remix. Everything is a reboot. Everything is a meme.

If this is the Golden Age...

And so, the uncomfortable thought: what if, ten years from now, we look back at this time as the "good old days"? What would that mean? Either we’ll have grown numb to the cultural decay, or worse, the future will make today seem rich and vibrant by comparison.

It’s a chilling idea. Because if the 2020s are as good as it gets, then what awaits us isn’t dystopia, it’s apathy. The slow erosion of joy, curiosity, and meaning. A culture so busy optimizing and innovating that it forgets how to feel. A civilization with access to everything and understanding of nothing.

Art might still exist, but without friction, depth, or soul. A playlist of sounds instead of songs. A stream of content instead of stories. Films made to please the algorithm. Books written to be skimmed. The timeless slowly replaced by the timely. The emotional traded for the viral.

And in this world, nostalgia becomes a form of protest, not just a longing for the past, but a rejection of a future built on detachment. Remembering becomes resistance. Because in remembering what we once felt, we’re reminded of what we’re now missing: the messiness, the texture, the imperfection that made life real.

Still, there is hope

Yet, somewhere beneath the noise, there are people who remember. People who still build, write, craft, and question. Who say no to clickbait culture. Who unplug, even for a while. Who create things with soul. You may be one of them.

Perhaps the legacy of this decade won’t be its tech, its wars, or its influencers. Perhaps it will be the resistance. The quiet refusal to accept a synthetic life. The choice to slow down, be present, and make something that matters, even if it doesn’t trend.

This quiet defiance lives in small acts. In the musician recording analog. In the writer who chooses depth over engagement metrics. In the designer who values integrity over virality. In the parent who encourages their child to question instead of conform. It lives in independent bookstores, open-source software, handwritten letters, and long conversations without a screen in sight.

These are not grand revolutions. They won’t be televised or streamed. But they are, in their own way, acts of rebellion. Because in a world that tells you to be faster, louder, and more optimized, choosing to be slower, truer, and more human is radical.

We will not stop the wave of progress. Nor should we. But we can guide its direction, not by screaming louder, but by anchoring deeper. Not by chasing virality, but by building what lasts. Culture is not just what we consume. It’s what we choose to preserve.

That is what will be remembered. If we’re lucky. If we care enough to make it so.