Favorite year(s) from the 2010s?

PizzaW0lf

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Right now, we are in the early 2020s and I think there's enough distance to really see what the 2010s were all about. The 2010s were pretty crazy but really what decade isn't?

Anyway, I have 3 years from this decade that I'm really fond of. Now some caveats, my list will be very gamer-centric as to me, that's the subject I had the most awareness of in the 2010s. However, I can also touch on Music and politics/culture somewhat. But please feel free to add in anything else to a year review like technology and stuff like that.

2017
This year was honestly amazing and I don't remember hating it all that much. It felt like for a moment things were healing and everything was booming. Japanese game devs ROSE THE FUDGE UP this year and showed the industry who's boss. I also felt like this is when 3D platformers and mascots made their grand return after a decade of FPSs and games like that. Bright colours were finally back and dominated. I would also argue this is when indie games peaked. And on top of that, we finally saw gamers demand to not be so nickeled and dimed in the way of the battlefront 2 loot box controversy and it actually brought SOMETHING in terms of change. maybe not a lot but it was something. Also, AMD made some processors this year.

Culture? I love this year simply because it was the peak of Trump's Twitter and it was crazy and honestly hilarious. Twitter will never be the same without his tweets. Also, fidget spinners were pretty neat. And one last note to touch upon, this was the year that I actually LIKED the simplistic cyber minimalism aesthetic before it became so overused. It looked very fresh, clean, and to the point. But now I hate it LOL. Also, remember the net neutrality apocalypse? It was one of those rare moments where it felt like we were actually UNITED on something.

Music? I will be honest, I think the music this year is strangely forgettable and I don't remember much from it. So that's one thing about this year that I don't like.

In conclusion, I think 2017 is my personal favourite year from the 2010s.

2019
This year was awesome for me in terms of self improvement and I was really happy this year. Very optimistic this year. I made major advancements, I got out of my shell more often and made more friends that I'm still around with today. Games were also VERY solid this year and the 10-year Minecraft celebration was awesome. I remember the politics around this year being kinda focused on Climate-related things. I think of this year as the Optimism before dread (2020 and Covid). Area 51 raid meme was also just.....perfect and beautiful.

2011
This year was AWESOME for games. Minecraft officially releases, Terraria comes out, Valve still made games (LOL), Skyrim came out and blew our collective minds and for once... a 3D sonic game was actually.... good!?

Also, the music felt FUN this year. There are so many bops I still remember today and actually like. I also think this year is when YouTube peaked.

So those are my favourite years from the 2010s. What are yours?
 
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remember_summer_days

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Oddly enough I also remember liking 2017 a bit. It was the year when I started getting off my depression and witnessing Trump's rise to power and the collective left-wing meltdown was hilarious. 2017 was, probably for a long time, a time where the right-wing seemed to dominate the online culture wars. Nowadays I'm tired of all that sort of political nonsense, but as a teen seeing your side win felt epic. I used to be a hardcore tankie before then, I'm not really sure why I sympathized with MAGA so much at the time. I think it's because of how sincere Trump seemed, it felt very refreshing.

And of course 2011-2012, I feel like those were my final years of childhood. 2013-2016 were hell for me. Coming home from school to play Minecraft and watch anime was a feeling hard to beat. At least in the confines of nostalgia.
 
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ECHETLAEUS

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2010-11 i dont remember a lot, except the nerf wars i had in my neighborhood with my friends
2012- first contact with conspiracies, because of 2012 end of the world stuff...... cool conspiracies like bermuda triangles and revelation( i was still a kid..... )
2013- nice and awesome summer, nice memories with friends and a lot of good nostalgic gaming experiance( cod finest hour, pes, gta 3 gta vc, gta sa, cod world at war)
2016- first contact with girls, i started playing almost all ps3 best titles, nice summer
2017-2019- strange years and many toxic behaviors from others, many anger and sadness, also i started hearing many 90s rap, but thankfully stopped
But this decade taught me a lot, gave me many many memories and the best lessons.
 
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2010 was the happiest year of the decade, if not my whole life. I spent the entire 00s in a depressive haze due to a lack of guiding figures in life, leaving me stunted in some ways (I do miss the 00s, but it's more for the potential, not the life I really had). You know how people will baww that they missed out on teenage love? I nearly missed out on teenage friendships. But in late 09, after taking a class over something interesting, I finally met some people I could connect with. By the following year I had gotten close enough to them that I realized "holy shit, these people are my friends". For the first time I felt self-confident. I had an idea on what I wanted to do in life and was motivated to practice my creative skills more. Also got a decent laptop for my birthday, upgrading from the 1998 toaster that somehow got me through the last decade. Later that summer I got into Minecraft and watched it develop.

2013 was also pretty good. Friends and I started meeting up more often, got to see some live bands for the first time, all in all it was pretty exciting.

But then 2014 and onward were hell. Everything got politicized, friends started using Tumblr, they got swept into that site's insanity, and we slowly drifted apart. I should've done something but I was just too afraid of losing them. The only good things afterward were just achieving financial independence and moving out.
 
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ECHETLAEUS

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2010 was the happiest year of the decade, if not my whole life. I spent the entire 00s in a depressive haze due to a lack of guiding figures in life, leaving me stunted in some ways (I do miss the 00s, but it's more for the potential, not the life I really had). You know how people will baww that they missed out on teenage love? I nearly missed out on teenage friendships. But in late 09, after taking a class over something interesting, I finally met some people I could connect with. By the following year I had gotten close enough to them that I realized "holy shit, these people are my friends". For the first time I felt self-confident. I had an idea on what I wanted to do in life and was motivated to practice my creative skills more. Also got a decent laptop for my birthday, upgrading from the 1998 toaster that somehow got me through the last decade. Later that summer I got into Minecraft and watched it develop.

2013 was also pretty good. Friends and I started meeting up more often, got to see some live bands for the first time, all in all it was pretty exciting.

But then 2014 and onward were hell. Everything got politicized, friends started using Tumblr, they got swept into that site's insanity, and we slowly drifted apart. I should've done something but I was just too afraid of losing them. The only good things afterward were just achieving financial independence and moving out.
The fact that you were a teenager in the end 00s and early 10s, is awesome, i believe these years people were more social and less absorbed by technology compared to today.
 
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no_chill

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2016 for me definitely.

Everything was perfect.

Old enough for clubbing, but not too old that friends had families or carrees and stuff that would lead them to cancel plans or going home early.

YouTube was the best with the most creative and entertaining creators possible, filthyfrank, pyrocynical etc

Meme culture was at its peak, my most favourite videos and memes are from 2016-2018

Social Media was still based

Everyone was hype and feeling good

Some of my most fond memories are from this time.

Every weekend was insane, I got too know the most genuine people ever.

I thought 2018 was bad, I struggled with depression and lack of motivation, but if I ever knew what would happen the next years I would have cherished every second of this time. Compared to now, 2018 with depression was a paradise...
 
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Itubaino

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2012 wins it for me, I had purchased my first videogame: Xbox 360, watched tones of videos and played hours on Minecraft and Habbo Hotel trying to get a gf hahaha, I had lots of friends on school that came over to my house and we used to organize beyblade championships and nerf wars on the neighbourhood, my country wasn't collapsing and jobs were on every corner, people hardly ever fought or argued over politics and there was a optimistic vibe on the entire country that this decade we were going to finally and properly getting developed, also the mayan end of the world was a really huge theory back then, cellphones and social media were rarely used or purchased and my football/soccer team managed to be continental and world champion that year, really sweet times...

Unhappily I can not see a bright future for the country or the world on short/medium term but I have hope that we are going to overturn this on 10-15 years

.
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elia925-6

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2017. One of the best years Nintendo ever had. New console that still goes strong with the longest lifespan. Zelda and mario in the same year. It was the next big thing in gaming. The ability to play aaa games in the go. I've got one.
 
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no_chill

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Correct me if I'm wrong but, isn't that the year the Vaporwave movement started? Or at least got attention? If so that's pretty cool NGL.

Yes somewhat. I think it started 2014 around but only in 2015 and 2016 it really gained online exposure on >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk and youtube
 
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I was born in 1999, so I was a teenager in the 2010s. I remember the 2010s as technologically mostly great up until 2015/16 or so, but personally unstable and torturingly painful, getting worse by the year.

I think for me the favourite year was 2013. I don't know. Maybe it's because it was in the sweet spot of not too many smartphones, not that much social media. I just feel it was the least awful year of the 2010s for me. I also went to my childhood vacation house for the last time in 2013, before it got sold. I would feed the street cats when not at school, those cats are long gone now. There was that black one with a white spot on the chest that I called Saori and loved a ton. I miss her. Wish I could've taken her in, but my then younger cats wouldn't have liked her I think. Plus she was used to freedom.

2011 too, although I was bullied at school, I had friends at the youth center my mother was working at on Wednesdays, and again, not so much tech, social media, and all. I remember playing Wii in my room, spending time playing The Sims 3 on my beat up Vaio pink laptop until late at night, and RPing a sort of Happy Tree Friends fanfiction taking place in stables with a friend over Messenger. I would call my bestie over the phone like in the old times (no one else did that, but I loved taking the landline and calling her home lol, did this at 8 also when my parents would not be home), I drew over those lined sheets you use at school... hell despite family issues and the bullying, I was still pretty comfy and happy when I was by myself or with friends. And yes... no social media. Or hardly. Most of it was Facebook.

2012 was the year I moved to the south and it was.. painful. Bullying, family issues, extremely unstable relationships with others, start of self-harm. Positive: my 2hu phase.

2014 was empty. Just empty. I don't have many memories of that year, it was... empty.

2015 to 2017 were definitely the worst for me. My mental health was at its lowest, getting worse by the year, and I went insane from about February to May/June 2015. Like, insane. I'm talking psychotically insane to the point I have no idea how I didn't end up in a psych ward. On the Internet, 2016 is when everything started to go down for me. Everything getting political, people starting to get toxic af to each other, the gender madness thing, it's definitely then that it started getting to shit. I came close to killing myself in 2017.

2018 was a year that started with abuse and ended with emptiness. Also the year I dropped out of college. The university was blocked nearly all the time anyway, so...

2019: mostly researching the crap out of Sri Lanka and struggling with mental health. I got better-ish at the end and ditched social media around the last days of 2019 iirc, if not early 2020 just before covid.
 
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Hmm, an interesting question. Let me review the years real quick...

  • 2010-2012: I don't remember much but I started playing RuneScape around that time. The world was also arguably more chill back then.
  • 2013: I remember this being a great year for gaming, but not much else.
  • 2014: Where I live, social media and smartphones started becoming prevalent on that year. Aside for that I don't remember much.
  • 2015: Huh I was playing RuneScape I guess.
  • 2016: This is around the time period I started really engaging with r*ddit, which in retrospective was very bad. I also became somewhat famous for my Zelda 1 remake in that year.
  • 2017: IIRC I started making game on that year and made great strides in RuneScape datamining. Overall pretty good.
  • 2018: I don't even remember what happened lol
  • 2019: Archived data show this was the last year I really enjoyed RS, but aside from that idk.
I guess my "tier list" would be 2017 > 2019 > 2016 > pre 2014.
 

punishedgnome

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Hard to pick one. I did a shitload of adulting in the 2010s.

2010- Starting dating my wife

2012 - Bought my first house.

2015- First kid born.

2017- Moved to current house.

If I'm going to ignore personal milestones and just go with some combination of nostalgia, culture and pure hedonistic enjoyment, I'll go with 2012-2013. I was into smoking weed, camping/hiking/fishing, playing my Wii U, I got my first flashcart (A Mega Everdrive) and I liked watching ADHD on Fox. It's also probably the time in my life where I had the most money and time to just piss away as my first house was tiny, low maintenance and dirt cheap(IIRC my mortgage was around $600/month), I was driving an old junker that was paid off and I didn't have kids yet. Obviously, you know, I'm happy now, but just in terms of nostalgia factor.
 
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I went to high school and uni in the 2000s so that decade generally resonates alot more with me than the 2010s.

That being said 2012 was a great year

- Got a decent job for the first time and all of the freedom it afforded
- Was still close to my group of friends from uni (we've since drifted apart for various reasons except for my one best friend)
- Got a cute girlfriend at the time
- Smartphones were starting to become huge and so although everyone had one it wasn't yet completely dominating people's lives. I mainly still saw it as a texting and calling device.
- Cool little tech that fit very short lived niches still existed like eeepc netbooks
- Free to air TV was still king
 
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Emmy Fitz

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2010 - Second year of junior high. It was aight.
2011 through 2015 - High school. Sucked. Made lots of friends but had a lot of mental health problems and was a pretty edgy and shitty person to be around.
2015 through 2018 - Film school, the best years for me easily. Made tons of friends, had endless creative motivation, and matured into a better person.
2018 through 2020 - University. Sucked. Changed my major and went to a rich kid school where I didn't fit in. Dropped out right as Covid loomed and spent the rest of the year doing absolutely nothing.
 
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