Culture

It is the end of the decade or is it?

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An acquaintance posted on their Facebook feed how they were taking a break from social media for the rest of the decade and that they could be reached solely via text. I immediately was amazed that this particular person would go offline for a year. Then I realized that they meant that the upcoming December 31st was the end of the decade. Then I realized how silly it was for them to post that they were taking a break from social media for the rest of the decade considering they meant less than 10 days. I truly don’t get how people think other people care about that. That is silly, right?

Regardless of such a post’s reflection on our collective ego in a social media world, I did do a double take as I didn’t quite think that the decade ended in 2019. I’m one of those, I suppose, who feels that a decade starts in the year ending in “1”. But who am I to say? I did decide to look up how the experts (and who would that be) opined on this given matter.

Lo and behold, I came to find out this is greatly debated. The Farmer’s Almanac states that the new decade will start in 2021. That’s what I had thought. The naval observatory also falls in that camp. But others argue a decade should start with “0”. Most of these others are not experts in the vein of the Farmer’s Almanac. But everyone is an expert on everything nowadays. And, why not? If everything is goggleable then knowledge attainment can be everywhere.

Back to the matter at hand. We must know so that we can party appropriately this coming New Year’s eve. People can party like its 1999 and go all out. Or they can just party and welcome just another non-monumental year.

Does the upcoming January 1, 2020 begin a new decade? Numerous news articles have tried to tackle this and have, frankly, sounded a bit like psychologists. Both perspectives are right and most humans prefer round, even numbers. Thus, despite the Farmer’s Almanac declaration that the decade starts 2021, most people believe that 2020 is the start of the new decade. A nice round number. It’s comforting. It’s immediate. And, popular opinion will carry the day (and parties) on this one.

I suppose we now will argue about what to call this new decade.

I further suppose, I will now have to do one of those decade retrospectives such as best dessert of the decade or best pair of shoes. The latter will be a tough call for me but I believe I am up to the task.

As Wayne and Garth noted “party on!”

Categories: Culture, current events, Psychology, society

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13 replies »

  2. When Machines.. Plugged
    In.. And Avatars Come to
    Be.. The Teens.. the Decade
    Where All 3 Theatrical
    Prophecies Are Fulfilled..
    Hehe.. Now All We Need
    Are The Leading Men..
    And Ren.. All the
    Characters
    In Fruition
    Of 2020 Vision..
    20/20.. The Next
    Movie is already Here..:)

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  3. There is no zero year. There is year one. The year may be 1 or -1 BCE, but never zero. In computing, a decade counter is a counter designed to count one to ten. When it hits 11 it resets to one.

    When you count on your fingers there is no zero but there is a ten. So I am inclined to say the last years of a decade, the tenth year, is the one with a zero.

    But it is easier to refer to the tens digit as the representative for the decade. The 60s, the 70s, ect. It feels counter intuitive to say that 1960 is not part of the 1960s. It also feels odd to say that a 20 year old is a teenager.

    So one is stuck with choosing between technical correctness and common usage. Laziness usually wins that contest.

    To say one is going to be unavailable on social media for the rest of the decade when that is only ten days way could be an attempt at humor…?

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  5. First day, of first month, of first year = 1/1/1, so the start of the new decade from that decade is indeed 1/1/2021. But that’s the full-rounded calendar decade year. Anyone can also count 2010-2020 as their personal decade that also consists of ten years.

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