
This picture is relevant. Trust me.
You all probably hate me by now, right? I’m the dude who’s supposed to be keeping this blog up-to-date, and you feel as if I’ve neglected you. It’s OK to feel that. It’s rational. Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you. But, see, I have a reason for slacking. A sound reason, in fact. Spam. Yes, spam. Over the past week or so the comment boxes have been jammed with more ads for weight loss, vision repair and boner health than I can shake a stick at. (In retrospect, that sounds plenty perverted.) So, in short, I’ve had to trim through the fat that is 600,000 e-mails telling me I have a new comment on my Sufjan Stevens blog. The e-mails get me excited, because I’m an excitable guy, but when I check the actual comments, I’m slapped in the face with the promise to increase the blood flow in my netherregions. My blood flows just fine down there, thanks. Maybe it’s time to implement a CAPTCHA system, though that may piss off the two people who actually seriously comment on these. Who knows. I’m open for suggestion.
I’m in a pissy mood. Flooded inboxes will do that to you. But being all jumbled and crabby has given me perspective on things, specifically, the 2000s and their relation to music and life in general. Somehow. I’m not sure how being pissy can give anyone perspective, but it was admittedly a poor transition; don’t knock it. The 2000s, though. What a decade. They gave us George W. Bush, 9/11, “Lost,” Super Bowl XLII and Owl City. Oh, rejoice, for we have survived another fabulous decade. Yet, looking back at it all, I can’t help but feel indifference to the lot of it.
The problem people have with the 2000s — or the “aughts,” which has always sounded stupid and will not be used from this point forward — was that they lacked character, or flavor. There was nothing shimmering about them. As a decade, the ’60s were about hippies and protests and race riots and the space race. The ’70s were groovy, baby, and gave us “Jaws” and “Star Wars,” Farrah Fawcett and John Travolta. The ’80s stand out because of the music, the fashion and Michael Jackson’s noted blackness, while the ’90s showed us perhaps the polar opposite (bad music, bad fashion, a white MJ). But, being a Chicago kid, the 1990s also had another MJ: Michael Jordan. So it wasn’t all bad.
But these 2000s? What of them? There were no distinct styles people wore, no distinct sound the music maintained, no distinct anything, really. Or maybe that’s just what I’m feeling, personally; I mean, it’s pretty difficult to judge a decade we’re only a month or so removed from. Then, one day, I flipped on Nickelodeon — “Drake & Josh,” specifically — and it all hit me. That show was the 2000s. It was the sights, the sounds, the styles. Don’t believe me? (I wouldn’t either.)
I’m hard-pressed to come up with what specific types of clothing people wore last decade, but that’s only because the two decades previous, the ’80s and the ’90s, stand out so emphatically above the rest. Watching a teenage Drake Bell leap over his couch, however, showed me the ’00s aren’t so much about loudness and extravagance, and a life of excess, but about a reduction in character, and an overhauled sense of humbleness and subtlety. The colors people wore five, six, seven years ago were muted, the hairstyles subdued, the technology smaller, the ins and outs of who we are marginalized. And “Drake & Josh” is proof of such.
Drake is the show’s pretty boy. He’s a musician and he gets all the babes, so naturally, he dresses well and comes off charming and suave. So, naturally, being suave and dressing well means keeping up with the latest clothing trends — note his flared jeans, his tight T’s and his helmet haircut. Just what was it about those three things that makes them synonymous (to me) about the 2000s? I can admit, embarrassingly, I wanted to be like Drake. No, I wanted to be Drake, hair helmet, tight-up-top, loose-at-bottom pants and all. I shopped for tighter pants in Kohl’s girls’ department. I grew my hair out and straightened it and combed it to fit his style. Because Drake was cool. Drake was the 2000s.
There was also Josh, but beyond his excellent role in “Mean Creek,” he never contributed much to the world. Are the 2000s defined by subtlety, then? Form-fitting outfits, do-it-yourself record releases, self-starting, blogs and the blurred line between “underground” and “mainstream”? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think the decade will have a face until around 2017 or something, so I could be entirely wrong. But I’ll never forget how self-conscious a time it was living way back when three years ago. With my flare jeans. With my cool haircut. With my tight T.
















