RandomMe
Walrus Toy Store owner
It's going to be a long shot, but since everyone is talking about this so-called "end of decade", allow me to introduce myself.
I've been here for most of the 2010s. The first few years (until 2013 at least) were the end of my "childhood", assuming I had 15 years worth of that. Portugal was suffering from the fallout of an international economical crisis that was later limited to a handful of European countries (Portugal and Greece). During those days it was hard to spend an entire day without listening about news regarding "stability and growth plans" that never worked. Once this crisis age worn out in 2013/2014, we witnessed the arrival of more nationalist governments worldwide and a growing sense of chaos.
Keeping politics aside, in 2009/2010 I still owned a Nintendo DSi with, maybe, six games or so, and I was into Rhythm Heaven (Rhythm Paradise here in Europe) and New Super Mario Bros (the first one). Television was still worthwhile, especially the kids channels I had. It was an age of progress, where HD was being implemented at a rather slow pace - back then I was expecting the local channels to go HD like the USA but eventually it took them literal ages to do that! It was the leftover of an age where people here were more into TV shows: your House, your Family Guy (starting to "collapse" on the inside), your Dexter, your whatever. Instead of having three AXN channels, there was AXN, Sony Entertainment Television and Animax. Animax started to collapse weeks before 2009 ended by adding films from the Sony Pictures catalog, but it still aired animes like Initial D and Shin-Chan. Then the channel fell down that spring and shut down a year later. The number of animes on Portuguese TV was decreasing year after year, and even the "new kids on the block" (SIC K and (Panda) Biggs) were among the last refuges.
I also witnessed the perception of animation change towards a more pre-school bias. Mostly at a European scale. In Portugal when you say "cartoon" it's more of a pre-school thing nowadays, and even Canal Panda, synonymous with kids channels for a long time, has oficially become a pre-school channel, writing off all animes and subtitled programming. On Panda Biggs, things got even worse when it became just Biggs. I also witnessed Doraemon leaving Canal Panda (in Spanish) and then returning in Portuguese. CN Africa being replaced by CN Portugal also gave me a negative impression. They say these days that countries are becoming more egotistical, in my childhood, TV had no borders, especially the linguistical ones. Now almost all shows the average Portuguese viewer watches are all spoken or subtitled in Portuguese.
And regarding technology, we must say that as the decade went on, people have become more and more dependent on it, to an extent that it's hard to leave, unfortunately. We didn't have a true smartphone at home until 2012 when my father got one. Now it's all about the so-called "infinite screens" and the new foldable ones. Memes back then were ace, and that's when more people became aware of what a "meme" was. It was all about the Annoying Orange, Troll and Awesomeface, Nyan Cat and Angry Birds in those days. Then Gangnam Style broke the linguistic barriers and then came Harlem Shake. Things began to change in 2013 when the word "selfie" became one of the most rapidly-growing terms used by people both online and offline - that already existed long before smartphones were a thing - and from then on, more people went mad on technology. So for me 2013 is like a real turning point for the 2010s - aside from the switchover to CN Portugal (that's a Portuguese thing), that was when memes started to decrease in quality (however some good ones appeared), Frozen started to be everywhere and both music and the internet were changing to new levels and heights.
And it's amazing to think that even 2013 was a watershed year for animation - the 2010s were off to a promising start. Cartoon Network had rebranded and had a fresh slate of programming, but its mindsets didn't match up with the rest of the world. The Hub launched and proved to be a viable alternative to the existing Big 3, adding more competition, but the channel failed and became Discovery Family (I might make a thread about The Hub). Action cartoons were on the decrease, partly because existing storylines were feeling scarce upon Disney's buying of both Lucasfilm (Star Wars) and Marvel. On Cartoon Network, Teen Titans GO! premiered, with its combination of "kids' humor", out-of-context episode titles and DC Comics easter eggs - but even that was enough for the fans of the old show to try and give it a cancellation - only to realize that it suddenly became Cartoon Network's most-successful show (at least in the USA) - oddly enough not made by CN Studios, and especially in terms of ratings and scheduling.
And that was my perception of the 2010s. Would any one of you tell us how these past ten years were in your opinion? I might have missed something, but I feel like I'm showing my age, and the kid in me is crying hard. I know this song is from 2006, but I seem to have adopted it as a personal anthem of mine. Enjoy.
I've been here for most of the 2010s. The first few years (until 2013 at least) were the end of my "childhood", assuming I had 15 years worth of that. Portugal was suffering from the fallout of an international economical crisis that was later limited to a handful of European countries (Portugal and Greece). During those days it was hard to spend an entire day without listening about news regarding "stability and growth plans" that never worked. Once this crisis age worn out in 2013/2014, we witnessed the arrival of more nationalist governments worldwide and a growing sense of chaos.
Keeping politics aside, in 2009/2010 I still owned a Nintendo DSi with, maybe, six games or so, and I was into Rhythm Heaven (Rhythm Paradise here in Europe) and New Super Mario Bros (the first one). Television was still worthwhile, especially the kids channels I had. It was an age of progress, where HD was being implemented at a rather slow pace - back then I was expecting the local channels to go HD like the USA but eventually it took them literal ages to do that! It was the leftover of an age where people here were more into TV shows: your House, your Family Guy (starting to "collapse" on the inside), your Dexter, your whatever. Instead of having three AXN channels, there was AXN, Sony Entertainment Television and Animax. Animax started to collapse weeks before 2009 ended by adding films from the Sony Pictures catalog, but it still aired animes like Initial D and Shin-Chan. Then the channel fell down that spring and shut down a year later. The number of animes on Portuguese TV was decreasing year after year, and even the "new kids on the block" (SIC K and (Panda) Biggs) were among the last refuges.
I also witnessed the perception of animation change towards a more pre-school bias. Mostly at a European scale. In Portugal when you say "cartoon" it's more of a pre-school thing nowadays, and even Canal Panda, synonymous with kids channels for a long time, has oficially become a pre-school channel, writing off all animes and subtitled programming. On Panda Biggs, things got even worse when it became just Biggs. I also witnessed Doraemon leaving Canal Panda (in Spanish) and then returning in Portuguese. CN Africa being replaced by CN Portugal also gave me a negative impression. They say these days that countries are becoming more egotistical, in my childhood, TV had no borders, especially the linguistical ones. Now almost all shows the average Portuguese viewer watches are all spoken or subtitled in Portuguese.
And regarding technology, we must say that as the decade went on, people have become more and more dependent on it, to an extent that it's hard to leave, unfortunately. We didn't have a true smartphone at home until 2012 when my father got one. Now it's all about the so-called "infinite screens" and the new foldable ones. Memes back then were ace, and that's when more people became aware of what a "meme" was. It was all about the Annoying Orange, Troll and Awesomeface, Nyan Cat and Angry Birds in those days. Then Gangnam Style broke the linguistic barriers and then came Harlem Shake. Things began to change in 2013 when the word "selfie" became one of the most rapidly-growing terms used by people both online and offline - that already existed long before smartphones were a thing - and from then on, more people went mad on technology. So for me 2013 is like a real turning point for the 2010s - aside from the switchover to CN Portugal (that's a Portuguese thing), that was when memes started to decrease in quality (however some good ones appeared), Frozen started to be everywhere and both music and the internet were changing to new levels and heights.
And it's amazing to think that even 2013 was a watershed year for animation - the 2010s were off to a promising start. Cartoon Network had rebranded and had a fresh slate of programming, but its mindsets didn't match up with the rest of the world. The Hub launched and proved to be a viable alternative to the existing Big 3, adding more competition, but the channel failed and became Discovery Family (I might make a thread about The Hub). Action cartoons were on the decrease, partly because existing storylines were feeling scarce upon Disney's buying of both Lucasfilm (Star Wars) and Marvel. On Cartoon Network, Teen Titans GO! premiered, with its combination of "kids' humor", out-of-context episode titles and DC Comics easter eggs - but even that was enough for the fans of the old show to try and give it a cancellation - only to realize that it suddenly became Cartoon Network's most-successful show (at least in the USA) - oddly enough not made by CN Studios, and especially in terms of ratings and scheduling.
And that was my perception of the 2010s. Would any one of you tell us how these past ten years were in your opinion? I might have missed something, but I feel like I'm showing my age, and the kid in me is crying hard. I know this song is from 2006, but I seem to have adopted it as a personal anthem of mine. Enjoy.
