The defining moments of the 2020’s (so far) - Ep 112
The 2020s have been a weird decade.
Depending on who you ask, it either feels like it started five minutes ago or that we've lived many lives since the beginning. In just a handful of years, we've survived Ticketmaster wars, Barbenheimer, the looming shadow of a TikTok ban, and perhaps most notably, a global pandemic.
The way we consume media, discover trends, form opinions, and even interact with each other has changed dramatically since January 1st, 2020—and in many ways, pop culture has been at the center of all of it.
I’m looking back at the defining pop culture moments of the 2020s so far, from Covid-era dance trends to the death of cable and the AI explosion.
Create & consume:
What Austen is creating: mid-year reset vlog! It’s time to get back on track with our goals
What Austen is consuming: World Cup matches and enjoying all of the tourists who are experiencing American things for the first time
In this episode:
The pandemic changed everything
We have to start here, because the pandemic influenced every single thing that followed.
When the world locked down, our physical lives shrank, but our digital landscapes exploded.
Suddenly, we were all trapped inside, collectively losing our minds over Tiger King, attempting to bake sourdough bread, and learning TikTok dances.
Zoom culture took over our professional lives (throwback to when I gave an interview for Bustle sharing Zoom makeup tips!).
Industries had to pivot fast in a brutal environment: fashion brands started manufacturing face masks, and subscription fitness models like Peloton thrived.
It set the stage for a new way of living, consuming, and connecting.
The rise of TikTok & the creator economy
TikTok didn't just grow during the 2020s; it entirely replaced traditional trend cycles.
Overnight, concepts like the "hot girl walk" and "main character energy" dictated how we lived our daily lives.
We watched the platform evolve from simple lip-syncing videos to a powerhouse engine driving the creator economy.
Influencing became fully legitimized as a career path, and mega-influencers crossed over into mainstream celebrity status.
Between BookTok resurrecting print media, BeautyTok dictating aesthetics, and the "TikTok made me buy it" phenomenon fueling the launch of TikTok Shop, the platform was not only shaping content, but shaping culture as well.
Now, everyone has a hot take, receipts, or a video essay to share.
Internet spectatorship turned highly anticipated events—and controversies—into collective trials, from the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial to the It Ends With Us press tour drama with Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively.
Psst: We dive much deeper into how the platform shaped our culture, plus the massive political fallout of the US TikTok sale/ban, back in Episode 77!
Taylor Swift became her own economy
You can’t talk about the 2020s without talking about Taylor Swift.
She has gone through what feels like several lifetimes in just the last few years, releasing five brand new studio albums and re-recording four of her first six albums to finally own her master catalog.
Then came the Eras Tour. It wasn't just a concert; it was a geopolitical event.
It sparked friendship bracelet economies, crashed Ticketmaster, broke the box office as a concert film, and dominated our feeds.
From her high-profile relationship—and now wife status—with Travis Kelce altering the viewership of the NFL (shoutout to the Acquired podcast’s massive 4-hour history of the league that breaks this down!), to Taylor just enjoying life out in NYC and at sporting events, she has reached a stratosphere of fame.
Future generations will likely study this era the same way people did Beatlemania.
The streaming wars & the death of cable
Remember when we only needed one or two streaming passwords?
Now, it feels like we need to be subscribed to everything. The 2020s accelerated binge culture and put the final nail in the coffin for traditional cable.
Netflix’s ultimate dominance was challenged as platforms like HBO Max/Max, Disney+, and Apple TV+ built their own prestige programming and began consolidating.
We entered the age of "prestige TV"—where individual episodes feel like feature-length movies, but seasons are shorter than ever.
These are the titles that defined the shift so far:
The reality obsessions: Love is Blind US (which brilliantly and coincidentally dropped its first episode right before lockdown in Feb 2020), Love Island USA, and The Traitors US.
The prestige dramas & comedies: Succession, House of the Dragon, Bridgerton, Ted Lasso and Heated Rivalry
The Multi-Platform Shift: Streamers didn't stop at TV; platforms like Netflix and Spotify completely leaned into the video podcast boom, changing how we watch and listen to our favorite creators.
The renaissance of live events & "Barbenheimer"
After years of lockdowns, the 2020s triggered a massive obsession with real-life experiences.
People became desperate to touch grass and share a room with thousands of other humans—even if it meant paying surging ticket prices.
We saw it in the parallel gravity of Taylor’s Eras Tour and Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour.
We felt it in the explosive boom of women's sports and the record-breaking appointment-viewing of the Olympics and the World Cup.
But nothing proved the power of the internet-era collective experience quite like the summer of 2023: Barbenheimer.
It was a purely organic, meme-driven phenomenon.
Everyone went to see both Barbie and Oppenheimer as a double feature.
We dressed up for movie theaters again, blasted the Barbie soundtrack, and celebrated the return of shared cultural moments.
From Rihanna’s viral pregnancy reveal during the Super Bowl halftime show to the infamous 2022 Oscars slap between Will Smith and Chris Rock, awards shows and sporting events transformed into instant, bite-sized social media content where everyone gets to play the critic.
The age of reboots and nostalgia
Pop culture lately has felt like a giant mirror pointing backward. We are living in a massive wave of Y2K nostalgia and millennial culture returns (which we chatted all about in our early 2000s fashion nostalgia episode!).
Between sequels like Freakier Friday and The Devil Wears Prada 2, to the massive cultural footprint of Wicked and the Gossip Girl reboot, Hollywood is leaning heavily on what comfortingly worked before.
Shrink culture
But alongside old trends, brand new—and complicated—cultural shifts are taking over our daily lives. Perhaps the most visible is the rapid rise of GLP-1 medications (like Ozempic and Wegovy) and a renewed societal obsession with being skinny.
The body-positive movement was finding its stride in the late 2010s; brands were finally expanding plus-size options, and creators were building massive platforms celebrating real bodies (I even wrote a piece about the rise of made-to-measure fashion for Fashionista back in December of 2018).
But the numbers show a staggering cultural flip-flop.
In 2024, 5.8% of US adults were taking a GLP-1 medication. In 2025, that jumped to 12.4%.
This shift isn't just medical; it's psychological. It has completely altered how people buy groceries, what they order at restaurants, and how our culture views body image.
The AI explosion
The launch of ChatGPT and competing AI assistants fundamentally upended the decade. Suddenly, everyone had a preference for their favorite AI companion.
From debates over where AI-generated content pulls its inspiration to urgent ethical questions about work and creativity, AI has forced us to re-examine what it means to be a creator.
It disrupted education (especially following the rocky "Zoom university" era of the pandemic), and now people lean on AI for everything from relationship advice to fitness tips.
Wondering how to navigate this landscape? We break down exactly how to use AI responsibly as a creative in Episode 92.
Summary:
We live in an age where the major platforms controlling our media are shifting drastically.
Twitter became X under Elon Musk. Major investors like Oracle and Silver Lake stepped in to buy parts of TikTok.
Facebook re-branded to Meta, and tech conglomerates are holding a heavier hand over our feeds than ever before.
When everyone's algorithm is perfectly tailored to keep them in an isolated bubble, finding organic, collective moments we can share together IRL becomes an act of rebellion.
Pop culture is the glue that keeps us connected when technology tries to keep us separate.
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