21. Huge Eyebrows
Whatever the sh*t people are doing to their eyebrows is probably the worst trend of the decade. Like the 2000s were bad for eyebrows, but I’m not sure the appropriate corrective measure was to go from having the least brow possible to having the most brow possible and drawing them on so precisely you look like an anime character.—smuffleupagus
22. Flat-Earthers
Astronomer here! No one asked me about the Flat Earth theory until just a few years ago. The fact that it’s picked up again is just so astounding if you think about it. Frankly though it’s just part of a greater trend of anti-intellectualism, and the idea that you can now “choose your own facts.”
I started posting about astronomy on Reddit because the misinformation I read annoyed the fork out of me, and most people are really appreciative to hear the truth. However, the cynic in me notes that astronomy facts very rarely affect our lives the way some other settled science can. And I know plenty of people out there are a huge fan of space and willfully ignore facts when it comes to, say, climate change, because the truth there is unpalatable and affects them more immediately.
Carl Sagan said in the 90s in The Demon Haunted World that- “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…” I think it’s pretty clear this trend began in earnest in this decade, but I hope we will be able to right the ship a bit in the next one.—Andromeda321
23. Look It Up, Kids
Kony 2012 —salldie
24. The Death of Redemption
Cancel culture.—Rambler43
25. Radicalized Political Parties
The increased division in party politics. Our politicians (and many other citizens) seem to take the far right or far left view on a political issue and refuse to consider the middle ground.—DeathSpiral32