Recommendations of the Editorial team
The nineties, even more the time of this millennium, are the first decades whose pictures, fashions, sometimes even music and films can no longer be clearly assigned to their decade. The eighties had their shoulder pads. The seventies the impact trousers. The nineties the techno.
But from the zero years, this story of aesthetics “stopped”. There is a coexistence of styles, retro styles, homes and renaissance opportunities. Just not in technology. The technology now provides what once clothes and recordings once explained: a look at their time. Anyone who sees a cell phone in a film from 2001 knows that this film cannot be new, because the cell phone from back then has an antenna or can be folded down.
A new illustrated book with texts by Steven Heller and Jim Heimann, “All-American Ads of the 2000s” (bags) shows how important the commercial spread of the Internet for our perception of images. “Geeks became the new superheroes – technology became cool,” it says, and that’s true.
We are still familiar with the names and faces of 2001. Britney Spears, N-Sync and Pierce Brosnan. We will probably never see a “Mad Men” advertising again, because the AMC series has leaked, just like “Sex and the City”, with the representation of a lifestyle that was considered hip at the time, and shaking his head today. The memory of technology that no longer exists is more attractive. As at the iPod, later baptized iPod classic. The best product that Apple has ever launched on the market is now a retro jukebox because the MP3 player was not connected to the Internet. In the nineties, vowels were considered uncool, “Razor” became “Razr” because faster.
At some point, every advertising for tech products will make us laugh on social media. You know this: Fat stereo systems from Philipps from the 1970s, Macintosh computers who promised the future achieve thousands of laughing likes.
It is not that far with this time capsule of the 2000s. But in ten years.
Bags, all-American ads of the 2000s, Taschen.com, Jim Heimann, Steven Heller Hardcover, 19.6 x 25.5 cm, 2.08 kg, 640 pages, EUR 30.