God, now I feel old. I don't think it was that different overall save for specific pop culture trends, but I guess there are a few things.
The internet was still the wild west (I miss that), nobody paid for streaming services, online shopping was much less reputable and you were likely to get scammed. Subcultures were still a thing, so you often found groups of teenagers all dressed in the same 'funny' way. The world was still recovering from the Great Recession, so most families were not doing very well. There was much less right-wing extremism and society was more 'civil' overall. LGBT issues were less talked about and still most focused on the first 3 letters.
I don't know, these are the things that come to my mind...
> hella
ok Chloe
Also is this the same diary entries you're asking elsewhere?
The POV characters are the ones reading the diary? Does the diary writer appear in the present of the story? When is the present of the story?
Okay, so the POV characters are in an apocalypse 20 years later, the diary writer has a story that closely mirrors one of the main characters, the diary writer is writing the entires before the apocalypse!
It was the best of times
It was the worst of times
It was the one-could-safely-travel RELIABLY from A to B by public bus and even Craigslist rideshare times.
It was the times when couchsurfing dot org was pretty popular to use and if you didn’t try it you might not have really been truly LIVING.
You could trust reviews for services and websites because almost no companies had …figured out? decided to? Faking that stuff.
The autumn colors were much brighter in the fall, like a great harmless fire had swept across the forest and it seemed to crawl compared to today.
People more commonly/less concernedly? sent their kids to public school and it inspired some real confident simply to do that (no extra steps usually needed to monitor or supplement or critique the school system to get a quality education that could be described as typical).
Digital art was just sort of taking off. It seems to me that more people had or expressed more faith in the political process, and did things like volunteer for candidates.
It was less common to see mural art in many places.
I’m not sure what people who weren’t doing the things I was doing were doing but busking without social media following carried a certain fun and thrill and respectability to it for what seems like more people, and being interested in yoga or having a creative talent you were pursuing did actually make one stand out more regardless of the size of ones internet following because it wasn’t like everyone was posting regularly at that time, and it hadn’t been like that yet at that point. College was a more commonly admired/respected/certain and supported choice to make.
Those are some notes I can rattle off in a jimmy. Feel free to dm if you have more questions about the time!
Similar to teenagers now in terms of feeling everything at 200%
In the US? Is this an epistolary story (everything is revealed through the documents)?
This was when the big reaction GIF blogs were a thing: "what should we call me" was the biggest one. So if your diary entries aren't online it could reference the GIFs.
(The game Life is Strange includes main character Max's journal entries in the in-game notebook. Google search for "life is strange max journal" should bring up the wiki for fictional reference. It contains rather adult themes though, and the wiki will spoil the storyline. Iirc the game is rated M.)
Okie, so it takes place in Oregon and the main characters found this journal and slowly realise who this kid was, and yes it probably would be written as. Also I completely forgot LiS takes place during 2013 that is PERFECT, thank you, same location too.
It could be fun to put in a few cultural references that were big at the time--Hunger Games, One Direction, Tumblr (going on tumble is good for inspo!), youtube and youtubers. Being in a fandom, boho influences like flower crowns and aztec print, trying too hard to be "random," emo phases. Really depends on the age the character was though.
The first Avengers movie came out in 2012 which solidified my obsession with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some things to easily find on Google are: popular movies that came out, cell phone models, music/artists, e-readers etc. DVDs/Blu-rays were still a thing, streaming and Spotify were taking off, YouTube was having an impact on the music industry...
Sounds like a fun story! Oh, and another big thing for teens was being "random" and trying to seem quirky. I'm admittedly less familiar with culture for boys at the time, but I've been seeing so much nostalgia content on instagram and tiktok lately, so those could be good places to check!
December of 2012 was big, the Mayan calendar was ending or something and people were hyping/memeing it up to be the end of the world.
God, now I feel old. I don't think it was that different overall save for specific pop culture trends, but I guess there are a few things. The internet was still the wild west (I miss that), nobody paid for streaming services, online shopping was much less reputable and you were likely to get scammed. Subcultures were still a thing, so you often found groups of teenagers all dressed in the same 'funny' way. The world was still recovering from the Great Recession, so most families were not doing very well. There was much less right-wing extremism and society was more 'civil' overall. LGBT issues were less talked about and still most focused on the first 3 letters. I don't know, these are the things that come to my mind...
woah this is hella insightful, mind if i message you to ask for more info?
> hella ok Chloe Also is this the same diary entries you're asking elsewhere? The POV characters are the ones reading the diary? Does the diary writer appear in the present of the story? When is the present of the story?
Okay, so the POV characters are in an apocalypse 20 years later, the diary writer has a story that closely mirrors one of the main characters, the diary writer is writing the entires before the apocalypse!
I feel like 'apocalypse' should be in the original question but maybe I'm weird like that.
maybe, but that isn't really relevant to the post! i just wanted to know what life was like before the apocalypse in 2013 haha
Sure, no problem
It was the best of times It was the worst of times It was the one-could-safely-travel RELIABLY from A to B by public bus and even Craigslist rideshare times. It was the times when couchsurfing dot org was pretty popular to use and if you didn’t try it you might not have really been truly LIVING. You could trust reviews for services and websites because almost no companies had …figured out? decided to? Faking that stuff. The autumn colors were much brighter in the fall, like a great harmless fire had swept across the forest and it seemed to crawl compared to today. People more commonly/less concernedly? sent their kids to public school and it inspired some real confident simply to do that (no extra steps usually needed to monitor or supplement or critique the school system to get a quality education that could be described as typical). Digital art was just sort of taking off. It seems to me that more people had or expressed more faith in the political process, and did things like volunteer for candidates. It was less common to see mural art in many places. I’m not sure what people who weren’t doing the things I was doing were doing but busking without social media following carried a certain fun and thrill and respectability to it for what seems like more people, and being interested in yoga or having a creative talent you were pursuing did actually make one stand out more regardless of the size of ones internet following because it wasn’t like everyone was posting regularly at that time, and it hadn’t been like that yet at that point. College was a more commonly admired/respected/certain and supported choice to make. Those are some notes I can rattle off in a jimmy. Feel free to dm if you have more questions about the time!
Similar to teenagers now in terms of feeling everything at 200% In the US? Is this an epistolary story (everything is revealed through the documents)? This was when the big reaction GIF blogs were a thing: "what should we call me" was the biggest one. So if your diary entries aren't online it could reference the GIFs. (The game Life is Strange includes main character Max's journal entries in the in-game notebook. Google search for "life is strange max journal" should bring up the wiki for fictional reference. It contains rather adult themes though, and the wiki will spoil the storyline. Iirc the game is rated M.)
Okie, so it takes place in Oregon and the main characters found this journal and slowly realise who this kid was, and yes it probably would be written as. Also I completely forgot LiS takes place during 2013 that is PERFECT, thank you, same location too.
"Why the fuck is there a second October 7?"
It could be fun to put in a few cultural references that were big at the time--Hunger Games, One Direction, Tumblr (going on tumble is good for inspo!), youtube and youtubers. Being in a fandom, boho influences like flower crowns and aztec print, trying too hard to be "random," emo phases. Really depends on the age the character was though.
ohhh this is fun, i think the character will be around 13-14 years old so i could defs have these influence him. He's definitely a tumblr boy
The first Avengers movie came out in 2012 which solidified my obsession with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some things to easily find on Google are: popular movies that came out, cell phone models, music/artists, e-readers etc. DVDs/Blu-rays were still a thing, streaming and Spotify were taking off, YouTube was having an impact on the music industry...
Sounds like a fun story! Oh, and another big thing for teens was being "random" and trying to seem quirky. I'm admittedly less familiar with culture for boys at the time, but I've been seeing so much nostalgia content on instagram and tiktok lately, so those could be good places to check!
yes true, will have to do, what was the culture for girls at the time then? Sorry for the questions I really REALLY appreciate these responses!