The 2010s might have been the high point of western civilization for decades to come. We had all the post-9/11 bs, but I still remember gay jokes being socially acceptible in my social circles and even TV in the early 2000s, which became much more fringe in the 2010s. Enshittification of internet services like Facebook was so much less advanced than in the 2020s, same for software like Windows.

Of course, the writing of what was to come was certainly on the wall (maybe not the pandemic). Kinda similar to the 1920s.

Bad time to be a New Yorker though.