​ We will, in the closing days of this wretched decade, list the Top Ten reasons why it sucked. We're behind schedule, so here are four for the price of one. Previous reasons: social media ruined the internet, artists joined the farm league, New York turned into America, guilty pleasures without guilt, and various others.

​Like everyone, we enjoyed the video in which a little girl yells, "I want my money bitch!" at Will Ferrell. What's not to like?

But it got us thinking about one other thing that developed in the '00s that no one seems to mention: the explosion of incongruous persons affecting the speech of hardcore gangstas.

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​ We will, in the closing days of this wretched decade, list the Top Ten reasons why it sucked. We're behind schedule, so here are four for the price of one. Previous reasons here, here, here, and here.

​6. Fashion: We stopped trying, outsourced our clothing trends to stars. 50's: Pegged pants, poodle skirts. 70s: Elephant bells, blow-dried hair. You can easily spot other decades by their fashions. They weren't always pretty, but they showed people were at least trying.

So how will costume designers recreate the '00s? By dressing actors in styles from other decades -- because that's what we did: now hippie, now grungey, now neo-wave, now Flashdance: We seemed to grab everything off other eras' racks. Our signature innovations: the butt crack and the trucker cap. And the snuggie.

Not even New York magazine could make anything out of this shit. No wonder Lady Gaga is so popular: she wore all the distinctive clothing for us.

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​ We will, in the closing days of this wretched decade, list the Top Ten reasons why it sucked. Previous reasons here, here, and here.

​If you had told us, at the beginning of this awful decade, that intelligent people would one day be writing essays -- serial essays, yet -- on reality shows about young dimwits, we wouldn't have believed you. We would have thought you were doing a William Gibson-style riff about a future dystopia in which everyone has money but no one knows how to read.

That was a simpler time in general -- people wrote in paper diaries, Whitney Port was being kept back in third grade again, and writing fancy words about moronic pop crap was just something that silly, reverse-pretentious professors like Camille Paglia did.

But here we are at the end of the 00s, and Brian Moylan, a very fine writer, has just penned a thousand words about Jersey Shore. And this is not a punishment assignment or a lost bet, but his job.

Other fine writers at classy venues are doing the same sort of thing. Hell, we even do it at the Village Voice.

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​ We will, in the closing days of this wretched decade, list the Top Ten reasons why it sucked. Previous reasons here and here.

​9/11 was a tough hit on everyone, especially New Yorkers. But everyone, even people who hated this city, wanted to see the city come back from it. And so we did. It was often said then that a bunch of goddamned terrorists couldn't kill New York.

And they were right. New York couldn't be killed by a terrorist attack. It was perfectly capable, though, of killing itself.

And throughout the decade, that's what it has been doing.

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​ We will, in the closing days of this wretched decade, list the Top Ten reasons why it sucked. Reason #10 is here. This is #9.

 

Name your favorite artists of the past decade.

Tough one, huh?

The Voice plays the best-of-decade game in the current issue, and we salute the fine critics who stepped up. But for all their very creditable explanations, we notice a distinct lack of enthusiasm, of passion, of gush.

That's because it's hard to be excited when you're picking kernels out of shit. In the arts, as elsewhere, the 00s sucked.

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​We were surprised that 42 percent of respondents to the new Pew Research poll found the 60s "neither" positive nor negative, with positive (34 percent) and negative (15) impressions trailing. We thought the Sixties were supposed to tumultuous.

But we were unsurprised that the 00's -- or the Oughties or whatever you want to call them -- drew a 50 percent negative rating versus 27 percent positive, rating as the worst-reviewed of the past five decades.

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We will, in the closing days of this wretched decade, list the Top Ten reasons why it sucked, starting from the bottom.

​Remember back in the 90s, when you loved the internet? When you saw it through a child's eyes, and clapped with delight at dancing hamsters, cruddy Flash animations, and Suck.com? Everything was shiny and new, and every innovation was a revelation that made you eager to see what the wizards would come up with next.

Now look at the damn thing. It's TV with an endless number of stations -- except the flipper gives you carpal tunnel. It's an endless time-suck, a global addiction, and a drag.

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