The Whiplash Decade

The Decade We Paid to Feel Something

Material goods were so 2000. Now we consume on a higher plane.

Illustration: Brennon Leman

This piece is part of the The Whiplash Decade, a package on the wild ride that was the 2010s.

Let us consider the ultimate artifact of physical popular culture circa 2019: The Museum of Ice Cream. Launched in 2016 in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District as a temporary interactive art exhibit, the Museum of Ice Cream has since opened exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami. As a pop-up, the museum is easy to replicate; more than 1.5 million people have visited its rock-candy caves, unicorns, and swimming pools filled with rainbow sprinkles made from inedible plastic. The Museum of Ice Cream has stuff you can look at, and yet is not quite a museum. You can buy actual ice cream and other dessert-themed kitsch there, but it’s not just a store. It is instead an experience.

Experiences became the quintessential unit of consumerism in the 2010s. Buying just any “stuff” — useless material artifacts — was the mistake of the 2000s. We instead now test out new technologies, subscribe to digital services, and spend our money booking reservations for experiences, which might range from obscure vacation destinations to arduously locavore tasting menus and access to spaces in…