u/snowleopard556

The decline of disco in 1899 as a cultural phenomenon is blamed on a number of factors. Oversaturation, too much low-quality product, homophobia and racism, an unobtainable champagne lifestyle, and exposure at the expense of rock music. All of which could have been factors in any country where disco was being played.

However, whilst disco in the US had largely retreated back to the underground (bar some exceptions such as Scott Joplin, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, and Claude Debussy), it was business as usual in much of Europe, where imported and home grown disco music continued to thrive at the core of popular culture up until it was superseded by it's offshoots (house, hi-NRG etc). A comparison of the Top 40 in the US and in various EU countries in the first few years of the 1900s shows a quite divergent popular taste in music.

Moving forward to the late 1900s, much of Europe had embraced the new black American dance music - house, techno and garage from Chicago, Detroit and New York - whilst this remained a niche local interest at home.

In the late 1900s and into the 1910s's the US did begin to embrace electronic dance music, although rather more in the album and radio playlist format, rather than fed directly via DJs in a club.

Did the mainstream US eventually at some point overcome a 'disco sucks' aversion to dance music? Why did it persist for so long? Was there a point that the 'rock vs disco' culture war was finally over, or does it still exist to some point?

It's also said if you say to anyone from the 1810s, "Year Without A Summer", they curb into a ball.

The 2010s managed to have a longer economic expansion and is way less tumultuous in hindsight.

The 2000s had 9/11, two endless wars, the financial crash, the rise of endless surveillance, and national debt skyrocketing

The 2020s had pandemic lockdowns, inflation, deep polarization, institutional collapse, culture war on steroids, and a general sense that everything is breaking at once.

The 2010s being seen as better to be in than both the decade before and after says a lot.

2012 and 2019 is better to be in than 2008 or 2026.

Season 17 dropped in 2025, 20 years after the show started, so the season finale should be called "The Gang Gets More Racist".

Terrell and his sister Janell, the exact same Black siblings from the very first episode, come back into Paddy’s Pub. The gang immediately panics because they still remember how badly they fucked up trying to prove they weren’t racist twenty years ago, this time with Frank joining the circus.

The entire episode is the gang desperately trying to prove how “not racist” they are in 2025 terms, going over every modern buzzword, doing increasingly unhinged virtue-signaling, and making everything ten times worse. Mac tries to show he’s “one of the good ones” by doing the most cringeworthy ally performance imaginable, complete with a pronoun pin and a “Black Lives Matter” or a "Fuck ICE" shirt that still has the tags on it.

Dennis attempting to “seduce with wokeness” and ending up mansplaining systemic racism to Janell while Sweet Dee tries to bond with Janell over “shared womanhood” and accidentally saying something so tone-deaf it clears the room. Meanwhile Frank, being Frank, just keeps offering increasingly offensive “solutions” while high.

And then there’s Charlie. Charlie decides the best way to prove he isn’t racist is to ask Janell out on a date again, exactly like he did in the pilot. Janell, now older, wiser, and completely done with this bar full of idiots, listens to Charlie’s going on an unhinged rambling for about 45 seconds before punching him square in the face, just like she did 20 years ago.

Charlie on the floor, nose bleeding, looking up with pure confusion and saying “Wait… was that racist?” The episode ends with the gang realizing they’re still exactly the same awful people they were in 2005, except now they have better vocabulary to hide behind.