History is always more interesting in retrospect. In a few decades, social commentators will look back at the early 21st Century as a vibrant, ever-changing period in our history...just like they have done with every other historical era.
As far as why fashion and popular culture have remained relatively stagnant over the last two decades, much of it has to do with the rise of personal technologies. The presence of the Internet--a medium in which the user is able to "pick and choose" his content much more so than was ever imaginable with radio or television--has destroyed the power of the elite and corporations to determine social tastes and fashions. Popular culture is now a hogsmosh of very different, often contradictory tastes and styles--and this often gives the illusion of a stagnant popular culture due to the lack of fads or crazes that are able to infect large numbers of people in the way that they were during the days of traditional media.
