A few days after Pantone announced its selection of “Classic Blue” as the 2020 Color of the Year, I was at a dinner party. Over a plate full of breadcrumb-topped truffle mac and cheese, my friend asked my opinion of the new hue. My response: “Classic Blue is the color equivalent of watching Friends.”

I don’t watch Friends, and I never have—not because there’s anything wrong with the sitcom per se, but because I simply don’t care about it. My idea of it, as a non-watcher, is that it’s vanilla and better off as white noise background chatter. “Classic Blue” is as forgettable, as pedestrian, and as safe as a TV show about six people who all look alike. I’m not offended by “Classic Blue,” but I’m offended that Pantone has assigned it the vitally important role of ushering in a new decade, particularly one that follows a decade as tumultuous as the 2010s. “Classic Blue” feels aggressively 1997.

It’s an odd choice because in recent years, Pantone has taken pains to make its Color of the Year culturally relevant. That’s why 2019’s “Living Coral” was meant to represent “our natural surroundings and, at the same time . . . a lively presence within social media,” and 2018’s “Ultra Violet” was supposed to suggest “the intrigue of what lies ahead.” Pantone, the leading color trend and palate curation company since 1962, describes “Classic Blue” as “a timeless and enduring blue hue . . . elegant in its simplicity,” adding: “Suggestive of the sky at dusk, the reassuring qualities of the thought-provoking Pantone 19-4052 Classic Blue highlight our desire for a dependable and stable foundation on which to build as we cross the threshold into a new era.”