Friday, January 01, 2010

From Y2K to 2010....A Decade of Madness

Wow, it is 2010 already? Where has the time gone? Wasn't it just yesterday that the world was in chaos over Y2K and impending doom as a result of evil computers? Where has the time gone?

This decade we went from chaos over Y2K to a completely digital decade. Tonight we all sent people text messages wishing them a "Happy New Year", a decade ago text messaging did not exist and most people did not have a cellphone. Highspeed internet available to the masses wasn't yet a dream realized. People still got their news from actual newspapers (I kid!). If someone had mentioned the concept of Youtube, Facebook or Twitter to us at the time we probably would have laughed in their faces.

In 2000 I was a freshman in High School. In 2000 I lived in Toronto, Canada and not Piscataway, NJ. In 2000 the Boston Red Sox were still cursed and we were sick and tired of the New York Yankees (some things just don't change!). Ten years ago Kobe and Shaq were taking over the NBA. In 2000 the New York Knicks won 50 games. In 2000 "NBA on NBC" was entertaining us every Sunday. In 2000 Ken Griffey was well on his way to being the greatest baseball player whoever lived. In 2000 no one had heard of Tom Brady. In 2000 the St. Louis Rams were on top of the NFL. In 2000 people actually liked Brett Favre. In 2000 MMA was just a bunch of thugs and nowhere mainstream.

In 2000 Gladiator was the number 1 movie winning the "Best Picture" Oscar. Russel Crowe and Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) also won Oscars. Pokemon was a major fad (I fell asleep at the theaters while taking younger cousins to go see whatever Pokemon movie was out that year). Eminem, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera were dominating the charts. American Idol, 24, Lost, Heroes, Mad Men, Survivor and NCIS didn't yet exist.

In 2000 the United States was about to elect George W. Bush as President. In 2000 Joe Lieberman was a Vice President nominee and not the punchline to a joke.  In 2000 if you had told me that an African American would be President by the end of the decade I would have laughed at you. In 2000 Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck were insane (ok...so maybe things haven't changed much there). In 2000 Jon Stewart was still a relatively new host of "The Daily Show" and not a major force in the world of politics. In 2000 the three network news anchors were Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather.

What will the next decade bring? Any predictions? Who would've predicted the major force Twitter, Facebook, blogs and pretty much anything digital would become. By the way what are you calling this year? "Twenty Ten" or "Two Thousand Ten"?

As always you can leave a comment here, reach me by e-mail or contact me via Twitter.

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1 comment:

  1. nicely written.

    are flying cars asking for too much? sure would make beating the NY traffic a whole lot easier, don't you think?

    ReplyDelete

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