What will be remembered about the 2000s

To start, here are some comparative facts between and Obviously, costs were increasing throughout the decade, yet somehow the average income per year decreased a bit. Sounds like a pickle to be in, America!

As you can remember, are years that had a profound impact on life as we live it today. From to , American mortgage debt would also double. Culturally, the popularity of the first season of Survivor , which ended in the fall of , pushed scores of reality shows into production the following year—and pushed American television off the reality-TV cliff, creating the initial conditions for how American fame would fundamentally change in the next 20 years.

The first season of The Bachelor , for example, debuted in early You might be tempted to cap the perceptual s in late , when Obama was elected president and the investment banks Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns collapsed, taking down the housing market and much of the American economy with them. That collapse ended the tacky prosperity of the early s, a period when the McMansion flourished, cheap gas fueled a love affair with giant SUVs, and pop culture was overrun with paparazzi shots of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan falling out of Los Angeles nightclubs while wearing low-rise jeans and trucker hats.

Meanwhile, Facebook was metastasizing beyond college students, sculpting the basic contours of the digital environment much of the world now lives in. In hindsight, the moment in when the pop princess Britney Spears cracked under the paparazzi glare, attacked a car with an umbrella, and shaved her head feels like foreshadowing of the cultural brink to come, when none of this would feel so innocent or breezy. Read: The drunk-text decade. While the events of caused devastation for lots of regular Americans, the year did relatively little to reroute the country toward a more stable future or to change the way it is run.

During a brief technical difficulty, Minogue told the crowd: "Since we're having an issue: any requests? I know I've got enough hits to keep filling". She's right too, she's scored 34 top 10 singles to date In fact, still holds the records for the most number 1 singles in a calendar year 43 and the longest run of consecutive one-week number 1s.

Pop music was in rude health in the year The charts were awash with boy band ballads Backstreet Boys, Westlife and high energy disco Steps , while Britney Spears took up her position as the biggest pop star in the world.

They continue to be pop classics to this very day. Dance hits were crossing over into the mainstream too, with Sonique leading the way. In , the DJ and vocalist reached No. The indie and rock world was evolving too. Radiohead abandoned guitars almost entirely, releasing the more electronic and experimental 'Kid A', while in America, nu-metal bands like Papa Roach and Limp Bizkit fused hard rock with hip hop. Meanwhile in the UK Albums chart, it was a collection of songs from four decades earlier that had the most sales; The Beatles' '1' compilation was the year's best seller, ahead of Robbie Williams' third album 'Sing When You're Winning'.

Big Brother may not have been the first big reality TV show - Castaway , featuring a pre-fame Ben Fogle, had aired earlier in the year, while the hugely popular Survivor premiered in the US a couple of months prior. From the very first edition of Big Brother, the nation was hooked. Its influence and legacy can still be seen in some of the TV reality favourites of today: the onscreen coupling of Love Island, the orchestrated drama of Made In Chelsea and sheer strangeness of programmes like Naked Attraction.

In , Big Brother's day looked to be done when the its makers and network Channel 5 announced the show would be axed. Before The Weakest Link, the worst contestants on a quiz show could expect to put up with was the disappointment of getting an answer wrong, or a reassuring arm around the shoulders as they left the studio.

Anne Robinson changed all that, introducing not just a game show in which contestants could vote rivals out, but sending them on their way with stinging barbs such as "Who is the least likely candidate for human cloning?

Did you especially want to sound like a stationery store? Meanwhile on Coronation Street, the soap celebrated its 40th anniversary with a live episode on the famous cobbles.

It's hard to imagine life in pre-smartphone times, but before the s, mobile technology mostly consisted of phone calls and SMS messages. Then came a flurry of game-changing devices that dominated the era. But it was the Nokia , released in , that became the best-selling phone of its time.

Hardcore nostalgists still pine for Snake, the unwieldy and addictive game that came as standard with every handset. Some people are still playing the classic mobile game to this very day. Of course, video games can be traced back to the days of Pong and old school arcades; but the 00s is really when they came into their own. Throughout the following decade, the PlayStation and its later rival, the Xbox, would push consoles forward, constantly one-upping the other with better graphics and games, ensuring that gaming enthusiasts were getting the very best experience every time.

The hottest new game of the year was The Sims, a virtual reality game with a simple concept: you control the life of Sim people, building their houses, leading them in their careers and even orchestrating their romantic lives. It was easy to see how controlling your Sim's life could soon control your own and the game swiftly became notorious as a ravenous devourer of spare time.

The game franchise is still going strong, and broke new ground in by removing gender barriers in its virtual world. In June , he led the U. Open from start to finish becoming only the fifth player in history to achieve the feat. But no show captured the chaotic essence of the s better than The Leftovers. Already a cult favorite and a critical darling, the HBO drama is destined to grow in stature as more viewers over time discover its unique power.

It is an unexpectedly funny, achingly beautiful ode to human perseverance. It demonstrates, in 28 impeccably written and acted episodes, the importance of reaching out into the unknown in the hope there might be someone else reaching back. No TV series has ever been more profound about the nature of grief.

No TV series has ever been more fascinated by the mysteries of life, the quest to know the unknowable, the need to understand that which cannot be understood.

Many who experienced the institutional failures and global upheaval of the s know that feeling. There were more popular shows this decade Game of Thrones certainly comes to mind , but The Leftovers best represents the type of weird, audacious, diverse story that populated TV screens during the s.

BTS is the biggest band in the world. Formed in , it took less than six years for the Korean boy band to sell over 10 million albums. BTS sold more albums globally than any other group in , and is set to have another massive year in In , the seven-member band sold out the 90,person Wembley Stadium in London in just 90 minutes, becoming the first Asian act to do so.

They have also sold out shows in Brazil , France, and the US. Through openness about their struggles and anxieties on social media , the band has created an unparalleled connection with fans, who call themselves the ARMY.

They borrow from Latin, Swedish, and American pop, and often rap and sing choruses in English. They are creatures of their time in songwriting and lyrics, and not particularly innovative.

By providing your email, you agree to the Quartz Privacy Policy. Skip to navigation Skip to content. Discover Membership. Editions Quartz. More from Quartz About Quartz.