Kottke.org has the most comprehensive list of the 2000s in review, but maybe the best way to take stock of the last ten years is to think of the list of unlikely things that have happened. To get started, I Googled the phrase “if you’d have told me ten years ago” and came up with some seriously hilarious results. Try it for yourself (be sure to use variations like “10” or “you would“).
As a side note, this great segment of Robin Williams’s recent HBO special also makes for a nice collection of unlikely recent history.
Here are just a few off the top of my head.
If you’d have told me ten years ago that…
…suicide hijackers would destroy the World Trade Center…
…we’d elect a black guy for President…
…we’d start two land wars in Asia, and still be in them as of 2010…
…we’d be debating the intricacies of what “torture” means in sneakier ways than we did the word “is” back in the Clinton era.
…Americans would be obsessed with vampire romance novels…
…Americans would be obsessed with “voting” for “musical talent” on a TV show…
…I’d be able to watch on the web just about any music video ever made…
…I’d be able to see any part of the world from the sky…
…I’d be able to get directions to anywhere in the US at the push of a button…
…I’d be watching TV on a hard drive cable box…
…I’d be renting DVDs by mail…
…I’d be able to fit my entire CD collection in the palm of my hand…
…I’d be able to stay in touch with old friends every day, no matter how far away they lived…
…I’d purchase a brand new record player, with a USB port…
…Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of” would top the UK charts during Christmastime…
…the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, and the tallest basketball player is Chinese…
…Jon Stewart would be the cable news man I trust most…
…I’d have said you were crazy.
And last but not least, for myself, the realization that started this whole post:
If you’d have told me ten years ago that I’d be living in New York City, working on the 43rd floor of the American Express building in Lower Manhattan, I’d have said you were crazy.