Enough With Lament: Why This Decade Should Be Celebrated

Now that the eve of a new decade is upon us, the pundits are looking back at the 2000s, and they're judging it a train wreck.

Time Magazine heralded the goodbye to the Decade From Hell, calling it the "most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post-World War II era," going so far as to create a slide show titled "The 10 Worst Things About the Worst Decade Ever." In a clever wordplay, the Washington Post lamented that the decade should not be called the Aughts, but the "Oughts," in memoriam of all the achievements that "ought" to have happened in the 2000s, but didn't. The Baltimore Sun labeled the decade the "Naughties," and suspects that "the years 2000 through 2009 will be remembered for how little good they brought us."

Yes, it is true that, when remembering the 2000s, we see a 10-year stretch pock-marked with disappointments and disasters: the September 11th attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the 2001 recession and the 2008 economic meltdown, the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, two bitterly contested and partisan presidential elections, two long wars, a busted budget, and the Southeast Asian Tsunami. Indeed, one can hardly blame the American people for looking back at the calming 1990s and the booming 1980s whilst praying that the 2010s will be similar; that the 2000s were just an aberration in an otherwise glorious American experience.

While it may be easy for some to beat the decade to death with criticisms, or at the very least hastily brush it aside and hope that the next one is better, Generation Y will have harder time doing so. If no one else seems to want to claim it, then I'll say the 2000s was our decade -- our decade to mature into adults, to become aware of developments in the world, to merge with the rest of society, to socialize. By "our," I don't even mean all of Generation Y -- defined as those born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s -- but that slim margin of the population for whom the 2000s is the first decade they can remember from start to finish (of which I count myself, born in 1989).

The Decade from Hell happened to be the decade that defined our youth: 2000 to 2009 were the years we went to, and graduated from, high school; the years we spent (or are still spending) in college; the years we became the men and women we will be for the rest of our lives. So, forgive me while I stray the course from most pundits out there, and pay tribute to the decade of the 2000s.


Being able to distinctly remember New Years Eve 1999 is a stroke of both honor and luck. Though we were only about 10, the level of excitement that we felt was unparalleled. For our young minds, raised in a post-Cold War world of American supremacy and domestic tranquility, the dawning of a new decade promised the continuation of everything we were used to. We were still too young to fully grasp the historical importance of the moment, but how lucky we are just to remember it. The excitement that our elders felt about the coming new decade, which promised to be just as good, if not better than the last, trickled down to our minds. It was very real.

This is why the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, perhaps shocked our still-growing generation the most. We were painfully yanked out of the 1990s tranquility, the only type of environment we had ever known. We can vividly remember where we were that morning, in school, knowing something bad had happened, but not knowing entirely what. The fear of the unknown was terrifying.

The impact of 9/11 on our generation cannot be overestimated. A feeling of vulnerability, and an awareness of the terrorist threat, are always in the back of our minds, no matter how deeply buried those senses may be. It's easy to focus on the negative, but September 11 also sparked within our hearts patriotism and love-of-country that never, perhaps, fully left. We became aware of America's position in the world, her strengths and weaknesses, and became accustomed to looking at the world through that lens. Years later, the youth engagement in the 2008 election of "change," in which most of us were finally eligible to vote, was the first echo of those instilled values.

Thus, we embarked on our journey through the 2000s living in a brave new world. A world in which it became rational to seriously question the future of American supremacy; in which China became seen as not as a backwards land of the lost jobs but as a potential usurper to our hegemony; and in which the world could be altered by the terrorist actions of a small group of individuals.

Time may be correct in characterizing this trend as what made the 2000s the Decade from Hell. But make no mistake that, to our generation, this is our call to action. Whether on the right or the left, we have grown up to understand that America is indeed in trouble, and needs to be fixed. No longer is it fashionable to be politically apathetic, and wearing campaign t-shirts or pins can be just as cool as wearing designer brand clothing. Barack Obama is the first and latest manifestationof this phenomenon; who knows where it will take us through the next decade and beyond.

We grasp onto those moments that made us, if only temporarily, truly proud to be Americans: George W. Bush standing on the rubble of the World Trade Centers with his megaphone; Iraqi citizens tearing down the statue of Saddam Hussein; democratic elections in the Middle East, and liberal revolutions elsewhere; and even the 2008 election, which saw political passions on both sides rise to a fever-pitch.

These events forced us to think about who we were, our identity as Americans, and how those in power should govern. At the same time, a revolution was unfolding that would decide how we live in communicate in the future.

Where We Put Our Lives In Our Pockets

The technological boom of the 2000s has gone largely ignored by the pundits, but its impact on our generation cannot be overstated. The decade was defined by the never-ending war between Apple and, well, everyone else -- and for us, it was a win/win. As if on cue with the new century, the iPod was first introduced to the public in 2001, and by mid-decade, it was a device that everyone simply had to have. Maybe it was just because of clever marketing (we all remember those colorful iPod ads with the now ubiquitous white headphones on the dancing silhouette), but to those of us living in a new world, the ability to create customized playlists and to have your entire music catalog available instantaneously with a scroll and a click was a new statement of independence. The new iPhones, with their innovative and convenient applications, continued to show us that, at least in some ways, the future is now.

If the iPod and iPhones offered us new-found freedom, the universal spread and access of the Internet was a 21st century frontier. Just like out West in the old days, the Internet is still highly unregulated by the government; in just a few short years, the explosion of radical and mainstream blogs and Web sites turned up the American political dialogue to a level our generation or the one before it has never witnessed. YouTube let us post videos seconds after filming them, and offered potential stars or pundits an audience of millions. Facebook, surely one of the most significant communication developments of the decade, gave us the ability to keep in touch with friends across the globe, download and share content and Web links, and upload pictures to show everyone and anyone. Wikipedia and Google provided us with seas of free information, accessible within seconds.

The 24-hour news media took advantage of the rapidly shrinking world, redefining itself by its terms. Videos or pictures taken on cell phones became kosher sources and media for major news stories, and the broadcast networks plowed through blogs to find developments (TMZ.com broke the story of Michael Jackson's death, and continues to upstage the old guard). During the Iranian protests during the summer of 2009, in which Twitter helped facilitate an organized youth uprising, the American mainstream media checked updated "tweets" on Twitter to find the latest news. This picture, taken of Iranian Neda Agha-Soltan moments before her death from a gunshot by the Iranian regime, fluttered around the world in minutes, immortalizing her as the face of democratic protest (Time honored her under their 2009 "People Who Mattered").

Living in this brave new world, we realized that, indeed, anything is technologically possible.

Where We Looked For Sustenance

Call it enlightened, degrading, or whatever you will, but there was certainly no lack of entertainment.

"American Idol," which debuted in 2002, garnered 50 million viewers with its first season finale, crowning Kelly Clarkson as America's "idol." Clarkson still holds that role going into the new decade, having four top-selling albums and a series of hit singles. "American Idol," too, is still with us, going into it's ninth season, which will begin in next month. Gone our the days when we rely on experts to judge talent. Idol lets the viewers vote, raking in nearly 25 million mobile voters per season.

Reality started as a trend and became a staple on TV, as we all tuned into to watch lives seemingly more glamorous than our own. "The Real Laguna Beach," which launched the career of Lauren "LC" Conrad, ran from 2004 to 2006, documenting the lives of privileged high school students living in sunny and rich Southern California. LC, like Paris Hilton before her, proved to us that simply being rich is a qualifier for celebrity status. "The Hills" continued our obsession of the rich, the famous, and Southern California. Now, as the decade ends, the "Jersey Shore" offers up a definitively East Coast subculture to satiate our ogling.

"The O.C." reminded us that it wasn't all about reality. A fictionalized television drama series, "The O.C." ran from 2003 to 2006 with four successful seasons, further glamorizing the lifestyles of the rich and the famous. The show seemed to set the tone of what would be considered popular for the rest of the decade: anything involving dramatic people with money. "30 Rock" tweaked this formula a bit, following the hectic lives of NBC TV writers and producers. "Entourage" essentially offered a Hollywood take on the subject. These shows, if anything, only heightened the American dream, bringing to our television sets people who made money and lived lives we envied from afar. Few shows found success through tales of the poor, needy, or marginalized. Thrift was no longer fashionable in the 2000s -- material possession was in, and celebrity culture found a new crest.

Musically, artists not only admitted to being influenced by bands from the past, but it became a point of pride to harken back to former muses. The 2000s filled our ears with the best sounds from the eras preceding us, though the 1980s seemed to reign supreme. It stretched from Kanye West, who sampled tracks from the 80s and created an album using technology (a Roland TR-808 drum machine) from the era, to The Killers, who proudly touted synth-heavy anthems led by Reagan-era vocals. In this brave new world of increasing technology and fusion of everything, why would we demand anything less than, well, everything? After all, iTunes gave us the ability to link music genres like nothing before ever had, and programs such as Garage Band allowed us to create and combine sounds with a click of a mouse. In an increasingly electric era, deep, electric beats molded our 2000s identity.

Living on the edge of a new century, danceable -- not somber or reflective -- tunes were the only appropriate music for our generation to celebrate the first years of a new millenium. Injecting catchy beats into your music became a secret to success, as the artists who rode out the entire decade prove. Britney Spears finished the 2000s nearly as strong as they started, turning from the cutely innocent "Oops, I Did It Again" (2000) to the downright sexually charged and bass-filled "3" (2009). The hip-hop of the 1990s fused with the more mainstream elements of American culture, creating a combination of pop and hip-hop that launched the careers of Chris Brown, Lil' Wayne, Rihanna, and furthered the careers of Beyonce Knowles, Jay-Z, and Justin Timberlake. Being able to escape the world by putting in your white iPod headphones and dancing to these artists like no one was watching became a trademark of the era.

The clothes we wore? Well, obviously nobody wears the same thing as everyone else, but it certainly was refreshing to escape the baggy blue jean minimalism of the 1990s and return to clothing more fitted and glamorous. That manifested with an embrace of preppy style, low-cut jeans, flashy jewelry, big bags, big glasses, ruffled skirts, bright colors and patterns. The decade saw a recycling of looks from the past 50 years, perhaps a tribute to the century that is growing smaller and smaller in our rear view mirror. Fashion became the child of a 1960s/1980s marriage: the generational energy and enthusiasm of the 60s combined with the "big" of the 80s gave us a unique style that, looking back, we can still say raised the bar of presentation. Our generation may never fully abandon that sense of putting great care into our looks.

Like the events of the decade that called our generation to a political rebirth, we felt a rebirth of appearance as well, as the political and the material combined in the 2000s. The sophisticated urban look became popular. Even rap artists got into it, ditching the gangster-inflected outfits that ruled much of the 90s for expensive "bling," white hats and blazers, pricey shades, thousand-dollar suits, and the like. Indeed, living in an entertainment world zooming on the lifestyles of the rich and the famous in L.A. and Orange County, how could it not?

Where The Times Defined Us

Of course, some may disagree with my observations. After all, these ten years have been long, and everyone who navigated them had unique experiences. But, if there is one thing our generation can agree on, it is that the 2000s were not a decade from hell. Quite the contrary. The 2000s cannot, and will not, be forgotten.

It's fitting that among the top songs as we leave the decade is "Bad Romance"; there is no better way to describe our relationship with the decade. Maybe we were too naive to recognize the gravity of the times, but we didn't let them strip away our youth. For those of us who have come of age at the edge of an unfolding century, the decade was ours. The 20th century is rapidly fading away, and we're living in a new world that will only be moving forward, faster and faster.

Having navigated these tough years, which have no doubt been tricky, our generation is now prepared and equipped to further improve our lives with more technology; more understanding that material wealth is only as good as it's ability to sustain itself; more ready to better the world with a sense of political change that only we can know.

So, goodbye 2000s! To the 2010s? We're ready. Bring 'em on.